Questions and comments on the ongoing study at Jackson
State University: Vaccination Status and Health Outcomes
among Homeschool Children
Q: … and Mississippi is the chosen state? Yes, I am not for this at all. Mississippi is
also one of the first states to fluoridate their water and it is virtually impossible to
access non-fluoridated water (bottled water contains fluoride...) in Mississippi.
A:—Mississippi is actually not “the chosen state”. MS is one of 4 mostly southern
states selected arbitrarily for the pilot study, which has just been completed,
and the data are being analyzed. There were four states involved in the pilot
study. Those states were Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oregon.
The main (nationwide) study is planned for Year 2 and the overall analysis will
be performed in Year 3. This is the study under discussion.
The upcoming study involves a broader reach beyond those four states.
Depending on the fluoridation of each state there could be information in the
data to correlate with the extent of fluoridation. . No state is entirely fluoridefree, but some towns are and some are mostly on well water—which can also
have toxins. Many households filter the water at the intake and at the sink.
However, so few households filter the water that this calls for a separate followup study IF there are clear differences in outcomes between vaccinated and
unvaccinated children.
Q: So if they need Internal Review Board approval, does this mean that there could
be other sources of funding? $500,000 is a lot to come up with from the grassroots.
There needs to be a benefactor or some other creative financing.
A:— IRB approval for the study was obtained at Jackson State University,
where the study is based, in 2011. Approval was renewed for Year 2 a few
months ago. There is no other current funding for the study. The pilot study was
funded by Generation Rescue, whose support was solely financial. They are
totally uninvolved in study design and analysis.
Q: It might be a good idea to see why they need $500,000 -- what is the breakdown
of expenses, etc.?
A:—The planned nationwide phase of the study will compare the health
outcomes of vaccinated and unvaccinated homeschool children ages 6-15 years,
based on responses to an online survey by biological mothers of the children.
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This phase of the study will require considerable resources in terms of
engagement with the homeschool communities in each state, recruitment into
the study, and statistical analysis. Mothers will be asked to use their children’s
vaccination records and to report physician-diagnosed chronic illnesses. The
study was originally budgeted at $850,000 over three years and a detailed
budget was prepared, based on that amount. The stated goal of donations
totaling $1,000,000 would be to complete the study and then to partially fund a
follow-up study comparing the health outcomes of vaccinated and
unvaccinated children based on physician records.
If you recall, the NFIP and Basil O’Connor galvanized the country in order to
get over two million dollars in donations in the form mostly of dimes, to fight
polio. Just about NO questions were asked back then of anyone. And look what
they did. The big difference here is that nobody is going to get rich from this,
and nobody is frightening the public in order to get people to donate. And
questions will be answered of the public. Most importantly, the end result could
be totally opposite of NFIP’s in terms of vaccine value.
Q: But we all feel that there needs to be a place to go for our questions to be
answered -- like maybe a commonly addressed Q&A that people can read prior to
donating.
A:—Hopefully, these responses to the specific questions will eliminate the
doubts and concerns of most readers.
Q: A flagrant design flaw is that they are basing it on home schoolers. If the results
come out showing unvaxed are healthier (which we already know), the provaxers
will simply dismiss it, saying that home schooled kids aren't intermingling with as
many kids and are not exposed to as many diseases as conventionally schooled
children; therefore, it is unknown what their health would be like if they were
"socialized" like vaxed public schoolers. They did the same thing with the Amish,
going so far as to say that maybe the Amish have some sort of gene that protects
them from becoming autistic!
A:—In this study the entire study population consists of homeschool children.
Since all the children are homeschooled – vaccinated, partially vaccinated and
unvaccinated – this will “control” for differences in exposure to human sources
of infection.
The homeschool population, while not necessarily intermingling with public
school kids regularly (many in fact do so mingle), do have a 54% rate of full
compliance with vaccines, so they are nothing close to the Amish in that
respect. Also they have a 15% rate of being vax free, which you will not find in a
uniform public school population.
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Q: IMHO, there tends to be a divide between the autism community and those of us
in the trenches to protect our right to abstain and increase the numbers of those
saying NO to shots.
A:—But isn’t this study potentially a real bridge between the two said
communities? This study addresses autism questions and general health issues.
The answers have the potential to uphold our rights to abstain and say NO.
Thus far there has been all talk and no do, and since no-one else has had the
gumption to get moving, how much longer do we have to wait?
Q: There are plenty of LARGE populations of unvaxed kids that could be used. Dr.
Eisenstein has a huge patient base of unvaxed kids under the Homefirst practice in
the Chicago area. Another advantage of using his database is that it is under the
auspices of a medical professional, not random home schooling families that could
be considered unreliable. Additionally, there are lots of schools in CA and elsewhere
that have largely unvaxed populations within them. They go to school alongside
fully vaxed kids, so there would be no way to easily malign the results.
