State Farm hires, then drops The Richmeister. No more antivaccine copies—for now

By oracknows on September 24, 2014.

I’m a State Farm customer. I have been for a very long time. To be honest, I’m not sure if it’s inertia or the discounts that State Farm gives me because I’ve been with the company for so long. On the other had, I’ve had no complaints. State Farm’s service has been fine, and on the couple of occasions I had to make a claim the company didn’t jerk me around. Even better, it didn’t raise my rates because of it. So I had no plans to change my home or auto insurance to another company. At least, such was the case until I saw this:

Yes, that’s Rob Schneider reprising his role as Richard Laymer, better known as the “The Richmeister” or the “Makin’ Copies” guy, from his time on Saturday Night Live in the 1990s. It’s a seemingly innocuous enough commercial, not particularly funny but not offensive. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of Rob Schneider himself. In fact, over the last couple of years, Schneider has been a not infrequent topic of this very blog for his very vocal antivaccine proclivities and political activism.

Schneider first came to my attention two years ago, when he made his antivaccine views nationally known through his opposition to California Bill AB 2109. AB 2109, as you recall, was a bill, eventually passed into law, that made it more difficult for parents to obtain a philosophical exemption for their children for school vaccine mandates. Basically, all the bill required was that parents had to see a health care professional to have him or her sign a form, in essence, acknowledging having received informed consent before opting their children out of vaccination requirements. It was a good idea, designed to address a deficiency in California law that allowed parents just to sign a piece of paper to opt out of vaccines. Basically, it was easier to opt out with a philosophical exemption than it was to fulfill vaccination requirements, which was thought to lead some parents who weren’t antivaccine to “take the easy way out” and simply sign the form to get their kids in school when they hadn’t gotten around to getting them vaccinated. AB 2109 was proposed as a means to stop that practice and to persuade fence sitters that vaccines had benefits.

Unfortunately, the bill was amended to allow naturopaths to be among the health care professionals. Then when he signed the bill into law Governor Jerry Brown watered it down with a signing statement in which he instructed the Department of Public Health to allow for a separate religious exemption that didn’t require a health care professional to sign the form. I still can’t figure out how he got away with that, because there was no provision for such a separate exemption in the bill. Brown’s instructions clearly went counter to the intent of the legislature. How they weren’t illegal, I have no idea. Of course, I’m not a lawyer, but I do know that the result of Brown’s cowardice—yes, cowardice—was a profound betrayal of the children of California. We’re seeing the results of Brown’s irresponsibility in the continued high rate of personal belief exemptions in a number of pockets in California, particularly southern California, as documented in, of all places, The Hollywood Reporter. Not surprisingly, the further result is continued outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases facilitated by areas of low vaccine uptake. By watering down AB 2109, Brown guaranteed that it would do virtually nothing to reverse this trend, and, disappointingly, it hasn’t.

Scheider, of course, was one of the most vocal celebrity opponents of AB 2109, laying down some major and historically ignorant analogies in the process:

Today California passed a law to force parents to get a Doc's permission to not vaccinate their kids or they can't attend school! Nazi's

— Rob Schneider (@RobSchneider) June 28, 2012

After that battle was seemingly lost by antivaccinationists (although Brown fixed that), he moved on to become more active with the antivaccine Canary Party, which is well-known to readers of this blog, which led me to wonder if he was auditioning to take over Jenny McCarthy’s job as the world’s most famous (and dumbest) celebrity antivaccinationist. Certainly his video with the Canary Party about a year ago that laid down all sorts of misinformation about the Vaccine Court was as brain dead ignorant as anything Jenny McCarthy has ever produced. (Well, maybe not quite.) In any case, most recently there was little doubt that Schneider’s antivaccine conspiracy mongering went deep into Alex Jones territory, as he bought the “CDC whistleblower” manufactroversy hook, line, and sinker.

So you can imagine my chagrin (and that of a lot of other pro-science activists) when Rob Schneider was seen starring in commercials for State Farm. Personally, I was rather late to the party in that I heard about it, but before I could blog about it I learned that State Farm had dropped Scheider from its commercial campaign:

A social media campaign called for the insurance company to ditch the ad

State Farm Insurance will no longer run a television advertisement starring Rob Schneider because of the actor's anti-vaccination views. The move comes after a social media campaign called for Schneider to be dropped as a spokesperson.

Phil Supple, the insurance company's director of public affairs, told PR Week, “[Schneider's] ad has unintentionally been used as a platform for discussion unrelated to the products and services we provide,” he said. “With that, we are working to remove the ad from our rotation at this time.”

Representatives for both Schneider and State Farm have not yet responded to TheWrap‘s request for comment.

Thanks to pro-science parody accounts like Food Hunk, Science Babe, and Chow Babe, with posts like this:

Post by Chow Babe.

There was a prolonged campaign on Twitter and Facebook, as described by Chow Babe. Basically, the #DropRobScheider hashtag, among others, was used to promote messages critical of State Farm’s decision to hire Rob Schneider, although what I saw more was just a whole lot of Tweets critical of State Farm. The end result was that the ads featuring Rob Schneider were dropped by State Farm. They’re taking them out of the rotation of ads made for this new ad campaign featuring old SNL characters.

