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#funvaxfact placebo thread: I wanted to only focus on childhood vaccine trials with "inert"/saline placebos in kids since AVers love the "no true Scotsman" fallacy (h/t @handmadekathy). In the process, I found some great historical vaccine trials. Enjoy. #vaccinehistory
Disclaimer: saline is not the only choice of placebo & there are ethical considerations as to why placebos are not always used in vaccine trials but I wanted to show just how many saline studies there are. #VaccinesAreSafe
Thorough review of the topic: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4157320/
Thorough review of the topic: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4157320/
First, there is the largest randomized placebo controlled trial ever conducted: the 1954 polio field trials. 1.8 million children were enrolled with 200,000 receiving saline placebo. The vaccine was an enormous success and now polio is on the brink of eradication #VaccinesWork
Measles - while some of the studies from the 1960s do not clearly describe the contents of the placebo, I found several double blind placebo controlled trials. Here are a few, including one that clearly describes saline placebo.
Mumps and Rubella? Also tested in a double blind saline placebo controlled study! Now you might say I'm picking 50 year old studies bc there were more saline trials done back then. Unfortunately for antivaxxers, saline trials continue to happen today for new vaccines.
Hib & PCV were new vaccines in the '90s. 1 Hib trial used sugar & 1 PCV trial used buffered saline (& a PCV trial from 2009 that also used saline). A different placebo Hib trial was so successful it was stopped early bc it was unethical to deny kids the vaccine #VaccinesSaveLives
What about the flu vaccine? There are many saline placebo studies for both intranasal live attenuated vaccine and inactivated injectable vaccine.
Here's one
https://bit.ly/2XQ0nAI
And another:
https://bit.ly/2sdUy4i
And another:
https://bit.ly/2KWTHLP
Here's one
https://bit.ly/2XQ0nAI
And another:
https://bit.ly/2sdUy4i
And another:
https://bit.ly/2KWTHLP
And lastly, HPV. Many people claim that the HPV vaccine was not fairly assessed against saline placebo. This is hogwash. There are many saline studies. #EndHPVCancer
Here:
https://bit.ly/2OS4pEI
https://bit.ly/35SDfod
https://bit.ly/2q0jaNc
Here:
https://bit.ly/2OS4pEI
https://bit.ly/35SDfod
https://bit.ly/2q0jaNc
In conclusion, I do not think this thread will convince the diehard AVers. But I hope it can convince vaccine hesitant parents that the AV talking point about "no saline placebo studies" is completely & utterly false. This is dangerous misinformation promoted by RFK Jr & Bigtree.
Thanks to @crabb_vicki @AboutPediatrics @JHowardBrainMD @thereal_truther @Rosewind2007 @PedsID4Life for their contributions or inspiration in making this thread
