I thought this was a brilliant debate. How unfortunate that we are not able to debate the issue in Australia. Dr Sherry Tenpenny was not allowed to speak on vaccines and in the end decided not to come to this country because of bomb threats etc from pro vaccination people. Our media will not debate the issue at all. We are now being told that the government will take away benefits from parents unless they vaccinate. What really upsets me is that the whole argument for this heavy handed measure is herd immunity when clearly it is totally false.

UNSW have found that 80% of cases of whooping cough are strains that do not respond to the vaccine - so why blame the unvaccinated?
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/5608/20140415/whooping-cough-bacterium-evolves-mutation-makes-existing-vaccine-less-effective.htm#ixzz3J7XlXGPH
"So far, it has been bad news as experts have found out the bacteria causing whooping cough have evolved.

The most likely culprit in the mutation of the Bordertella pertussis, the bacterium causing whooping cough, is the vaccine used to protect humans against it. The vaccine has been effective by zeroing in on pertactin, a protein that plays a major role in the development of the illness.

"It's like a game of hide and seek. It is harder for the antibodies made by the body's immune system in response to vaccination to 'search and destroy' the whooping cough bacteria which lack pertactin. This could mean that these pertactin-free strains have gained a selective advantage over bacterial strains with the pertactin protein," said Ruiting Lan, senior author of the latest study on whooping cough and associate professor at School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences at the University of New South Wales."

he team of experts, led by UNSW PhD candidate Connie Lam, have looked into cases of whooping cough from across Australia and have found out that roughly 80 percent of the cases in 2012 were due to strains of the bacterium that do not have pertactin.

"The fact that they have arisen independently in different countries suggests this is in response to the vaccine.

Also people who have been vaccinated against pertussis can still cary the disease.

The FDA published a study they had conducted on the pertussis vaccine, admitting that cases of whooping cough were increasing among a highly vaccinated public. They studied the effect of the vaccine on baboons, and found out that vaccinated baboons still carried around whooping cough in their throats, spreading it to others. The N.Y. Times actually reported on this in their “Health Section”.

a report was published by the Financial Post titled Vaccines Cannot Prevent Measles Outbreaks. Its author, Lawrence Solomon, reported on a paper written by Professor of Medicine and founder and leader of the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group, Professor Gregory A. Poland, titled The Re-emergence of Measles in Developed Countries, which was published two years ago.

“Thus, while an excellent vaccine, a dilemma remains. As previously mentioned, measles is extraordinarily transmissible. At the same time, measles vaccine has a failure rate measured in a variety of studies at 2 –10%, and modeling studies suggest that herd immunity to measles requires approximately 95% or better of the population to be immune.”

Therefore blaming unvaccinated people for not creating herd immunity is a myth - both vaccinated and unvaccinated spread the disease and will continue to do so. The best defence is a health immune system, high vitamin d levels, good diet, avoiding stress.

for rtp--You state:

"4c) The purpose of measles vaccine was to reduce the *total* number of people with encephalitis. There was no significant reduction (in the US it increased).

The purpose of rubella vaccine was to reduce the *total* number of kids with congenital defects. There was no significant reduction (it increased).

The purpose of the polio vaccine was to reduce the *total* number of crippled children, etc. There was no significant reduction (it has increased).

The purpose of the diphtheria/pertussis vaccine was to dramatically reduce the number of kids hospitalised with respiratory infections. There was no such reduction.

The purpose of the Hep B vaccine was to reduce the *total* number of people with liver cancer. Rates in the US have tripled since the introduction of the vaccine.

The purpose of the Hib vaccine was to reduce the total number of cases of meningitis/pneumonia/sepsis. It did no such thing."

The potential that mainstream medicine has confused everyone and themselves by changing diagnostic criteria and renaming afflictions is certainly a strong possibility--so I am very interested in any references that substantiate this has indeed happened.

However, a comparison of "the total number of cases" is not the right kind of comparison. Since the human population has grown considerably in the last 50 years, the total number of cases of anything could be expected to be larger now than in the past. What we actually need to know is the percentage of babies/children/adults within a particular geographic/political area suffering the various afflictions characterized by a set of symptoms before and after the widespread use of a particular vaccine.

Can you direct readers to any references that offer that sort of more meaningful comparison for any of the disease states (encephalitis, congenital defects, crippled children, respiratory infections, liver cancer, meningitis)? If so, please post. Thanks.

It's worth repeating, Ginger - you and Dr. Nass were fantastic. Am SO heartened to see this sort of debate; kudos to that television station for providing the venue for this debate.

