immunisation
For about 40 years, the RMIT University in Australia had a Bachelor of Health Science/Bachelor of Applied Science (Chiropractic), probably the first official course of its kind in Australia. “Get qualified with a chiropractic degree: a solid grounding in anatomy, physiology and pathology and practise at the RMIT Health Clinic” was how the RMIT advertised it. But now the website states this: “from 2023, this degree is no longer offered.”
The Australian Chiropractors Association (ACA) is appalled!!!
- the main contribution of chiros to public health is that many of them advise AGAINST immunizations;
- a significant contribution by chiropractors to the health of the elderly is that they have put many of them in wheelchairs.
Vaccine hesitancy has become a threat to public health, especially as it is a phenomenon that has also been observed among healthcare professionals. In this study, an international team of researchers analyzed the relationship between endorsement of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) and vaccination attitudes and behaviors among healthcare professionals, using a cross-sectional sample of physicians with vaccination responsibilities from four European countries: Germany, Finland, Portugal, and France (total N = 2,787).
The results suggest that, in all the participating countries, SCAM endorsement is associated with lower frequency of vaccine recommendation, lower self-vaccination rates, and being more open to patients delaying vaccination, with these relationships being mediated by distrust in vaccines. A latent profile analysis revealed that a profile characterized by higher-than-average SCAM endorsement and lower-than-average confidence and recommendation of vaccines occurs, to some degree, among 19% of the total sample, although these percentages varied from one country to another: 23.72% in Germany, 17.83% in France, 9.77% in Finland, and 5.86% in Portugal.
The authors concluded that these results constitute a call to consider health care professionals’ attitudes toward SCAM as a factor that could hinder the implementation of immunization campaigns.
In my view, this is a very important paper. It shows what we on this blog have discussed often before: there is an association between SCAM and vaccination hesitancy. The big question is: what is the nature of this association. There are several possibilities:
- It could be coincidental. I think this is most unlikely; too many entirely different investigations have shown a link.
- It could mean that people start endorsing SCAM because they are critical about vaccination.
- It could be that people are critical about vaccination because they are proponents of SCAM.
- Finally, it could be that some people have a mind-set that renders them simultaneously hesitant about vaccination and fans of SCAM.
This study, like most of the other investigationson this subject, was not desighned to find out which possibility is most likely. I suspect that the latter two explanations apply both to some extend. The authors of this study argue that that, “from a theoretical point of view, this situation may be explicable by reasons that are both implicit (i.e., CAM would fit better with certain worldviews and ideological standpoints that conflict with the epistemology and values that underlies scientific knowledge) and explicit (i.e., some CAM techniques are doctrinally opposed to the use of vaccines). Although we have outlined these potential explanations for the observed relationships, more research is needed to better understand the underlying mechanisms”.
Online misinformation is disproportionality created and spread by people with extreme political attitudes, especially among the far-right. There is a debate in the literature about why people spread misinformation and what should be done about it. According to the purely cognitive account, people largely spread misinformation because they are lazy, not biased. According to a motivational account, people are also motivated to believe and spread misinformation for ideological and partisan reasons. To better understand the psychological and neurocognitive processes that underlie misinformation sharing among the far-right, an international team of researchers conducted a cross-cultural experiment with conservatives and far-right partisans in the Unites States and Spain (N = 1,609) and a neuroimaging study with far-right partisans in Spain (N = 36).
Far-right partisans in Spain and U.S. Republicans who highly identify with Trump were more likely to share misinformation than center-right voters and other Republicans, especially when the misinformation was related to sacred values (e.g., immigration). Sacred values predicted misinformation sharing above and beyond familiarity, attitude strength, and salience of the issue. Moreover, far-right partisans were unresponsive to fact-checking and accuracy nudges. At a neural level, this group showed increased activity in brain regions implicated in mentalizing and norm compliance in response to posts with sacred values.
The authors concluded that these results suggest that the two components of political devotion – identity fusion and sacred values – play a key role in misinformation sharing, highlighting the identity-affirming dimension of misinformation sharing. We discuss the need for motivational and identity-based interventions to help curb misinformation for high-risk partisan groups.
People who have followed the discussions on this blog closely could be forgiven in assuming that right-wing political devotion also plays an important role in spreading misinformation about healthcare (e.g. vaccination) and so-called alternative medicine (SCAM). It would be good, if someone could test this hypothesis more directly.
