Time to rally the troops against the antivaccine movement

Every so often, I think it's worthwhile to try to use my powers (such as they are) for good. Actually, I like to think that I'm using my powers for good each and every day, but obviously there are some who disagree. In general, these people are cranks. We're talking quacks, pseudoscientists, antivaccinationists, and various antiscience types. But I repeat myself. Right now, I see two things going on right now that could use some help from pro-science, pro-skepticism types.

First up, I found out a couple of days ago that Brian Deer will be in the U.S. next week. Specifically, he'll be at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse, where he will be speaking as part of the Distinguished Lecture Series in Life Sciences. There, he'll be giving two talks, one on Thursday, October 4, entitled An Elaborate Fraud: The MMR Vaccine & Autism, and a second one on Friday, October 5, entitled Stiletto Journalism: Busting the Vaccine Scare. I saw Brian speak three years ago, and he's quite good. So if you're interested in the antivaccine movement and can find a way to make it to La Crosse on a weekday (admittedly a problem for a lot of us, even people who, unlike me, live within a reasonable drive of the town), it would be well worth your while to check out one or both of Brian's talks.

If that's not enough motivation, there's this. The Dark Lord of Antivaccine Pseudoscience himself, Andrew Wakefield, will apparently be there on Thursday to...well, it's not clear what, other than to whine:

Some who’ve had the misfortune of meeting Deer describe him as reptilian and repulsive. Others would describe him in less flattering terms. Setting the sleaze factor aside, Deer’s legacy of slander and libel signify a far grimier, foul and filthy place than most of us would care to venture. Deer is the invention, the dark underbelly, the hideous caricature of those who deny an MMR-autism connection in order to protect themselves. He assuages the conscience of those without one, and scrubs clean the crime scene. Vicious and small, Deer’s pious position is untenable and in short order he will be hunted to ground and brought to justice.

Soon the full truth will be uncovered, revealing Deer for what he is. In January Dr. Wakefield filed a defamation lawsuit against Deer, the BMJ, and Fiona Godlee, its editor. Currently under review by the 3rd Circuit Court in Texas, the question before proceeding to trial is: Does Texas have jurisdiction? We are extremely confident the appeals court will rule in Dr. Wakefield’s favor within the next few months.

Quick to anger (as only the guilty are), Deer is easily flustered, delusional, and fancies himself a dandy in a Dickensian sort of sense. With the grace of a sloth and his own worst enemy, Deer is the wannabe bon vivant whose future claim to fame will be as a case history at Harvard Law School about how not to act in front of a jury. In court his testimony will doom the BMJ and himself, and open the floodgates of suppressed corruption.

PRESS CONFERENCE & PRESENTATION SCHEDULE

Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s Press Conference: 1 pm Thursday, October 4, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Exact location to be provided.

Brian Deer’s presentation schedule, location, and abstracts: click here.

Join us if you can – or for more information or to volunteer, please email info@drwakefieldjusticefund.org.

In a few weeks we will have a complete update and analysis on the lawsuit.

It might be nice if local skeptical groups (La Crosse Area Freethought Society and La Crosse Secular Student Society, here's your chance) stepped up to the plate with a little skeptical activism. Looking at the map, I see that there are also other cities within striking distance (i.e., less than 150 miles away or so), such as Minneapolis, home to the Minnesota Skeptics, and Madison, home of, appropriately enough, Madison Skeptics. It also wouldn't surprise me if Wakefield tried to make trouble by crashing one of Deer's talks. Rumor has it that he's currently involved in making an antivaccine movie, although I can't find out anything about it, which makes me unsure of the rumors. I can totally see Wakefield using this opportunity for some "dramatic footage."

Finally, there's the issue of AB 2109, a bill in California that would require parents to visit a doctor or other health care provider for informed consent about the consequences of not vaccinating before they could obtain a philosophical exemption to school vaccine mandates. It's something I've written about multiple times, in particular the apocalyptic language from, of all people, Rob Schneider, who has compared AB 2109 to Nazi-ism and labeled it a violation of the Nuremberg Code. In any case, the bill passed both chambers of the California legislature and has been sitting on Governor Jerry Brown's desk. For some reason, Governor Brown has not yet signed the bill, and he's under a lot of pressure to veto it. Antivaccinationists and Tea Party "health freedom" activists have teamed up to protest, and they're planning a rally tomorrow:

Californians, if you want to make it at least as inconvenient to get a philosophical exemption as it is to get children vaccinated, if you want to decrease the number of nonmedical exemptions and thereby prevent the degradation of herd immunity that is occurring in your very own state, now's the time to get active. Governor Brown needs to know that there is a lot of support for the bill and that there will be political consequences for vetoing it. That can only happen if you let him know. It would also be great to have some pro-vaccine demonstrators to counter what is likely to be a whole lot of antivaccine demonstrators in Sacramento tomorrow.

More like this

Wakefield's character assassination of Brian Deer is eerily remniscent of Christopher Monckton's shtick. Is it something in the water over in the UK that makes their cranks so vicious?

Or is it a universal phenomenon among cranks & charlatans?

By Composer99 (not verified) on 27 Sep 2012 #permalink

Bummer.

It's easier for me to see the Da Prez, the First Lady, CEO Romney and CFO Ryan than to see Brian Deer or Andrew Wakefield.

I appreciate anyone who can make it. If there's a youtube, post a link for the virtual denizens of the internet!

Calling someone a reptilian is flattering? (Or at least there are less flatting ways to describe someone?) I'm not sure about that, although I love reptiles and snakes.

I suppose calling mr. Wakefield mad as a hatter is the most flattering thing I can think of.

Exact location to be provided.

AKA "we don't want to tell you so you can't protest."
Chickenshite little tossers.

By Science Mom (not verified) on 27 Sep 2012 #permalink

"Some who’ve had the misfortune of meeting Deer describe him as reptilian and repulsive. Others would describe him in less flattering terms. Setting the sleaze factor aside, Deer’s legacy of slander and libel signify a far grimier, foul and filthy place than most of us would care to venture. Deer is the invention, the dark underbelly, the hideous caricature of those who deny an MMR-autism connection in order to protect themselves. He assuages the conscience of those without one, and scrubs clean the crime scene. Vicious and small, Deer’s pious position is untenable and in short order he will be hunted to ground and brought to justice."

Is Marsha McClelland Wakefield's PR rep?

By Big Morbillie Style (not verified) on 27 Sep 2012 #permalink

wow wakefield, project much? i know technically he didn't write it, but still...project much?

That AoA piece comes from the green ink filled pen of Wakefield groupie Ed Arranga

By Rebecca Fisher (not verified) on 27 Sep 2012 #permalink

@Rebecca FIsher

That would explain the spittle-flecked piece of drek from aoa.

Not in Michigan, but I did send this letter to the Gov:

Dear Governor Brown:

I am, like many Californians, a transplant to this fair state. I moved here for work at the beginning of 2007, and have been a happily employed and engaged resident of California since then.

I came here to work as a scientist. One of the major reasons I originally chose this career path is the massive potential scientific discovery has to make all humans live healthier and longer lives.

One of the greatest public health advances of the modern era has been vaccination, a low-risk, inexpensive, and effective intervention. Vaccines have eliminated smallpox; they have reduced the incidence and severity of many other diseases that are killers and maimers of children. AB 2109 is a very reasonable measure to ensure that parents that wish to avoid vaccinating their children are aware of the health risks to themselves and others by doing so, and the legislature sensibly passed this bill.

However, a vocal subset of well-intentioned but highly misinformed residents are trying to convince you to veto this bill. Please allow rationality and concern for public health be your guide, and sign this bill into law.

My thanks,

me

By Roadstergal (not verified) on 27 Sep 2012 #permalink

Actually, Wakefield has a lovely voice, totally easy on the ear and I find Deer distinctly more difficult to listen to. However, the former lies as he breathes and the latter, while sometimes appearing a little bit full of himself (rightfully so), generally speaks the truth. Alas - I am too far away to lend Brian Deer my support...

By Catherina (not verified) on 27 Sep 2012 #permalink

Sigh... If I were still stateside I'd be SO willing to head out to Wisconsin for that talk.

And as far as Wakefield: my thoughts can be summed up quite neatly: EAD.

@ Rebecca Fisher:

The line that really got me concerns the "Dickensian.. dandy" et *bon vivant*- just hilarious! though unintentionally so. I think EA confabulated this scenario after perusing BD's website which includes an ancient photo of a fellow who is probably an ancestor.

LIke no one has photos of their ancestors - or likes them. Seriously, an elderly relative of mine gave me a photo of her father, a well-dressed Victorian, who looked just like me.. but somewhat less feminine. It's almost scarey but I enjoy looking at his photo: you can see genetics at work, I understand that we have other things in common: I wish I knew him!

The anti-vax league have some very odd obsessive tendencies and should carefully observe their OWN ways of interpretting the world and other people's actions.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 27 Sep 2012 #permalink

@ Orac:

About that film:
you jogged my memory:
I recall that recently the Grand Poobah of woo mentioned that he had 'interviewed' AJW and also - at another time- that he will be making another shlockumentary about vaccines ( see PRN for a list of his earlier efforts).

Now you may understand why Lord Draconis pays me so well: I keep my fingers on the pulse of woo - and am careful to wash them thoroughly afterwards.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 27 Sep 2012 #permalink

Newly discovered, totally exonerating documents from Natural News? Sounds legit... *narrowed Fry-eyes*

By Roadstergal (not verified) on 27 Sep 2012 #permalink

It is nice to hear someone speaking up for vaccinations. I have been doing a personal exploration of alternative medicine and I have been shocked by the negative propaganda posted in regards to routine vaccinations. I was shocked to see claims that the flu vaccine caused alzheimers disease!

By Scott Mahan (not verified) on 27 Sep 2012 #permalink

That AoA piece comes from the green ink filled pen of Wakefield groupie Ed Arranga

Rebecca, do we have you to thank for the secrecy surrounding Wankers speaking location? :D

By Science Mom (not verified) on 27 Sep 2012 #permalink

Not in Wisconsin or California, but I think there are other ways to support these efforts. Sent a couple emails.

Actually Rob Schneider called AB 2109 a violation of the Nuremburg *Laws*, thereby proving that his ignorance stretches across more than one area of knowledge. Unless, of course, somewhere in the Nuremburg Laws it was made illegal to withhold vaccination from German Jews.

By Old Rockin' Dave (not verified) on 27 Sep 2012 #permalink

Orac...You missed Anne Dachel's article about the bot's activity at the San Francisco Gate "Parents Can't Sue Vaccine Manufacturers."

Yup, the Dachel bot is on the move again and urging her groupies to spam the article.

http://www.sfgate.com/health/articleComments/Parents-can-t-sue-vaccine-…

I've just posted and I also got some points across about AoA and other notorious anti-vaccine blogs...suggesting that the SF Gate do an article on these anti-vaccine blogs and their collective agendas.

One of the AoA posters asked "I wonder if they'll let Jake in?"

If the Carney Barker is going to have a press conference, shouldn't we expect that Jake will be lapping at his heels? (He has already stated that he intended to be in court in Austin to *support* Andy.)

Almost a completely content free release--when you excise all the ad hominems all that's left are two trivial statements of fact and one sentence expressing wishful thinking:

"In January Dr. Wakefield filed a defamation lawsuit against Deer, the BMJ, and Fiona Godlee, its editor. " (fact)

"Currently under review by the 3rd Circuit Court in Texas, the question before proceeding to trial is: Does Texas have jurisdiction?" (fact)

"We are extremely confident the appeals court will rule in Dr. Wakefield’s favor within the next few months." (wishful thinking)

I agree with Catherina, but that isn't unusual for me.

“We are extremely confident the appeals court will rule in Dr. Wakefield’s favor within the next few months.” (wishful thinking)

@JCG, while it is certainly wishful-thinking on "their" part, they had better be careful what they wish for.

By Science Mom (not verified) on 27 Sep 2012 #permalink

Such a shame this is so far from me. You're right Orac, he's definitely good at giving talks and hopefully he can shut down that little AoA twerp if he shows up. My favorite line from the Wakefield camp:

"Currently under review by the 3rd Circuit Court in Texas, the question before proceeding to trial is: Does Texas have jurisdiction? We are extremely confident the appeals court will rule in Dr. Wakefield’s favor within the next few months."

Texas may be woo-friendly but their courts are also very tight on jurisdictions(I got out of a moving violation when I lived there b/c of it) and the chances of this judge being overruled are infinitesimal to none. I'd wager that unless they could prove that the judge was drunk, bribed, coerced, etc. then this is going to get thrown out on it's proverbial butt.

The only problem is that regardless of the outcome, the anti-vax nimrods out there will spin it as either a victory in court, or further proof that the judicial system is corrupt by "big pharma"

"Vicious and small, Deer’s pious position is untenable and in short order he will be hunted to ground and brought to justice."

Another day, another instance of rhetoric using violent imagery from the anti-vaccine monsters.

So Deer is reptilian, and repulsive, and even worse he SLANDERS PEOPLE?
OK.
I also get that he serves the purpose of assuaging the consciences of people who don't have consciences to assuage.

a dandy in a Dickensian sort of sense
I have no idea of what this phrase is even trying to say. Perhaps the author has confounded the Regency and Victorian eras, but anyone capable of writing "Sort of sense" should be stripped of his computer privileges at the library.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 27 Sep 2012 #permalink

All Californians thank you, Orac. I think I will actually go to Sacto (depends on a couple of moving pieces).

The only problem is that regardless of the outcome, the anti-vax nimrods out there will spin it as either a victory in court, or further proof that the judicial system is corrupt by “big pharma”

They can try but I will be happy to remind them of how they crowed that Wankers could only get a fair trial in the U.S.

You’re right Orac, he’s definitely good at giving talks and hopefully he can shut down that little AoA twerp if he shows up.

I would pay money to see that and I have no doubt someone will fly Jake out there to make a fool of himself.

By Science Mom (not verified) on 27 Sep 2012 #permalink

@ Kruuth:

Jake already blogged about the judge in Texas who ruled against Wakefield...his usual *Six, Sixty, Six Hundred Degrees of Separation/Bob's Your Uncle" screed.

@ Science Mom:

Jake's mommy is an heiress to a fortune and she is the owner of a prosperous business, left to her by father, in Austin Texas. He comes from a very *privileged* background and his mommy is totally into the anti-vaccine woo...she'll be paying the freight to send him out to Wisconsin

Since I won't be able to hear Deer's talk, I'll just thank him here for his tireless work in exposing dangerous lies from pharmaceutical firms and from corrupt ex-doctors.

That's my university! I think I can even go to the Thursday talk (Usually aimed at a more general audience than the Friday talk). Unfortunately, Wakefield might conflict with my schedule. Anything in particular people are interested in about Brian Deer's talk?