I have only watched one segment so far. It amazes me how the question about how much money the vaccine industry makes is just glossed over by the pro-vaxxers... Completely missing the point that these things are sold for PROFIT (with no liablity, mind you)

THANK YOU GINGER

4b) So as I say above, the so-called success of measles vaccine is nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy - a circularity. Same for polio, smallpox, diphtheria etc. None of them work. None of them could work. We have c100 trillion bacteria (and an order of magnitude more viruses) on and in us all the time. Trying to fight disease by fighting them is like dipping a bucket into the ocean and pouring the contents onto land to fight drowning. If you are going to be petrified of encountering germs you may as well be petrified of breathing nitrogen.

What is more, since the widespread use of vaccines, childhood disability rates have risen ten fold and healthcare expenditure has increased four fold as a per cent of GDP.
http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v18n6/v18n6p20.pdf and http://www.census.gov/people/disability/ publications/sipp2010.html (Table A-4) (for disability rates).

Now at this point vaccine fanatics will respond that correlation doesn't prove causation but even if vaccines didn't *cause* this rise in disability rates it is nonetheless clear that they didn't provide any real world benefit.

The following provides data for healthcare expenditure in the US since the widespread use of vaccines - nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1200478. In the UK and Australia it has been a threefold increase in per GDP healthcare spending since the widespread use of vaccines. An utter catastrophe. The revenue of Merck rose 60 times in real terms since 1953 (granted there may have been a few mergers but clearly pharma companies have done very nicely since the advent of vaccines).

To give an idea of what the diseases have been relabelled as anybody can type in measles/pertussis/etc and 'differential diagnosis' into google. But as a start, measles has been renamed roseola, fifth disease, etc; polio has been renamed Guillain Barre, transverse myelitis, coxsackie (we actually use more respirators today than we ever did iron lungs by the way it is just that iron lungs were too expensive and dangerous to keep using) (further information on polio acute flaccid paralysis vs non-polio acute flaccid paralysis can be found from the WHO here extranet.who.int/polis/public/CaseCount.aspx; diphtheria/pertussis were renamed respiratory syncytial virus, croup, strep, tonsillitis etc; hepatitis was renamed Hep C, Hep D etc; meningitis/pneumonia/sepsis blamed on Hib was renamed meningitis/pneumonia/sepsis blamed on some other bacteria; smallpox was renamed monkey pox/severe chicken pox. Indeed the CDC actually admit that people have tested positive for smallpox virus since they declared it eradicated (http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/39/10/1477.long) but they always declared that it must have been a false positive because - in a wonderful piece of circular reasoning - smallpox doesn't exist anymore.

3) Relating to their dangers. This is the most effective and easiest argument you can use.

"If an 80kg adult were to get the equivalent dose of what an infant is expected to get then they would receive around 500 vaccines over 18 months. I would never get that many vaccines for myself so it is absurd to think that my babies should take them without any troubles"

Now, if one of the pro-vaxers offers to take such a dose to prove that they are safe, make sure you don't offer to pay for or organise it. They will just make increasingly ridiculous demands until you pull out and they will declare that they were happy to do it all along.

If they offer to do this the only thing you should accept to do is verify that they are actually vaccines (not saline) they take once they have organised the vaccines and the person to administer them.

1) How to deal with people disqualifying you from an opinion.

You should never qualify or defend yourself. If you respond to bad faith arguments with good faith arguments it actually reinforces your opponent's belief that their approach is valid.

Pro-vaxer: "Dr Google!"

If someone says this ask them why it is that it is perfectly acceptable to use the internet for all kinds of information - some simple, some complex, and many many issues of great substance but for some reason medical information gets all jumbled the moment it is uploaded onto a computer. People even do degrees on the internet - presumably they aren't all illegitimate.

Pro-vaxer: “You aren’t an expert in immunology. How could you possibly know they are useless?”

Responses: “You aren’t an expert in homeopathy*. How do you know it is useless?”

*You can exchange homeopathy with any practice or belief that your opponent doesn’t agree with (astrology, naturopathy, faith healing, eugenics etc). It is irrelevant whether you agree with it or not.

Another good response (which can be provided along with or instead of): “Doctors don’t take any responsibility for damage done from the vaccines nor if they fail to provide immunity. Nor do pharma companies, health bureaucrats, politicians etc. What kind of a fool would blindly trust those who are “all care and no responsibility?”

Once you have shown the invalidity of their argument then you are welcome to say “oh and by the way, here are a bunch of immunologists who are opposed to vaccines”. But you can’t say that by itself because it simply reinforces the notion in your opponent’s mind that the opinions of immunologists are critical.

