As discussed regularly on this blog, there is plenty of evidence to show that many chiropractors, homeopaths, and naturopaths discourage their patients from getting vaccinated. Now, a further investigation from the US seems to confirm these findings.
This analysis aims to evaluate differences between categories of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) regarding vaccination behavior among US adults.
The data from the 2017 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS; n = 26,742; response rate 80.7%) was used for this purpose. Prevalences of flu vaccination, consultations with SCAM practitioners in the past 12 months, and their potential interactions were examined.
A total of 42.7% of participants had received the flu vaccination in the past 12 months, 32.4% had seen one or more SCAM practitioners. Users of any type of SCAM were as likely as non-users to have received a flu vaccination (44.8% users versus 41.7% non-users; p = 0,862; adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 1.01, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.95-1.07).
Regarding specific SCAMs, individuals consulting with
- naturopaths (p < 0.001; AOR = 0.67, 95 %CI = 0.54-0.82),
- homeopaths (p < 0.001; AOR = 0.55; 95 %CI = 0.44-0.69),
- chiropractors (p = 0.016; AOR = 0.9, 95 %CI = 0.83-0.98)
were less likely, while other SCAM approaches showed no significant association with flu vaccination behavior. Independent predictors for a flu shot were prior diabetes, cancer, current asthma, kidney disease, overweight and current pregnancy. As well, higher educational level, age, ethnicity, health insurance coverage, and having seen a general physician or medical specialist in the past 12 months were also associated with a higher vaccination rate.
The authors concluded that SCAM users were equally likely to receive an influenza vaccination compared with non-users. Different complementary therapies showed varied associations with vaccination behavior. Further analyses may be needed to distinguish influencing factors among patients’ vaccination behavior.
This investigation confirms the prevalent anti-vax stance within chiropractic, homeopathy, and naturopathy. The effect is strongest by far with homeopaths. Nothing new! We knew this for a very long time. The question is WHAT ARE WE DOING ABOUT IT? Or more specifically, are the professional organizations of these SCAM professions finally going to take any actions against even the most rabid anti-vaxxers in their midst?
And the answer?
You guessed it: NO!
And the irony of all this must not get lost here: chiropractors, homeopaths, naturopaths, and their respective organizations all pride themselves regularly that they attribute particular importance to disease prevention.
16 Responses to Patients consulting chiropractors, homeopaths, or naturopaths are less likely to agree to the flu jab
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An interesting thing to note in this regard is that lots of homeopaths ‘explain’ how homeopathy works by comparing it to vaccination: ‘A tiny bit of what causes disease helps against the disease’.
Which of course only shows that homeopaths are ignorant even about homeopathy itself (and about vaccination of course):
– Vaccines contain very real amounts of active (immunogenic) ingredients, usually 50 micrograms per pathogen species in a 0.5 ml vaccine dose. In homeopathic terms, this would equal a mere 2C dilution (1:10,000). Homeopathic preparations as a rule contain no active substance whatsoever – even though the label hilariously designates the utterly absent substance as ‘active ingredient’.
– Homeopathic preparations are administered exclusively based on disease symptoms, and treatment is stopped once these symptoms have disappeared. Which means that they are only to be used when someone already has contracted a disease and exhibits symptoms. Vaccines OTOH prevent disease, something that homeopathy by definition can’t do, as there are of course no symptoms to base any ‘treatment’ on. Which nevertheless hasn’t stopped many homeopaths from defrauding the general public with their ‘homeoprophylaxis’, often for very serious diseases such as polio.
yes, that breaks anyone’s irony meter.
Homeopathy can be used for prophylaxis, as in the study that was done in Cuba showing that it effectively prevented Leptospirosis
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20674839/
The vaccine explanation of homeopathy is used because like most people, patients come in brainwashed by the mechanistic paradigm – the body is just a machine.
you forgot to mention that this study was thoroughly debunked many times – you are speaking out of your arse again, Roger, aren’t you?
