Vaccination Op-Ed (Lexington Herald Leader 05 Feb 2015)

I’m grateful to the Lexington Herald Leader for publication of an op-ed piece I wrote on Kentucky Senator Rand Paul’s uninformed comments on vaccinations.  Both Paul and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie have made potentially damaging comments on the topic this week.

In the face of a burgeoning measles outbreak, there are countless Americans who would love to take advantage of vaccines but cannot because of their age or existing medical conditions. They are relying on the rest of us to make unselfish decisions in the interest of public health.  We in turn need to be able to rely on representatives like Senator Paul and Governor Christie, who are in unique positions to shape health policies.  Given the statements they’ve made recently, I’m not so sure that we can.

You can read the op-ed here.

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Food Babe Flashes Her Beaver

If the title of this blog is offensive, then you, like me, live in a place where “beaver” is crude, unacceptable slang for a female body part.  I’m sorry to resort to language like this, but I hope that you’ll give me the benefit of the doubt and continue reading.

Vani Hari (the “Food Babe”) makes a living posting sensationalized articles and videos on health, well-being, and alternative medicine. One thing that’s obvious about the alternative health movement is that sensationalism sells.  I deliberately chose my title to illustrate this point.

In her infamous YouTube post, “Do You Eat Beaver Butt?,”¹ Hari uses a stuffed beaver as a prop to cast doubt on natural food additives by deriding castoreum, a vanilla-flavored chemical taken from scent glands of male and female beavers.  These glands happen to be located between the tail and pelvis.

It’s unpleasant and impractical to milk a beaver–both for the beaver and the human.  But let’s forget for a moment that the Babe misleads her fans about castoreum, which in reality is rarely used as a flavoring.²   The real problem is that, typical of her posts, Food Babe uses the source of the chemical to go quickly down a slippery slope and cast doubt on all natural ingredients–indeed, even on the definition of “natural ingredient” itself.

The fact is, humans use products derived from “disgusting” natural places in countless beneficial ways.  Please note: vegetarians will likely take issue with me and argue we shouldn’t use animal sources at all.  That’s a debate for another time and place.  Vani Hari is not a vegetarian.^3,7  She’s not arguing against using animal products.

Here’s a quick list of useful animal products coming from “disgusting” places.  If I can use Food Babe’s gross-out tactics to increase readership and possibly educate along the way, I’m not above doing it.

My List

Aortic Valve Replacements
Undoubtedly the most fascinating part of my experience as a pre-med student was an eight hour stint as an observer in the operating room during two open heart surgeries.  In one of the operations, the surgeon replaced the patient’s aortic valve.  This valve resides in the heart, controlling the flow of blood in the main artery of the body.

The replacement valve was taken from a pig.  During lunch (Chinese food–it’s amazing how much you can eat immediately after watching a human chest cracked open!) the surgeon explained the advantages of using an animal product, which is already biologically similar to a human, then stripped down to cartilage to minimize rejection by the immune system.

For example, patients on artificial valves can be restricted to a lifetime on medications.  I am not a doctor, but am providing a link to an easy-to-understand transcript on the procedure–written by a real doctor–if you’d like to know more.⁴

I do feel bad for the pig.  But watching the patient open her eyes in recovery and smile at her grandchildren, I felt the sacrifice was worth it.

 

Fish Oil Supplements
Fish oil comes from [drum roll please]… oily fish!¹³  Fans of both alternative and real medicine love fish oil because it’s a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids.  Possible benefits include reducing the risk of serious heart conditions, lowering blood pressure, and preventing cardiovascular disease.^5,6

Fish don’t produce omega-3 themselves.  They accumulate it by eating microalgae (and other fish that have accumulated omega-3).  Oily fish and algae.  It’s what’s for dinner!

Hypocritically, Food Babe loves omega-3, still eats fish, but now disclaims the fatty acid as an omega-3 source.  Instead she pushes a seed blend–and receives a commission from the vendor of the seeds.⁷   Can you say “conflict of interest?”

 

Orange Juice
Speaking of omega-3 fatty acids from fish, did you know that they’re considered so beneficial that orange juice manufacturers are adding them to their juice?⁸

Before I beat the omega-3 horse to death, I’ll mention a 2007 USA Today article that mentions the healthy fatty acid was being added to an estimated 250 products (including juice, cereal, and cheese) being rolled out that year.⁹

Food Babe is hilariously confused when it comes to juices, fretting that “chemicals” such as water (I’m not making this shit up!) and Vitamin C are added during processing.¹⁴  This stupidity is not surprising coming from a woman who once ranted about airlines adding nitrogen to the air in airplane cabins (earth’s atmosphere is 72% nitrogen–it’s what we naturally breathe!)

 

Heparin
Heparin, listed on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines,¹⁰ is an important medicine used to prevent the clotting of blood.  It’s used as a blood-thinner by people with medical conditions where clotting is a problem, as well as before surgery to prevent life-threatening clots.

Heparin is made from animal tissues, including pig intestines.¹¹

 

Chicken Eggs
Most people don’t like to think about this one.   Eggs don’t come out of the chicken’s butt, but, “geographically”, it’s close.  Fortunately, the end result is a sterile egg: (1) The hen has one hole exposed to the outside world, known as the vent. (2) Both poop and the egg must exit this hole.  (3) But when the hen lays an egg, the oviduct extends outside of the hole–like a glove–shielding the egg from poop.¹²

But the rooster still has to stick his penis in there.  Ooh, yuck!  After I published this post, an insightful reader pointed out that the rooster penis isn’t actually inserted into the hen.  Instead, the exchange of sperm takes place via a mechanism known as a “cloacal kiss.”^23,24  Fascinating bit of science there–with, I think, the potential for an equally high gross-out factor.

Where chicken eggs come from (click to enlarge). See footnotes for image credits.

Chicken eggs are nutritious.¹⁵  They’re also a valuable host for growing certain vaccines, which, unless you have an egg allergy, are safe and critical in preventing diseases.

 

Milk
I remember talking to an old farmer in Kentucky who told me he used to drink directly from the cow on hot summer days.  I was fascinated, but a little grossed out at the same time.  Maybe it’s the proximity of the udder to the cow’s anus?

Fortunately, we have pasteurization.  Predictably, Hari is absolutely clueless when it comes to this process.¹⁶  Pasteurization is the most effective way to handle disease-causing organisms (and cow poop) while preserving the nutritional value of the product.  In fact, unpasteurized products can be dangerous and have caused serious disease outbreaks.

 

Cheese
If you’re freaked out by putting something in your mouth that comes from the questionably located glands of an animal, add cheese to your banned food list: cows, goats, sheep, and even buffalo are the sources.

Like the other food products in my list, cheese is nutritious and it tastes good.  Just check out Food Babe’s goat cheese recipe!¹⁷

 

Silk
We don’t eat it, but a lot of people like to wear it and sleep on it.  A lot of these same people might be grossed out at the thought of being covered in worm spit.  Silk is a protein secreted from the salivary glands of certain insects, including the silkworm.¹⁸   Yes, your salivary glands produce… spit.

In her beauty archives, Food Babe recommends sleeping on 100% silk pillowcases.¹⁹ Fortunately, worm spit is 100% natural and organic–just like chemicals extracted from beaver butts.

 

Gelatin
Gelatin is a flavorless additive that adds texture to foods like yogurt, cream cheese, marshmallows, candy, fruit snacks, and margarine.  It’s used as a fining agent in beer and wines (fining agents give such drinks their clarity).  The use of gelatin is so widespread in food production that it’s usually overlooked.  It’s also important in the pharmaceutical industry–for example, in dissolvable gel capsules for pills. Gelatin is made from the bones, skins, and connective tissues of animals.^20,21,22

Like the other animal products in this list, gelatin may come from a “gross” place, but it’s hard to imagine food without it.  While it has no effect on the nutritional value of the food, few of us would like to drink our marshmallows and yogurt.  They’d be liquid without the gelatin.

 

Conclusion
Everything in the universe is made up of chemicals.  Food Babe frequently uses either the source and/or names of chemicals to cast doubt on their safety.  Some people might naturally recoil before eating sodium chloride before being told it’s just common table salt.

