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Damage control report

The entire article reads as if written by vaccine manufacturers trying to sooth public fears and crush objections. It's also dismissive of contrary evidence.

"Sweden: In the vaccination moratorium period that occurred when Sweden suspended vaccination against whooping cough (pertussis) from 1979 to 1996, 60% of the country's children contracted the potentially fatal disease before the age of ten years; close medical monitoring kept the death rate from whooping cough at about one per year.[27] Pertussis continues to be a major health problem in developing countries, where mass vaccination is not practiced; the World Health Organization estimates it caused 294,000 deaths in 2002.[30]"

It presents us with hard data on when dropping the vaccine worked out fine, and follows it up with the huge death rates in "developing countries." This section is about Sweden's reduction if vaccine use, not on why big pharma wants to move in on Africa, as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.88.207.52 (talk) 15:51, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Having 60% of children catch whooping cough is not what I'd call "worked out fine". This can be a serious and distressing illness for the baby/child and parent. As the source says, only Sweden's otherwise excellent health system prevented many deaths from occurring. If you want the article to comment on "big pharma" moving in on Africa, please supply some reliable sources. This talk page is not the place to discuss one's own consipiracy theories. Colin°Talk 17:13, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

the cases are slanted though and should be cleaned, the only citation on the smallpox epidemic following Stockholm drop in immunization 1873 is from a book entitled and "their right to die" and fails to mention the epidemic was international, also affecting the countries with mandated vaccination. it reads as though the drop in vaccination triggered the epidemic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.210.185.139 (talk) 00:34, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

WP instruction clip uses vaccine controversy as an example of correct application of NPOV and V

If you have a couple of minutes, could you please listen to the this Wikipedia instruction video, and tell me if you think the NPOV example (vaccination controversy) gives due weight to the pro- and anti-vaccination positions? Anthony (talk) 06:48, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Macrophagic myofasciitis and vaccine-derived aluminium hydroxide

What about the possible role of vaccine-derived aluminium hydroxide in the new neuromuscular disease Macrophagic myofasciitis, mostly found in adult French patients? Macrophagic myofasciitis is especially associated with the hepatitis B vaccine and the tetanus vaccine. The number of cases is very small, in the hundreds, I believe.

"Macrophagic myofasciitis generally becomes manifest as muscle pain (myalgias) of variable intensity, observed in 95% of the patients, usually associated with chronic debilitating fatigue (90%). Myalgias predominantly affect the limbs – notably the legs – and are often aggravated by exertion. Joint pain, primarily affecting the large peripheral articulations is noted in 50–60% of the patients and a moderate febrile syndrome in 30%. The are no cutaneous manifestations or digestive tract symptoms." Ref: Macrophagic myofasciitis


Macrophagic myofasciitis lesions assess long-term persistence of vaccine-derived aluminium hydroxide in muscle

Aluminium-containing vaccines and macrophagic myofasciitis

Macrophagic myofasciitis associated with vaccine-derived aluminium

Macrophagic myofasciitis: an infantile Italian case

Identical twins with macrophagic myofasciitis: Genetic susceptibility and triggering by aluminic vaccine adjuvants?

Drgao (talk) 06:49, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Your link from the WHO notes "[a]t present there is no evidence of a health risk from aluminium-containing vaccines or any justification for changing current vaccination practices.
At its meeting of 3-4 December 2003, the Committee reviewed the data from an exploratory case-control study performed in France and concluded, in accordance with previous statements, that the persistence of aluminium-containing macrophages at the site of a previous vaccination is not associated with specific clinical symptoms or disease." Not sure what you want us to do if leading health organizations doesn't think it's a specific diagnosis at this time. Yobol (talk) 12:54, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
I think the possible macrophagic myofasciitis/vaccine link is more interesting from the scientific point of view, rather than presenting it as something to be worried about. Aluminium is added to vaccines to potentiate the immune response to the virus/toxoid contained in the vaccine. Diseases such as CFS and autism that some believe may be linked to vaccines are characterized by chronic inflammation (chronic immune activation). Now, macrophagic myofasciitis is seemingly triggered by aluminium in vaccines, and is this disease is also caused by chronic immune activation. So this is scientifically interesting.
Interestingly, the mechanism by which aluminium potentiates the immune response was until recently unknown, but some new studies suggest the potentiation may be caused by aluminium's effect on raising uric acid levels, which in turn switches on dendritic cells. Ref: Boosting immune response to vaccinations: Role of aluminium adjuvants
Whether you think it is worth including this information in the article, I leave up to you. Drgao (talk) 02:45, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
Speculation upon supposition upon intuition. Per WP:TPG, this is not the place to discuss the merits of any hypothesis, only to discuss changes to the article. Yobol (talk) 02:47, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Re: one, some, or all vaccines?

A recent edit of mine was reverted here, ostensibly because it was "less concise" than the original wording. Shouldn't there be a distinction between a dispute concerning *all* vaccinations and *specific* vaccines? Can we really justify lumping them together into one grand generalization? Sebastian Garth (talk) 22:10, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Our article describes both general and specific; there is no need to describe in so many words where one will sufficeYobol (talk) 22:22, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

NPOV problems in the lead

I'm refering specifically to this line "And since then, successful campaigns against vaccination have resulted in unnecessary injuries and mass deaths"

as well as this part "Concerns about immunization safety often follow a pattern: some investigators suggest that a medical condition is an adverse effect of vaccination; a premature announcement is made of the alleged adverse effect; the initial study is not reproduced by other groups; and finally, it takes several years to regain public confidence in the vaccine"

I understand what its trying to say, but I think there are better ways of saying this stuff. Maybe something like "And since then, successful campaigns against vaccination have resulted in a decrease in the effectiveness of vaccination programs" ? 71.112.9.86 (talk) 03:37, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

When vaccines aren't effective, people get sick and die. I see no NPOV problems with this obvious fact. Yobol (talk) 03:42, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree with the OP. The current wording really isn't encyclopedic and should be rewritten to reflect a neutral point of view. Sebastian Garth (talk) 16:35, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Neutrality

A better title for this article would be: "Why the anti-vaccination movement is wrong." Since this proposed title matches this article, can we all agree that it is not objective in describing the anti-vaccination movement? Thank you. 131.137.245.207 (talk) 16:45, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

This article is extremely biased and does not include the valid perspectives of anti-vaccinationists. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.171.205.25 (talk) 17:22, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Now go to the Evolution page and complain that not enough weight is given to Intelligent Design. 213.81.120.146 (talk) 17:40, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Do not interpret "truth" and "not your belief" as extremely biased. It is not extremely biased to say that earth is a globe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.179.55.198 (talk) 08:47, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Gummy hugs here saying that this article is crap and hes right; I see that this article was made to make people who dont chooose to be vaccinated(like me) look like evil monsters when we arent in any way. We just want tobe carefull about what we put in or and our childrens bodies. I got nailed by the mercury in a vciine and got autism from the mercury not the vaccine. Thats why my mother and my docter said no to anymore vaccines. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gummy hugs (talk • contribs) 12:28, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, Gummy, then let me assure you that both, your parents and the doctor, are wrong. Der is NO mercury in vaccinations. There was a mercury salt keeping the vaccine dose steril. However, most of the vaccines today do contain such substance any longer as the production process has improved tremendously. There is absolutely no evidence that autism is caused by vaccination. If you are afraid of mercury contamination, please refrain from eating sea food and make sure the dentist does not use amalgam fillings. Chartinael (talk) 12:33, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Gummy hugs here saying; I am also refering to when there was lead in vaccines before and no you moron. I also got nailed when I got it when I was vaccinated as a baby you idiot. There was a huge issue with autism from vaccines when I was a baby but now I can handle lead; before when I was a baby I couldn't. Btw they use a safe lead alternaitive which is stronger and cheaper in there filling now sir. Todays dont cause autism you idiot. I also believe that you should have the individual right to chooose not to be vaccinated; its called freedom of choice for a reason. I am also not getting another vaccine for i am now more than able to fight off disease just fine now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gummy hugs (talk • contribs) 12:57, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Which vaccine are you talking about? I don't know of any that contained lead. Ever. BTW: Please try to stay civil. --Six words (talk) 13:55, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

To Gummy Hugs, I appreciate your concerns and think you may have an honest fear of immunization, as do I. I also agree that this arcticle uses many generalities without citation (as I'm doing here, you can find them yourselves.) I don't agree, however, with how you're addressing your fellow Wikians. Please use pejorative words on other websites, such as youtube. Name calling has no place in civil discourse as it only undermines your point by casting you in an unflattering light. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.167.16.42 (talk) 19:25, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Andrew Wakefield's autism study declared "an elaborate fraud"

Breaking News: Landmark autism study by Dr. Andrew Wakefield was "an elaborate fraud", CNN.

Kathleen and Eliot will talk with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, and JB Handley, the father of an autistic child and founder of Generation Rescue, about the following breaking story:
(CNN) – A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines was an "elaborate fraud" that has done long-lasting damage to public health, a leading medical publication reported Wednesday. An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study - and that there was "no doubt" Wakefield was responsible. "It's one thing to have a bad study, a study full of error, and for the authors then to admit that they made errors," Fiona Godlee, BMJ's editor-in-chief, told CNN. "But in this case, we have a very different picture of what seems to be a deliberate attempt to create an impression that there was a link by falsifying the data."

It will be interesting to hear what JB Handley, founder of Generation Rescue, has to say about this. This wasn't simple carelessness, but "elaborate fraud". Not only has Wakefield lost his license to practice medicine, he should be imprisoned. This probably won't make any difference to those who are involved in the vaccine controversy movement. Facts never do. -- Brangifer (talk) 23:58, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

BMJ: "a deliberate fraud"

Secrets of the MMR scare: how the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed

In the first part of a special BMJ series, Brian Deer exposes the data behind claims that launched a worldwide scare over the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, and reveals how the appearance of a link with autism was manufactured at a London medical school. In an accompanying editorial, Fiona Godlee and colleagues say that Andrew Wakefield's (pictured) article linking MMR vaccine and autism was based not on bad science but on a deliberate fraud. In a linked blog, Brian Deer analyses the similarities between the MMR scare and the case of the "Piltdown Man."

Editorial: "falsification of data"

Wakefield’s article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent

Clear evidence of falsification of data should now close the door on this damaging vaccine scare

Brian Deer series "exposes the bogus data behind the claims"

How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed, Part 1

In the first part of a special BMJ series, Brian Deer exposes the bogus data behind claims that launched a worldwide scare over the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, and reveals how the appearance of a link with autism was manufactured at a London medical school.

Journal: Study linking vaccine to autism was fraud

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j5W87jAs9mPrcilNDPYP7vxBjqdw?docId=e361bf7682cc43ce998219c5eb2d151e • Sbmeirow • Talk • 07:12, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

The Age-Old Struggle against the Antivaccinationists - NEJM

From New England Journal of Medicine, published today:

  • "Today, the spectrum of antivaccinationists ranges from people who are simply ignorant about science (or "innumerate" - unable to understand and incorporate concepts of risk and probability into science-grounded decision making) to a radical fringe element who use deliberate mistruths, intimidation, falsified data, and threats of violence in efforts to prevent the use of vaccines and to silence critics. Antivaccinationists tend toward complete mistrust of government and manufacturers, conspiratorial thinking, denialism, low cognitive complexity in thinking patterns, reasoning flaws, and a habit of substituting emotional anecdotes for data....

    "We believe that antivaccinationists have done significant harm to the public health. Ultimately, society must recognize that science is not a democracy in which the side with the most votes or the loudest voices gets to decide what is right."

    The Age-Old Struggle against the Antivaccinationists, Gregory A. Poland, M.D., and Robert M. Jacobson, M.D., NEJM 2011; 364:97-99January 13, 2011

Brangifer (talk) 23:32, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Nice POV piece, yes. Oh, wait - this is an encyclopedia, not a blog... Sebastian Garth (talk) 02:44, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
I think you might be confused. "POV" is a Wikipedia term, indicating that editors shouldn't impose their own viewpoints in articles. The antidote to POV is to find and use high-quality, scholarly sources like... you know, the New England Journal of Medicine. MastCell Talk 02:48, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
Reliable source or not, it's written from a non-NPOV, so we should be careful not to quote it directly:
"The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view. Try not to quote directly from participants engaged in a heated dispute; instead, summarize and present the arguments in an impartial tone."
Finger-pointing, name-calling, and the like belong in blogs - not here. Sebastian Garth (talk) 15:45, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
I am sometimes shocked by the ignorance of what appear to be long term editors of WP who are completely unfamiliar what what Wikipedia calls a source. SG should have a read of WP:RS... Shot info (talk) 10:57, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
@Shot info, we'll have to cut SG some slack since he's a relative newbie: 535 edits since 2009-03-29, although by now failure to understand RS, FRINGE, and NPOV are significant problems.
@Sebastian, while I posted the above because it's relevant to this article and a possibly very good source, no one has proposed how it is to be used in this article, if at all. It is used quite nicely in these articles: MMR vaccine controversy & Andrew Wakefield. It is far from a "blog". BTW, judicious quoting is often allowed and not forbidden.
NPOV only applies to the editorial style used by our editors, not to the sources they use. We use very POV sources all the time (or we'd have little but duh/blah content) and we are NOT allowed to slur the POV by making it a "neutral" non-POV. The POV should be preserved. The NEJM article is a high quality source, and as a mainstream POV and source it is required to be given more weight than fringe antivax sources. Interestingly enough, it appears that the authors may have written this before the latest description (Jan. 2011) of the "elaborate fraud" performed by Wakefield was fully described in the BMJ.
The NEJM article only mentions him twice, so this seems to be written based on what was known before the latest release of more evidence of a well-planned and systematic fraud, with fixing of data, secret patents for a vaccine waiting to be launched once Wakefield had succeeded in discrediting the MMR vaccine, undisclosed alliances with litigious lawyers, huge sums of undisclosed monies received by Wakefield, his intent to fix the data so as to prepare the way for litigation and launching of his products, abuse of small children by subjecting them to endoscopies and testing without proper ethical approval, etc.. It's the largest scandal of its kind in newer medical history.
I suggest you read our articles that describe and thoroughly document (read the referenced sources too) the issues surrounding the vaccine controversy, the enormous costs to society and individuals, and the needless suffering and deaths: main perpetrator Andrew Wakefield, his fake "diagnosis" of Autistic enterocolitis, the MMR vaccine controversy, and this article. -- Brangifer (talk) 19:13, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
I assumed you were making a suggestion, I guess. Anyway, opinions about the mental constitution of anti-vaccinationists are hardly encyclopedic material. The addition of such devices only degrades the quality of Wikipedia and ultimately (and indeed ironically) the effectiveness vaccination efforts. The importance of vaccines is imminently clear; let's not allow the rhetoric to drown out the message... Sebastian Garth (talk) 20:18, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
I agree that there are limits to such inclusions, especially when they are nothing more than yellow journalism, rumors, or National Enquirer type stuff, but we do document the opinions of respected professionals that accurately describe things. Wikipedia is not saying it, just citing or quoting the source. -- Brangifer (talk) 20:26, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Why Parents Fear the Needle

Another interesting article:

It's two pages and contains some historical information. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:06, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree, and it appears to be a pretty balanced source, to boot. Now then....were you planning to be bold, or are you just making another suggestion? Seriously tho, I say "go for it" - this article could honestly use some fresh material, frankly! Sebastian Garth (talk) 23:47, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Individual Liberty

I'd like to improve the individual liberty section of this article, but I don't know the best way to proceed since the topic is controversial. I'm going to list some of the problems I have with it and maybe we can go from there.

  • Needs to distinguish between believing compulsory vaccination is illegal and believing it is wrong, i.e. civil disobedience.
  • Needs to distinguish between only opposing compulsory vaccination and additionally opposing government propaganda programs and social pressure to receive voluntary vaccinations.
  • Needs to distinguish between opposing vaccination on grounds of "medical liberty" and "financial liberty." Some merely oppose being forced to pay for something.
  • Needs to discuss right to make oneself potentially sick vs. right to make others potentially sick, further subdivided into family vs. strangers.
  • This whole article is obviously Western POV, but this section especially needs to distinguish between individual liberty arguments in America and elsewhere.
  • Counter-point to individual liberty arguments (free rider problem text) needs to address individual liberty in two ways. 1) Whether governments do have the right to force citizens to receive medical treatment (and this needs to distinguish between USA and other countries corresponding to distinguishing done for the argument the counter-point is responding to). 2) Arguments used to justify government coercion, which is where the free rider problem text should be included.