@ herr doktor bimler:

My own take on Arranga's rather bizarre statement ( @ 12:04 pm)..
I personally take "dandy" to signify a sartorially splendid gentleman **, independent of historical era, although perhaps usually associated with the times of Beau Brummel to the Late Victorian era- not necessarily Dickens' times.

However, it is possible that EA really means something ELSE but he is too cowardly to say it. Prejudiced people often telegraph hidden meanings to their cohorts thinking that no one else can pick up on it..

** perhaps even a lady, why not?.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 27 Sep 2012 #permalink

Regarding Wakefield v. Deer: A serious question.

Deer has posted the August 1997 draft of the now-withdrawn Lancet paper that was submitted a few months later and published in February 2008. The discrepancies seem damning: as Fiona Godlee noted, Wakefield's concocted "an elaborate fraud."

Here's the question: Has Wakefield ever shown that all the changes between the August draft and the paper that he submitted soon thereafter were due to typos, was he just unable to keep track of the data for twelve patients, or has he offered some other explanation for the myriad changes, along with an explanation of why, although most scientists start with the data and then write a paper, he chose to write a paper and then change the data?

http://briandeer.com/mmr/lancet-1997.htm
http://briandeer.com/mmr/lancet-versions.htm
http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452

Perhaps Wakefield will address this at his press conference.

I've had a lively email discussion with the author/staff of this article http://www.sfgate.com/health/articleComments/Parents-can-t-sue-vaccine-…

I complained that the Dachel bot was going off-topic and was spamming the article. I provided Dachel's AoA blog to the San Francisco Gate, where she was bragging about her spamming comments and I urged the author to review the bot's spam:

http://www.ageofautism.com/2012/09/parents-can-not-sue-vaccine-manufact…

Suddenly, the Dachel's spamming comments are gone.

** perhaps even a lady, why not?.
"Dandizette", says the Whackyweeida, if you want the a specific historical counterpart... or 'Quaintrelle' as a general, less history-bound term.

it is possible that EA really means something ELSE but he is too cowardly to say it
If you believe the Einstuerzende Neubauten lyrics, "Death is a Dandy"... which would be apposite for EA's intentions but possibly too obscure.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 27 Sep 2012 #permalink

but possibly too obscure

Did you know that "death is a dandy" + "it's a rainy day" yields but one Google search result?

MESSAGE BEGINS--------------------------

Well, what can be said Shills and Minions?

There it is in black and white. "Reptilian and repulsive." Just what exactly are we to make of this aliterative word pairing? Clearly the maverick, health freedom fighters have discovered Mr. Deer's, shall we say, "heritage." This isn't what disturbs me however. Yes, I know he's "vicious and small," but he's from the lineage of the K'throbey clade and they're one of the smaller Glaxxon subspecies, nothing to be ashamed of. It's the whole "repulsive" business that has my crest in a bunch. I really think they've gone a bridge too far this time. And what's with the whole "with the grace of a Sloth and his own worst enemy?" I find sloths to be rather graceful, if a tad glacial in their movements. And who is this worst enemy that will be accompanying him? Honestly, it makes no sense to take one's own worst enemy to Harvard Law School to release a floodgate of suppessed corruption. Aren't we the suppressed corruption? Am I missing something here? Shills? Minions? Anybody?

Well, we shall have to show up en masse to support loyal Shill Deer, who has served our subjugation efforts so tirelessly.

Repulsive? Get me my thranzor . . .

Lord Draconis Zeneca VH7ihL

Forward Mavoon of the Great Fleet, Subjugator General of Terra, Large and Vicious and I'll show you Repulsive you chakvetz khaaks . . .

Glaxxon PharmaCOM Terrabase DIA
0000000110101110111100010001

-------------------------MESSAGE ENDS

By Glaxxon Pharma… (not verified) on 27 Sep 2012 #permalink

MESSAGE BEGINS--------------------------

Well, what can be said Shills and Minions?

There it is in black and white. "Reptilian and repulsive." Just what exactly are we to make of this aliterative word pairing? Clearly the maverick, health freedom fighters have discovered Mr. Deer's, shall we say, "heritage." This isn't what disturbs me however. Yes, I know he's "vicious and small," but he's from the lineage of the K'throbey clade and they're one of the smaller Glaxxon subspecies, nothing to be ashamed of. It's the whole "repulsive" business that has my crest in a bunch. I really think they've gone a bridge too far this time. And what's with the whole "with the grace of a Sloth and his own worst enemy?" I find sloths to be rather graceful, if a tad glacial in their movements. And who is this worst enemy that will be accompanying him? Honestly, it makes no sense to take one's own worst enemy to Harvard Law School to release a floodgate of suppessed corruption. Aren't we the suppressed corruption? Am I missing something here? Shills? Minions? Anybody?

Well, we shall have to show up en masse to support loyal Shill Deer, who has served our subjugation efforts so tirelessly.

Repulsive? Get me my thranzor . . .

Lord Draconis Zeneca VH7ihL

Forward Mavoon of the Great Fleet, Subjugator General of Terra, Large and Vicious and I'll show you Repulsive you chakvetz khaaks . . .

Glaxxon PharmaCOM Terrabase DIA
0000000110101110111100010001

-------------------------MESSAGE ENDS

By Glaxxon Pharma… (not verified) on 27 Sep 2012 #permalink

Clearly the maverick, health freedom fighters have discovered Mr. Deer’s, shall we say, “heritage.”

I always suspected that Brian Deer was far to effective to be a mere mammal.

By Militant Agnostic (not verified) on 27 Sep 2012 #permalink

Troops have been already rallied against those opting out of vaccination since Jenner wanted to inoculate animal pus into healthy children.

What troops really need to be rallied for is to apply Evidence Based Medicine, born in 1990, to all the junk science inherited since Jenner's times and still accepted today by inertia and/or financial interest.

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 28 Sep 2012 #permalink

@GF - the slime crawls back out of the sewer....what fun.

My dearest Lord Draconis,

Yes, you are missing something here indeed. It's called METAPHOR: it is not meant to be taken literally.

People call other people they don't like 'reptiles'; they don't like the guy so they call him 'reptilian'. People are warm and fuzzy creatures and tend to distance themselves from the cool and scaly. I know it's prejudicial.
For some odd reason, people call others they don't like animals: this has always astounded me because animals are innocent- they can't plot and scheme, plan out ways to mislead others, misrepresent themselves, fix data or even use metaphors correctly : it's called executive function and animals don't have it. Only people can be nasty, barely literate spewers of venomous invective, unflinchingly corrupt prevaricators and unredeemable frauds.

Remember when someone called my assistant a WASP and you assumed he was insectoid? News flash to you, it just means 'white boy'. Appellations like 'lounge lizard' and 'trouser snake' are purely metaphorical as you have surely learned in your commerce with us.

Although you still haven't gotten the hang of our quaint and creative usage of the Mother Tongue ( another metaphor), you manage to communicate rather well with us especially when bonus time rolls around. Take care, my scaly master and provider of luxury goods.

Sincerely,
DW

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 28 Sep 2012 #permalink

Let's be short and to the point: My baby, my world, my life, my problem! Buzz off!

The bottom line for Californians and everyone else: fuck exemptions, just don't vaccinate! There are no legal grounds to force invasive medical procedures on unconsenting persons unless a judges rules there's a emergency situation, and there's none.

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 28 Sep 2012 #permalink

@putin

Still smarting after you got your butt handed over to you several times over?

And I see you still espouse anti-Semitic, AIDS-denialist, anti-vaccine views.

Ah, el deshonesto y anti-semita de “PutinReloaded” asoma su cabecita para que crean sus colegas que aun es de importancia. ¿Qué pasa, Putin? ¿No tienes suficientes visitas a tu blog? ¿A caso ha censurado a demasiados lectores?

So Mr. Putin decided to join us? We must be special.

I made the mistake of trying to reason with this anti-semitic, AIDS-denying mother[redacted], and what does he counter with?

He counters with epidemiologic studies while, at the same time, he attacks epidemiology as a "pseudoscience". What a joke.

Let’s be short and to the point: My baby, my world, my life, my problem! Buzz off!

Do have the courtesy to do the same, particularly with respect to the public schools.

@PR

There are no legal grounds to force invasive medical procedures

You don't know the law very well, do you?

Let’s be short and to the point: My baby, my world, my life, my problem! Buzz off!

If lived in a society based on those principles, then murder and theft would not be crimes.

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 28 Sep 2012 #permalink

@pr

And you still are as ignorant as ever.

Please, keep entertaining us, little puppet. It's so amsuing to see one so unhinged as yourself make a fool of himself/herself/itself.

My baby, my world, my life, my problem! Buzz off!

Are we to understand then that we should similarly "buzz off" if you decided to not give your baby any food?

"It's my business" only flies when your actions are not bringing preventable, predictable, harm to an innocent third party for whose welfare you are responsible.

Apparently EA's criterion for scientific validity is whether he finds the person sexually attractive. Well, at least he didn't go ad hominem!

@ imr90:

Possibly that criterion is the gold standard used throughout alt med not just by anti-vacciners.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 28 Sep 2012 #permalink

It's not "your" baby and it's not "your" world, PR, however entitled you may feel to saddle both with the effects of your wrong-headed and dangerous douche-baggery..

You can't own another human being the way you can own a bike or a coffeepot or a yo-yo, in this country at least, since 1862.

And if your decision not to vaccinate yourself results in harm to another human being, it's not solely "your" life, either. Sharing space on this planet with others has a number of obligations thereunto pertaining. Pity you're too selfish to see that.

Shay, it is about MY baby because it carries MY DNA and I'm its legal warden entitled to defend its best intetrest. Our lack of vaccination can never be linked to the illness of your baby, ESPECIALLY IF IT'S VACCINATED! We are not responsible for YOUR VACCINE FAILURE, blame the INDUSTRY. The response to VACCINE FAILURE is not to force vaccines on everybody, this is PREPOSTEROUS. Yours would be a tall order before in any court.

But the converse is still valid, your baby with measles or polio is NOT more valuable than my baby with VACCINE INJURY, You don' t have the right to impose VACCINE INJURIES on ohers in order to FEEL SAFE about your own PERCEIVED risks. So do what you think is best for the interest of your baby and I will do the same.

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 28 Sep 2012 #permalink

So the author belives the drop in vaccination rates is to blame on "permissive" exemption rules. Then please tell us what sort of exemptions does Rhode Island have, for in spite of being lees tough than WV or MS they sitll have better vaccination rates! Cognitive dissonance!

R.I. tops nation in child vaccinations
http://www.boston.com/news/local/rhode-island/2012/09/26/tops-nation-ch…

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 28 Sep 2012 #permalink

Myth: Unvaccinated kids are responsible for disease epidemics!

Truth: Recent disease epidemics have broken out in highly vaccinated communities. They occur in cycles (an outbreak one year, then not again for a few years), and because a disease has mutated. The vaccine cannot “protect” against the mutated germ, so it doesn’t matter if you were vaccinated or not — you are at risk.

Resistant mutations thrive "tahnks" to the vaccine, because it ceates the conditions for natural selection (artificial in this case) by weakening only the regular strains, and people continue getting the disease.

This is what has happened with whooping cough, and that’s why it’s making such a comeback. It is definitely not the unvaccinated kids “spreading disease around,” there is so much more to it than that.

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 28 Sep 2012 #permalink

Beamup said: "Are we to understand then that we should similarly “buzz off” if you decided to not give your baby any food?"

You imply thatf vaccines being as necessary as food... so please read the Nuremberg Code of medical ethics regarding medical experiments.

Invasive medical procedures are not a basic human need. The practice exposes HEALTHY PEOPLE to serious risks of permanent, incapacitating injuries. Is a basic need to expose perfectly healthy kids to VACCINE INJURY?

The risks of vaccines are neither well defined nor totally known. The risks of the targetted disease are just as fuzzy too. This UNCERTAINTIES turn vaccination into a MEDICAL EXPERIMENT the outcome of which on a particular baby is UNPREDICTABLE and a bet. I'm ready to appear in court to defend my position if need be.

Regarding food... should we similarly “buzz off” if you feed junk food to your child? Perhaps if you fed your children properly - and the same is valid for the 3rd world - there wouldn't be any need for vaccines (real or perceived).

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 28 Sep 2012 #permalink

There's the use of CAPS in ODD places to TRY to make a POINT.

Must be antivax 101.

You call yourself your child's legal warden, but in fact, your rights are limited. The child has its own rights according to the 14th Amendment - that child is entitled to equal protection under the law - and even protection from YOUR wishes for it.

As far as the disease 'mutating' - there is AMPLE evidence that, despite the strain being 'out of date' that immunization with DTaP is still effective - there just needs to be an additional booster.

Furthermore, in order for the disease to 'mutate' - it must have a HOST to replicate in. Unvaccinated people make excellent hosts. If everyone was vaccinated, there would be fewer hosts, and thus less of an opportunity for the mutation to occur.

As usual, a pile of fail from Putin.

Only a JUDGE can determine where my rights regarding my child wiil end, not a PEDDLER of industrial products for healthy people. VACCINE INJURY is not protection, so you know where you can stick the 14th Amendment in this issue. Unless tehre's an IMMEDIATE DANGER to the life of a child, medical decisiones are taken by the parents, and (pretended) PREVENTIVE measures don`t fall ito the emergency category.

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

...and it's only a matter of time before other states follow suit with West Virginia, etc - who have no philosophical or religious exemption - because the rights of the child are equal to the rights of the parent under the law.

So a JUDGE has ALREADY DETERMINED that CHILDREN are ENTITLED to EQUAL protection under the LAW.

I can do the CAPS bit, too.

Darwy said: "...the rights of the child are equal to the rights of the parent under the law. ....So a JUDGE has ALREADY DETERMINED that CHILDREN are ENTITLED to EQUAL protection under the LAW..."

Since nobody is forcing vaccines on adults, even in the knowledge that vaccine-induced antibodies WANE, it appears the judges have less confidence in vaccines that you do.

As a warden I'm responsible for the health of my child, which includes PROTECTING IT FROM VACCINE INJURY.

While vaccine risks remain underreported and denied while risks of contracting a disease with a bad outcome are being exaggerated, no credible risk/benefit analysis in favor of vaccines can be presented to any judge.

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

There's plenty of analysis in favor of vaccinations. Just because you don't understand the statistics doesn't mean the rest of us can't.

Removing exemptions won't help your cause a bit, because parents will have no choice that resort to judges in order to enforce their children's rights. As a consequence, vaccination will most likely be declared optional for good.

The important point you peddlers miss is that once a child is proposed for a medical procedure PATIENT'S RIGHTS kick in.

See what happened in Belgium: the only compulsory vaccine was polio, but in 2011 a couple went to trial and the judge decided in their favor based on the law of Patient Rights. Parents asked for clear information about the vaccine components and the associated risks. The judge found no satisfactory answers, especially regarding the safety of the vaccine, and therefore he acknowledged the right of the parents to refuse.

