Graphs Graphs and more Graphs

[Neine]

Hi All

My names is Janine, mother of a 2yr old partially vaccinated daughter.
I stopped vaccinating her at 9mths shortly after I started researching
the subject.

One thing that I found very interesting are the graphs tracking the
death rates of diseases showing the dramatic decline of deaths prior
to the introduction of vaccination. This is just one example I have
seen published:
http://www.whale.to/a/graphs.html

To me its a no brainer that vaccinations are not the hero and savior
it has been dubbed. The graphs advertised in the "Myths and Realities'
immunisation booklet issued by the Gov shows small portions of graph
info designed to prove their point, but if you expand the timeline it
tells a very different story. Notification rates feature in the
booklet also which you can argue is not entirely accurate.

I am interested to get a take from any medical professionals out there
what they think of this info. I have been to 3 GP's, one GP told me
the graphs were fake, one told me that it is true that increased
hygiene and nutrition has helped but that vaccines are still
responsible in keeping the diseases at a low rate and one GP just did
not want to answer my question.

Thanks
Janine

[cee]

Hi Janine

You make a valid point and the general public can get quite confused
about the difference in what is tracked in disease data.
You have correctly noticed a drop in death rates prior to vaccination
being introduced, this is called mortality data.
You have then pointed out the Myths and Realities booklet by the
government which you say talks about 'notifications', this is called
morbidity data.
They are two completely different things, one is how many people DIED
from the disease the other is how many people GOT the disease.
With better health care, more universal access to health care (as
people became more 'urban dwellers', they actually had access to
medical care), antibiotics, hygiene practices both in the home and
hospital all did their bit to reduce the morbidity of the disease
(less people were getting sick), because less people are getting sick,
less people are dying AND if they have access to medical care AND
antibiotics they are less likely to die from that disease.

Remember, just because people aren't dying from a disease doesn't mean
they aren't getting complications from getting it in the first place.
If you got a communicable disease and because of it ended up on life
support for years, the data would count you in the morbidity data,
rather than the mortality data but I'm sure you will agree the
consequences of getting the disease in this case can be just as
terrible as dying from it (if not worse in my opinion, I would rather
die than be a vegetable).

The short answer is, the graphs are "entirely accurate", sorry, they
just show something entirely different that what you referring to in
your other link.

Cheers

Cee

[Sandy Gottstein]

I have long said the comparison should be the long-term consequences of a
disease compared to the long-term consequences of the vaccine designed to
prevent that disease. Unfortunately, we don't have that information.

Hi Janine

Cheers

Cee

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[Neine]

thanks for your reply Cee
i well understand the differences between the data presented and have
no doubt it is accurate. I guess my point being that many often credit
vaccines as the one hero and savior without acknowledging the many
other factors contributing to the decline of these diseases. And from
my experience as I mentioned not even some GP's are aware of this or
want to acknowledge it.

I acknowledge your point about the side effects, i would be interested
to see the comparison of the rates of the long term side effects of
these disease vs long term side effects of vaccines but have not found
such a thing.

thanks
j9

[Linda Hilton]

Hi Janine

All these graphs can get terribly confusing, can't they.

Just to keep things simple I will address diptheria here for you to
have a look at.

If you have a look at this link http://www.vaccineinformation.org/diphther/qandavax.asp
you will see in the first paragraph that the diptheria vaccine came
into wide use in the 1930's.

Then if you scroll down to the second page of this link
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/content/cda-cdi2406-pdf-cnt.htm/$FILE/cdi2406f.pdf
you will see that the notifications of diptheria dropped dramatically
from the 1930's onwards and then leveled out to nothing by the late
1950's early 1960's.

If vaccination wasn't responsible for that I am not sure what was.

Regards

Linda

[John Harvey]

Hi, Linda—

Let's run a little with the diphtheria example.

In a nutshell, it is acknowledged to be completely undesirable that a
community render itself susceptible to virulent diphtheria by entirely
removing diphtheria wild strain. Even Struan Sutherland, in the 1979
CDC Medical Handbook, admitted that the effect of the diphtheria
vaccine appeared to be to remove the natural source of lifelong
immunity that most in the community (then) acquired without even
having symptoms severe enough to alert them to infection by it, and
that the imminent consequence was a necessity to reinoculate against
the disease every five years for life—an unfortunate inadvertence from
the point of view of society, but of course a boon to "medical
science" in creating a continuing source of funds for further medical
"solutions".

In assessing the importance of diphtheria vaccine in medical history,
the important considerations, as I think you acknowledge, Linda, are
not how many people are infected by diphtheria but rather the long-
term health consequences of the naturally acquired infection and of
the medically inoculated one, including the long-term health
consequence of death.