Also, I would be interested in seeing a separate section discussing the concept of the free rider problem. Herd immunity vs. risks to homogenous herds and research into whether vaccination "market" has any similarities with the free rider problem in financial markets (how many people can buy passive funds before there are not enough active traders to make the markets efficient). 98.213.140.70 (talk) 04:35, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Let's not give undue weight to a tiny issue in the US and a nonexistent issue outside of the US. Almost all people opposed to vaccinations have done so because of pseudoscientific beliefs rather than some silly issue on liberty. If you're trying to make a point, I would say go to the driver's license page. Or how about passports. This is a medical history article. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 05:47, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
That's not a helpful response, OM, and please don't call people "silly" because they hold a different set of ethics to you. We're here to discuss how best to improve this article, not to insult people we disagree with. The question of individual liberty is a relevant aspect of this article, and the section is currently quite small. I don't think the issue of individual liberty is as closely related to the free rider problem as to warrant the current combination of both in the same section. So our discussion on liberty really extends to a single sentence, which merely states there is an issue. Some of the points made by the IP are relevant and not just particular to the US. Even in countries without any form of compulsory vaccination, there is still peer pressure that impinges on one's ability to make a completely free and rational choice. One may regard that as a useful tool to achieve the greater good, a necessary evil, or something morally unjustifiable. This works both ways of course. For example, a middle-class Daily Mail reader in London is likely to come under considerable pressure to reject vaccination. I might regard the "propaganda" that spews from that rag as "morally unjustifiable"; another person may look at a government information leaflet with similar feelings. What is necessary, if we are to improve this section in the article, is to find reliable sources that discuss these issues, and to avoid letting our own beliefs affect the content. Colin°Talk 07:36, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, Colin. So, do you think that liberty/free rider should be split, or is it best to expand the current section and split when the individual liberty section and the free rider section are large enough to warrant two sections? 98.213.140.70 (talk) 09:32, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
The article discusses the free rider problem as a consequence of not having compulsory vaccination. But compulsory vaccination is not the norm and nobody would make it compulsory just to punish selfish people. The pressure to make vaccination compulsory comes from the need to keep the takeup high to achieve herd immunity. So I think it might be better to discuss the ethics of compulsory vaccination separately from the ethics of free riders. But perhaps we don't need a separate section. Maybe we should have an Ethics section and fold Religion into a subsection of that. A discussion of the ethics of refusing vaccination needs to mention the negative effect this has on others: that it increases the risk of disease to those too young or too ill to be vaccinated, and that it makes it very hard to eradicate a disease. The section currently mentions the (rare) situation where an individual may have smaller odds of suffering harm from the disease than from the vaccine. An ethics section should also note the irrationality of a parent who chooses the higher-risk non-vaccination option because the guilt of choosing to vaccinate their child and having something go wrong is perceived to be worse than the guilt of refusing vaccination and "nature" harming the child through disease. One can argue that this irrational behaviour by the parent is unethical towards the child. The morals of those involved in vaccine-harm litigation should also come under the spotlight here.
I may not be able to help much with the article, though. I haven't studied ethics, don't have good access to the best reliable sources and don't have much free time. 12:41, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm sorry Colin that you felt you had to upbraid for my statements, but I stand by them. You are obviously not an American. Everything listed by the OP are codewords for a political POV that is frankly destroying this country, but that's an argument best left elsewhere, not in an article about a medical controversy. I do not know, nor care, if the OP actually believes those things, or wants to improve the article, but the ideas proposed are politically fringe, and I've seen these comments in other articles which started a whole bunch of problems. Remember, I've been around the Wikipedia block a long time, and AGF doesn't exist with me. The proposed edits, until I'm convinced otherwise, are not a set of ethical questions, but it is most certainly a political POV that will not help the article. That being said, if you prefer the polite POV pushing crowd, it's a good thing to know. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 15:44, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Sorry to upset you, OrangeMarlin. I'm sure my using an IP address with a short edit history is bothering you. Also, you are right to wonder why I want to improve this article and not others. That's why I'm posting in the talk page first. The truth is that I was having trouble finding an informative presentation of the topic anywhere, and I thought that Wikipedia might be the place to collect and organize knowledge on this niche subject since many knowledgeable people contribute to these articles. I think that expanding this section would not violate undue weight, based on the popularity in the US, where I'm from, of the topic. for example, you can Google http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=vaccines+liberty#sclient=psy&hl=en&q=vaccines+liberty+-autism&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=23c2bd992ac36d9d to see that this controversy is popular. 98.213.140.70 (talk) 09:56, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
No, I'm not upset, and no, you're using an IP address and short edit history is of no concern. My first edits were using an IP address. I find the political positions you describe are being used to justify the refusal to vaccinate to be one so antithetical to a rational human being, it makes me ill. People who espouse the anti-vaccine position are, plain and simple, murderers. The death rate from easily prevented diseases has skyrocketed in the UK and the US among children ever since Andrew Wakefield lied in the Lancet journal article. Here in California we have a whooping cough outbreak, and I had to get vaccinated for a disease I haven't seen in 40 years. But my political and medical feelings aside, I am concerned about giving undue weight to a part of the vaccine controversy that just isn't a big one, even in the US. BTW, using google search results is troubling as a research tool. Remember, just because there are tons of hits, it does not mean that the validity of those hits are high or viable.OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 15:38, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Wow. Is it hot in here or is it just me? As I see it, this is fist and foremost a matter of collecting good references for any expanssion. If there is a matter of political involvement, we may find that the new information would be better placed in an article about politics, but that's hard to determine right now since I have no idea what information we're talking about from which sources. To avoid any misunderstanding down the line, let me put my cards on the table: I'm very much pro vaccination because of the obvoius public health benefits it provides. --U5K0 (talk) 18:03, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Miller, NZ.; Goldman, GS. (2011). "Infant mortality rates regressed against number of vaccine doses routinely given: Is there a biochemical or synergistic toxicity?". Hum Exp Toxicol. doi:10.1177/0960327111407644. PMID 21543527. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

link 79.180.196.238 (talk) 18:50, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Wow, what a convincing paper. American children receive a lot of vaccines, but the US ranks only 33rd in infant mortality rate. So therefore vaccines must cause infant mortality! I can think of absolutely no other explanations or confounding variables. Well, actually, I can, but apparently the authors of the paper couldn't. But at least now I have (yet another) useful illustration of the correlation/causation fallacy, which will be handy for educational purposes. MastCell Talk 19:01, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
I might have gone with Post hoc ergo propter hoc, because it sounds fancier! OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 21:38, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
I can barely read the paper. However, it seems to be an interesting article to condemn the quality of the US health care system. Oh, that's not the point. Again, since I can't read it (probably an issue with my browser), do the authors discuss what would happen to the infant mortality rate if we eliminated all vaccines? OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 21:43, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Critiques:

  1. Neither author is an epidemiologist nor has any credentials in medical analysis.
  2. Both authors are well-known in the anti-vaccination circles (which doesn't necessarily exclude their theories, but doesn't make you think that they are truly unbiased)
  3. As stated above, proving causation cannot be done by showing correlation. I'm sure that there are huge number of children who broke their arms after getting a vaccination. One cannot therefore conclude that vaccines cause weak bones (though, I wouldn't be surprised if someone did)
  4. Authors ignore ALL other causality for increased infant mortality rates.
  5. Author's description of the number of vaccinations is miscounted in some cases (specifically the USA), and plainly wrong in others. They seem to wander between counting the number of antigens or the number of shots just to fit the number of "vaccinations" to their beliefs. I cannot believe a peer-review system would not uncover this.
  6. If this were a real causation, why wouldn't they do this study over a huge number of years. There's data on both vaccinations and IMR going back 30, maybe 40 years. If their "theory" were right, we would see changes in IMR as the number of antigens or shots changed by country.
  7. The "goodness of fit" of the data is really bad. r2 is just under 0.5. Again, why would such a lousy result pass peer review.
  8. Ooops. Different countries count infant mortality differently. No mention of it.

I could go on. This is enough. Bad article, fails WP:MEDRS. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 22:16, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

You guys are being biased and POV. You just can't see the genius behind this study because it refutes your precious "established" science. Noformation Talk 22:42, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

You better watch out. Your irony may pass for a belief, and some Anonymous IP will latch on to you! OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 23:12, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
Adding to Orangemarlin's analysis above, I also have some serious concerns about the data set the authors chose to analyze.
  • The countries chosen were the bottom (best) 34 by infant mortality rate. Why 34? Because the United States came 34th. In other words, the authors deliberately ended their analysis with a data point that they knew would sit in their preferred corner of their chart. They provide no justification for this arbitrary cutoff.
  • There is no mention of whether or not the children considered in the study actually received the vaccinations scheduled, or even that they survived long enough to receive them. (Having 26 vaccines on the schedule is meaningless unless the children actually received all of those vaccines. The largest contributors to infant mortality in the U.S. are congenital defects and complications due to premature birth and low birth weight; both are likely to kill infants very early—before their first vaccination.)
  • Our infant mortality article provides a number of interesting statistics related to the U.S. IMR figures, including a table by state. Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Utah all come in with IMRs under 5; that would place these states in 24th to 26th place if inserted among the countries. Mississippi, meanwhile, has the worst IMR at 10.74; that would place it at number 58 on our List of countries by infant mortality rate. The IMR among white and hispanic Americans is around 5.6 or 5.7, while the IMR among African Americans is a shocking 13.6; if they were a separate country, they'd rank 92nd in the world. The assumption that such an obviously heterogeneous population can or should be treated as a single data point is nonsensical.
  • One wonders why the authors did not choose to examine a more relevant statistic like childhood (under-5) mortality.
The U.S.' high overall IMR reflects serious disparities in access to healthcare; it is not caused by vaccinations. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:09, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Your last point is telling. Wouldn't it be interesting to see what the child mortality rate for those who do not receive vaccinations vs. those who do. Even there, it would be difficult to determine causality or lack of causality, but I'd like to know. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 02:13, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
I would wager that the childhood mortality (ages 1-5) in the United States would be significantly lower among the children who received their full schedule of vaccines than among those who missed more than one or two. (Of course, honesty compels me to observe that that could readily be attributed to those children being in higher-income families with better access to health insurance and health care in general.) It's also worth bearing in mind that as long as vaccination levels remain high enough to maintain herd immunity, then the risk of disease (and death) from the childhood diseases on the schedule will be low for all children—not just the ones who got the jab. (The ones who skip their vaccines get a 'free rider' benefit.) It's difficult to properly account for the protective effect of being surrounded by vaccinated children. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:51, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Well, in other news, I'm contacting the editors of Human & Environmental Toxicology to offer my services as a peer reviewer. They seem to need some help in that department. :P MastCell Talk 07:04, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
This is a peer review paper from a respectable publisher - if i remember correctly - this is more authoritative than the poorly demonstrated personal-research that i can see in response by the CIA shills or whatever they are. it should get into the article per wikipedia policies as the highly reliable, peer-reviewed information. 79.180.196.238 (talk) 08:46, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Not to mention that the paper DOES NOT focus on USA, but the poorly executed personal research on this threads can give the impression that USA is what it's all about. USA is simply another country in the very VERY strong case presented here: "Linear regression analysis of unweighted mean IMRsshowed a high statistically significant correlation between increasing number of vaccine doses and increasinginfant mortality rates, with r= 0.992 p= (0.0009). 79.180.196.238 (talk) 08:46, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
CIA shills - seriously IP79.180.196.238? Wikipedia operates using consensus and you think you can come here and convince editors that your edits deserve note by calling them CIA shills. How about you go away and grow up a bit, then come back, start up an account and give adulthood a go. Jeeze, CIA shills. Shot info (talk) 10:04, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
CIA shills. That's an interesting charge. I wonder if you've read the paper that you're cheerleading for here. The CIA clearly has a hidden agenda aimed at concealing the fact that the United States engages in grossly inequitable and inefficient distribution of its healthcare resources resulting in an embarrassingly high level of infant mortality; the Agency carries out this deception campaign by regularly publishing and freely distributing the infant mortality data on which the authors of this poorly-written paper rely. I'm disappointed that you're not putting a little more care into your conspiracy theories. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:45, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
What's amusing is that the authors were so lazy that they used CIA data for the infant mortality rate numbers. Real researchers would have contacted each country to get data AND how that data is counted since apparently every country counts infant mortality in a different manner. Another anonymous IP troll that needs a real education in science. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 15:25, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Conspiracy or not - this new data about vaccination from a respectible peer reviewed source that is being used in wikipedia quite a bit, and should be included in the article per Wikipedia policies. all the "critique" is irrelevant to those very real facts. Eyalmc (talk) 20:08, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

I guess you failed to read the critiques. It's a crap article from a crap journal. Oh, by the way, no one here claimed there was a "conspiracy." Anti-vaccine types do. Now, how about getting an education?
Not even listed in pubmed and their website was updated in 2005 and doesn't even appear to be a journal. Noformation Talk 21:35, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
I didn't even bother to look on PubMed, because I just assumed it would be there. How bad of a medical journal do you have to be that after five years, you're not indexed on PubMed. Wait, it's a conspiracy!!!!!! Big Pharma blocks the journal!!!!! OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 21:52, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
Actually, it is indexed on PubMed. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 21:54, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
Damn search terms Noformation Talk 22:01, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
Based on my experience, the POV pushing crowd will use this one error against you for at least 5 years, ignoring all your other proper comments and edits. They do that because they lack any intelligence, knowledge or logic. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 23:33, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
Good. so it is on pubmed - meaning It is not a crap journal, and it is not a crap paper then. Therefore it should be in the article. Eyalmc (talk) 04:40, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
Obviously, you have failed to read anything above. Just because it's on PubMed doesn't preclude its being a crap paper in a crap journal. It is a crap paper, period. The only article it should be in is Feces. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 04:44, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
i did read it. appereantlry, the claim that their "website" wa not updated for 5 years is also a lie. Can you explain on what exactly you base your "crap journal" allegation? seems to me a request for comment is needed Eyalmc (talk) 04:55, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
That a journal publishes this article is incontrovertible evidence that it's a crap journal. There are so many fallacies in this article as to make me think that the journal actually doesn't have a peer review policy other than to check spelling. And again, you didn't read a word of our criticism. The article failed on so many levels. And yes, some of us here are pretty fucking smart. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 05:07, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
your "critique" is an original research. This is a valid source, however, your original critique of a peer reviewed article from a respective journal - is not. Eyalmc (talk) 07:19, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
Whatever. The article sucks. It's not going to be included, because it is a heaping pile of shit. AND, employing undue weight, let's look at the literally hundreds of articles that say there is no link, written by real researchers with real backgrounds in epidemiology publishing in real journals with real peer review. So, this article FAILS on WP:MEDRS, WP:UNDUE, WP:FRINGE, and WP:NOTAFORUM. That last one has nothing to do with the article specifically, but more on your continued rants here. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 07:59, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
As has been said multiple times, fails WP:MEDRS and WP:UNDUE. That the article is of such horribly low quality is just the icing on the cake of why we shouldn't use it. Yobol (talk) 16:49, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
To amplify on Yobol's comment, our job is to honestly and accurately convey the current state of human knowledge on this topic. There have been well over 1,000 papers published in peer-reviewed, MEDLINE-indexed journals on vaccine safety (virtually all of which appear in more established and "reputable" journals). There have also been a number of efforts by national and international expert groups to synthesize the available evidence (e.g. U.S. Institute of Medicine, U.K. General Medical Council, U.N. World Health Organization, etc etc).

We need to somehow convey all of this content proportionately so that the reader gets an accurate sense of the weight of evidence and opinion. So even if we put aside the glaring methdological flaws of the article as original research (for now, although several of the better medical blogs have already debunked the piece in detail), I don't see why we should prominently cite this one article in preference to the other 1,000+? Is it because this article reaches a specific conclusion? Or because you honestly believe that it's had, or will have, a major impact on expert opinion in the field? MastCell Talk 17:03, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

In addition, the content of this Wikipedia article should be derived to the greatest extent from secondary sources, such as reviews and meta-analyses, as dictated in WP:PST. A single (laughably bad) primary research article, written by questionable "independent researchers" with minimal relevant research experience, from a bottom quartile[1] journal in toxicology is not going to be an appropriate foil for the numerous high-level sources that directly counter some of the nonsense presented in that HET piece. — Scientizzle 18:30, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
As I sad above, these two are just not worthy of respect, compared to some of the clinicians who published in the over 1000 paper published in real journals. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 00:37, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Following the heaps of WP:OR above, this is obviously not a high quality paper. However, it comes from a peer-reviewed, indexed journal - therefore it meets WP:RS & WP:MEDRS. We can't use our own OR to critique the quality of the source. However, if it is to be added to the article, a balancing POV should also be used, and if this paper is getting this much attention, I'm sure there will be a critique published somewhere that can be used. It is important to note this claim from WP:MEDRS - "individual primary sources should not be cited or juxtaposed so as to "debunk" or contradict the conclusions of reliable secondary sources, unless the primary source itself directly makes such a claim" so we should definitely take care in using this (primary) source outside of this article. DigitalC (talk) 19:24, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

First, who gives a shit if the talk page has original research? We criticized the piece of shit publication on this talk page, because we seem to be quite a bit more intelligent than the authors. And once again, there are literally over a thousand (according to PubMed) articles that say there is no link between anything but preventing diseases and vaccinations, so adding this piece of shit citation is so beyond undue weight as to create a whole new definition of undue. This article is crap. The journal is mostly crap with as low an impact factor as you can get and still have an impact factor. But case closed, we're not going to use this piece of shit citation, because it's such crap. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 21:16, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
"It comes from a peer-reviewed, indexed journal - therefore it meets WP:RS and WP:MEDRS." What? Not only is that not what WP:MEDRS says, but MEDRS was drafted specifically to counter the assertion that "it's in a journal, so it belongs in the article." MastCell Talk 00:17, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
Knowing the quality of the evidence helps editors distinguish between minority and majority viewpoints, determine due weight, and identify information that will be accepted as evidence-based medicine. In general, editors should rely upon high-quality evidence, such as systematic reviews, rather than lower-quality evidence, such as case reports, or non-evidence, such as anecdotes or conventional wisdom. The medical guidelines or position statements produced by nationally or internationally recognised expert bodies often contain an assessment of the evidence as part of the report. Hmmmmm. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 00:32, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the study does come across somewhat biased and the interpretation of the statistics indeed debatable, but it does nonetheless satisfy (sufficiently well, at least) the conventional requirements qualifying it for some sort of inclusion into this article, if nothing more than a footnote. Sebastian Garth (talk) 05:10, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Somewhat biased? Wrong. It satisfies NOTHING to be included in here, unless we want to say "this is what the anti-vaccine idiots have to do to fake and lie their way into a Wikipedia article." So, WRONG. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 05:24, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, certainly no more biased than the prevailing editorial contributions being made here, anyway! I do realize that categorical denial seems to be the status quo these days, but it's really unbecoming of a Wikipedia article, frankly! Most reasonable people are going to read between the lines anyway; might as well be forthcoming about it... Sebastian Garth (talk) 07:01, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

No, it doesn't meet the requirements for inclusion per WP:MEDRS - seriously, have people not read MEDRS or the discussion about it up to this point? WHat part of secondary sources like medical reviews do people not understand? Yobol (talk) 12:01, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
A primary source can be used according to WP:MEDRS, however that doesn't mean it should be used, and in this case it shouldn't, because there are high quality secondary sources to use. DigitalC (talk) 13:20, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
In other words, this paper doesn't meet WP:MEDRS. Yobol (talk) 13:25, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

"A closer inspection of correlations between vaccine doses, biochemical or synergistic toxicity, and IMRs is essential." This does not seem to be controversial to include if there are no better sources. QuackGuru (talk) 23:04, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Inclusion of a quote from a poorly-written, sloppily-designed, badly-biased primary research paper based on cherry-picked data and published in a low-impact journal would indeed be one thing we could choose to do. Or not. When writing articles, if one's only source for an issue is a single low-quality publication, it is our responsibility as editors to decide whether or not a subject is appropriate for Wikipedia coverage at this time. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:30, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
I understand now. Editors can reject a source based on MEDRS or WEIGHT. We will have to wait for a review. QuackGuru (talk) 06:27, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Huh?

My edit mentioning the unscientific nature of the arguments is reverted[2] with the following summary "rvt good faith changes; many of the arguments ARE "scientific", they are just cherry picked and based on bad science and poor studies"

Several observations

  • cherry picking, bad science and poor studies is difficult to reconcile with "scientific" arguments,
  • any argument that does not adhere to the scientific method is by definition unscientific, unless you can clarify that failing the scientific method still is science.