Predictably, the result is that antivaccine loons went absolutely berserk. For example:

@doritmi @StateFarm Well played, the medical fascists won, liberty and freedom lost

— Wayne Rohde (@waynerohde) September 22, 2014

Meanwhile, there have been lots of boycott threats:

And I will never, ever buy insurance from State Farm. If they were my insurer, I'd dump them and tell them why. http://t.co/wqtsEld4O5

— Vaccine Epidemic (@vaccineepidemic) September 23, 2014

Time to boycott State Farm. If you have State Farm policies, time to research alternatives and change companies.... http://t.co/1R2GKrfbFQ

— VaxTruth.org (@vaxtruth) September 22, 2014

In a way, I’m glad I waited a few days after hearing rumblings of State Farm having unleashed The Richmeister on an unsuspecting public, because the outcome allows some observations. First, Schneider is determining that his antivaccine activism has consequences. Now, having had people come after me at work for my science advocacy and criticism of quackery and antivaccination views, I’m very sensitive to the concern I’ve seen expressed that this campaign was misguided. I might even have agreed if people were trying to prevent Schneider from getting gigs doing standup, a movie, or TV show. For instance, even though Mayim Balik is a bona fide antivaccine loon and “holistic mom,” I have no desire to see anyone try to get her fired from her gig on Big Bang Theory, which is strictly to play a role on a sitcom. Although I was not happy to see Jenny McCarthy get a high profile gig on The View, I wasn’t calling for her dismissal. She didn’t last too long, either, having been fired after only one season, but it all had nothing to do with vaccines.

This, however, is different. Companies can choose whomever they wish to represent themselves, to be their public face, but they also should be made aware when they have made a mistake and chosen someone who actually is harmful to their image and business. State Farm is an insurance company. One of its product lines is health insurance. It is incompatible with its business and contrary to the company’s mission to feature a vocal antivaccine advocate as one of its spokespersons, particularly given how much misinformation Schneider spreads. It’s one thing to go after a private individual at his or her job, as antivaccinationists have done to people like Dorit Reiss and, yes, me. Someone hired specifically to do an ad campaign to sell a company’s product when part of that product is diametrically opposed to what that person normally promotes, as was the case with Rob Schneider and State Farm? That’s a different matter.

If Schneider had been hired to hawk beer, a car, a computer, a headphone, or, yes, a copy machine, I doubt that anyone would have much cared or said much of anything. Even after Jenny McCarthy was hired for The View, I don’t recall there being much, if any, effort to get her recalled. Even in this case, in a statement by Chow Babe after State Farm made its announcement, the main thrust of the effort started by the Chow Babe community and the other “hunk” and “babe” parodies of the Food Babe was not to get start a boycott of Schneider or State Farm, but rather this:

Our best expected outcome when this campaign was launched simultaneously in all groups on Friday morning, Sept. 19, 10am EST, (2pm GMT,) was for Mr. Schneider to publicly state that his opinions are just that—opinions, and to always trust your primary care physician when it comes to matters of your health. Instead, Mr. Schneider tweeted a link hours later to an 18-month-old interview with a Canadian magazine that promotes “natural” health solutions. In the article, he states the U.S. vaccination program is a human rights issue, where, despite the mass of scientific consensus and empirical evidence, that somehow vaccines are not responsible for the eradication of some of the worst contagious diseases. Additionally, he continues with the concept of “vaccine injured,” a belief with no evidential acknowledgment by the mainstream medical community.

And this:

Our next best expected outcome was that State Farm would announce that Mr. Schneider was simply an actor portraying a character who raises awareness of their services, and as such, his personal opinions about vaccination is not necessarily theirs.

I must admit, though, that the above statement sounds rather disingenuous given the release of this video on September 19, which explicitly called on viewers to hit State Farm’s social media and for customers to call State Farm agents and tell the company that an antivaccine loon like Rob Schneider should not be representing their company, which is a perfectly acceptable message that those who started this campaign seem to want to disavow now:

This video sure comes across as calling for State Farm to pull Schneider’s ads, no mention of State Farm or Rob Schneider just issuing a statement. Chow Babe et al should just own their message and be straight that that's what they wanted. There's nothing wrong with protesting when a company chooses a star to do an advertising campaign when that star's activism runs counter to the company's products and image. State Farm screwed up, and there's nothing wrong with pointing that out and asking the company to fix its mistake.

Obviously, State Farm understood the campaign as wanting it to drop Rob Schneider. So it went one better than just disavowing Schneider as an actor hired to sell their services whose opinions are not necessarily the company’s and dropped the ad campaign. This wasn’t one of the group’s best expected outcomes (mainly because of the collateral damage to others who did the commercial with Schneider, who would not get residuals), but it was a powerful message that companies selling health care products like health insurance should be careful not to use actors whose central message is anti-vaccine and thus inimical to health promotion. I guess I’ll be sticking with State Farm after all. And Schneider, despite his relative lack of discernable talent, will probably do just fine as a performer as long as no company having anything to do with health and wellness makes such an epic failure of due diligence as to hire someone like Rob Schneider to be their public face. I mean seriously. Can't State Farm Google? Schneider's antivaccine stance is described in his Wikipedia entry!

