Nancy Snyderman Exposed

I became aware of Dr. Snyderman in 2009 when she asked:

“What are we going to do to address the crazy people….who’ve decided that vaccines are not good enough for their kids?”

Last week she, along with a number of vaccine fan boys and cheerleaders, blanketed the airwaves extolling the virtues of vaccination and the imagined consequences befalling those failing to embrace the practice. I thought today we'd take a look at her recent comments as well as reflect on what Snyderman's had to say about vaccines and infectious illnesses over the last several years. Doing so should allow us to discover who the crazy one really is.

On Tuesday of last week she appeared with Matt Lauer on a Today Show segment entitled Prepare for Winter Illnesses . Matt wanted to know the difference between having the flu and having a cold. The ever- authoritative (yet consistently incorrect) Snyderman replied, when you have the flu you’re “usually out of work for two weeks”. Two weeks? Really? That seems strange. After all when I was a school child none of my classmates missed school for two weeks due to the flu. And have you ever heard of or seen a hockey or basketball player missing two weeks of their season due to the flu. Do news anchors or anyone else appearing on live TV generally disappear from our living rooms for two weeks each winter? Sadly, there seems to be nothing supporting Dr. Snyderman’s wild claim. But wait those are just anecdotes. Have any studies been done. Well, I’m glad you asked. This is from Flu Prevention Partners, a site encouraging flu vaccination: 

Flu: Work Loss (days/case): Work Loss Days are the number of work days absent, per episode of influenza illness. A study of the impact of influenza and influenza-like illness on productivity and healthcare resource utilization in a working population by Keech, et al. found that the mean of lost workdays was 2.8, with a range of +/- 2.0. 

The discussion then moved to whooping cough. When Matt asked if it could develop from a cold she replied it's a different virus - since pertussis is a bacterium, she again demonstrated she knows as much about infectious illness as she does vaccination: nothing.

Matt then asked why we’re seeing whooping cough outbreaks. Nancy gave two answers that, as could be expected, were both demonstrably wrong. Answer one was that it was Winter and were all inside coughing on one another. Unfortunately for Nancy, pertussis’ peak season is, according to the Textbook of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, between July and October.

Nancy’s second answer was as predictable as it was incorrect: vaccine refusal and pockets of unvaccinated children. Here's a quote from her that appeared last week on the Today Show's website expounding on the her explanatory fantasies. She wrote:

Since that first erroneous report [a study linking the MMR vaccine to autism] was published, we have seen outbreaks of measles and whooping cough in various cities around the country. In fact, California in 2010 broke a 55-year-old record for the number of cases of whooping cough. That's directly related to parents who haven’t vaccinated their children.

But pockets of unvaccinated children did not cause or worsen the 2010 outbreak. The real reasons for it were increased awareness and weak vaccine. I addressed this issue last week but thought a few more bits of evidence would be of interest. A 2008 article appearing in Future Microbiology entitled Factors Contributing to Pertussis Resurgence stated: 

A resurgence of pertussis is observed in highly immunized populations. Many studies have shown that the causes for the resurgence are multiple, such as increased awareness of disease, use of better diagnostic tools, improved surveillance methods and waning vaccine-induced immunity. 

While the Mayo Clinic offered this explanation:

Whooping cough is thought to be on the rise for two main reasons. The whooping cough vaccine you receive as a child eventually wears off, leaving most teenagers and adults susceptible to the infection during an outbreak — and there continue to be regular outbreaks. In addition, children aren't fully immune to whooping cough until they've received at least three shots, leaving those 6 months and younger at greatest risk of contracting the infection. 

And according to the California State Department of Health, as of March 2010

Vaccination coverage in California is at or near all-time high levels 

Finally immunizeca.org reports:

Pertussis is the only disease that despite high levels of vaccination in early childhood continues to remain widespread in California

Nancy concluded the segment by going into a vaccination sales pitch, imagining pertussis to be totally preventable with a simple childhood vaccination. Yes Nancy, all we need is the initial series of three shots at 2, 4 and 6 months, then one at 15-18 months, then one at 4-6 years, then one at 11, then an adult shot and then one possibly  every ten years thereafter.  