In light of the above I fail to see which arguments ARE "scientific", could you explain the inherent contradiction in objecting to my qualification while admitting there is no argument based in science, i.e. scientific method, peer review to be found in medical literature. --- Nomen Nescio Gnothi seautoncontributions 18:01, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

My objection came from this phrase, "It is essentially based on non-scientific -i.e. religious, ideological- arguments" - this implies that the arguments aren't based on "science" but on religious principles, which is not exactly correct. The arguments are based on bad science, which the rest of the intro I think makes clear. Your point being bad science is not really science at all seems a philosophical argument that could be misleading to the average reader. Yobol (talk) 18:10, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Would you refer to Wakefield's work as "scientific?" My argument may be somewhat philosophical but you cannot deny I am right. We have certain requirements before we are allowed to call something science, i.e. Intelligent Design. Once something does not meet those requirements we should not hesitate to call a spade a spade. And not many, if any, of the claims made against vaccination can stand the scrutiny of science. As to religion, ideology, just look at arguments and you see they are based in one of those, or both.--- Nomen Nescio Gnothi seautoncontributions 18:18, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Wakefield's fraud obviously doesn't count as science, but of course that's not the point. There is plenty of bad science out there that anti-vaccinationists are relying on, and it's not just Wakefield's one study. Again, you are making the personal philosophical point that bad science isn't science; while I personally agree with you, I think that writing a neutral article doesn't allow us to let our personal feelings like that intrude on the article. Let's see what others think. Yobol (talk) 19:08, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the response, I won't press the point. Only one observation, it is not my personal opinion that bad science is not science: that is what science itself says. Hence the fact that science has dismissed the arguments against vaccination. The scientific community has defined what science is. In all the manufactroversy-debates you will find that the reason it is called manufactroversy is that the arguments against the scientific consensus are pseudo-scientific at best and straight out anti-science, i.e. denialism, at worst. What I know about the vaccine non-debate is that the arguments are (mostly) based on refuting science itself, if that isn't unscientific I don't know what is. Which, incidentally is what this article also states. Thank you again and let's see what others think.--- Nomen Nescio Gnothi seautoncontributions 16:51, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Can wikipedia editors reject the finding of a relevant peer reviewed paper and not include it in the article?

see: Talk:Vaccine_controversy#peer_reviewed_from_HET:_vaccination_links_to_child_mortality_.28.21.29

  • The editors in the above section were having a bit of fun. A primary research paper produces results and conclusions that have exactly zero WP:WEIGHT. Wikipedia requires we "Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public". Have the conclusions of this study been discussed and evaluated by reliable sources? Not that I can see. If no reliable publications consider this study worth mentioning then neither should we. Colin°Talk 18:49, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
  • I don't know much about various wikipedia policies but I have some understanding of how research publication works and how reliable findings are at various stages of publication. Long story short, the vast majority of primary sources simply suck. There is a reason we have secondary and terciary publications (weeding out the obviously bad stuff and promoting the well done research as well as evaluating for relevance and coroboration). I think primary sources should be rejected unless there's some other fact involved.--U5K0 (talk) 20:17, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
  • This question, as phrased, is ludicrous. If Wikipedians were forced to include any article solely because it appears in a journal claiming to practice "peer review", then vaccine controversy would need to include all of the >1,000 such articles published on vaccine safety and efficacy. In reality, editors choose from among these peer-reviewed sources in order to honestly and accurately convey the current state of knowledge. MastCell Talk 04:58, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
  • The quality and relevance of a medicine paper can't safely be decided by anonymous Wikipedia editors. We rely on published independent high quality reviews by subject experts for that. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:09, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Hah! While I was reading this I thought the article was on Vaccines! What a shock when I found it was on the Vaccine Controversy!! There is a serious category error being made by editors here. This is not an article on medicine or medical research, it is a sociological piece on a controversial topic that contains scientific elements. As such it is silly to be bickering about such an article in this context. It is absolutely central to this article to present the views associated with the controversy, and clearly (judging by the heat generated in the talk page) this article contributes to at least one of those views and should be included accordingly. It would be a serious violation of WP:WEIGHT to exclude controversial views in an article explicitly dedicated to controversial views... what else can it contain?!? And to quote from WP:MEDRS (which is barely applicable in a sociological article) "make readers aware of any uncertainty or controversy. A well-referenced article will point to specific journal articles or specific theories proposed by specific researchers". MissionNPOVible (talk) 06:46, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
    • Don't read too much into the section above. As I said, it was just editors having some fun. You are right that context is vital when considering the use of a source. That context is not just the article topic (which you correctly say is about the controversy rather than the vaccines themselves) but any statement included in the article using the source. I can imagine circumstances where this source could be used, though presently, WP:WEIGHT makes this unlikely. Without knowing what text the OP wants to insert, it is hard to give a definite reply. But essentially, have any reliable sources, when discussing vaccine controversy, mentioned this study? WP:WEIGHT doesn't take into account the voices of WP editors on talk pages, only reliable published sources. Is it a notable event in the history of vaccine controversy. Who says so? Are they reliable. Colin°Talk 07:23, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
For further clarification, WP:MEDRS applies to any medical claim in any article. I should also note that WEIGHT doesn't require all viewpoints be given an airing on Wikipedia, as implied by MissionNPOVible above; it requires us to show all significant viewpoints in proportion to their prominence in the medical literature. As this study has not been reviewed by a secondary source, there is no prominence, and no indication that this study is significant in the grand scheme of the medical literature. Yobol (talk) 12:39, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
Yobol, you don't know it is being used to make a "medical claim". The study could be legitimately noted in this article even if nobody in the reliable medical literature accepts the conclusions (i.e., the viewpoint has no weight). One issue is whether this study is an important aspect of "vaccine controversy", which is the subject. And such a controversy is a sociological issue to some degree, as MissionNPOVible says, though not entirely so -- for any discussion of a controversy is likely to include the merits or otherwise of each side's arguments, and those aspects are science/medicine issues. MEDRS will apply if someone is using this source to make a medical claim (or imply one). Colin°Talk 16:20, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
The article inherently makes a medical claim, which makes parsing a bit tricky. While I agree with much of what you're saying, the central point is that one can't make an end run around the need to provide accurate, reliable information simply by adding the word "controversy" to an article title. The same policies and standards (on source quality, undue weight, etc.) apply whether the article is vaccine or vaccine controversy, which I'm not sure MissionNPOVible has appreciated. MastCell Talk 16:52, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
@Colin: Agree that sociological discussion of the controversy do not need to meet MEDRS as they do not apply, but I was clarifying the original poster's comment that MEDRS "is barely applicable" here because this is a "sociological article." This is completely incorrect; MEDRS applies to any medical claims on any article, sociological or not - and there are numerous medical claims made in this article that fall under MEDRS. (As an aside, I can't really see how you could use a primary medical article like this to support a sociological point without running afoul of WP:OR or WP:WEIGHT in the process). Yobol (talk) 17:09, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
I think we're all on the same page here. I didn't say the study paper could be used as a source for a sociological point. Only that study itself doesn't need to be considered valuable by the medical community to be notable in the controversy. For example, Wakefield's study has zero medical relevance but is highly notable from a sociological aspect. BTW, I find it best to cite policy whenever someone gets all wikilawery about whether MEDRS applies. After all, MEDRS is just the application of policy. Colin°Talk 18:17, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
I see the seductive nature of this category error continues! Interpolating from comments here, there is no Vaccine Controversy in medicine per se. There is, however, a vaccine controversy in society which draws on all manner of sources. I did not say that "this is a sociological article therefore WP:MEDRS never applies" I said "WP:MEDRS...is barely applicable in a sociological article" - because it is rare for a sociological article to make medical claims. Of course, WP:MEDRS would apply to any medical claims that are made in a sociological article, but what exactly is the medical claim being made by citing this source? In fact, where are the medical claims in the RS in question? There are no medical claims, thus WP:MEDRS is inapplicable and being a RS is enough. And without wanting to further distract from the main issue, even WP:MEDRS makes provisions for primary sources, and it is actually other editors who are violating WP:MEDRS by attributing conclusions to the RS that are clearly not made by the authors i.e. they are not making medical claims, but rather statistical ones. As for the WP:WEIGHT issue, the author of this source is obviously a significant contributor to the vaccine controversy debate and it is therefore essential that his views be included. This RS is a recent contribution to his views and should be included accordingly, if only as a note.MissionNPOVible (talk) 22:39, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
Debates about what is and is not a RS or acceptable source are pointless without someone giving the text and context they are intending to use the source for. That is why the RS noticeboard requires both. I'm afraid a theoretical discussion over whether "WP:MEDRS makes provisions for primary sources" or the paper "being a RS" are naive and misguided. To quote WP:WEIGHT: "Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public.". The author of this source may well be a "significant contributor to the vaccine controversy debate", in the opinion of one editor here. That argument is merely an appeal to (dubious) authority. The only way we can gauge whether this study is notable in the debate is to see what reliable sources have to say about it. That requires secondary sources. Colin°Talk 07:23, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
  • As I said above, this article fails WP:MEDRS and WP:WEIGHT, due to it being a primary study. Yobol (talk) 12:39, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
  • As I understand it, we are all on the same page about this article being inadmissable on scientific grounds. There is now a discussion wether it is admissable on sociological controversy grounds. As I see it, this point is irrelevant since, to my knowledge, the article in question has not been part of the public controversy and therefor has no sociological relevance. Am I missing something?--U5K0 (talk) 00:05, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
I'd suggest two things you may be missing; i) there is no such thing "being inadmissable on scientific grounds" in WP, the main test is WP:RS which the source in question passes; ii) the author is a significant participant in the debate, and this RS is part of his view and case. MissionNPOVible (talk) 02:08, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
The paper is a primary study that, as far as I can tell, received no secondary consideration. While it's true that primary studies can be used, WP:WEIGHT applies, as has been said multiple times in this discussion. Noformation Talk 03:15, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
WP:WEIGHT makes no mention of primary sources, only RS. And to quote "Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views". The RS in question is from a leading proponent of a minority view, and while its prominence and use in this WP article is a reasonable discussion to have, there should be no doubt that its inclusion in some form is both relevant and appropriate. MissionNPOVible (talk) 03:54, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
Well, if we're hairsplitting, WP:NOR actually refers to primary vs. secondary/tertiary sources (see WP:PSTS). Since you seem to be the only one arguing in favor of using the article, it's kind of silly to assert that "there can be no doubt" about its inclusion. MastCell Talk 04:16, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
Well I wasn't splitting hair, I responded directly to a dismissal based on faulty information, but then I didn't say 'there can be no doubt' either. I merely, and perhaps naively, said there should be no doubt. So I guess it's kind of silly for me to think that a reasoned and reasonable response to this RFC would be immune to ad hominen characterizations of being a silly hairsplitter. MissionNPOVible (talk) 04:36, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
You appear to be conveniently overlooking the various policy-based arguments against the likely ability of any editor to use it as a source. Merely repeating that the study paper is an RS is missing the point. Nearly every published text is an RS for something. And RS is not the only factor. We don't include facts or opinions merely because they can be reliably sourced. The WP:WEIGHT policy is not just about opposing viewpoints; it states that "an article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject" (my emphasis). Colin°Talk 07:23, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
edit clash - Those category errors just keep on comin'!! What exactly is it about this RS that is not relevant to the Vaccine Controversy? The quote you provide is exactly why it should be included! This gentleman is a leading proponent of an alternative view that is the very topic of this WP article. You are completely misusing WP:REDFLAG - which, incidentally, does not say says 'extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence', but that "exceptional claims require high-quality sources". The claim you quoted is not an exceptional claim of this particular author, and it is contained in a very high-quality source anyway! So it is totally reasonable to say something like: Miller recently argued that "nations that require more vaccine doses tend to have higher infant mortality rates". -ref goes here- I'm not intending to get involved in contributing to the actual writing of this article, so I don't put this forward as an example of what should be written, merely as what could be written whilst abiding by all of WP policies. MissionNPOVible (talk) 07:49, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
-We cannot say it like that because that comes off as if we're purporting it to be true when it's not true, and it would make it seem like we were attempting to source the claim rather than the claim that he said it; inherent trouble with quoting fringe claims. Noformation Talk 07:53, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
I have no attachment to the phrasing, and am happy to embrace improvements, but you usefully touch on the core of the matter - being able to express the truth (that he said it) without implying the truth of the statement. I don't see that being a very difficult problem to overcome for those wishing to work on this article. I'm just trying to tease out that there are the two truths here, one of which is appropriate for this article, the other of which I have minimal interest in. MissionNPOVible (talk) 08:19, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
Actually, ArtifexMayhem is quoting Sagan on the exceptional claims bit. WP has merely adopted the phrase for its own purpose. MissionNPOVible is right that the Truth or otherwise contained in that study is irrelevant wrt a discussion on vaccine controversy. Otherwise, we wouldn't be mentioning Wakefield because that's not just a False finding but a Fraudulent one too. Whether or not the authors are respectable parts of mainstream science or complete nutters doesn't matter either, other than for documenting which side of the controversy they fall into. MissionNPOVible, please stop making the error that just because someone is notable or relevant, that everything they say or write is also notable or relevant.
I'm glad you've finally given some example text for us to use. You are right that the research paper would be a reliable source for that statement and satisfy WP:V on that point, but our policy pages state upfront that the "three core policies jointly determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in Wikipedia articles. Because these policies work in harmony, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another" You have been repeatedly arguing that because the source can be considered RS (for some facts/opinions) and because the author is a notable part of the controversy, that we should include a statement about the study. But anyone who reads WP:NPOV carefully will realise that secondary sources are essential for determining whether something should be presented as a fact, as a possibility or as an opinion, and for working out the weight we give to that text in our articles. Editor opinion cannot be used to gauge whether this study's findings are universally accepted, universally derided, universally ignored or all the variants in between. What we need are reliable sources commenting on this study in the context of vaccine controversy.
You do touch on a difficult issue that including a statement will appear to give it legitimacy. This is exploited by POV pushers all over WP who would like to include "A peer-reviewed study published recently in XXX by professor emeritus YYY found that ZZZ" as a way of avoiding the need to show whether anyone other than the great prof actually believes ZZZ. This is why we have other policies than just "can it be reliably sourced". And why MastCell makes the point that sticking Controversy onto a subject does not allow it to be filled with an arbitrary collection of opposing views just because someone somewhere has made them. Colin°Talk 12:53, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
Actually, I was quoting Beyerstein[3], quoting Sagan paraphrasing Truzzi paraphrasing Laplace and Hume. Everything else is spot on :) - ArtifexMayhem (talk) 21:45, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Question - The topic of the proposed Miller/Goldman journal article, even though a primary source, is certainly within the scope of the Vaccine controversy article. Whether or not it should be included depends on how significant the article's content is. I think it should be included in this WP article if either (1) the Miller/Goldman article is referenced by a significant number of secondary sources commenting on vaccine controversies; or (2) there are several other sources which discuss similar purported correlations (hence Miller/Goldman is just one example of a larger body). So my question for the editors that want to include the Miller/Goldman article is: can you supply any additional references that satisfy either of those two criteria? If neither criteria is met, it should not be included. --Noleander (talk) 17:27, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
I've been here 5 minutes and I already know this guy is a leading proponent of the anti-vaccine movement - he's written at least 7 books on the topic and has evidently got at least one article published in a RS. And yet somehow he doesn't qualify as significant enough for an article in WP on the Vaccine Controversy!! I would have to say that if I was a long term editor of this article I'd be hanging my head in shame that such a person is not mentioned, and what's more, that an article deemed fit to print by a peer review journal is brought to these talk pages to be made fun of!! I don't know what people think WP is for, but displays of arrogance and POV entertainment aren't on the list. I have a "Question" of my own: Please explain why this man's work does not rate a mention in this article? MissionNPOVible (talk) 03:30, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
Your arguments might be reasonable if the person writing this article was an academic or a science journalist, who knew the field, and can use their own judgement to decide what to include or not. Wikipedia is different to those publications. We are simply not allowed to make these calls ourselves. We must wait for reliable secondary sources to judge whether this study is as flawed as it seems or some amazing shock discovery that will bring down vaccination. And then it will get a proportion of coverage due, according to these reliable sources, not according to WP editors, or according to how important the study authors are in their field (in your opinion). Lots of crap get published in "peer reviewed journals", and frankly the authors and publishers deserve all the ridicule they get. But don't let the above section distract you because that's not really what WP talk pages are for. Instead of "arrogance", we are in fact completely humbled by not being allowed to put our own opinions into articles. Think of the above section as simply letting off a bit of steam. Colin°Talk 07:49, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
@MissionNPOVible - You ask why the Miller/Goldman journal article should not be included, since it is clearly on-point for this WP article. The answer is: There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of journal articles on the topic, and this WP article cannot mention them all. The criteria to decide which journal articles to mention in this WP article is either (1) the journal article is referenced by some other significant sources; or (2) the journal article is representative of a large class of similar articles. I'm willing to concede that the Miller/Goldman article meets one of these thresholds, but some evidence is needed to demonstrate that. If the Miller/Goldman article is important, other sources will mention it, and it should be easy to provide such references. --Noleander (talk) 19:17, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
WP is about providing balanced, accurate, NPOV information. Some editors seem to be saying that an article explicitly dedicated to a topic should exclude referring to prominent proponents of one side of that topic because of tortured logic relating to secondary sources. Let's be clear, primary sources are not excluded from WP, but they are not to be the sole source. The gentleman in question is not mentioned in this article - presumably due to similar tortured logic. WP policies are designed to establish veracity and apportion appropriate weight, not to exclude views. The treatment of this RS appears to be symptomatic of a broader, more troubling, exclusionist mindset dominating this article. Note that I am not arguing that this article should be quoted extensively, or even quoted at all, but it should be referenced as a significant part of one side of the debate. Note also that I am not arguing that all sides of the debate be given equal weight, nor am I saying that secondary sources are not needed, nor am I saying that there shouldn't be an appropriate disclaimer about mainstream views. I am simply advocating for some intellectual honesty here by acknowledging in the article who the leading proponents of the anti-vaccine movement are and what their arguments are. This particular RS has shone a light into a bit of a shabby corner, and I think it could do with a tidy up. MissionNPOVible (talk) 22:36, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
Hello, me again. As I see it the issue is with the idea that the primary publication in question is a significant part of one side of the debate simply and exclusively because it was authured by a prominent player on one side of the controversy. I think this is not sufficient to establish the Miller/Goldman journal articles' significance. In my opinion there needs to be something more than just 'the author is important'. Again I'm not up to speed with WP policy... I'm just giving my Wiki-Ignorant opinion for what it may be worth. --U5K0 (talk) 22:59, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
Providing "balanced" information is a non-starter per WP:WEIGHT: "Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject." - ArtifexMayhem (talk) 23:42, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
I wasn't using "balanced" as in see-saw, I was using it as an adjective - much as one would use 'level headed'. So even though you seem to have managed to miss/ignore the entire point of my post, your quote from WP:WEIGHT is useful since it reinforces exactly my point - Miller is a significant contributor to the anti-vaccine subject, and yet he is not mentioned at all in the article, this is a clear example of a violation of WP:WEIGHT. As for U5K0's comment about needing more than 'the author is important', it is perfectly understandable how you might get that impression from this talk page, but if you do get a chance to read the WP policy you will find that that is exactly what matters, except the word used in WP is notable, not important. MissionNPOVible (talk) 00:00, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
@MissionNPOVible: You say that excluding the Miller/Goldman source is excluding "prominent proponents". I ask for the third time: can you provide some evidence that Miller/Goldman (or any other source you want to include in the article) are "prominent"? Can you provide secondary sources that refer to them? Can you provide vaccine controversy documents that describe them as key researchers? Until such evidence is adduced (and I have no idea if it exists or not) they are just one of thousands of researchers doing research in a huge area. If they are indeed "prominent proponents" it should be easy to find many sources that describe them as key authorities. --Noleander (talk) 01:36, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
Precisely my point!!!!! It should have been easy to find such sources. As I said, I have no interest in contributing to the writing of this article, but those who are interested should have had no difficulty finding such sources because, as I said, in the trivial amount of research I have conducted into the matter I have already found that this guy has written over half a dozen books on the topic and been published in a peer reviewed journal - making him a notable contributor to the field. At the very least his work is specifically related to the topic and should be reported on in it's own right, and there are undoubtedly other RS's that refer to him. But if you are trying to make the case that his work is not appropriate because it's all primary, if I'm correctly interpreting what seems to be implied by some editors here, then there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the relevant policies. If you could only refer to work that refers to him, then you couldn't refer to that work unless something else referred to it first, and so on ad infinitum. That's a complete misreading of secondary and primary sources. Beside which, why haven't editors seen this peer reviewed article and said to themselves, "gee, this looks like a point of view that's relevant to this article, maybe these authors have other work that should be included". Without claiming any expertise or even knowledge in this field, I would imagine that an anti-vaccine article getting published in a peer reviewed journal is a pretty big deal for anti-vaccine advocates, a pretty big deal for the whole field, and a pretty big deal for this WP article. I don't think the appropriate response in an intellectually honest article is to ignore it or laugh it away. MissionNPOVible (talk) 03:02, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

