One Wing.

By J.B. Handley
 
The year is 2025.
 
Oceanic Co., the largest and only remaining manufacturer of airlines in the world, has the world focused on its new passenger jet, the four-story QuadSpeed. The QuadSpeed holds 1,200 people, and will revolutionize air travel forever.
 
The 1,200 people boarding the inaugural flight, from San Francisco to Tokyo, are honored to be a part of such a technological marvel. While QuadSpeed is the first airplane that only received safety testing in a flight simulator, they know the FAA has endorsed the QuadSpeed’s safety, which they learned about from the senior management of Oceanic, many of whom used to work for the FAA. Senior management has chosen not to board the inaugural flight, but will meet the plane in Tokyo upon its arrival.
 
The uneventful take-off is covered on the one remaining broadcast network, NBC, a network grateful for the advertising dollars Oceanic has spent with them to keep them afloat, as the Internet and millions of blogs have all but destroyed conventional media.
 
Twenty minutes into the flight -- disaster. A giant boom is followed by a death spiral, straight into the ocean. A few alert passengers were able to make quick phone calls, all cut off as the plane hit the water. 1,200 dead, they never had a chance. The black box recorder? Lost forever, although theories emerge that the company salvaged it and destroyed it.
 
It takes days for NBC to cover the story, although the blogs are reporting right away that the plane never made it to Tokyo…

 
One week later, Oceanic holds their first press conference. Management expresses shock for the outcome of the flight, but strong conviction that the QuadSpeed jet, the future of Oceanic’s business, is perfectly safe. Management mentions that several passengers, in their final phone calls, screamed something about the right wing, and they will be investigating promptly.
 
One month later, Oceanic finalizes their safety study of the plane. Using passenger feedback from the final moments of the flight, they focus exclusively on the right wing of the airplane, and declare that nothing about the right wing whatsoever was unsafe, so mechanical error was not the cause of the crash. While they aren’t certain, they believe the pilot had some mental problems, and in a momentary state of insanity, he flew the plane right into the ocean.
 
NBC’s airline analyst reports on the story. Fancy Flighterman, a former consultant to Oceanic, lets the world know that the QuadSpeed is safe, because the right wing is fine, and people should feel very comfortable boarding the QuadSpeed, which will be the only jet flying within a year anyway. Very meekly, Fancy’s colleague mentions that the airplane is more than just a right wing. Fancy shoots back, “The passengers said the problem was with the right wing, and the wing is fine!”
 
Most of the world breathes a sigh of relief that the QuadSpeed was safe, as most people fly for their livelihood, and know that the QuadSpeed will soon monopolize air travel. A group of bloggers, however, are screaming that only analyzing the right wing of a complex flying machine that never had any safety flights is insane, but few people take notice.
 
Over the next year, Oceanic is able to finalize production on twelve QuadSpeed jets. Without exception, each new flight suffers the same fate of the first one, with a spectacular crash into the ocean…
 
* * *
 
Here we sit, the mainstream press screaming that “It’s been proven, vaccines do not cause autism!” This conclusion, as false as it is, is based on three things:
 
1. Studies conducted comparing the neurological outcomes of children who received vaccines with thimerosal (a preservative in some vaccines made from mercury), with less thimerosal, and with no thimerosal. Children who received no vaccines were not part of these studies.
 
2. Studies conducted comparing the neurological outcomes of children who received the MMR vaccine and those who did not. Every child in these studies received other vaccines, including in some case the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella vaccines separately.
 
3. Three court cases in Vaccine Court where petitioners argued that MMR or MMR and thimerosal caused their child to develop autism. Aside from MMR, no other specific vaccines were considered in these cases.
 
In 1983, as many of you know, the maximum number of separate vaccines a child would receive by the age of 5 was 10. Today, that number is 36.
 
By the time a child is 2 years old, if they follow the CDC’s recommended schedule, they will have received the following vaccines, many in multiple doses (the doses is what gets you from 11 to 36: you get DTP 4 times, for example):
 
1.       Hepatitis B
2.       Rotavirus
3.       DTP
4.       Hib
5.       Pneumococcal
6.       Polio
7.       Flu
8.       MMR
9.       Varicella
10.     Hepatitis A
11.     Meningococcal (only for certain groups)
 
Of the 11 separate diseases covered above, there are actually 34 separate vaccines licensed with the FDA. For example, your child might receive either Rotateq or Rotarix, each of which has been developed in a separate and unique way to address the disease Rotavirus. The possible combinations of total vaccines your child might receive are almost infinite: my child got the Merck Hep B, but the Sanofi Flu, etc, etc.
 
