Swine-flu Vaccine: negative public health impact of vaccine-refuseniks easily balanced out by hypothetical tiny positive effects for refuseniks

Dr. John Cohen, recently appeared on WCVB TV (http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/20309509/detail.html) to express his indignation regarding the supposedly horrible consequences of persons refusing to take vaccines. He opined that those who refuse to be vaccinated, increase the risk of infection for persons other than themselves.

"I think it's horrible," said Dr. John Cohen (who looks like a boyish looking innocent looking white-haired bespectacled blue-eyed Irishman), a pediatrician and staunch supporter of vaccination (regarding 1.3% of Massachusetts kids not getting vaccinated). "There's no religion in this world that says you shouldn't immunize your child....Those (unvaccinated) kids are more apt to get the (H1N1 Swine Flu) disease therefore more apt to spread it therefore more apt to get your child in trouble"

"Team 5 Investigates" proudly reportED that it has "reported extensively" on the vaccination refusal; they are clearly in the camp of the vaccine-promoters.

Thus, the focus here will be on how those who refuse vaccination impact those who agree to be vaccinated, as opposed to how they impact their own group which is those who refuse vaccination. After all, if those who refuse vaccination really are as bad as Dr. Cohen says they are, wringing one's hand over how they harm themselves by refusing vaccination is silly.

Dr. Cohen speaks as if it were all very simple: his idea is that the increased risk accruing to the good guys who are vaccinated, due to the refusal of the bad guys to be vaccinated, of course outweighs the risks (such as maybe a small disaster turned into a huge disaster, & responsibly knowledgeable persons not allowed to opt out) and bullying intrusiveness involved when vaccinations are mandatory as opposed to voluntary.

Methinks that this may well be yet another example of an over-rated Jewish doctor, produced by a governmental/medical institution that artificially and unnaturally over-emphasizes rote and brainspeed, putting his foot in his mouth.

One feels like retorting, if these vaccinations are so great, than what have the vaccinated got to worry about, in terms of being infected by the un-vaccinated?

So let's take a look at something that is underemphasized, the facts:

The AP (http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2009/07/health_officials_predict_swine.html) on July 24, 2009, reported that according to Tom Skinner, of the CDC: thus far, 0.03% of the swine-flu infected population in the US has died and in the future, 0.4% of the US Swine-flu infected population is expected to die.

The AP article states 1 million current US swine-flu cases could balloon to 122 million US cases if a vaccination program is not implemented. This implies that 1 million currently infected with swine-flu in the US (according to the CDC), could end up infecting 122 million persons in the US with the Swine-flu in the absence of a vaccination program.

Reports (http://www.cjmed.net/news/info/id/33?PHPSESSID=ea880b282c1baa7c1b48fa5e4e12b022) are that in the 2007-2008 flu season, the flu vaccine promoted by the US government had an efficacy rate of 44%; meaning that those getting the vaccine had a 44% lower chance of contracting the flu, compared to those not getting the vaccine.

Thus if you assume that the swine-flu vaccine will also likewise similarly have an efficacy rate of 44%, meaning those taking the vaccine will have about 56% of the chance of contracting the swine flu compared to those who do not take the vaccine, you could say that one percent of the US population refusing the vaccine would: result in 440,000 additional cases amongst 150 million vaccinated (one in 341), infecting 0.29% of the vaccinated group; and, 780,000 additional cases amongst the 150 million unvaccinated, infecting 0.52% of the unvaccinated group. The total comes to 1,220,000, which is one percent of the 122 million new Swine-flu cases the CDEC expects to occur if there is no vaccination program; the infection rate amongst the vaccinated given these estimates is indeed 56% the rate amongst the unvaccinated.

Yet, even if the one percent who refused the vaccination were to be vaccinated, they would still hypothetically end up causing 246,000 cases amongst the150 million strong vaccinated group, and 437,000 cases amongst the 150 million unvaccinated because the vaccine efficacy rate would give immunity to only 56% of them.

If you assume in making the calculation that 50 million of the population are vaccinated and 250 million are not when the one percent refusing vaccination results in a 1.22 million increase in total cases, you find given that the vaccinated have an infection rate that is 56% of that of the unvaccinated, that the 1.22 million in increased cases would be distributed as: 123,000 or 0.25% amongst the 50 million that are vaccinated, and 1,100,000 or 0.44% amongst the 250 million that are unvaccinated. The total again is 1,220,000, and the rate amongst the vaccinated is again 56% the rate amongst the unvaccinated

If you assume in making the calculation that 250 million of the population are vaccinated and only 50 million are not when the one percent refusing vaccination results in a 1.22 million increase in total cases, you find given that the vaccinated have an infection rate that is 56% of the unvaccinated, that the 1.22 million in increased cases would be distributed as: 896,000 or 0.36% amongst the 250 million that are vaccinated, and 320,000 or 0.64% amongst the 50 million that are unvaccinated. The total is again 1,220,000, and the rate amongst the vaccinated is again 56% the rate amongst the unvaccinated. Yet, even if the one percent who refused the vaccination were to be vaccinated, they would still hypothetically end up causing 502,000 cases amongst the 250 million who have been vaccinated and 179,000 cases amongst the 50 million unvaccinated because the vaccine efficacy rate would give immunity to only 56% of them if they decided to be vaccinated.