Unlike you, I consider death something not to shrug off in comparison
with long-term injury but rather to be extreme and undesirable. I do,
however, acknowledge that not everybody regards others' lives as worth
treasuring (or indeed as worth anything).

The sole example of a study of long-term health outcomes of vaccines,
which has been rightly criticised on these pages as being based on a
minute sample of the unvaccinated, fails to address possible
confounding factors such as the reasons for non-vaccination. Of the
few completely unvaccinated individuals in the study, how many, for
example, went without vaccination not because their parents chose to
invoke natural immunity instead through a healthy lifestyle and
natural exposure but because they were in the most at-risk categories,
suffering already from allergic or other illness that alerted somebody
to the extreme risk of vaccinating them? We simply do not know the
effect of such circumstances or of any of the other potentially
confounding factors that the study neglected to exclude.

So long-term health outcomes have, as I mentioned in introducing
myself, been largely ignored. Death is the only long-term health
outcome that has been significantly studied in relation to the
epidemiology of vaccination, and it repays study. Leaving aside,
then, the measure of rather dubious value of diphtheria vaccination's
"success" that you would suggest—the eradication of the wild virus
from the environment, setting us up for later devastating epidemics—
and focusing on the sole significant outcome available to us, death,
what do we see?

In my opinion, Linda, the graphs at <http://www.whale.to/a/
graphs.html>, like those at <http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/
graphs>, are generally clear; informative; and, given minimal
comprehension, instructive to anybody willing to learn something new,
but could be confusing to somebody to whom death rates are less
significant than disease-notification rates. It is unfortunately
true, however, that the relevant graph on the latter page is not
absolutely interpretable, as it lacks units on the "death rate" axis.
(It also appears, at first blush, to conflict in places with other
information, but the apparent difference may reflect my lack of
reading depth in the topic rather than the facts.) This is
unfortunate because that graph begins recording death rates earlier
than the equivalent graph on the former page: from 1880 rather than
1900.

The peak in Australian diphtheria deaths in an epidemic of 1921
appears (see reference below) to be due to an unusual confluence of
factors, large amongst which looms the explosion of immigration in the
period 1881–1890 (a net population increase, in that period, of
382,741 from an initial population of a tad over a million!), many of
whom arrived with just one destination: the gold fields (crowding in
which would understandably foster transmission of the illness).

I mention this because, though it may be argued that the decline in
diphtheria mortality commenced in that year, the general trend
actually began far earlier: in various states, the trend is clear from
roughly 1860 or 1880 (except in Western Australia, where it was and
remained low), broken only by sporadic years of major prevalence.
According to J.H.L. Cumpston, in Health and Disease in Australia: A
History (Canberra: AGPS, 1989), "The course of diphtheria during [1865–
1890] was that of a disease which, after the initial explosive
activity, had assumed endemic form. In this phase, it exhibited,
through fluctuations—becoming steadily less extreme in their range—a
general tendency to become less prevalent or less fatal".

This is an example of what anybody not financially dependent upon
commercial "solutions" expects to see in new epidemic illnesses—
initial virulence in a previously non-immune population, followed by
steady decline—and it possibly adequately exemplifies something that
epidemiological investigators call regression to the mean (which in
ordinary terms means a tendency of health problems, even infectious
illnesses in populations, to get better by themselves due to our
homoeostatic mechanisms, our inbuilt mechanisms for health
correction).

In light of the early decline in diphtheria mortality, it is fully
understandable that convenient medical presumption would have it that
diphtheria vaccination, or even antitoxin, must have been
responsible. Yet in Australia as in Britain, the U.S., and elsewhere,
no diphtheria vaccine was generally used before death rates from the
disease had already declined by 90%, and even Cumpston (who is no
vaccine skeptic) acknowledges antitoxin as having most definitely
played no part in the general decline at least to 1925.

You say with admirable frankness that if vaccination was not
responsible, you are not sure what was. The limiting context of that
comment is, of course, your own focus: notifications. Let's take it,
however, as applying equally to something more serious—death—and ask
ourselves the same question in its frankest form:

Is it possible that something other than vaccination could have led to
the decline in diphtheria deaths that generally continued, with
(steadily decreasing) fluctuations, from 1860 to the present day?

Put in that way, and frankly admitting that no diphtheria antitoxin or
other vaccination could have played a part in diphtheria epidemiology
before 1946 (or even just before 1925), the answer surely can only be
to acknowledge that if vaccination was not responsible, then either
something else was or it occurred purely by chance.

I'm sure that neither vaccine apologists nor vaccine skeptics would
seriously imagine that the decline was due purely to chance.

