The Bat Signal goes up! Antivaccinationists planning on crashing the CDC's Twitter party for National Infant Immunization Week

I'm doing my best to channel lilady. Please feel free to email me for some ready made tweets

lilady really should be on Twitter. :-)

I don't think my @freesodor anti-steamie oligarchy twitter feed would be much help.....but I'll do what I can.

Did my best for now. Need to get off twitter for a bit, though, to get some other stuff done.

Anne Dachel will just be plugging her new books...

Jeez, I'm in enough trouble already with the Dear Hubby because of my time on the internet.

Dipping in a toe...

It looks as though the antivax trolls have already arrived at #CDCvax.

They've been at it for a couple hours, now. A lot of the same old tropes: "if vaccines work..." "VICP paid out millions" "the schedule hasn't been studied" and so on. Also been a couple people trying to say that VICP is funded by taxpayer money. When I pointed out that the manufacturer pays for VICP, Ginger tried to salvage the argument by saying they pass that cost on to the consumer.

read this one yet?
http://autisminnb.blogspot.in/2009/11/respectful-insolence-is-science-b…

Anti-vaxxers are being drowned out/spoken over by reasonable participants. Ginger Taylor is getting more shrill and whiny.

I'm following, but my phone won't let me due the twitter party thing.

my phone won't let me spell either.

The pseudoscience and opinions are flying freely, facts and studies scarce.

I'm following the twitter party now.

I thought that Ginger Taylor and the other parents of "vaccine-injured children" devoted all their time to "recovering" their autistic kids. Their multiple "tweets" indicate otherwise.

I'm sure you've seen xkcd cartoon but this post really reminded me of it http://xkcd.com/386/

Well, I must have ticked off the anti-vax people over there....account suspended (for a second time). Mission Accomplished.

The AVers just keep coming and spewing the same old crap without any evidence provided to back it up. The weird theories they spread are just... weird.

For the record, I do not like the twitter format.

What on Earth could you have done Lawrence that I didn't do? I told Ginger Taylor to stop lying and TACA is promoting child abuse.

@Science Mom - no idea, but my account is currently suspended. I appealed to Twitter & explained that it was part of a discussion about vaccines...no idea if / when it'll be re-instated. The Troublesome Trucks will be so disappointed to miss their daily dose of anti-Steamie Propaganda against the Steamie Oligarchy....

@Dorit - I hate that format as well. Horrible.

I agree with Dorit about Twitter. Maybe I just getting old, but rapid fire comments with all sorts of ampersands and hash tags (and their links) is just too divergent for me to process easily or quickly.

Arjun -

I hadn't seen that one before, but I'm glad you pointed out. I knew that Harold L. Doherty, who authors that blog, is a tremendously biased source - but that post of his drove home to me just how deliberately dishonest he is.

If you Google "site:scienceblogs.com/insolence harold doherty", you'll find out that Harold had been commenting on RI since at least November of 2008. Where in his post of November 2009 does he disclose "oh, by the way, I've been commenting at that blog repeatedly over the past year"? Nowhere, that's where. That's a pretty big withholding of information.

Also, look at what Harold includes as number 3 on his list, and what he has to say about it. "Orac coasted on this one, simply directing readers to another blog..." Uh, yes. Because that blog entry is what's called an announcement. When something is going on, and you think your readers will be interested in it, you are allowed (except maybe under the strange rules of Harold L. Doherty) to tell your readers about the event and where they can go to read or otherwise participate. Even if that "where" happens to be, yes, another blog.

If you're going to rigidly insist on counting a simple announcement of about fifty words as content, just so that you can complain about it being thin content, then you should be consistent - you should count ALL blog entries. Harold, after including a simple announcement, then chooses to skip five successive entries towards the end of the list! Harold might as well be waving a flag that reads "Cherries Picked Here".

Our old pal Harold L. Doherty has been busy posting (excusing) another murdering mother of an autistic child:

http://thepoxesblog.wordpress.com/2014/04/26/nothing-justifies-the-murd…

Well...
after day-long sampling of anti-vax tweets at #CDC, I can't say that I'm particularly impressed with their effort- not that I EVER am- but I expected them, at the very least, to rally their cohorts and either flood the place and/ or go absolutely batsh!t , floridly mad.
Seriously, if that's a crash.. nah, it's more like more like a whimper.

@Denice Walter

My favorites were the ones who asked what they thought was a "gotcha" question, were given a link in response, then ask the same stupid question again, without ever reading the link provided. But reading it hard, y'know.

I figure I was blocked by at least 30 AV'ers yesterday on Twitter.

Good times.

I must have been doing something wrong. I wasn't blocked or suspended.

" Maybe I just getting old, but rapid fire comments with all sorts of ampersands and hash tags (and their links) is just too divergent for me to process easily or quickly."

