Should parents be held legally responsible for not vaccinating their children?

[billythewiz]

Mrs Hex, I wonder if the results from the medical experiment on your son will ever be published.

Best estimates are that 50% of all trials are never published. Those are the ones that don't show what the marketing departments were hoping for.

http://www.alltrials.net/

That 50% estimate comes from some scientific big hitters.

The Cochrane Collaboration.
http://www.cochrane.org/.../cochrane-signs-alltrials-initiative-campaign-registration-and-reporting-all-clinical-trials

Dr. Ben Goldachre
http://www.badscience.net/category/alltrials-campaign/

The British Medical Journal (BMJ)
http://www.bmj.com/.../all-trials-registered-all-results-reported
http://www.bmj.com/open-data

The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons
http://www.rcvs.org.uk/.../rcvs-trust-declares-support-for-all-trials-campaign/

Sense About Science
http://www.senseaboutscience.org/.../alltrials-campaign-launch

Obviously the pharmaceutical companies aren't too keen on it.

Cochraine is a very highly regarded, international collaboration of doctors and scientists who independently review scientific and medical publications (mostly performing meta analyses). You've probably never heard of them.
Last week they made an announcement that the pharma companies have 1 year to publish or they will start doing it. Wont that be interesting.
http://www.alltrials.net/.../drug-companies-have-a-year-to-publish-their-data-or-well-do-it-for-them/

Good luck with your son, I'm sure he'll be fine.

[Mrs Hex]

It is through the university of Oxford so yes they will.

Please stop insulting my intelligence with veiled comments regarding my son. I am keeping him as safe as is possible.

I wonder if you consider the eradication of smallpox a bad thing? After all, without vaccinations that would never have happened.

I long for the day when the MMR is no longer necessary for the same reason and if you think that is a bad thing I truly pity you.

[Saracen]

No trials? No studies? My son is IN ONE. I have all the background evidence and trials.

I am living proof that you are being ridiculous. Even if I would, as a mother, enrol my child in something as unsafe as you imply, do you honestly think my husband would let me?

You are being ridiculous

Mrs Hex, with the best will in the world, how do you know you have all the trials?

No, hear me out before dismissing that.

Suppose I run a medical trial. The results are non-determinant. So I don't publish it. You would not know it existed.

Now suppose it shows a result that I don't want. So, I don't publish it. Again, you would not know it exists.

With the best will in the world, when you have "all the trials", you really have all the published ones.

And before dismissing that as hypothetical, exactly this issue has been the subject of BBC reporting, as recently as within the last week, with very well-respected doctors pushing for ALL trials, whether positive, negative or inconclusive, to be published, at least to the academic and reaearch communities, because currently, they aren't.

Very large numbers of trials are known to be sitting in document storage and archive facilities all over the country, and indeed, the world, and pressure is currently being brought to get Parliament to force publication, at least of UK trials.

This is not to say there's necessarily anything nefarious going on with the non-publication. It may simpky be career protection. Research generally starts with a hypothesis, and tests to confirm or reject it. So, a researcher that spends a couple of years testing a hyoithesis and comes up with a conclusion of not knowing any more than when he started because the results were inconclusive isn't going to want to shout about it to his peers. Or future employers.

But whatever the reason, if there are conclusions that adversely affect those paying for the research (and I stress IF), then they're not going to publish unless forced to.

And the grand deceit is exactly on conscientious parents like you that think you have all the trials, because if (and again, IF) there are relevant unpublished trials, you have no way to know it. In your case, there may be, there may not. There is no way to know, which is why not publishing all trials is so disgraceful.

[Mrs Hex]

By that I mean I can have access to them as he was premature I was concerned about enrolling him - they allow you to see the data as and when.

In addition with my father being a doctor I could if I wanted ask him for the relevant journal articles.

The presumption that I went into this blind is what irritates - of course you never know all the risks but I made as sure as I could be that he would be safe.

My son is protected against Hepatitis B now which, if he grows up to like men rather than women (or indeed both) then he is safer.

Vaccination is an emotive subject but it should happen

[Saracen]

By that I mean I can have access to them as he was premature I was concerned about enrolling him - they allow you to see the data as and when.

