Tag: vaccine myths

Are Vaccines Only Tested for 4 or 5 Days?

Where do some folks get the idea that vaccines are only tested for 4.5 days?

Anti-vax protestors often carry signs that say vaccines are only tested for 4.5 days. Don't believe them.
Anti-vax protestors often carry signs that say vaccines are only tested for 4.5 days. Don’t believe them.

The usual suspects…

Are Vaccines Only Tested for 4 or 5 Days?

But who gave them the idea to put it on their sign?

Again, the usual suspects…

Did the idea that vaccines are only tested for 4.5 days come from JB Handley, Children’s Health Defense Director and Co-Founder of Generation Rescue?
Did the idea that vaccines are only tested for 4.5 days come from JB Handley, Children’s Health Defense Director and Co-Founder of Generation Rescue?

Before we actually look to see if the original clinical trials for the hepatitis B vaccines only “solicited adverse reactions” for four or five days after vaccination, lets see what the safety studies have shown since these vaccines were approved in the 1980s.

These and other studies have shown that the hepatitis B vaccines are safe.

What about the idea that we only know what happens in the first four or five days after the vaccine is given?

Hepatitis B Vaccine Safety Testing

That’s not true. There are plenty of long term studies and safety studies typically collect safety information for weeks and months after a child is vaccinated.

“Open-ended diaries were provided to the parent(s) or guardian of the child before the vaccination program began in which to record any health problems that occurred 1 month before and 1 month following each of the 3 doses of vaccine, whether or not a health professional was consulted.”

De Serres et al on Importance of attributable risk in monitoring adverse events after immunization: hepatitis B vaccination in children.

Still, it is important to note that the further you get from a vaccination, the less likely that an adverse event is actually going to be caused by the vaccine though.

Consider the study by De Serres, Importance of attributable risk in monitoring adverse events after immunization: hepatitis B vaccination in children, in which they looked at the reports of adverse events both before and after vaccination and concluded that “postimmunization incidence systematically overestimates the risk of adverse events.”

Vaccines are tested very carefully, starting with small phase I and phase II trials, before moving to larger and longer lasting phase III trials.
Vaccines are tested very carefully, starting with small phase I and phase II trials, before moving to larger and longer lasting phase III trials.

It is also very important to note that like other vaccines, the hepatitis B vaccine was well tested before it was approved.

Although this was an efficacy trial, it included a double blind, placebo control and the researchers did notice any side effects.
Although this was an efficacy trial, it included a double blind, placebo control and the researchers did notice any side effects.

And many of the studies did include a placebo group.

A lot of folks in the placebo group for the hepatitis B vaccine trials got hepatitis B.
A lot of folks in the placebo group for the hepatitis B vaccine trials got hepatitis B.

Unfortunately, a lot of the folks in the placebo groups ended up getting hepatitis B.

In one study, Hepatitis B vaccine: efficacy in high-risk settings, a two-year study, which included an unvaccinated control group – “The control group was comprised of 31 patients and 24 staff members who had not been in contact with HBV until they entered the units and who did not wish to be vaccinated.”

What happens when you do a vaccinated vs unvaccinated study?
What happens when you do a vaccinated vs unvaccinated study?

Importantly, this study found “no local or general reaction to the immunization. A monthly biological and clinical survey of the vaccinated subjects showed no evidence of complication due to vaccination, especially no sign of auto­immunity.”

So why do we still hear the myth that vaccines are only tested for 4.5 days?

Anti-vax folks need to convince their followers that vaccines aren’t safe.

A careful look at all that went into the development of the hepatitis B vaccines shows that they are.

It also shows that vaccines are very necessary.

More on Hepatitis B Vaccine Safety Testing

Do Preemies Frequently Crash After They Get Their Hep B Shot?

Why do some folks think that preemies frequently crash after they get their Hep B shot?