(outdent) MissionNPOVible, our point is that unless someone produces sources that say Miller is a signifiant player in the vaccine controversy, we don't cover it. Unless someone produces sources that say this study is an important one in the vaccine controversy, we don't cover it. Please try to get this point because it is a core policy. If you have no interest in finding such sources, then it is fine to leave a comment that in your opinion they should exist and the article should cover these topics. Someone with enough time and access to reliable sources may pick up on it -- we're all volunteers and not everyone here has access to a university library, say. You may well be right that WP should include Miller or this study in the article. Or perhaps we will include the study in six months, once a few reviews or such have been published. But you will not get this study or this person into the article simply by arguing the case, from your own research and opinion, that it/he should go in. And you cannot demand that other editors do the research to find the sources. I think you've made your point enough. It is taken. Let's see if the rest of the world agree that this study is a "pretty big deal". We might have to be patient. Colin°Talk 07:53, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm intrigued to discover you speak for a group - or is that the royal "our"? ;-) Anyway, you still seem to miss my point, apparently regardless of how often I say or rephrase it. Miller is already a secondary source and contributor to this debate - he comments on, about, and contributes to the Vaccine controversy. In fact it seems he has been relatively prolific in doing so. If you are arguing that you have to wait for someone else to mention his work before he can be included in this article, then I say that is a perverse interpretation of WP policy which results in a logical infinite regress, whereas a simple trip to the page on the man in WP will show that he has satisfied notability. If he warrants a BLP page, then surely the things that make him notable are appropriate for a WP article on the area of his specialisation. Note that I have extended my comments to Miller, not just this RS, and if you (or others) include Miller as a notable protagonist of one side of the Vaccine Controversy then it would be eminently sensible to include some kind of reference to this peer reviewed article. Note that I am also not demanding "other editors do the research", I am observing that what has passed as NPOV on this WP article is a pale imitation that demonstrates a considerable POV bias against including notable contributors to the debate. MissionNPOVible (talk) 08:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
Since you seem to be not getting the point and I'll only end up repeating what I said already, I'm done with this conversation. Colin°Talk 11:11, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
Agreed, this reached and breached ad nauseam around 4 iterations previous and there's nothing more to talk about here. We'll have to agree to disagree and move on, but consensus is clearly towards rejecting the source. Noformation Talk 11:36, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
I'm sure it's frustrating having one person respond to many people's perspectives - it seems like they just wont shut up. I'm happy to leave it there because I'm getting sick of it myself, and I'm only replying to those who have replied to me - it's just that there's been quite a few. And yet nobody has addressed my core point - Miller should be in an article on the Vaccine controversy since he has written many secondary, and primary, RS's on exactly that topic and is notable in his own right per WP:BLP. I too shall bow out now. MissionNPOVible (talk) 13:04, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
I will note that Neil Z. Miller has a substantial list of books to his credit, but it appears that they're principally (exclusively?) printed by New Atlantean Press. Our article identifies Miller as a publisher of New Atlantean Press. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:34, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Additional sources

The Lancet, apparently doing penance for unleashing Andrew Wakefield on the world, is running a fairly decent series of articles on vaccine safety, efficacy, and research. We might want to consider using PMID 21664679 ("Addressing the vaccine confidence gap") as a source here. It's a fairly thorough if somewhat dry summary of a lot of the issues covered in this article. MastCell Talk 17:32, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

"repeatedly disproved and denounced..."=

At the moment there's a lot of back-and-forth over this content, which is fact-tagged: [4]

  • Now, I think it's likely to be substantially true, but that's not good enough. If unsourced content is challenged and removed, warring to return it without change is not the right answer. The right answer is to find a source and then restore the content. If you can't find a source that says what you want to say, don't add content back in. Please.
  • Repeatedly re-adding contested content with a fact tag is not far from an admission that "I know it's true, I just don't have a source that says so..."

bobrayner (talk) 16:20, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Content from the main vaccine article

There's a bit in the main vaccine article I've removed since it's in the section that's supposed to summarize this article, but the topic, while clearly part of the controversy, is not mentioned here. A copy-paste if someone wants to include it:

A more extreme response to this concern is the claim that spreading false information about vaccine risks amounts to involuntary manslaughter, claiming that celebrity promotion of the vaccine-autism link was followed by "an increase in the number of vaccine preventable illnesses as well as an increase in the number of vaccine preventable deaths" and thus "may be indirectly responsible for at least some of these illnesses and deaths."[1]

It probably needs some better (i.e. third-party) sources. SDY (talk) 03:28, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

100 peer-reviewed studies on the lethality of vaccines

An examination of peer-reviewed studies from authoritative sources shows that not only can many vaccines be considered to be subtly lethal, but also a source for the proliferation of new diseases. See the following collection of 100 peer-reviewed studies: http://www.archive.org/details/HorrorOfVaccinationExposedPottinger's cats (talk) 11:06, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

It's not a reliable source, though. Please see WP:MEDRS for discussion of suitable sources for medical topics. Jakew (talk) 11:09, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
I am aware of WP:MEDRS. I just put forth this list to spark further discussion among editors, I was not intending to use it as a source itself. Perhaps some of the individual peer-reviewed papers may be used as sources in the future by editors. The information is quite unfortunate, and it pains me to put it forth, but it is independently verifiable, and shows that this practice has a very dark underbelly.Pottinger's cats (talk) 11:16, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
I think "dark underbelly" is unnecessary hyperbole. Most of the papers cited seem to be individual case reports, which are a very poor standard of evidence (and, indeed, are generally unsuitable for use of sources). Because case reports are — literally — a report that A has followed B on a single occasion, they often fail to establish causation definitively. Moreover, they give no indication of the frequency with which a complication (assuming that it is a complication) might occur. What I would prefer to see is a modern, peer-reviewed review of vaccination risks, preferably placing them in their proper perspective: how they weigh against the benefits. Jakew (talk) 13:01, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
You have been told multiple times that talk pages are not to "spark" discussion. They serve one purpose and one purpose alone: to discuss specific changes to articles centered around reliable sources. You've attempted the same style of discussion at multiple pages now and it is WP:DISRUPTIVE and tendentious. Please stop this behavior. We have policies to which you must adhere if you want to work on wikipedia - the more you ignore this advice the less patience the community will have with you. You're off to a bad start, turn it around now before you pass the precipice.
FYI, per WP:MEDRS and WP:UNDUE we will not use primary studies to counter secondary sources. This is not negotiable - it doesn't matter how good you think your argument is because this is not a debate forum. Consensus is formed by appeal to policy. The mainstream medical community considers vaccination safe and that is always what our article will reflect until the medical community determines otherwise. It doesn't matter how much you complain or argue on this or other fringe pages - our policies are specifically written to not give a serious voice to fringe ideas. All you will accomplish is getting blocked. Take my advice or leave it, I have been around a lot longer than you and I have seen many a fringe POV pusher get blocked or topic banned due to their refusal to heed this kind of advice. Noformation Talk 20:10, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
A massive list of unanalyzed studies with no indication of where the balance of peer reviewed literature lies, is not a starting point for a discussion of the bias of the page. If you were aware of MEDRS you'd know that we rely on recent secondary sources published in highly respected peer-reviewed journals to expand our pages. Not random lists pulled from internet archives. Find something in the real scholarly literature and we can talk - right now you give no indication of even understanding the significance of the "source" you're showing us. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 23:26, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
This appears to be a very poorly curated list of nearly-randomly selected publications. I get the impression that someone did some keyword searches in PubMed and dropped in any article that mentioned vaccines along with some negative consequence. We have an unsorted list that mixes in anecdotal reports, case studies, epidemiological research, hypotheses, speculation, and letters to journal editors. Unlike, for example, a comprehensive review article appearing in a peer-reviewed medical journal – which might serve as a useful starting point for improving this article – this list has not been vetted for the quality and relevance of its sources.
Neither the creator of the list nor the editor advocating its use here appears to have reviewed its contents in any way, let alone actually read the articles in question to determine if they support the point that they're trying to make. For example, two of the entries in the list (Lindley and Milla, and Bedford et al., both appearing in 1998) are actually letters to the editor of The Lancet, harshly criticizing Andrew Wakefield's now-withdrawn study that attempted to link the MMR vaccine to autism. (The study was withdrawn by the journal, and the unethical conduct engaged in by Wakefield in producing it led to the loss of his medical license.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:47, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
I will admit error in this case. This list is all around the internet, and I copied it into an archive page. I am currently parsing it. You are right - that list needs to be more organized, however, some studies corroborate Wakefield, e.g. PMID 9756729
The authors of the study note: "As described here, the overall levels of measles antibody and HHV-6 antibody were not significantly elevated in autistic children but a high proportion (85%) of them had positive measles antibody titers. This was an excellent rate of seroconversion post-MMR immunization since virtually all subjects in the study had their MMR immunizations and none had any history of wild-type measles virus infection.": http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0090122998945883
Wakefield has recently sued the BMJ and Brian Deer for defamation: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/05/andrew-wakefield-sues-bmj-mmr
Other, independent research, has corroborated the findings of Wakefield: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-388051/Scientists-fear-MMR-link-autism.htmlPottinger's cats (talk) 07:27, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Please don't "parse" the list you posted. The listed articles are a weird mix generated by a biased search and I doubt many or any of them would be selected by a proper review of the primary literature -- which Wikipedians are not allowed to perform anyway. We leave it to the experts to review the data on vaccine safety and publish reviews in respected journals. It is those reviews that we use as sources, for Wikipedia is based on secondary sources.
Please don't use this page to argue about Wakefield's research. It isn't the point of talk pages to convince others of an argument. And, by the way, the Daily Mail is not a reliable source for anything. As others have pointed out, this is not a forum for discussing vaccine controversies. Future posts that don't strictly comply with what talk pages are for and what our policies require, may be deleted. Colin°Talk 08:37, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
I will not be using the archive list as a source. I merely stated that as a response. I'm finished with this discussion until I find modern meta-analyses on the subject of vaccines. I was merely responding to points others made.Pottinger's cats (talk) 09:50, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
So far you have only provided one actual source - the pubmed-indexed article you linked to twice (the second time is ScienceDirect). That's a single, primary source that is from 1998 which can't be used to adjust the page. The two news articles are not MEDRS. The most recent is about Wakefield's lawsuit; it has no bearing on the effectiveness of vaccines. The other is from 2006 - and is a news article, not a journal aritcle. This is why your edits are being ignored, reverted or removed - you have shown no indication that you actually understand the requirements of editing to produce a reliable, authoritative, scholarly encyclopedia. Please don't bother posting on any page until you have reliable, secondary, recent sources to substantiate your point. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 19:31, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Wow, that's a weak study, and an excellent illustration of why it is that we don't rely on primary sources. The best p-value calculated was 0.128. (The interesting finding was the presence of autoantibodies to neural proteins in a substantial fraction of autistic patients, not any useful correlation between measles or HHV-6 antibodies. Moreover, the control population included adults up to age 50, whereas the autistic population only included children up to age 12; this alone might explain why the control population showed a lower antibody titer against childhood vaccine antigens.) I'm guessing that you're reading abstracts rather than full papers – or perhaps hoping that the rest of us are just reading abstracts – if you're suggesting this paper is a useful and relevant source. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:41, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Rename proposal

"Controversy" is a very loaded term. I'd suggest this article would be better named "Anti-vaccination movement", which'd only require a rewrite of the lead, and maybe a slight copyedit of some of the content. It would also give this article a much-needed focus. It would also allow for easy contextualisation of what's fringe, and what's science, something this article muddles horribly at times. 86.** IP (talk) 21:40, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree, a title such as Anti-vaccination movement better describes the article, and upon reading it you already have a clear idea about what the article is about. Where as Vaccine controversy is rather vague.Meatsgains (talk) 22:50, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Wouldn't that be a different article? --U5K0'sTalkMake WikiLove not WikiWar 23:03, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Not signficantly. All sections except the lead could largely stay as they are, though the order might change a little bit. But it'd provide a much-needed focus to the article: as it stands, it flounders a lot of the time, such as in the safety section, which includes a lot of unsupported claims by the antivaccination movement, mixed in with things like Vaccine controversy#Prenatal infection, which is on the dangers of NOT taking vaccines. With the refocus, this could easily be dealt with by having sections such as, say, "common claims" and "dangers of failure to vaccinate". 86.** IP (talk) 23:15, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
"Movement" isn't an appropriate term. The dictionary definition of that requires an organised collective moving towards a common goal. But reading the article shows there are multiple and distinct issues with vaccines that various groups have raised (rightly or wrongly) and that these groups do not all share the same goal nor do they all work together. For example, it is possible to be opposed to or have doubts about one vaccine but approve of vaccination in general. Wakefield, for example, suggested using single vaccines rather than using MMR.
"Controversy" can be a problem word, particularly when used in areas where there really is no controversy among reliable sources. For example, there was a point in time around 10 years ago when it would be acceptable to say (in news reporting, say) "the controversial MMR vaccine", because there was an ongoing controversy. The use of that phrase now would indicate a bias because the controversy has died. Regardless, the MMR vaccine controversy was a historical situation. The theory of evolution is controversial among the US population, but not among biologists say. So I'm saying the word has its problems but can be the correct word at times. Colin°Talk 07:44, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Would "Opposition to vaccination" be a reasonable title, or would that have problems of its own? Jakew (talk) 08:00, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Well, the only word I can think of reliable sources use in connection to this is "anti-vaccinationists"; we might be able to get away with just using that? If not, "Opposition to vaccination" is by far the best term of the remaining. 86.** IP (talk) 08:08, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Both terms assume the arguments or people are opposed to vaccination rather than to certain vaccines or components of the vaccines. This is true for many but not all. The danger with grouping terminology is that it leads to an us and them mentality that polarises debate. Colin°Talk 12:23, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
The vast majority are, though. Anyway, the current title is highly POV; that there is a range of opinion is to be expected, and can be dealt with using reliable sources. 86.** IP (talk) 14:02, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
My feeling is that "controversy" does tend to overstate things; as I understand it there is a small fringe of opponents, but no real controversy at present. For that reason I agree that another title would be preferable, but I'd prefer not to adopt one that introduces more problems than it solves.
Colin, I do see what you're saying: that "opposition to vaccination" could imply opposition to any and all forms of vaccination, but isn't it also reasonable to read it as "opposition to at least some forms of vaccination"? I think that, as long as we clarify the scope in the lead, this should be a solvable problem. But maybe "opposition to vaccines" might lend itself to a narrower interpretation? Jakew (talk) 14:30, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
My impression from having followed the subject a while is that the vast majority of antivaccination in the West is to all vaccines; there are a few major exceptions, for instance, the HPV vaccine was attacked because it protects against a sexually-transmitted cancer, and was attacked by religious groups because they just want women to be "pure". One might also discuss the (mainly Africa and East Asia I think) rumours about the polio vaccine that caused the polio eradication program to stall.
However, in the West, as I said, it tends to be more all-encompassing, but - and here's where we need to be careful - the public statements and the more private statements of groups can vary, because full-out antivaccination is very bad PR. A good example is the Australian Vaccination Network, which positioned itself to the media as a reasonable and reliable campaigner for safe vaccines, then got caught out attacking the parents of a child who died from a vaccine-preventable disease, because supposedly such childhood diseases couldn't kill people. So, yeah, a little caution is needed, because while there certainly are single-focus issues, there's also some groups that may be a little deceitful in their PR.
This shouldn't be an issue unless we go into a lot more detail about specific organisations and people than would be reasonable, though. 86.** IP (talk) 15:28, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm not seeing how the "current title is highly POV". We have lots of articles that either have controversy in their title or are categorised as controversies. That vaccines (or certain vaccines) are controversial is an indisputable fact. We'd have no article if some people didn't strongly object and their objections weren't strongly disputed. It's a term used by Paul Offit, for example, just as it is used by Jenny McCarthy.
Wrt Jakew's question, no. If you read it that way then you are reading it wrongly. Would you think it acceptable to group the scientists objecting to the teaching of creationism in science lessons as "opposition to education"? Colin°Talk 15:40, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
The opposition to vaccines is, in the abstract, a fringe view (in medicine; obviously it's important in popular culture). For articles on scientific subjects, "controversy" implies a scientific controversy, and by and large, none exists.
Now, obviously, like any continuum of views, there's going to be some exceptions. Some of the obvious ones was the controversy a few years ago about preemptive vaccination against a theoretical weaponised smallpox; I also seem to recall that the polio vaccine was changed to a different sort in the US as well recently, but can't remember the details of the science. But, as anti-vaccination is commonly understood, there is no evidence for almost all the claims, so controversy - a loaded word - shouldn't be used. 86.** IP (talk) 16:25, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
(ec) I don't think that's a reasonable analogy, Colin. It's like opposition to water fluoridation: does that imply opposition to people adding fluorides to their own glass of water? It seems unlikely. Or opposition to abortion: does that imply opposition to emergency abortions needed to save a woman's life? My guess is some would say yes, but at least some opponents would tolerate such procedures. In each of these cases opposition to X doesn't imply opposition to every possible form of X, and it's reasonable to suppose that exceptions exist. But the term conveniently conveys the idea of opposition to some forms of X.
The trouble with your analogy is that "opposition to education" is so over-broad that it doesn't remotely convey the idea of opposition to teaching creationism. Opposition to vaccines, on the other hand, is a reasonable description of the views of many opponents, as many of them do oppose vaccination as a general point. Jakew (talk) 16:27, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