PS
Just as I had finished writing this post, I came across a quote given yesterday by Ben Habib on GBN:
“I’m very reluctant to put my destiny in the hands of scientists. You know, unbridled authority given to faux knowledge.”
QED
There is evidence that, in the US, Republican-leaning counties have had higher COVID-19 death rates than Democratic-leaning counties and similar evidence of an association between political party affiliation and attitudes regarding COVID-19 vaccination. This investigation assessed political party affiliation and mortality rates for individuals during the initial 22 months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A cross-sectional comparison of excess mortality between registered Republican and Democratic voters between March 2020 and December 2021 adjusted for age and state of voter registration was conducted. Voter and mortality data from Florida and Ohio in 2017 linked to mortality records for January 1, 2018, to December 31, 2021, were used in data analysis. The main outcome measure was the excess weekly death rates during the COVID-19 pandemic adjusted for age, county, party affiliation, and seasonality.
Between January 1, 2018, and December 31, 2021, there were 538 159 individuals in Ohio and Florida who died at the age of 25 years or older in the study sample. The median age at death was 78 years (IQR, 71-89 years). Overall, the excess death rate for Republican voters was 2.8 percentage points, or 15%, higher than the excess death rate for Democratic voters (95% prediction interval [PI], 1.6-3.7 percentage points). After May 1, 2021, when vaccines were available to all adults, the excess death rate gap between Republican and Democratic voters widened from −0.9 percentage points (95% PI, −2.5 to 0.3 percentage points) to 7.7 percentage points (95% PI, 6.0-9.3 percentage points) in the adjusted analysis; the excess death rate among Republican voters was 43% higher than the excess death rate among Democratic voters. The gap in excess death rates between Republican and Democratic voters was larger in counties with lower vaccination rates and was primarily noted in voters residing in Ohio.
The authors concluded that, in this cross-sectional study, an association was observed between political party affiliation and excess deaths in Ohio and Florida after COVID-19 vaccines were available to all adults. These findings suggest that differences in vaccination attitudes and reported uptake between Republican and Democratic voters may have been factors in the severity and trajectory of the pandemic in the US.
In light of what has been discussed repeatedly, these findings are in my view most impressive and seem to speak for themselves. The authors are nevertheless prudent and stress that their study has several limitations which mean that we ought to interpret their results with caution.
- First, there are plausible alternative explanations for the difference in excess death rates by political party affiliation beyond the explanatory role of vaccines discussed herein.
- Second, the mortality data, although detailed and recent, only included approximately 83.5% of deaths in the US and did not include the cause of death. Although overall excess death patterns in our data are similar to those in other reliable sources, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for Health Statistics data, it is possible that the deaths that our study data did not include may disproportionately occur among individuals registered with a particular political party, potentially biasing our results. In addition, the completeness of the mortality data may vary across states or time, potentially biasing our estimates of excess death rates.
- Third, all excess death models rely on fundamentally untestable assumptions to construct the baseline number of deaths one would expect in the absence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Fourth, because no information on individual vaccination status was available, analyses of the association between vaccination rates and excess deaths relied on county-level vaccination rates.
- Fifth, the study was based on data from 2 states with readily obtainable historical voter registration information (Florida and Ohio); hence, the results may not generalize to other states.
The website of the World Federation of Chiropractic (WFC) points out that public health is defined by the WHO as follows:
“Activities to strengthen public health capacities and service aim to provide conditions under which people can maintain to be healthy, improve their health and wellbeing, or prevent the deterioration of their health. Public health focuses on the entire spectrum of health and wellbeing, not only the eradication of particular diseases.”
The WFC then continues stating this:
As primary contact health professionals, chiropractors can play an important role as public health advocates. This can range from providing support and advice on health matters such as physical activity, diet, and fitness as well as lifestyle choices such as injury prevention and avoiding tobacco use. Chiropractors can also play a role in counselling patients and communities on the benefits of public health measures, especially as this relates to immediate health needs of each region.
I think that this might merit a few comments.
- Physical activity is undoubtedly an important issue for public health; however, there are clearly healthcare professionals who are in a better-informed position to advise on it than chiropractors.
- Diet is undoubtedly an important issue for public health; however, there are clearly healthcare professionals who are in a better-informed position to advise on it than chiropractors.