Do you think that Michael Master, a chiropractor, has spent much time in the NICU?
Do you think that Michael Master, a chiropractor, has spent much time in the NICU?

Because it is a common anti-vaccine myth that they do…

Do Preemies Frequently Crash After They Get Their Hep B Shot?

We hear it over and over from the usual suspects.

Did a NICU nurse tell her about the crash carts???
Did a NICU nurse tell her about the crash carts???

And they have been posting about it for years.

Who are these NICU nurses that tell these stories?
Who are these NICU nurses that tell these stories?

It is always the same story too, that they have heard stories from NICU nurses that they get crash carts ready before giving preemies their vaccines.

Vaccines do not slow breathing down...
Vaccines do not slow breathing down…

Crash carts?

That we keep seeing these posts about NICU nurses, but never a post from a NICU nurse should tell you something...
That we keep seeing these posts about NICU nurses, but never a post from a NICU nurse should tell you something…

A crash cart or code cart is a self-contained, wheeled cart with trays and drawers that include all of the supplies you need in a medical emergency.

I have worked in a lot of NICUs and have never seen anyone get a crash cart ready when vaccinating a baby...
I have worked in a lot of NICUs and have never seen anyone get a crash cart ready when vaccinating a baby…

Of note, none of these posts are actually from neonatologists or NICU nurses.

They are all from folks who had supposedly read or heard about the posts from the NICU nurses, but in reality, they are likely familiar with them because it has become a common anti-vaccine talking point.

As I’m sure you have guessed, they aren’t true.

Premature babies do not frequently crash after getting their hepatitis B vaccine

For one thing, premature babies do not frequently crash after getting their hepatitis B vaccine.

“Vaccines are immunogenic, safe and well tolerated in preterm infants. Preterm infants should be vaccinated using the same schedules as those usually recommended for full-term infants, with the exception of the hepatitis B vaccine, where additional doses should be administered in infants receiving the first dose during the first days of life if they weighed less than 2000g because of a documented reduced immune response.”

Gagneur et al on Immunization of preterm infants.

The hepatitis B vaccine is safe, with few side effects.

Anyway, crash carts are always ready and nearby in the NICU!

These babies are in an Intensive Care Unit, so you are always ready and prepared for them to crash, doing everything you can to prevent that from happening.

More on Hepatitis B Vaccine Safety

What Do Anti-Vaccine Doctors Know About Vaccines?

Here’s a tip for pre-med students – simply going to a good, or even great medical school, doesn’t guarantee that you will become a good doctor. Or even that you won’t become a bad doctor.

One of the few things that Del Bigtree has ever gotten right. Anti-vaccine doctors are a big part of the problem.
One of the few things that Del Bigtree has ever gotten right. Anti-vaccine doctors are a big part of the problem.

There are plenty of folks that end up being quacks that have gone to NYU, Harvard, and Dartmouth, etc.

“Gordon hated medical school. He almost flunked out.”

Pediatrician Jay Gordon Talks Babies, Breast Feeding, Vaccines and Almost Flunking Out of Medical School

But there are a few things that anti-vaccine pediatricians have in common.

What Do Anti-Vaccine Doctors Know About Vaccines?

For one thing, they never consider themselves to be anti-vaccine.

That probably goes without saying. Well, at least by them.

There is something else that they have in common that likely won’t surprise you.

Anti-vaccine doctors don't seem to know anything about vaccines.

They all say that they didn’t learn very much about vaccines in medical school or residency!

In fact, Bob Sears and Paul Thomas say that they learned nothing about vaccines and they are the ones who wrote books with alternative immunization schedules that are influencing parents to avoid vaccinating and protecting their kids.

Having read their books, I believe them!

“We got a lot of microbiology. We learned about diseases. We learned that vaccines were the solution to those diseases what they say are “vaccine preventable,” that’s the term that they used in my world, but what’s in the vaccines, I don’t really remember really learning anything.”

Paul Thomas

Wait, what?

