The Nonsense That Is "Vaccine Injury Awareness Month"
by Orac
Respectful Insolence
October 18, 2011
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/10/the_nonsense_that_is_vaccine_injury_awar.php

Normally, these days I greet the month of October with a
mixture of anticipation and dread. The anticipation
stems from October's position as Breast Cancer Awareness
Month. Now that somehow I've managed to have a variety
of responsibilities with respect to how breast cancer is
managed at our cancer institute, suddenly I find that
I'm sometimes called upon to do media appearances, and
Breast Cancer Awareness Month is one time we can use to
get our message out about breast health and breast
cancer detection and treatment, not to mention to
highlight for the local media some of the cool research
that goes on here. Every year (or so it would seem) the
quacks, cranks, and haters of science-based medicine
come out of the woodwork to use October as an excuse
either to attack "conventional" medicine (particularly
anything related to breast cancer), promote quackery, or
both. Be it Christiane Northrup promoting thermography,
as she did last year and is doing again this year, Mike
Adams really bringing home the crazy over Breast Cancer
Awareness month year after year, Dan Olmsted trying to
co-opt the month for his anti-vaccine views (I kid you
not), or Dennis Byrne promoting the scientifically
discredited idea that abortion causes breast cancer,
usually I can count on attacks on breast cancer science
and medicine so full of napalm-grade burning stupid that
no neuron can withstand the heat. Oddly enough, this
October has been pretty quiet so far. Other than Mike
Adams taking a couple of swipes at Susan G. Komen for
the Cure and Whole Foods, the latter of which committed
the crime (in Mike Adams' eyes) of supporting "pink"
breast cancer awareness campaigns, there's been
surprisingly little breast cancer-related activity on
the crank front.

Oh, well. There's still more than a third of the month
left for quacks to make me cringe. At least I often get
blogging material about it.

However, apparently October has other significance to
cranks. True, the month is more than half over, which
makes it odd that I hadn't really noticed this before.
Or maybe it's not so odd. Apparently anti-vaccine loons
are trying to co-opt Breast Cancer Awareness Month by
making it their own. That's right. Somehow, somewhere,
anti-vaccine loons got the idea in their head that
October should be "Vaccine Injury Awareness Month." And
the anti-vaccine movement is piling on, including the
anti-Gardasil site The Truth About Gardasil and, perhaps
most prominent of all, Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, founder of
the crunchy, "holistic" Homefirst practice in the
Chicago area who has bought into Mark and David Geier's
Lupron protocol. Many of them are linking or embedding
this video:

Regular readers of this blog will recognize the panoply
of anti-vaccine canards in the video above, including
the toxin gambit, the "too many too soon" gambit, and
other misinformation about vaccines, including claims
that no safety studies are done and that we don't study
the effects of multiple vaccinations when in fact all
new vaccines are studied within the context of the
current vaccination schedule. And then, embedded in that
video, we find:

    It defies common sense to think that injecting our
    bodies, especially babies, with these chemicals and
    biological agents has no negative effects on the
    health and function of those who use them? To say
    there is no link is insane!

Not nearly as insane as the video and the nonsense being
promoted by the anti-vaccine movement. Actually, what we
have here is a classic appeal to incredulity. Just
because the creator of the video, who appears to be a
woman named Joanne, who is responsible for an ant-
vaccine blog I had never heard of before, Are Vaccines
Safe?, can't understand how vaccines don't have massive
negative health effects, she assumes they must be very
harmful. It's also a straw man argument in that no one
claims that vaccines are absolutely safe. Incredibly
safe under any reasonable definition of the word "safe"?
Definitely. Far safer than the risk of the diseases they
prevent. Almost always. So safe that serious adverse
reactions are incredibly rare? Of course. But no one
says that vaccines never cause injury. What science does
say is that the claims of anti-vaccine propagandists
that vaccines cause autism, autoimmune diseases,
dementia, and other chronic diseases are without a basis
in science.

The rest of the video parrots classic anti-vaccine
canards such as the "vaccines damage the immune system"
gambit (they don't). It all concludes with a plea to
"educate before you vaccinate."

Meanwhile, on NaturalNews.com, Paul Frassa is spewing
stuff like this:

    The launching of Vaccine Injury Awareness Month this
    October coincides with this month`s annual Breast
    Cancer Awareness Month. Unlike the cancer industry`s
    drive for more cash donations and customers (while
    exposing women to dangerous mammograms and
    withholding cancer prevention information), the
    Vaccine Awareness Month is a real effort to honor
    the vaccine injured and educate those unaware of
    vaccination hazards.