Maybe Nancy was just having a bad week. Maybe previous TV appearances show her to be knowledgeable and authoritative Let's travel back in time and see.

In 2010 she reported on a number of measles deaths in Philadelphia. These deaths turned out to have been nothing more than figments of her own vaccine-drenched imagination. She repeated the claim in February 2010 on Morning Joe:

Right now we have children dying in the united states of America from measles, mumps…

While in May of 2009 Snyderman appeared on a particularly misleading and error-riddled segment Today Show segment. The hype began with NBC imagining a non-existent scenario:

As more parents are choosing to refuse immunizations, at least one serious childhood illness is on the rise. NBC’s chief medical editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman talks with TODAY’s Meredith Vieira. 

Meridith began:

According to recent studies an increasing number of parents are refusing vaccines…and new research out this morning says that decision has led to a sharp increase in at least one serious childhood illness.

The entire statement was either false of misleading. First there's the problem with the implication that an increasing number of parents are refusing vaccines. Here's why. If for example if 5,000 more parents fill out an exemption form (remember, the population of children in California is almost ten million) and the exemption rate goes from 1 to 2% the overall rate can rise due to other factors occurring in the community. It's therefore disingenuous to imply "more parents are choosing to refuse immunizations" when one could just as easily, and more accurately, say increasing numbers of parents are choosing immunization.

Second, the research to which Meridith referred said nothing about "a sharp increase in at least one serious childhood illness". The study to which she referred simply reported and association between unvaccinated children and an increased likelihood of contracting pertussis(these unvaccianted children were,as opposed to vaccinated children, three times more likely to be tested for pertussis when presenting with an upper respiratory infection and therefore more likely to be diagnosed) So Viera's "new research" did not say there were enough of these children  to offset generally high vaccination rates elsewhere and therefore set the state ablaze.

The two ladies then engaged in a discussion of pertussis then Nancy misinformed Meridith that pertussis was “an easily to die from illness” but failed to explain how that made any sense when, out of one million estimated cases each year, only ~20 deaths occur. Perhaps she was estimating severity based on only reported cases. But during last years California epidemic only 8 deaths occurred out of ~8,000 cases.

Finally, she, echoing her theme of last week, went on to lament:

“We nearly wiped it[pertussis] out but we’ve become complacent and now so complacent such that in 1994 there were about 1000 cases of whooping cough in this country a decade later 26k cases” Yet she did not elaborate as to how we became so complacent when rates were and are at all-time highs?

The lesson Snyderman drives home is that those comprising the Machine, regardless of qualification or so-called expertise, have either no idea what they're talking about or no compunction about misinforming parents in order to simply move more vaccine off the shelves.

I Love This Baby!

Fluoridation: From Miracle to Debacle

Today the government finally concluded it could no longer pretend it's actions didn't cause damage to the teeth of millions of American children. It admitted to what I, and other critics of the practice of fluoridation, have been saying for years: fluoride harms children

MSNBC reports:

Too much fluoride in water, government says

High levels causing spots on teeth; recommended limit to be lowered 

...the splotchy tooth condition, fluorosis, is unexpectedly common in kids ages 12 through 15. And it appears to have grown much more common since the 1980s.

As one who criticizes the government for clinging to practices already in place in order to save face, I must commend The Department of Health and Human Services for admitting that the public health miracle of fluoridation has actually been harming America's children for decades

Their decison to change fluoridation policy - a tragic mistake from the beginning - is a scathing indictment of the public health activists who first implemented the misguided and foolish policy of adding a toxic chemical to our children's drinking water.

AC Mnookin 5150

Yesterday I had the great pleasure to come across, in both print and on TV, vaccination's newest fan boy: Seth Mnookin. Mnookin, a former music critic, has just written The Panic Virus: a forthcoming book exploring the controversy surrounding vaccinations and autism. I’d just finished reading a Newsweek article he’d written when I noticed that CNN’s Anderson Cooper was hosting a segment on the topic of Mnoonkin’s book: vaccines and autism. The article, and appearance with Cooper, found Mnookin reciting a number of vaccine establishment talking points (if these guys were in high school they’d all get kicked out for copying each others work) Chief among these talking points was that vaccination rates are "plummeting" and this is causing, throughout the country, enormous suffering and death.