[Unindent] ...Before we go any further: Are we horribly misunderstanding your point, Colin? 86.** IP (talk) 16:52, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Opposition to vaccination per se is fringe. However, there are issues surrounding vaccines that are not fringe concerns. Establishing vaccine safety and producing large, expensive studies to show the lack of any links to dread diseases is not done because the scientists have nothing better to do and governments and drug companies are awash with spare cash. Some governments choose to spend their money offering free vaccines and encouraging parents to vaccinate their children. Others spend their money elsewhere. That's a controversy. In the UK, chicken-pox vaccine is not offered freely to all, partly because of the fear it will increase rates of shingles. In many US states, it is compulsory for attendance to government schools. That's a controversy. That the UK chose Cervarix rather than Gardasil as the HPV vaccine is controversial. See this essay for some of the issues arising from these HPV vaccines not offering complete protection against cervical cancer. That's a complex issue. In the UK, our legal aid system was sapped of £15 million fighting the MMR vaccine controversy. The legal system didn't just say "that's fringe, go away". They spend £15 million of my money! Was that worth spending? That's a controversy. Colin°Talk 19:03, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
You make some very good points there, Colin. Jakew (talk) 19:19, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps some variation of "Anti-vaccionation " is the best page title, then, since that explicitly refers to the fringe movement, and excludes the cases that are scientific controversies. If our subject's too broad, it's almost impossible to write a decent article on it. Mainstream, scientific contoversies should go into vaccine (or possibly Chicken pox vaccine, not a sub article. 86.** IP (talk) 00:52, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
You mean, put all the nutters together? That would be bad IMO. This article would be stronger if it covered the above scientific, political, ethical and economic controversies, which are just a small sample of the reasonable issues surrounding vaccination. It is good, healthy and required by NPOV for us to show that vaccination is a complex issue. Making an "Anti-vaccionation" article would just polarise things and give the reader the wrong impression that any concerns about vaccination are stupid. One aspect of unbalance in this article is the "Events following reductions in vaccination", which has very little to say about controversies but reads like a long argument saying "Look what terrible things happen when we stop or reduce vaccinations". Colin°Talk 09:56, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
I strongly disagree: There are notable scientific controversies, but they're relatively minor - and then way out there in left field, we have dozens of notable organisations, with no science whatsoever. the latter needs coverage, and covering it with the minor scientific disputes tends to justify the nonsense. It's like saying that we shouldn't have an article on creationism, because of punctuated equillibrium. 86.** IP (talk) 11:12, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

What about "Opposition to vaccines"? This skirts the problem of whether the oppostion is to vaccination in general, or only to particular vaccines. I agree that "controversy" overstates the case, and that "movement" implies a level of organization that isn't there. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 12:43, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Works for me. 86.** IP (talk) 02:07, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Don't think this helps, nor is necessary. You don't seem to accept there is a controversy about vaccines. It isn't just that their exists a number of arguments for vaccines and a number of arguments against (reasonable or otherwise). The actual controversy is an issue in itself and part of the article subject. If there was no controversy, it wouldn't be all over the news on a regular basis. What exactly is the problem with the current title. Colin°Talk 07:18, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
See Manufactroversy. 86.** IP (talk) 07:23, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm well aware of this. See my comment at Talk:Andrew Wakefield. Controversies come and go. They can remain even when the scientific debate is settled. See Creation–evolution controversy for a biggie. Over at Andrew Wakefield, I stated that his claims were no longer "controversial" and shouldn't be labelled as such. Only a tiny fringe hold onto their belief in him and his claims. I think you need to separate the scientific controversy from the controversy in the population, which very much exists. And there are less-hyped more-rational controversies surrounding certain vaccines, which this article currently neglects. Type "vaccine controversy" into Amazon or Google Scholar and you'll find papers and books on the subject, mostly from a scientific POV. Colin°Talk 11:32, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Which is why I think this is a bad term. We ought to be able to discuss the historical antivaccination somewhere, without hitting issues where it's no longer controversial. "vaccine controversy" implies A. that there's only ONE controversy, which all things discussed are a part of, B. that these are similar to each other - when they aren't, they arise for many reasons, some justified, most not - and C. that they're ongoing debates.
At the very least, we should move to something like "History of vaccine controversies", which avoids those implications. 86.** IP (talk) 17:06, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Based on the arguments presented in this thread, I favour no change to the title. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 07:54, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

This article needs to be moved to something without "controversy" in the title, as that description is clearly pushing a POV. It suggests that there is mainstream scientific controversy, or notable controversy. The complaints themselves are not notable but fringe. What is notable is that these fringe beliefs exist. The existence of a Flat Earth Society does not mean we should have an article titled Shape of the world controversy. DreamGuy (talk) 18:32, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

I proposed changing "controversial" to "discredited" in the Andrew Wakefield lead for the reasons raised here by 86, but I don't believe those concerns apply to this article which is about various controversies, popular and scientific, historical and current. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 20:22, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree with changing the title, and just as a random comment, the singular "controversy" is inaccurate. I agree that the title of the article should change, but we should really be clear on what the content is before we try to find a title for it. If this article is going to cover modern and historical anti-vaccination movements, that's a reasonable scope for the article. The actual debate over the validity of the claims should be covered in WP:DUE weight in the relevant sections of the relevant articles (e.g. claims that vaccines are dangerous and ineffective shouldn't get shoved in the corner nor should they get a special soapbox to make their claims). SDY (talk) 19:46, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I have no problem with changing the title, but a more appropriate one needs to be carefully thought out (at the minimum, it needs to be changed to "Vaccine controversies" as SDY has noted). Should we try to separate out the anti-vaccine fringe from more science based controversies? Yobol (talk) 21:47, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Now that's a very interesting idea. If we were to cover the two issues in separate articles, as you suggest, we could have more appropriate titles for each: "opposition to vaccination" for the fringe lobby, and "vaccine controversies" for the remainder. Jakew (talk) 08:35, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
This would not work. Most vaccine controversies are seized upon by the anti-vaccine groups so it is difficult to separate them. Colin°Talk 12:10, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Nobody has given a satisfactory explanation for why "controversy" in the title is POV or inappropriate. It appears in lots of other articles, as I've already noted, even where the science is conclusively on one side. BTW: WP article titles are typically singular but I've no strong feeling against the plural. Controversy is a term that can be problematic but is perfectly appropriate here. It is a term used by both sides of the debate, and indeed is included in the title of various scientific papers and books. In contrast, "Opposition to vaccines" is POV because it assumes that acceptance or promotion of vaccines is the default and opposition a notable deviation. I've already given the example of chickenpox vaccine being practically mandatory in one country but almost unavailable in another. Another example is the BCG which has never been widely used in the US but was in the UK until recently. There are interesting rational and irrational controversies with vaccines that this article should cover. Vaccines have complicated ethical, political, economic, social, health and scientific aspects. Those are lost if we create an article that just lists the grievances of nutters alongside the rebuttals of scientists, which is what "separate out the anti-vaccine fringe" would achieve and would be a NPOV nightmare (is the UK position on chickenpox vaccine reasonable?) If someone wants an article on the anti-vaccine movement then write that article. If someone thinks this one is inherently POV, then send it to AfD. Colin°Talk 22:06, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't have a strong feeling that "controversy" is inappropriate. I have worked closely in articles where the science is clear (thiomersal controversy, aspartame controversy, etc) and do not find the title particularly POV, as long as the article makes clear that the controversy is from the fringe side. Yobol (talk) 22:11, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Maybe if it was pluralised, but unpluralised, we risk encouraging people to treat things without scientific justification and things with scientific justification as the same thing. Even then, there's a difference between an incident like the MMR vaccine flareup, and an ongoing pseudo-movement stretching centuries. 86.** IP (talk) 08:57, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
(e/c, reply is to Colin) I hear what you're saying about "controversies not related to opposition" but is there necessarily a reason they have to be included in the same article? A "things people whine about when it comes to vaccines" article veers far too close to WP:NOTBATTLEGROUND and WP:NOTFORUM. Vaccines have complicated ethical, political, economic, social, health, and scientific aspects, and trying to cover them all in one article (other than Vaccine and Vaccination, obviously) isn't necessary or useful. What I'm proposing isn't really a rename - it's splitting up topics that shouldn't have been covered together in the first place. All controversies in one article is just a recipe for troll bait. SDY (talk) 22:19, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
I agree with that. 86.** IP (talk) 09:02, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
WP:PLURAL seems to allow us to rename this Vaccine controversies as it discusses a class of controversies rather than just one. The MMR vaccine controversy would be one specific example.
Vaccine controversies are a suitable subject for an article. They (both individually and collectively) have been the subjects of books and papers. They range from the rational to the irrational, from the scientific to the religious or political. This article hasn't been "troll bait" any more than any other controversial article. I really don't see how, on WP, you would be allowed to create an article for the silly controversies and one for the serious controversies, or however you wish to frame the differences. The current article could be greatly improved and would be a brilliant example of our policies if it carefully explained all the controversies so the reader understands that there are complex issues to think about, not just sides to take. Colin°Talk 12:10, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Yes, there are complex issues to think about, but putting them all into one article just because they're all controversial doesn't make a lot of sense. Part of our job as editors is slicing up messy reality into digestible pieces, and presenting multiple morasses of meandering as one article doesn't fulfill that obligation. I especially agree we should not be splitting this into subarticles of "real controversies" and "fake controversies" because that makes the same problem worse - it becomes the opinions of our editors, not a neutral organization of the facts. That people write books about controversies-in-general-as-controversies-in-general means they want to sell books to the partisans looking to prove a point and win an argument (i.e. "vaccines bad" or "vaccines good"). Wikipedia should not follow that lead. SDY (talk) 12:37, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
I agree with Colin. We need an overview article on vaccine controversies, there is nothing POV about this article's title, and it could be better written. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:08, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Certain parts of the article are already in summary style. Perhaps a constructive approach would be to move and expand coverage of the anti-vaccination lobby in a separate article, and include a short summary section here in this article. As others have noted, this article should also be renamed to the plural 'controversies'. Jakew (talk) 13:23, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure what SDY is proposing. If you like the individial controversies as individual articles (or sections within the article on the vaccine) then we have that. We also have this article that discusses the various controversies both historical and current. Perhaps there's a separate article on the anti-vaccination movements but I'm not sure. Many of these "movements" are only anti-vac as a side issue (they are peddling some autism quack cure, or are legal bods seeking compensation money, or they have some religious or political angle). Colin°Talk 13:43, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
See also the "Additional source" MastCell links above. It is the sort of area this article should discuss. It wouldn't fit into an anti-vac movement article because the hearts and minds those authors are considering are ordinary folk who decide, based on what they've been told and choose to believe, not to vaccinate their children, but they don't have strong opinions on the matter of their own. Colin°Talk 13:47, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
If nothing else, I'm proposing that 1) this article recognize that it isn't one controversy (I can think of four completely unrelated controversies without even trying), 2) that the history of anti-vaccination movements is a reasonable topic for their own article (most of which is here), and that 3) an overview of "all controversies" isn't really a logical article - the controversies aren't necessarily on common topics or from a common source. A reader shouldn't have to go to a subarticle to know which elements of vaccination are contentious - hiding disputes causes NPOV problems for the main article, and overblowing the disputes in a subarticle is equally problematic. SDY (talk) 13:55, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
I have to say, as someone who works on a number of vaccine controversy articles, I do not see a significant NPOV problem being caused by the presence of this article. I agree that anti-vaccine movement can be spun off to its own separate article with a summary here, but I don't see how changing this article would help NPOV. Yobol (talk) 15:05, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

(undent) I'm not sure there's a problem now, but it seems like there's a possibility for a WP:POVFORK between this article and the parent article, and we can avoid even the possibility by just structuring things differently. The three points in my comment above are in general order of importance. I don't think we should have a dedicated controversy article (they're not encouraged, see WP:CRITICISM), but it's not an immediate problem. SDY (talk) 15:09, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Re: WP:CRITICSIM, read the last paragraph of that essay. Both individually and collectively, vaccine controversies are a notable topic in themselves and collectively and have dedicated books and papers (reliable sources). I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on whether this article is useful or whether a history of anti-vac movements would be useful. Given the recent name change, I suggest this discussion is now resolved. Colin°Talk 15:54, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm well aware that it's not binding policy, but that doesn't mean we should discard it out of hand. The last section, as I read it, is for individual controversies that are a parent topic by themselves (e.g. the Wakefield affair), not daughter articles of an obvious parent. I don't know that this is resolved, but I don't see any real resolution and agree that there's not a likely consensus in our near future, so we might as well leave it as is. I'm curious as to why you think a history of anti-vaccination movements (as a sub-article as Yobol proposed) would be a bad idea. SDY (talk) 16:28, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps it would work but movements are, as I noted above, "an organised collective moving towards a common goal", not just individuals or specific controversies. So this would concentrate on organisations like the historical religious ones and the modern day ones that exist to make money from the legal compensation system or peddle quack cures. But you'll have problems with the current ones because e.g., JABS and Generation Rescue both deny they are anti-vaccination organisations. Colin°Talk 17:33, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Controversies is worse than controversy. Not only is it against the regular naming conventions, it gives more weight to the anti-vaccination aspect by saying there are more of them. (But the other titles suggested were much worse than this one.)
Also the move was messed up by not moving the talk archives. I just moved them, so archive again accessible. Zodon (talk) 07:05, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Why Bill Gates Is A Hero And Donald Trump Is A Zero

An interesting article with statements, quotes and references that can be used here and on other articles:

Brangifer (talk) 06:51, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

The Bill Gates comment has been discussed before. Either Colin or Eubulides pointed out that the evidence for thousands of deaths isn't there. It was a while back; I'll try and find the discussion. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 08:38, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I vaguely recall that discussion. It was in connection with Andrew Wakefield, and there is some truth to the argument that it would be hard to directly attribute thousands of deaths (primarily in England) directly to him alone, but Gates' argument is still good, since he sees the total effect of a failure to vaccinate on an international basis, and the antivaxers' influence does lead to thousands of preventable deaths. Although it was in the context of a discussion of Wakefield, Gates used the occasion to also refer to the global effects ("thousands of deaths") of antivax nonsense. Gates' is actively seeking to counteract their influence. Since third parties are quoting him in various contexts, his lone comment gains legitimacy for use in various other venues here. It's just a matter of how it's done -- Brangifer (talk) 15:32, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Contradictory and unclear bit in the History section.

This bit: "In the 19th century, the city of Leicester in the UK achieved a high level of isolation of smallpox cases and great reduction in spread compared to other areas. The mainstay of Leicester's approach to conquering smallpox was to decline vaccination and put their public funds into sanitary improvements.[9] Bigg's account of the public health procedures in Leicester, presented as evidence to the Royal Commission, refers to erysipelas, an infection of the superficial tissues which was a complication of any surgical procedure."

Though fluent in english, I am not a native English speaker. Which may be why I don't understand the first sentence, even after reading it several times. It gets even fuzzier with sentence no. 2 as a qualifier. The Lancet paper listed as a source is not open access, so no help there. In "LESSONS OF THE SMALL-POX EPIDEMIC AT LEICESTER—1892-94", Biggs explicitly speaks about smallpox, not Erysipelas. There is no source listed for the claim that he is really referring to Erysipelas, or is that the (unavailable) Lancet paper?


I found this helpful to make heads and tails of sentence no. 1:
"... The Leicester opponents of vaccination believed that while it failed to give security against infection and was itself dangerous, immunity from smallpox epidemics could be secured by paying thorough attention to all aspects of hygiene, especially sanitation, and by the prompt isolation of any cases of smallpox that might occur and of any persons suspected of being in contact with such a case. (fn. 403) The practical application of these views and the treatment of smallpox cases gave rise to a new system of dealing with the disease. This became known as the 'Leicester method' and consisted briefly in removing every case of smallpox as soon as detected to the isolation hospital, and in inducing all members of the patient's family and persons with whom he or she had been in contact to submit to a period of quarantine. (fn. 404) This system was first used in 1877 (fn. 405) and its operation was made much more effective in 1879 when the corporation obtained power to compel doctors and householders to give notice of cases of infectious disease. (fn. 406) The system was largely successful in preventing smallpox epidemics at Leicester, despite the presence in the town of many unvaccinated children. Serious outbreaks of smallpox did take place in 1892–3 and in 1902–4, (fn. 407) but otherwise, although cases were reported almost yearly from 1886, the disease was prevented from spreading. (fn. 408)

Leicester's experience in dealing with smallpox did not fully justify the views of those who supported compulsory vaccination or of those who opposed it. The opponents of vaccination failed to make good their contention that vaccination was altogether ineffective as a safeguard against smallpox. On the other hand it was proved that it was possible for a town to have a considerable proportion of its population unvaccinated and yet to escape disastrous visitations of the disease. One of the arguments advanced in favour of compulsory vaccination was that the existence of any number of unvaccinated persons would cause epidemics and that such persons were an actual danger to public health. The demonstration that by the methods used at Leicester the spread of smallpox could be checked, even in a community with many unvaccinated people, was important in bringing about a change in public opinion about the need for compulsory and universal vaccination." (Source: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=66566)

Sentence no. 2, however unsourced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ronja R (talk • contribs) 15:08, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Anti vaccination movements. Featuring Paul Offit

Interesting:

Brangifer (talk) 03:58, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

A quick few questions

I am well aware this isn't a forum, so i'm sorry for putting this forward, but despite looking through the article I can't find information on the following:

1) People have claimed babies and children have died from vaccinations. They make these claims regarding within the last 50 years. Is this true?

2) People have claimed babies and children have gotten the diseases from the vaccinations. Is this true?

3) People have made the claims that vaccinations carry the risk of permanent brain damage, paralysis and damaged immune systems. Is this true?

Please do not take me as an Anti-Vaccination supporter. I am just currently having to explain to an Anti-Vaccination supporter why his claims are wrong and despite finding a great deal of evidence in support of vaccinations, I can find no refutations (apart from one snippet regarding the autism research being debunked) of his claims. I would say his claims are made up but i've found a variety of Anti-Vaccination sites that make the same claims. Yet no Pro-Vaccination sites have provided any debunking to those claims even in their articles regarding debunking Anti-Vaccination myths.