Now no vaccine is compulsory in Belgium any longer. This is what will happen in the US too if exemptions are removed. Good luck, peddlers of remedies for the non-ill!

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Dawry: "..There’s plenty of analysis in favor of vaccinations. Just because you don’t understand the statistics doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t..."

Statistics? So you acknowledge that the safety and efficacy of vaccines is not assessed in double-blind, placebo-controlled trials with clinical endpoints before the are released upon the population...

If you appeal to statistics it means vaccination itself is a clinical trial. Since the Nazi trials in Nuremberg no one can legally be forced to participate in a clinical trial unless he gives informed consent.

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Belgium and the US: Apples and Oranges.

Next comparison?

There are plenty of studies which show the efficacy and safety of vaccines. Again, just because you don't understand the statistics in them, doesn't mean the rest of us don't.

Nice Godwin, btw.

Dawry: "..Belgium and the US: Apples and Oranges. .."

You better pray for it.

Dawry: "..There are plenty of studies which show the efficacy and safety of vaccines..."

You show them to the judge, girl! See you in court!

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

They've been shown to the judges; this is why the number of payouts in the VIC are so small; because the incidence of true 'vaccine injury' is small; orders of magnitude smaller than the risks of the diseases they prevent.

Darwy: "..They’ve been shown to the judges; this is why the number of payouts in the VIC are so small.."

More than $2 billion to families of vaccine-injured children since 1989 is small?

Darwy: "..orders of magnitude smaller than the risks of the diseases they prevent..."

I'm AWED at the depth of your risk/benefit analysis, girl.

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

2 billion paid out to how many families, versus the number of vaccine doses given?

As I said, small.

Statistics, learn some.

Just ignore the putinreloaded troll. He's been banned from several other science blogs...including one where he cyberstalked me.

He is spamming the comments section. He doesn't even live in the the United States...yet will engage you in Constitution law...and now brings up the Nuremberg trial.

I’m AWED at the depth of your risk/benefit analysis, girl.

I'm awed at the depths of your ignorance. Pick any vaccine on the schedule, look up safety and efficacy studies on PubMed and then explain again how, "the safety and efficacy of vaccines is not assessed in double-blind, placebo-controlled trials with clinical endpoints before the are released upon the population". It doesn't take a great effort to find out what you say is completely untrue.

There are a lot of websites that are full of misinformation about vaccines, and you have clearly read the lies and believed them. Don't believe anything you read until you have looked at the original source material, especially if you are planning to lecture literate people with scientific backgrounds about it. You might prevent yourself from looking like an idiot next time.

BTW, the NVIC has compensated 925 people who may have been damaged by vaccines since 1988. The likelihood is that the majority of them were not damaged by vaccines, but the court does not require causation to be proved at all if it's a table injury,. This is a good thing, but it's not evidence of the dangers of vaccines.

Even if all those cases were genuine vaccine injuries, that works out to about 40 cases every year, with many hundreds of millions of vaccine shots administered each year.

Your child is very much more likely to suffocate or strangle in bed (about 600 infant deaths each year in the US) than to suffer a serious vaccine reaction. Maybe your time would be spent better spouting outrage about bed manufacturers.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

So the author belives the drop in vaccination rates is to blame on “permissive” exemption rules. Then please tell us what sort of exemptions does Rhode Island have, for in spite of being lees tough than WV or MS they sitll have better vaccination rates! Cognitive dissonance!

That's looking at a slice of the coverage data for the 19–35 month age group. School exemptions haven't come into play yet, genius.

@ Composer99

My thought exactly, I wondered if Moncton was moonlighting.

By jrkrideau (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

@ lilady:

Dan Olmsted is perseverating as expected @ AoA.
I think that these people ( contributors and commenters alike) need to find a hobby, take some adult education classes or get a weekend job. What they engage in on a near-daily basis cannot be healthy.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

It's cute that Olmsted leads with his deep, deep disappointment as an English major, all the whiile rendering "La Crosse" improperly (in at least two ways) throughout.

Krebiozen said: "..Pick any vaccine on the schedule, look up safety and efficacy studies on PubMed and then explain again how, “the safety and efficacy of vaccines is not assessed in double-blind, placebo-controlled trials with clinical endpoints before the are released upon the population”...."

Been tehre dine that, have you? If so please post a study on the double-blind, placebo-controlled trials with a clinical endpoint of the tetanus vaccine, for example. Put some beef in your empty argumentation, if there's anything at all to be put. There are NO such studies, except one or two for the measles vaccines in the 60s.

But this is a no brainer, because Evidence Based Medicine is a concept born in 1990 while vaccine "science" has been inherited from the 18th century based on the selection biased anecdotal evidence standards in use the. There's a lot of work before all the vaccination concepts are tested against the standards of modern day EBM. Until then, the safest bet is to avoid these uncertain, dubious and dangerous medical procedures at all.

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

lilady,

I think you meant to refer to this legislation (not the NVIC!!!)

Oops!

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Kerblozen said: "..the NVIC has compensated 925 people who may have been damaged by vaccines since 1988. The likelihood is that the majority of them were not damaged by vaccines..."

The converse is even more true: most vaccine adverse effects are never reported, and when they are, the longer the time lapse between the procedure and the symptoms the smaller the likelihood of any link being acknowledged. The uncertainty is worsened by the total absence of long-term safety studies for any vaccine.

Even worse, the doctors that administer the vaccines have never had any training to recognise vaccine adverse effects, which are neither acknowledged in their text books not in any later professional training. With this sorry state of affairs all odds plile up against proper diagnosis of vaccine adverse events.

And yet even worse, vaccine producers systematically use coadjuvant medium as "placebo" in their safety studies, which amounts to fraud since the ill effects of the coadjuvants and the medium remain hidden by comparison to themselves.

In short, there is no transparent mechanism to recognise and PREVENT vaccine injury and the data are systematically manipulated. Any attempt to force a parent to vaccinate his child is doomed to be a failure in court, as modern jurisprudence in developed countries has shown.

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

@ Denice Walter: Yup, Dan is giving *advice* to other "English Majors and would-be journalists". He's also indignant that the Carney Barker wasn't contacted by the University of Wisconsin-Racine to "debate" Brian Deer.

The super-secret location of Andy's press conference will be announced next week...I suspect they are still searching for a suitable venue.

If so please post a study on the double-blind, placebo-controlled trials with a clinical endpoint of the tetanus vaccine, for example.

This is generally referred to as "World War I."

In all medical procedures the risk/benefit assessment has to be personalised. So if you still belive vaccines can be good to your kid based on dubious industry-sponsored clinical trials, as your doctor the pertinent questions:

1. What is the incidence of the disease my child will be vaccinated against in the region where we live?

2. What’s the chance that my child, who has access to clean water and food, will contract the disease?

3. If he does contract the disease, what’s the chance that he will suffer a serious and possibly permanent illness or death?

If the doctor doesn't know, get your child and leave.

Once you get his numbers ask the corresponding questions regarding the vaccine:

1. How can all children need the same vaccines in the same dose? How can a 7-pound baby be given the same dose as a 200-pound man? How can one size possibly fit all?

2. What is the chance of my child suffering a serious adverse reaction and maybe even dying after getting a vaccine or a combination of vaccines? (For some answers, you don’t have to look any further than the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System and the Federal Vaccine Court

3. Why isn’t there a study of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children?

That’s the first thing you think they would have done. If they are so sure it would prove that vaccines are safe, wouldn’t they have done it by now?

And why has there never been a study on the safety of the combination of vaccines given to a child at the same time? Here’s why. Because they know what the studies will show. And that is that the incidence of illness is far less in unvaccinated children. That they are healthier overall than vaccinated children. That none of the ingredients in one vaccine is safe, let alone all the ingredients in the combination of vaccines. And when all these truths come out, their multi-billion-dollar industry will crumble.

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Ignore PuddinHead, he is not worth bothering with. He has issues with basic arithmetic and is an expert at cherry picking. See how well he mangles the measles incidence data on this comment: http://shotofprevention.com/2012/07/26/vaccine-questions-answered-the-r…

........... by Putinreloaded.........
Chris:

Putinreloaded:
putinreloaded:

For the same reasons it went down every decade since 1900 to 1960 even though no vaccines were available

Excuse me? It went down every decade?
Let us look at those numbers again:
1912 . . . 310.0
1920 . . . 480.5 … um, isn’t that bigger than 310?
1925 . . . 194.3
1930 . . . 340.8… oh, wow that is a bit more isn’t it?
1935 . . . 584.6… is that really less than the previous decade or two?
1940 . . . 220.7
1945 . . . 110.2
1950 . . . 210.1 … so exactly who is 210 less than 110?
1955 . . . 337.9 … oh, look… it is bigger again!
1960 . . . 245.4
The up and down is due to having epidemic years.

Yes, it went down every DECADE:

1920 . . . 480.5
1930 . . . 340.8
1940 . . . 220.7
1950 . . . 210.1

The downtrend is secular (with normal interdecade oscillations) WITHOUT ANY VACCINE!!!!

Please EXPLAIN THAT. What has caused the constant drop in measles BEFORE VACCINES?

And if the incidence/mortality of measles was in a DOWNTREND before vaccines, why is the CONTINUATION of such downtrend attributed to vaccination?

Please show us the study that proves the CONTINUATION of a pervious trend is due to A DIFFERENT CAUSE, namels the vaccines!

..............................

A peddler asking for me to be ignored is the best compliment I can expect. Thanks Chris!

I see the usual pack of paid shills quickly jump on board of any vaccine related discussion wherever it takes place over the web (Chris, lilady, Lawrence...) Bill Gate's money at work?

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Been tehre dine that, have you?

Yes I have, but it seems you have not. I thought you might pick tetanus or rabies, as placebo-controlled trials in humans are not usually ethical when death is the endpoint, however they do exist.

If so please post a study on the double-blind, placebo-controlled trials with a clinical endpoint of the tetanus vaccine, for example.

You mean like this one, or this one? Both of these looked at maternal vaccines in preventing tetanus in neonates, both were double-blind placebo-controlled studies, and both looked at death as a clinical endpoint.

There are NO such studies, except one or two for the measles vaccines in the 60s.

How can anyone be so utterly wrong - there are literally thousands of such studies. Just look through the Cochrane reviews, using vaccine and placebo as search terms, or PubMed.

If you spent as much time actually checking your facts as you do spouting easily refuted nonsense you might learn something.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Putin: do you have any evidence that the people who correct your errors are paid to do so, or is your accusation just an attempt to avoid awkward questions?

PuddinHead:

A peddler asking for me to be ignored is the best compliment I can expect. Thanks Chris!

And you have been shown to be a liar. Everything you type is a lie.

I see the usual pack of paid shills quickly jump on board of any vaccine related discussion wherever it takes place over the web (Chris, lilady, Lawrence…)

Maybe some of us don't like to see people spreading lies that put people's lives, especially children's lives, at risk. My son ended up in the hospital with whooping cough because of idiots like you spreading misinformation about the pertussis vaccine. That was in the UK in the early 80s, and yes it was people not vaccinating that caused it.

The impact of this controversy on immunisation uptake and disease outbreaks was staggering. By 1977, pertussis immunisation uptake was down from 77% to 33%, and some districts even recorded an uptake rate of just 9% (Swansea Research Unit, 1981). In terms of disease burden, at least four significant outbreaks of whooping cough occurred during the course of the vaccine scare. The first of these, in 1979, had 102,500 reported cases throughout the United Kingdom and an estimated 36 fatalities.

That's the sort of impact that your lies have, and that's why I despise people who spread this kind of dangerous nonsense.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Truth: Recent disease epidemics have broken out in highly vaccinated communities. They occur in cycles (an outbreak one year, then not again for a few years), and because a disease has mutated. The vaccine cannot “protect” against the mutated germ, so it doesn’t matter if you were vaccinated or not — you are at risk.

Resistant mutations thrive “tahnks” to the vaccine, because it ceates the conditions for natural selection (artificial in this case) by weakening only the regular strains, and people continue getting the disease.

There are many false claims in PR's comments, but I'll just point out this: what makes her think that forgoing vaccines will not "create the conditions for natural selection"??

What vaccines do is give an immune system a head start on fighting a pathogen. If you don't give the immune system that head start, it still fights that pathogen! The difference is that the organism the immune system belongs to is going to take a lot more damage from the pathogen, before it can fight that pathogen off - and there's much more of a chance that before the immune system can fight off the pathogen, it will have already been passed to someone else!

Everyone who understands the phenomenon of "antibiotic resistance" understands that the problem is not using antibiotics but half-assing the use of antibiotics. If you take the complete course of antibiotics, you keep hammering the pathogen until it's gone. If you only take half the course and then stop, you cull the weakest part of the infection and let the strongest remainder have free space to grow.

If you prime your immune system with a vaccine, your system is prepared to pummel that infection from the moment it shows up. If you insist on leaving your immune system unprepared, that's like half-assing antibiotics; it's providing enough challenge to the pathogen to drive natural selection, but not enough to beat it before it beats you.

By Antaeus Feldspar (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

@ Antaeus:

Best verb I've heard in awhile:
" half-@ssing"

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Beamup said: “Are we to understand then that we should similarly “buzz off” if you decided to not give your baby any food?”

You imply thatf vaccines being as necessary as food…

Not at all. Here's what really happened:

You advanced the principle: "My baby is subject to my decisions, and no one else's."

Beamup pointed out that that principle does NOT always apply, and gave an example: depriving your child of food would be a decision where others would intervene and be right to do so.

You tried to claim that all decisions involving your child fall on ONE side of a line: decisions solely subject to your will. Since Beamup showed that wasn't true, you need to argue WHY the specific decision in question, the decision of whether or not to vaccinate, falls on the side of the line YOU wish it to be on.

By Antaeus Feldspar (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

(Still ignoring the putin troll)

Here's Dan Omsted's latest screed at AoA:

http://www.ageofautism.com/2012/09/age-of-autism-weekly-wrap-lacrosse-d…

Here's a classic quote from Dan (I'm not anti-vaccine, I'm for *safe vaccines*) Olmsted,

"The truth, fellow English majors and would-be journalists, is that the story began when vaccines began causing autism, and what keeps the story going is that vaccines keep causing autism. That's my view, but I'm not alone, and the fact that I and thousands of others hold that view shows that Deer's presentation should be treated as one side of a controversy, not as a how-to session. The promo -- doubtless supplied by Deer or his enablers -- acknowledges it's a real controversy, but then immediately reverts to the idea that some nonsense abroad in the population is perpetuating this ridiculous idea of a vaccine-autism link."

Notice how the *usual suspects* are posting comments and one commenter asks if The Stalker will be attending Brian Deer's seminars.

Tune in next week, when the super-secret location of Andy's *press conference* will be revealed.

Kerblozen: "..You mean like this one, or this one? Both of these looked at maternal vaccines in preventing tetanus in neonates, both were double-blind placebo-controlled studies, and both looked at death as a clinical endpoint. ..."

