Talk:Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System/Archive 1

Archive 1

Geier and Verstraeten

It's worth mentioning that some researchers use VAERS as a starting point for epidemiological studies. I'm not sure if the bulk of the article should be describing controversial research that has been conducted using VAERS data. --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 21:08, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Accessing VAERS Data

(I propose this as a new section in the VAERS page. Let me disclose up front that I am the maintainer of medalerts.org, so I cannot post this due to WP:EL#ADV. I hope some other editor will take an interest in this subject and help me get the information added. strubin (talk) 23:20, 13 March 2009 (UTC))

There are a number of ways of accessing VAERS:

• CDC Wonder is the U.S. Government's online search database, available at wonder.cdc.gov. It has a user-friendly interface and powerful statistical reporting tools.
• Raw Data is available for download from the U.S. Government at vaers.hhs.gov. This data consists of two text files (tab-separated tables) for each year of reporting. One file describes the actual VAERS event (dates and symptoms) and the other file describes the medications involved in the event.
• Independent search engines exist for exploring the data. These organizations work independently of the U.S. Government, presenting their version of the Government's Raw Data.
  • medalerts.org has a search engine that displays complete records, but does not offer fancy reporting tools.
  • http://www.mctplaw.com/vaccine-injury/vaers-search.php has a limited engine which has not been updated since 2007.
  • http://www.mctplaw.com/vaccine-injury/vaers-search.php has been updated to include all VAERS records through most of 2010 at this point. Tcmilton (talk) 01:42, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. If nobody objects, I'll be happy to add such a section to the article. Dicklyon (talk) 04:16, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

We should definitely link the U.S. governmental search engines from the CDC and HHS. We should not link medalerts (run by the NVIC, which is an advocacy group with a non-mainstream view of vaccination) or personal-injury law firms. MastCell ^Talk 06:36, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I added the CDC Wonder URL. The Raw Data URL was already there (one step away), so I just decorated it a bit better. I agree with MastCell about the outside URLs. Eubulides (talk) 07:38, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the addition proposed by Strubin should be made because tending towards a directory, and in particular the medalerts and mctplaw links both have problems under WP:EL.

Instead of the direct link to the CDC Wonder search, I think something like this

• vaers.hhs.gov - VAERS Data - Download or online search

would be more helpful. Anyone visiting it then gets the official information about what this data is (and isn't), and a little introduction to what CDC Wonder is. Zodon (talk) 08:26, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

It sounds you object to talking about the MedAlerts site due to it representing a different POV on the data or the underlying problem. Isn't that exactly why we should include it? More POVs makes the article more more NPOV, yes? Dicklyon (talk) 15:07, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

We don't need multiple external links pointing to the same data; one's enough. Rather than point to an advocacy site (either pro or con) it's better to use the more-neutral government search site. Eubulides (talk) 15:27, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Let me point out that the medalerts site offers something unique that neither CDC Wonder nor the Raw Data provides. CDC Wonder does not give the full report, just a summary of the search. It omits the patient writeup, the medications given, and other information which is present in the raw data. You could argue that medalerts duplicates the raw data, but at least it makes this information searchable. strubin (talk) 15:47, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I think we should do this not by external links, but by a paragraph on using and viewing the data, including through third-party portals. And we should cite sources that mention these portals, too. (e.g. these). Dicklyon (talk) 16:56, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I disagree; I think we should stick to reliable sources and appropriate external links. The governmental search engines are completely appropriate as external links; medalerts and personal-injury law firms are not. The two hits from your Google search both bear the imprint of Medical Veritas, a patently unreliable source which underscores the fact that Wikipedia should not be linking to medalerts. MastCell ^Talk 17:48, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean by "patently unreliable" in this context? Dicklyon (talk) 02:44, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia's relevant definitions of reliability may be found here and here. Medical Veritas does not meet them, in my opinion. MastCell ^Talk 05:08, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm familiar with WP:RS but it sounded like you meant something else. Why do you think Medical Veritas doesn't satisfy WP:RS? It looks like an edited journal to me. Dicklyon (talk) 05:36, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Having editors does not mean the source is reliable by Wikipedia standards. Medical Veritas has as its stated goal to publish views out of the mainstream, i.e., WP:FRINGE views. Fringe sources should not be used to support medical facts and figures in Wikipedia; this is elementary. Eubulides (talk) 06:31, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, that's better. We do have policies about how to handle fringe views; calling it not a reliable source is not the way. Let's include it as a minority view. The page you linked, WP:FRINGE, is not very relevant, as it's about notability of fringe topics, which is not the issue here. Wikipedia:RS#Extremist_and_fringe_sources comes closer, perhaps, though I think in this case the Medical Veritas, though a minority non-mainstream alternative publication, is not exactly fringe or extremist. There's no reason it can't be used to represent the opinions published in it. Dicklyon (talk) 15:54, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Medical Veritas has an axe to grind, and its articles shouldn't be cited by Wikipedia any more than articles in Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons should be cited. Both journals are avowedly fringe, and both publish sources that are not reliable for medical facts and figures. There are plenty of reliable sources in this area, and there is no reason for this article to cite unreliable sources. Eubulides (talk) 17:32, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