In addition with my father being a doctor I could if I wanted ask him for the relevant journal articles.

The presumption that I went into this blind is what irritates - of course you never know all the risks but I made as sure as I could be that he would be safe.

My son is protected against Hepatitis B now which, if he grows up to like men rather than women (or indeed both) then he is safer.

Vaccination is an emotive subject but it should happen

I would not assert you went in blind. I have no way to know that, and certainly wouldn't assume it.

My point, though, was that a LOT of trials are simply never published. Even doctors and researchers in these areas cannot get hold of the trial data, or conclusions, because ir's not released. No doubt your father could get hold of journal articles, byt there are no journal articles on unpublished reports, and those seeking the publication of the unpublished trials were doctoes and researchers, because they cannot currently get access to them.

We know large numbers of trials are never published. It seems a pretty fair bet that good news isn't being buried, or hidden, or not utilused by thise that did the research, so a clear inference would seem to be that the results are either inconclusive, or negative. In any event, nobody, not even specialists in the relevant area, can get hold of these trials.

If, repeat if, there is data showing negative outcomes, or risks, you won't know it if the trial data or at least results are never published.

So .... there are two situations.

The first is that you, as a responsible parent, had to assess the information available to you, in the knowledge that it may be incomplete, evaluate the likely benefits, and risks and make your best decision. I assume that's precisely what you did, and I certainly wouldn't criticise you for it.

But .... because not all trials are published, part of that risk is that data exists that would have led you to make a different decision, had you known of it.

Then there's the second situation .... forcing others to have a medical procedure done to their kids, when those parents had reached a different conclusion as to risk. We still don't have access to unpublished trials. If nothing else, eliminating that uncertainty is a good reason for publishing all trials.

As for Hepatitis, I sympathise. A close relative of mine had a brush with Hepatitis that caused major problems. The immune system dealt with the Hepatitis by itself, but basically, resulted in an auto-immune over-reaction where even once the Hepatitis had gone, their own immune ststem carried on battling it, causing huge problems, and years of steriod treatments and all sorts of issues. And another friend has been diagnosed with a variant of Hep-C, for which it appears treatment can only mitigate symptoms, not cure a progressive and advanced condition, and the treatment is extremely unpleasant, rather like a turbo-charged chemotherapy in the side-effects.

So believe me, I sympathise.

But, we don't have all trial results, so mandating treatment on people's kids where those parents don't even have full information on which to bsse their judgement is a step too far, as is medical treatment imposed by the state, not least because short of extraodinary need, like the levels of risk implied by an outbreak of hemorrhagic fever, or untreatable leprosy, etc, it's a bad precedent to set to allow the state to forcibly inject anyone with anything.

Nor do some previously cited arguments, like speed limits, work. They are punishment for doing something, not punishment for not doing something. Even seatbelt-wearing is different. You will be punished if you don't wear one, but wearing one is extremely unlikely to have risk attached, whereas not wearing one has clear and significant risk. And neither position involves injecting yourself with alien substances.

[billythewiz]

Earlier in this thread, post #107 on page 7 "http://forums.hexus.net/general-disc...ml#post2895165", I posted a link to a story where a scientist reported that in the field of vaccines, scientist are afraid in case they say the wrong thing.

You're afraid you will lose your whole career if you say something bad," says Vaarala. "When you're dealing with vaccine it suddenly becomes like working in politics, or religion."

The pharmaceutical companies fund research, bursaries, prizes and even whole departments/laboratories. This buys them an awful lot of power to control, i.e. silence, academics that don't say the right things.