One common joke about Food Babe is that if she can’t pronounce it, she won’t eat it.  In that same vein, she wants her fans to believe that if something comes from a “bad” place, it isn’t good for you.  This is utter nonsense.

Vani Hari is apparently making a small fortune by casting doubt on safe, established products and earning commissions on the alternative products she hawks on her web site.  It’s sad that more people do not examine her claims critically.  They’re being misled, and she’s laughing all the way to the bank.

 

Image Credits
“The Hen’s Perspective on Laying Eggs (Wieckmann, 1896; Grzimek, 1964)”, as referenced by a wonderful blog post by Wiebe H. van der Molen (http://www.afn.org/~poultry/egghen.htm).  None of those authors necessarily agree with or endorse my work here.  Used in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, commonly known as “fair use law”. This material is distributed without profit with the intent to provide commentary, review, education, parody, and increase public health knowledge.

Screen snapshot “Do You Eat Beaver Butt?” copyright (c) Vani Hari, “The Food Babe”.  Used in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, commonly known as “fair use law”. This material is distributed without profit with the intent to provide commentary, review, education, parody, and increase public health knowledge.

 

References
Please note: to avoid increasing search engine exposure for questionable web sites, I use the DoNotLink URL obfuscator on their links.  I promise, you will not be redirected to porn.

(1) Original Food Babe article
http://www.donotlink.com/bumv

(2) Fernelli’s Handbook of Flavor Ingredients
http://books.google.com/books?id=A8OyTzGGJhYC&pg=PA277&lpg=PA277&dq=castoreum+food+ingredients&source=bl&ots=YeByZKDtcL&sig=hSfcnSCnX9LkQ7PBprj7zFg0004&hl=en&ei=Ca7HTNu5I42-sQOfkqnSDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CDMQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q&f=false

(3) Food Babe: Chicken Salad
http://www.donotlink.com/cll0

(4) Bruce Lytle, MD: Transcript for Aortic Valve Replacement
http://my.clevelandclinic.org/services/heart/patient-education/videos/faqsurgery/video_avr/transcript_avr

(5) Mayo Clinic: Omega-3 fatty acids, fish oil, alpha-linolenic acid
http://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/omega-3-fatty-acids-fish-oil-alpha-linolenic-acid/evidence/hrb-20059372

(6) Fish Oil Cools the Inflammasome
http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/5/193/193ec113.full?sid=2140f821-3aa3-4130-ad2a-3224eb6f4c19

(7) Food Babe: “I stopped taking fish oil a long time ago”
http://www.donotlink.com/clkz

(8) Tropicana
http://www.tropicana.com/#/trop_products/productsLanding.swf?TropicanaPurePremium/55

(9) USA Today: Omega-3 Pours into cereal, orange juice, eggs, pet food
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2007-01-01-omega-3-usat_x.htm

(10) WHO List of Essential Medicines
http://www.who.int/medicines/publications/essentialmedicines/18th_EML.pdf

(11) Production and Chemical Processing of Low Molecular Weight Heparins
http://www-heparin.rpi.edu/main/files/papers/217.pdf

(12) Avian Reproductive System–Female
http://www.extension.org/pages/65372/avian-reproductive-systemfemale#.VHOgrsnYJDg

(13) Oily Fish
http://tna.europarchive.org/20110116113217/http://www.food.gov.uk/news/newsarchive/2004/jun/oilyfishdefinition

(14) Food Babe Juice Labels
http://www.donotlink.com/clol

(15) Nutrient Content of One Large Egg
http://www.aeb.org/images/PDFs/Retail/nutrient-content-large-egg.pdf

(16) Food Babe doesn’t understand pasteurization
http://www.donotlink.com/clol

(17) Food Babe Goat Cheese Recipe
http://www.donotlink.com/coal

(18) Silk Making & Silk Production
https://texeresilk.com/article/silk_making_how_to_make_silk

(19) Food Babe Beauty Tips: Silk Pillowcase
http://www.donotlink.com/cll8

(20) USDA: Gelatin Processing
http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELPRDC5091334

(21) Gelatin Manufacturers of America: Gelatin Handbook
http://www.gelatin-gmia.com/images/GMIA_Gelatin_Manual_2012.pdf

(22) Gelatin: Fining Agents
https://winemakermag.com/26-a-clearer-understanding-of-fining-agents

(23) Cloacal Kiss (Encylopaedia Britannica)
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/121929/cloaca

(24) Cloacal Kiss (Urban Dictionary)
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cloacal%20kiss

 

Got Milk?

I was recently introduced to the work of Dr. Joseph Mercola through a dangerous article he penned.  In “Fight for Raw Milk Heats Up in Wisconsin and Illinois“,¹ Mercola sings the praises of raw, unpasteurized milk.  Before somebody ends up seriously ill, I’d like to draw attention to some facts about consuming unpasteurized dairy products.  I’ll be using selected quotes from Mercola’s article to drive the narrative, but encourage readers to check out his full write-up in case there are any suspicions of quote-mining.

For those who’ve forgotten, pasteurization is simply the rapid heating — then cooling — of milk. This eliminates most of the bacteria that would make you sick, and it allows the milk to stay fresh longer.  Pasteurization isn’t the same as boiling/sterilization: it doesn’t wipe out all the pathogens, but it also doesn’t destroy the flavor or essential nutrients.^{2, 3, 6, 12}

Pinocchio, patron saint of liars. See footnotes for image credit.

Mercola claims:

“Raw milk dairy products from organically raised pasture-fed cows rank among some of the healthiest foods you can consume. It’s far superior in terms of health benefits compared to pasteurized milk, and if statistics are any indication, it’s safer, too”

This is an outright lie.  According to the Centers for Disease Control, unpasteurized dairy products are 13 times more likely to cause hospitalization and 150 times more likely to result in foodborne illness.²  Unpasteurized milk is a common source for the bacteria that causes diseases such as diphtheria, tuberculosis, and, typhoid fever.³  It’s irresponsible for anyone labeling themselves as “doctor” to spread deceit like this.  Some of the dangers include:

Salmonellosis, usually transmitted to humans by consuming animal products contaminated by animal feces:⁴  Put bluntly, those organic cows you see standing in the organic fields munching organic grass growing in piles of organic shit… yeah, that’s what “feces” means. Salmonella is at best an uncomfortable disease, featuring diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps.  In extreme cases it can lead to hospitalization.  Untreated, in can result in death.

Brucellosis, most commonly acquired by consuming unpasteurized dairy products:⁵ Common symptoms include fever, anorexia, muscle/joint pain, swelling of the heart/liver/spleen, and swelling of the testicles/scrotum in men.  (If you’re a female reporting swelling in the testicles, you’re most likely an anti-vaccine proponent reporting a fake adverse reaction.)

The cautionary list is a long one.  For more, please see the CDC page “Food Safety and Raw Milk.”⁶

Living in the good ol’ days. See footnotes for image credit.

“it’s worth remembering that raw milk was consumed for eons before the invention of pasteurization.” — Mercola

It’s also worth remembering that in the 1900s the average adult didn’t live beyond age 50,⁷ and the earliest humans were lucky to make it out of their 20s.⁸  Scientific advances in fields such as medicine and agriculture have led to significant increases in the average adult life span.  “Eons ago” is a piss-poor argument.  Speaking of piss… eons ago, humans allowed their sewage to mix freely with drinking water.  Then we learned better.

Back to dairy…  by the 1900s, mothers knew the dangers of raw milk, but the pasteurized product wasn’t widely available.  They began boiling it to reduce the risk to their infants.³   Has Mercola learned nothing from history?

It’s sad how champions of alternative living long for the good ol’ days — without remembering how bad those days really were.¹¹  

 

“Organically raised cows that are allowed to roam free on pasture where they can graze for their natural food source produce very different milk.”  — Mercola

Mercola doesn’t tell us what’s in his “different milk”.  Milk is milk.  It’s hard to debunk ghost claims.  And they’re frustratingly, frequently, common in quack articles such as the good doctor’s.  What we do know is the chemical composition of milk.⁹  Milk, by any other name… is milk. The next time you see a woomeister talking about “different” milk, ask them what’s in their milk, and compare.