Tech note: It is the rigidity of this particular model (assuming that whatever the percentage that is vaccinated a one percent refusal to be vaccinated will still produce 1,220,000 additional cases), that produces the variance amongst the scenarios. The formula is solve for: 0.56 times the number vaccinated plus the number unvaccinated equals 1,220,000.

By this rigid model, as the percent of the population that is vaccinated increases, the percentage of the vaccinated population that gets the disease due to the refusal of the refuseniks, increases. Therefore to paint a picture that shows the refusal to be vaccinated doing as much damage as possible, henceforth I will use the figure from the situation featuring the incidence of the disease amongst the 250 million of the population that has been vaccinated, going up by 0.36%, or 896,000 additional cases, due to the infectious influence of the vaccine-refuseniks.

Thus one percent of the population, 3.04 million persons, refusing to take the vaccine could be pessimistically said to increase the risk of disease for
250 million vaccinated persons, by 896,000-502,000 =394,000 per 250 million people. Thus one percent of the population, 3.04 million persons, refusing to take the vaccine would increase the incidence of Swine-flu disease in the 250 million strong vaccinated population by 394,000 cases or 0.16%.

Meaning, 3.04 million people refusing the vaccination, would result in 394,000 additional cases of the disease amongst the 250 million who are vaccinated, a ratio of one vaccination refusal causing 0.13 additional cases of disease in the vaccinated population; which is also a ratio of 8 vaccination refusals causing one additional case of swine flu in the vaccinated population.

Non-fatal cases of Swine-flu produce natural immunity, leading to the end of the pandemic/epidemic. The CDC (according to the AP report) estimates that 0.4% of the persons infected with swine flu or one in 250 will die as the percentage infected rises. Thus one could say that 8x250=2000 vaccination-refusals can be expected to cause one death in the vaccinated population; and, one vaccination-refusal will result in 0.0005 deaths in the vaccinated population.

The average person lives to be about 80. Thus one can assume that the average vaccinated person who dies because others have refused to take the vaccine, will be age 40. That computes to 40 lost years of life. On the other hand, amongst the 2000 vaccine-refusers who cause the one death in the vaccinated population, more than 0.02 lost years of life for each of the 2000, would total to more than 40 lost years. That means that if each of the 2000 vaccine-refusers who cause the one death of the vaccinated person, were to lose just 7 days of their life due to negative effects of the vaccine, this would more than balance out the 40 years of life lost by the person who died because 2000 persons refused to take the vaccine.

And this is not even taking into account, that a large percentage of those who will die from the Swine-flu, will die because their unhealthy lifestyles that they have voluntarily chosen, have impaired their immune systems.

If the average age of those refusing the vaccine is 40 years, and on average they have 40 years of life left to live, the loss of 0.02 years of life could be said to be analagous to a decline in the quality of life of 0.05 percent, because 0.02/40=0.0005.

Imagine that. If the quality of life of the 2000 persons taking the vaccine were to decline due to the vaccine by just 1/20th of one percent, compared to their quality of life not taking the vaccine, this would more than balance out the 40 years of life lost by the hypothetical vaccinated person who dies due to the refusal of the 2000 to take the vaccine.

There are credible reports that elements amongst the powers that somewhat secretly control the government dabble in: worship of Satan/Evil, deceit, schemes designed to reduce the population level through the destruction of human life, lack of national loyalty, theft, homicide, anti-Christianism, anti-white-europoid-ism, anti-Americanism etc etc. There are legions of tales regarding the selfishness of those who profit from the sale of vaccines and regarding their attempts to corrupt medical and government personnel.

Auto-ethnocentric, racist, malicious, misanthropic literature such as (portions of, some of it is no doubt inspired honorable literature) the 'Talmud' and 'the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion' have historically been quite popular in the ethnic group that Dr.Cohen and WCVB General Manager Bill 'the mouse that roared' Fine are products of. I could swear that once I heard Mr, Fine giving one of his little speeches on TV, and while watching him I heard his voice say, 'I worship Satan', though for some hi-tech reason his lips, like those of a ventriloquist, did not indicate that he was saying this (maybe it was just a hallucination).