- Fitness is undoubtedly an important issue for public health; however, there are clearly healthcare professionals who are in a better-informed position to advise on it than chiropractors.
- Lifestyle choice is undoubtedly an important issue for public health; however, there are clearly healthcare professionals who are in a better-informed position to advise on it than chiropractors.
- Injury prevention is undoubtedly an important issue for public health; however, there are clearly healthcare professionals who are in a better-informed position to advise on it than chiropractors.
- Avoiding tobacco use is undoubtedly an important issue for public health; however, there are clearly healthcare professionals who are in a better-informed position to advise on it than chiropractors.
- Counseling is undoubtedly an important issue for public health; however, there are clearly healthcare professionals who are in a better-informed position to advise on it than chiropractors.
So, what is the real contribution of chiropractors to public health?
- Chiropractors tend to advise their clients against vaccinations.
- Some mislead the public by claiming they boost immunity and prevent serious infections.
- Many undermine evidence-based medicine by promoting obsolete myths such as ‘the innate’ or subluxations.
- Many sell supplements that could interact with prescription drugs.
- Many make bogus health claims for profit.
I would therefore argue that, on balance, the contribution of chiropractors to public health might be considerable …
sadly, however, it goes in the wrong direction.
As the organizer of several demos in the area of Linz, Austria, a ‘corona activist’ and ‘Holocaust denier’ had repeatedly made headlines over the past two years. Now the 39-year-old Austrian man is in the headlines yet again.
It has been reported that, on the evening of July 23, he was stopped by the police for a routine traffic control. His three children, aged 15, 11, and 5, were also in the car. “I know I’m wanted. I don’t have a driver’s license and I have a dead body in the trunk,” he said as he got out of the car. As the officers soon realized, he was only partly joking. A legal case for Holocaust denial was pending against the man who had not appeared at his main hearing last August, so a search was underway for him.
When police officers checked the car, they made the horrifying discovery. In the trunk was a woman’s body, wrapped in sheets. The dead woman turned out to be the wife, aged 38, of the driver. According to preliminary findings, she had died 4 hours earlier. Apparently, she had suffered from incurable cancer, and the police suspect that the illness had not been treated – her husband did not just not believe in vaccinations but disliked all drugs.
The husband, who already had several previous convictions, claimed that he was on his way to bury his wife somewhere “in nature”. The 39-year-old man was arrested and is now in pre-trial detention – though not for the incident with his wife’s body, but for Holocaust denial. He is said to have compared the Corona measures to the Holocaust, and the arrest order was issued because he failed to appear for his trial.
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One does not need to be a clairvoyant to predict that this remarkable man will come up with more surprises. I wonder what he might think of next.
It been reported that the German HEILPRAKTIKER, Holger G. has been sentenced to serve a total of 4 years and three months behind bars. He made himself a pair of glasses out of aluminum foil and appeared at the start of his trial wearing a Corona protective mask. The accusations against him were fierce: He was accused of having issued false Corona vaccination certificates en masse in Munich and of having given medication to patients. A woman, who had contracted Corona and had been treated by Holger G. with vitamin solutions, had died last year.
According to the verdict, Holger G. had violated the German Medicines Act. The court announced he was also convicted of 96 counts of dangerous bodily harm and 102 counts of unauthorized trading in prescription drugs. In addition, the court ordered the HEILPRAKTIKER to be placed in a rehab facility.
The 71-year-old MAN had issued Corona vaccination cards since April 2021, without actually vaccinating the people concerned. For the forged vaccination cards, he charged several tens of thousands of Euros. In addition, the former HEILPRAKTIKER illegally sold prescription drugs. The judgment is so severe because Holger G. has form. He also ordered to bear the costs of the proceedings.
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I have long criticized the German HEILPRAKTIKER. In my recent book on the subject, I make the following points:
– Today, no one can provide reliable data on the number of HEILPRAKTIKER in Germany.
– The training of HEILPRAKTIKER is woefully inadequate.
– The far-reaching rights of the HEILPRAKTIKER are out of proportion to their overt lack of competence.
– This disproportion poses a serious danger to patients.
– This danger is further increased by the fact that there is no effective control of the activity of the HEILPRAKTIKER does not take place.
– Existing laws are almost never applied to the HEILPRAKTIKER.
– Most HEILPRAKTIKER mislead the public unhindered with untenable therapeutic claims.