The implication here is that “organic is better”, and that’s just not true.  Crude oil is 100% natural and organic.  Is it good for you?  That’s not a joke.  It’s not sarcasm.  Look it up.  (But don’t drink it.)

 “It’s also important to realize that pasteurization is only really required for certain kinds of milk” — Mercola

And condoms are only necessary for safe sex with certain kinds of strangers.  Sorry, but no.  Look: cows aren’t the most sanitary of creatures.  They don’t exactly wash their hooves (or udders, or any other body part) after going to the bathroom.  They wade through fields full of cow dung all day munching on… well… dung-laden grass.  You don’t know what’s growing there, other than the very real possibility it won’t be good for you.   For example, consider this photo:

Spores from poisonous Agrocybe pediades, a mushroom found growing on a cow patty

Dairy cattle are subject to other disease vectors such as insects and wild animals.  Drinking unpasteurized milk is rather like playing the lottery.  Instead of picking numbers, you’re picking bacteria, spores, and other contaminants, and hoping against hope that you don’t swallow something dangerous.

 

“While the US government, public health, and dairy industry officials say they want to restrict the sale and distribution of raw milk because of safety concerns, it’s quite clear that safety isn’t the motivating factor.” — Mercola

Except that:

In industrialized countries, milk-borne and milk product-borne outbreaks represent 2–6% of the bacterial foodborne outbreaks.²

I snuck one in on you.  That’s not a Mercola quote above.  That’s from real scientists, something you won’t find in a Mercola article.  Since being introduced to Dr. Mercola, all I’ve found in his work is pseudoscience and conspiracy theories.  Safety is the motivating factor here, and has been since pasteurization was introduced.

So why is milk pasteurized, according to Mercola?  Hang on to your seats…

“The fact of the matter is that Big Dairy depends on pasteurization”

(Sigh).  And Big Pharma depends on cancer: they’re causing it on purpose to increase drug sales.

And aliens are controlling us via hidden signals in our television sets.  And… and…

 

References

(1)  Fight for Raw Milk Heats Up in Wisconsin and Illinois
http://www.donotlink.com/c81v

(2) Raw or heated cow milk consumption: Review of risks and benefits
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095671351200535X

(3) The Dangers of Raw Milk (USDA)
http://www.fda.gov/Food/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/ucm079516.htm

(4) Salmonellosis
http://www.cdc.gov/nczved/divisions/dfbmd/diseases/salmonellosis/#catch

(5) Transmission | Brucellosis (CDC)
http://www.cdc.gov/brucellosis/transmission/index.html

(6) Food Safety and Raw Milk
http://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/rawmilk/raw-milk-index.html

(7)  National Institute on Aging:  Living Longer
http://www.nia.nih.gov/research/publication/global-health-and-aging/living-longer

(8) Late Pleistocene adult mortality patterns and modern human establishment
http://www.pnas.org/content/108/4/1267.abstract

(9)  Basic Report:  01077, Milk, whole, 3.25% milkfat, with added vitamin D
http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/70?fg=&man=&lfacet=&format=&count=&max=25&offset=&sort=&qlookup=milk+whole

(10) Agrocybe pediades
http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/gallery/DisplayBlock~bid~5509.asp

(11) Gastroenteritis Conveyed by Raw Milk
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v142/n3594/abs/142507d0.html

(12)  Raw Milk Questions and Answers (CDC)
http://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/rawmilk/raw-milk-questions-and-answers.html

 

Image Credits

Unpasteurized milk (skull and crossbones) photo illustration by the author, using two public domain works from WikiCommons: “P0772931750(37561)(NRCS Photo Gallery).jpg” from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Services — milk in a bottle, extensively photoshopped by author for effect.  Image in public domain as a work of the U.S. Government.  Skull and crossbones in image by “ScottForesman”, released into public domain with no restrictions.  Use of these images does not imply that the original owners share the opinions expressed by the author.

Gladys the Swiss Dairy Cow from Wiki Commons, released into the public domain by James Lebinski.  Image owner does not necessarily share the opinions expressed by the author.

“Jager út de Stientiid” (caveman boy) is from Wiki Commons and is in the public domain of the United States, having been published prior to 1923.

Trojan brand condoms from copyrighted image, Church & Dwight Co., inc.  Used in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, commonly known as “fair use law”. This material is distributed without profit with the intent to provide commentary, review, education, parody, and increase public health knowledge

Agrocybe pediades spores:  image from Wiki Commons, uploaded by user Ron Pastorino, shared under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license.  Image owner does not necessarily share the opinions expressed by the author.

“Jim Dines Pinocchio-skulptur Walking to Borås” by Wiki Commons author “Mrkgrd”, used with permission under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.  Image owner does not necessarily share the opinions expressed by the author.

Tinfoil hats still from the movie “Signs”, copyright 2002 Touchstone Pictures.  Used in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, commonly known as “fair use law”. This material is distributed without profit with the intent to provide commentary, review, education, parody, and increase public health knowledge

If it Quacks Like a Duck — Oscillococcinum

It’s perhaps the most amazing drug on CVS’ shelves today:  It features:

• No side effects
• No drug interactions
• No active ingredients

That’s right.  No active ingredients.  Read on to see if Oscillococcinum might be right for you!

Oscillococcinum, a drug with no active ingredients. (See footnotes for image credit.)

Oscillococcinum was a drug originally made from the non-existent oscillococcinum bacterium (wink wink nudge nudge) and marketed as a cure for the flu.  This is curious, as the flu is viral, not bacterial, in nature.

Now made from duck parts that don’t exist — perfect for a quack cure — Oscillococcinum is homeopathic.  One of the features of many homeopathic medicines is that they are repeatedly diluted during production.  Oscillococcinum is typical:  the dilution is so extreme that there’s no original product left in the box when it goes out the door.

CVS-branded oscillococcinum. Get your sugar cheaper! (click to enlarge image.)

The dilution factor for CVS’ duck-based medicine is “200C”.  In homeopathy, “200C” means that:

1. The original product is diluted with water to 1/100th the original concentration
2. A small sample of the dilution is set aside
3. That 1/100th sample is taken, diluted with water, and the process is repeated for a total of 200 iterations

As is the case with any homeopathic medicine diluted to such extremes, the odds of receiving any end product (in this case, duck) are so astronomical they border on impossible.

But would you actually want the duck?

A quick look at the CVS product info sheet tells us that Oscillococcinum:

“is made from tissue that might be infected with flu—ducks, which are known to carry influenza”

Wait.  What’s happening here?  Is CVS selling me an infected bird?  That’s freaky scary.  When I get the flu shot, at least I know the virus in the shot is dead.

Or, is CVS selling me pure water & sugar… a product from which all the duck has been removed?  Back to the product info sheet:

“Oscillococcinum is of 200c potency, meaning that it is diluted to one part in 10 400 (a dilution so high that even if you started with a chunk of duck the size of the sun, not one molecule would remain).”¹

Wow.  Balls the size of… (!)

The imaginary active ingredient has been completely removed from this product, and CVS doesn’t even try to hide it:  they brag about it!

If you’re a CVS customer paying for this stuff, you’re paying for filler product.  Water and sugar.  Actually, it’s questionable whether or not you’re even getting any water.  The ingredients list only shows sugar.  What you’re definitely not getting is duck.  (For that reason, we’ll leave the dangers of ingesting a disease-laden bird for another article.)

Oscillococcinum gets a special mention in Jean-Marie Abgrall’s “Healing or Stealing?: Medical Charlatans in the New Age”.²  The drug was invented in 1919 when a Frenchman noticed an “oscillating” condition in flu patients and a corresponding “oscillating” amount of an imaginary germ he decided to call “oscillococcus”.  The only problem was, he thought he noticed the same microbe in herpes, chicken pox, shingles, and cancer patients — and decided all the diseases were caused by the same thing.  Mon dieu!⁸

The Frenchman tested a vaccine he developed on his cancer patients who, of course, died.  Afraid of being infected by his patients, the doctor went in search of his oscilloccinum bacterium in the wild.  He claims to have found it in a duck.  I’m not making this [expletive deleted] up.  No one else has ever seen oscilloccinum.  It doesn’t really exist.  But this hasn’t stopped snake… erm…  duck oil salesmen from cashing in.