I can imagine some new 'psalm' of theirs: 'For the people of the world are the Canaanites of Canaan, made to be exterminated by us, the chosen Joshuas, just as Joshua exterminated the Canaanites to establish our people'.

And then there is simple incompetence--this year the US compnay Baxter managed to send millions of doses of vaccine contaminated with Swine-flu virus to Czechoslovakia (the 'vaccine' was supposed to be distributed to several European nations) (http://www.examiner.com/x-6478-NY-Page-One-Examiner~y2009m7d31-Swine-Flu-Mandate-US-Government-puts-states-on-notice). Nevertheless, Baxter is producing 80 million doses of vaccine for distribution in five countries (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-biz-baxter-swine-flu-aug5,0,5981377.story).

People have become able to judge the extent to which they as individuals are liable to being harmed by a vaccine (this kind of thing can run in families). A certain percentage of the population compared to other groups, does a better job of assessing the potential cost/benefit of vaccines. There are always persons who are wiser than the government in any given subject.

Given these factors, it as of now certainly seems to be madness to say that vaccinations such as the swine-flu vaccine should be mandatory, when the situation is approximately speaking, that if every person refusing the vaccine were to have their lives shortened by just 7 days, or have the quality of their life decrease by just 1/20th of one percent due to being forced to take the vaccine, such would more than cancel out the loss of life accruing in terms of vaccinated persons becoming fatalities because of the infectious effects of persons refusing vaccinations.

@2009 David Virgil Hobbs

If the well-established Polio vaccine increases non-Polio non-cancer deaths by 0.01%, (seems) it then should not be administered

What then of the proposed mandatory never-used-before Swine-Flu vaccine?

There has been much horrifying talk in the alternative media regarding the danger that vaccines that will be administered en masse to the public for the purpose of the prevention of 'Swine Flu', will due to accident, incompetence or worse, end up killing and wounding huge numbers of Americans. I mentioned this to my father, and his response was to tell me that a close relative of the famous Dr. Salk who invented the Polio vaccine, was a friend of my mother, and what a nice guy Dr. Salk was.

So I decided to take a closer look at the Polio vaccine, which my father apparently considers to be an iconic symbol of vaccination water-into-wine type stuff.

My opinion as of now is that the Polio vaccine is yet another example of hi-tech disease-fighting engaged in by humans, being unnaturally focused on one particular disease, the result being that the advantages derived from reduction of the incidence of the targetted disease, is at least in most localities, more than balanced out by the negative impact in terms of increased incidence of other diseases.

Keep in mind, when it comes to cost-benefit, it is reasonable to suppose that the cost-benefit of the rookie Swine-Flu vaccine, which is to be produced by an apparently mistake-prone corporation, and which will be targetted on a virus that quite possibly will have mutated into a form the vaccine has no effect upon by the time the vaccine is administered, will be inferior to the cost-benefit that has been produced by the well-respected Polio vaccines produced by Saints Salk and Sabin.

"The polio vaccines developed by Jonas Salk in 1952 and Albert Sabin in 1962 are credited with reducing the global number of polio cases per year from many hundreds of thousands to around a thousand.[7]...In the United States, the 1952 polio epidemic became the worst outbreak in the nation's history. Of nearly 58,000 cases reported that year 3,145 died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis.[81]" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliomyelitis).

Thus there is evidence that the Polio vaccine, has (worldwide) reduced the chance of becoming disabled or dying due to Polio, from approx 0.5%, to approximately 0%.

"In 1998, the National Cancer Institute undertook a large study, using cancer case information from the Institutes SEER database. The published findings from the study revealed that there was no increased incidence of cancer in persons who may have received vaccine containing SV40.[48] Another large study in Sweden examined cancer rates of 700,000 individuals who had received potentially contaminated polio vaccine as late as 1957; the study again revealed no increased cancer incidence between persons who received polio vaccines containing SV40 and those who did not.[49]"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_vaccine)

Thus there is also evidence that the polio vaccine does not increase the risk of getting cancer.

However cancer accounts for only approx 23% of all deaths in those over 18 in the US (http://205.207.175.93/HDI/TableViewer/tableView.aspx).

Therefore, even if the Polio vaccine increased death rates from causes other than cancer by only 0.7%, this would outweigh the benefit produced by the Polio vaccine, even if you assume that a person disabled due to Polio is equal to a person being killed by some disease other than Polio.

Beyond this:

Polio is more common in the world outside the US than it is in the US. This tilts the equation in the direction of being even less tolerant of the collateral damage of the vaccine causing diseases other than Polio. If you change from looking upon the vaccine as causing a reduction in Polio-produced paralysis from 0.5% in the world to 0% in the world, to looking upon the vaccine as reducing Polio-produced paralysis from 0.25% in the US to 0% in the US, then just a 0.4% increase in fatalities from diseases other than Polio caused by the vaccine, would mean the vaccine did more harm than good even if you count Polio-produced paralysis as being as bad as death from some disease other than Polio.

