Sunday, January 6, 2019

Governing Vaccine Safety


Vaccine safety has captured the public imagination.

Although I strongly agree that vaccine safety must be carefully regulated and continuously re-evaluated because of the possibilities for harmful effects, I also believe vaccines can prevent the spread of terrible diseases, such as smallpox.

So, I believe that vaccination is valuable but that it must be carefully studied and regulated to avoid vaccines with harmful long-term effects or adverse and disproportionate impacts on susceptible populations.

Here is a very interesting article describing the US Advisory Committee on Immunization, which has distinct purview compared to the FDA. I excerpted a brief passage from the discussion of new vaccine technologies:
Bennett NM. The Role of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices in Ensuring Optimal Use of Vaccines. JAMA. Published online January 04, 2019. doi:10.1001/jama.2018.20792 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2720428?guestAccessKey=cc24dd76-8990-426d-82b9-a4172399a36e&utm_source=silverchair&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=article_alert-jama&utm_content=olf&utm_term=010419

...With the development of new vaccine technologies, the ACIP will be required to consider the harms and benefits of specific technologies rather than simply recommend any licensed product. This makes its deliberations not only more complex but also more controversial.

In addition, vaccines against widespread, deadly infections, such as smallpox, polio, and H influenzae, have already been deployed and have eliminated the most prevalent and virulent diseases. New vaccines are likely to prevent less severe (eg, varicella and shingles vaccines) or less common (eg, meningococcal and travel vaccines) diseases, and therefore, have a smaller population effect and be less cost-effective. Soon there may be vaccines developed for narrow indications, such as preoperative vaccines for health care–associated infections such as Clostridium difficile. Precision medicine may define subpopulations for whom certain vaccines are indicated or contraindicated.
As you can see in the excerpted text above, the committee is presuming that "precision medicine" will provide evidence of risks and benefits for specifically targeted subpopulations.

Research  studies targeting both (a) population susceptibilities (both endogenous and exogenous in origin) and (b) long-term risks are critical for valid assessments of vaccine safety.

Governments should help fund this research to ensure that mandated vaccines are indeed safe.

Independent committees representing multiple-stakeholders should audit research and protocols.





13 comments:

  1. Unless you have read Suzanne Humphries' book Dissolving Illusions you may be just accepting the standard vaccines do this and do that and save lives. There is plenty of vaccine propaganda available. The book is a 504 page tome written by a medical doctor who spent three years doing the research.

    I really do not know. My motto is when in doubt do nothing. However, I would not give a child I was responsible for 40 vaccinations in the first two years of her life. I would not get a flue shot. There may be one or two vaccinations that a medical worker would be wise to take. But clearly vaccination is big money and probably little else. But I am not epidemiologist.

    Was it vaccinations that ended smallpox? Or better diets and sanitation? Unless you can answer this question it is sort of ouija board medical science!

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  2. Film Your Marxist Professors

    Is this typical of contemporary university classes? It seems bizarre but does make sense of a lot behaviors I witness, especially on the Internet. Bears no relationship to my academic years.

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    1. I forgot to include this in the above:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ2ojjgTEh4

      Delete
  3. Only the brain-dead politicize what is killing us all. Fukushima still leaking, forest fires incinerating homes and cars while leaving surrounding forest intact, dead-zones in our oceans, epidemic cancer and opioid deaths due to environmental toxicity and gov't tending to the poppy fields in Afghanistan.

    Your president wants to declare a state of emergency for precipitating an event in collusion with other actors like George Soros. He wants to declare Martial Law so he can have us disarmed and enslaved. And who do you think is going to enforce those orders?

    Your illusions are about to be shattered. Karma.

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    1. The oligarchs and elites truly have no ideologies. Good cop vs bad cops. Ultimately it is all part of the nuclear-police state game. The police state is all bad and truly, no good cops.

      Soros is supposedly a liberal , yet it is a Pro nuclear ally of bill gates. Wtf is a liberal? Fuko the clown is supposedly a conservative who believes in individual rights. Now trumpy wants to declare martial law.

      One thing is for sure The fake liberals and fake conservatives want to consolidate power even more than they have now. They are not even trying to hide their enthusiasm for fascism.

      The new fascist states that have popped up are extremely pronuclear. That is in spite of Fukushima.
      I guess it is nuclear power jives so well with their militaristic, macho, authoritarian, capitalist images controlled by centralized ligarchic elites.



      Bolnasaro in Brazil wants to rip up the rain forest and start a nuclear rennaisance in Brazil.
      The fascist regimes in Ukraine, Belarus, Hungary, the new one in Poland, in Slovakia, Abe in Japan, Putin in Russia. They are foaming at the mouth for nuclear and new reactors. Netanyahu, the saudies.

