Funny how “debate” about the MENZB vaccine, becomes acceptable to the Herald, when it comes from the mouths of IMAC, rather than “anti-immunisation extremists”. But here’s the puzzle. The so-called “anti-immunisation extremists” sounding off in 2004 was primarily pro vaccine Ron Law, whose primary quibble was the hiding of just this sort of information. Funny too. He provided that information to journalists pointing to exactly that debate, but where did it get him? Jane O’Hallahan called him an “anti-immunisation menace”. We all rolled around laughing.
Since when does calling the system on shonky science make a pro vaccine person an “anti-vaccine menace”? Actually, any deviation from the dogma on autopilot earns anyone the extremist label. There is pro vaccine Diana Lennon injecting the odd debating prick, and I bet that behind the scenes, Jane O’Hallahan wishes she’d just shut up as well!
There are some really interesting statements, and assumptions in this article by the New Zealand Herald. The first is: “- the critics may be vocal but they are few in number, and the officials have the weight of clinical trials, and most doctors behind them. They also hint that their adversaries have ideas which are ‘out there’ or ‘weird’.
I have a suggestions for Geoff Cumming. Why doesn’t he talk to ALL the “adversaries” personally, instead of limiting his words to vaccine defender OPINIONS of their critics? Ah, but that would take time, and when being paid by the word, time is an expensive commodity, no?
Jane O’Hallahan makes an extraordinary statement about the vaccine uptake for MeNZB. She says: “We got historical levels of coverage – that didn’t happen on the back of no information.” What was this historical coverage? 80%. Did you read that right? Eighty percent of parents vaccinated their children.
Okay?
That means 20% said no.
One answer why 80% said yes, is written right here by Geoff Cummings: “those receiving Prevenar, the new vaccine for pneumococcal disease, were confused. 'They think it’s the same things as meningococcal' .”
Those are probably the people who looked at some really nasty pictures showing kids with black skin and probably went screaming all the way to their doctors for MeNZB so that their kids wouldn’t turn black and die. THAT is the information that got people to vaccinate. People wouldn’t have a clue what Prevenar is all about, because the information Jane O’Hallahan relies upon for all vaccines, is primarily emotional blackmail.
Geoff Cumming hits that nail on the head again earlier in the article: “One problem is ignorance… most parents lack more than a sketchy knowledge of the diseases in the immunization schedule” Touche. That’s a fact. The MAJORITY of parents who vaccinate, know little about either the diseases or the vaccines. But then, you only have to look at the pamphlets they get given, and the upcoming obnoxious “Vaccinate your children” DVD to see why the next generation of parents will be even more illiterate than the last.
However, here’s something interesting. Most parents who make AN INFORMED CHOICE not to vaccinate, make it their business to know about the diseases and the vaccines as part of the process leading up to that decision. They are mostly articulate, intelligent, thinking parents, who can usually tell you what the diseases are, incubation times, infection presentations, as well as what is IN the vaccines.
Some parents might just be too lazy to vaccinate, or don't get around to it, but amongst the 20% MeNZB non-vaccinators, they would be the minority.
The reason there is so much ignorance today amongst most pro vaccine parents, is that decision-making is primarily based on media and medically-induced paranoia around infections, which creates an unseen social hypnosis making microbes into monsters, which convinces parents that injecting children with all vaccines and “boosters”, is a reasonable and believable solution to anything and everything. Such hypnosis requires neither knowledge of the diseases or vaccines. It only requires implanting fear, and peer group pressure, to create instant compliance.
And that’s why most provaccine parents now happy to receive Prevenar are confused and don't understand the difference between meningococcal and pneumococcal disease, what the various types of either are, or what any of the other diseases or vaccines are.
THAT is the STANDARD of uninformative ignorance which resulted in Jane O’Hallahan’s "historic" uptake levels of 80% for the MeNZB vaccine. Action by ignorance does have a rational description. It’s called “functional illiteracy”.
That most of the 20% of parents who didn't vaccinate their children, intelligently thought beyond the normal level of functional illiteracy, is not a message that vaccine defenders want Geoff Cumming to transmit to readers. The message vaccine defenders want the functionally illiterate to receive, is that most of the 20% of thinking parents are “weird” or “out there”.
And we can’t possibly be different can we?
Got to conform to social norms, right?
Must stay within that mouldy mindset, right?
That the Herald appears to instruct its journalists to report opinions, rather than provide readers with decent information on HPV or Gardasil, has another description worth pondering. Tabloid parrotage? Perhaps the Journalism manual these days has next to the phrase “investigative journalism” a caution stating, “Only use if win/win journalism, which doesn’t result in management being bitten by the hand that feeds it.”
Tabloid parrotage is the main reason why people like me learned over a decade ago, that the arena for discussion is not newspapers, TV, or blogs which allow comments… sorry… slam-fests. The arena for discussion is to do what the Herald repeatedly fails to do. Give the real data to the grassroots. Present parents with the information that neither the Health Department, Jane O’Hallahan or IMAC is prepared to do. Funnily enough, most parents are intelligent enough to understand why they are not given the information, and the implications of that information in analysing the bigger picture.
Here’s a Gardasil challenge to anyone reading this blog. Use your mouse hunting skills on the Gardasil section of the Resource page on this website. Complete the assignments; read all the abstracts or better yet, the full versions of these articles; read the FDA material on Gardasil; analyse the data; read the views of Dr Broker, them do some related pubmed searches, and remember that this information isn’t “weird” or “out there”.
Yes it requires a bit of thinking. It requires you to put in some leg work. What is wrong with that? You don't have time?
This is serious medical data you aren’t being told about. These are inconvenient medical facts which vaccine defenders don’t want you to think about. No guesses as to why.
