#StopAVN This ones a golden oldie (Hello Annette!) but a little long, my apologies in advance. I was reminded of this the other day when Juby Waxyman was on 6PR 6pr.au/blogs/6pr-perth-blog/hpv-vaccination-debate/20140305-347e5.html complaining that the quadrivalent HPV vaccine only protects against 2 high risk strains...when there are 15 - but either forgot to mention, or doesnt understand, that those 2 strains are the most aggressive and account for ~80% of cervical cancer. I know the stress of live-to-air interviews can make you forget to mention things, but that was a pretty important one if you werent deliberately setting out to deceive listeners. Anyway, so back to 2010, Australias leading expert on immunisation was commenting on this story: nytimes/2010/02/25/business/25vaccine.html In comes the said expert with the following: How can 13 strains be 90 percent of all s. pnumoniae when there are 120 strains? Something is wrong with this maths equation. Maybe they just got a press release from the drug manufacturer and reprinted it without checking? After all, we can trust big pharma to not lead us astray, right? Here is the best quote: Prevnar 13, from the drug giant Pfizer, adds protection against six types of bacteria to a current product, Prevnar 7, increasing its coverage to more than 90 percent of pneumococcal disease rather than the current product’s 80 percent coverage. There are at least 120 known strains of pneumococcal bacteria. To cover 90% of them, the vaccine would need to contain at least 108 strains - at least, that is using the maths that I learned in school... Its like they just printed the press release from the drug company and got it all wrong. LOL. Poor dolts. Thank goodness someones keeping them honest, eh. Anyways, so when someone kindly pointed out that it was in fact her that was wrong, and anyone who was an expert in immunisation would know that the bulk of invasive pneumococcal disease is caused by a small number of serotypes (because some strains are more invasive than others) what was her response? Quiet embarrassment? Polite retraction? Not on your nelly! So moronic. They cant even speak English. If they wanted to say that, they should have said that the vaccine will now cover the strains of s. pneumoniae which cause 90% of cases (of what? meninigitis, pneumonia, epiglottis, ear infections????) not that it now contains 90% of the strains of s. pneumoniae which they DID say and which is COMPLETELY wrong! I hear ya sister, those people who cant even speak English are so tiresome. ALL CAPS FTW! They DID say and which is COMPLETELY wrong! (NB. could have done with a few more exclamation marks here and the occasional 1, goes nicely with ALL CAPS eg !!1!11!!!1!!1!!). I draw your attention to the following line from the article: Prevnar 13, from the drug giant Pfizer, adds protection against six types of bacteria to a current product, Prevnar 7, increasing its coverage to more than 90 percent of pneumococcal disease rather than the current product’s 80 percent coverage. Just for added emphasis: ...increasing its coverage to more than 90 percent of pneumococcal disease... So moronic indeed. ^SD
Posted on: Sat, 08 Mar 2014 03:15:30 +0000
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