Re: Health Canada licenses homeopathic vaccines

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 55, No. 5, June 2013, Page 231 Letters
By: Jonathan Gravel, MSc,

I applaud the author of the article “Health Canada licenses homeopathic vaccines” [BCMJ 2013;55:201-202] for drawing attention to a subject that generally resides in the kitchens of physician researchers and the afternoon poster sessions of academic conferences. As published by both WHO and Canada’s own Public Health Agen­cy of Canada, population levels of child vaccination are staggeringly low. 

We live in a country with, argu­ably, some of the best health care service delivery in the world. Not to mention the fact that medicare in this country has been an untouchable poli­tical subject since its inception (kudos to Tommy Douglas) and is part of what makes us Canadian. We have university research programs (not perfect, but successfully funded) as well as local, provincial, and national public health departments. 

Why then are we not doing more, not about the existence of homeopathic medicine, but about the lack of legitimate information on homeopathic products in this country? It is not okay that opting against vaccinating your children is now part and parcel with taking echinacea, the use of cloth diapers, and strictly limiting children’s television viewing hours. These decisions are not the same. Echinacea may lack evidence of efficacy but likely does no harm. Cloth diapers, used properly, are likely quite good for the en­vironment. Limiting television view­ing likely increases social interaction and fosters the development of an active lifestyle. Not receiving proper vaccines on time is dangerous, and the parents are left with the smoking gun as the child is much too young to decide for him- or herself. 

People need to be informed that highly dilute solutions may do no harm, but replacing vaccines developed after decades of evidence-based research does do harm. It is not right that the voice of Jenny McCarthy speaks as loudly as that of the government of a G8 country. Once herd immunity levels are low enough to incite widespread concern it will be too late. We must speak out now and must speak bluntly. 
—Jonathan Gravel, MSc
Montreal

Jonathan Gravel, MSc,. Re: Health Canada licenses homeopathic vaccines. BCMJ, Vol. 55, No. 5, June, 2013, Page(s) 231 - Letters.


Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
  • There is no period after the journal name.
  • Page numbers are not abbreviated.


For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

BCMJ Guidelines for Authors

Leave a Reply