Oscillococcinum isn’t all it’s quacked up to be.  It contain no active ingredient(s)! (Photo by the author)

Manufactured by the French company Boiron, Oscillococcinum has been singled out for deceptive marketing in the United States.  In June 2010, Homeopathy for Health, a Washington vendor, was cited by the FDA for a slew of violations, including marketing Oscillococcinum as a treatment for H1N1 (“Swine Flu”) and “relief of flu symptoms”.³ Although the CVS literature lists one late 1980s study with marginal results touting Oscillococcinum efficacy,² no other studies back the CVS claims.  This is not surprising.  If you only have one study to back you up, take that study, trumpet it loudly, and hope nobody notices.

When sugar pills are shown to stop the flu virus, let’s all meet in the bakery aisle of the supermarket when we get sick, and skip the trip to the doctor.

As I write this, CVS is actively removing protests regarding Oscillococcinum sales from its Facebook page.  These posts, to the best of my knowledge, truthfully inform consumers that the product contains no active ingredients, has never been shown to be of any help in combating the flu, and, in fact, could be dangerous: influenza is a serious disease and can be deadly.^{5, 6}

CVS places homeopathic medicines next to real medicines on their shelves (with similar packaging) with no consumer warnings, making it difficult for a trusting public to know what they’re buying.  When a pharmacy dispenses real medicine and real flu vaccines along with sugar pills without any cautionary text, it’s a problem.  Skipping real treatment in favor of Oscillococcinum could do real harm.

A “drug” made from sugar and non-existent duck parts?  A company that takes pride in its public health outreach programs⁴ should be ashamed of itself for this quackery — no pun intended.  I hope readers will take a moment to go the CVS Facebook page⁷ and express their unhappiness.  As consumers, we deserve better.

Postscript (18 December 2014)  Alert readers have pointed out that CVS is not the only vendor selling this fake medicine.  Indeed, since writing this article, I’ve found it online at Amazon and Drugstore.com.  It’s reportedly been seen on the shelves of Walmart, Walgreens, and Rite-Aid–though I haven’t witnessed that myself.  I’ll be writing follow-up articles to cover this.  No matter where you find it–if you find it–please encourage sellers of oscillococcinum to remove this useless product from their shelves.

References

(1)  CVS: Influenza: Studied Homeopathic Remedies
http://health.cvs.com/GetContent.aspx?token=f75979d3-9c7c-4b16-af56-3e122a3f19e3..&chunkiid=38325#scientific

(2) Healing Or Stealing?: Medical Charlatans in the New Age
Healing Or Stealing?: Medical Charlatans in the New Age. pp. 40–41. ISBN 1-892941-51-1

(3) FDA Inspections, Compliance, Enforcement, and Criminal Investigations: Warning Letter
http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/ucm215236.htm

(4) CVS stops selling tobacco, offers quit-smoking programs
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/03/cvs-steps-selling-tobacco-changes-name/14967821/

(5) CDC Fast Stats: Influenza
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/flu.htm

(6) Key Facts about Influenza (Flu) & Flu Vaccine
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/keyfacts.htm

(7) CVS (Facebook)
https://www.facebook.com/CVS

(8) Mon Dieu! (My God!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0oMQu2id6I

 

Legal Stuff

CVS Oscillococcinum product image used in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, commonly known as “fair use law”. This material is distributed without profit with the intent to provide commentary, review, education, parody, and increase public health knowledge.

Duck image by the author.  Copyright (c) 2014 Mark Aaron Alsip.  All rights reserved.

Flu Vaccine: The Aluminum Lining

As Modern Alternative Mama (MAMA) launches new articles as part of her shameful “Vaccine Injury Awareness Month” campaign, I’ll continue laying out the facts that show she’s wrong and dangerous.  Today I’m debunking her recent article “No Flu Shot For Me! Fighting the Flu With Essential Oils.”¹

I’m glad she published this article, because it touches on two major topics that come up in nearly every anti-vaccine argument: aluminum in vaccines and flu vaccinations for pregnant women.

So, in this debunking, we’ll be looking at:

• “Toxic” aluminum in vaccines
• Safety of flu vaccines in pregnant women
• Use of “essential oils” (EOs) to combat viruses, and the toxicity of EOs

An important disclaimer here: I’m not a doctor.  Even though I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night,^{9, 10} your ultimate source for medical information should always be a qualified doctor, not something you read on the internet.  I’m here to point out what real doctors and scientists are saying about the nonsense anti-vaccine proponents are spouting.  You’re a smart person.  Please do the research.  The outcomes are important.

Aluminum

Right away, the original article sways from truth and science like Justin Bieber’s car during one of his drunk driving sprees¹⁵.  Not only does MAMA lie about which vaccines include aluminum, she doesn’t understand that it’s safe.

In fact, in other articles, MAMA recommends eating foods rich in aluminum (such as spinach, tea, and potatoes).^{17, 20, 24}  But, for the flu vaccine, not only do we get a reversal of opinion, we get an outright lie:

“We do know, however, that aluminum is added to the flu shot to increase the body’s response to the vaccine. Aluminum is a neurotoxin.”

If you disregard the specific Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccine, flu vaccines do not contain aluminum.^{2, 11, 12} You also won’t find aluminum in other vaccines commonly claimed to be “toxic” by anti-vaxxers, such as those for polio, MMR, or shingles.  Oops.

But, is aluminum a danger in the vaccines (such as hepatitis A & B) that contain it?  No.

Aluminum is added to some vaccines to help boost the response of the body’s immune system.  The most common metal in the Earth’s crust,³ aluminum is an unavoidable part of our diet.  In the USA, the average adult consumes 7-9mg of aluminum per day by eating but eliminates most of it as feces (poop).  People with kidney disease are an exception: the disease effects the body’s ability to eliminate aluminum.³³

Our average adult will accumulate between 50 and 100mg of aluminum in their bodies over an entire lifetime.³  Nearly 100% of that total comes from the food they’ll eat, the water they’ll drink², and the air they’ll breathe.  In addition to water, foods naturally containing aluminum include potatoes, spinach, and tea.⁴ Babies ingest aluminum regardless of whether they’re breast-fed or given milk from a bottle.²

Aluminum enters the environment via natural processes.  A healthy human body is excellent at removing aluminum, regardless of whether it comes from a vaccine or the all-natural health food you ate for dinner.  Studies in humans show it’s poorly absorbed in the first place, and for animals in general, the absorption rate is less than 1%.⁴   It’s ironic that Modern Alternative Mama publishes “healthy living” spinach recipes¹⁷ when spinach naturally contains five times the amount of aluminum of other foods.¹⁶

So, you can’t avoid aluminum unless you give up eating, drinking, and breathing.  But there’s no need to worry: your body can (and does) handle the aluminum safely.  There is no aluminum in the common flu shot.^{2, 11, 12}  For other shots that contain aluminum (for example, hepatitis A & B), the amount of aluminum is insignificant compared to what we obtain from eating, drinking, and breathing.  But your body doesn’t care where the aluminum comes from: it removes it the anti-vaxxer’s favorite way — naturally.

Pregnancy

No good anti-vaccine terror campaign is complete without a cherry-picked legalese quote from a medication insert, and MAMA does not disappoint, chastising a Walgreens’ campaign to get pregnant women vaccinated:

“Walgreen’s conveniently left out the fact that the vaccine inserts themselves recommend women avoid receiving the flu shot.”

This isn’t really true.  Her two inserts say the shots should be given if clearly needed.  And medical experts agree the vaccine is clearly needed.  Pregnant women who get the flu are at a greater risk of complications — including hospitalization and death — than non-pregnant women.  The risk to unborn babies is also higher, including premature birth.^{7, 18}  

Recent research suggests the risk to unvaccinated pregnant women may be higher because their immune systems react in an unusually strong manner when they contract the flu, and urges pregnant women to get the vaccination to prevent the inflammatory effects of the full disease.^{25, 26} (The flu shot is a “dead” virus and cannot give you the flu.)