I am unable to find them here either and was wondering if they're in the article but i've just managed to miss them repeatedly. 58.7.114.145 (talk) 08:19, 16 October 2012 (UTC) Harlequin

Those are all technically true, but the risks of not getting vaccinations are greater. Analogously, people die of water poisoning every year, yet the dangers of not drinking water are clearly far greater. TippyGoomba (talk) 15:25, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a "debunking" website, though a well-written, well-sourced article should provide you with all of the evidence that you need, since Wikipedia's policy is to not give undue weight to fringe theories, and the anti-vaccination side is seriously fringe. The CDC just did an analysis of vaccination rates in the US, and over 95% of kindergarten students are fully vaccinated. That indicates that the anti-vaxxers are absolutely a fringe group. If you want actual information debunking the lies of anti vaccination, check these three websites:
Many editors here contribute and/or comment at those sites. There are literally 50 other high quality scientifically based pro-vaccine websites out there. I manage one myself, and I know how many hits I get a month, so I know that people are out there looking for real information. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 17:00, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
One more site to add with excellent series on this topic linked here - Quack Watch --Daffydavid (talk) 21:05, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
If you want to see a collection of peer-reviewed articles on medline that, when taken together, provide a refutation of those websites, I suggest the following: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/anti-therapeutic-action/vaccination-all
Just looking at meta analyses alone, scrolling down the first page, refutes many of the notions expressed here.
That site is a very good source refuting much of the sentiment around here on a variety of issues.
I am busy and have limited time. As such, I probably won't be able to tackle this issue for a while. I invite concerned parties to use those listed sources to improve this article.Pottinger's cats (talk) 22:00, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
Regarding greenmedinfo. See cherry picking. And of course it's filled with anti-science garbage. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 17:29, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
It certainly goes against the ideology that is popular here, but I fail to see how it is invalid. The studies they highlight do exist, and do show inconsistencies in the popular narrative. This one, for instance, is a broad overview, and it corroborates popular anti-vaccination sentiment: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14976450
The meta analyses on the first two pages alone of greenmedinfo answer the questions put forth in this section.
Science is a methodology for figuring out accurate information about nature. It is not necessarily equivalent with prevailing views, which are often put forth with omission of relevant data.Pottinger's cats (talk) 04:55, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
This review is signed by Mark Geier? His scientific credibility is in the negative numbers.... --Enric Naval (talk) 10:46, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
The review is peer-reviewed, and published in a mainstream journal. It has not been redacted. The fact that Mark Geier is a scourge of vested interests does not dismiss the fact that this is an overview of relevant data that as far as I am aware, has not been responded to, and along with the other information, it provides a convergence of evidence for the case of those opposed to vaccination.Pottinger's cats (talk) 21:35, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Are you suggesting an edit? TippyGoomba (talk) 23:29, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Med Sci Monit isn't the place you would look for high-impact, high-quality studies. (As a general rule of thumb in evaluating scientific literature, one should be concerned when the importance of a paper's purported conclusion – say, that widely administered childhood vaccines are responsible for dramatic increase serious disease – is vastly different from the perceived importance or impact of the journal in which it was published. When a trivial result appears in a major journal, it's because the author is particularly famous, or has a friend on the editorial board. When an apparently important result appears in a third-rate journal, it's because the author's more dramatic conclusions aren't properly supported by his data.)
Geier's studies have been harshly criticized (in reviews and metaanalyses appearing in better-quality journals) for their serious methodological flaws; see for example Parker et al., which concluded "Studies do not demonstrate a link between thimerosal-containing vaccines and ASD.... Epidemiologic studies that support a link demonstrated significant design flaws that invalidate their conclusions." In any event, one can readily see that the increased diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders has not tracked with the introduction of any particular vaccine, with the total number of vaccines, or with the amount of mercury in vaccines over time. In particular, the removal of thiomersal from childhood vaccines in most of Europe and North America roughly a decade ago has singularly failed to affect the number of ASD diagnoses. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:13, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Bias

I think this article is biased towards vaccinations. The vaccine overload section, for example, argues that vaccine overload does not exist and that it is OK for children to get multiple shots at once, or as many as 53 in 18 years (Source: http://www.empr.com/can-multiple-vaccines-overload-the-immune-system/article/175959/# or 25 in 2 years (Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-402527/Fears-vaccine-overload-new-jab-meningitis.html). It HAS NOT been proven that this is true. Here are some links I found that are in my favor:

http://www.irishhealth.com/article.html?id=6775 http://stay-healthy-enjoy-life.blogspot.com/2008/10/vaccine-overload.html

I feel strongly about vaccine overload and feel that many vaccines are not necessary. In a way, you could argue that I am biased. However, there are no truly unbiased studies on this topic that have a large enough sample size to tell if vaccine overload exists or not. The IOM study was commissioned by the government, which publicly ENCOURAGES kids to get 53 shots by the time they are 18.

My point is that there are no unbiased studies so we shouldn't use info from biased ones. alexanderao (talk) 23:13, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Which references in the Vaccine Overload section do you consider unreliable or are biased and why? How do you know that "there are no truly unbiased studies on this topic"? And please note that you personal views are not relevant to this discussion. Graham Colm (talk) 23:01, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
"Any experiment based on withholding vaccines from children would be unethical" is a quote that piqued my interest. That looks like a bias to me. alexanderao (talk) 23:12, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
And you deleted the reference that supported this statement.[5] Why? Graham Colm (talk) 23:23, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Because even with the reference there, that shows a clear bias. Whoever wrote the article believes that that kind of an experiment would be unethical. The reference is unnecessary if somebody is trying to make a subjective point. alexanderao (talk) 23:28, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Would "Any experiment based on withholding vaccines from children has been considered unethical" + reference, be better? Graham Colm (talk) 23:36, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, because it shows readers that somebody (not the author of the article) has considered this type of experiment unethical. Thanks! alexanderao (talk) 23:44, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Would you like to make the salient edit and remove the bias tag? Graham Colm (talk) 23:49, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
I will do the honors. alexanderao (talk) 23:57, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for an amicable and educative discussion on maintaining WP:NPOV. Graham. Graham Colm (talk) 00:02, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for your quick and concise response. alexanderao (talk) 00:05, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Dangers

I m not in general against all vaccinations but this is very alarming: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/livestock-vaccines-mix-to-form-dangerous-strains/story-e6frg8y6-1226425004028 NEW regulations are being considered for makers of livestock vaccines, after Australian experts discovered jabs containing weakened but still living viruses can merge to form new strains that are more dangerous than the original bugs.

An investigation into outbreaks of a unusually virulent form of a chicken disease called infectious laryngotracheitis (ILT) in various parts of Australia found the new strains appeared to have taken some of their traits from two previous variants, which were each contained in rival vaccine products made by different manufacturers that were used to immunise the chickens against the disease.

The work, announced today by researchers from the University of Melbourne, details the first recorded case of viruses in vaccines spontaneously "recombining" into a more potent form in the field, as opposed to being induced to do so in laboratory conditions.

The findings, published today in the prestigious international journal Science, have already triggered a review of regulations over animal vaccine supply by the industry regulator, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority.--Alice1818 (talk) 04:12, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Editor has been blocked for violating stuff at Homeopathy, so no need to worry about arguing with her or him (LOL). Here's the original article: Lee SW, Markham PF, Coppo MJ; et al. (2012). "Attenuated vaccines can recombine to form virulent field viruses". Science. 337 (6091): 188. doi:10.1126/science.1217134. PMID 22798607. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link). Apparently, two attenuated viruses recombined in situ to form a new virulent strains. MMR vaccines use live attenuated viruses, but they are of only one strain, so there's no chance of recombination. Flumist uses two strains of viruses, H1N1 and H3N2, but they have the same mutations, so if they recombine, they'll still be weakened. The problem is that polio has three live attenuated virus strains that recombine 1 out 750,000 times. Now there are rare outbreaks from it, which are mitigated by populations that are immune to the polio. When polio is eradicated (by vaccinations), then this issue will disappear. In this case, the benefits of the polio vaccine, prevention of a horrible disease, far outweighs the extremely rare recombination event. I hope this analysis helps, and I doubt this information needs to be added to the article. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 21:45, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
You don't blog for Discover magazine by any chance, do you? :P MastCell Talk 04:04, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
The talons of truth are everywhere.SkepticalRaptor (talk) 17:37, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
My, you're prolific. MastCell Talk 00:08, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
The move from live attenuated polio vaccine to a killed virus vaccine as the incidence in the local population declines is because of this. At some point the benefit of the more effective live vaccine is balanced by the risk, and then using the killed vaccine is a better strategy. 194.176.105.147 (talk) 09:28, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

SBS

We should add a section about vaccines and Shaken baby syndrome. Google Harold Buttram or Alan Yurko to see what I mean. Jinkinson (talk) 20:26, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Google indexes anything and everything. However, we need reliable sources. TippyGoomba (talk) 01:16, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
True enough. What about the NVIC? [http://www.nvic.org/Doctors-Corner/Shaken-Baby-Syndrome.aspx] They can be the "wrong" side, and the national center for SBS here can be the "right" side. As for Alan Yurko, see the Ratbags coverage of the case. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jinkinson (talk • contribs) 15:02, 25 February 2013 (UTC)Jinkinson (talk) 01:49, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
None of those are reliable sources. I suggest you read WP:RS. In particular, we need peer-reviewed scholarship. TippyGoomba (talk) 16:27, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Right, got it. Won't make that mistake again. I was able to find this article about it from a positive point of view, whereas this one, published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, alleges that there is a link. Also this one by Viera Scheibner is an anti-vaccine one. I realize none of the anti-vaccine ones are in good journals, but these will have to do. Also, another pro-vaccine resource can be found here. Jinkinson (talk) 01:49, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
The first and fourth links are identical, but I don't see how it's relevant to the topic. The second link does not draw any conclusions related to the topic (read the conclusion section). The third source includes this gem in the conclusion All past cases of SBS should be revised and the victims re- leased from prison and compensated for their mental suffering, financial losses and emotional trauma. so I'm temped to dismiss it as WP:FRINGE but perhaps someone can comment on the quality of the journal. TippyGoomba (talk) 04:42, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
JPandS is the fringe journal of a fringe medical "association" that doesn't qualify as a RS under MEDRS. Scheibner is off-the-wall and totally unreliable, as the Australian article at ScienceDirect documents. Until a formal link is proven in MEDRS, we probably shouldn't touch this. It's a desperate gambit made by a career criminal who was convicted of killing his own baby. Old and new broken bones, multiple bruises, brain injury.....none of that smacks of any known type of drug reaction, much less to a vaccine. That a chiropractic association then named him a hero is another big red flag for pseudoscience. Only anti-vax organizations have backed him or this bizarre theory. The whole thing simply stinks, and is on a par with a small time conspiracy theory of limited circulation among the uneducated in some small coal mining community of perpetually stoned moonshiners in Appalachia. It's about that cheap. We'd need some really quality sources to make it worth exploring. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:12, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Individual Liberty

This section does not clarify the arguments against mandatory vaccination from the stance of individual liberty. Instead it offers only a utilitarian argument against individual liberty. This seems out of line for a Wikipedia article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.162.73.39 (talk) 22:10, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

The article Stop sign fails to address the individual liberty argument as well. It's a systemic "problem" at wikipedia, I guess. TippyGoomba (talk) 04:19, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

in which a few individuals gain the advantage of herd immunity without paying the cost - This is a little disturbing, vaccination is not same as 'paying the cost'. --Mannjani (talk) 11:40, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

RS documenting controversy

Here is a RS which documents the controversy, and even how it can cut the other way, by causing scientists to be overly cautious about possible vaccine side-effects:

While speaking from the mainstream POV, it stills mentions many of the key actors and organizations on both sides of the controversy. Although not MEDRS, it should still be a good source for quotes. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:11, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Here's another one, a "Vaccines Industry Newsletter," which mentions the Reuter's report:
Brangifer (talk) 06:18, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
More RS documenting the effects of antivaccination efforts and the responses to their dangerous activities. We need a section devoted to these issues:
Brangifer (talk) 05:00, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Anthroposophy and vaccination

The source quoted for the Alternative Medicine section -- Ernst's paper Rise in popularity of complementary and alternative medicine: reasons and consequences for vaccination -- does not mention anthroposophy so we cannot use it to justify the claim that anthroposophy opposes vaccination.

Rudolf Steiner is sometimes represented as opposing vaccination but this does not seem to be accurate: in his 1910 lecture "Karma of the Higher Beings" he discourses at some length on karma, hygiene, charity and vaccination (against smallpox: the only vaccination available at the time) and concludes that "vaccination will not be harmful if, subsequent to vaccination, the person receives a spiritual education". (I am quoting his opinion here, not endorsing it!). Steiner critic Roger Rawlings, in in STEINER’S QUACKERY: The Dangers of “Anthroposophical Medicine”, claims that some Anthroposophists do nevertheless oppose vaccination.

However I don't know a reliable source for statements on either aspect which would be acceptable for use in the article (although I think Ernst may have published something suggesting Steiner-Waldorf schools as a risk factor for low rates of immunisation, if someone wants to look that up.)

(Off to fetch my asbestos overalls now :-))

John Stumbles (talk) 17:33, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

£20m catch-up campaign seeks to immunise children

[Here] is an article about falling vaccination-rates, might have something useful. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:00, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Aussie media actively against anti-vaccinationists

Breaking News: Australian Newspapers Band Together To Protest Anti-Vaccination

No jab, no play campaign launched to ban unvaccinated kids from childcare centres and preschools

"The Sunday Telegraph and The Daily Telegraph are today launching a campaign to stop the rise in the number of children succumbing to preventable diseases because parents are failing to have them fully immunised."

There are several links in those articles. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:56, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

A good source that has been removed

Lest this source get lost, I'm placing it here so it can be used properly:

It was removed for legitimate reasons, but it should still be used if possible, since deletionism isn't constructive. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:21, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Zabdiel Boylston

there is a slight (and probably trivial) discrepancy on the age of dr. boylston's son in this article, it says he was 6 years old when experimented upon,

Boylston first experimented on his 6-year-old son

but in boylston's article it says his son was 13 years old,

Initially, he used the method on two slaves and his own son, who was 13 at the time.

.

i don't have access to either book listed as the reference to correct the issue. ≈Sensorsweep (talk) 03:38, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

History

1. The graph used to illustrate the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of the Rubella vaccine doesn't take into account the history of infections which had declined by 98% before the vaccine was introduced.

2. After the introduction of the Polio vaccine, the definition of Polio was more narrowly defined, which automatically excluded a multitude of cases thereby showing an efficacy which does not exist. Furthermore, in the post-vaccination era many cases of paralysis were attributed to causes other than Polio, whereas in the years prior even a paralysis of 12 hours was diagnosed as Polio. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.166.14.237 (talk) 19:08, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Source(s)? TippyGoomba (talk) 19:32, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
1. This seems to be technically true:
  • From the graph: Rubella vaccine introduced 1969 with rate of ~30 cases per 100,000 people.
  • From CDC: "A rubella epidemic in the United States in 1964–1965 resulted in 12.5 million cases of rubella infection."
  • From US Census: US population July 1, 1965: 194,302,963
  • From maths: 12.5mil / 195mil = 0.0641 = 6.41% = 6,410 cases per 100,000 people. Divide by 2 to get average rate for 1964/65 individually = ~3,000 per 100,000, minimum.
The graph starts with rate of 30, but 5 years earlier it was 3,000. That's a 99% decline in the years before the vaccine was introduced. I couldn't find any data on the pre-1964 rate, however this study would indicate it was much closer to the 30 than to the 3,000 (early 60's rate of Rubella-cause birth defects 25-100x less than 64-65). Also, the CDC mentions a 6-9 year Rubella epidemic cycle and a 1975 report says "no nationwide outbreak, such as the 1963-1964 epidemic, has occurred, though on the basis of long-term secular trends, one would be expected between 1970 and 1974". The graph confirms no such epidemics have occurred since 1965.
So while a graph that starts during the 1964/65 epidemic would paint a very different picture, and show a massive decline in infection rates before the vaccine was introduced, it wouldn't really be a fair or accurate one. The "98% pre-vaccination decline" in 1966 is due to a sudden 1000-fold increase in infections in 1964, part of a regular epidemic cycle that appears to have stopped since vaccination was introduced.
2. This also appears to be true to some degree. From this review of an article of polio cases in 1940-50s: "since the period of the epidemics studied in this article, we now know of three poliovirus serotypes, and dozens of other non-polio enteroviruses (NPEV) potentially capable of causing paralytic polio-like syndrome." - what was called "polio" before the introduction of the vaccine in 1955 is now known to be caused by multiple viruses, only three of which are now considered "polio" (ie poliovirus). There are a number of other studies that also report these other viruses causing polio-like symptoms, eg [6] and [7].
Poliovirus was isolated in 1918 while the other viruses didn't start being isolated until the 50s. Since the symptoms can be "clinically indistinguishable" to genuine polio, any cases prior to their isolation would likely have been recorded as polio even if they were caused by a non-polio virus. The first reference confirms this: "it would be difficult to quantify to what extent NPEV contributed to the aseptic meningitis disease burden in the pre-vaccine era, but we know that NPEV certainly played a role"... so comparing pre- and post-vaccination infection rates without adjusting for the differing terminologies will overstate the number of infections prevented by the vaccine. The article as currently stands doesn't appear to do this anywhere, so it's probably a non-issue.
Tobus2 (talk) 15:48, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Documenting anti-vaccinationist activities

What is the best article here for this subject? UNICEF is doing this, and as a RS, we should be using their information. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:30, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Here is an article describing the UNICEF report you mentioned, http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/unicef-surveils-defames-health-sites-over-vaccines-greenmedinfo-motheringcom Prokaryotes (talk) 07:10, 30 August 2013 (UTC)



Missing citations

Bobrayner reverted https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vaccine_controversies&diff=570771891&oldid=570771789 with revert reason = "Sources seem reasonable to me. Could you clarify on the talkpage?". I added missing citations as noted in the edit notes as "The ref does not support the statement or the statement is not accessible from the cited reference." and "Reference is broken or content not accessible" Prokaryotes (talk) 06:25, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

I've added direct links to full-text sources for both of these. Tobus2 (talk) 06:42, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
You added a link about Vaccines and Autism, however the statement in the wikipedia article on Safety should address vaccination in general since it address vaccines in general. To draw general conclusion from 1 claim about 1 particular vaccine which doesn't even seem to be produced any longer, which is doesn't even mentioned - doesn't help with a neutral view. Prokaryotes (talk) 06:53, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
I added links to the two existing refs you claimed were unavailable or didn't support the statement.
The ref for the statement "a more common concern is their safety" says "Few are against vaccination per se, nor deny the vast improvements the practice has made to public health. The key challenge is not to convince people of the efficacy of vaccines but, rather, their safety."
The ref for the statement "As the success of immunization programs increases and the incidence of disease decreases, public attention shifts away from the risks of disease to the risk of vaccination" says "Also, safety concerns are increasing as the success of immunization systems increases. With a decreasing incidence of disease, public attention shifts towards AEFIs." (adverse events following immunization) "It is then only a matter of time until a concern will be raised and publicized, public confidence might be lost, immunization rates will then decrease and a resurgence of disease is likely to follow
Both refs are available and support the statements they are cited by in the article. Both quotes are about vaccines in general not about a single vaccine. What's your problem?
Tobus2 (talk) 07:33, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
I figured there are 3 links with the first reference, the 1st of these links points to a study, fine with me. The second link points to an article which evolves around "Why Does the Vaccine/Autism Controversy Live On?" This might be a valuable addition but then this should be reflected within the related Safety section part, which it is not. Though autism is mentioned 25 times in the article in relation to vaccination and safety. However, there are many different vaccines with many different substances and there are different people, to generalize everything under autism is not helpful. I added a vaccine research resource - based on scientific literature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Vaccine_controversies#Database_on_Vaccine_Research Thus, this is missing when trying to understand all the different health variables. Prokaryotes (talk) 07:46, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Database on Vaccine Research

I recently added = "A database of vaccine research documents mounting evidence which describe serious adverse effects to vaccination in the scientific literature. [2]" However, beside the fact that teh source list only scientific literature, which is linked to the related journal, the user Daffydavid removed it https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vaccine_controversies&diff=570773002&oldid=570772864, therefore i post it here. Further are most references from this page not considered reliable sources, since they link to inaccessible study paper or are not considered reliable because they are not secondary sources. Prokaryotes (talk) 07:04, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

The source you give cannot be cited for an assertion that there is "mounting evidence which describe[s] serious adverse effects to vaccination in the scientific literature". And no, it isn't a 'database' - it is a collection of links clearly intended to present a particular viewpoint. A database wouldn't consist of material preselected in such a way. That isn't 'data'. And yes, the linked material is primary (and often outdated, from a quick look), and as such generally excluded as non-WP:MEDRS-compliant. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:34, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Terminology describing anti-vaxers

I think we need a short paragraph of 2-3 sentences discussing the terms used to describe those who are against vaccination. We sparingly mention anti-vaccinationists, but otherwise don't devote much space at all to the subject, yet it's important enough for the Australian government to devote time to the matter:

How many terms have you run across which we could mention using RS? -- Brangifer (talk) 02:58, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