A:—Dr Eisenstein has agreed to support this study as well as the planned
follow-up study using his anonymized patient records. However, while Dr.
Eisenstein’s patient population may show that the unvaccinated are healthier
than the vaccinated, the study will still be criticized as somehow being a selfselected population like the Amish. The only study that would satisfy all of the
critics would be a prospective randomized one, and hell will freeze first.
Homeschoolers are estimated at 1-2 million in the US. Such children differ in
only minor ways from the general run of children in the US; for instance, the
families have somewhat higher levels of income and education. This is well
documented in the study proposal. It is hoped to use the records of children in
Dr. Eisenstein’s clinic for a follow-up study, and Dr. Eisenstein has agreed to
this. The records would of course be abstracted and analyzed so as to preserve
anonymity and confidentiality. There is considerable evidence that selfreported data are as reliable and valid as data from official records; in fact,
official data tend to underreport the relevant information. In the planned
study, mothers are asked to provide details of vaccination that require
reference to the children’s vaccination records. As for documenting health
outcomes, mothers are asked to report “physician-diagnosed” illnesses and
conditions as well as such particulars such as whether a child was admitted to
a hospital or had been fitted with ear tubes. The requested information will all
be factual.
Q: WHOA! Who wrote the "proposal for the study", anyway? I take strong issue with,
"Vaccination is one of the greatest discoveries in medicine, yet little is known about
its long-term impact." According to the most commonly accepted understanding of
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the word "greatest", this statement seems highly prejudicial to me. Might it even put
off some from donating? It seems more fitting to say, "Vaccination is one of the
cornerstones of allopathic medicine, yet little is known about its long-term
impact."
A:—Many drafts of the current proposal were written. It is a fact that in any
grant proposal one is always appealing for funds from organizations and
people who have a particular attitude or vested interest in the subject of the
research. If you want to get a study funded, you have to make it appealing to
the potential funder.
A proposal for a study written to draw funding from a drug company is worded
to show that they could get massive profit and advertising benefit from the
proposed results, even if you’ve not even proved it. If there is no benefit to them,
or it doesn’t fit into society’s perceptions, then an application isn’t even
considered.
Q. My objection was the Generation Rescue paypal landing page...without prior
explanation of the connection or reason why/how they were going to collect and be
a fiduciary for a $1,000,000 University project...not the research itself.
A:—GR’s role is only to collect the money and forward it to JSU for the study.
Nothing more, nothing less. If you have further questions they should probably be
addressed by GR. There is a link on the donation page for contact.
Q: Does looking at the health of home-schoolers translate to the majority of the
nation's children who are not home-schooled? In theory, home-schoolers have much
less exposure to infectious disease than children in public schools, so if vaccines
work (and I'm assuming that this study is not looking at vaccine effectiveness, and
therefore presumes that vaccines are effective?), then the public school community
could theoretically tolerate more ill-effects from vaccines since there's (arguably) a
greater protective need/benefit there, i.e., would this study be vulnerable to the
"well, vaccines may contribute to some chronic diseases, but getting the infectious
diseases would be even worse for kids not looked at in this study" rebuttal?
A:—This was addressed above. In brief, the “within-group” design of the study
(basing the study exclusively on homeschool children) automatically controls
for the factor of differential exposure to infection. Homeschool children are
very similar to US children as a whole. The study also asks questions about
acute infectious illnesses in the children as well as chronic illness and other
indicators of health and disease. This means that the effectiveness of vaccines
against vaccine-preventable illnesses can also be determined.
In reality, many homeschooled children have a far greater variety of exposure
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to a wider range of age groups than children in school through activities such
as choir, music, orchestra, drama, church, Sunday school, athletics, gymnastics,
ballet, crafts – and some older children do elective units at university, well
before the usual age. Many homeschooling groups have weekly educational
outings to science laboratories, factories, museums, parks, and a lot more study
situations like stream cross-sections, lake studies, animal studies, beach studies,
bird watching, community gardening, forest walking are done by home
schooling. Those families usually make a far greater use of community
resources than children who are 8 – 4 p.m. in the four walls of a classroom.
(which if pediatricians realized would possibly become a source of great mental
panic for them! – Do we want to continue to let pediatricians think that
homeschooling is essentially self-quarantine, when it’s anything but?)
Q: Would the study rely on the reporting of parents? Isn't that an inherently
unreliable source of data for strict scientific calculation purposes? Won't many
parents report in a manner supportive of the outcome they want? Are we relying on
parents' memories and/or the availability of medical records? Would the final
results be at most and best only general indicators that could be criticized and
dismissed for any or all of these reasons?