"has an axe to grind" is just another way to say they have a POV. Mainstream sources have their own POV. Why are you calling them unreliable? Have they been discussed at WP:RS? Dicklyon (talk) 18:22, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

If you seriously don't see the difference in Wikipedia terms between a "mainstream POV" and a fringe POV, then you've got quite a bit of reading to do. I'd suggest starting with WP:WEIGHT, WP:FRINGE, and several of the relevant ArbCom cases. MastCell ^Talk 19:02, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

That's not the point. Wikipedia does not exclude fringe POVs, does it? I'm pretty familiar with those cases. I don't think they say that we can't use non-mainstream sources; if I'm wrong, show me. Dicklyon (talk) 19:30, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with those cases, but surely the point is that non-mainstream sources can't be cited out of proportion to their weight. Which is what the dispute here is about, no? Wikipedia is not supposed to give more weight to fringe opinions than reliable sources do. Eubulides (talk) 05:26, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

• To the untrained eye, medalerts appears to have basically no POV. I'm having trouble seeing how even the trained eye catches a POV, unless one counts the "America's Vaccine Safety Watchdog" tagline. I support adding it to external links with a note that it searches the full reports. II | (t - c) 07:10, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Medalerts misrepresents the VAERS data as "reports of vaccine damage." - some of them may be, but a lot of them aren't. (They are just reports of events, no connection established to vaccination, no verification, etc.) Plus promoting the NVIC.

Struben has been quite responsive, making improvements to the site based on feedback, but it remains that Medalerts is a personal web page, not written by a recognized authority.WP:EL

Getting into the details of how to search and interpret the VAERS data might also tend towards WP:NOTHOWTO. Zodon (talk) 08:33, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree we don't want to get into HOWTO, but it seems very relevant to report on alternative portals and viewpoints on the data if they have been described in reliable sources, even non-mainstream sources. NPOV requires us to fairly represent alternative points of view. Dicklyon (talk) 15:54, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

So far, no reliable sources on this alternative portal has been mentioned. It would be different if there were, say, an article in the New York Times about the topic of alternative portals to the VAERS data. But no such article has been provided. It's not Wikipedia's role to promote the use of alternative portals when mainstream sources don't. Eubulides (talk) 17:32, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Medical Veritas is not a reliable source? I agree we don't want to promote anything, but it's worth a mention since it's in at least this reliable source. Dicklyon (talk) 18:22, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Is that supposed to be the Jedi mind trick? Everyone is telling you that Medical Veritas is not a reliable source, as Wikipedia defines the term. If you're in any doubt, read through the articles they publish. You can start with those which deny the existence of shaken baby syndrome and write off the violent deaths of abused infants and toddlers to vaccines and antibiotics. Or check to see if they're indexed by any reputable catalog, like MEDLINE or Web of Science. Or check to see how often their articles are cited in the scientific community. MastCell ^Talk 19:02, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

No, I think what people are saying is that it's not a mainstream source, and that therefore they think we shouldn't regard it as a reliable source. That's what I'm pushing back on, since non-mainstream sources are not excluded by the policy at WP:RS. And I don't think you can judge whether a source is reliable per wp policy by judging the content; I haven't seen a proposal to that effect before, have you? Dicklyon (talk) 01:43, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