The lead starts "A vaccine controversy is a dispute over the morality, ethics, effectiveness, or safety of vaccinations." Who does the disputing? Antivaccinationist is a simple English construction describing a phenomenom or behaviour. This page actually started with that as its title, if you have the stomach, have a look back at the very beginning. A simple and useful term for those taking an active part. I see one has appeared here, and is doing the usual zombie-argument revival. Midgley (talk) 18:39, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Removal of legitimate study

AndyTheGrump (talk) recently removed a legitimate addition, claiming "badly-written, and an entirely undue generalisation of the source". I ask the user to provide some constructive feedback with the changes he would like to see. Prokaryotes (talk) 20:22, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

However, a recent study found that weak vaccines can be attributed to an increase of diseases. [3]

Prokaryotes (talk) 20:22, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Firstly, you have got the sentence backwards - your intended meaning was presumably "...a recent study found that an increase in disease can be attributed to weak vaccines". However, you are generalising from a particular study relating to whooping cough vaccines, which is clearly undue and inappropriate. You are also citing a report on a single primary study [8] - something that WP:MEDRS makes clear is almost always to be avoided. We do not cherry-pick sources on single studies to make generalising assertions regarding matters on which they make no comment whatsoever. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:32, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
Per your judgement most references of the article had to be removed -and all the links to the discovery blogs, which normally seems to suffice. Not that i say you have a POV but maybe read the article again it is pretty straight forward in regards to what i wrote "These results are supported by other studies that have found significantly higher risks of infection with the newer, a cellular vaccine." Though we could add "pertussis vaccines" instead of just "vaccines" to avoid a generalization. "A recent study found that an increase in disease can be attributed to weak pertussis vaccines" and maybe we use this bigger article on the subject http://discovermagazine.com/2013/march/15-broken-vaccine#.UiJVZT9uobo Can we both agree on those changes? Prokaryotes (talk) 20:45, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
No. Your proposed edit is generalising from a particular study - one you have clearly cherry-picked in order to promote an anti-vaccination POV. This is entirely undue, and contrary to Wikipedia policies. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:53, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
It might be a reasonable thing to add, though I'd phrase it differently - fear of vaccine side effects resulted in a reformulation of a vaccine, and the reformulation doesn't work. That's the take-home message I see in the Discover article. It might be more relevant for the article on the specific vaccine. It is, if anything, a cautionary tale on why not to break something that works and, relevant to this article, the damage caused by paranoia about vaccine side effects. The CDC likely published their data, and that might be a reasonable source, but a magazine blog just isn't going to cut it for any article. 71.231.186.92 (talk) 02:06, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
The reason i chose this link is that the article argument i followed up on contains discovermagazine already. It is unclear to me why in 1 case this is considered "ok" and when i add it, it is not. Quote = it becomes challenging for health authorities to preserve public support for vaccination programs.[4] Prokaryotes (talk) 13:56, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
Agree with the IP. The irrational fear of the original vaccination is likely causing an increase in the prevalence of Whooping Cough. Whether it is the vaccination itself or fewer people becoming vaccinated, the Discover article does not stipulate, it appears that Whooping Cough is more prevalent today. I somewhat doubt it is vaccination since this is more recent than the 1992 switch in the vaccination. I also agree with Andy. You sentence was in violation of NPOV. Arzel (talk) 14:31, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
Several studies support the argument and CDC officials themself. Quote = "The resurgence is not the fault of parents who haven’t immunized their kids. “We don’t think those exemptors are driving this current wave,” Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told reporters at a July press briefing." http://discovermagazine.com/2013/march/15-broken-vaccine#.UiSl1j9uobp Prokaryotes (talk) 14:54, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
"We don’t think ..." = "We don't really know." I read the blog, and the fact is they don't really know why Whooping Cough incidence rates have increased as of late. You might want to read this as well as it supports a reduction in vaccination rates. Additionally there is this which supports that the newer vaccination is less effective. It is likely a combination of both. Arzel (talk) 15:04, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
I think people are missing the point here. This article is supposed to be about 'vaccine controversies' - and no source has been provided that suggests that there has been a 'controversy' about this specific issue. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:12, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
The ongoing problems with controlling pertussis by vaccination is acknowledged by scientists[9][10][11][12] and gets regular wide coverage in the media[13][14][15][16][17]. It's being actively used by both sides of the debate, with anti-vac sites using it to claim that vaccines don't work[18][19]www.infowars.com/vaccine-failure-admitted-whooping-cough-outbreaks-higher-among-children-already-vaccinated/ infowars.com is fringe, does not meet our sourcing guidelines and should not be used and in scare campaigns using it to encourage vaccination[20][21][22][23][24]. I think it qualifies as a controversy and a proper explanation of the situation is warranted here (note: NOT the reverted content that started this discussion) Tobus2 (talk) 22:29, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

No evidence of an immune system role in autism

I would like to make something clear as day up front--vaccines don't cause autism. I agree that this is true; however, I couldn't help but question the veracity of the statement "...there is no evidence of an immune system role in autism." This statement would seem to be flatly contradicted by a considerable number of scientific studies, in particular those published by Paul Ashwood (see his recently created Wikipedia page for more information). In particular, he published a review article last year, which can be viewed here. Accordingly, I feel that this sentence should be revised. Jinkinson (talk) 00:01, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

I've confirmed this - not only is there a page with list of this and similar studies at the Autism Research Institute[25], the ref provided for the statement doesn't even state the immune system is not a factor and instead acknowledges that it might be ("It has been suggested that autism may result from an interaction between genetic, environmental, behavioral, and immunological factors") - clearly at odds with what the article claims. I've simply removed the offending sentence and reworded the surrounding text slightly - it seems to hold together fine without it. Tobus2 (talk) 11:31, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, the paper seems to discuss the role of immune system in autism. There are sentences like "Autism is not an immune-mediated disease (...) Thus, speculation that an exaggerated or inappropriate immune response to vaccina-tion precipitates autism is at variance with current scientific data that address the pathogenesis of autism.", and other discussions of immune system and autism. As far as I can see, the source does support this sentence. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:31, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the source does support this sentence, and they are citing the 2004 IOM review. However, I merely wish to note that other reliable, secondary sources contradict it, and that Tobus2 seems to be correct in that the sentence should be removed, as considerable evidence exists of an immune system role in autism, such as the following three papers: [26] [27] [28] Jinkinson (talk) 14:50, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Firstly, I need to admit I've made a mistake: the quote I gave above was from a different paper (this one[29]), not the source given for the statement in the article, I've struck it out in my comment above. My apologies for any confusion in that regard.
The problem still exists though: "not an immune-mediated disease" doesn't mean the same thing as "there is no evidence of an immune-system role in autism", and a number of other studies (such as [30] and the others already mentioned) suggest the immune system does in fact play some role in autism.
I don't think there's any contradiction here, the different papers are talking about different things - "immune-mediated" is where a malfunction of the immune system in an individual causes a disease in the individual, while the links with autism are in terms of family history and in-utero neural development - a completely different situation, both can be correct without contradicting the other. Perhaps all that's needed is to rephrase the article to say "not an immune-mediated disease" like the source says, instead of the wider (and inaccurate) "no evidence of an immune-system role" like it says now.
Tobus2 (talk) 15:01, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

I would like to note one thing: the review by the Institute of Medicine cited by Offit and Gerber was published nearly a decade ago which, in my opinion, is rather out of date relative to the studies I and Tobus2 have cited. Jinkinson (talk) 13:42, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

But Gerber's paper is from 2009. If Gerber thought that Ashwood's research deprecated the review's conclusions, he would have cited it. You might think that Ashwood's papers are more reliable than a Institute of Medicine review, but WP:MEDRS says that reviews are preferable to clinical trials, non-review papers, etc. --Enric Naval (talk) 09:57, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
In Autism#Pathophysiology a 2009 review is cited to say "Although some abnormalities in the immune system have been found in specific subgroups of autistic individuals, it is not known whether these abnormalities are relevant to or secondary to autism's disease processes". Hum, and papers by Ashwood are used to surround this sentence with statements that weaken it, again going against WP:MEDRS. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:06, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
I don't know why you're so insistent about the inclusion of such definitive statements; the role played by the immune system in autism is clearly an open question. Several studies have found possible links. For instance:
None of this implies any connection with vaccines, mind you. Sebastian Garth (talk) 14:22, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
Right, right. Sorry for citing individual papers. However, one of the papers I cited was a review [34], and it concluded that "...an immune hypothesis, involving also autoimmunity, is one possible pathogenetic mechanism in autism." This seems to indicate that there is some evidence of an immune system role. Likewise, Causes of autism#Autoimmune disease indicates that "It is possible that aberrant immune activity during critical periods of neurodevelopment is part of the mechanism of some forms of ASD," citing one of Ashwood's papers, which is also a review (i.e. secondary source). Jinkinson (talk) 13:10, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
This is simply a wording issue. The text says "there is no evidence of an immune system role in autism", but some researchers have presented evidence that the immune system does play a role. The intent of the sentence is that there is no evidence that vaccination causes Autism, but the way it is worded goes beyond that scope and is technically not correct. The simple solution is to change the text slightly so it gives the same essential message but doesn't preclude the possibility of effects outside of vaccination. The obvious wording is the same as the cited source - "Autism is not an immune-mediated disease", but there would be heaps of others if that's not acceptable. Tobus2 (talk) 13:13, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
Additional secondary sources:

Aluminum

The article currently contends that there is much more aluminum in baby formula than there is in vaccines. However, a 2009 study found that, in fact, infants were exposed to at least 225 micrograms of aluminum per vaccine, as opposed to only 2 micrograms from breast milk. I would therefore like to get some feedback as to whether this paper should be included. Jinkinson talk to me 19:38, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

What do you think, based on your reading of WP:MEDRS? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:00, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, it's just a primary source, so I guess it doesn't warrant inclusion. However, it seems as though a secondary source supports this conclusion--namely, a study which concluded that while the levels of aluminum in vaccines is not dangerous, that "The calculated body burden of aluminum from vaccinations exceeds that from dietary sources," which would seem to contradict the article's statements that there is more aluminum in baby formula than vaccines. The study can be found here: [38] Jinkinson talk to me 20:05, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

The first study you mention is talking about breast milk, not formula. It's widely known that formula has much higher levels of aluminium than breast milk (see [39] for example). I don't have access to the full source of the 2nd study you give so I can't tell if "dietary sources" means breast milk or formula or some combination of the two, but I note that it's from 2002 so would be using data that's at least 10-15 years old.
Having said that, the article is claiming that vaccines contain less aluminium than formulae which isn't what the existing ref states - is says that "By 6 months of age, infants typically ingest" more aluminium from formula than they get from vaccines over the same period. This is also supported by the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: "While infants receive about 4.4 milligrams of aluminum in the first six months of life from vaccines, they receive more than that in their diet. Breast-fed infants ingest about 7 milligrams, formula-fed infants ingest about 38 milligrams, and infants who are fed soy formula ingest almost 117 milligrams of aluminum during the same period."[40]. So a litre of vaccine contains a lot more aluminium than a litre of formula, but a baby only gets a fraction of a litre of vaccine while drinking bucket loads of formula, so the formula has a much greater impact. I suggest we update the text to accurately reflect the ref and add the CHoP ref which seem more reliable to me. Tobus2 (talk) 00:58, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
Jinkinson You are comparing apples to oranges and using old studies. The second study has this link at the bottom http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22001122 which is an updated analysis of the paper you linked. So, no the paper you linked shouldn't be included. --Daffydavid (talk) 04:01, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Vaccine controversies - Wikipedia page

It seems the article "Vaccine controversies" is completely one-sided. I'm starting to think Wikipedia has no credibility whatsoever and is completely controlled by Pharmaceutical companies. This is the first time I've submitted anything to Wikipedia, yet how in the world could Wikipedia miss the video "Danger of Vaccines admitted"? Is Wikipedia working for Merck? I know Merck kept this out of the mainstream media, but is Wikipedia paid off by Merck? How could Wikipedia not include any information from this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7ripS-SmCo ?

I hope it was just an honest mistake, because huge misses like this by Wikipedia has me thinking Wikipedia is now paid off not to give accurate information.

Wikipedia, is someone paying you off not to tell the whole truth about the vaccine controversy?

DanCameron2 (talk) 23:17, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

You mentioned we are being paid off three times in one comment. I must have missed my monthly check though. Garion96 (talk) 23:32, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
Yeah! Where's my check?! Hundreds/thousands of editors edit these articles, so the conspiracy is vast....
DanCameron2, we base all content here on reliable sources (RS), not YouTube videos. If you have some reliable sources, please present them here and maybe we can use them. Our most sacred policy, the NPOV policy, ensures that all significant sides of the issues are covered in articles. If the anti-vaccination POV is not described adequately, then please help us improve this article. BTW, making accusations against other editors can easily get you blocked from editing here, so don't make anymore personal attacks. Since talk pages are not forums, chatrooms, or discussion lists, but are supposed to be used for discussing article improvement, please make sure that any comments are related to potential improvement, not just to air your personal POV. Many people with POV on all sides of the issues read these comments and edit these articles. Those who succeed here learn to edit alongside editors who have opposing POV, but can still do it in a collaborative manner. Please provide suggested improvements of wording and content, always backed up with RS. BTW, since you're new here, please read the pages that are linked in our comments. Thanks, and welcome to Wikipedia! -- Brangifer (talk) 02:47, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
I've to agree, this article is not neutral. You get the impression it only reflects the view of the companies who make a fortune with producing and selling the vaccines. There is content which is repeated several times all over the article. Most content is not referenced following WP:MEDRS standard - most references are primary sources or do not accurately reflect the statements made. Controversy views are almost not existent. Prokaryotes (talk) 07:02, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
This talk did not start in the best way. But I also agree that article does not fully comply with the Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. The text and manner of writing can insinuate that one viewpoint is more correct than another. As Prokaryotessaid there is content that is repeated several times. The article title is about controversies but controversy views are almost not existent. Please we need help improving this article. Unmismoobjetivo (talk) 06:06, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
qwaypota (talk) This page is not neutral. It is rife with bias and ad hominem attacks. Attempts to indicate this challenge to its neutrality are quickly removed. To the Big Pharm Drone assigned to this page, what are you afraid of?
Are you seriously expecting a reply to that? I you wish to discuss specific issues where you think this article may contravene the relevant Wikipedia policies on neutrality, you can (after first familiarising yourself with the relevant policies if you have not yet done so) - but claiming that it contains supposed "ad hominem attacks" while making them yourself isn't going to get you far. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:48, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
I am familiar with the neutrality policy, Andy. This is why I have pointed out its bias. You want to detail all the bias in this article? Alright, let's begin with the first sentence: "Although medical and scientific evidence surrounding vaccinations demonstrate that the benefits of preventing suffering and death from infectious diseases far outweigh rare adverse effects of immunization,[1] there have been vaccination controversies ever since vaccination began in the late 18th century." The tone of the sentence is biased in favor of vaccinations. From the very first word, it is attempting to silence any questioning of this medical practice. How is this neutral? Shall I continue pointing out the obvious? Or would that be insulting everyone's intelligence? Qwaypota (talk) 23:14, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
Talking about insulting everyone's intelligence, shouldn't a new user be getting experience in a range or articles before continuing the push to use Wikipedia to promote fringe views? Johnuniq (talk) 23:34, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
Evidently Qwaypota thinks that 'neutrality' means giving equal weight to opposing viewpoints, even when one is a viewpoint held by the overwhelming scientific consensus, and the other is held by a small fringe minority. Well Wikipedia doesn't work that way. The Earth isn't flat, so we don't suggest to our readers that maybe it is, maybe it isn't. And the same goes for vaccines. We say that science demonstrates the benefits of vaccination, because it does. We aren't going to mislead our readers just because conspiracy theorists and purveyors of hokum would like us to. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:46, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
WP:NPOV doesn't mean giving equal representation to all points of view, it means giving WP:DUE weight to each view "in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources". The introductory sentence you quote seems to be a fair representation of the relevant viewpoints. You must realise that the article is going seem "biased in favor of vaccinations" to you because the overwhelming consensus of the reliable published sources is that vaccination is a good thing. The anti-vaccination viewpoint is a minority viewpoint with very little support in reliable sources, so NPOV means it won't be presented it as the main viewpoint. If you have specific things you want to add to the page and have reliable sources to back them up, then please present them and we'll try to work them in to the article. Tobus2 (talk) 23:48, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

one sided

"Vaccine Controversies" - I came to this page looking up a specific item, and found this page completely bias and one sided! I believe that the Overview should be written and then LOCKED to where no one can go in and edit it. The page should describe what the controversy is, and both sides of the controversy. Not displayed as one side being right or wrong. I have a little girl with a vaccine injury. I have no question to its dangers. These are not conspiracies. Unfortunately, this controversy is very real and CAN NOT be displayed on Wikipedia only from a negative perspective. It has become someone's point of view, not as an Encyclopedia formatted page. _ To whom ever moved my writing, I would like to know if you are the owner of this page? I did not realize that this is only a blog site for people to bicker on. Why would anyone bother reading any of this if it is full of oppositions rewriting everything in their favor. Wikipedia is a joke. Now that I know how Wikipedia works and that anyone edit it, I will not be back. And good luck with your unjust arrogance, one day you will wake to the truth in your "science". Redpilltaken (talk) 07:41, 28 December 2013 (UTC)Red 12/27/13 and 12/30/13 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Redpilltaken (talk • contribs)

That will not happen. Wikipedia presents content giving appropriate weight to multiple sides of the issues based upon their currency within the mainstream academics. The mainstream academic opinion and weight of scientific studies is clear. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:42, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
While I disagree with a complete rewrite of the page, I just noticed that the "Safety" section deals only with refuting the made-up and unsupported accusations, and doesn't mention the very real and widely acknowledged (and also very rare) potential adverse reactions to vaccines. The CDC acknowledges that "A vaccine, like any medicine, is capable of causing serious problems, such as severe allergic reactions."[41] (which in extreme cases can be fatal or permanently disabilitating) but this isn't mentioned anywhere in the Safety section. I think it could easily be included into the first paragraph weighed against the much higher risk of catching the disease and leading into the existing content. Tobus (talk) 00:03, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
that is no "controversy" - that is the standard and noted potential side effects of any medicine or medical procedure. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:37, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Yes, but it represents the mainstream view of any "Safety" controversy, and it is referred to in the first sentence of the lede so it should be expounded upon the article body (and the "Safety" section is surely the best place to do so?). It seems to me that we could add a phrase and source to the existing (unsourced!) final para of the "Safety" introduction, to refer to the other serious adverse effects besides the polio-specific one, and merge this into the opening para so it presents the mainstream view first, then the "success = more scrutiny on faults" idea that leads into the rest of the section. Tobus (talk) 02:32, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Parlement of Paris

The notoriously reactionary Parlement of Paris banned smallpox inoculation in the 1760s, resulting in 1/6th of the population of France being unprotected from history's greatest killer. Could some smart person add a section about that in the "History" section? Maurizio689 (talk) 18:36, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Do you have a source? Tobus (talk) 23:33, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Desiree Jennings

Redirects here, but the article makes no mention of the controversy. --140.32.16.3 (talk) 07:13, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I have changed the redirect to 2009_flu_pandemic_vaccine#Dystonia. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:29, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