There’s only one problem with Mnookin's scenario: vaccination rates are today incredibly high.

In September 2010 Anne Schuchat, M.D., director of CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases stated

it's encouraging to see immunization rates remaining high...Nearly all parents are choosing to have their children protected against dangerous childhood diseases through vaccination," 

As a result of a mismatch between reality and expedience the establishment has found it necessary to create a scenario in which a decline – no matter how small - in one segment of the population has the power to offset high levels of compliance in the larger population

These small declines - significant statistically but miniscule in terms of actual numbers - are purported to be taking place in "enclaves" of affluent and well educated. The "enclave" claim serves not only the purpose of perpetuating the myth that vaccination rates are collapsing but that those responsible for the non-existent collapse are somehow strange, different and weird. Not like the rest of obedient America

One particular result of the imagined disintegration of vaccination rates is, according to Mnookin, a pertussis outbreak which occurred in California in 2010.

But when we step outside of the world of fantasy and into the one of reality we find it’s The Enclaves of Affluence thesis that disintegrates. Here’s why:

The brunt of the epidemic was borne, not by the affluent, but by Hispanic Americans, a group whose median income is about half that of non-hispanic whites. According to ABC News

Three-quarters of hospitalizations occurred in infants younger than 6 months, and of those, three-quarters were Hispanic

And nine of the ten deaths in California were in Hispanic children. This even though the group comprises only 37% of the state's population

Additionally The New York Times in a story entitled "Vaccination Is Steady, but Pertussis Is Surging" reports

The rise in pertussis doesn’t seem to be related to parents’ refusing to have their children vaccinated for fear of potential side effects. In California, pertussis rates are about the same in counties with high childhood vaccination rates and low ones. And the C.D.C. reports that pertussis immunization rates have been stable or increasing since 1992.

Nothing about enclaves, pockets of non-compliance or increasing exemptions

What then are the real reasons for this recent outbreak? They're quite simple and, unlike the enclave argument, have actually evidence supporting them.

The Vaccine Isn’t Very Good

An initial series of five shots administered between the ages of 2months and 6years is followed by a booster at ten or eleven. Then a single adult vaccination that may, according to Dr. Mark Sawyer, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of California San Diego, eventually be given every ten years. That is until at some point our public health masters simply hook up to a pertussis vaccine IV

So what is it that we get for all these injections? Well according to Michael Sicilia, a spokesman for the California Department of Public Health “the pertussis vaccine isn't perfect and its protection wanes after about five years.”

And even five years of protection may be an overly optimistic assessment. According to The San Diego Union-Tribune

Health officials launched the study after realizing that a significant number of 7- to 10-year-olds who got the recommended five-dose series of pertussis immunizations between the ages of 2 months and six years are coming down with whooping cough this year. 

Unfortunately this “protection” pales in comparison to natural immunity. According to a study appearing in PLOS Pathogens:

Our results support a period of natural immunity that is, on average, long-lasting (at least 30 years) but inherently variable. 

In light of the above, it’s not surprising that between 66 and 75% of cases were in the vaccinated

Adults Don’t Want It 

Normal adults, not just those living in enclaves, don't want the pertussis vaccine. According to the CDC just 6-14% of adults have received it.

San Diego public health officials claim:

...we need 90 percent of the population to be vaccinated to have sufficient group immunization... based on our surveys in San Diego, we believe that just 10 percent of adults have had the booster. 

A Million Unreported Cases Each Year 

It been long known that every year there are several million cases most of which go undiagnosed. According to a 2003 commentary appearing in Pediatric by leading pertussis expert James D. Cherry, MD:

There are about 1 million cases of pertussis in adolescents and adults in the United States each year and about 13% of all prolonged cough illnesses in adolescents and adults are attributable to B pertussis infection.

It's hard to have herd immunity when the herd has pertussis.