This is one of the main reasons why Dr. Ben Goldachre has been campaigning in parliament to force ALL government funded research to be published. So that the pharma companies cannot pressurise doctors and scientists into keeping quiet.
http://www.badscience.net/.../my-evidence-to-the-uk-parliamentary-select-committee-inquiry-into-missing-trial-data/#more-2895

I did a quick google to see how easy it is to find pharma involvement in universities. I picked on GSK to keep the search easy.
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/.../gsk-and-university-of-nottingham-collaborate-to-create-centre-of-excellence-for-sustainable-chemistry.aspx
http://www.strath.ac.uk/.../GlaxoSmithKline.pdf
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/.../University and pharmaceutical industry create centre for inflammation research
http://www.cam.ac.uk/.../new-collaboration-to-develop-treatments-for-liver-disease
http://www.dundee.ac.uk/.../GSK and University of Dundee begin collaboration
http://www.findaphd.com/.../TMAT collaboration between the University of Cambridge, the Wellcome Trust, and GlaxoSmithKline
Queens Belfast
http://research.ncl.ac.uk/.../glaxosmithkline/
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/.../cancer_research_uk_and_glaxosmithkline_join_forces_to_trial_new_anti-cancer_drug
http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/ Oxford Uni

It is through the university of Oxford so yes they will.

No, they only will if they get the right results. If the trial shows the vaccine doesn't work, isn't safe or even if it's just inconclusive, it wont be published.

My son is protected against Hepatitis B now which, if he grows up to like men rather than women (or indeed both) then he is safer.

By the time he's grown up his vaccine protection (if there was any) will have worn off.

[directhex]

No, they only will if they get the right results. If the trial shows the vaccine doesn't work, isn't safe or even if it's just inconclusive, it wont be published.

Mrs Hex, with the best will in the world, how do you know you have all the trials?

http://www.ovg.ox.ac.uk/blogs/ojohn/alltrials

It would be nice if the pro-smallpox party could shut their pie holes on occasion.

[Saracen]

http://www.ovg.ox.ac.uk/blogs/ojohn/alltrials

It would be nice if the pro-smallpox party could shut their pie holes on occasion.

Who, exactly, are you calling "pro-smallpox party"?

And thank you for providing a link making my point for me. As the second para points out,

Around half of all clinical trials have not been published; some trials have not even been registered. If action is not taken urgently, information on what was done and what was found in trials could be lost forever, leading to bad treatment decisions, missed opportunities for good medicine, and trials being repeated unnecessarily

Mrs Hex said she had all the trials. So I asked, politely, given the above quote from the link you gave, how can she know she does? Rather than shutting my pie-hole, I'll ask again .... if half of trials are not published, how can anyone conceivably know they have all the trials when even professional researchers and highly reputable organisations like OVG don't have access to them?

[directhex]

Who, exactly, are you calling "pro-smallpox party"?

billythewiz, mainly. When Wakefield and 9/11 truther sites are being quoted as the reason not to vaccinate, it's pretty clear that nothing would change his mind.

Mrs Hex said she had all the trials. So I asked, politely, given the above quote from the link you gave, how can she know she does? Rather than shutting my pie-hole, I'll ask again .... if half of trials are not published, how can anyone conceivably know they have all the trials when even professional researchers and highly reputable organisations like OVG don't have access to them?

We have as much access to data as anyone else. Which is enough to make a reasonably informed choice.

What isn't appreciated is a double-barrelled "YOU ARE A TERRIBLE PARENT FOR EXPERIMENTING ON YOUR CHILD!!!" combined with "NO VACCINES EVER HAVE BEEN TESTED EVER!!!", within 2 posts of each other, from the same person.

[wasabi]

We have as much access to data as anyone else. Which is enough to make a reasonably informed choice.

Oxford may publish all their results - many don't. Unless all trials are available you have to take another person's word for it. For most that is enough, but there is an element of doubt. Bit like closed source software - 'don't worry we have it all under control....' Drawing conclusions without ALL the facts in the open isn't ideal.

[Saracen]

billythewiz, mainly. When Wakefield and 9/11 truther sites are being quoted as the reason not to vaccinate, it's pretty clear that nothing would change his mind.



We have as much access to data as anyone else. Which is enough to make a reasonably informed choice.

What isn't appreciated is a double-barrelled "YOU ARE A TERRIBLE PARENT FOR EXPERIMENTING ON YOUR CHILD!!!" combined with "NO VACCINES EVER HAVE BEEN TESTED EVER!!!", within 2 posts of each other, from the same person.

Fair enough, mostly. Why lump me, and what I said, in with that?

I refer back to the original question, about parental responsibility.