The vaccine has benefits beyond helping the mother stay alive and healthy.  Antibodies generated in her body as a result of the vaccination can be passed to the unborn baby, giving it protection until it’s old enough to receive its first vaccination at age 6 months.^{7, 19}  Millions of pregnant women have been vaccinated against the flu with no harm to either the mother or baby.⁷

There’s one important warning:  According to the CDC, pregnant women should not receive the live version of the vaccine (the nasal spray), but the inactivated version (the shot) is harmless.^{7, 18, 19} Although we’re specifically talking about pregnant women here, this warning about the live version of the vaccine also applies to certain other groups such as immunosuppressed persons.³² When in doubt, always talk to your doctor.

To contradict all this medical evidence, we get a trio of lies from the anti-vaccination article:

“but manufacturers admit that the impact on a developing human just isn’t known”

“Considering the ‘regular’ flu shots cannot verify safety for pregnant women”

“Besides the lack of safety testing for pregnant women”

Ahem. From the CDC:

“Studies of several thousand pregnant women in scientific literature have assessed the safety of using the flu vaccine during pregnancy. These studies have shown no evidence of harm to pregnant women, to the unborn child (or fetus) or to newborns of vaccinated women.”⁸

And if you do the research, studies back this up.^{8, 13, 14}

It’s interesting to pause here and consider the hypocrisy of MAMA.  Later in her article, she’ll tout the amazing benefits of essential oils in combating viruses, even though their safety for use during pregnancy has never been studied.

Essential Oils

MAMA begins by misquoting a real scientific study⁶, which looked at the effects of essential oils (EO) on bacteria.

The problem is that the flu isn’t caused by bacteria.  It’s caused by a virus.  There’s a huge difference.  Bacteria are single-celled living organisms; viruses are small packages of DNA or RNA that cannot “live” without being injected into a living cell.

So we’re off to a bad start already, with an article using research performed on bacteria to support a conclusion about viruses.

Interestingly, it turns out that chemicals found in essential oils are being studied for anti-viral properties, and are showing promise — in test tubes.^{22, 23}  MAMA doesn’t cite any of these studies, for obvious reasons.  No doubt, if the research results in a promising medicine that works when ingested, anti-vaxxers will dismiss it as a Big Pharma conspiracy.

Or perhaps essential oil fans are embarrassed by the track record of EOs with the FDA.  For example, in September 2014, Living Young, the manufacturer of “Thieves Blend”, an essential oil often pushed on alternative medicine web sites as a cure for nearly everything, was warned by the FDA for making unsubstantiated medical claims about their oil including, incredibly, as a cure for Ebola.²²

Regardless, an article that is supposed to be focused on the flu virus keeps wandering away like a lost puppy to talk about essential oils and bacteria.  After many paragraphs on this red herring, MAMA pulls this magical conclusion out of her [expletive deleted]:

There are many essential oils known for being antiviral. Tea tree (melaleuca), basil, lemon, peppermint, and more. All these oils will enter your body, enter your cells, and fight off viruses that have already taken over your cells. It’s pretty amazing.

What would be even more amazing would be even a single reference to back up this claim!

What we do know from science about essential oils is that some of them can be toxic when ingested:

“However, the ingestion of a few milliliters of essential oils may cause severe symptoms of intoxication like vomiting, respiration failure, and unconsciousness and may lead to death, especially when infants are concerned.”^{28, 29}

A University of Minnesota (UoM) article³⁰ warns that while many essential oils are safe when used on the skin, some can cause serious harm — including liver and other organ damage — when ingested.  The same article warns that some EOs are not safe to apply to the skin, or should not be applied to the skin without dilution, else photo-toxicity can result.  UoM reminds the reader that peppermint oil is heavily laced with methanol-one, which has caused young children to stop breathing.

For children who actually drink an essential oil containing methanol or other toxic ingredients, the results can be tragic.³¹

Conclusion

The flu is dangerous.  In 2010, influenza and pneumonia (which go hand-in-hand) killed over 53,000 people in the United States.²⁷ Except for the Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccine, flu vaccines do not contain aluminum, but aluminum is unavoidable in our diets, and our bodies process it naturally.  Other vaccines that contain aluminum contain far lower amounts than the water we drink or the food we eat, and are safe.

The live (nasal) form of the flu vaccine is not recommended for pregnant women, but the dead (injected) form has been given to millions of pregnant women and medical studies conclude that it is safe.  Finally, although scientific research is being done on the possible benefits of chemicals extracted from essential oils, the article being debunked presents no evidence of any trials in humans — because, as of this writing, there aren’t any.  In fact, some essential oils are known to be toxic when ingested by animals.

References

Note: to avoid increasing search engine exposure for quack web sites, I use the DoNotLink URL obfuscator on their links.  I promise I’m not redirecting you to porn 🙂

(1) No Flu Shot For Me! Fighting the Flu With Essential Oils (original MAMA article)
http://www.donotlink.com/bxtb

(2)  Aluminum in Vaccines: What you should know
http://www.chop.edu/export/download/pdfs/articles/vaccine-education-center/aluminum.pdf

(3) extract, CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 77th Edition
http://education.jlab.org/glossary/abund_ele.html

(4) Aluminum in Drinking Water (World Health Organization)
http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/chemicals/en/aluminium.pdf

(5)  The Cell: A Molecular Approach. 2nd edition
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9928/

(6)  Effect of Essential Oils on Pathogenic Bacteria
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3873673/

(7)  CDC: Pregnant Women Need a Flu Shot
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/pdf/freeresources/pregnant/flushot_pregnant_factsheet.pdf

(8) Seasonal Flu Vaccine Safety and Pregnant Women
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/vaccine/qa_vacpregnant.htm

(9) Holiday Inn Express (Nuclear Meltdown)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm-h7YR_410

(10) Holiday Inn Express (Jeopardy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0o0Jjtvq0Y

(11) Vaccines and Aluminum
https://www.chop.edu/service/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-safety/vaccine-ingredients/aluminum.html

(12)  Vaccine Excipient & Media Summary
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/B/excipient-table-2.pdf

(13)  Adverse events in pregnant women following administration of trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine and live attenuated influenza vaccine in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, 1990-2009
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20965490

(14)  Trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine and spontaneous abortion
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23262941

(15)  Justin Bieber arrested on drunken driving, resisting arrest charges
http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/23/showbiz/justin-bieber-arrest/

(16)  Aluminum in Your Diet
http://www.livestrong.com/article/403282-aluminum-in-your-diet/

(17)   Spinach and Goat Cheese Quesadillas  (original MAMA article)
http://www.donotlink.com/bxu5

(18)  Seasonal Flu Vaccine Safety and Pregnant Women
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/vaccine/qa_vacpregnant.htm

(19)  MAYO Clinic: Pregnancy week by week
http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/pregnancy-week-by-week/expert-answers/influenza/faq-20058522

(20)  Boost Your Produce Budget: smart shopping tips for buying local (MAMA article)
http://www.donotlink.com/bxwg

(21) Virucidal effect of peppermint oil on the enveloped viruses herpes simplex virus type 1 and type 2 in vitro
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/13678235

(22)  FDA Inspections, Compliance, Enforcement, and Criminal Investigations Warning Letter to “Thieves Oil” Manufacturer
http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/2014/ucm416023.htm

(23)  Susceptibility of Drug-Resistant Clinical Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 Strains to Essential Oils of Ginger, Thyme, Hyssop, and Sandalwood
http://aac.asm.org/content/51/5/1859.full

(24) Recipe Collection: Cheesy Potatoes (MAMA article)
http://www.donotlink.com/bxxt

(25)  Immune response turned up high by flu during pregnancy
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2014/09/immune-response-turned-up–not-down–by-flu-during-pregnancy–st.html

(26) Immune Response Turned Up, Not Down, by Flu During Pregnancy
http://www.sciencenewsline.com/articles/2014092221530035.html

(27) Deaths and Mortality
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

(28)  Essential Oil Poisoning, Woolf, Clinical Toxicology, 1999, Vol. 37, No. 6 : pp 721-727
http://informahealthcare.com/doi/pdf/10.1081/CLT-100102450

(29) Antimicrobial Effect of Essential Oil Isolated from Eucalyptus globulus Labill
http://www.agriculturejournals.cz/publicFiles/39925.pdf

(30)  Are Essential Oils Safe?
http://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/explore-healing-practices/aromatherapy/are-essential-oils-safe

(31)  A Case of Methanol Poisoning in a Child
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/crin/2014/652129/

(32)  Prevention and Control of Seasonal Influenza with Vaccines: Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) — United States, 2014–15 Influenza Season
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6332a3.htm#Considerations_Use_Live_Attenuated

(33)  ATSDR Division of Toxicology and Environmental Medicine: Aluminum
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp22-c1-b.pdf

Image Credits

Pandermix flu vaccine from WikiMedia Commons, released into public domain with no restrictions.