– The federal government seems to put off over and over again any serious discussion of the HEILPRAKTIKER.
Cases like the one above show that it is high time for reform – or, should that prove impossible, the discontinuation of this utterly obsolete and highly dangerous profession.
It has been reported that a GP has been erased from the medical register after a disciplinary tribunal concluded yesterday that her statements on vaccines amounted to misconduct.
Dr Jayne Donegan, who no longer works as an NHS GP, was found by the tribunal to have ‘encouraged parents to mislead healthcare professionals about their children’s diet or immunization history’. The UK General Medical Council (GMC) brought several allegations against Dr Donegan, about statements made between 2019 and 2020, however, the determination of impaired fitness to practise (FTP) and subsequent erasure was based solely on her suggestions to parents.
The tribunal determined that her misconduct ‘posed an ongoing risk to patient safety given her lack of insight and lack of remediation’ and that ‘public confidence would be undermined’ if such a doctor was allowed to remain in practice. An immediate order of suspension was imposed, which the tribunal determined necessary for the ‘protection of the public’. Other GMC allegations, such as Dr. Donegan’s statements failing to ‘give balanced information on the risks and benefits of immunization’, were proved true by the tribunal but were not determined to be serious misconduct.
Dr. Donegan works as a homeopathic and naturopathic practitioner and has been ‘researching disease ecology and vaccination since 1994’, according to her website. The tribunal considered statements made by Dr. Donegan in a consultation with an undercover reporter and during her lectures on vaccination. She had said that the historical decline in deaths from whooping cough was because of sanitation and surgeons, not vaccinations. She had also suggested to audiences at her lectures that they could avoid answering questions from healthcare professionals about their child’s immunization history. When asked by an audience member about this, Dr. Donegan had said: ‘I thought what am I going to do because if I were you, I could just forge something but I can’t do that because I am a doctor and I would get struck off and I really would get struck off. What can I do? I thought maybe I can do something homeopathic because they are not having it. In the meantime, I wrote “Yes, I’ll get it done” thinking what will I do and they never came back to me, so when the next one went I just said “yes. The main thing is, don’t stick your head above the parapet because you make it difficult for them. If you say they are not vaccinated, they say they can’t go on the trip or they say “They could but the insurers won’t insure us”, so just keep saying “yes” but don’t say I said that.’
The tribunal concluded that comments like this made it clear Dr. Donegan was aware this was a ‘serious matter that could result in her being struck off’, despite her defense that she was simply ‘making people laugh’. The MPTS tribunal chair Mr Julian Weinberg said: ‘The Tribunal considered that honest and accurate communication of an individual’s medical history forms an essential part of ongoing patient healthcare and that any attempt to undermine this risks the safety of patients. It noted that whilst no dishonesty was found against Dr. Donegan, the Tribunal has found that she encouraged parents to be dishonest with healthcare professionals by, for example, forging medical documents/records, thereby undermined this essential quality of the doctor/patient relationship.’ Mr Weinberg highlighted that the tribunal’s findings did not concern ‘the rights or wrongs of her views on immunization’ but rather her encouragement to parents to mislead healthcare professionals.
Dr. Donegan said in response to the decision: ‘I boycotted the GMC’s political show trial against me which ended today. Serious irregularities include bogus dishonesty charges and bogus accusations that I put newborns at risk of serious harm.’ She added: ‘Being struck off by a corrupt GMC is a small price to pay for taking a lawful ethical stand for the safety of British children.’
Apparently, Dr. Donegan even claimed that she is delighted to be struck off the register of medical practitioners – and so, I presume, are many of us reading this post!
An article in the German publication T-online is, I think, relevant to us here on this blog. I translated part of it for you:
The suspicion of particularly serious fraud against a doctor from the German Meißen district has been substantiated. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the 66-year-old physician is said to have issued “certificates of convenience” in the thousands throughout Germany, a spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office said. In return for a payment of 25 euros, the doctor from Moritzburg is said to have issued blanket and unjustified certificates stating that the wearing of mouth and nose protection was not medically justifiable. In other cases, the physician stated an unlimited inoculation prohibition or that Corona quick tests were possible only over saliva.
After an initial search in February, the public prosecutor’s office had assumed to be dealing with merely 162 false vaccination and mask certificates. But the extent of the fraud seems to go far beyond that: The accused is now said to have taken in at least 60,000 euros with the fake certificates.
