Talk:Vaccination

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Contents

[edit] Etymology

Not sure about the etymology of the word vaccination. Vaccinia is a term for cowpox so probably vaccination is derived from it. Kpjas

Indeed. And the phrase Vaccinia is derived from the word for Cow. Can't remember whether its latin or Greek though. - unsigned
Vacca is Latin for a cow. AFAIR - unsigned

[edit] Writeup

needs a writeup on how the bad press on vaccination got started and how it got debunked ... Alex.tan 18:24 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Removed from page

[edit] Myths and facts on vaccination

--Myth #1: Measles deaths had declined by 99.4% (from 1901/2, UK) before vaccination.

--Myth #2: There is no evidence vaccination eliminated smallpox, and vaccination increased the spread and incidence of the disease, as well as spreading leprosy, syphilis, TB and the like around the world. Huge epidemics were caused by compulsory vaccination which was why they repealed the compulsory vaccination act. Most cases of smallpox had been vaccination.

--Myth #3: The dangers and infectivity of smallpox have been hyped to sell vaccination. It was considered less dangerous than measles in the 18th century and 98% curable under homeopaths or naturopaths, while under allopaths it was 20-30% fatal, due mostly to their use of mercury and ignorance of diet and nutrition--the main protection against smallpox.

[edit] Comments

-- Fact #1: There are no long-term double-blind randomised controlled studies of any vaccine for any disease published in any journal in any country in any time period. (To perform a long-term controlled study of vaccination, one would take two large groups of people, and vaccinate one group and not vaccinate the other. Then one would wait and see how the individuals in each group fared over a period of years.)

-- Fact #2: Epidemiological evidence shows that vaccines are not 100% effective, that they do have undesirable side effects, and that they sometimes can cause the disease they seek to prevent.

-- Fact #3: Epidemiological evidence show that vaccine programs can decrease the incidence and prevalence of disease.

-- Fact #4: Post-exposure prophylaxis vaccination has been demonstarted to reduce the incidence and severity of such diseases as smallpox and rabies.

-- Fact #5: Some of the reduced incidence in given diseases for which vaccinations are given is due to improved nutrition and improved sanitation, and cannot be entirely attributed to the vaccination's effects.

We need a better write-up of this. It must include sources or at least areas where myth is prevalent and sources for so-called facts. Also it can't be a numbered list. Measles is not the number one myth subject in America for instance. I doubt these should be called myths and facts at all to keep in NPOV. Rmhermen 16:03, Nov 12, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] References

A link to About.com entitled "Killing the Messenger: Firing Dr. Andrew Wakefield" was deleted because the link no longer exists. Instead, it redirects to a page about Autism Spectrum Disorders with no mention of thimerosal. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by NotMySecondOpinion (talk • contribs) 01:24, 31 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Merge

Should this be merged with vaccine? Rmhermen 17:09, Nov 12, 2003 (UTC)

This is a POV until scientifically reviewed, and if the facts are right, scientists will never deem this true, because, according to Myth #3, vaccination is overhyped, and therefore, if that was true, the scientists would never deem this true, because then it would hurt their credability. KirbyMeister 11:11, 14 May 2004 (UTC) --- I think the article is out-of-balance. The other side of the picture is completely absent. There are many published objections to vaccinations. A few could be mentioned here. Yes, I'm the culprit who added the NVIC link. Afterall, it is probably the best source of facts on the internet on this topic. Paul B Mann

There is far more published suport. The evindence does not support the antivac position. The most famos anti-vac paper has had it's credibitly destroyed. The national vacine information centre is a sick joke.Geni

[edit] US information

If that is to be included you also have to allow the legal staus of vaccination with regard to civil law in every other country on the planet. I fell this could result in the article looking rather silly <ANON>

well more to the point... is it true?? Erich 12:02, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

Pretty much all damages due to vaction in the US are payed by the US govenment.Geni 23:28, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

so, just to clarify, can you still sue and receive damages, but the government picks up the tab? Erich 11:49, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

As far as I understand it pretty muchGeni 11:58, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] ratbags.com

two pages from the ratbags site

http://www.ratbags.com/greenlight/vaccines1.htm

http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/

looks like a provacination site to me.Geni 23:29, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for listing the subdirectory links because there was nothing about vaccines on the home page. Wiki links should go directly to the page on topic. Readers may not want to continue if they do not find what they expect. The second link should be http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/vaxliars1.htm Petersam 16:02, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Ideas about inoculation transmitted to the west from India?