Those "trials" don't stand even the scrutiny of the abstract. The first one explain what the "placebo" actually was:

"... the control group a similar number of injections of an influenza-virus vaccine...."

So they were comparing a vaccine to a second vaccine rather than to an inocuouls palcebo. If the second vaccine is more harmful than the first, then the first comes on top for "safety" and "efficavy", but in a FRAUDULENT manner.

The use of active injections as "placebos" is a standard fraud in 99% of vaccine trials.

The second study is even worse, it compares three different vaccinatio statuses: Cholera vs Tetanus (1 dose) vs Tetanus (2 doses), so it's impossible to know whether the "tetanus symptoms" (or whatever they diagnosed as such without lab confirmation) were caused by a bug or by the most aggressive of the two vaccines.

Again, it is clear the PLACEBO is a word vaccine "scientists" refuse to understand (it would expose their fraud if they did).

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

I am ignoring PR troll.

Darwy, I did spend the time to do the calculations on awards for vaccine injury vs. numbers of vaccines administered. The latter figure is a guesstimate, as (1) the US doesn't publish figures on vaccine administration and (2) an unknown percentage of the awards were to adults for vaccines given in adulthood.

1.3 awards per million doses of vaccines.

A commenter pointed out:

I think it's also worth noting that of the 2,892 claims compensated, nearly half (1,266) were related to the DTP with whole cell Pertussis. Since the DTPwP is no longer used, it would make sense not to consider these awards if using the VICP compensation figures as an indication of safety.

So, there you have it.

Liz Ditz: "...1.3 awards per million doses of vaccines...."

The US childhood immunization schedule requires 26 vaccine doses for infants aged less than 1 year.

Full vaccination implies that every year 4,300.000 kids are exposed to 26 times that riks only during the 1st year of life, which amounts to 34 injuries per million.

So the risk of vaccine injury is higher than the incidence of serious consequences for all childhood disease combined. If we take into account the CDC estimatij of 1 out of 10 vaccine injuries reported, we get 340 injuries per million... this is a IATROGENIC EPIDEMIC of epic proportions, this has to STOP!

Thank you for the number crunching!

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Those “trials” don’t stand even the scrutiny of the abstract.

They are placebo-controlled double-blind trials that have a clinical endpoint, which you said did not exist. You are wrong, and now you have to move the goalposts by displaying your ignorance about what constitutes a suitable placebo, a typical antivaxxer tactic. It's clearly pointless trying to have a sensible discussion with you.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

@Krebiozen - we've gone around and around with PR over at Shot of Prevention, until he was ultimately banned. Not only does he lie, he moves goalposts, cherry-picks data, is a germ-theory denialist, AIDS-denialist, and Holocaust Denialist to top it off.

No reason in the world to attempt to discuss anything with this vile individual.

Antaeus said: "... you need to argue WHY the specific decision in question, the decision of whether or not to vaccinate, falls on the side of the line YOU wish it to be on...."

Because:

1. Once you child is proposed for a medical procedure Patient Rights kick in, which is a whole new game. See the Belgian example on the formerly compulsory polio vaccine.

2. In general (in every lawful country) parent's decisions on a child's heath can only be overridden by the state in two cases:
a) Immediate danger to the child (emergency situations) - does not apply to a healthy child.
b) Public health interest - only applicable in case of public emergency situations (epidemics) - does not apply to routine vaccination.

Pretty simple, and I didn't even have to argue on the dangers and ineffectiveness of vaccines. Exemptions aren' t even necessary for parents, they can build a pretty effective defence using only patient's rights.

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Krezblozen: "..They are placebo-controlled double-blind trials that have a clinical endpoint, ..."

What is then your definition of placebo? One that contains all the potentially harmful ingredients of vaccines? The fraud iso evident it hurts the eyeballs.

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

I see puttputt has graced us with her scientific-illiteracy, innumeracy and dishonesty.

1. What is the incidence of the disease my child will be vaccinated against in the region where we live?

2. What’s the chance that my child, who has access to clean water and food, will contract the disease?

3. If he does contract the disease, what’s the chance that he will suffer a serious and possibly permanent illness or death?

If the doctor doesn’t know, get your child and leave.

Correction: If you don't know the answers to these questions then you have no business making medical decisions for anyone. But jerks like you would be doing physicians a favour by leaving their practices.

Once you get his numbers ask the corresponding questions regarding the vaccine:

1. How can all children need the same vaccines in the same dose? How can a 7-pound baby be given the same dose as a 200-pound man? How can one size possibly fit all?

They're not. How could you not know this as you delude yourself into thinking that you know more than we about vaccinology? Some vaccines are smaller volume and antigen doses, some are higher antigen concentrations. Do you know why this is?

2. What is the chance of my child suffering a serious adverse reaction and maybe even dying after getting a vaccine or a combination of vaccines? (For some answers, you don’t have to look any further than the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System and the Federal Vaccine Court

Yes you do have to look much further than VAERS since it's a passive collection system that anyone can enter anything. I've seen second and even third hand account entries, have seen double, triple and even quadruplicate entries for the same incident and of course, not all or even most severe entries are related to the vaccine unless you want to now tell us that suicides, car accidents, undiagnosed tumours and dropping children on their heads are now vaccine reactions.

3. Why isn’t there a study of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children?

Your wee brain can't comprehend this this but not only would an RCT be unethical, you haven't even given any thought to what you are studying and how many study subjects would be required to perform a study with enough statistical power. But go ahead and tell us what endpoints there are and how many subjects in each group you would need. Oh and find enough parents who would be simultaneously willing to vaccinate or not vaccinate their children.

That’s the first thing you think they would have done. If they are so sure it would prove that vaccines are safe, wouldn’t they have done it by now?

They have been but no study will ever appease your kind who can't understand the first thing about numbers and science to begin with. No one is trying to appease the lowest common denominator anymore so just go and live your life the way you want and don't expect to be part of society; you can't have both.

And why has there never been a study on the safety of the combination of vaccines given to a child at the same time? Here’s why. Because they know what the studies will show.

Not too bright are you. http://justthevax.blogspot.com/2012/09/chalkboard-is-new-comic-sans.html

And that is that the incidence of illness is far less in unvaccinated children. That they are healthier overall than vaccinated children. That none of the ingredients in one vaccine is safe, let alone all the ingredients in the combination of vaccines. And when all these truths come out, their multi-billion-dollar industry will crumble.

How do you make that claim with no evidence? That's the problem with people like you, you want shortcuts because you're too stupid and lazy to actually learn. You've been left in the dust by denying yourselves or have the inability to understand such important subjects as science, math and overall critical-thinking and now you realise how important they actually are but too late. In fact there is a longitudinal study in the works right now that examines those very questions and we (as in those of us who know how these things work) will have to wait for the data to emerge before drawing any conclusions. Go see if you can find what I'm talking about puttputt. Do your own work for a change.

So the risk of vaccine injury is higher than the incidence of serious consequences for all childhood disease combined. If we take into account the CDC estimatij of 1 out of 10 vaccine injuries reported, we get 340 injuries per million…

I see your innumeracy is showing again.

By Science Mom (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

What is then your definition of placebo? One that contains all the potentially harmful ingredients of vaccines? The fraud iso evident it hurts the eyeballs.

I assume you are going to volunteer for a double-blind trial of tetanus vaccine vs saline, with both groups then inoculated with tetanus. No? What about a double-blind study of parachutes vs no parachute and then jumping out of an airplane? Why not? Surely we can't possibly allow the use of parachutes unless they have been tested that way, can we?

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Soccer mom: "...Your wee brain can’t comprehend this this but not only would an RCT be unethical..:"

With millions of unvaccinated children - and many are already adults - available available in the Western world together with their detailed medical histories ans all... how can a comparison be unethical? What's lacking any kind ot ethics is NOT to look into these health records to avoid exposing the truth.

Soccer Mom, what are you smoking?

You know what's inethical? to commercialize pharmacological products whose safety and efficacy is unknown and pretending they're better than no product at all.

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

'Millions of unvaccinated children"

...and how do you propose to control for confounders given age, lifestyle, etc for all those adults and children?

Oh that's right. You know jack shit about epidemiology and statistics.

Krebiozen: "...I assume you are going to volunteer for a double-blind trial of tetanus vaccine vs saline,.."

Three quick points:

1. Avoiding placebos can make a trial "ethical", but also unscientific. The result cannot therefore be used to force the tested product on unconsenting people.

2. Neither Saline nor the flu vaccine "placebo" offer protection against tetanus, so they're just aas "ethical" and preference for the second can only be explained by the intent to defraud.

3. Admit I was right claiming the lack of palcebo-controlled studies regarding tetanus vaccines and you were wrong.

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Kreblozen: "...Surely we can’t possibly allow the use of parachutes unless they have been tested that way, can we?..."

A better comparison is selling parachutes to birds.

The huan body has learned to fight infections for millions of years like birds have learned to fly without ever going to pilot school. Only the malnourished and those living in septic conditions succumb to infectious disease.

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

@ Krebiozen and Lawrence: The odious troll cyberstalked me at LB/RB where it was immediately banned. It has been banned by other science bloggers, as well.

The science blogs that I post on, have all been attacked by trolls...who have been banned repeatedly...and have now resorted to using different 'nyms and different IP addresses.

O/T (You all know I am not an internet techie).

Would someone please explain in (very) simple terms, how do the sockies change their IP addresses? Do they go to a public place that has Wi-Fi service...or do they use someone else's computer that is not on their original server?

Public wifi would be one method of changing IP addy as would borrowing someone else's connection. Another method would be using proxy servers.

By Bronze Dog (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

@lilady, most ISPs (Internet service providers) I believe, have morphing IP addresses or what is called dynamic, which means in the case of dial up, they get a new IP address each time they dial in. In the case of a broadband connection, all it could take to have an IP address changed is to power cycle (turn off and turn back on) the router/modem that connects to their internet signal. However, there is always the possibility they will get the same IP address if that is the next one in line available for connection, unless they connect through a completely different provider to the Internet backbone. That could very well happen by connecting to a WiFi network in their area that isn't secure, going to the local library or to a coffee shop, etc that offers free WiFi connection. In some cases, where ISPs provide static (permanent IP addresses) to have it changed may require calling said ISP and asking for a new one, but in my experience, unless there is a very convincing reason as to why a change is needed, an ISP won't just change a static IP address on request. They can also just change ISPs to get a different IP address, but that seems like a lot of trouble to go through just for this, to be perfectly honest and I feel if a person has to resort to those types of measures they may suffer from some kind of mental instability.

By Lara Lohne (AK… (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Soccer mom: “…Your wee brain can’t comprehend this this but not only would an RCT be unethical..:”

With millions of unvaccinated children – and many are already adults – available available in the Western world together with their detailed medical histories ans all… how can a comparison be unethical? What’s lacking any kind ot ethics is NOT to look into these health records to avoid exposing the truth.

Dumbass; that's not an RCT. Again I ask, what are your endpoints or outcomes of interest? What are their prevalences and how many would you have to recruit to have adequate statistical power? What are potential confounders and how do you control for those? How do you control for differences in patient demographics, exposures and record collection?

Go ahead genius dazzle us with your brilliance.

By Science Mom (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

lilady,

The odious troll cyberstalked me at LB/RB where it was immediately banned. It has been banned by other science bloggers, as well.

I know, I know, and I've had about enough of this, but I'm still a little amused by this weird smorgasbord of idiotic nonsense that a few seconds of fact-checking completely refutes.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

PR,

1. Avoiding placebos can make a trial “ethical”, but also unscientific.

You really don't have the first clue do you? A placebo has to be indistinguishable from the treatment by both the subject and the person administering them, or blinding fails. A vaccine injection, containing antigens and adjuvants will often have a different effect to a saline injection, whether local inflammation, a fever or whatever. If you read the study they discuss this problem as the subjects could tell the difference and a disproportionate number refused a second shot of the tetanus shot as it was more painful.

Mind you, with death as the endpoint and a 98% effect size, the choice of a placebo, as long as it isn't cyanide, isn't going to make a huge difference.

The result cannot therefore be used to force the tested product on unconsenting people.

Is tetanus vaccine really forced on unconsenting people? You are quite free to refuse a tetanus shot should you step on a rusty, cattle-dung smeared nail, though I think you would be extremely foolish to do so. If your child stepped in the same nail, that's another matter, and the courts could and should get involved. Do you believe a Jehovah's Witness should be allowed to refuse a life-saving blood transfusion for their child? The same thing applies to a tetanus shot, and don't complain about that - you brought it up.

2. Neither Saline nor the flu vaccine “placebo” offer protection against tetanus, so they’re just aas “ethical” and preference for the second can only be explained by the intent to defraud.

Not true, as I explained above. Also we know that flu shots have practically no side-effects apart from local pain and perhaps a mild fever, even in the immunocompromised. Are you seriously suggesting that the flu vaccine caused death by tetanus in nearly all those given it, which is why the tetanus vaccine appeared to be 98% effective? Really?

3. Admit I was right claiming the lack of palcebo-controlled studies regarding tetanus vaccines and you were wrong.

But you weren't right. Even when you deliberately picked a vaccine for a deadly non-infectious disease that you thought couldn't possibly have had double-blind randomized trials you were still wrong. It's not my fault you don't understand what an appropriate placebo is. Have you looked at the Cochrane studies yet to check out all those double-blind placebo controlled vaccine studies? Thought not.

Only the malnourished and those living in septic conditions succumb to infectious disease.

That may be the most stupid statement I have ever read. Were 98% of people in the US malnourished or living in "septic conditions" before measles vaccination? Are 90% of UK children malnourished which is why they get chicken pox? Are you unaware that some strains of flu kill more young and healthy people than anyone else? Have you heard of cytokine storm? Do you not question anything you read on whatever websites it is you frequent? Think for yourself, for goodness sake.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

@Krebiozen - we've established that PR doesn't believe in Germ Theory & thinks it is a myth....you're not going to get anywhere with this nut.

@Krebiozen

Well, when you actually believe in AIDS denialism, believe in Anti-Semetic beliefs, deny germ theory, and advocate for the death of other people, as putin has on his/her/its blog, then one is certainly prone to not thinking for oneself and spewing out idiotic tropes.

Thanks to Bronze Dog and Lara for explaining IP addresses...and the tactics of the ever-morphing sockies.

most vaccine adverse effects are never reported

Citation needed (I'm not holding my breath...this, like the rest of PR's statements, is wishful thinking).

Think for yourself, for goodness sake.

That appears to be the problem doesn't it?

By Science Mom (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Soccer Mom: ".. What are potential confounders and how do you control for those? .."

The same situation arises in every case controlled study, you ignorant.

I asked "Why isn’t there a study of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children?", never asked for a RCT like you're falsely attibuting to me. So besides an ignorant your are a maniupulator too... nothing new among the paid peddlers of vaccines.