In my own experience, my son had very notable reactions after his 2 month “well baby” visit. At this single visit, he received, like most children in America, 6 separate vaccines in about 15 minutes:
 
2 month visit:
 
1.       Hepatitis B
2.       Rotavirus
3.       DTP
4.       Hib
5.       Pneumococcal
6.       Polio
 
My son, now diagnosed with autism, developed eczema immediately after this appointment. He began to cry every night, and he became withdrawn.
 
Two months later, at 4 months of age, my son, like most children in America, received the same 6 vaccines, all administered at the same time:
 
1.       Hepatitis B
2.       Rotavirus
3.       DTP
4.       Hib
5.       Pneumococcal
6.       Polio
 
Two months later, at 6 months of age, my son, like most children in America, received 7 vaccines, all administered at the same time:
 
1.       Hepatitis B
2.       Rotavirus
3.       DTP
4.       Hib
5.       Pneumococcal
6.       Polio
7.       Flu
 
So, by 6 months of age my baby boy had received 19 vaccines through 3 visits to the doctor. It’s worth noting that many kids also receive a birth dose of Hepatitis B, boosting this number to 20 vaccines.
 
I’ve often stated that the vaccine schedule is not tested for combination risk. Many bloggers on the other side disagree strongly with me on this point. As one example, “DT” wrote the following in response to my assertion:
 
“Mr Handley, why are you lying again?  A simple pubmed search on the safety of combination vaccines yields 642 research papers on the subject HERE:”
 
DT referenced more that 642 papers that he felt strongly addressed the issue of combination risk. I commented that not one of the studies considered the real world example of the potential risk from the two month well baby visit that would need to look something like this:
 
Give a certain group of two months old all six vaccines at one time. Give a certain separate group of two months old a placebo or nothing. Compare outcomes. This is done all the time with drug trials, and would certainly help address parental concerns, since it’s never been done. Every reference I looked at (the first 100 or so) from DT’s list compared vaccinated kids to other vaccinated kids, or only considered a single vaccine. None contemplated testing the safety of the actual, real world schedule – they’re all flight simulators.
 
My recommendation for how to test the vaccine schedule received a blistering response from Dr. David Gorski, who blogs under the name “Orac.” He wrote:
 
“There are a fair number of circumstances when it is unethical to use a placebo control group. Read the Helsinki Declaration and the Belmont Report…from the Helsinki Declaration, with only very limited exceptions and only with extreme justification both scientifically and ethically, a placebo may not be used unless no current proven effective intervention exists for the condition under study. That is not the case in vaccine trials. Proven effective preventatives of disease do exist, namely vaccines. It is thus unethical to have a placebo control group in a randomized clinical trial of vaccines. The only exception is when a disease for which no effective vaccine yet exists is being studied…That's why any trial of vaccinated versus unvaccinated can't be a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial. Under the Helsinki Declaration, it would be unethical except in the cases of specific diseases for which we do not currently have an effective vaccine…In other words, it's a misunderstanding of science- and evidence-based medicine man that placebo-controlled randomized clinical trials always have to be done to verify the safety and efficacy…The bottom line is that you simply do not know what you are talking about when it comes to how drugs are studied. You think you do, but you do not. You do not know science (or you "know" it but reject it because it doesn't tell you what you want to hear); you do not know epidemiology; you do not know clinical trial design; and in particular you don't understand (or, again, you understand but reject) the bioethical framework upon which clinical trial design has been built since World War II. Moreover, it has been explained to you time and time again and is not a difficult concept…In other words, for a clinical trial to be ethical, one major condition is that the hypothesis being tested must be science-based and founded on sound and compelling preliminary evidence from basic science, animal work, and clinical observations. Your hypothesis fails that test as well.”
 
I decided to share this long post from Dr. Gorski, because I think his position embodies what many from the other side will try to argue to defend the vaccine program:
 
- Looking at unvaccinated kids is either impossible (due to confounders) or unethical
 
- Looking at adverse events based on giving children 6 vaccines, the way we do in the actual schedule, has never happened and never will, because of the “Helsinki Declaration”
 
A quick review:
 
- Our kids receive 11 separate vaccines, including 19 doses by 6 months of age
 
- Of those 11 separate vaccines, exactly one, MMR, has been studied as it relates to autism, and then only with children who otherwise received their vaccines.
 
- According to at least some on the other side, no further study in these areas can really be done, for ethical reasons.
 
Case closed. The right wing is fine. Parents, please put your children on the plane and find some other way to get to Tokyo, they’ll meet you there.