The Normal 5 Year Cycle

Pertusis epidemics occur in cycles of approxamately five years. The last epidimic in 2005 lead to eight deaths in California: almost the same number as 2010. For the country as a whole, it appears overall deaths in 2010 will fail to exceed 2005's total

Mom's with Vaccine-Induced "Immunity"

If you contract pertussis at ten and therefore obtain at least thirty years of natural immunity, it's unlikely your baby will contract the illness from you. If on the other hand, your vaccine-induced immunity was obtained at eleven, your five years of protection will have expired by the time you have children.

So based on the evidence, it seems Mnookin's borrowed thesis is not a viable theory but rather a simple contrivance designed to do nothing more than push more and more unwanted vaccine on a skeptical public

Overtreat Me

MSNBC reported yesterday on yet another overused medical intervention that may be putting our children at risk. The headline read “kid's radiation exposure is common and dangerous” while the story reported

The first large study to examine the use of X-rays, CT scans and other medical radiation in children estimates the average child will get more than seven radiation scans by age 18, a potentially worrisome trend.

More troubling is a child’s unique vulnerability to these tests

Children's developing tissues are more sensitive to radiation and their longer life spans allow more time for risk to build up. 

The main source of concern emerging from the study was the use of CT scans

And while the MSNBC piece does not state directly that these tests are being over-performed other sources have addressed the issue. In 2007 USA Today quoted the author of a study examining the necessity of these tests: 

About one-third of all CT scans that are done right now are medically unnecessary," says David Brenner of Columbia University, lead author of the study reported in today's New England Journal of Medicine.

As to the possible consequences, the paper went on:

Overuse of diagnostic CT scans may cause as many as 3 million excess cancers in the USA over the next two to three decades, doctors report...

  

Further, in August of last year, Fierce Health care reported on a story appearing in the Chicago Tribune quoting doctors expressing their concerns over excess radiation attributable to CT scan overuse:

Children often have scans at other hospitals that were not needed or the right area wasn't imaged, said Dr. James Donaldson, chairman of medical imaging at Children's Memorial. Worse yet, many scans involve high radiation doses that weren't adjusted for a child's size or weight.

  

This in not to say CT scans and other radiation-emitting procedures should always be avoided. Time magazine’s Dr. Scott Haig, in 2007, examined the radiation issue in its entirety and in regards to evaluating the appropriateness of CT scanning had this to say:

  

CT is absolutely necessary with head trauma and acute abdominal conditions. Minutes can make a difference in these cases — if, say, there's bleeding around your brain and you can't get an MRI — and the speed of a CT scan makes it worth the risk. But in most other situations, it's wise to let the doctor convince you it's worth it, before consenting to the scan
 

The wheels of medicine turn slowly so institutional change is unlikely to arrive anytime soon. Therefore if you find yourself in a situation that my require radiation exposure, make the medical professionals with whom you deal aware of your concerns regarding the capricious and improper use of radiation-emitting devices. After all, the more informed and aware we are as patients the better we can navigate a medical system that does not always act either rationally or in our best interests.

Merry Christmas

Geeks and Nerds

 

As we count down to the release of Paul Offit's latest book, I thought it would be a good time to briefly examine one of his pet theories regarding autism. 

Offit, who will embrace any hypothesis that deflects attention away from a possible link between vaccines and the disorder, has come up with the "autistics are really geeks" theory. 

ABC news reports him as saying:

People that we once called quirky or geeky or nerdy are now called autistic

and the evidence he presents to support this assertion? 

because when you give that label of say, autistic spectrum disorder, you allow that child then to qualify for services which otherwise they wouldn't be qualified to get."

That's it? The government services did it. I'm not even sure what government services would be of value to geeks and nerds.


In addition to an absence of evidence supporting his hypothesis, Offit's revelation seems to conflict with his belief that autism is a condition with a strong genetic component. On page 218 of Autism's False Prophets he states: 

The first clue to the cause of autism is that it's genetic. 

Since those traits thought of as "geeky" would be present in both child and parent, his genetic theory would seem to conflict with his geek theory since so many non-geeky parents have autistic children.

After all when I attend autism conferences, there’s nary a geek in the house. While parents of autistic children such as Dan Marino, Jenny McCarthy, John Travolta, Holly Robinson-Peete and Sylvester Stallone hardly seem like nerds. 

