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Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine and autonomic disorders: a position statement from the American Autonomic Society, 2020, Barboi et al

Discussion in 'Other health news and research' started by Andy, Jan 18, 2020.

  1. Andy

    Andy Committee Member

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    Open access, https://www.autonomicneuroscience.com/article/S1566-0702(19)30116-X/fulltext
     
    Hutan, Dolphin, spinoza577 and 2 others like this.
  2. rvallee

    rvallee Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I agree with this but the entirety of mental health "associations" with those health problems is exactly of the correlative type and taken as a matter of settled fact, used in practice and considered "gold standard" by most physicians. In fact this constitutes the entire body of evidence for MUS being labeled as psychosomatic, on which massive resources are being spent based entirely on those weak and very stretched correlations.

    This is the exact same level of evidence here: correlation. Except one is of a much higher reliability, while the other relies strictly on biased questionnaires from biased researchers. From a biomedical perspective, it is not and does not imply causality. From a BPS perspective, it is confidently argued as being validated causality, strongly asserted and defended with zeal.

    On all counts that the same standard should be applied, that correlation does not and cannot imply causality. But that is not happening. And that's a huge problem, a very clear double standard with loads of cherry-picking. One that isn't even seen as a problem, which is a huge problem all by itself.
     
    Lidia likes this.
  3. Snow Leopard

    Snow Leopard Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Like other vaccine-disease associations (for example, Thrombocytopenic Purpura, Guillain Barre Syndrome with certain vaccines), the infectious disease itself usually triggers the disease at a much greater frequency than the vaccine.

    Given relatively high vaccine efficacy and a relatively high rate of the population being exposed to the virus itself (15%+ infection rates), one would expect that if the virus and vaccine are risk factors for a particular disease, that the vaccine would actually lower the rate of the disease in the vaccinated population. Epidemiological studies can only study whether there is a change in risk for an overall population, not whether there is a change in risk for specific individuals.

    Hence there are two possible hypotheses, the first is that neither HPV, nor the vaccine are associated with these diseases. The second is that the cases that have been avoided due to increased population immunity to the virus are instead being triggered by the vaccine, leading to minimal change in risk overall. The latter hypothesis in particular can be tested, if initial studies show no increased risk, or indeed reduced risk due to vaccination, but later studies start to show excess risk (while background infection rates are significantly lower). Hence there is no justification to stop monitoring epidemiological outcomes just yet.
     
    Last edited: Jan 19, 2020
    Sarah94 and Sisyphus like this.

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