I've just been reading the smallpox page which includes the following paragraph:

Smallpox is described in the Ayurveda books. Treatment included inoculation with year-old smallpox matter. The inoculators would travel all across India pricking the skin of the arm with a small metal instrument using "variolous matter" taken from pustules produced by the previous year's inoculations. The effectiveness of this system was confirmed by the British doctor J.Z. Holwell in an account to the College of Physicians in London in 1767.

As the date of this account of Indian practice to British physicians preceeded Edward Jenner's vaccine by nearly 30 years I am wondering if some cross-fertilisation of ideas occured. This is just speculation on my part. I have no expertise in this area. Just wanted to mention it here. Oska 08:51, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

There was alos some knowlage of this practice from turkey. I belive there was some use of live smallpox as a vaccine however it wasn't until Edward Jenner made his observations that cowpox was used. Geni 11:37, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Almost certainly, not least in that Jenner was variolated as a child, and as an adult doctor (Physician if you like) he variolated the local population as part of normal business. It is asserted somewhere and seems entirely obvious that he would have liked an improved procedure. To what extendt he was actually seeking one, and how much it was just careful observation and curiosity, as with the Cuckoo, isn't clear to me. In any event, the test of whether the first vaccination Jenner performed was whether it blocked variolation when that followed, as a routine (I imagine, reasonably). It did, and that, when repeated, indicated that the effect of Cowpox could be produced artificially. That page on variolation is a stub but includes a link to the lady who brought the technique back to England, and was enthusiastic about it (ambassadors' wives often are enthusiaastic in the public good.). I suggest that that page would do better as a sub-page of this one. Midgley 01:06, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] whale.to link

There have been a few additions/deletions of the whale.to link. Maybe this is a good place to discuss what is the reasoning behind the removal of the link and are there valid reasons to omit a link with such extensive information on the topic? Jkpjkp 00:37, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

There's been some low-grade edit warring. An RFC on exactly this topic is taking place at Talk:MMR vaccine. I think it is unwise to reinsert the link until that RFC has come to a hard conclusion. JFW | T@lk 01:22, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Adjuvants

A tag has been added requesting expansion of the new adjuvant section. Ombudsman 02:13, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

The adjuvant section has been expanded, and the tag removed. Midgley 01:07, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vaccine / vaccination

This has been crossposted to the talk pages of both articles. Please respond here.

The content of these two article crosses over a great deal. Perhaps we should consider either merging them completely, or seperating them into independent articles (as much as is reasonable). I, personally, am in favor of the former, but am not wholly opposed to the alternative given an adequate rationale for that course of action. If there's no response, I'll likely just be bold in the next few days and merge them myself. – ClockworkSoul 19:21, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

The term "vaccination" is outdated, and government health authorities make a point of using the less charged term "immunisation". Vaccine (from vacca, cow, and vaccina, cowpox) refers specifically to smallpox vaccination. Immunisation is factually more correct.
Further, after the eradication of smallpox in 1977, routine smallpox vaccination was eliminated. David F 05:13, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
There are reasons not to merge the articles. The article on vaccine deals with the substance used, which is POV-free (although the thiomersal debate may flow into this). The article on vaccination, deals with the clinical, political and sociological aspects of compulsory vaccination as a container term. JFW | T@lk 20:44, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Maybe it would be best, then, for us to appropriately prune as much redundant information as is reasonable? – ClockworkSoul 05:23, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

As long as the pruning keeps the balance intact this is fine. JFW | T@lk 21:55, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Source material - UK government documents of about 1800 onward

http://www.bopcris.ac.uk/cgi-bin/swish-cgi.pl?query=vaccination&field=all (Not serving the JPEGs just now, but I think it usually will work. There are various assertions about what happened flaoting around, these are the pukka article. Midgley 18:32, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Works now. The Royal Commission report on Leicester is useful, since the most widely copied material about it is a book by one of the interested pribncipals defending his views. Midgley 18:26, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Autism

Last I heard, there may indeed be links between vaccination and autism... Someone check that there has been no strong connection before we say so! --AlanH 02:00, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

It has been claimed. There is rather a lot of deabte on this point.Geni 02:05, 16 April 2006

This page is cool and interesting.