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink
most vaccine adverse effects are never reported

Citation needed (I’m not holding my breath…this, like the rest of PR’s statements, is wishful thinking).

An analysis by Wald and Shojania found that only 1.5% of all adverse events result in an incident report, and only 6% of adverse drug events are identified properly.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11510252

There is no reason to conclude that vaccines are THE exception.

This study proves that our statistics concerning mortality resulting from adverse events may be in fact be conservative figures. According to their findings it's not far fetched to estimate that the actual incident vaccine adverse effects is 10 to 100 times the number of cases acknowledged by the vaccine compensation program.

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

The same situation arises in every case controlled study, you ignorant.

Really? Same confounders for every study? You just can't answer.

I asked “Why isn’t there a study of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children?”, never asked for a RCT like you’re falsely attibuting to me. So besides an ignorant your are a maniupulator too… nothing new among the paid peddlers of vaccines.

Did you make any corrections when I stated an RCT? No. Can you answer any of my questions regarding a retrospective study? No, just make pathetic, infantile accusations of shills. Perhaps you are projecting and you are shilling for Stupid Entitled Illiterate Parents, Inc.

By Science Mom (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

There is no reason to conclude that vaccines are THE exception.

Wrong; there is every reason to conclude that vaccines are excepted because the survey didn't even cover vaccines a pre-exposure prophylaxis as opposed to therapeutics given to hospitalised and ambulatory patients. FFS you can't even read your own cites.

By Science Mom (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

More on the systemic underreporting of vaccine adverse events. From the CDC themselves:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4827a1.htm

"...because reporting to VAERS of adverse events following vaccination is incomplete (6), the actual number of intussusception cases among RRV-TV recipients may be substantially greater than that reported..."

And reference (6) says:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7503351

The reporting sensitivities of two passive surveillance systems for vaccine adverse events.

"...The significant underreporting of known outcomes, together with the nonspecific nature of most adverse event reports, highlights the limitations of passive surveillance systems in assessing the incidence of vaccine adverse events."

What acrobatics will the vax shills use spin this?

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Now you know it from the CDC, shills... take the numbers from the vaccine compensation program and multiply them SUBSTANTIALLY (sic), like by 100, an you'll be close to the real size of the vaccine injury problem.

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Putin-I'm sure that someone has already told you about 100 times the ineffectiveness of VAERS. But your cognitive dissonance is so entertaining. I'm enjoying my GMO popcorn with GMO butter reading your rants.

Before this thread was hijacked by a lunatic troll, it seemed to have something to do with Brian Deer’s upcoming lectures on Wakefield’s MMR-related fraud.

A question: Given that Deer is advised by both the BMJ legal team (which should know something about issues related to libel) AND a US team that is reportedly among the top 100 law firms in the US, do you suppose that Deer’s willingness to speak publicly about this issue suggests that he is at legal risk?

Another question: Do you suppose that the disgraced former researcher is traveling at his own expense to his press conference in Wisconsin, or will that cost be borne by suckers?

The CDC acknowledves a systemic underreporting of vaccine adverse events, which means no meaningful riks/benefit analysis is possible and vaccine safety is overrated by a substantial factor.

Under the present ridiculously uncertain conditions, still the shills have wet dreams of forcing everybody to stretch their arms for their shit... KEEP DREAMING!

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

…The significant underreporting of known outcomes, together with the nonspecific nature of most adverse event reports, highlights the limitations of passive surveillance systems in assessing the incidence of vaccine adverse events.” What acrobatics will the vax shills use spin this?

That's terrible. What we need is an active surveillance system to monitor vaccine adverse events. Maybe we could call it something like The Vaccine Safety Datalinkand include an active surveillance system called Rapid Cycle Analysis. Oh wait, exactly that has been in existence for the past 7 years.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

@ Brian: I think Mr. Deer is *confident* that he will not put himself in legal peril; no need to consult his legal teams in the U.K. or in Texas. He should however, be on the *lookout* for the stalker. :-)

The Carney Barker will have his trip paid for by the suckers,

Where do you think the *super-secret venue* for Andy's *press conference* will take place? My money is on the local courthouse steps, with Andy wrapped in the American flag and the suckers holding up placards, "We support Dr. Wakefield...He's Fighting For Truth, Justice And The American Way"...

http://www.drwakefieldjusticefund.org/

His mind is made up, Krebiozen. Stop trying to confuse the issue with facts.

Wow, Kreblozen, I'm deeply impressed by that PROJECT.

Those 7 years of "good will", however, apper to have had little impact on care providers, for most still they don’t know what a vaccine adverse reaction is!

This study is from 2012: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21956894

Assessing vaccine safety communication with healthcare providers in a large urban county.

"...Results indicate that if an AE was suspected, 17% of respondents would not know how to report it, with 61% of respondents citing unclear definitions of a reportable AE as a barrier and 18% of respondents unaware of whose responsibility it is to report an AE.....

I'm so impressed by this new development that I'm running to the first WallMart to vaccinate my kid!

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

So we put 1 + 1 together...

the rampant ignorance of VAE aong doctors plus the systemic underreporting of vaccine adverse events EQUALS: Noo meaningful riks/benefit analysis is possible and vaccine safety is overrated by a substantial factor.

Under the present ridiculously uncertain conditions, still the shills have wet dreams of forcing everybody to stretch their arms for their junk… KEEP DREAMING!

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Even if vaccine providers on the front lines of sticking needles in people were to cause, observe and report a vaccine adverse reactions to the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) absolutely nothing would happen.

The FDA collects those reports, puts them in a drawer and forgets about them.

Here is the current body count in VAERs:

- Hepatitis B vaccine 50,275 reports – 979 deaths,
- DTaP vaccine (pertussis, diptheria, tetanus) 50,345 reports – 785 deaths,
- MMR vaccine 58,887 reports – 300 deaths,
- Gardasil vaccine 22,563 reports – 99 deaths.

In this pathetic safety landscape no wonder "enforcement" is the only way left for vax shills tp have an informed parent vaccinate his kids.

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Even if vaccine providers on the front lines of sticking needles in people were to cause, observe and report a vaccine adverse reactions to the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) absolutely nothing would happen.

The FDA collects those reports, puts them in a drawer and forgets about them.

Here is the current body count in VAERs:

- Hepatitis B vaccine 50,275 reports – 979 deaths,
- DTaP vaccine (pertussis, diptheria, tetanus) 50,345 reports – 785 deaths,
- MMR vaccine 58,887 reports – 300 deaths,
- Gardasil vaccine 22,563 reports – 99 deaths.

In this sorry safety landscape no wonder the only way left for vax shills to have an informed parent vaccinate his kids is a gun to their forehead.

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Soccer Mom wrote: "...Really? Same confounders for every study? You just can’t answer...."

When comparing the health between vaccinated and unvaccinated kids, what could the confoundres possibly be?

According to vax shills, the only significant factor to be praised for "saving lives" are vaccines... so what else could be confounded for saving lives, soccer mom? Differences in nutrition and sanitation, perhaps?

Your objection amounts to admitting that nutrition and living conditions are more significant than vaccines in determining a child's health, otherwise you wouldn't be complaining about confounding factors.

Well done hanging yourself with your own rope!

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

If you want to entrust yourself and your children to this Three Blind Mice (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil) vaccine system – that is certainly your right, but if something goes wrong don’t expect any recognition, sympathy or cure from the medical system. You’ll end up being a statistic in the FDA VAERS system and it will be labeled a coincidence.

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

His mind is made up, Krebiozen. Stop trying to confuse the issue with facts.

Aw, spoilsport. One last one before I hit the sack.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

do you suppose that Deer’s willingness to speak publicly about this issue suggests that he is at legal risk?

Well put.

The CDC acknowledves a systemic underreporting of vaccine adverse events, which means no meaningful riks/benefit analysis is possible and vaccine safety is overrated by a substantial factor.

Wait wait; you hold out VAERS as an authoritative system for vaccine injury epidemiology but now you are saying this? Which is it?

By the way, VAERS was able to detect a signal from Rotarix with regards to intussusception and was subsequently pulled from the market. In the real world, this is a risk analysis at work.

Those 7 years of “good will”, however, apper to have had little impact on care providers, for most still they don’t know what a vaccine adverse reaction is!

You should really read your own cites and stop abstract-mining.

If an AE was suspected, 45 (17.2%) respondents indicated they would not know how to report it, including 27 (18.8%) physicians, 14 (17.7%) pharmacists, and 4 (10.0%) nurses. Two-hundred thirteen (81.6%) respondents were aware of VAERS, but only about half (n = 141, 54.7%) knew how to report an AE using VAERS. By respondents' job category, 117 (81.3%) physicians had heard of VAERS, 66 (83.5%) pharmacists, and 30 (75.0%) nurses. Among those aware of VAERS, 78 (69.0%) physicians, 45 (68.2%) pharmacists, and 18 (60.0%) nurses knew how to report a suspected vaccine-associated AE using the reporting system.

A 36% response rate and the fuller picture of the numbers isn't what you presented. Furthermore, why would you even complain about taking action to improve upon vaccine adverse event reporting systems?

By Science Mom (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Wow, Kreblozen, I’m deeply impressed by that PROJECT.

That's hilarious, you don't know what the word "project" means, do you? Anyway, you should be impressed, VSD has been running for 22 years and the Rapid Cycle Analysis for 12, and actively monitors nearly 3% of the American population:

Each week, the rate of adverse events that occurs in people who have received a particular vaccine are compared to the rate of adverse events that occurs in a similar group of people who have not received that vaccine. If the rate of adverse events among vaccinated people is significantly higher than among the comparison group, the vaccine may be associated with an adverse event. To find out if a vaccine truly increases the risk of a particular adverse event, VSD Project scientists conduct a formal epidemiological study.

Can you think of a better way of monitoring vaccine safety?

This study is from 2012

Yes, and it explains exactly why we need an active surveillance system.

the rampant ignorance of VAE aong doctors plus the systemic underreporting of vaccine adverse events EQUALS: Noo meaningful riks/benefit analysis is possible and vaccine safety is overrated by a substantial factor.

I point out that there is an active surveillance system that monitors vaccine adverse events in 8.8 million people and you just ignore it as it doesn't fit with your dogma? The "present ridiculously uncertain conditions" only exist in your imagination. It's sad really,

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

An analysis by Wald and Shojania found that only 1.5% of all adverse events result in an incident report, and only 6% of adverse drug events are identified properly.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11510252

Did you mean this? Wald isn't in on what you proffered, and neither of the two seems to have much of anything to do with that which you would like to assert.

Wait, Narad! You mean he was cherry picking and yet did not even quote or cite the actual paper? A paper that does not seem to be about VAERS, where there are many reports that in the end have nothing to do with the vaccine. Essentially it over reports vaccine injuries. Like some of the example here:

A 7-year-old male patient, born on 21 JUN 2000 was vaccinated with FLUVIRIN (batch no. unknown) on 19 NOV 2007. The patient was killed in an automobile traffic accident on 01 FEB 2008.

...and...

The subject died of multiple system organ failure due to near-drowning, 163 days post-immunization.

Lord almighty is this still going on? Seriously: I took a long drive, had a long conversation, took a walk, visited several shops, saw the tide come in, ate a fabulous meal, had dessert, saw the boats on the bay, drove back again, listened to messages, read my mail...

@ lilady:

Possible venues for AJW? Oh, I could imagine a few...

@ brian:

About legal advice: once some crazy people wanted to sue me- although I doubted that they had any valid reason for a case, I asked my representative if there was any chance of them going forward - " You'd be more likely to be hit by a meteor", he remarked.
I have a feeling that this scenario is not really that different.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Do you suppose that the disgraced former researcher is traveling at his own expense to his press conference in Wisconsin, or will that cost be borne by suckers?

I have little doubt, personally, that the "Justice Fund" is Arranga's pocket. This level of production costs money, you know. Anyway, My guess is that money is not blown on RJs and it goes AUS-MSP with the chauffeuse based in Eau Claire. Fits with the Somali debacle, to boot.

Lucky you. My eighteen year old daughter insisted I come with her to buy shoes, which also included checking every floor of the store for items that were on sale at Nordstrom's.

Oh, and then I finished reading a book on under sunny skies on the porch, picked apples, and then tomatoes, peppers, and herbs for a roasted pasta sauce (which was for dinner, which was delicious.. the two little Thai peppers gave a good kick). Now I am contemplating a wee bit more wine before I load and run the dishwasher. I will turn the apples into sauce tomorrow.

I was responding to Ms. Walter. Now I have to go scrape the flesh from the Hubbard squash that I picked from my yard and roasted. It will be turned into pie on Thanksgiving.

Ah Putin...

VAERS is only reliable when YOU pick the data, but not anyone else. Studies are only reliable when YOU pick them, no one else..

The problem is all YOU.

This is posted on Dan Olmsted's weekend wrap-up at AoA:

"Those interested in attending the event, here is the complete schedule.

Andy Wakefield press conference 1:00pm at Myrick Park (Gun Club Shelter) across from the north side of the University. LaCrosse Street and Hillview.

Brian Deer presentation at Centennial Hall. This is on the south side of the university off Vine St.

Also, the town will be very chaotic. One of largest Octoberfest celebrations in the country will be taking place along with Homecoming for the university.

Need more information email me. wrohde@comcast.net

Posted by: Wayne Rohde | September 29, 2012 at 05:42 PM"

Wayne Rohde is the Treasurer of the Canary Party of Minnesota:

http://www.cfboard.state.mn.us/campfin/PCFDetail/PCF41056.html

If the science actually matters to you, then why does this science not matter to you? And why has the CDC failed to recognize it.

Supporting Research
http://www.callous-disregard.com/research.htm

Brian Deer - "Its NOT bowel disease, thats only diahrrea"

Brian Deer and The GMC, Selective Hearing. BMJ Journalist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id_AxZ3zHAc

The whole issue surrounds the concept of exactly where are you satisfied with getting your said science from? If you are satisfied with simply taking the word of the CDC that all the science is in and that they have looked at all the needed science; what would that be inclusive of exactly? It would simply amount to mainline epidemiological studies on what? That is what they call their safety study science; epidemiological studies done on only one vaccine; the MMR; and one single vaccine ingredient, thimerosal. Is there nothing more to consider? How about as well safety studies on multiple combined and repeated vaccines? There are safety studies on that too? No there are not.

What about aluminum adjuvants? What about vaccine contamination, and vaccines manufactured by the use of human diploid tissue. Never have either of those received any real safety studies, much more any long term studies. Would that indicate any level of irresponsibility and lack of any real interest and understanding of what is truly going on with vaccines? As for vaccine contamination they would have use believe that no potentially harmful contamination makes it into any vaccine; as they have a purification step process. The CDC and FDA know all to well as a fact, that this step process has never be adequate in that said purification process. They know that it is an unresolved matter, and as well they do know of the potential for that to cause chronic illness and autoimmune disease in humans. Known said contamination has occurred in Gardasil, the MMR, and the Rotarix vaccine. More may be unknown as with one study I can show you; it appears that any vaccine made from human diploid cells, (aborted fetal cell tissue), does appears to still have the chance of some fragmented DNA and contaminated material getting through that said step purification process. They told us of course that this was not happening; and that no such cells remained.