Beyond this:

There exist, effective alternatives to vaccination when the goal is prevention and treatment of Polio. Even Wikipedia itself (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliomyelitis) has pointed out that an effect of improvements in sanitation has been that children have not been naturally exposed to mild levels of Polio infection which has caused upwards pressure on the Polio incidence rate (indicating that natural low level of exposure to Polio could be used to produce immunity to Polio). Taking account of such, again tilts the equation, the result being the level of tolerable increase in non-Polio produced mortality caused by Polio vaccinations becomes even less if the good done by the Polio vaccinations is not to be outweighed by the bad. Such (taking into account Polio rates in the US being relatively low) could easily bring the equation to the point where no more than a 0.2% rise in mortality caused by diseases other than Polio, is tolerable if the equation is to vindicate the Polio vaccines as doing more good than harm (even assuming a death from a disease other than Polio is as bas as being paralyzed by Polio).

Beyond this, let's level the playing field and remember that in the US only 5% of Polio cases resulted in death. Let's assume that the ratio of non-fatal adverse consequences of diseases is basically the same for Polio and other diseases. Let's stop assuming that a non-Polio death is equal to Polio-produced partial paralysis, and assume a Polio produced death is equal to a non-Polio produced death. Under such assumptions, even if the mortality produced by factors other than Polio were to increase by 0.01% due to Polio vaccinations, the Polio vaccinations would statistically come out as having done more harm than good.

Off the bat having looked at the evidence for one evening, I would have to say that the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that one can expect more than just a 0.01% increase in mortality due to causes other than Polio, as a result of Polio vaccinations (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS300&q=%22polio+vaccine%22+%22heart+disease%22).

Wikipedia seems to reflexively admire the Polio vaccine simply because 99% of the people who get three shots of it become immune to Polio.

What comes to mind:

"This hyar injeckshun gives 99 percent of th' varmints who take th' shot, immunity aginst th' ho'rible noo liberal-houn'dog-flu virus. Th' venerable Wikipedia an' me yer Senato' Blather agree, eff'n yo' folks take th' vaccinashun shot, it will become completely impostible fo' 99 percent of yo' t'become infecked wif th' liberal-houn'dog-flu virus! So seein' thet 99 percent of yo' kin become like gods, then obviously th' varmints like Hobbs who is postulatin' thet fo'cin' th' populashun t'take th' shot is a mistake, is idiots, an' crazy, o' both"

In contradiction of Senator Blather, imagine that the incidence of some disease is one in ten thousand. Now if vaccination enthusiasts begin to enthuse that the situation would be improved through use of a vaccine that provides 99% of those who take it with immunity, while it accidentally gives 0.02% of those who take it the disease it is designed to prevent, guess what? Vaccinating the population would double the incidence of the disease. And this is not taking into account corruptions such as standards being changed so that more cases of the disease are counted before the vaccine is administered as opposed to afterwards.

A nurse named Sheri Naaken makes several points against the Polio vaccine:

The Polio death rates were declining before the vaccines were introduced; several experiments have shown that the vaccine increases the incidence of Polio; Polio has been over-reported prior to vaccine programs and then under-reported after vaccine programs; Dr. Sabin himself, who developed the Polio vaccine, declared that the vaccine was ineffective; children of women who received the Polio vaccine 1959-65 experienced a thirteen fold increase in brain tumors; respiratory syncytial (RS) virus; AIDS originated in the use of the Polio vaccine in Africa; may doctors believe the Polio vaccine has increased the incidence of Leukemia; Polio is caused by vitamin B1 and mineral deficiencies, pasteurised milk, and a lack of fruit juice; only 1% of those who contract Polio virus develop serious symtoms, indicating something more than a virus is involved in the manifestation of the serious symptoms; improvements in santitation and hygiene have produced declines in Polio that have been attributed to vaccines; vitamin C, chiropractic methods, 'Nurse Kenny' treatment, have cured Polio at much higher rates than conventional medical techniques; William C Douglass MD reported in 1996 that the Salk/Sabine vaccine's suppression of the Polio virus resulted in the Polio virus being replaced in human bodies by viruses similar to the Polio virus which cause adult muscle weakness (http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/polio2.htm http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/polio3.htm). Dr Richard L Bruno (http://www.prohealth.com/library/showarticle.cfm?id=3658&t=CFIDS_FM) also makes the last point re Dr. Douglass' work identifying viruses similar to Polio that have stepped into the vacuum created by Polio's demise.

@2009 David Virgil Hobbs