A:—. Mothers know their children best! However the study is not based on recall.
Mothers are asked to use their children’s vaccination records to answer the detailed
questions about vaccination history; they are also being asked to report “physiciandiagnosed” illnesses. These procedures will greatly reduce subjectivity or bias. Mothers
are also specifically asked about their attitudes to vaccination and their main reason
for homeschooling, which will allow the investigators to look at the association
between vaccination status and health outcomes in children whose mothers are for or
against vaccination. Questionnaires are used in conventional medical research. Two
famous studies, the Nurses’ Health Study and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance
Study, are both based on mailed questionnaires.
Q: Does limiting the reporting to formally diagnosed health conditions necessarily
lead to a skewed result in that parents' decisions to go to the doctor vary widely
based on economic factors and a host of other completely subjective factors?
A:—Depending on the sample size it may be possible to answer this complex
question because the investigators are asking about family income as well as
uses of preventive health services and emergency services. The likelihood of
particular diagnoses being influenced by family income or the use of health
services could therefore be directed assessed.
Q: Would this be a basis for criticizing or dismissing the outcome?
A:— Family income and/or willingness to access health services will likely
have limited impact on the likelihood of a child receiving a given diagnosis.
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Q: Also, would this study assume that diagnoses are accurate? What effect might
that have on the accuracy of the final results?
A:—Yes, the study assumes that physicians mostly make accurate diagnoses.
The limited amount of inaccuracy in diagnoses is unlikely to adversely affect
the results because some of the diagnoses of special interest in this study are
based on criteria that are relatively objective.
Q: How easily could such a study just be ignored, covered up, dismissed, etc. as has
occurred with the decades of other studies showing problems with vaccines that
have never seen the light of day? Why would this study be any different? What is
really the larger problem, the politics (corruption, conflicts of interest,
pharmaceutical control of media, etc.), or the lack of science? How far would
$900,000 go toward exposing the corruption, conflicts of interest, etc.--to get a light
shown on the studies that have already been done? Does it even matter how
wonderfully this study would support an informed choice position on vaccines if the
media will never report on it and no one ever hears about it?
A:—Is this a justification as to why such a study should never be done?
Q: Has anyone already done a thorough search of the literature to see what else is
already out there that is in any significant way similar to what this study proposes
to do? E.g., I heard of a study years ago that looked at children's health before and
after vaccination--the children were their own controls--and found that common
childhood illnesses increased by a rate of 4-5 in the month following immunization
compared to the month preceding it. Has anyone considered doing a review of
what's already out there related to this matter, and wouldn't that cost a lot less?
Would such a review potentially provide support for this kind of study?
A:—See the end of this document for many references. This study, comparing
the health outcomes of vaccinated and unvaccinated children, is unique in
being based at an academic center. The study is also unique in focusing on
homeschool children, who have lower vaccination rates than children in the
general population. A study comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated children
has been widely recommended for many years but for many reasons has not
been carried out to date. This study will require at least $900,000 in funding
and will provide strong evidence related to the outcomes of the routine
childhood vaccination program.
Q: Do I understand correctly that this study would look at the broad connections
between vaccines and chronic disease, but not be able to draw a causal relationship
between the two? Is this a necessary prerequisite to studies exploring the
mechanisms by which the injuries actually take place? Wouldn't the latter be
required to nail down the connection between any specific vaccine and injury or
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death?
A:—This study is a cross-sectional observational survey. Unlike a randomized
controlled trial, this type of study design does not allow conclusions about
causality to be drawn. However, if differences in health outcomes between
vaccinated and unvaccinated children differ greatly in magnitude (e.g., more
than two-fold differences), then that will suggest the likelihood of some sort of
causal connection, which can be explored in future studies. Because many acute
and chronic conditions and many potential risk factors are being studied in
addition to vaccination history, related to environmental exposures and
maternal experiences, the study will provide a rich database for addressing a
host of questions related to vaccination and health.
Brief Comment on the Project to Date (from the investigators’ summary)
Title: Vaccination Status and Health Outcomes among Homeschool Children ...
Background and Rationale In response to public concerns regarding the measles,
mumps and rubella (MMR) live-attenuated triple vaccine, over 20 well-designed
epidemiologic studies have been carried out, all showing no association between
MMR and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). There is also no known biological
mechanism for such a link. However, recent Vaccine Court decisions as well as a
number of studies purporting to show a link between vaccination and chronic
illness have led to growing public fears of vaccine adverse effects. In fact, studies on
the safety of the routine vaccination schedule are widely acknowledged to have
been insufficient. To prevent public confidence from being further eroded and to
stem declining rates of vaccine uptake, studies are needed to evaluate the impact of
the vaccination schedule itself.