A source's content is one factor. Sources which consistently publish material conflicting with current scientific knowledge are less likely to be useful here, given the project's goals. I'm sure you noticed that content was only one aspect of my objection. I also mentioned the lack of reputable indexing, and the lack of scientific currency in the form of citations. Those are both more or less directly from Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Scholarship. MastCell ^Talk 02:50, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I have no problem with that section, but it's mostly about weight; it doesn't say a source should be excluded for being less mainstream or less academic. Anyway, nobody is proposing any controversial information from the source at this point, just an example of some people accessing VAERS data via medalerts.org. Dicklyon (talk) 04:27, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

No, the proposed inclusion of that example is controversial. (Otherwise why would this thread be so long? :-) There is a serious WP:WEIGHT objection to that inclusion. At this point I don't sense any new points being made, so perhaps it's time to move on. Eubulides (talk) 05:26, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

VAERS Examples

The CDC gives a few examples of VAERS data that have been used to prevent adverse effects (two cases of an intestinal blockage called intussusception resulting from rotavirus vaccines, and one of surveillance of a Papillomavirus Recombinant Vaccine). We should update the page to include these success stories. MarsInSVG (talk) 16:09, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

• Understanding the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)
• Intussusception among Recipients of Rotavirus Vaccine
• Intussusception among Infants Given an Oral Rotavirus Vaccine
• Postlicensure Safety Surveillance for Quadrivalent Human Papillomavirus Recombinant Vaccine

Number of Adverse Events reported each year

Alexbrn just removed all informations about the number of reports in VAERS:

12:39, 11 July 2021 (→‎Operation: primary, also failing WP:V)

12:37, 11 July 2021 (Restored revision 1031133856 by Jerome Charles Potts: Fails verification, and possibly misleading without secondary explanations) Tags: Undo Twinkle

An information that was here since the creation of the article in 2005 by Ombudsman:

22:25, 21 April 2005 (initial draft).

I had just before added a graph with the number of reports per year since the inception of the base in 1990, because the suppressed information “Each year VAERS receives at least 50,000 reports of adverse events following immunization by more than 10 million vaccines” might be usefully completed by the fact this 50,000 figure will be overpassed by large for the year 2021 (428,656 reports in 2021 before 9 July).

12:32, 11 July 2021 (→‎Operation: Graph) Tag: Reverted

I strongly contest the argument “Fails verification” WP:V because VAERS is a reliable source, and it is very easy for anybody to check the information directly at the source https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/index

Any help to put this information back? Ceveris (talk) 13:54, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

The figures were not on the linked page, and what was shown did not in any case support the "50,000 a year" claim. More importantly though, is this due? Where's the weight? If there was some secondary source giving commentary on the figures I'd support inclusion of that, but as it is the sources we do have say in part that it's very easy to use VAERS for misinformational purposes, so I'd oppose using it as a primary source for showcasing any particular selection of raw data that a Wikipedia editor has picked. Alexbrn (talk) 14:00, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

The figures are one minute away from the linked page. VAERS is a public database whose individual data is the Event report. The number of events reports is an indication on the size of the database. What better source than the database itself to get the number of individual event reports? And to know the number of event reports per year in order to evaluate the evolution of the database? What is better than a diagram to visualize this information?

VAERS has been the source for this primary information in this article since its creation in 2005, and now Alexbrn comes in, suppresses everything and says it is not legitimate! What’s right?

Public databases as source for Wikipedia is common. Like IMF Database for List of countries by GDP (nominal) Ceveris (talk) 15:18, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

Show me the secondary sources to show WP:WEIGHT. And lay off the silly accusations of "suppression". Alexbrn (talk) 15:22, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

Sorry. I see no relation between WP:WEIGHT and secondary sources. Suppression is what you have done. Sorry about that, too. Ceveris (talk) 15:57, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

With that, probably time to disengage. If you repeat accusations like this again I will take you to WP:AE and ask for a ban. Alexbrn (talk) 16:00, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

Agreed, Ceveris. Rather than engaging in cooperative progress, the ensuing sharp beer towards carrot and stick coercion pretty much sums up the utter collapse of the wiki's purported mission ~ ombudsman ~

Ombudsman (talk) 21:55, 15 September 2021 (UTC)