Anton R. Borg MD, Cirencester, Gloucestershire,UK
Vaccination is both safe and effective (1)
From time to time, letters consisting of pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo about the alleged dangers of vaccination appear in the press. They follow a set formula - dark comments about the medical profession, government and sometimes drug companies, with allegations about conspiracies between them to foist "dangerous" chemicals on the unsuspecting public. The swine flu vaccine has been a recent target of such correspondence.
These letters should be treated with the utter contempt which they deserve. Vaccination programmes worldwide have eradicated smallpox and have now confined polio to only three countries, with great hope that it will disappear within 10 years. Diphtheria, tetanus, haemophilus meningitis, polio, all significant causes of mortality and permanent disability in the western world, are now entirely or virtually non-existent. Measles would also have been eradicated by now, had the unfortunate and unfounded scare about MMR not surfaced a few years ago.
Most of these diseases are viral and are, therefore, untreatable once they take hold.
I say to those peddlers of fictional warnings that they should carry each case where individuals decline vaccination having read some of this nonsense, and then suffer grievously for it on their consciences. I challenge them, for example, to sit and watch a sufferer die of tetanus - I have had to do so, and it is pretty awful.
Vaccination is not perfect - nothing on this earth is! However, it has proven to be an extremely safe and effective tool against what have been, and, in some cases, still are, dangerous and unpleasant diseases.
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mary vella
Jan 8th 2010, 11:22
@ Mary Podlesak
thanks for sharing this information... i hope that it will serve as an eye opener to as many people as possible
@Dr. Borg & all who agree below
you have mentioned diseases which are very different from swine flu... so far as i know swine flu is treatable, can be overcome without medical treatment in 5 days or so and is very simply one of 100s of flus we're prone to be exposed to each season.
so i ask you all... with your reasoning how come we don't get a vaccine for every type of flu?
and... how is this not for the benefit of phamacutical companies?
i happen to think that if my body is already weak and vulnerable i don't want to traumatise it further by giving myself a shot of some flu that i might never contract anyways... 4 out of 5 of the older generation that i know who have taken the vaccine have been ill and the 1 who hasn't is - despite his age, very healthy.
so i urge everyone, especially pregnant women NOT to take the vaccine as it will scar you and your unborn child for life!
live healthy!
marika mifsud
Jan 6th 2010, 07:31
Dr Borg - I understand that swine flu in the UK is on the decline. Could this be because many people there have had the vaccine ?
mary podlesak
Jan 6th 2010, 00:22
So, let me get this straight, vaccines are universally safe and effective, given at any dosage to any individual worldwide in combination with any other drug or vaccine with the vaccine receipient in any state of health. They are solely responsible for the eradication of smallpox, polio, yellow fever, diptheria, rabies, tetnus, measles, etc. Public health sanitary measures and modern engineering methods had nothing to do with advances in public health and welfare. No raw data verifying or validating these assertions is necessary as the conclusions are logically self evident.
I am the mother of four high functioning autistic children. I have an MS in Industrial Engineering. My undergrad degrees were in Economics and Statistics. My husband has a Phd in EE. Our children did not speak until they were 5. I am one of 60 cousins. My moher was one of 13, my father one of 10. There wasn't a single individual in any of my husband's or my families with a condition remotely like that of our children. My friend, a biostatistician professor at Yale unequivocally asserts that it is well known that vaccines are to blame for autism.
Darren Galea
Jan 5th 2010, 16:36
Finally, a rational perspective of the vaccine debacle! Thank you for this letter, I hope everyone makes good use of this sound, educated advice.
Ron Saliba
Jan 5th 2010, 16:34
Quote: "Most of these diseases are viral and are, therefore, untreatable once they take hold".
But Swine flu is treatable no?
David Buttigieg
Jan 5th 2010, 14:12
Dr Borg,
Thank you for your letter and comment, it's a relief to hear real facts rather then psychotic advise from the usual conspiracy theorists.
But being Maltese you must know that in Malta most people know a lot more then ignorant doctors and scientists - mela hi, the gossip we hear at the grocer is much more reliable then scientific facts after all!
anton R borg
Jan 5th 2010, 12:28
To Mr Dominic Vella:
Doctors don't block discussion about vaccines; we know they are not perfect-it is true that some people have suffered as a result of vaccinations. Polio is now very rare in the western world; the new vaccine is no longer a live one, so there is no risk of contracting the infection from it; when the USSR collapsed, the interruption to the vaccination programme led to a significant rise in diphtheria cases. In UK, the interruption to the MMR programme has led to a significant rise in cases of measles. These infections are dangerous, far more so than any vaccine.
Our beef is with false anti-vaccine propaganda often sent to the press, containing a load of pseudoscientific mumbojumbo; it does not hep anyone. Open debate is essential, but it should consist of fact, not fiction.
Mark Bridge
Jan 5th 2010, 12:22
If it is so safe then why are these drug companies immune from prosecution? You are a doctor in the UK so you should be aware of the 37,000 deaths last year from ordinary flu and other complications.
Swine flu is miniscule compared but we all know that Doctors in the UK earn 100 times what they do in Malta.
You are correct about certaine diseases been eradicated but fail to mention that some of these diseases are back with a vengeance in the UK as a result of mass immigration from the third world.I'll take my chances and do without the swine flu vaccine.
J. Debono
Jan 5th 2010, 12:00
@ Dominic Vella
Are you comparing 1976 with 2010?
Are you aware that in 34 years medicine made huge leaps forward?
Regarding vaccine - yes, it is not perfect, however when compared to the real illness, it can be easily described as the MIRACLE DRUG.
You mentioned polio!
In Malta, before vaccination started, we had an epidemic of polio with all its disabilitating side-effects, Whilst when vaccine was introduced polio was eradicated in Malta.
Are you suggesting stopping polio vaccine because in the UK they have 1 - 2 cases per year???? (? due to the vaccine)
If you don't want to take any vaccine, you are free to do so, but remember one thing:-
Everything has its side-effects - (even eating - you can choke and die), and whenever a medical doctor prescribes some medicine, vaccine etc. he always does so, remembering that the drug/vaccine has LESS side-effects than the actual illness!!
In this case, Public Health has made its position very clearly - everyone is urged to take the vaccine, starting with the people more prone, and continuing with the healthier population, and this is the advice everyone should follow, NOT the advice of Cikku l-poplu.
Dominic Vella
Jan 5th 2010, 11:33
Yes vaccinations are not perfect and so careful and lengthy testing needs to be balanced against the urgent need for new vaccines for new variants. In the 1976 US swine flu event no insurance company would insure the vaccine makers and the government angrily announced that it would take liability. The immunisation programme was stopped after 9 months when it was discovered those who had the vaccine has 7 X the chance of getting Guillain-Barre syndrome. The government paid out $285,000,000 in compensation.
Today US vaccine companies are immune for their vaccine under provisions of a 2006 law for health emergencies. This seems unfair. If you're going to ask people to do this for the common good, then let's make sure for the common good that these people will be taken care of in the rare and unlikely event that something goes wrong.
Doctors should not block questions about vaccines as open discussion is more reassuring. Then we can understand why 1 in 2 cases of polio in the UK each year come from the vaccine itself, and why rubella vaccine does nothing for boys, but rather seeks herd immunity to protect pregnant women.
Ramon Casha
Jan 5th 2010, 11:26
I suspect that this has something to do with the massive hysteria about swine flu. After the panic subsided, people realised that people infected with swine flu were just getting better - worldwide, it has caused fewer deaths than the ordinary annual flu on an average year. This caused people to feel suspicious when the same sources started pushing the swine flu vaccine.