William Thompson

The William Thompson whistleblowing incident is a newsworthy event especially given that several mainstream media outlets have covered it. I sourced these, and per Wikipedia policy deleting well sourced additions can be construed as vandalism. Sorry, but this page isn't going to be whitewashed. DonEladio (talk) 16:21, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Re: you edit summary here[42], I hadn't responded here before reverting you because your statement above doesn't really seem to be intended to start a discussion. What, specifically, would you like to discuss? Cheers, Dawn Bard (talk) 17:04, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
What everyone here thinks of The Fappening! Do you think it'll hurt J-Law's career, or help it? How about Kate Upton's? Oh, and maybe the inclusion of the William Thompson whistleblowing information, as I stated above.DonEladio (talk) 17:09, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
Adorable. What I meant was, your content has been reverted by at least three people because of undue weight concerns. Do you have any changes to your material to propose? Any compromise? Any case to make as to why you're right and everybody else is wrong? Cheers, Dawn Bard (talk) 17:12, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
Rather than rehash the same conversation over in a different place, see here. Yobol (talk) 17:19, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
DonEladio, your proposed text here severely misrepresents the source. It is possible that this incident warrants inclusion, though given WP:NOTNEWS I am not sure, but if it does we will need to represent it fully rather than cherry-picking details. - 2/0 (cont.) 13:03, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

The lead

The lead needs to be summary of the topic not an op ed about the evils of anti vaxers. Vaccine controversies are not "debates", even in the widest definition of the term, and are most certainly not "so called debates" (as no one is calling them debates) and the controversies, no matter how ill conceived and based on misinformation, also absolutely exist and have since the beginning of the use of vaccine type procedures. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:52, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Fine by me, put something else there (be WP:BOLD). Just don't make it sound like this is some major public concern, it isn't (for the most part, anyway). People do have to understand that these concerns are nothing more than fringe ideas, and I think the current versions does just that. Besides that, you don't want *intelligent* people to read this article and detect the blatently (not to mention unecessarily) biased tone that your original edit introduced. Sebastian Garth (talk) 12:15, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
I guarantee that neither of you wants to misrepresent the vaccine controversies as being rooted in science or even having all that much mainstream appeal. That mini edit war just looked silly to an outside observer. - 2/0 (cont.) 13:05, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
I can assure you that locking the page was even more foolish. There was no "edit war" to speak of; TheRedPenOfDoom was reverted and then made no effort to discuss the topic as any normal Wikipedian would have. I continued to edit and make changes to the article (even incorporating wording that TheRedPenOfDoom suggested) and even invited the editor to actively change my edits to suit as per WP:BOLD. Please unlock the page so that we may continue to improve the article. Cheers! Sebastian Garth (talk) 13:46, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

per Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section#First_sentence the first sentence needs "The first sentence should tell the nonspecialist reader what (or who) the subject is." So what is a vaccine controversy? I submit a valid encapsulation is: "Vaccine controversies are public concerns, generally based on misconceptions, about the effectiveness and/or safety of vaccinations. " -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:17, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Yep, that works. The lede really should end with some sort of clarification, though (see my original edits). Still waiting on the page to be unlocked, of course... Sebastian Garth (talk) 18:37, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
Can anyone make a draft here of the first paragraph that you wish to see in the article? EdJohnston (talk) 19:21, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
Well, if you've got a specific idea then why not post an attempt of your own? Don't worry, the editors here will check your work and suggest any changes, if necessary. Sebastian Garth (talk) 19:55, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
A highly controversial article and we're going to let ONE editor POV it to death. Go ahead, we'll see how far that goes. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 21:54, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps you should assume good faith. Sebastian Garth (talk) 00:46, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
It will be hard to tell if the edit war is over unless somebody proposes a version that the two sides can support. This entire thread does not contain any substance that an outsider could review. All I can tell is that people are mad about something. EdJohnston (talk) 22:00, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
What edit-war - I thought that was settled?! Sebastian Garth (talk) 00:46, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
Both TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom and Sebastian Garth are guilty of violating WP:3RR by a wide margin and yet neither were warned and the page was locked instead. Both editors would be do well to commit to heart "Do not edit war even if you believe you are right." As for content, the encapsulation proposed by Redpen is much better than the current lede.--Daffydavid (talk) 22:40, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
Except that it's well over and we would all be going about our merry way right now if we could just stop with the innane blame-game. Sebastian Garth (talk) 00:46, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

I suggest that the article be unlocked and that we just continue to work things out the old-fashioned way: bolt, revert, discuss. Sebastian Garth (talk) 00:46, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

It would be logical for an admin to lift the protection if we could be sure the war would not resume. Maybe User:Sebastiangarth and User:TheRedPenOfDoom could both agree to take a break from editing the article for one month, and limit themselves to commenting on the talk page. Since I don't see any real negotiation going on here I'm not persuaded that the one-week protection is too long. So far RedPen has at least offered a new sentence; further proposals by both sides would be helpful. Sebastiangarth, do you want to comment on RedPen's sentence? EdJohnston (talk) 13:57, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
The misunderstanding has long been resolved and User:TheRedPenOfDoom and I are in complete agreement at the moment. You would be stepping in, after the fact, to solve a problem that doesn't currently exist. How does that make sense? Sebastian Garth (talk) 15:55, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

I think we are in agreement that the first sentence be changed to: "Vaccine controversies are public concerns, generally based on misconceptions, about the effectiveness and/or safety of vaccinations. " Yes? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:19, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Or how about this:"Vaccine controversies are public misconceptions about the effectiveness and/or safety of vaccinations. ". A little better, no? Sebastian Garth (talk) 18:14, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
there are lots of misconceptions that are not controversies, and there are controversies that are not misconceptions Vaccine_controversies#Individual_liberty , and Vaccine_controversies#Religion for example. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:36, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
Okay, so maybe more simply: "Vaccine controversies are disputes relating to the effectiveness and/or safety of vaccinations. "? Sebastian Garth (talk) 21:18, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
Pretty good. How about incorporating the ideas of Dawn Bard expressed below? -- Brangifer (talk) 21:25, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
Something along these lines: "The disputes are mostly between anti-vaccination advocates and mainstream scientists, not within the science world itself." -- Brangifer (talk) 21:28, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
"Vaccine controversies are disputes relating to the effectiveness and/or safety of vaccinations. Although there is no current significant scientific debate surrounding the efficacy of vaccines, misconceptions and anti-vaccinationist views persist."?Sebastian Garth (talk) 21:42, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
Looking good! This is definitely better. I think substituting "disagreement" for "debate" would be good. There is discussion/debate, but not disagreement. That is between the mainstream and fringe. -- Brangifer (talk) 22:17, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
I disagree. It's just the same old same old BS from the anti-vaccination forces. There are NO fucking disputes about the effectiveness and/or safety of vaccines except in the minds of the anti-vaccination cult. Say that. Anything else is moving the POV needle to making it nothing but a whitewash by the anti-vaxxers. I strongly strongly strongly resent that kind of change. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 08:30, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
Opposed on the most fundamental of terms. It's weasel worded. "there is no current significant scientific debate"?? No, there is NO debate in science. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been settled by consensus, by the IOM and many others. Inventing some POV pushing verbiage that makes it sounds like there is any kind of debate, or any future debate is just not acceptable. I'll revert up to 3RR if that anti-vaccine statement ever makes it in this article. Bah. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 08:35, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
Locking the article has a legitimate function, which is to force editors to reach a consensus version. Has that happened yet? Place that version below. Don't unlock until that version is produced. -- Brangifer (talk) 17:49, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
Page protection might make sense in the case of vandalism or disruptive edits but here it would be clear overkill. As long as all editors concerned agree to contribute civilly then there is no need to bypass the normal flow of editing which, after all, only requires a click of the "undo button" to reject proposed changes. Sebastian Garth (talk) 18:08, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
The aggressive edit warring, failures to respect BRD, and angry edit summaries indicated that the page protection was necessary. Collaboration on this page is the best way forward. Do you have any problem with collaboration on a talk page? That's what they are for. Just place your suggestion below and we can all work on it. -- Brangifer (talk) 19:28, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
Locking the page only serves to defeat the purpose of WP:BRD. I have no contentions whatsoever with the other editor in question. Speaking of collaboration, you seem to have missed the fact that I just recently proposed a modified version of the lede. And what have you suggested? Stop worrying about supposed "angry edit summeries" and focus on making constructive contributions to the article while assuming good faith. How's that sound? Sebastian Garth (talk) 20:04, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
BRD's purpose is to stop edit wars and force Discussion, not allow continued editing before a consensus is reached. Now we're all discussing, and hopefully civilly. That's good. The discussion will hopefully produce a consensus version to use. -- Brangifer (talk) 20:14, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Uninvolved user, butting in. There doesn't seem to be a huge conflict here, really, but I thought I'd drop in to mention that a similar issue is handled well at the Creation–evolution controversy article where the lede makes it clear that the controversy in question is political and cultural, but not scientific, at least not in any meaningful way. Just bringing it here for what it's worth. (And if it's worthless, my apologies.) Cheers, Dawn Bard (talk) 18:59, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Good points. -- Brangifer (talk) 19:28, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
agree. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:36, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
We could just take the verbiage from that article, change it to vaccines and call it a day. BUT, I've always been concerned about these facts that "99% of scientists agree", which implies there's some vote. Science isn't a democracy, it is based on evidence alone. And right now, the vast fucktons of evidence support evolution and vaccines. But still, if using some percentage in a poll makes the case stronger, then let's go for it. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 08:37, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
I disagree. We need to be clear that there is no significant debate about vaccines. Percentage points won't help at all here. Sebastian Garth (talk) 09:33, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

So we are agreed that there is no disagreement within science, that the consensus view supports their safety and efficacy, and that the vaccine controversies are between mainstream science and anti-vaccinationists. Let's get that idea formulated for our lead. We've been working on doing that above, so let's continue down here. How about this version?:

  • "Vaccine controversies are disputes between scientists and anti-vaccinationists regarding the effectiveness and/or safety of vaccinations. Although the consensus view of scientists is that they are both safe and effective, and there is no disagreement in the scientific world, anti-vaccinationists continue to spread misconceptions."

I got carried away. The stricken words are overkill. Either we use that and leave out "consensus view", or strike it and use the stricken words. We don't need both. -- Brangifer (talk) 15:14, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

A Modest Proposal

Anyone who considers the first three paragraphs of this article to represent a neutral point of view should be banned from contributing to Wikipedia. The contributors to those same paragraphs should be sought out and surveyed regarding this issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.110.189.29 (talk) 16:38, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

OK - I consider the first three paragraphs of this article to represent a neutral point of view. On what grounds do you propose to eject me from Wikipedia? What specific rule or guideline have I broken by having an opinion?
The contributors to those articles are many - and I'm sure you can track them down from the edit history. I'm not sure what you plan to "survey" them about...but presumably, since you've already demanded that they be banned from contributing, I'm not sure you should care.
But seriously: The deal with WP:NPOV is that almost everyone considers their personal point of view to be in the middle of the spectrum - and then they expect to see equal amounts of coverage to either side of their personal position. This works very badly when you're actually at one end of the spectrum of opinion. Consider members of the Flat Earth Society. They regard our "Earth" article - which clearly depicts the earth as being round - as being highly biassed. Sadly, since the mainstream scientific consensus is that the earth is indeed an oblate spheroid, we don't mention the possibility that the earth is flat in our article. SImilarly, mainstream science says that properly designed and administered vaccines work and are safe - and that's what our lede says. The people who believe that British scientist who fraudulantly claimed that vaccines cause autism are out on a limb - far, far from scientific consensus - and they should not expect to get a lot of positive coverage here, any more than the flat earthers should expect equal time in the Earth article.
Wikipedia's guidelines on NPOV are really clear that the neutral position in matters of medicine and science is the "mainstream scientific view". The first three paragraphs are indeed backed by mainstream references - so the evidence I'm seeing is that they are indeed NPOV in terms of the Wikipedia policy. That doesn't mean that you'll consider them NPOV...far from it.
Sadly, those who edit here a lot see your kind of problem all the time. It's not new - and the response is pretty much always the same:
You may be unhappy that WIkipedia uses this rule for what is considered "Neutral" here - but that is undoubtedly the rule - and it's been tested to death all the way up to the "ArbCom" level of Wikipedia rule-makers. That's like the supreme court here - there is no higher level of appeal. So this rule isn't ever likely to change. That means that you really only have three options:
  1. Try to get the rule changed - despite the ArbCom ruling. That's going to be virtually impossible to do - but you're welcome to beat your head against a brick wall trying. One thing though - this is not the place to discuss ArbCom rulings on scientific neutrality...so please don't debate it HERE - that would constitute "disruptive editing" and might get YOU banned from editing!
  2. Try to show that the mainstream scientific consensus is that vaccines don't work. That's going to require you to turn up some pretty amazingly good references to prove that - recent mainstream journals, peer reviews, WP:MEDRS quality stuff. I don't think that exists - but if it does, please tell us about it here....but please, only stuff that passes WP:MEDRS because that's the ruling from ArbCom (see (1), above).
  3. Give up trying to get your point explained on Wikipedia. There are many other online encyclopedias with different NPOV policies (or, indeed, no NPOV policies whatever). You could undoubtedly write for one of those. Sadly, hardly anyone reads those encyclopedias...so I could quite understand if you didn't want to do it.
But that's it. Those are your choices. I'm quite sure you'll go on battering your head against this brick wall for a while yet...that happens quite a lot for people who's ideas are far from the mainstream scientific consensus. However, rules are rules - and if you push it too hard, you'll eventually get called "disruptive" and then you'll be the one who get the editing ban.
SteveBaker (talk) 18:25, 8 October 2014 (UTC)


I agree that the first 3 paragraphs are extremely biased. If a certain position can be backed by science, provide a reference to that science, not a reference to an opinion. The statement .....that individuals should rely on personal hygiene instead, ..... has no reference, and appears to be included simply to belittle anybody that does not agree with the author. If this is not bias, what is ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Laughton.andrew (talk • contribs) 07:10, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Your assertion that "The statement .....that individuals should rely on personal hygiene instead" is unsourced is demonstrably false. It is cited to this [43] article - which includes in the 'Supplementary Material' box at the bottom the following passage: " … personal hygiene and diet stop diseases, folks, not injecting virulent free-floating genetic material into your veins with all kinds of poisonous cancerous carrying agents which is what vaccines are." This phrase in turn is cited to a website here [44]. AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:52, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

References for statements made in the main article.

Hi People

This article appears biased, with a number of statements made with no references. If the opening statement had a reference people could refer to it and put their mind at ease. As it stands at the moment it is simply an opinion, echoed from a cherry picked web link. It could just as easily state the moon is made of cheese, and link to a claim somewhere else that also claims the moon is made of green cheese. In the first paragraph there is this little gem, ....that individuals should rely on personal hygiene instead,.... Is this a deliberate troll attempt ? It is flat out insulting to anybody that may have legitimate concerns about vaccinations, and is not far short of calling them an idiot.

The statement, .....resulting in epidemics of preventable,.... is presented as a fact, yet the reference is simply an opinion. Including a reference implies the statement is true. I feel the existing reference should be deleted. If a better reference cannot be found, either the statement should be deleted or left without a reference, implying that it is an opinion rather than something that is proven.

The statement, ... Public reaction to vaccine controversies has contributed to a significant increase in preventable diseases including measles.[4] .... appears to be another opinion. Again the reference should point to numbers, not to someones opinion. How many cases of measles in what year, and in what area. How many the following years ?

These opinions may or may not be accurate, but I do not they should be referred to as proof. If people feel that references are not needed in the first paragraph, delete the existing references to opinions.

Laughton.andrew (talk) 06:59, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

The evidence laid out in the section entitled 'Events following reductions in vaccination' is not opinion. It documents, amongst other things, the deaths of children. And cites the necessary sources. AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:03, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

In my humble opinion, a link to this science based reference would be a lot more relevant than to the existing reference to an opinion. Why is it not included ? Laughton.andrew (talk) 07:31, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Read Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section. It is not a requirement that every statement in the lede of an article carry a citation - the lede is a summary, and details are generally better cited where they are more fully detailed in the body of the article. AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:58, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
Exactly! You are discussing the WP:LEAD, which is a summary of properly sourced content. That's why references aren't required in the lead. You'll find the same subjects, with references, covered in the body of the article. We use all types of sources here, ranging from peer reviewed academic sources, to opinions, to totally false ideas. In a subject like this one, we document the views of opposers by citing them, even if the sources are not reliable for any other purpose and contain falsehoods. Such fringe ideas are often ignored within science and one cannot find peer reviewed sources, but scientific skeptics and others many still write about them in other sources, and per WP:PARITY we cite their opinions. -- Brangifer (talk) 08:04, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
Remember also that WP is not about presenting a specific case and providing "proof" for it, it's about presenting the mainstream consensus opinion. As well as the recommendations above I suggest you also read WP:MEDRS - where is states we prefer "systematic reviews published in reputable medical journals, academic and professional books written by experts in the relevant field and from a respected publisher", and that (in bold!), "primary sources should generally not be used". Presenting a case and proving it with primary sources would be WP:OR, instead we want to cite and paraphrase reliable secondary sources. It might seem anti-intuitive at first but we're building an encyclopedia, not presenting a term paper - citing the "opinion" of professional health writers and government bodies etc. is not only acceptable, it's actually better than citing the raw scientific data. Tobus (talk) 08:22, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Claim that the free rider problem substantial increases risks even to vaccinated individuals

The claim that the free rider problem substantial increases risks even to vaccinated individuals is questionable because the free rider problem only occurs within a sweet spot range of vaccinated population percentages. If the percentage of people who have been vaccinated decreases to the point that even those who have been vaccinated have a substantial increased risk, then the percentage has decreased beyond the range in which the free rider problem occurs. The free rider problem occurs when there is more risk from the vaccination than from being unvaccinated. When the unvaccinated population reaches the point at which an unvaccinated person faces a greater risk than from the vaccination itself, then there would be no advantage to requesting an exemption and the free rider problem would not be in effect. This is why that claim is questionable and why I have asked for a reliable source to back it up: either from a medical researcher or an epidemiologist. Sparkie82 (t•c) 19:24, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

My take on this, is that people should get things into context. Families (and their friends and neighbors) that enjoying the Right to keep and bear arms in the United States end up with more deaths (by several magnitudes) due to firearms, than unvaccinated/vaccinated Cohort (statistics) due to disease. If people want to protect their nearest and dearest, tackle the gun issue first.--Aspro (talk) 21:12, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
WP:NOTFORUM. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:18, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
  1. ^ Centers For Disease Control Reports On Vaccine Preventable Deaths
  2. ^ . Greenmedinfo.com [http://www.greenmedinfo.com/guide/health-guide-vaccine-research#|title=Vaccine Research http://www.greenmedinfo.com/guide/health-guide-vaccine-research#|title=Vaccine Research]. Retrieved August 2013. {{cite news}}: Check |url= value (help); Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)
  3. ^ Rise in Whooping Cough Linked to Weak Vaccine
  4. ^ Mooney C (2009). "Why does the vaccine/autism controversy live on?". Discover. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
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