Vaccine Safety Datalink

Gardasil 9 safety – more published evidence supporting the HPV vaccine

Two new articles (plus an editorial) published in Pediatrics reinforce the evidence supporting Gardasil 9 safety. I have been writing about the safety of the cancer-preventing HPV vaccines for years, and it’s clear that it’s settled science.

Of course, I’m here to review any new articles about Gardasil 9 safety, because the evidence supporting it has become overwhelming. Nevertheless, HPV vaccine uptake has remained stubbornly low, around 49% in the USA as of 2017.

Let’s start with a quick review of HPV and HPV vaccines.Read More »Gardasil 9 safety – more published evidence supporting the HPV vaccine

There are not too many vaccines – debunking another anti-vaxxer myth

Each day, I have plans to write about something other than another anti-vaccine myth, like we give our kids too many vaccines. But like Al Pacino said in The Godfather, “just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” Now I get pulled into another anti-vaxxer myth.

Unfortunately, my wonderful, well-researched, 15,000-word article about the existence of Sasquatch will have to wait for another day. Yes, it makes me sad.

Seriously, the “too many vaccines” trope pushed by the anti-vaccine religion is one of the most annoying in the discussions about vaccines. Their bogus claim is that we give children too many vaccines too early in life, and that causes all kinds of harm.

As usual, the anti-vaccine zealots lack any robust scientific evidence supporting their claims, but you know those people – there’s no trope, myth, or meme that they won’t employ, irrespective of evidence, to push lies about vaccines.

So let’s take a look at this old anti-vaccine myth of too many vaccines in light of a recently published, powerful study that provides more evidence that this particular myth doesn’t hold any water.

Debunking the claim that vaccines kill people using real scientific evidence

The anecdotal beliefs from the anti-vaccine religion that vaccines kill babies, children, and adults (warning, the link is from Natural News, one the worst websites for scientific credibility) is frustrating. Dorit Rubinstein Reiss and I have written two articles, about Nick Catone and Colton Berrett, that refute parental claims that vaccines killed their children. Those boys deaths were tragic, but according to the best evidence we have, neither were the result of vaccines.

Deaths attributed to vaccines are often not causally related. It may feel like one event that follows another event is related, which is the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. There may not be any correlation, let alone causality, that would make us accept that vaccines kill.

Those of us who accept the fact that vaccines are very safe, and indeed, not really a risk for causing death, have found no evidence that there has been a single death attributed to vaccines over the past couple of decades. But that’s just examining the high quality scientific and medical literature, which may or may not be 100% inclusive of all post-vaccination mortality.

Now, I’ve always contended that there is no evidence that there has ever been a death attributed to vaccines. I never agreed with the old adage that “science can’t prove a negative,” but I do think that the burden of proof is on those making that claim. Where is the evidence of a link between vaccines and mortality? Sometimes, the absence of evidence can be evidence of absence, Carl Sagan’s claims notwithstanding, especially if we look very carefully for that evidence.

Let’s move on to this pivotal study in our understanding of whether vaccines kill. They don’t.

Properly evaluating vaccine mortality – let’s not abuse VAERS

The public’s concern about adverse events, especially death, immediately or soon after vaccinations is very disruptive to vaccine uptake, leading to increased morbidity and mortality of vaccine-preventable diseases. For example, a 2009 Japanese study that showed 107 deaths following H1N1 influenza A vaccination, assumed a causality between the vaccine and the deaths without any evaluation of background rates of of deaths, which would help indicate whether there was any significance to the death rate or even if its related to the vaccination. Vaccine mortality is one of the most abused terms in discussions about vaccines.

It has been demonstrated that passively reported data, that is, data that isn’t actively investigated by trained researchers, cannot be used to assess causality. In an active investigation, it was found that only 2 of the 107 deaths had an autopsy performed, and most of the others had other underlying diseases and conditions that were causally related to the mortality events. Furthermore, 15 million people were vaccinated with the H1N1 seasonal vaccine, and it would be expected that there would be >8000 deaths during the 20 days after vaccination using a crude mortality rate in Japan. Though it would still be a misuse of statistics, there really is more evidence that the H1N1 vaccination lowered the background death rate from 8000 to 107 post vaccination.Read More »Properly evaluating vaccine mortality – let’s not abuse VAERS

Inventing your own vaccine schedule? Not a wise idea.

There antivaccination crowd runs the gamut from truly scary deniers who invent all sorts of lies to try to stop vaccines to people who seem to think that the risk of vaccine adverse events somehow surpasses the risk of the… Read More »Inventing your own vaccine schedule? Not a wise idea.

Why we vaccinate–protect kids from rotavirus induced seizures

H. Fred Clark and Paul Offit, the inventors of RotaTeq, a pentavalent rotavirus vaccine.

Rotavirus is a virus that causes gastroenteritis, an inflammation of the stomach and intestines. Rotavirus causes severe watery diarrhea, often with vomiting, fever, and abdominal pain. In babies and young children, it can lead to dehydration (loss of body fluids). Globally, it causes more than a half a million deaths each year in children younger than 5 years of age.

Prior to the launch of the rotavirus vaccine (RotaTeq® or Rotarix®) in the United States in 2006, rotavirus was the leading cause of severe diarrhea in infants and young children. Before the vaccine became available, almost all children in the United States were infected with rotavirus before their 5th birthday. Each year, in the US, rotavirus lead to more than 400,000 doctor visits; more than 200,000 emergency room visits; 55,000 to 70,000 hospitalizations; and 20 to 60 deaths in children younger than 5 years of age. After the introduction and widespread use of the vaccine, a Cochrane systematic review concluded that the rotavirus vaccines may prevent up to 96% of severe diarrhea cases arising from rotavirus.Read More »Why we vaccinate–protect kids from rotavirus induced seizures