Aluminum vaccine adjuvants, in many studies, they claim to a standard claim that this adjuvant causes inflammation in the body resulting in stimulation of immune system in so far as recognizing a killed/attenuated vaccine antigen that it would have otherwise had a low level of recognition and thus resulting a low level of antibodies built from it. Other than that they claim that the mechanisms of action of those adjuvants is poorly understood.

What is really happening is that these adjuvants are causing in some children and individuals, and overactivation of the brains microglia, and a resulting chronic level of brain inflammation. The more multiple and repeated vaccination, the worse it gets. Aluminum as well is a coagulant in any liquid; depends on how much you get and how well it can be detoxified. If the child already is predisposed to having low levels of glutathione which is essential for detoxification of heavy metals, and heavy metals can also have a depletion effect on glutathione. Can this all be backed by existing science in some form? Yes it can.

In fact a greater recognition of existing brain inflammation in those with ASD, as been noted in recent studies. However, some of those studies make the connection to aluminum adjuvants as to causation; while other studies make this finding while seemingly being oblivious as to the cause, or even suggesting a cause. They call it and refer to it as simply what they are now claiming are inflammation syndromes, with an unknown cause. Oh yes, you can and should see where this is going.

What has the CDC and FDA done about addressing these said issues, you may ask? The aluminum adjuvant issue, you will never see a word stated, other than to make a claim that dietary intake of aluminum is more than is in a vaccine, and they claim that it is detoxed exactly the same way. That is a Paul Offit claim made, with absolutely no physiological science nor data to back it up. Yet he states that infants and children according to his calculations, can safely tolerate 10,000 vaccines in one single day. He has never proven that, of course; by even talking 100 of them himself.

It is all up to you, to allow yourself to remain mislead by what you are and were told, in error; or to become educated to what is really going on with vaccines. There is no liability for any doctor, pediatrician now since the year 1987. All of it is now pushed on the federal vaccine court to handle. Yet, the push to eliminate state vaccine exemptions has never had more of a ramped up effort to piece by piece dismantle parental rights in some states; to even include in such as CA the passed state law that allows such as a 13 year old girl to receive the now known dangerous and sometimes deadly Gardasil; without parental consent, and all other vaccines on the schedule; boys included.

http://vacfacts.info

I am sure adverse effects are under reported on VAERS. For example, one year after the flu shot, I had soreness at the injection site for over a day. This was an adverse effect. I did not report it. These types of adverse effects are not reported because they are so minimal people don't take the time to report it.

@ Mary L.: VAERS=Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System

My left arm ached for days after each of the three hepatitis B shots I received. Do you think that is why shots are given in the non-dominant arm? :-)

This year's Fluzone intradermal shot caused some small swell on my upper left (non-dominant) arm...And I have three small scars and loss of pigmentation from the three separate smallpox vaccines, high up on my left arm. They were not adverse events.

Andy Wakefield press conference 1:00pm at Myrick Park (Gun Club Shelter) across from the north side of the University. LaCrosse Street and Hillview.

Left off "Capacity: 40."

Re VAERS, Quoting from my stacks of Vaccine Information Sheets:

6: What if there is a serious reaction? . . . Ask your doctor, nurse, or health department to file a Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) form. Or call the VAERS toll-free number yourself at 1-800-822-7967 or vistit their website. . . Reporting reactions helps experts learn about possible problems with vaccines.

Did you notice the word “serious” in that header? I don’t think the purpose of VAERS is to track the number of sore arms.

@ Narad: It looks like an outdoor venue...I *hope* they arranged for *crowd control* staff to be available. Do you think Wayne Rohde will arrange for videotaping?

Try *Googling* his name; he's also concerned about fluoridated water, genetically-modified food and other woo.

@ Chemmomo: If a parent wants to download the VAERS report form, because a child has had an (extraordinarily very delayed) adverse event...that parent could go to a number of anti-vaccine websites.

lilady@ 3:48 pm Perhaps I should have linked to the form the first time, but I was on my way out of the house.
http://vaers.hhs.gov/esub/index
The VAERS website has included an on-line submission form for at least two years. Why would anyone need any other websites?

AB2109 has been signed!

That's going to leave a mark. (I only recently realized that Brown has the opposite of a pocket veto.)

Oh, but wait:

Additionally, I will direct the department to allow for a separate religious exemption on the form. In this way, people whose religious beliefs preclude vaccinations will not be required to seek a health care practitioner's signature.

Beg pardon?

@ Narad, it makes this already weak bill essentially useless. Guess which exemption the special snowflake parents will be seeking?

By Science Mom (not verified) on 30 Sep 2012 #permalink

it makes this already weak bill essentially useless

It's unclear to me that the executive branch actually has this authority.

Narad and Science Mom, I have my concerns about that last paragraph, too, but the fact remains not only did the Assembly pass the bill, the governor did sign it. In spite of the efforts of the anti-vaccine lobby.

Yah, Brown's boned. The text is clear. I don't know that he can even direct a change in the form, despite the limited APA exemption in section (d).

lilady said: "...My left arm ached for days after each of the three hepatitis B shots I received. Do you think that is why shots are given in the non-dominant arm?..."

Let's joke a bit more about the medieval practice of injecting random stuff into perfectly health kids...

Case definition of traumatic injection neuropathy
http://pmrc.org.pk/433/43310.pdf

Faisal Mansoor
National Institute of Handicaped, Islamabad

"Type of injury
The experts concluded that the type of injury
incurred is due to the chemical injected. It is chemical
neuritis and not physical damage. It is therefore important
to know which drug has been injected."

This injection-induced "polio" has a higher incidence tahtn poliovirus (see table 1) and is en urgent public health prioblem:

"...Public health problem
All agreed that it is a major health problem and
should be considered on priority basis..."

Differentiating traumatic neuritis from poliomyelitis
http://www.nmji.in/archives/volume%2016-4July%20August%202003/Correspon…

"...Intramuscular injection as a risk factor for paralytic poliomyelitis is well known.(7,8) This is referred to as provocation paralysis.(9) ... Unnecessary intramuscular injections should be avoided...."

By PutinReloaded (not verified) on 30 Sep 2012 #permalink

Hooray CA!

I'm so sick of hearing how intrusive this bill is from Chiros. Hopeful it will make a difference. It's frightening to me as a parent how easily exemptions can be obtained right now here.

PS really Brown? An exemption to the exemption form? :P

Cookie again. At least the last power supply had the manners to just start smoking out rosin.

My efforts to dispel the crap that is dispensed on AoA...and their spamming on this article appearing in a local newspaper have been *recognized*.

http://lacrossetribune.com/news/local/vaccine-autism-debate-coming-to-l…

From Dan Omsted's weekly wrap-up at AoA:

"Yes Jenny and I see the latest load of loathsome lies and Deer induced vomit making rhetoric is also up there now, spewing forth from that well known saloonbar contributor Lilady of LBRB! Should expect it I guess. She really detests Andy because he "talks posh", that just about sums her up.

Posted by: patricia | September 30, 2012 at 05:25 PM"

Yah, Brown’s boned. The text is clear. I don’t know that he can even direct a change in the form, despite the limited APA exemption in section (d).

Gawsh I hope that's the case.

@ Lilady, Patricia is a drooling Wankfield worshipper. How in the hell does "talking posh" become a basis to detest someone? Chicka is huffing some strange shite. She's one of his sad rump of disciples who has stated emphatically that he will get a fair trial in the U.S.

Can't wait to ask her how her American crow tastes.

By Science Mom (not verified) on 30 Sep 2012 #permalink

Do all these anti-vaxxers belong to the Captain Carrot school of Punctuation?

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 30 Sep 2012 #permalink

I will be there! Both days. I was hitching up the trailer to go that way anyway, so it will just make my little last of the season getaway a little more interesting.

By Wisconsin Mom (not verified) on 30 Sep 2012 #permalink

If the science actually matters to you, then why does this science not matter to you?

Well, direct transmission attempts from the kids seem to have caused some needless aggravation, but I think we're good to go if called for.

Apologies for troll-feeding, but PR has blundered by mistake into an area that interests me.

PR,

This injection-induced “polio” has a higher incidence tahtn poliovirus (see table 1) and is en urgent public health prioblem:

I agree there are a number of causes of AFP in India other than polio that need to be addressed. Oh I see, you think traumatic injection neuropathy is caused by vaccination. You really should read what you link to before you post it here, though I think your reputation as a buffoon is pretty safe.

I was in India a couple of decades ago, and one thing that struck me was the number of traditional and non traditional healers you see working on the street - as a man with a receding hairline I was constantly being hassled and even pursued in the street by men who claimed to have a cure for baldness, but I digress. My favorite 'therapists' were the ear-cleaners (with cotton buds tucked over their ears making them weirdly insectoid), but I also liked the doctor's offices open to the street with a large certificate proudly proclaiming "M.D. Failed."

Many of these people give injections of "random stuff" - Indian doctors (and other healthcare providers) seem to be almost as fond of injections as French doctors are of suppositories. This leads to a probable confounder in that:

A child with Polio infection also has fever in the prodromal period and hence probability of receiving an injection before the onset of paralysis is very high. A history of I/M injection in the Gluteal region would favor the diagnosis of traumatic injection neuropathy is misleading because most children with polio paralysis will have received injections for fever.

Things are very similar in Pakistan - one of the studies you linked to even mentions this:

The injections are administered by public private doctors, doctor assistants, barbers, friends relatives and housekeepers.

The article and letters call for people administering injections to be properly trained and to only give injections when necessary,. You will get no argument from me there, though I think that vaccination is extremely important in Pakistan and India, which you undoubtedly disagree with. Perhaps if you had seen the number of people with disabilities due to polio as I had, you might have a different opinion.

To get a little perspective, that study found less than 200 cases of traumatic injection neuropathy each year in a country of 180 million, where more than 20,000 people die on the road each year.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

From FB:
"Thinking Moms' Revolution is looking for a parent going to the Wakefield/Brian Deer event in Lacrosse, WI at 1pm this Thursday October 4th? We'd like you to be our 'Reporter on the Scene' for the day. We can't get anyone out there and it's too important to miss. Who wants to help us out? If you are interested please pm Alison MacNeil."

By Broken Link (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

And in response, on FB, Ann Dachel says:

" I will be there and taking copious notes!!"

By Broken Link (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

And Nancy Hokkanen says:
"I'll be attending one or both of Brian Deer's presentations. If any of you parents have a message you want me to print on a paper handout, email me please."

Here are some of the questions people are suggesting:

1) Mr. Deer, why did you lie to parents in order to get confidential information about their children?
2) How did you manage to breach confidentially measures and get access to these children's medical records that Dr. Wakefield and his team didn't even have access to?
But if there is room, here is one more:
Regarding the parents in the Wakefield study, why did you twist the statements about their children's health history so badly that the parent' intended meaning was actively MISrepresented?
Most importantly: Why did you try to destroy a doctor whose work could have profoundly benefited my sons? Why?

Please tell him that he's one of the most despicable people ever to have existed on the planet Earth. Thanks!

yes I have many questions! why there is no research with unvaccinated babies and kids, I am sure this could prove that unvaccinated kids have less risks to develop Syndromes like Autism, ADHD/ADD! and why many vaccines still contain so many toxins, for example I do not think heavy toxic metals are really necessary as preservatives! if he did a good research about vaccines definitelly he shouldn't lie to all of us. He let down Dr Wakefield' research because he definitelly got some kind of dirty gift ! There is no compensation thay may pay all the pain our kids are suffering due high level of toxicity for the vaccines! we know that Big Pharma never care about our health , they care about profit, for this reason they never intend to heal our health, because in this case they can sell more their dangerous drugs and vaccines! Please tell for him if he really trust vaccines to inject Influenza shots in front of everyone!! not only one but many shots since he believe that vaccines are safe!!

As on his visit to meet our family he confirmed he had no medical qualifications ,how can he discuss safety of vaccines.?

Answer 1) For money Answer 2) The Murdocks Rupert and Doug phone tap scandal and computer hacking.

if you don't mind me asking, why was Deer visiting your family?

Jacob Lawrence Crosby: Deer was interviewing them for a TV documentary (26:59, Selective Hearing)

Nancy can you ask him why he said that he was asked for information by the GMC when it clearly states in the documentary with a letter of proof that it was he who actually approached the GMC and offered them information , i wouls like to see him answer that one

Wayne Rohde: We need to have as many people as possible contact the University of Wisconsin LaCrosse Administration and English Departments demanding that adequate Q&A session be held after Deer's presentation. People at a PUBLIC University need to be heard.

Jenny Allan: Just ask him who is paying his salary for his 8 year 'career' entirely devoted to Wakefield et al demolition!!

By Broken Link (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

I just have a couple of questions for Wakefield: which if the several versions of MMR vaccine was his Lancet study on? And why was there an American subject with yet another MMR vaccine? The American MMR was introduced in 1971, what data from that vaccine did he use to form his hypothesis?

@Chris - given that the answers to all of those questions are publicly available & have been for years, it is still surprising that the anti-vaccine cranks can even keep asking them....of course, they don't seem to ever be able to accept the fact that the man that they adore (Mr. W) is both a crook & a fraud.

@ Broken LInk:

I truly believe that many of AJW's supporter have serious problems. As a psychologist I've been rather shocked at the vitriol ( @ AoA, TMR) being tossed at anyone with whom they disagree.

Personally, I have interacted with members of their brain trust and have not been impressed in the least- except for their startling ability to jump to conclusions unwarranted by any connection to reality. No small feat.

Jake, while he did not directly call me a destroyer of innocent children and supporter of murderous parents, certainly hinted at those attributes. When I questioned him about the POSSIBILITY that his cherished conspiracies were imaginary, he belittled my own education and knowledge of world events. That was rich.

Any questions they dream up are reflections of the mirror world their minds inhabit, not the actual one. These sites -and facebook pages- are utilsed as a substitute for much needed group therapy- however, the mission of these groups is not getting closer to realism but further away.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 02 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Krebiozen,

On the topic of India's amazing variety of people willing to sell anyone treatments, if you have read enough posts by Jeevan Kuruvilla (The Learner blog), you will have read about everything from "witch doctors" [sic] to trained and untrained people willing to sell and/or administer a variety of treatments. Including IV fluids. Yes, you can make money by giving IV fluids.

Our scamsters pretend to have some authori-tay in order to get people to buy their products and services. In India even the pretence is not necessary.

"And Nancy Hokkanen says:
“I’ll be attending one or both of Brian Deer’s presentations. If any of you parents have a message you want me to print on a paper handout, email me please.”"