Pregnant woman by Inferis, from WikiMedia Commons, used under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.  Image owner does not necessarily share or endorse the views put forth by the author of this article.

Aluminum by Romary, from WikiMedia Commons, used under GNU Free Documentation License.  Image owner does not necessarily share or endorse the views put forth by the author of this article.

Essential Oil from WikiMedia Commons, released into public domain with no restrictions.

Sometimes You Just Have to Laugh

I’m a compassionate person.  I hate to see others suffering, even when they bring it upon themselves.  But when the suffering person not only asks for it, but actively encourages others to engage in the same behavior and then gets burned in the act,  I have to admit letting out an ironic laugh:

Modern Alternative Mama (MAMA) has lost her home to mold.

Why is this funny (in an ironic, “teachable moment” kind of way)?  Take a look at one of MAMA’s most recent Facebook posts, linking to her website article on natural cleaning ¹:

Bad Advice
In her home-cleaning article ¹, MAMA recommends soaking in water, scrubbing with vinegar, baking soda, microfiber cloths, and five other methods that range from dubious to ineffective for cleaning mold.  Much better methods exist, but they aren’t “natural”, so MAMA didn’t use them.  Only one of her methods — scraping, is recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency ².

Soaking in water is especially dubious.  The EPA recommends water and detergent and — very important — drying things up right away.  According to the EPA, mold is usually not a problem indoors, unless

“mold spores land on a wet or damp spot and begin growing”

Vinegar and baking soda have anecdotal support but don’t make the EPA list of what’s recommended and known to work. The EPA article contains a great deal of advice on dealing with mold and the dangers of letting it go untreated.  Danger signs that indicate when to call in professionals are clearly pointed out.  Never one to let science get in the way of folk remedies, we find this gem on MAMA’s web site:

“but really — they work.”  Do they?  Let MAMA answer this herself, via her web site:

The Aftermath
One might ask: how are things working out for MAMA and her family, who are reportedly suffering health problems from the mold?  Well…

Yes… she’s been handling the problem “the natural way”.  If you’ve read past MAMA articles on “detoxing”, you’ll know this involves using natural “pathways” such as pooping, vomiting, and sweating.  Oh, and consuming lots of grains and juices.

As Winnie the Pooh famously said:  “Oh, bother.”

Normally, my heart would go out to someone who’s just lost their home.  But given the amount of dangerous information Modern Alternative Mama dispenses, I have to confess to a (heartless?) smug satisfaction that she’s reaping what she’s sown.

Sometimes, you just have to laugh.

 

References
(Please note: to prevent increasing search engine exposure to quack web sites, I use the excellent DoNotLink service to obfuscate hyperlinks to such sites).

(1)  Top 10 Natural Cleaning Tools I Use  (original MAMA article)
http://www.donotlink.com/bx8u

(2)  A Brief Guide to Mold, Moisture, and Your Home
http://www.epa.gov/mold/moldguide.html#How

Legal Stuff
Images of screen snapshots of Facebook posts in a public forum are used in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, commonly known as “fair use law”. This material is distributed without profit with the intent to provide commentary, review, education, parody, and increase public health knowledge.

Which is Safer: Vaccines or Illnesses?

An internet alternative medicine fringe web site, Modern Alternative Mama (MAMA), has begun promoting “Vaccine Injury Awareness Month” in conjunction with (an announced) dangerous campaign to hawk natural cures for cancer, in scientific mockery of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

I’ll debunk the cancer quackery when it’s published by MAMA, but since the vaccine nonsense came first, I’ll have a go at it in this article.  The MAMA article, “Which is Safer: Vaccines or Illnesses?” ¹, solemnly informs us that:

Let’s get started…

How Dangerous are these Diseases?
This is best answered using pre- and post-vaccination numbers for the United States from a well-referenced article by the National Network for Immunization Information (NNii)²:

• Before 1985, Haemophilus Influenzae type b (Hib) caused serious infections in 20,000 children each year.   In 2002, there were 34 cases.
• In the 1964-65 rubella epidemic, 12.5 million people were infected.  Of the 20,000 babies born with rubella, 11,600 were deaf, 3,580 were blind, and 1,800 were mentally retarded.  There were only 4 cases of congenital rubella between 2001 and 2004.
• In 1952, polio paralyzed more than 21,000 people.  In 2002, the United States was polio-free.
• In the 1920s up to 200,000 cases of diphtheria were reported each year, killing up to  3,000 annually. In 2002, the number of cases in the USA: one.
• Prior to 1963, measles killed more than more than 500 people per year out of an infected total of more than 3 million/year.  In 2002, there were 44 cases of measles nationwide.  (Recently, when vaccination rates dropped due to anti-vaxxers, serious outbreaks of the disease occurred in unvaccinated persons in states such as California and Ohio.  Ohio alone exceeded the entire 2002 nationwide total).
• In the 1940s, whooping cough killed up to 8,000 children per year, infecting an average of 175,000 per year.  In 2002, only 771 cases were reported.

Despite all of this, MAMA somehow concludes:

No MAMA.  The people more likely to get any of these preventable diseases are the people who have not been vaccinated.  Look at the statistics.

How Dangerous are These Vaccines?
MAMA’s best answer to this question is given in her quote here:

Unfortunately, in science, what one person believes or doesn’t believe doesn’t matter.  “I don’t believe it” and conspiracy theories figure heavily into MAMA’s work.

Resorting to scare tactics in the guise of science, MAMA then pulls a package insert from an MMR vaccine and lists every possible side effect, including:

It’s interesting to note MAMA’s hypocrisy here as we quote her article’s thoughts on scare tactics, regarding CDC commentary on ear infections as a vaccine side effect:

MAMA isn’t a bit shy about listing “death” as a possible side effect of the MMR vaccine (which has never been proven⁶), but that doesn’t stop her from accusing the CDC of fear-mongering.  Not to mention openly lying in saying that the CDC statement concludes that hearing loss is likely.

MAMA’s fear-mongering continues with a cherry-picked statistic from the national Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS):

What MAMA doesn’t tell you is the most important thing about VAERS: anyone can file a VAERS report.  No cause-effect relationship between a vaccination and the reported problem is ever established.  For example, I can get the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccination tomorrow, get food poisoning at lunch from a bad burrito, and report the resulting vomiting and diarrhea to VAERS as a reaction to the vaccine, and into the database it goes. ⁷  This disclaimer is in the first paragraph of the VAERS database description.

The irony thickens.  Had MAMA actually read the VAERS introduction, she would have seen the disclaimer:

“VAERS data contains coincidental events” ⁷

… and she wouldn’t write mind-numbingly contradictory tripe like this in the introduction to her article, where she demands hard evidence, not stories, in the vaccine debate:

Yes MAMA, please… no scary tales.  If you’re going to quote from the VAERS database, understand what it is first.  Really.  Please.

Are There Any Benefits to These Diseases?
I’ll leave that up to the reader.

Are blindness, deafness, paralyzation, mental retardation, and death beneficial?

Anyone?

Third World Countries

Perhaps the most offensive part of the the MAMA article deals with Africa.

The article is written in debate/response format, addressed to a reader named Erich, who she tries to shame (along with the CDC) as a fear-mongerer for pointing out the elephant in the room regarding vaccinations and disease.  Before I give you the answer, let’s see if you can figure it out by reading a passage directed to Erich:

No MAMA, we cannot agree, because it’s piss-poor science.  You admit you have the data.  Maybe you should have looked at it.  Since you picked Africa, I’ll pick Africa.  Let’s talk polio, which has been eradicated in the USA (your “first world” country) thanks to vaccinations:

According to UNICEF, more than 70% of the world’s children who have not been vaccinated against polio live either in Africa or Asia. ³

Polio remains an active problem in ten countries worldwide.  Of those countries, eight are in Africa:  Angola, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo,  Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, and Somalia. ^4,5

Eight poorly vaccinated countries.  No wonder MAMA wants to dismiss Africa.