This works for many of their arguments. Appeals to popularity (you can mention religions), appeals to the longevity of vaccination “science” (again you can mention religion/astrology). Appeals to "peer-review" (you can ask them if they would blindly accept homeopaths peer-reviewing each others' work).

This forces them to explain why immunology is somehow fundamentally more “sciency” than all those other beliefs. They will be defending themselves. And that is where you want them to be.

“Are you an anti-vaxer?”.

Good response: “I take the position on each and every vaccine that is guided by the evidence at hand rather than a preconceived notion of what the outcome should be. Isn’t that what scientists are supposed to do? Or are you seriously telling me that I should ignore all the evidence and hold a pro-vaccine position regardless? That sounds pretty foolish to me. Are vaccines a science or a cult?”

Do not say “No I am not an anti-vaxer”. Even if you yourself think some vaccines are a good idea in some circumstances that is a very bad response. By saying that you are not an anti-vaxer you are effectively legitimizing their approach and by extension dismissing all people who don’t support vaccines in some ways. Never sell allies down the river in the hope of appeasing people. It is ok to be more moderate – we don’t all have to agree – but it is very dangerous to delegitimize the views of those who are your allies because they are more extreme. Even if you are successful in winning a reprieve it will only be temporary. And the next time you are attacked you won’t have as many allies to support you.

After you provide the first response then – if applicable - it would be ok to say “and by the way, my own position is that some vaccines are useful in some circumstances”.

Note that the first response puts them in the position of having to defend themselves.

"If you don't want to use vaccines then why do use other forms of medicine".

Good response: "If I think the Toyota Landcruiser is a great car does it logically follow that I must think the Yaris is too?"

Another response: "if I believe in a defence force does that mean I should be happy if it used to fight its own citizens?"

“Correlation doesn’t prove causation”

Good response: “Then how do you know vaccines work? Please don’t tell me that all the correlations that support your prejudices are proof positive of causation but all those that don’t are just coincidence? How convenient! And similarly, how do you know that deaths/injuries after measles/pertussis etc aren’t also just coincidences?”

You then follow this up by saying “and besides, challenge rechallenge is an accepted proof of causation in medicine and there are plenty of such cases regarding vaccines. Why is there one rule for all other medicines in terms of proof of causation and a completely different one for vaccines?”

“You are a baby killer”

I know this is awful and our instinct is to arc up in righteous indignation but you should resist the urge to do so.

You can ignore it or provide an off the cuff remark. That is fine.

Alternatively, you can say this:

“if I were to take the same schedule as my child is expected to get it would be the equivalent of me getting 500 vaccines over 18 months. As I believe that it is unconscionable to subject my children to something I wouldn’t subject myself to I think that my approach is, if anything, the more moral.”

“You’re a conspiracy theorist”.

Do not respond by saying “oh no no all my data comes from government sources.” Again, you are just reinforcing the idea that the opinions and output of politicians and bureaucrats are important.

The correct response is: “What about terrorism? Organised crime? Gangs? Hostile foreign militaries? All of those require conspiracies are you telling me they do not exist? That is quite a claim.”

You can then follow it by saying. “And by the way I never said nor implied there was a conspiracy here. Most of the agents no doubt believe what they do but they all have the same massive vested interest so their opinion is no more valid than if you surveyed every parent and asked them if their kids are beautiful."

And here you go; it would seem the AMA deems ITSELF above and beyond those of us who may be stripped of our right to the use of exemptions:

http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician-resources/medical-ethics/code-medical-ethics/opinion9133.page

Opinion 9.133 Routine Universal Immunization of Physicians

"As professionals committed to promoting the welfare of individual patients and the health of the public and to safeguarding their own and their colleagues’ well-being, physicians have an ethical responsibility to take appropriate measures to prevent the spread of infectious disease in health care settings. Conscientious participation in routine infection control practices, such as hand washing and respiratory precautions is a basic expectation of the profession. In some situations, however, routine infection control is not sufficient to protect the interests of patients, the public, and fellow health care workers.

In the context of a highly transmissible disease that poses significant medical risk for vulnerable patients or colleagues, or threatens the availability of the health care workforce, particularly a disease that has potential to become epidemic or pandemic, and for which there is an available, safe, and effective vaccine, physicians have an obligation to:

(a) Accept immunization absent a recognized medical, religious, or philosophic reason to not be immunized.