It's certain, as Sutherland (above) implicitly acknowledges, that
natural lifelong acquired immunity plays some part. That is known to
be the case in this and other diseases (smallpox being an obvious
example). Natural passive immunity due to the antibodies passed
through the umbilical cord shortly after birth (in those cases in
which the birth process is not interrupted by cutting a cord still
pulsating) and via breastmilk (in those mothers) also plays obviously
a very significant role in some diseases, and diphtheria is amongst
them. ("The great majority of infants under 5 or 6 months of age
appear to be immune to measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria and
poliomyelitis": Charles F. McKhann and Fu Tang Chu, "Antibodies in
placental extracts", The Journal of Infectious Diseases 1933; 52(2):
268–277.)

But other factors in the general decline may be explained very easily—
in fact, far more easily than by relying upon invocations of the power
of medicines not widely distributed for some 85 years from the time of
the decline's known beginning in 1860 and not yet invented.

Those factors are the same factors that explain the similar pre-
vaccination declines, usually by around 90% (though in the case of
scarlet fever, it seems safe to say 100%), in various infectious
diseases' mortality rates. They are not mysterious except to those
who prefer not to acknowledge them. They require, at least for
superficial understanding, no deep insight into the nature of various
pathogenic organisms, no sweeping knowledge of medicine or biology, no
great knowledge even of epidemiology or public health. Yes, they're
that obvious once you're aware of them.

Leaving aside the factors obvious from the above notes -- including
properly valuing birthing and breastfeeding practices and the
advantages of naturally acquired immunity -- the factors universally
acknowledged by epidemiologists as having contributed in all countries
to the decline of these illnesses in general include:

• adequate housing (incorporating adequate bedding and adequate space
for air flow and sunlight between dwellings);

• adequate water supply (entailing minimisation of pollution of the
water table);

• adequate sanitation (entailing sewage disposal and water-supply
quarantine from sewage outlets);

• adequate sunlight (entailing minimisation of air pollution); and

• adequate nutrition (entailing availability of fresh fruits and
vegetables and therefore of unpolluted soil).

(Though there may be little direct evidence that sanitation played a
part in altering diphtheria deaths in particular, indirect evidence
suggests that it may have.)

Again, there is no mystery about the potential of environment—external
and internal—to influence both transmission and virulence of
infectious diseases, and therefore no mystery as to why the decline in
death rates from all the traditional infectious diseases, including
those against which no vaccine has ever been produced, clearly began
many decades before the supposedly relevant vaccination could possibly
have had any influence. Anybody who has lived both a healthy and an
unhealthy lifestyle can attest to the increase in susceptibility to
infectious illnesses that follows from the latter. The mystery is
what makes this simple matter so supposedly difficult to understand.

I'm not suggesting that the matter is an open-and-shut case. I am
suggesting that a presumption that only vaccination could possibly
explain improvements more easily explicable in many other ways, and an
attitude that the more plausible explanations are not worth
considering, does not allow for learning anything in contradiction of
received wisdom.

Kind regards,

John Harvey

On 29 Sep, 20:02, Linda Hilton <lindajhil...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Janine
>
> All these graphs can get terribly confusing, can't they.
>
> Just to keep things simple I will address diptheria here for you to
> have a look at.
>
> If you have a look at this link  http://www.vaccineinformation.org/diphther/qandavax.asp
> you will see in the first paragraph that the diptheria vaccine came
> into wide use in the 1930's.
>

> Then if you scroll down to the second page of this linkhttp://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/content/cda-cdi...

[John Harvey]

P.S. The links I provided in my seventh paragraph got broken by line
endings in the posting process. Here they are again:

<http://www.whale.to/a/graphs.html>

<http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/graphs>

[Linda Hilton]

Hi John

Thanks for posting all that. As somebody who has no medical or
scientific qualifications, I like to think that I at least have
commonsense to step back from a debate when I know I am in over my
head ;) I shall print off your post and go and have a study. I
sincerely doubt that I will have a response ( maybe a question) so
once again thanks.

Linda

[shotinfo]

Dear John,

This is a fabulous, scholarly, thought-provoking response. Thanks so
much for taking so much time and effort on it!

All the best,
Meryl

On Sep 29, 8:29 am, John Harvey <john.p.har...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi, Linda—
>
> Let's run a little with the diphtheria example.
>

> <snip>

[Greg Beattie]

Hi John

What a thoughtful and thorough response. Thank you so much.