Polio in the Wild (CDC image)

MAMA’s dismissal of immunization statistics regarding Africa is not only scientifically dishonest, it’s also, IMHO, heartless.  African children are not being vaccinated because of socioeconomic conditions (poverty, war, etc.).  According to UNICEF, one impoverished child dies every 20 seconds from a disease preventable by a vaccine. ³ 

“Children in remote rural regions and impoverished areas of cities in poor and emerging countries are not being vaccinated” — UNICEF Report

… and, of course, children in “first world” countries such as the USA are being vaccinated… unless MAMA gets her way.

Figures lie, and liars figure…

A large part of the MAMA article involves some very hazy math prefaced repeatedly by her favorite term “let’s assume”.  Rather than combat fictional numbers, I’ll simply point out that she quotes from the CDC “Pink Book” (Epidemiology and Prevention of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases) which supports her anti-vaccine numbers like a flea supports an elephant on its back.  But then we get this gem:

Why oh why would you rely on statistics from a source you don’t believe is accurate?  And why oh why would you write a supposedly science-based article and lace it with statements about your beliefs, and your assumptions, rather than hard numbers?

Why?

Because when you assume, and base your pseudoscience on personal beliefs, you can make anything seem true.

 

References
(Please note: to avoid increasing search engine positioning for dubious, quack web sites, I use the excellent DoNotLink.com redirect service for hyperlinks to these sites).

(1) Which is Safer: Vaccines or Illnesses?  (original MAMA article)
http://www.donotlink.com/bw1o

(2)  Vaccine Effectiveness:  Do vaccines work?
http://www.immunizationinfo.org/parents/why-immunize

(3) UNICEF Immunization
http://www.unicef.org/immunization/index_bigpicture.html

(4)  UNICEF Polio
http://www.unicef.org/immunization/polio/

(5) Interim CDC Guidance for Polio Vaccination for Travel to and from Countries Affected by Wild Polio Virus
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6327a4.htm

(6)   MMR (Measles, Mumps, & Rubella) Vaccine
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/vis/vis-statements/mmr.html#reaction

(7)  VAERS Data
https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/index

Nurses Against Mandatory Patient Safety

I’ve just run across a post in a Facebook group that epitomizes my favorite Isaac Asimov quote:

“There is a cult of ignorance […] nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’.”

Here’s the post, from a group known as Nurses Against Mandatory Vaccines:
Let’s concentrate on the highlighted portion:   If you are a nurse or other health care provider in direct contact with patients, not only is it your employer’s right to know which medical diagnoses and/or vaccinations you’ve had, it is the patient’s right to know. 

You see, like bad advice, diseases can be passed along from person to person.  In the case of a medical provider who comes into contact with a lot of infectious disease, the odds of passing along the disease increases– much in the same way the odds of receiving bad advice increase for those coming into more frequent contact with the bad advice found in the Nurses Against Bad Vaccines forum.

Perhaps the nurse who wrote this gem of a post has never heard of contagious diseases such as Ebola.  If I’m a patient and my nurse has Ebola, he is carrying with him a near-certain death sentence (1) —  a highly contagious death-sentence during certain stages of the disease.  Certain death for him; very likely certain death for me.  I don’t have a right to know?  Really?

There’s a word for this idea, and that word describes the material that comes out of the back ends of male cattle after a long day of feeding.  (To prevent offending the delicate sensibilities of my readers, I don’t want to say the word “bullshit” in my blog.)

Oops.

Back to the subject…

If my medical care provider has been diagnosed with an infectious disease, I have a right to know his/her medical condition.  Going back to the Isaac Asimov quote:  the nurse may feel that he/she has a democratic right to keep this information secret.  However, not realizing the danger he/she poses to me is scientific ignorance on the nurse’s part, and it does not trump the patient’s scientific knowledge.  Come to think of it, it doesn’t trump the patient’s rights either.

But What if the Nurse Isn’t Infected Yet?
Maybe an already-infected Ebola patient is an unfair example.  In the spirit of sincerity and fairness, let’s look at pre-infection cases involving more common infectious diseases that are preventable by safe and effective vaccines which are readily available: Influenza,  Measles, Mumps, Rubella, and Chickenpox (2).  (Of these, Measles is particularly deadly in children (3), and Chickenpox can cause extreme complications (and even death) in adults (4).)

What the author of this Nurses Against Mandatory Vaccines post is really campaigning against is getting vaccinated and/or making their vaccination status known.  Do I as a patient have a right to know if my nurse has been vaccinated, and/or demand removal from the doctor’s office of nurses who haven’t?

Pseudoscience groups have yet to come up with a shred of evidence that any vaccine I’ve mentioned here is dangerous, while study after study has shown that vaccinations are key to preventing the spread of these diseases.  I’ve blogged on this twice with exhaustive lists of references (5) (6).

If my nurse has not been vaccinated against infectious diseases, I have a right to know.  Because of herd immunity (7) and the fact that no vaccine provides a 100% guarantee, it’s especially important that an unvaccinated health care provider doesn’t come anywhere near myself or a loved one. To be blunt, I have a right to know if my nurse is a potential Typhoid Mary (8).

Health care workers are exposed to more potential virus carriers than you or I.  That’s a fact of life in the hospital or doctor’s office.  There’s a reason that experts recommended that the first people to receive the first Ebola vaccines be healthcare providers (9) — not only were they most at risk — they were the most likely to become breeding grounds for the virus and pass it on to other people.

Because a health care worker’s first priority is the care of the patient, and vaccines do not place the health care worker at risk, patients have a right to know if their health care provider is an unvaccinated breeding ground for a highly infectious disease.

Legal Precedent/Expectations
But is there a legal precedent for this?  Are there any other professions where both the employer and the consumer have a legal expectation to know the health status of the employee?

Well, yes.  As a matter of fact, there is.

Have you ever flown on a commercial airliner?  The health requirements for airline pilots are quite strict (10).  When an anti-vaccine nurse steps onto her flight from Dallas to Miami, she knows for a fact that the pilot in the cockpit is certifiably free of nearly two dozen serious medical conditions (11).   Why?  Because the health and safety of others are directly affected by the pilot.

If the pilot has a problem in flight, it very quickly becomes a problem for every passenger on the plane.

Sounds a lot like vaccinations, doesn’t it?  Any anti-vaccine nurses out there willing to fly on a Delta Airlines flight piloted by a woman suffering from angina pectoris, epilepsy, or substance abuse?   I didn’t think so.

So, no, a person whose work directly involves the safety of others does not have a right to expectation of privacy concerning health matters that would adversely and directly affect others, and/or engage in health behavior that would adversely and directly affect others.  Nurses, get your vaccinations.

Epilogue
In an upcoming article, I’ll be taking down some specific, dangerously false information being put out by anti-vaccine groups, including the hilarious claim that your best defense against the Shingles infection is repeated exposure to/infection by Chickenpox.  Until then, I’ll leave you with a photo of myself getting the 45th flu shot of my life, and encourage you to talk to your doctor and get one for yourself and your children as well.

I’m not dead yet!