Objectives and Specific Aims The purpose of this cross-sectional study is to evaluate
the health outcomes of the routine childhood vaccination program. To this end, an
anonymous online survey will be carried out on biological mothers of homeschool
children, regarding the children’s vaccination history and physician-diagnosed
illnesses. The specific aims are:
1.
To test the hypothesis that there are no significant differences in prevalence
rates of selected chronic illnesses (ADHD, allergy, asthma, autism, type 1 diabetes,
learning disability, and seizures) between vaccinated and unvaccinated homeschool
children ages 6-12 years, after controlling for potential confounding factors; and
2.
To determine what factor or combination of factors, including vaccination
history, is most strongly associated with the selected conditions.
Methods Our preliminary research has shown that about 15% of homeschool
children are unvaccinated. Since there are 1-2 million such children in the U.S.,
homeschoolers are an ideal group for this study. Families will be contacted through
homeschool organizations via a partnership established between the investigators
at Jackson State University and the National Home Education Research Institute
(NHERI), Salem, OR. NHERI will contact and inform homeschool organizations
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nationwide about the study. The leaders of these organizations will in turn
encourage their members to participate in the study by accessing a designated
website. Mothers will be asked to use their children’s vaccination records and to
record physician-diagnosed illnesses. The accumulated data will be checked for
accuracy and completeness and analyzed using SAS (SAS Institute, Cary, NC, version
9.2).
Expected Results and Significance The study, now being piloted in the four states of
Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oregon, is expected to show that, among the
population of 6-12-year-old homeschool children in the U.S., there are no increased
risks of chronic illness associated with the routine childhood vaccination schedule.
The study will have important implications for public health policy and practice
related to children's health and health services.
Comment -- This web-based cross-sectional survey of biological mothers of
homeschool children ages 6-15 years has received ethical approval from the IRB of
Jackson State University. In Year 1, which has just ended, the data collection
instrument was designed and a small pilot study was carried out in four states:
Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oregon. Although the investigators now have
sufficient data on which to base tentative conclusions, they intend to use the pilot
study as a learning experience and to roll out the study nationwide in Year 2. The
analyses will be performed and reports written-up and submitted for publication in
Year 3. Important lessons have been learned from the pilot study that will be
implemented in the full study, e.g., the age-range will be expanded from 6-12 to 6-15
years, to allow for increased enrollments. The investigators also intend to engage
more directly and fully with the homeschool community in order to increase
enrollments. Additional changes to the data collection instrument are being
considered. Implementing this study is widely recognized as a critical step in the
overall evaluation of the routine childhood vaccination program. Let us hope that
Generation Rescue’s open request for additional funds from interested
parties will enable this study on the health outcomes of routine vaccination to be
completed.
The JSU investigators have done a thorough job in pulling most of the pertinent
studies. Here are their cited references: At the end are more
vaccinated/unvaccinated studies, none of which has looked at the issue as this study
promises to do.
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11
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and homeschooling rate, by selected characteristics: 1999, 2003, and 2007.
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Wang PS, Beck AL, McKenas DK, Meneades LM, Pronk NP, Saylor JS, Simon GE,
Walters EE, Kessler RC. Effects of efforts to increase response rates on a workplace
chronic condition screening survey. Medical Care 2002; 40:752–760.
Wiebel RE, Caserta V, Benor DE, Evans G. Acute encephalopathy followed by
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Young HA, Geier DA, Geier MR. Thimerosal exposure in infants and
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Here are a few more from me.
In 1992, a New Zealand group called the Immunization Awareness Society (IAS)
surveyed 245 families with a total of 495 children. The children were divided with
226 vaccinated and 269 unvaccinated. Eighty-one families had both vaccinated and
unvaccinated children.
The differences were dramatic, with unvaccinated children showing far fewer
common childhood ailments than vaccinated children
(http://www.vaccineinjury.info/images/stories/ias1992study.pdf).
From a different survey in the South Island New Zealand city of Christchurch, among
children born during or after 1977, none of the unvaccinated children had asthma
events whereas nearly 25% of the vaccinated children were treated for asthma by
age 10 (http://www.vaccineinjury.info/images/stories/ias1992study.pdf).
Many of the comments from non-vaccinating parents to VaccineInjury.info for the
ongoing Bachmair survey mentioned vaccination danger and developing true
immunity naturally were concerns (http://www.vaccineinjury.info).
Learn more:
http://www.naturalnews.com/036220_vaccinated_children_disease_allergies.html#
ixzz2Ekk1gUaY
Contin. below
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Note that in this study below, anyone who was vaccinated at all was considered
vaccinated. This would have diluted the effect of vaccinaton upon health. The JSU
study will report vaccinated, partially vaccinated and fully vaccinated, thus will not
have the problem this study had. The way these children were grouped invalidates
the data. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3057555/
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