Tag: long-term

Are Vaccines Causing Long-Term Health Problems?

Did the CDC say that it is impractical to find out of vaccines are causing an epidemic of brain injury and other long-term health problems?

I’m guessing they didn’t…

Are Vaccines Causing Long-Term Health Problems?

Why does anyone think that they did?

The latest anti-vaccine propaganda about vaccines causing long-term health problems.
The latest anti-vaccine propaganda about vaccines causing long-term health problems.

Oh, anti-vaccine folks are sharing a cherry-picked quote from the CDC to scare parents away from vaccinating and protecting their kids.

Would you like to see the full quote?

“Observing vaccinated children for many years to look for long-term health conditions would not be practical, and withholding an effective vaccine from children while long-term studies are being done wouldn’t be ethical. A more practical approach is to look at health conditions themselves and at the factors that cause them. Scientists are already working to identify risk factors that can lead to conditions like cancer, stroke, heart disease, and autoimmune diseases such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis. Thousands of studies have already been done looking at hundreds of potential risk factors. If immunizations were identified as a risk factor in any of these studies, we would know about it. So far, they have not.

We learn about a vaccine’s safety during clinical trials before it is licensed, and monitor it continually as millions of doses are administered after it is licensed. We also know there is not a plausible biologic reason to believe vaccines would cause any serious long-term effects. Based on more than 50 years of experience with vaccines, we can say that the likelihood that a vaccine will cause unanticipated long-term problems is extremely low.“

Parents’ Guide to Childhood Immunizations

So no, the CDC didn’t say that it was impractical to find out of vaccines are causing an epidemic of brain injury.

Instead, they said that it was just impractical to do a study in which you give a child a vaccine and watch him for 20 years to see if he develops a problem, like leukemia, diabetes, or autism, all the while not giving the vaccine to other kids until your study is over. Of course, that’s because a lot of kids would get the potentially life-threatening disease that the vaccine is protecting those kids against while you were waiting to complete those long-term studies.

That’s not to say that we aren’t concerned about these types of long-term health problems occurring after a child is vaccinated.

Plenty of long-term safety studies have been done. It’s just more practical to do the studies on the diseases you are concerned about, sometimes after noticing safety signals, and see if vaccines truly are a risk factor.

Here is one example:

“In this large, population-based, case-control study, we did not find an increased risk of type 1 diabetes associated with any of the routinely recommended childhood vaccines.”

DeStefano et al on Childhood vaccinations, vaccination timing, and risk of type 1 diabetes mellitus.

In that study, they found all of the kids with diabetes born during 1988 through 1997 in the 4 health maintenance organizations (HMOs) that participate in the Vaccine Safety Datalink project of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compared them to matched controls, and did not find an increased risk of type 1 diabetes associated with any of the routinely recommended childhood vaccines.

There are many more…

And that’s how we know vaccines aren’t causing long-term health problems.

Well at least those of us who did our research, looked for the original quote, and saw through this anti-vaccine propaganda.

More on Vaccines and Long-Term Health Problems

Are There Any Long-Term Studies On Vaccine Safety?

Vaccines are evaluated for safety in studies when they get approved.

Is that enough?

“I would like to see us do more long-term safety research studies on these large groups of children, so then we can determine that they are safe in the long-term.”

Bob Sears

Apparently not for everyone…

Are There Any Long-Term Studies On Vaccine Safety?

Of course, vaccines continue to be evaluated for safety after they approved, using passive and active vaccine safety systems and long-term post-marketing safety studies.

“We learn about a vaccine’s safety during clinical trials before it is licensed, and monitor it continually as millions of doses are administered after it is licensed. We also know there is not a plausible biologic reason to believe vaccines would cause any serious long-term effects. Based on more than 50 years of experience with vaccines, we can say that the likelihood that a vaccine will cause unanticipated long-term problems is extremely low.”

Parents’ Guide to Childhood Immunizations

These long term studies on vaccine safety have looked at:

Have you heard about these studies before?

When they talk about SV40, do anti-vaccine folks mention this long-term study?
When they talk about SV40, do anti-vaccine folks mention this long-term study?

Probably not.

Anti-vaccine folks either aren’t aware of, or just don’t want you to know about these types of long-term studies.

It’s easier to scare you away from vaccinating and protecting your kids if they make you believe that vaccines aren’t tested together, aren’t tested with placebos, aren’t tested vs unvaccinated kids, and aren’t tested for long periods of time.

They are!

More on Long-Term Studies On Vaccine Safety