Mr. Deer: Thank you for your efforts to expose frauds and quacks. Do you think that the wild accusations against you reflect a concerted attempt to protect fraudsters?

"INADEQUATE AND SUPERFICIAL REASONING” – that is what Justice Mitting criticized the U.K. General Medical Council when it been persuaded by Deer's arguments to strip a team of reputable doctors of their licenses (incl. Dr. John Walker-Smith and Dr. Wakefield). Mitting, in Britain’s High Court, exonerated Dr. John Walker-Smith of wrong-doing, and the University College London has also terminated its fraud investigation of Dr. Wakefield, on advice from the UK Research Integrity Office.

Really, who would you rather trust? Dr. Wakefield, who continues to successfully treat children and earn parents’ respect?

Or, Deer? - whose deceptions include:
- obtaining confidential medical records that patients’ doctors couldn't even access;
- lying to parents by interviewing them using a fabricated name;
- lying about what was said in an interview with a parent;
- falsely claiming that children from the Lancet case series “didn’t have bowel disease” – though doctors’ records prove they do.

This article is an embarrassment to National Geographic.

@ Tara:

Oh, he treats children.. do tell.
I've always thought that he did in some capacity.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 04 Oct 2012 #permalink

Tara, where is Wakefield authorized to practice medicine? And if he is treating children, please tell us where so we can alert that state's medical board.

Tara, that Wakefield's paper constituted scientific fraud has been factually established, that he improperly failed to disclose serious financial conflicts of interest has been factually established, that he abandoned professional and ethical standards of practice practice has been factually established, and as a consequence of all of the above had his medical license revoked by Britain's General Medical Council.

So who do I trust? IBrian Deer, who has simply documented Wakefield's fraud and misconduct.

Anj,
Thanks for the blog reference. India is certainly a strange and remarkable place. I did come across a few traditional medical practices there. In Rajastan, not far from the border with Pakistan, it seems pretty much anything that ails you is treated with opium. At a museum in Jodphur we were told we had to have a guide with us, and were assigned a restless and extremely grumpy chap who it transpired was an opium addict. He led us on a whirlwind tour of the museum, almost physically dragging us away from anything we paused to look at more closely, until we got to the display of opium boxes that used to belong to various Maharajahs. We practically had to drag him away from those, as he explained their use in great and longing detail. I don't remember how much we tipped him, but I do remember he explained all his various illnesses (most of which sounded to me like opiate withdrawals symptoms) and how the only thing that helped at all was opium. As I said, a strange and remarkable place in many ways.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 04 Oct 2012 #permalink

@ Chris:

IIRC he was never supposed to treat children to begin with in the UK: he was a researcher there and earlier, was being trained as a transplant surgeon in Canada: don't know what happened with that.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 04 Oct 2012 #permalink

@tara

[citation needed]

Denice Walter:

IIRC he was never supposed to treat children to begin with in the UK:

All the more reason to find out if he actually practicing medicine without a license.

@ Chris:

As a surveyor of woo-meisters, I notice that they often talk about 'treating' patients or 'counselling' them although they have no legal status to do so as doctors or psychologists. Of course some of them are 'nutritionists'- according to that so-called profession, nutrients and diets cure EVERYTHING thus they might claim this status spuriously.

Here's what I wonder: since he has prestige, wouldn't he wish to tap it in order to supplement his minuscule income? He might capitalise on his popularity amongst the mommies. He can't be living off book sales and appearances alone. And he is in Texas- how long has he been living in the US without acquiring additional certification that is valid THERE? Before or after he lost his job.

DISCLAIMER: Obviously I have absolutely no information on this and am only speculating about how people would behave in GENERAL- wanting to earn money when jobless.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 04 Oct 2012 #permalink

@ Denice Walter: I don't know about Andy being jobless...he's the Executive Director of the Strategic Autism Initiative:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ongoing-investigations-by-dr-da…

"Dr. Wakefield, executive director of SAI, upon learning of these early results, said, "In a bid to justify their position, the BMJ claim now to have commissioned, and plan to publish, expert analyses rebutting these findings. But they miss the point. BMJ cannot accuse a professional of fraud and then claim that, 'he just reported the findings he was given, but our new experts 13 years later say those findings were wrong.' Whether the findings were wrong or not - a dispute between experts - it confirms there was no justification for their original allegations of fraud."

Didn't I read some where that his Strategic Autism Initiative receives funding of $100,000/year from Generation Rescue?

How about the big time money he derives from the Autism Media Channel?

http://www.corporationwiki.com/Unknown/Unknown/autism-media-channel-llc…

“INADEQUATE AND SUPERFICIAL REASONING” – that is what Justice Mitting criticized the U.K. General Medical Council when it been persuaded by Deer’s arguments to strip a team of reputable doctors of their licenses (incl. Dr. John Walker-Smith and Dr. Wakefield). "

Judge Mitting also wrote: "There is now no respectable body of opinion which supports his hypothesis, that MMR vaccine and autism/enterocolitis are causally linked."

Denice,

IIRC he was never supposed to treat children to begin with in the UK

Day 30 of the GMC hearings, Andrew Wakefield's job description stated:

He will not be involved in the outpatient or inpatient management of patients in the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust. He will not practise as a Consultant Surgeon, Physician or Gastroenterologist as part of this appointment.

It does bear repeating, I think, considering the amount of misinformation flying about on the subject.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 04 Oct 2012 #permalink

@ lilady:

I'm sure that 100K USD doesn't go as far these days as it used to especially when there are two former doctors and three ( I believe) teenaged/ young adult children to provide for. The house is certainly an expense as well. I'm sure that there is an office and assistants- all of which eat up money.
-btw- A & C wear expensive clothes as I have noted. The large car I saw wasn't purchased with loose change either.

@ Krebiozen:

Right. Do you know anything about the training he had in Canada involving intestinal transplantation surgery? I don't think he completed that. I can't recall where I found that.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 04 Oct 2012 #permalink

@ Denice Walter: I think Andy and Carmel have four children.

That Autism Media Channel is a goldmine and his partner is Polly Tommey. You must remember Polly from the Autism Trust U.K. and Autism Trust USA:

http://www.theautismtrustusa.org/

Orac blogged about this organization and their fundraiser boat trip on Lake Travis (scroll down to see the pictures) :-)

http://www.theautismtrustusa.org/news/35-news/78-atusa-boat-tour-of-lak…

So what happened in Lacrosse this afternoon? Did Andy and Jake lead the faithful on a march from the gun shelter to Centennial Hall to heckle Brian Deer? Inquiring minds want to know!

So what happened in Lacrosse this afternoon?

It will be mildly interesting to see whether WXOW-19 follows this up at 10 pm. Actually, make that extra mild.

“Dr. Wakefield, executive director of SAI, upon learning of these early results, said, “In a bid to justify their position, the BMJ claim now to have commissioned, and plan to publish, expert analyses rebutting these findings. But they miss the point. BMJ cannot accuse a professional of fraud and then claim that, ‘he just reported the findings he was given, but our new experts 13 years later say those findings were wrong.’ Whether the findings were wrong or not – a dispute between experts – it confirms there was no justification for their original allegations of fraud.”

I'm having trouble even understanding his logic. The BMJ does not claim that Wakefield 'just reported the findings he was given'; they claim, with a great deal of supporting evidence, that he misreported those findings in a way that cannot be simply passed off as "a dispute between experts."

But then again, this is Fakefield we're talking about. I'm sure he doesn't care how many people see him for what he is, as long as he still has that pathetic residue of people who believe every lie that falls from his lips.

By Antaeus Feldspar (not verified) on 04 Oct 2012 #permalink

Denice,

Do you know anything about the training he had in Canada involving intestinal transplantation surgery?

Nope, not a lot. I seem to remember he was involved in a liver transplantation program somewhere, which surprised me. I'll have a dig around my files tomorrow, right now I need to be unconscious.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 04 Oct 2012 #permalink

-btw-
There is something on Wiki altho' I think I read it somewhere else originally. U of Toronto, studies with animals, on rejection.
UK: liver transplantation.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 04 Oct 2012 #permalink

Ok, I know others have piled into Tara, but she repeats one lie that gets on my nerves.

obtaining confidential medical records that patients’ doctors couldn’t even access

For the umpteenth time: when Wakefield sued Deer for libel, Deer asked for (and received) the children's medical records as part of the discovery phase. He did not steal or illegally access them.

By Julian Frost (not verified) on 04 Oct 2012 #permalink

I'd love to see how Brian Deer kept track of each of the 12 children. I suspect he used his own personal diagrams and charts...being that few (or none) of the children in his Wakefield's study were referred to him and to the Royal Free Hospital through *traditional* channels (from the childrens' own personnel pediatricians).

JABS mommies brought their children to the attention of the lawyer Richard Barr and thence to Wakefield. Some of the JABS mommies referred other mommies and their autistic children to Barr and then they were sent to Wakefield. Those that were recruited live hundreds of miles away from the Royal Free hospital...yet they became part of the study.

IIRC, a GP who was caring for one autistic child had cause to write several times to Barr and/or Wakefield to stop pestering some parents of autistic kids...who did not want their kids to participate in Wakefield's *study*.

But Julian, when do antivaxxers ever bother with factual information?

I really do hope you are eating GMO's and can't reproduce. And please, go buy some roundup and have it for breakfast over your veggies.

By Judith Mercader (not verified) on 05 Oct 2012 #permalink

@DT35

As I posted on the other thread:

Some news and pics have appeared on Facebook regarding the Wakefield “news conference”. I looked at all the pictures Anne Dachel posted and the most people I can see in any one picture is 25 (or 26 counting Anne).

The entire event appears to have taken place outdoors – it was a beautiful day. There are pictures of Wakefield setting up, of his books on display next the podium. Of someone introducing him, then of him speaking, and finally quite a few pics of the faithful having their pictures taken with Wakefield. A pitiful rump indeed. Even Jake couldn’t bother to attend.

By Broken Link (not verified) on 05 Oct 2012 #permalink

@ Broken Link:

Olmsted perseverates on in support of AJW @ AoA.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 05 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Judith - what a wonderful sentiment, I'm sure your family is proud of the way you turned out.

@ dingo 199:

Thanks for the heads up. I've posted several times at the Dachel bot and at John Stone.

I'll be offline for a bit and join you later later. :-)

There once was a mom from Fresno,
who declared, "Nature is my manifesto!"
Vaccines, her child she denied
'till it caught whooping cough and died.
She must have been totally schizo !

By theoldman (not verified) on 18 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Judith

I really do like my honey-nut GMO's !

Oh, dem Golden Rice, so very nice !
Saves childrens' eyes not once but thrice !

By theoldman (not verified) on 18 Oct 2012 #permalink

Hi, this is from India - People are so becoming dumb these days, even after wikileaks, Alex Jones, Webster Tarpley, Adrian Salbuchi etc, have exposed many corruptions in the government, they are still putting their faith on the government and big pharma. If people only see those documentary movies in Youtube like, 'Invisible Empire', 'End game', 'Fall of the Republic', 'Obama deception', 'Loose Change', 'Drugging our children' etc

After studying carefully about vaccinations, I came to the conclusion that the risk of any kind of vaccines is greater than getting the disease unvaccinated. Dr. Andrew Wakefield is not alone, there are many others who have exposed the vaccine industry. If you people only read the most comprehensive and convincing antivaccine book of all - 'Horrors of vaccination exposed', by Chas Higgins, I am sure you'll see the truth. Type in Google, 'Horrors of vaccination exposed'. It is a must read book. Besides, 'The Poisoned Needle', 'Murder by injection', 'Evidence of Harm', 'Hidden dangers in polio vaccine', 'Saying no to vaccines', 'Blood Poisoners', 'A shot in the dark', 'What the pharmaceutical industries don't want you to know about vaccines', 'Against compulsory vaccination', 'Vaccine nation', 'Raising a vaccine free child'. --- If youread these books, you can see there is a big deception in the vaccine industry. Also, search in Google:
vaccination books (english), vactruth, Dr. Rebecca Carley, Dr. Nancy Turner Banks, Dr. Rima Laibow etc.

Hey Sanga: I've studied vaccines as well. I worked as public health nurse/epidemiologist, investigating individual cases and outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases.

I've had the *pleasure* of talking with Rebecca Carley, many times, before she became a practitioner of naturopathy.

Would you care to share with us what your science specialty is...I'm sure we would all be interested in your background.

"The Drugging of Our Children" and "Vaccine Nation" are films by Gary Null; Dr Banks works from a Mexican border town and has the dubious distinction of making her name first amongst hiv/aids denialists before becoming a vocal anti-vaccinationist; Rima Laibow is part of the Natural Solutions Foundation's brain trust along with the infamous Mr Stubblebine ( of "Men Who Stare at Goats" fame) and some lawyer, seeking work.

I think that the other recommendations are self-explanatory. I'm frankly surprised that "Fear of the Invisible" has not made the list.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 25 Oct 2012 #permalink

‘The Poisoned Needle’.... so Sanga, if you are so educated which vaccine is administered intravenously as claimed by the author of that book?

Sanga,

People are so becoming dumb these days

That's true, and many of them display their dumbness by making moronic videos they put on YouTube and writing imbecilic books they self publish. Some of them have websites where they collect discarded medical gibberish, and claim it is the suppressed truth, whale.to for example. It may seem incredible that the material you mention is simply nonsense, but I'm afraid its true.

For example, let's take a look at, ‘Horrors of vaccination exposed’, which you describe as "the most comprehensive and convincing antivaccine book of all". A little Googling reveals the book was written in 1920 by a man with no medical training or background at all. Charles M. Higgins (1854-1929) "was a prominent ink manufacturer and creator of Higgins American India Ink. He was the head of the Charles M. Higgins Company, manufacturers of the drawing ink he invented" (from the Brooklyn Historical Society). Do you really think this is a reliable source of information on vaccines in the 21st century? Even if any of the complaints about vaccines in the book were accurate, vaccines have immeasurably improved since then. A large part of the book is taken up by complaints that the smallpox vaccine was ineffective. Since smallpox has since been eradicated, mainly by vaccination, I think we can safely ignore Higgins' rants.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 25 Oct 2012 #permalink

You don't need to be a rocket scientist or super qualified person to figure out Vaccines are damaging our kids, just a simple reasoning and common sense would do. A perfectly healthy child takes a shot and within hours is seriously ill. This is the story that most parents of vaccine damaged kids have to tell. It is true that myriads of junk information are on the net, but some are real life documentaries as is this one..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m_1X_iLVGA
....please watch this even if you are somewhat reluctant to this kind of material.