 

Comments

[Barry]

I am the father of an autistic boy, one who was developing normally until he received his 28th, 29th ,30th and 31st vaccinations at 21 months of age. And coincidentally.... 28,29 and 30 were the three constituents of his second MMR shot. As much as I'd love to see a study comparing the rates autism between vaccinated and unvaccinated children, I'd also love to see a study that compared the vaccination records of the general public, to the vaccination records of the children of pediatricians. I suspect that the differences would be significant, and I'd love to see how they explained those differences to the parents of their autistic patients.

[Jake Crosby]

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[Cherry Sperlin Misra]

To Maurine Meleck, Thankyou for this story- Its a warning to all of us. Probably the autism community needs to get involved in pursuing some of these cases. Could a parent not sue the hospital for unauthorized medical interventions unrelated to the childs illness. Are we not losing our most fundamental rights? Well, obviously we are and someone needs to pursue this to the Supreme Court.

[Lin]

With the MMR and DPT actually being 3 vaccines in one, your son actually received 8 vaccines at a time, I think

[sdtech]

To Orac:

Regarding medical research ethics per Helsinki and Neuremburg

First look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Helsinki

It states “The fundamental principle is respect for the individual (Article 8), their right to self determination and the right to make informed decisions…”

Then look at http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/121/2/e208

A medical research study funded by the National Institute of Health via the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under the United States Department of Health and Human Services has newborns injected with vaccines containing thimerosal by the researchers--to do what? Measure mercury in blood levels from the thimerosal!

And look at the millions of the kids pregnant women given flu shots with thimerosal and no mention of mercury in the CDC handout at http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/Pubs/vis/default.htm#flu or http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/Pubs/vis/downloads/vis-flu.pdf

Where is the medical community outrage over ethics violations per Helsinki and Neuremberg?

[michael framson]

Amazingly enough, it is discovered that for reasons difficult to explain no Amish children die on these flights. Director Gerberdingdong, points out that it's probably something to do with genetics. Hogwash! Parents point out that Amish children don't even get on the damn plane.

[RSM]

I wonder if anyone has looked into the effects of the introduction of recombinant vaccines on this whole issue . My son's doctor mentioned to me that the Hep B vaccine is recombinant and said that made it safer. We did not get it but I did go home and look up information on recombinant vaccines and what I found surprised me. As I understand it, they are essentially genetically modified vaccines where the guts of the original virus are inserted into a yeast cell or bacterium so they can be replicated easily. The benefits, according to the vaccine manufacturers, are supposed cost and safety. Could this explain the yeast connection? Also, genetically modified foods are known to cause allergic reactions in people. What would a gmo vaccine injected directly into the bloodstream do?

Here's what I found at vaccineinformation.org (a pro-vaccine site, but they had the information):The hepatitis B vaccines used in the United States are recombinant DNA vaccines, which means they are produced by inserting the gene for HBV into common baker's yeast where it is grown, harvested, and purified. HBV infection cannot occur from receiving hepatitis B vaccine.

[certainly NOT Dr. Mock, chief scoffer]

"Proven effective preventatives of disease do exist, namely vaccines. It is thus unethical to have a placebo control group in a randomized clinical trial of vaccines."

The simple answer is some yo-yos are living proof the three stooges had children. Th bivious one thinks Thimerosal-containing placebos are a secret. Shooosh!

[Sue M.]

This nonsense response from Dr. Gorski (aka Orac) is hilarious. Can anyone honestly say that he makes any sense here? It's as if he's trying to outwit you with his superior knowledge - yet failing miserably.

From Orac:

"Read the Helsinki Declaration and the Belmont Report…from the Helsinki Declaration, with only very limited exceptions and only with extreme justification both scientifically and ethically, a placebo may not be used unless no current proven effective intervention exists for the condition under study".

Let's disregard his obvious sentence structure issues. Since when is a newborn baby considered to have a "condition" that needs to be studied?

From Orac:

"It is thus unethical to have a placebo control group in a randomized clinical trial of vaccines".

This is so far out there that I couldn't even begin to shred it apart. In Orac's twisted mind it is unethical NOT to inject babies with toxins and live viruses that haven't been proven safe in the schedule given? Wow. He really needs to get back to his Star Trek blogging.

Then there's this gem from Orac:

"The bottom line is that you simply do not know what you are talking about when it comes to how drugs are studied. You think you do, but you do not".

This had me laughing out loud ... What a pompous ass! This from a guy who has yet to admit that there's anything wrong with the bogus Danish autism studies...

Thanks for the laugh :)

[Angela Warner]

Orac really has some twisted logic.

When the HPV was in clinical trials, the only prevention available was condom use and the yearly pap. Interventions were and are available, but have nothing to do with vaccines. Therefore the most ethical manner of studying HPV in clinical trials would have been to use an inert placebo. We all know that's not what happened and now girls are dying and having their lives forever altered by debilitating illness.

It seems Orac is fine with this.

Sick man... just sick.