(b) Accept a decision of the medical staff leadership or health care institution, or other appropriate authority to adjust practice activities if not immunized (e.g., wear masks or refrain from direct patient care). It may be appropriate in some circumstances to inform patients about immunization status. (I, II)

Issued June 2011 based on the report "Routine Universal Immunization of Physicians for Vaccine-Preventable Disease,"PDF FIle adopted November 2010."

SOMEONE REALLY NEEDS TO BRING THIS UP DURING THE HEARING TOMORROW IN CALIFORNIA. ANYONE READING OVER HERE AND ATTENDING - PLEASE - BRING THIS TO SOMEONE'S ATTENTION. DR. BOB SEARS PERHAPS?

I am extremely grateful for the rare opportunity to watch ...

"A mainstream media outlet host an extended, live debate on vaccines, invited a balanced panel and a balanced audience, let the audience questions drive the debate, and in no way biased or edited the final product."

This type of "open debate" on this critical issue should be conducted in every State of the Union .. and .. I suspect the reason it is not happening .. is because those tasked with promoting vaccines and the legislation to mandate them are unwilling to participate.

Odd considering THEY insist THEY have "science" on THEIR side .. but .. it does explain why THEY refuse to conduct the "vaccinated v. unvaccinated" study .. and .. it is not because it would be "unethical" .. it is because THEY are terrified of what a truly independent, scientific study would reveal.

Not surprised to hear Dr. Dora Anne Mills did not forward any "notes" to further explain her position .. but .. then again .. it was Dr. Mills who quoted Autism Speaks as one of the main sources she relies upon.

Really do wish those asked to participate in these types of debates are provided information that clearly explains what critical words mean .. such as .. "what qualifies someone to be labeled vaccinated or not"? The term "unvaccinated" is thrown about as if the term is clearly understood .. and .. obviously it is not.

Consider .. Dr. Flanigan stated a statistic of 4% children in Maine are unvaccinated .. and .. then we later learned those 4% were not totally unvaccinated .. having received at least some vaccines .. and .. only 0.6% of children in Maine are completely unvaccinated.

Admittedly, I am not as educated as Dr. Flanigan .. but .. listening to him explain .. paraphrasing here .. vaccines have evolved over the years .. were made more "safe and efficient" .. and .. in the future we can expect to look back at vaccines today and ask "Did we really do that?"

I think Dr. Flanigan was actually describing .. OJT .. on the job .. training. In other words .. he learns as he goes along his merry way .. and .. in the meantime .. YOUR children are his guinea pigs.

Classsic moment when audience was asked a simple yes or no answer regarding their opinion if the media covers vaccine issues "thoughtfully and fairly" .. and .. the audience was totally silent .. not ONE person answered in the affirmative. I thought it would be hard to find a "consensus" in that audience .. but .. there it was.

Please .. when someone like Dr. Flanigan asks an audience to "raise your hands if you have ever seen a child confined to an iron lung or cared for a child confined in an iron lung" ...

ask that very same audience to "raise your hands if you have ever seen a child "regress" after vaccinations, cared for a child on the lower end of the autism spectrum 24 - 7 .. or .. for that matter .. ask if ANYONE in the audience has someone in their family with a chronic autoimmune disorder .. asthma, juvenile type 1 diabetes, etc .. that was not as common when the polio vaccine was introduced?

Dr. Nass .. predictably ..didn't get an answer to her question regarding the AMA's "code of ethics" which provides DOCTORS exemptions for medical, religious and .. PHILOSOPHICAL reasons?

In fact .. most "questions" of Dr. Flanigan and Dr. Mills went "unanswered" .. instead .. both responded with long winded .. off topic .. shop-worn .. "talking points". Frustrating to watch.

Thanks to Ginger Taylor and Dr. Myrel Nass for stating their well-informed opinions on this subject .. they were GREAT .. as are the "notes" both provided to further substantiate their opinions.

On the other hand .. "Dr. Flanigan thanked us for the offer to add notes, but shared that the state of Maine believes that the debate (TALKING POINTS) as aired speaks for itself (themselves)

You made them move from safe and effective, to we could do better, to someday we're going to look back on this and say, 'we did that?'. They harped on the diseases without addressing the effects, except to imply that the effects don't matter as much as the diseases. Dr. Nass was cut off when presenting the FDA baboon study. They should not have gotten away with that because she was prevented from making her point - that the vaccine creates a silent carrier state. She did make the point, but the audience might not have understood as the doctor on the end interrupted with an irrelevant answer. I wish he didn't get away with that.

Great job to all, even the brave doctors who went on air to debate to Ginger Taylor and Meryl Nass - something that Paul Offit would never willingly do, because he knows he would lose.

Completely awesome; great job, everybody !

Mother of God.