Based on further investigations, the public prosecutor’s office assumes that the medical practitioner has managed to issue false corona attestations “every minute” with so-called collective appointments. These appointments were arranged in cooperation with Heilpraktiker from all parts of Germany and partly even with funeral homes.
On Tuesday, more than 360 police officers searched 140 homes of exemption certificate holders in nine states – mainly in Bavaria. In the process, 174 incorrect Corona attestations were found. They now must face instigations into using illegal health certificates. In addition, the office of a Bavarian Heilpraktiker, as well as a further commercial area, were searched.
This is not the first time that the Moritzburg doctor has come into conflict with the law. The 66-year-old physician considers herself a ‘Reichsbuerger’ (citizen of the Reich, a right-wing extremist). She was a member of the Moritzburg shooting club, and owned eleven weapons. Because they were not all registered and several hundred rounds of ammunition were found in the house, she stood trial for the first time already in 2014.
Numerous qualitative studies and a few quantitative studies have linked vaccine hesitancy or refusal with the belief in the efficacy of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM). Yet, large-scale data on this topic are scarce. In this study, the French researchers investigated the factors associated with the coverage rates of seven childhood vaccines or vaccine groups in the ninety-six metropolitan French departments. One of the factors investigated was the local interest in SCAM. In order to assess this interest, they built an Alternative Medicine Index based on departmental internet searches regarding SCAM—internet searches being a reliable indicator of the public’s actual interest in a given topic. They then conducted multiple regression analyses, which showed that this Index is a significant explanatory factor for the departmental variance in vaccination coverage rates, exceeding in importance the effect of other relevant local sociodemographic factors.
A further recent study from France adds to the picture. It presents the results of a survey conducted in July 2021 among a representative sample of the French mainland adult population (n = 3087). Using cluster analysis, the researchers identified five profiles of SCAM attitudes and found that even among the most pro-SCAM group, very few respondents disagreed with the idea that SCAM should only be used as a complement to conventional medicine. They then compared these SCAM attitudes to vaccine attitudes. Attitudes to SCAM had a distinct impact as well as a combined effect on attitudes to different vaccines and vaccines in general. They found that:
- attitudes to SCAM provide a very limited explanation of vaccine hesitancy;
- among the hesitant, pro-SCAM attitudes are often combined with other traits associated with vaccine hesitancy such as distrust of health agencies, radical political preferences, and low income.
Both SCAM endorsement and vaccine hesitancy are more prevalent among the socially disadvantaged. Drawing on these results, the researchers argue that, to better understand the relationship between SCAM and vaccine hesitancy, it is necessary to look at how both can reflect a lack of access and recourse to mainstream medicine and distrust of public institutions.
The fact that the enthusiasm for SCAM is associated with vaccine hesitancy has been discussed on this blog many times before, e.g.:
- Preference of so-called alternative medicine predicts negative attitudes to vaccination
- What are the reasons for opposing COVID vaccinations?
- Intelligence, Religiosity, SCAM, Vaccination Hesitancy – are there links?
- More information on homeopaths’ and anthroposophic doctors’ attitude towards vaccinations
- The anti-vaccination movement is financed by the dietary supplement industry
- Sorry, I was wrong about homeopathy and vaccination
- The UK Society of Homeopaths, a hub of anti-vaccination activists?
- HOMEOPATHY = “the complete alternative to vaccination” ?!?!
- Are anthroposophy-enthusiasts for or against vaccinations?
- Far too many chiropractors believe that vaccinations do not have a positive effect on public health
- Naturopaths’ counselling against vaccinations could be criminally negligent
- HOMEOPATHS AGAINST VACCINATION: “The decision to vaccinate and how you implement that decision is yours and yours alone”
- Use of alternative medicine is associated with low vaccination rates
- Integrative medicine physicians tend to harbour anti-vaccination views
- Vaccination: chiropractors “espouse views which aren’t evidence based”
What seems fairly clear to me is that a cross-correlation exists: an attitude against modern medicine and the ‘scientific establishment’ determines both the enthusiasm for SCAM and the aversion to vaccination. What is, however, far from clear to me is what we could do about it.
Yes, better education seems important – and that’s precisely what I aim at achieving with this blog. Sadly, judging from some of the comments we receive, it does not seem crowned with much success.
Any other ideas?