I have seen first hand in my locality that unvaccinated kids are healthy because many of the diseases that were used to be a serious threat in the past are not a threat anymore because of improved living conditions and sanitation. (Of course, the vaccine industries still see it as a serious threat )

Also, you don't need to be highly educated to know that drinking unclean water can make you sick because there are germs. It is highly reasonable to doubt that animal cells in vaccines could be harmful in humans along with the chemicals like aluminum, formaldehyde, MSG etc because these are known toxic chemicals.
http://www.naturalnews.com/035431_vaccine_ingredients_side_effects_MSG…

Regarding 'smallpox has been eradicated by vaccination', you can read this...
http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2010/11/03/small-pox-big-lie/

Ok, I saw a mistake in my previous post, should be......It is highly reasonable to suspect that animal cells in vaccines could be harmful in humans......

Check out this one, which is posted in the comments....
http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/about/

Dr Abigail Abbott
Posted October 11, 2010 at 11:43 PM

I am an Osteopath in South Australia. I have been actively researching the Vaccination debate for many years. I have made many observations in my practice, including neurological/liver/bowel reactions to Vaccinations. I have a solid group of unvaccinated babies/kids in my practice, so comparison is relatively easy.

I had a new patient today, a 10 month old baby- the mother was totally pro vaccine, had no issues with it. I asked if she noticed any reactions, she announced – “She had the Rotavirus vaccine, the next day her poo was green and slimy, the day after she was bleeding from the anus”……it amazed me that parents are so indoctrinated to be pro vaccine they ignore massive red flags like this.

My question is where do I go from here? How can I support your organization or contribute articles etc?

Thanks for your time

Dr Abigail Abbott, BSc(OstSc) BSc(Clin Sc)MAOA

Wow, Sanga, really convincing!! Except it's not. "Goodwife Proctor gave me a nasty look in the village square at noontime and by mid-afternoon my horse had thrown a shoe!! How can people be so indoctrinated that they ignore the clear signs of witchcraft??"

If the "evidence" you have for us is that one osteopath with a clear case of confirmation bias holds anti-vaccine views, it's no wonder you don't convince anybody.

By Antaeus Feldspar (not verified) on 26 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Sanga:

It is highly reasonable to suspect that animal cells in vaccines could be harmful in humans

Except the vaccines are processed and any animal cells in vaccines are likely to be biologically inert, so it's actually pretty stupid to suspect that.

After studying carefully about vaccinations, I came to the conclusion that the risk of any kind of vaccines is greater than getting the disease unvaccinated.

Oh sure, if you think looking $h!t up on Google for a few hours constitutes "studying carefully about vaccines". Also, you're wrong. Vaccines, like any other medical product, are tested and monitored thoroughly. We know that negative events from vaccines are vanishingly rare while the diseases they guard against can kill.
You aren't the first anti-vaxxer to come here and make a series of easily debunked claims only to be told you're spouting guff and I doubt you'll be the last.

By Julian Frost (not verified) on 26 Oct 2012 #permalink

A perfectly healthy child takes a shot and within hours is seriously ill.

And if even a statistically signifcant minority of all perfectly healthy children who are vaccinated become seriously ill within hours of being immunized you'd have the beginnings of an argument.

As serious adverse events following immunization is known to be all but vanishingly rare however, you don't.

@ Krebiozen:

Here's something which I have heard hinted about previously by woo-meisters:
today @ AoA, Anonymous writes that flu vaccines cause illness and death at nursing homes.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 26 Oct 2012 #permalink

Strange - the first part of the link to the Rapid Cycle Analysis works. I so often see claims that VAERS is the only system in place for monitoring vaccine safety that I think the RCA needs to be more widely publicized:

RCA data come from participating managed care organizations that include more than 8.8 million people annually, representing nearly 3% of the United States population.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 26 Oct 2012 #permalink

Sanga:

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist or super qualified person to figure out Vaccines are damaging our kids, just a simple reasoning and common sense would do.

Well, isn't fortunate that I have a bachelor of science in aerospace engineering. I did work for a time on a missile program before switching to an airplane program. Ah, yes, that good ol' common sense and reasoning tells me that youtube links are useless, writings from places that sell supplements and blathering from the insane lying duo of Miller and Stone at Childhealthsafety can be safely ignored.

Sanga, your "education" in vaccines is like the guy who thinks Beowolf is a real history showing dinosaurs lived with humans in Europe.

....We know that negative events from vaccines are vanishingly rare.....
.....a statistically signifcant minority of all perfectly healthy children who are vaccinated become seriously ill ....

Pro-vaxxers are known to obdurately ignore the chemicals in the vaccines are harmful (like the SV40 in Polio vaccine, Mercury, Formaldehyde etc) and they stubbornly refuse to listen to the woos and cries of the parents of vaccine damaged kids. If vaccine promoters, health workers, statisticians would only open their hearts a little bit to their cries, those so called minority will become much more noticeable since many vaccine damaged parents (in third world countries often poor and afraid to question higher authorities) don't complain or report to those who hold an unshakable faith that 'Vaccines are safe', and so they are off the records.

Look at these parents who are sure that their kids are harmed by the vaccines in an Autism Conference, they are too significant to ignore.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YkUoNAzG48

"woos and cries"

Excellent.

Look at these parents who are sure that their kids are harmed by the vaccines in an Autism Conference, they are too significant to ignore.

There is a difference between being ignored and being informed that that your fervent belief has already been examined and found to be wholly wanting. This isn't the question whether "Veronica Mars" should be saved from cancellation.

@Sanga

Here's a little info about formaldehyde that you might be interested in. You could also read more here, or over at Just the Vax. All three have plenty of links to actual science, rather than conspiracy-mongering supplement pushers.

Pro-vaxxers are known to obdurately ignore the chemicals in the vaccines are harmful (like the SV40 in Polio vaccine, Mercury, Formaldehyde etc) and they stubbornly refuse to listen to the woos and cries of the parents of vaccine damaged kids.

No, Sanga, they don't: No one is arguing that mercury of itself is non-toxic at all levels of exposure, or that formaldehyde of itself is non-toxic at all levels of exposure.
Unlike you, however, they're aware that the dose makes the poison, and the amount of mercury, formaldehyde, aluminum etc. a child is exposed to as the result of immunizations is far below a toxic dose. (For example, as Orac points out in The toxin gambit revisited, the greatest amount of formaldehyde a child could be exposed to as the result of immunization is 5 times less that the amount of formaldehyde normally present in that child's bloodstream. )

As for any faiure to listen to the "cries of the parents of vaccine damaged kids", please provide credible evidence demonstrating their childrens' 'damage' actually is a direct result of having been immunized. Then we can talk. (Hint: noting a temporal association--the supposed damage was detected subsequent to vaccination--isn't sufficient.)

I just knew that "Sanga" was going to pull the *sanitation* gambit about decreasing incidence and prevalence of vaccine-preventable-diseases.

"I have seen first hand in my locality that unvaccinated kids are healthy because many of the diseases that were used to be a serious threat in the past are not a threat anymore because of improved living conditions and sanitation. (Of course, the vaccine industries still see it as a serious threat )"

So Sanga...

-Which childhood vaccines protect against diseases that are spread via the fecal-oral route?

-Which childhood vaccines protect against diseases that are spread via airborne/droplet or exposure to oral secretions routes?

-Which childhood vaccines protect against diseases that are spread via exposure to infected blood and/or through sexual contact routes?

By the way, your reference to Dr. Rebecca Carley has me *intrigued*. In the past I spoke to her, many times, on the telephone...before she became a naturopathy practitioner. I found that she was NOT a reliable source of science information. Do tell us what you find her advice to be correct.
(Cue in..."vaccines are weapons of mass destruction")

Look at these parents who are sure that their kids are harmed by the vaccines in an Autism Conference, they are too significant to ignore.

Do you also believe that the individuals who caliming they've been abducted by extra-terrestrials to be taken aboard faster-than-light spacecraft and subjected to physical examination (with the de rigeur anal probing and implantation) are too significant to ignore, and therefore such abductions have actually taken place as claimed?

Do you believe that the people claiming to communicate with the dead are too significant to ignore, and therefore spiritualism is a real phenomenon?

Do you belevie the poepl claiming the earth is less than 6000 years old and that all living species we see today descend from pairs of ancestors who escaped a global catastrophic flood aboard a single large vessel and that therefore Genesis is a literal account of actual historic events?

If not, exactly what is your criteria for determining when people claiming something is true becomes significant enough to argue it is true, and when it isn't significant enough to do so?

Since when is SV40 a chemical?

Look at these parents who are sure that their kids are harmed by the vaccines in an Autism Conference, they are too significant to ignore.

There are also people who are sure that the Earth is 6000 years old. There are others who are sure that waving your hands in a specific pattern can heal people. Some people are sure that the moon landing is a hoax.

Are these people "too significant to ignore"? How many people does it take for you to believe something is true?

Those of us who live in the real world prefer evidence-based conclusions rather than blindly accepting what people say they are sure about.

Sanga:

Pro-vaxxers are known to obdurately ignore the chemicals in the vaccines are harmful (like the SV40 in Polio vaccine, Mercury, Formaldehyde etc) and they stubbornly refuse to listen to the woos and cries of the parents of vaccine damaged kids.

SV40 was removed from vaccines fifty years ago. Thimerosal stopped being used in pediatric vaccines a over a decade ago. Your own body produces more formaldehyde than is any vaccine.

Your "education" is very much out of date. Do something new and original, actually produce some data. Since I have a child who was harmed by a real disease (before the vaccine was available) it is up to you to tell us the relative risks of the vaccines to the diseases.

Give us the title, journal and date of the PubMed indexed paper from someone who has not had their license to practice medicine revoked that shows the MMR vaccine is more dangerous than measles, and that the DTaP vaccine is more dangerous than diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis.

Sanga,
I'm just curious, are you at all concerned about the heavy metals contained in Ayurvedic medicines? In this study the amount of mercury in some Ayurvedic medicines is 28,200 micrograms per gram, giving a daily dose of over 1,000 micrograms, which is often recommended for children. How do you think this compares to the amount of mercury there used to be in vaccines?

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 26 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Chris

SV40 was removed from vaccines fifty years ago.

Not to mention that SV40 has been found even in people who have not received polio vaccine. Nor has anyone actually been able to find any causal connection between SV40 and cancers in humans (which is what the whole SV40 brouhaha is about) despite decades of study.

Oh I see Sanga is citing "Child Health Safety". This is operated by Clifford Miller, Andrew Wakefield's lawyer. Miller is a filthy wretch of a man who offers false information and relentless defamation behind the screen of anonymity.

However, I can prove that the site is published by him because his contacts betrayed to me his IP information. They were just disgusted by his conduct.

Can you imagine someone claiming to speak for children's health and safety who doesn't even have the personal integrity to identify himself and make clear to anyone reading his information that it is generated by nothing more than an embittered buffoon?

Of course, nobody of moderate intelligence would be fooled by his material, but of course not everyone is of moderate intelligence, and it's these that Clifford Miller preys upon.

By Brian Deer (not verified) on 26 Oct 2012 #permalink

Wow Sanga, Gish Gallop much?

I do want to call it misinformation. Because it is. Have any evidence to the contrary?

@Sanga - it has already been explained to you that crank websites and propaganda videos on Youtube are not reliable sources of data. If you wish to be taken seriously you're going to have to do better than that.

By Edith Prickly (not verified) on 26 Oct 2012 #permalink

Call it spectacularly stupid misinformation if you want, but again let me share these links…..

FTFY. Argument by YouTube with a garnish of Mike Adams and Jeff Rense cuts exactly zero ice.

Sanga, what part of "title, journal and date of PubMed indexed paper" do you not understand?

@ Sanga: How about answering the questions I posed to you above, about the *relationship* of improved sanitation and the decrease/elimination of diseases through vaccination?

-Which childhood vaccines protect against diseases that are spread via the fecal-oral route?

-Which childhood vaccines protect against diseases that are spread via airborne/droplet or exposure to oral secretions routes?

-Which childhood vaccines protect against diseases that are spread via exposure to infected blood and/or through sexual contact routes?

About Clifford Miller. He has in the past, teamed up with John D. Stone. Stone recently follows the carpet-bombing Dachel bot with utterly dumb posts on blogs. Stone NEVER responds to "lilady" when I post back at him.

http://wellknowntrolls.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/clifford-g-miller/

@ Sanga:

Why isn't Rebecca Carley practicing as a medical doctor now?

Okay-- it's misinformation.

Have you got any actual evidence?

By the way, I noticed you haven't answered the question of whether or not you believe that the people claiming the earth is less than 6000 years old and all living creatures descend from breeding pairs who survived a global catastrophic flood aboard a single large wooden vessel or people claiming to have been abducted by extraterrestrials for forced medical procedures aboard faster than light spacecraft are too significant to ignore. Are they?

Over at the 'toxin' thread, Adam and Todd point out that Sanga gets the MSG idea from Adams.
Here, BD shows the Miller influence.
Mller hangs out with John Stone** says lilady.

All of which illustrates that anti-vaccinationists- as well as the more generalised alt med prevarication squad- consists of a very small number of entrenched and compromised individuals who enable each other in their fevered attempts to mislead the public via their own dis-information highway.

I should probably create a flow chart of all of the sickening interconnections betwixt and between these awful people.

** who -btw- was lovely to yours truly. I can't understand why because I insulted him.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 26 Oct 2012 #permalink

@ Sanga: You missed this YouTube interview with Dr. Rebecca Carley about "Obamacare".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo-4WjVsCss

She says she is a "Medical Doctor". Is she?

She says her son was "brain damaged by vaccinations". Was he?

Why don't you contact her to find out how her son is doing (he's about 18 years old now)?

Sanga,
Doesn't it bother you that you are spreading lies? This isn't a game, real people, or even worse their children, end up dead because some people believe this nonsense.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 26 Oct 2012 #permalink

This part of the thread is going to look weird if 'Sanga' turns out to be one of the usual trolls under a new nym, and is deleted for sockpuppetry.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 26 Oct 2012 #permalink

I have arrived at the inevitable conclusion that vaccination is an organised criminal enterprise dressed up as disease promotion. As far as I am concerned, the entire vaccine industry needs to be shut down for good to keep us and our children safe.

By Erwin Alber (not verified) on 12 Nov 2012 #permalink

"I have arrived at the inevitable conclusion that vaccination is an organised criminal enterprise dressed up as disease promotion. As far as I am concerned, the entire vaccine industry needs to be shut down for good to keep us and our children safe."

(Translation)

I'm clueless about immunology, bacteriology, virology and the epidemiology of vaccine-preventable-diseases.

I've been hitting the bottle again and I'm seeing pink elephants and vaccine conspiracies.

@ lilady,

Best comment of the (short) day :D

Alain

@Erwin Alber: YAAAAAWWWWWNNNN.
You're like a CD player stuck on repeat, Erwin. Time to play a different tune.

By Julian Frost (not verified) on 12 Nov 2012 #permalink

That's ok, Erwin.

We all arrived at the inevitable conclusion that you're batcrap insane a long time ago. You continue to prove us right each time you post.