Additionally Geeks and nerds had geek and nerd friends and interacted with one another. Yet difficulty with social interaction is a key diagnostic feature of any autism spectrum disorder

Finally, anyone with even a cursory understanding of autism realizes there’s noting in the DSM that would cause one to conflate the two conditions

Diagnostic Criteria for Autistic Disorder

A. A total of six (or more) items from (1), (2), and (3), with at least two from (1), and one each from (2) and (3)

(1) qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following:

(a) marked impairment in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body postures, and gestures to regulate social interaction
(b) failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level
(c) a lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people (e.g., by a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of interest)
(d) lack of social or emotional reciprocity

(2) qualitative impairments in communication as manifested by at least one of the following:

(a) delay in, or total lack of, the development of spoken language (not accompanied by an attempt to compensate through alternative modes of communication such as gesture or mime)
(b) in individuals with adequate speech, marked impairment in the ability to initiate or sustain a conversation with others
(c) stereotyped and repetitive use of language or idiosyncratic language
(d) lack of varied, spontaneous make-believe play or social imitative play appropriate to developmental level

(3) restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activities, as manifested by at least two of the following:

(a) encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or focus
(b) apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals
(c) stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (e.g., hand or finger flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements)
(d) persistent preoccupation with parts of objects

B. Delays or abnormal functioning in at least one of the following areas, with onset prior to age 3 years: (1) social interaction, (2) language as used in social communication, or (3) symbolic or imaginative play

C. The disturbance is not better accounted for by Rett's Disorder or Childhood Disintegrative Disorder.

Since there seems to be nothing remotely similar between an autism diagnosis and what we would think of as a geek or nerd, perhaps Offit, by "autism" means PDD NOS - which is a diagnosis falling under the autistic spectrum. Let's look at the diagnostic guidelines for PDD NOS then

PDD NOS

This category should be used when there is a severe and pervasive impairment in the development of reciprocal social interaction or verbal and nonverbal communication skills or when stereotyped behavior, interests, and activities are present but the criteria are not met for a specific pervasive developmental disorder,

Admittedly, the above criteria is somewhat cryptic, but it's far from certain - or even plausible - that  "severe and pervasive impairment" is today's version of nerdiness.

Of course if autism was always present at current levels, todays expanded vaccine schedule could not have caused an increase that, in actuality, never occurred

So there we have it. The man who believes that vitamins are more dangerous than vaccines, that children can get 100,000 vaccinations on one day and that vaccines aren't very profitable; is trying to sell the idea that autism is really nothing new based on a self-contradictory theory apparently woven out of whole cloth. 

Give It Away Give It Away Give It Away Now!

In 1991, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers recorded this song about what would have to be done with all the unwanted flu vaccine circulating throughout present-day America. The only question is how did they, almost 20 years ago, know what the Wall Street Journal is reporting just today.


According to the Journal:

Drugstores, supermarkets and some doctors' offices are slashing prices or offering other kinds of deals on flu vaccine this year amid weaker-than-expected demand.

Rite Aid Corp., for example, is offering coupon booklets for household and beauty items to customers who get the shots.

CVS Caremark Corp., which has already promoted its shots with in-store discounts, plans a wave of advertisements after the holiday season.

Walgreen Co., the nation's largest pharmacy by store count, had set a target of delivering 15 million flu shots this fall and winter. But through November, it had administered only 5.6 million shots.

And finally, Thomas Haugh, the practice administrator at Accent Urgent Care is quoted as saying:

We can't give them away

When Happy Meets Crazy

   

 

Apparently prompted, or perhaps exploited, by the do-gooders at The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a one Ms. Monet Parham, not surprisingly, a government employee, is suing McDonald’s because as a consequence of their Happy Meal ads, she has been subjected to the unbearable fate of receiving from her children “constant requests for McDonald's Happy Meals.” 

Exacerbating the problem is the apparent fact that either her TV has no off switch or her children overpower her when she attempts to use it. Or perhaps while she’s sleeping the Hamburglar sneaks into her home, puts the TV on to the McDonald’s commercial network and forces her children to watch.