Alas, homeopathy failed (again) to cure this rather embarrassing case of proctophasia …
And yes, this leptospirosis prevention ‘study’ was easily debunked: cases of leptospirosis had already returned to near-background levels when less than 10 percent of the population had received this ‘homeoprophylaxis’. It was one of the biggest and most obvious failures of homeopathy.
quel panash mon ami!
Care to explain why, ten years on, homeopathy isn’t used anywhere to prevent leptospirosis, Roger?
It’s because that study was utter junk and was immediately recognised as such.
And also it would’ve been rejected out of hand because it was already know that homeopathy is of no therapeutic or prophylactic value in any condition.
so, you don’t believe that BIG PHARMA suppressed the findings?
AMAZING!
@Roger
Well, yes, the body is a machine – but not ‘just’ a machine, but an extremely complex one.
And please note that it is homeopaths, not real doctors who are the ones who have the most childish and simplistic mechanistic notion about the human body: ‘If something is wrong, we simply look for the right buttons to push to fix it!’ – with these ‘buttons’ being the symptoms by which ‘remedies’ are selected.
At no point does a homeopath even try to understand what is wrong, or how organisms work, or look beyond ‘symptoms’.
They just have one simple tool: symptoms => cure. No more symptoms? Success!
CON-med (conventional medical con) does nothing to provide informed consent on these shots, beyond “roll up your sleeve” so they should be thankful that someone is informing their clients. Let CONmed do its job and let the patient decide.
I am fully vaccinated and signed a consent form each time.
you are speaking out of your arse again, Roger.
I am speaking from hearing countless stories by those who never received any sort of informed consent. And how fully informed is someone who only recieves one side of the issue? Not very, as we All know. You are speaking out of your usual biased viewpoint.
@Roger
I am hearing tons of stories that everyone who got vaccinated received all sorts of informed consent. In fact they had to stand in front of a judge and swear that they understood the consent form before they were vaccinated. I also heard from several people that when they refused to sign the consent, the clinic did not vaccinate them.
I am not sure where you are getting your information from but stories like the ones I heard are everywhere. They are on YT, FB, the internet, in the air and water as well.
Damn! It feels good to talk out of my arse! No wonder why do it so often Roger.
“I am speaking from hearing countless stories by those who never received any sort of informed consent.”
Countless stories everywhere,
Yet not one drop of evidence.
Honestly, Roger, even by True Woo standards you are extraordinarily dim. Clearly when you fell off the left side of Mount Stupid you landed on your head, and now you hallucinate freestyle. You do make an outstanding ambassador for AltMed though, where absolutely anything is True as long as you believe in it hard enough.
Keep up the good work, it deserves you.
So did I, both times. I live in US and got my covid shots at a massive clinic run by the state govt with the help of feds. Millions got vaccinated there and at other clinics across our state and everyone had to sign a consent. I cant imagine this would be any different in other states within US.
Couple of days ago I went to a pharmacy to get my flu shot and had to sign an informed consent. In fact over the years, whenever I had to go to a pharmacy to pick up prescription meds I had to sign an informed consent.
Probably, Roger never goes to CONmed clinics or pharmacies, in which case he would be totally ignorant of how the system works, to no ones surprise.
I got my AstraZeneca shots at my doctors rooms in Australia, administered by a nurse and supervised by my doctor. Both times I signed a consent form and got an information sheet. This one, which can also be found craftily hidden in the Australian Federal Health Department’s Web site, though the one I got was a printed copy.
Amongst other things, it has a quite long section on what symptoms to look out for as an indication that you might have developed thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) after the vaccination.
The patient information sheets for all three COVID vaccines approved for use in Australia (AstraZeneca, Moderna & Pfizer) are available at the same Web site.
The vaccine package inserts for the vaccines approved for use in Australia are also available online for anyone to look at at the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration’s Web pages.
I’d have thought that if anyone in the USA had actually been given a COVID vaccine without being given the approved patient information or without having given written consent should probably contact their state’s medical regulator or the FDA, rather than complaining about it on a blog. I’d have thought that it would be quite a serious breach of medical regulations.