It IS responsible for you, and Mrs H, to look at all available data, and decide on it. I do not, and didn't, question that.

But .... you don't know you have all trials, simply because a lot aren't published. And not just on your particular issue, but on other vaccines, such as MMR.

Suppose a trial were to show adverse effects, hypothetically. Given that we don't have all trials, and nor do groups like OVG, it is also fair for parents to form the judgement that, given they don't have full assurance they have all the data, that they don't wish to take the risk by injecting their kids.

Perhaps, they have reached the view that they don't have confidence in the system to be absolutely unbiased, given that so nany trials are not published.

What it comes down to is a risk if you do, and a risk if you don't. And a lot of people are cynical enough to wonder .... what's in all the trials that aren't being published? Non-conclusive results .... or negative ones with risk factors?

You make your judgement on risk. I don't have a problem with that. What gives me a probkem is the assertions in this thread that other parents should be denied their right to make their own judgement, when we know so much information simply isn't published.

If you were on trial for murder, would you be happy if only the prosecution got to present it's case, and the other half of the evidence, whether good or bad, simply wasn't put?

[directhex]

Oxford may publish all their results - many don't. Unless all trials are available you have to take another person's word for it. For most that is enough, but there is an element of doubt. Bit like closed source software - 'don't worry we have it all under control....' Drawing conclusions without ALL the facts in the open isn't ideal.

The "All Trials" argument is a distraction method, being used by the antivax members of the forum, after their previous efforts to persuade people against vaccinating their children failed.

Whilst the availability of all trial results is an important issue, it has been introduced into the argument for no reason other than as a distraction.

[directhex]

Dr. Ben Goldachre
http://www.badscience.net/category/alltrials-campaign/

Citing Ben Goldacre to support an anti-vaccination position is a pretty bold move, given how much time is spent on anti-vaccination topics by Bad Science, and his published views on your primary source, not-a-doctor Wakefield.

Giving ammunition to the antivax crowd isn't the intention of the AllTrials campaign.

[directhex]

I did a quick google to see how easy it is to find pharma involvement in universities.

they seem to be preoccupied with the simple fact of industry involvement in research, which is silly.*

By the time he's grown up his vaccine protection (if there was any) will have worn off.

If only there were some way to determine whether or not that happens. Perhaps some kind of evaluation or test or clinical trial for effectiveness. But no, some guy on the internet assures me they don't do such things for vaccines, they just **** in a test tube & guess that it's fine.

[ZaO]

If only there were some way to determine whether or not that happens. Perhaps some kind of evaluation or test or clinical trial for effectiveness. But no, some guy on the internet assures me they don't do such things for vaccines, they just **** in a test tube & guess that it's fine.

But who are you other than just "some guy on the internet"? Why does it have to be "Pro vaccine" vs "Anti Vaccine"? Not everything is always one thing or the other. You don't always have to be Enemies or Friends. There is a grey area. Some people trust the government, some people don't, some people are not quite sure what to think sometimes. Do you know how crazed it sounds when people are like "INJECT YOUR KIDS WITH THESE CHEMICALS! WE DON'T CARE IF YOU UNDERSTAND THEM! NEITHER DO WE REALLY. JUST DO IT!". It's just not plausible to a lot of people.

[peterb]

Citing Ben Goldacre to support an anti-vaccination position is a pretty bold move, given how much time is spent on anti-vaccination topics by Bad Science, and his published views on your primary source, not-a-doctor Wakefield.

Dr Goldacre does have some fairly strong views on the anti-MMR campaign

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1925159/ (Quoting original source - the British Medical Journal)

For those that don't want to read Dr Goldacre's article in full, here are the last two paragraphs:

On this occasion I was able to go to the source, and debunk the Observer's claims: often, though, there is no such luck because these “new unpublished research” stories are concocted with the complicity of researchers from the anti-vaccine movement.

Whatever one might think about Andrew Wakefield, he was just one man: the MMR autism scare has been driven for a decade now by a media that over-emphasises marginal views, misrepresenting and cherry picking research data to suit its cause. As the Observer scandal makes clear, there is no sign that this will stop.