Unbeknownst to Ms. Parham, some child psychologists and early childhood development experts recommend saying the word "no" when a child makes an inappropriate request (Perhaps the state should fund parenting lessons to make her and those like her aware of these and other parenting secrets.)

Further details were sketchy. For example news reports did not specify which of Ms. Parham’s two children, the two or the six year old drives when it’s time to procure the latest toy. Additionally, the media failed to go into details regarding the professions from which the youngsters obtain the funds with which they purchase their delicious treats.

One final oddity surrounding this story is that listening to this woman and her handlers, you’d think the child had to eat the meal to get the toy. I doubt the store manger sits at the Parham table exhorting her children to clean their plates before he dispenses the toy of the week. Ms. Parham, if you too weak to resist your children - and if the toy and not the food is the object of your children's desire - buy the meal, keep the toy and give the food to the needy

McDonald’s is not the villain in this case. The villains are those who, unable to care for themselves, look to the government care for them by controlling the actions of others

It would be a travesty if the court disregarded the concept of individual and parental responsibility and decided in favor of these misguided plaintiffs

Disclosure: I am a McDonald's shareholder and sometimes customer. I go for the food not the toys.

Run Grandma Run!

As we barrel headlong into the teeth of another killer flu season, public health officials have assumed their usual role of fear-mongering vaccine salesmen and women.

And, as usual, their exhortations to line up for their life-saving potions are falling on largely disinterested ears.

My home-town paper, The Daily News, reports

More than half of adults most at risk of complications or death from the flu don't plan to get vaccinated

In response to this terrifying news, city health officials are, the paper states,  “aggressively” pushing the vaccine 

Perhaps New York is an anomaly; surely those living in other parts of the country are not so callous with their health. 

Let’s look to the heartland and the common-sense values of Middle America for a more accurate picture of demand. According to St. Louis Public Radio, free vaccination clinics are, due to low interest, being cancelled left and right while the Visiting Nurse Association said that it's given far fewer vaccinations than expected. 

Oh no! More disinterest. It must be due to the average man (and woman) on the street not being sophisticated enough to realize the danger they’re placing themselves in by forgoing these medical miracles. Health-care workers though, being around death and disease on a daily basis, they surely must have a more realistic picture of ravages brought about by the flu. The vaccination rates among these men and women must be astronomical

No so much. WebMD found that only 40% of people in health-care-associated jobs get flu shots.

It’s an American thing. Yeah, that’s it. The reckless cowboy mentality. Surely across the pond (where shots are jabs) the situation is radically different; yet the UK’s Daily Telegraph finds much the same thing, its headlines declaring:

People shunning influenza vaccine

And what would this tepid “demand” be like without the constant hype and harassment emanating from the government and its public health apparatus? After all the CDC – itself part of the vaccine industry – spends millions of tax dollars marketing these vaccines through “Influenza Vaccine Week,”  the website flu.gov, and videos and quizzes exposing so-called vaccine “misconceptions”

One misconception preventing us from rending each other limb from limb in order to secure their live-preserving elixirs is that the flu shot causes the flu. Nothing could be further from the truth claim the experts.

On The Huffington Post, Dr. Glenn Braunstein while urging readers to “Roll Up Your Sleeves for Flu Season” sets the record straight.

It cannot be said enough: The flu shot does not cause the flu. The viruses used in the making of the vaccine are killed in the process. Randomized, blinded studies confirmed that the only symptom those who received the flu shot rather than salt water were more likely to develop was increased soreness in the arm and redness at the injection site.

Soreness the only symptom? Not according to vaccine package inserts. For example Fluvirin, produced by Novartis states:

The most frequently reported adverse reactions are … influenza-like symptoms. 

While 14-18% of those vaccinated with Sanofi’s Fluzone were similarly rewarded with flu-like symptoms such as head and muscle aches and malaise.

Perhaps what our friends in public health are missing is the fact that having a product that gives you the symptoms of the illness it attempts to prevent is not all that desirable. 

The flu shot: bypass the flu and just get the symptoms. Brilliant!