      The Nazis in Ukraine have post office stamps honoring SS Waffen officers from Nazi Germany!
      The American fascist wannabes do not even care about importing all the worlds however nuclear waste to America from Japan and storing it unsafle so we can have more poorly stored radioactive death to deal with. https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2019/01/06/trump-perry-doe-plan-to-reclassify-high-level-nuclear-waste-as-low-level-through-an-orwellian-stroke-of-a-pen-comment-by-wed-night-1159-pm-eastern-time-january-9th/

      America is probably a worst radioactive sacrifice zone than Russia.

      Marco kaltofen the great environmental engineer showed us this article, from Washington about what the nuleoapes are really planning to do at Hanford. Meanwhile several old beat up reactors in America are close to meltdown. If the waste at San onofre goes off, the people of socal are very screwed.
      The radioactive dumpfire in st Louis ongoing yada yada yada

      https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/dont-let-feds-change-the-rules-for-cleaning-up-hanford-nuclear-waste/

      Don’t let feds change the rules for cleaning up Hanford nuclear waste
      Originally published January 2, 2019 at 3:11 pm

      A sign warns of high levels of radiation near a valve at the “C” tank farm of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland. (AP Photo / Ted S. Warren, 2014)
      A sign warns of high levels of radiation near a valve at the “C” tank farm of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland. (AP Photo / Ted S. Warren, 2014)
      The public can comment on the U.S. Department of Energy's proposed changes to Hanford nuclear waste cleanup rules until Jan. 9.

      By Tom Carpenter
      Special to The Times
      After almost 30 years of a program to clean up dangerous defense waste at the Hanford nuclear site in southeastern Washington, the Department of Energy now wants to change the rules to make the job easier and save money. If approved, the proposal poses new dangers to the health and safety of people and the environment — not just in southeastern Washington, but at nuclear sites around the country.

      In 1943, the U.S. government built the massive complex at Hanford to manufacture plutonium for nuclear weapons. When defense production ceased in 1986, its nine reactors had produced enough material for 60,000 atomic bombs. What remains is North America’s most contaminated site — more than half a billion gallons of nuclear waste and toxic chemicals stored in leaking tanks and dumped into the ground.

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  4. The most dangerous material is classified as “high-level waste.” The U.S. government has long recognized that because it poses such an extraordinary risk to human health and the environment, it requires special handling. A report prepared for the Atomic Energy Commission in 1957 called for disposal of high-level nuclear waste in a “deep underground formation, where it would remain isolated from human beings” for hundreds of thousands of years. That recommendation became law in 1982 when Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.


    Responsibility for the mess at Hanford falls to the U.S. Department of Energy. The plan includes mixing 56 million gallons of high-level waste with molten glass so it can be safely transferred to a permanent underground disposal site.

    The cleanup effort began in 1989. It has not gone well. More than $45 billion has been spent, but no high-level waste has been processed. Hanford workers have received more than $1 billion in compensation for exposure to radiation and toxic chemicals. Companies working on the cleanup have pleaded guilty to criminal charges and paid hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and settlements. Radioactive waste is leaking into the groundwater and flowing toward the Columbia River.

    Not to worry! The Energy Department has come up with an alternate approach for dealing with high-level nuclear waste — give it a new name and leave it where it is.

    This past summer, the agency announced its intention to reclassify high-level nuclear waste in 16 partially emptied tanks as low-level waste and cover what remains with grout. Now DOE is going big, and proposing to give itself the authority to relabel waste as it sees fit anywhere in the nation.


    Even under ideal conditions, the waste will slowly leach through the grout and into the surrounding soil. That assumes it doesn’t fail catastrophically due to fractures caused by changes in temperature, stress, or imperfections — all possible, even likely.

    The danger extends beyond Hanford. Once the Energy Department grants itself the authority to redesignate dangerous nuclear material, it can do the same with hundreds of millions of gallons of high-level waste stored in 161 other tanks or simply dumped into the ground at Hanford. It sets a dangerous precedent that will place millions of people at risk — not just downwind and downriver from Hanford, but near facilities in South Carolina, Idaho and upstate New York, where millions more gallons of high-level waste are stored.

    Why consider such an unsound plan? Money. By absolving itself of its legal obligation to handle high-level waste safely, the Energy Department expects to save $40 billion.

    The proposal is not only irresponsible and dangerous, it violates the law and flies in the face of longstanding legal precedent. “High-level radioactive waste” was clearly defined by the Atomic Energy Commission in 1970 and the courts have repeatedly turned back attempts to reclassify it. In 2003, for example, the U.S. District Court in Idaho confirmed that what’s in tanks at Hanford is, in fact, high-level waste and made clear that the Energy Department cannot simply come up with an alternative way to treat it just because it is “too expensive or too difficult.”