(1) Medline Plus, Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001339.htm

(2) Vaccines.gov
http://www.vaccines.gov/diseases/index.html

(3) Vaccines to Prevent Measles
http://www.vaccines.gov/diseases/measles/index.html

(4) CDC – Chickenpox Complications
http://www.cdc.gov/chickenpox/about/complications.html

(5)  The state With the Highest Vaccination Rate Has the Highest Infant Mortality Rate
https://badscidebunked.wordpress.com/2014/09/24/copy2/

(6)  Uneducated Chiropractor and Nurse Endanger Life of Three Month Old Child
https://badscidebunked.wordpress.com/2014/09/21/uneducated-chiropractor-and-nurse-endanger-life-of-three-month-old-child/

(7)  Herd Immunity
http://www.vaccines.gov/basics/protection/

(8)  Typhoid Mary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoid_Mary

(9)  A looming problem: How to ration Ebola vaccines and medicines
http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-ebola-drug-rationing-20140918-story.html#page=1

(10)  FAA:  Pilot Medical Certification Questions and Answers
https://www.faa.gov/licenses_certificates/medical_certification/faq/

(11)  FAA:  Disqualifying Conditions for Pilot Certification
https://www.faa.gov/licenses_certificates/medical_certification/faq/response6/

“The state With the Highest Vaccination Rate Has the Highest Infant Mortality Rate”

It’s rare to run across facts from an anti-vaccine proponent, so it shocked me when I found out this one was true:

According to a 2010 CDC report on infant mortality, Mississippi led the USA with 9.62 infant deaths per 1,000 live births (1). Gleefully, anti-vaxxers point out multiple references showing Mississippi also leads the nation in vaccinating children, with rates at or better than 99.9% overall. For example see references (2) and (3).

As a scientist, I’m forced to concede facts, and here we have one:  the state with the best vaccination record is also losing children at the highest rate.

So what’s the problem here? Are vaccinations failing to protect the children of Mississippi as the anti-vaccination forum post claimed? Or, worse yet, are vaccinations somehow harming the children?

Well, as is often the case, just because someone is throwing a fact out at you, it doesn’t mean they’re being honest. I’ve always found this to be true of the anti-vaccination crowd, so I did a bit of research. My suspicions were confirmed, and what’s really happening in Mississippi is obvious.

Comparing Apples to Oranges
The problem is that Mississippi children are dying at birth, before they ever have a shot at vaccination (no pun intended). Or, they’re dying from causes that couldn’t be helped by a vaccine. For example, how do you vaccinate a child in the womb against a parent who smokes (smoking causes pre-mature birth, which leads to higher infant mortality)?

According to a 2013 Mississippi Infant Mortality Report (4), pre-term birth complications are the leading causes of infant death. Birth defects account for 19.1% of deaths, low birth weight/prematurity 15.2%, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) 10.6%… accidents, maternal complications, respiratory distress, and infections present at birth are all in the top 10 – none possibly preventable (or caused by) vaccines.

Let’s say this again because it’s the point anti-vaxxers intentionally choose to ignore: Mississippi infants are dying before they ever live long enough to get vaccinated.

Another major contributor to infant mortality in Mississippi is socioeconomic conditions. According to the same report (4), poor and un-insured women, teens, and African-American women are more likely to lose babies due to pre-term births.  For example, there are 14.1 pre-term births for white Mississippian women vs. 20.6 for blacks per 1,000 live births.  As pointed out two paragraphs earlier, pre-term birth complications are the leading cause of infant death in this state.

Why am I harping on about social and economic conditions in a discussion of infant mortality rates in Mississippi?  Well, we know they’re a contributor to higher infant mortality. Guess which is the poorest state in the USA? Yes, it’s Mississippi (5).   How do you vaccinate a child against a mother’s lack of access to proper pre-natal care?

The socioeconomic study is reinforced by a CDC study (6) that shows infant mortality rates nationwide for black women are more than twice those for white women. Why would this matter for infant mortality in Mississippi? According to the 2010 U.S. Census, Mississippi has the highest percentage of African-Americans in the United States (7).

Last but not least, exposure to cigarette smoke is known to have an effect on low birthweight, which in turn increases the risk of infant mortality (4). A 2013 Gallup poll places Mississippi third in the nation when it comes to addiction to cigarette smoking, behind only Kentucky and West Virginia (8). No wonder so many children are dying. How do you vaccinate a child against a parent who smokes?

So now we know why so many children are dying in Mississippi, and anti-vaccine nutters are comparing apples to oranges when quoting infant mortality and vaccination rates for the state.

But let’s not stop there – let’s compare vaccinated Mississippi children against unvaccinated children in other states.

Comparing Apples to Apples
Before poorly informed anti-vaccination campaigners started making their rounds, measles was a disease that was considered beaten. Now, thanks to unvaccinated children, it’s on the comeback, and people are dying (12).

In the news recently, the three states with the highest number of measles outbreaks were Ohio [138], California [60], and New York City [26] (9). How do OH, CA, and NY compare to well-vaccinated Mississippi when it comes to MMR (Measles-Mumps-Rubella) vaccinations?   If you’re anti-vaccine lady whose quote opened this article, you’re not going to like the answer:  Ohio, California, and New York lag Mississippi by 3 to 7 percent in vaccination levels (9).  And that lady needs to sit down now and hold on to her seat:

How many measles cases have been reported in highly vaccinated Mississippi?  In the last decade, there has been one confirmed case of measles in the Magnolia State.

To drive the point home, most of the 288 measles cases reported in the USA this year have been in unvaccinated persons or those with unknown vaccination status (9).  So Mississippi is clearly doing a great job, once the child lives long enough to get vaccinated.

If the anti-vaccine lady is still seated, she should stay there, because it gets worse.

Measles isn’t the only example for which we have hard evidence.  In 2012, the largest Chickenpox outbreak in the USA hit Vigo County in Indiana (11). 84 cases were reported in a county that usually sees less than 10 per year. Chickenpox can cause serious problems for older children and adults and is extremely contagious.

In 2012, the state of Indiana reported 469 cases of Chickenpox. Mississippi reported only 11 (13). Not surprisingly, Indiana ranks very poorly compared to Mississippi – approximately 7% less of the Indiana population is vaccinated against Chickenpox (3).  Again, when you look at the facts, Mississippi’s vaccination programs are working, while states with poor vaccination records are suffering the consequences.

Conclusion
When reading anti-vaccination posts in online forums and on Facebook, it’s best to keep an old saying in mind:

 “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure”

The quote has been attributed to various sources including Mark Twain, but regardless of who said it, the truth behind the Mississippi vaccination/infant mortality myth is nothing more than a phenomenon with a fancy name of false or illusory correlation: you simply take two numbers that have nothing to do with each other, and convince your audience that there’s a relationship between them.

I’ll close by a fun example of false correlation that everyone can understand, courtesy of the Spurious Correlation Generator at http://www.tylervigen.com: Did you know that taking anti-diabetic drugs is directly linked to your chances of drowning in a fishing boat accident?

Hey, anti-vaccine believers, the numbers don’t lie!

References
(1)  CDC Infant Deaths Per 1,000 Live Births, By State: 2010
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/states/INFANT_MORTALITY_RATES_STATE_2010.pdf

(2)  Advisory Board Company Daily Briefing – States With the Best – and Worst – Vaccine Coverage (August 2013)
http://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2013/08/08/the-states-with-the-best-and-worst-vaccine-coverage

(3)  CDC MMWR Vaccination Coverage Among Children in Kindergarten –USA, 2012-13 School Year
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6230a3.htm?s_cid=mm6230a3_e#Tab1

 (4)  Mississippi Department of Health and Vital Statistics
http://msdh.ms.gov/msdhsite/_static/resources/5629.pdf

(5) State & County Quick Facts, United States Census Bureau
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/download_data.html

(6)  Recent Declines in Infant Mortality in the United States, NCHS Data Brief, April 2013 http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db120.pdf

(7)  Historical Census Statistics on Population Totals By Race, U.S. Census Bureau http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0056/twps0056.html

(8)  Gallup Well-Being: In U.S., Smoking Rate Loest in Utah, Highest in Kentucky http://www.gallup.com/poll/167771/smoking-rate-lowest-utah-highest-kentucky.aspx

(9)  CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6322a4.htm

(10)  Mississippi Morbidity Report, Vol 24, No. 12. Dec 2008
http://msdh.ms.gov/msdhsite/_static/resources/3095.pdf

(11)  Largest Chickenpox Outbreak in the U.S. Hits Vigo County in Indiana  (Huffington Post 11/27/2012)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/27/chickenpox-outbreak-largest-vigo-county-indiana_n_2199231.html

(12)  World Health Organization “Measles”
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs286/en/

(13)  CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Summary of Notifiable Diseases – United States 2012
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6153a1.htm?s_cid=mm6153a1_w