[edit] Vaccination vs. Immunization

I can see that other people have mentioned this before, but I will start a section, since it is important to this article.

Calling the information presented in this article "Vaccination" is incorrect. Vaccination refers only to the induction of immune responses against smallpox using the vaccinia vaccine. The term Immunization covers all of the other topics on this page (i.e., every other "vaccine" mentioned besides the one for smallpox). Yes, colloquially the terms are used interchangeably, but Wikipedia is intended to be an encyclopedia, and thus should be as technically correct as possible.

Even more worrisome is that this article then goes on to imply that there is some inherent difference in the mechanism by which immunization and vaccination occur. There is NO difference in the mechanism, as vaccination is a TYPE of immunization. Most of the information (except for the information specifically about vaccination via vaccinia) needs to be moved to the Immunization page.

There is however a difference between vaccination and inoculation methods. "Vaccination" is a term of art for a specific medical procedure. In vaccination, the vaccine must incubate in the skin, and therefore vaccination is done by pricking the skin with a looped needle, the vaccine being held in the loop. Inoculation involves loading a hypodermic with a vaccine and injecting the vaccine intramuscularly through a hypodermic needle. David F 05:02, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I would welcome any thoughts on this matter.--DO11.10 22:28, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Pasteur had a thought about it, some time ago, when he developed an immunisation against rabies and chose to follow Edward Jenner's coining of the word, which does indeed derive from cow. Vaccination and the induction of active immunity by stimulating the immune system with a live or dead denatured pathogen or fraction of it have been used interchangeably since then. Inducing immunity by infusing immunoglobulins on the other hand has not so far as I know ever been described as vaccination, but is certainly a part of immunisation. There are plenty of ways of slicing the information up, several of them are probably good. Midgley 17:34, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality?

The article has lot's of information about possible risks of vaccination and the controversy surrounding it, but does not e.g. mention the estimated number of lives saved every year because of the ongoing vaccination programs. I consider this somewhat onesided and POV. --Joonasl 13:30, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Yes, I agree. But only if you could prove credible sources.-Shark Fin May 23, 2007

[edit] Jenner

The article talks as if Jenner was the first to use cowpox as a vaccine for smallpox in 1796. Although this is widly believed to be true, the first documented use was by Benjamin Jesty who innoculated his family during the 1774 smallpox epidemic. MHDIV ɪŋglɪʃnɜː(r)d(Suggestion?|wanna chat?) 14:50, 19 June 2007 (UTC) A recently published article by Peter Plett (Sudhoffs Archiv, Vol.90-2, p. 219-232, 2006, Stuttgart, Germany) states: Before Edward Jenner tested the possibility of using the cowpox vaccine as an immunisation for smallpox in himans for the first time in 1796, at least six people had done the same several years earlier: An English person whose identity is unknown, Mrs. Sevel (Germany), Mr. Jensen (Germany), the English farmer Benjamin Jesty in 1774, Mrs. Rendall (England)and the German teacher Peter Plett in 1791. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.48.238.83 (talk) 14:54, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Why undid

I undid a link to vaccine controversy on top of the article. I agree that vaccine controversy is important, but the readers typing in "vaccination" wants to know about vaccination, and not primarily its controversy. That, they might want to know more about when reading the basics. Therefore, the link belongs rather to the bottom of the article. In fact, it is already found there. Mikael Häggström 07:25, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mass vaccination

Why is mass vaccination only mentioned once, in passing, in this article? Surely this is a notable topic in itself, perhaps even deserving its own Wikipedia article, yet it is barely even mentioned at present. --Mais oui! (talk) 06:39, 25 November 2007 (UTC)