A potential sign of age is misreading words (for some reason I saw this as "vapid fire comments". :)

That twitter feed has now devolved into the drivelling of a few obnoxious anti-vaxxers (redundant I know). Curt Linderman really fancies himself as some kind of warrior/badass but in trying to project that, just comes off as very unstable.

@ScienceMom - twitter account suspended again....hope I can get back to my anti-steamie, Sodor-related news soon.....lol

Otherwise, that was a bit fun yesterday and the anti-vax crazy was in full effect.

Why was it suspended Lawrence? I just don't recall anything worthy of that.

I'm sorry I missed the Bat Signal (Vac' Signal?), that was awesome.

Someone who I responded to reported me for "sending unsolicited tweets"

How does that work during a Twitter "party"? And what do you have against Thomas the Tank Engine?

@ScienceMom - no idea.....guess I managed to ruffle a few feathers.....lol, Three straight years of being subjected to Thomas - got a bit of a burr around the obvious parallels to Victorian Class structure and the dictatorship of Sir Top'Em Hat (Steamies vs. Troublesome Trucks) - it just screamed out for a anarchistic rabble-rouser, with a touch of old-style Marxism.

So, the latest from AoA? Wakefield is threatening to sue Emily Willingham....guess we'll be seeing another "Wakefield Offense Fund" soon.

@Lawrence

Already exists. It's called DAIR, a 501(c)3 with the likely purpose of funneling tax-free money to cover his legal fees.

Also, if he follows through with Emily, it's yet another opportunity for discovery on him. And it also brings up the question: why did he never take any action to defend himself when, y'know, he was being investigated the first time round? Oh, right...publicity. Gotta polish that fading star.

They're still at it. prof Reiss and a few others are doing well against the forces of darkness, but could perhaps use a hand.

It’s called DAIR, a 501(c)3 with the likely purpose of funneling tax-free money to cover his legal fees.

Note that Arranga has been unceremoniously dumped. It must be awfully cozy having a board meeting in the fancy offices (PDF).

Oh, wait, none of them are in Texas. One can see how Tierney would support a fellow fraud, though.

Note that Arranga has been unceremoniously dumped

The Arranga I tried to friend on facebook?!?!?! (just wanted to argue with him)...

Alain

Regarding Tierney:

"Fascinatingly, in our interview, Frechione told me that, since Darkness, Tierney has apparently teamed up with the equally discredited Andrew Wakefield. Readers may recall that in 1998, Wakefield published in the Lancet a highly publicized paper throwing doubt on the safety of the vaccine commonly used to prevent measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR). But Wakefield had failed to disclose what the Lancet editor later termed 'fatal' conflicts of interest, and ten of his twelve co-authors retracted the paper. A subsequent ethics investigation by the UK General Medical Council found Wakefield guilty of professional misconduct on numerous counts, including undisclosed conflicts of interest and research abuse of subjects, including children. In 2010, Wakefield was struck off the medical register in the U.K., meaning that he can no longer practice as a physician there. As this article was in press, the editors of the British Medical Journal concluded that Wakefield's Lancet article 'was in fact an elaborate fraud.'

"How interesting that Tierney might now be teamed up with someone who is alleged to have unethically harmed vaccine campaigns through problematic reporting. I was relieved to learn that Darkness in El Dorado does not appear to have resulted in harm to vaccine campaigns in South America, at least according to vaccinologists there with whom I was put in touch with the help of Sam Katz, co-inventor of the measles vaccine (personal email correspondence with Jon Andrus, April 23, 2009, and with Ciro de Quadros, April 21, 2009). But it is hard to know what damage Tierney might do, worldwide, with a new book on vaccines, if taken as seriously next time around as last—as seriously as people like Turner and Frechione still seem to take him."

Did someone mention D.A.I.R.? Andy Wakefield...wanking for coins, again....he's got big ones.

http://californiajam.org/tag/andrew-wakefield/

That's pathetic lilady. What kind of "research" does Wakefield need donations for? He has no hospital/academic affiliations in which to conduct any research in his field.

What kind of “research” does Wakefield need donations for?

Research? They're much more candid elsewehere.

Who the heck is "Child Health Safety" on the #CDCVax discussion? They have a very thin skin and block people often. Tanners Dad Tim seems to quote a lot of references without having read them.

No Research for Andy, Science Mom. The money goes right to him to fund his lush lifestyle and pay his legal bills.

Only in Oz (or in the alternate world of AoA) is Andy's Defense Fund used to institute harassing defamation suits.

Sheepmilker:

"Who the heck is “Child Health Safety” on the #CDCVax discussion? They have a very thin skin and block people often."

http://jdc325.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/anti-vaccine-fail/

"Tanners Dad Tim seems to quote a lot of references without having read them."

http://thepoxesblog.wordpress.com/2014/04/27/20-reasons-youre-misleadin…

My twitter account is still suspended - pretty pissed that these people would complain, especially since it was supposed to be an open discussion.

Thanks Lilady.