Does that mean he doesn’t think that measles and polio and other diseases can really be prevented by vaccines?

“During your training in the hospital, you get everything else except vaccines. You learn about all of the rare things. All of the super rare disorders that you may never see in the office. That’s what we spend the time learning and and and almost nothing about vaccination.”

Bob Sears

Is anyone surprised that Suzanne Humphries, Joseph Mercola, and these other folks didn’t learn anything about vaccines during their training?

“Don’t buy into the lore, don’t make assumptions, and understand that the philosophical underpinnings of the vaccination program are predicated on an antiquated perspective: warring against and attempting to eradicate bad germs. Science has left that childlike notion in the dust, and so should we.”

Kelly Brogan

Do you think that Kelly Brogan, a holistic psychiatrist, learned much about vaccines at NYU? Anything about science???

Why does anyone listen to these folks?

But they learned about vaccines later, right?

“Robert Sears became interested in vaccines as a medical student after reading “DPT: A Shot in the Dark,” a 1985 book that argued that the whooping cough vaccine was dangerous. (The makeup of the vaccine has since been changed.) Sears said the book, which helped spark a backlash against vaccines, exposed him to ideas he wasn’t hearing in school.”

Vaccination controversy swirls around O.C.’s ‘Dr. Bob’

Maybe, but as in the case of Dr. Bob, it is important to note that he was influenced by a book that we know to be wrong. Later studies have shown that the original DPT vaccine did not cause any of the serious side effects that were originally blamed on it, including in the anti-vaccine book that got him started.

More on Anti-Vaccine Doctors

Did Edward Jenner’s Son Die from a Vaccine Reaction?

Maybe people know that Edward Jenner first gave his new smallpox vaccine to James Phipps, the 8-year-old son of Jenner’s gardener.

What they might now know is that two years later, in 1798, he also vaccinated his own son Robert F. Jenner, when he was eleven months old.

Did Edward Jenner’s Son Die from a Vaccine Reaction?

Did he die after getting vaccinated?

Did he suffer brain damage?

Of course not!

Edward Jenner vaccinated his youngest son, Robert.
Edward Jenner vaccinated his youngest son, Robert.

He didn’t even have a reaction and was later inoculated after being exposed to smallpox.

“My two eldest children were inoculated for the smallpox before I began to inoculate for the cow-pox. My youngest child was born about the time my experiments commenced, and was among the earliest I ever vaccinated. By referring to the first work I published on the subject in the spring of the year 1798, page 40, you will find his name, Robert F. Jenner, and you will observe it noticed that on his arm the vaccine lymph did not prove infectious. It advanced two or three days, and then died away.”

Edward Jenner on the Life of Dr. Jenner

He died 56 years later.

Edward Jenner’s other children didn’t receive his smallpox vaccine. As they were all born before his experiments with cowpox, they had already received traditional smallpox inoculations.

“Edward is growing tall, and has long looked over my head. Catherine, now eleven years old, is a promising girl; and Robert, eight years old, is just a chip of the old block.”

Edward Jenner on the Life of Dr. Jenner

Edward Robert Jenner did die young, but it certainly wasn’t an effect of his father’s smallpox vaccine. He died of tuberculosis, which was a common killer at the time. He was 21 and had always had health problems, but again, he never received his father’s new vaccine, so how could he be the “first child to suffer vaccine damage???”

This myth is easy to debunk. Jenner's son that died young was never vaccinated!
This myth is easy to debunk. Jenner’s son, Edward, that died young was never vaccinated!

What about the ethical implications of giving an experimental vaccine to your own child? A vaccine made with cow pus?

Remember, Jenner’s smallpox vaccine was made with cowpox virus. It was replacing variolation, a procedure in which people were actually inoculated with smallpox virus. While much better than getting smallpox, variolation was still dangerous and some people died from the procedure.

His smallpox vaccine was a much safer option.

More on Edward Jenner’s Son