    Although it is profoundly shortsighted, deeply irresponsible and clearly illegal, this proposal isn’t surprising — it is entirely consistent with the Department of Energy’s history of cutting corners at Hanford and saddling future generations with a problem that requires our urgent attention today

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    1. What exactly has the internet done to stave off future Fukushimas? Not a goddamnewd thing. The internet simply fetishized nuclear and fukushima.
      The internet got monsters like Trump, Bolnasaro, the extremely Pronuclear, eastern European fascists into power, and they are making things worse.

      The real people doing anything about nuclear are Grass-Roots groups like the ones at San Onofre.
      We are getting discouraged.
      The partisan-posers and sensationalist- ultraconspiracy nuts, do nothing except bloviate on the internet for money or extreme political agendas that they encourage.
      The other posers and bloviaters do nothing except fetishize fukushima . These types make it harder to get plants closed , to protest, to take, grassroots political action and get city action.

      How would you feel if you lived by San Diego and a few of those casks burst open or exploded after working to get San Onofre closed?? That is after 20 years of working on getting San onofre closed.

      How would you feel if you worked on closing dangerous nuclear power plants, and an earthquake occurred , making San Louis Obisbo go full fukushima?

      The bastards never completely cleaned up Santa Susana . Santa Susana is where one of the worst nuclear meltdowns in history occurred.

      No one in socal knows for sure how much radionuclide ash they breathed from the Woolsey fires.

      Meanwhile corrupt Nucleoapes find it easier to do their dirty work

      It is getting late. One wonders how poor  Dr. Busby is doing. He testified for the Bridgeport group in St Louis. If you are interested in helping there read here and follow the links.

      http://www.stltoxicaware.com


      People in Texas got threatened with arrest for interfering with the opening of the corrupt  open-air hi level waste storage there pushed by Perry. 
      If you are interested in that you can contact the Permean Coalition or go here https://www.change.org/p/midland-texas-mayor-and-city-council-resolution-opposing-the-shipment-of-hi-level-nuclear-waste-through-midland

      Mining awareness has links to people trying to do something about songs.

      https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2018/11/09/san-onofre-defective-holtec-nuclear-waste-storage-system-must-be-recalled/
      https://www.change.org/p/san-onofre-nuclear-waste-recall-defective-storage-system


      There are better links and key people to contact. Public Citizen is actively involved in tracking and helping communities do something about dangerous reactors and waste sites.

      It takes a mammoth effort by local groups to contact state and government authorities to get things done. Go to court also.

      Governments are not doing anything about nuclear madness. They are clamping down, more than ever on antinuclear advocates, in the face of the grave consequences of more fukushima and radionuclides pollution engulfing the world.

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  5. Freefall is an extreme conspiracy-nut sensationalist of the ilk mentioned above. Just another attention seeker and or disinfo agent hacktivist, paid or prompted to distract and post bs. Maybe the idiot freefall has never been to southern California or California period. Wildfires have been occurring in the Hollywood hills for years, taking out houses . houses have gas and are prone to burning quickly once a fire gets going and yes quite a few trees burned in the Woolsey fires an northern California fires too along with brush. Where do imbeciles come up with such stupid, confabulatory nonsense.

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    1. Please explain how this is normal:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN2IxvDMnHg

      I live in Oregon. All we do now every summer is eat California smoke (as well as our own). I'm sick of it and I want answers not insults that add nothing intelligent to the conversation.

      Wake the hell up. You are under attack from your own government. If you think any politician is there to save you, you are worse than insane.

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    2. My government sucks but u don't have to embellish it with propaganda and insane bullshit. In fact it brings your motives into question. From in idiots like u do nothing but make things worse. You and your fascist buddies are the scum of the earth. Never seen an asshole like you contribute a damn thing to anyone or anything. Just more blood sucking and insanity

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    3. Fascist? I don't support Trump. As far as not contributing anything, Voltar would be displeased.
      http://freefall555.blogspot.com/

      Delete
  6. Despite wondering if you have not been sensationalizaing Fukushima, the End Game behind nuclear technology has seldom been acknowledged. Fukushima was a GE 'turn key' operation. Blaming Tepco is a fine distraction from responsible assessment. Both GE engineers and contractor's engineers objected to and quit over siting Fukushima in an earthquake zone prone to a series of violent tsunamis - admittedly at intervals of about a lifetime each. I think in this case a policy was foisted on the then 'enemy' consistent with other applications of the NPT TRAP - definitely including inside the US, especially on the Mississippi emergency floodway - making a lethal radioactive mess and disaster which would be impossible to fix.
    https://www.transcend.org/tms/2010/05/the-npt-and-the-nuclear-power-trap/
    Such an analysis would be consistent with a precedent Iran's Nuclear Energy Program
    Part V: From the United States Offering Iran Uranium Enrichment Technology to Suggestions for Creating Catastrophic Industrial Failure http://www.payvand.com/news/04/dec/1186.html

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  7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XUM2gvfbW8

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