    This event is just in time for the flu season drive
    to vaccinate as many as possible with shots that
    combine both seasonal flu and swine flu vaccines,
    even though the CDC has recently declared the
    current swine flu as harmless.

If the CDC has declared the current swine flu (H1N1) as
"harmless," I have not seen the declaration. In fact, if
you peruse the CDC website about H1N1, you'll find this
passage:

    What Are Common Flu Complications?

    The most common flu complications include viral or
    bacterial pneumonia, muscle inflammation (myositis),
    and infections of the central nervous system or the
    sac around the heart (pericarditis).

    Other flu complications may include ear infections,
    sinus infections, dehydration, and worsening of
    chronic medical conditions, such as congestive heart
    failure, asthma, or diabetes.

    Those at highest risk for flu complications include
    adults over 50, children ages 6 months to 4 years,
    nursing home residents, adults and children with
    heart or lung disease, people with compromised
    immune systems (including people with HIV/AIDS), and
    pregnant women.

Funny, that doesn't sound as though the CDC has declared
H1N1 "harmless" to me.

Oddly enough, I don't see much evidence that the NVIC
and Generation Rescue, the two most active anti-vaccine
organizations, have anything to do with this. It appears
to originate from a small anti-vaccine blog and then
picked up upon by the "big dogs," like Mike Adams at
NaturalNews.com and Mayer Eisenstein, who is undoubtedly
a big name in the anti-vaccine movement. Indeed, he's
been out there saying things like:

    October is the month to acknowledge and honor those
    families whose loved ones have been injured by
    vaccines. These faceless (in many cases), nameless
    and numerous families are hurting and they need our
    help.

    One of the ways we can assist them is by spreading
    the word that vaccine injuries are real and they are
    far more common then we have been led to believe.

    If you are on facebook or twitter, please use the
    image below as your profile image for the month of
    October. Please spread the word amongst your own
    networks. Bring the issue of vaccine injuries out
    into the public's eye.

And:

    I want to raise doubt in your mind as to the safety,
    efficacy and moral issues of vaccines. My goal is
    for you to do further research into all of the
    vaccines, use libraries, bookstores, our internet
    web site (homefirst.com) and ask questions. Only
    after fully weighing the evidence can you make an
    informed decision. An informed consumer is a wise
    consumer. This journey is a beginning of better
    understanding the issues surrounding childhood
    vaccinations.

    As a devout anti-vacciner, I just have one thing to
    tell Dr. Anderson and all of the doctors who are
    tools of the pharmaceutical industry.

    Read my books, all vaccines cause brain damage.

Well, at least Dr. Eisenstein is honest. No "I'm not
'anti-vaccine'; I'm pro-safe vaccine" for him! He lays
it all out on the line, letting his freak flag fly high!
If ever Dr. Eisenstein ever claims that he isn't anti-
vaccine again, I'll point you, my readers, to this
statement by him. Whoever thought up the boneheaded,
brain dead idea of trying to declare October Vaccine
Injury Awareness Month, Mayer Eisenstein has glommed
onto it like fleas on a dog--or maybe a better metaphor
would be maggots on a rotting corpse, because the ideas
and anti-vaccine lies that Eisenstein promotes are very
much like a rotting corpse: dead, bloated, and stinky.

Personally, I find this video to be a far more accurate
description of Eisenstein:

Months after I first discovered that video, I find it
amazing that Dr. Eisenstein appears not to be the least
bit embarrassed by it.

Obviously, this attempt by the anti-vaccine movement to
associate itself with Breast Cancer Awareness Month by
trying to claim October for its own is laughable and
pathetic in the extreme.

You know, even though October is only a little more than
half over and I haven't (yet) seen stupid-based attacks
on science-based medicine for breast cancer, given that
it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month, it's obvious that I
have encountered even more stupid-based attacks on the
science of vaccines, courtesy of "Vaccine Awareness
Month," courtesy of Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, Paul Frassa,
and a blogger named Joanne. Think of it this way: If Age
of Autism won't bite when it comes to promoting Vaccine
Injury Awareness Month, that ought to tell you
something.

Certainly it told me something.

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