I'd like to clarify one thing you raised. The diphtheria mortality
graph on the latter link you supplied was plotted by me. It was spread
around the internet many years ago, along with others from my first
book. You correctly point out two problems with it: 1. no units on the
death rate axis, and 2. apparent conflicts with other data. I
apologise, and explain as follows:

The units are 'Deaths per million population' and the plot points are
5-yearly totals (which explains the apparent conflicts). All this is
explained in the text of the book and, at the time, I didn't foresee
the graphs being separately scanned and spread throughout cyberspace.
I thought they would always be viewed with the accompanying text. This
was brought to my attention and has been fixed for my later book.

The corresponding graph from the later book can be viewed here:
http://vaccinationdilemma.com/Fig2_diphtheria.gif

There are extra lines in this one, once again explained in the text as
follows:

"You will notice two extra lines in the graph for diphtheria. One of these is for croup, and the other for the
combined total of croup and diphtheria. There is a point in the early 1900s from which only the combined line
remains. The reason for these lines is that diphtheria and croup were not always differentiated. Diphtheria
was sometimes referred to as membranous croup. According to Rudolph's Fundamentals of Pediatrics, “Early in the 1900s, the term croup was synonymous
with laryngeal diphtheria”. Prior to the early 1900s, figures for diphtheria
and croup
were recorded separately. After this, they were lumped together."

Thanks for pointing it out.
Greg

> death rates from all the ...
>
> read more »

[John Harvey]

Linda, Meryl, and Greg, thanks kindly for the comments! Greg, I
thought that it was probably per million per year, and thanks for
explaining! I'll be glad to pick up an amended version of the graph
and to be able to better interpret it.

Cheers!

John

> ...
>
> read more »

[Sandy Gottstein]

My apologies, John, as I haven't gotten a chance to read what you wrote.
But I look forward to doing so.

-----Original Message-----
From: vaccination-re...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:vaccination-re...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John
Harvey
Sent: Saturday, October 01, 2011 7:50 PM
To: Vaccination-Respectful Debate
Subject: Re: Graphs Graphs and more Graphs

Cheers!

John

--

[John Harvey]

That's a neat trick, Greg, responding so well without having read
it. :-) You must teach it to me!

John Harvey



On Oct 2, 3:18 pm, "Sandy Gottstein" <sa...@rainingcatsndog.com>
wrote:

> ...
>
> read more »

[Peter Bowditch]

"John", both Greg and Sandy are well-known to probably everybody on this
list, and I can assure you they are different people living in different
countries. Please try to control your urge to suspect everybody of being
someone else.

>
> That's a neat trick, Greg, responding so well without having read
> it. :-) You must teach it to me!
>
> John Harvey
>
>
>
> On Oct 2, 3:18 pm, "Sandy Gottstein" <sa...@rainingcatsndog.com>
> wrote:
> > My apologies, John, as I haven't gotten a chance to read what you
> wrote.
> > But I look forward to doing so.

--
Peter Bowditch
The Millenium Project - http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles
I'm @RatbagsDotCom on Twitter

[Sandy Gottstein]

That was not from Greg, it was from me, Sandy.

John Harvey

--

[John Harvey]

Greg, my apologies! I wondered what on earth was going on there. I'm
obviously suffering intermittent screen blindness (i.e. terminal
stupidity!).

John



On Oct 3, 3:40 am, "Sandy Gottstein" <sa...@rainingcatsndog.com>
wrote:

[Greg Beattie]

Ha! I was confused enough already, but I could see yours was a simple mistake with names. Peter obviously sought some mileage from it. I noticed Sian also posted something addressed to 'Greg' but it had nothing to do with me, so I ignored it. I probably should have said something but I didn't...
Greg

[John Harvey]

No, there's enough work already in keeping these conversations on
topic!

John

[Greg Beattie]

Hi all
With regard to graphs, I'd like to raise an important issue. Cee has
referred to notifications as being "the number of people who got the
disease". Correct me if I'm wrong Cee, but I think the term you meant
to use was not "notifications", but "incidence".

They are different. Notifications are a product of our disease
surveillance system, and their purpose is to enable responses to
outbreaks. They were never meant to be graphed to illustrate the
effect of a vaccine. The reporting behaviour of doctors varies wildly
and unquantifiably over the years, making them unsuitable for
measuring trends in anything, except perhaps... the reporting
behaviour of doctors.

Regarding 'incidence': unfortunately, we aren't able to measure it
because we've never had a system for collecting it. On the other hand,
we have had a system for counting deaths. As I see it, the death
graphs are valid (as far as 'cause of death' decisions can be
trusted), and the notification graphs are not. Although in some cases
notifications may follow actual disease trends, we can only determine
that by comparing them with other, more reliable data such as
mortality.

Cee, I'm not sure which you were referring to when you said "the
graphs are entirely accurate" but I'm guessing it was the death
graphs.

Thanks
Greg