If another similar company makes the same mistake, I’m sure it will be reminded.

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And once again, the anti-vax cadre shows its integrity in the logic and reason in its responses to the ad pull. Not.

Next up (I hope) is to convince the United Way to unlist the "National Vaccine Information Center" (in quotes because they are a wretchedly anti-vaccine collection of miscreants): https://www.facebook.com/welovegv/photos/a.1381768752093176.1073741827…

There is now a similar effort underway- though not quite as unified yet- to get the United Way of Washington DC to stop giving money to the anti-vaccine group the NVIC.

https://www.facebook.com/unitedwaynca?fref=nf

I have heard people who do not support pseudoscience but did do combat it either referred to as "shruggies." It is nice to know there is an active community of people on social media not willing to shrug anymore.

As a customer of State Farm as well, I made my feelings known to my local agent, send a message through State Farm's website, and also posted on their FaceBook page.

I was happy to see them take action so quickly. An organization that has a vested interest in Public and Individual Health, should not be hiring two-bit actors with serious anti-science and anti-vaccine credentials....

Of course, I'm sure they didn't realize what they were getting into, because it is obvious that the whole campaign was just based around old Saturday Night Live skits....

A. I'm pretty sure, and have said elsewhere, that Governor Brown's addition is illegal and would not survive court scrutiny if anyone sues: http://www.uchastings.edu/news/articles/2013/10/reiss-viewpoint-lawsign…

B. Well said about Mr. Schneider. I hope the campaign to get United Way to stop supporting NVIC is also successful.

Since the ad in question also included expectant parents, it was particularly chilling to know what Schneider thought about putting that baby at risk.

But good on State Farm for acting quickly. Good neighbors vaccinate.

This is particularly sensitive to me, since I have a nephew who battled leukemia for several years. He needed the herd to protect him. They did, he's in remission, and he's up-to-date on vaccines now. But lots of other vulnerable people remain at risk from these bad ideas peddled by anti-vaxxers.

If the anti-vaxers think this means that "liberty and freedom lost" I would ask if they would expect an insurance company to hire an actor who was a spokesperson for a campaign to get people to not wear seatbelts.

Mysterious Virus Spreading Across U.S. and Canada And Primarily Affecting Vaccinated Children
By: WakingTimes

WhatReallyHappened News

It’s being considered a severe respiratory virus known as EV-D68. It hits hard and fast and has already created an outbreak in Colorado, Missouri, Utah, Kansas, Illinois, Ohio, and four more states in the Midwest. It has also crossed over the Canada with confirmed cases in Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario. Although there is no known vaccine for the virus, ironically a common theme has been discovered in those who have been infected…they have all been vaccinated.

Ah, that mysterious virus that was discovered in 1962 and has an information page on the CDC site.
http://www.cdc.gov/non-polio-enterovirus/about/ev-d68.html

@A #8

What's your point? We don't have a vaccine against EV-D68, so the vaccination status of folks coming down with it is irrelevant.

As far as the Rob-ster. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

A, considering most people have been vaccinated for something at some point in their life, that's a bit like saying the virus strikes people who wear shoes. You have to show it's more likely due to vaccinations, and not just 'vaccinated people are common'; ideally you'd want to exclude things correlated to the choice to vaccinate.

Didn't see any of the Rob Schneider ads,but I'm glad I didn't. Not a fan of Schneider, not for his comedy or his anti-vaccine stupidity. Good to see State Farm pulled those ads.

and: "A" @8 : didn't your momma ever tell you that correlation does not equate to causation ?

Maybe another non-health company should try to use Schneider as their spokesperson and in their ads and we can see if they will get the same response. I'm not so sure it will be all that different just because State Farm also sells health insurance. Rob Schneider is just too over-the-top in his anti-vax propaganda.

As someone who rarely watches TV, I hadn't been aware that Schneider was the "Making Copies!" guy. That routine never did strike me as particularly funny--at best it's a "funny once" gag. The Dunning-Krueger is strong in this one; interesting that his knowledge of vaccines is on a par with his comedy. (Though I don't know the rest of Schneider's comedy opus, so maybe I am being too generous in my assessment of his vaccine knowledge.)

I will stay with State Farm forever.

Schneider does not appear bright enough to have had an original, let alone, intelligent thought. That might be chalked up to his exceptional acting ability but, as has been alluded to already, he has little enough to show on that account.
It would be interesting to know who preps him and feeds him his anti-vax lines. Did he grow up among the selfish and stupid or did he grow into it, or does he don the suit of stupid to garner attention?

Of course, I’m sure they didn’t realize what they were getting into, because it is obvious that the whole campaign was just based around old Saturday Night Live skits….

True that. However, one would think that the company would Google actors hired to represent it in commercials. I mean, his frikkin' Wikipedia entry mentions his antivaccine activism and how he likened California Bill AB 2109 to the Nuremberg Laws of Nazi Germany. One look at his Twitter feed would reveal the wingnuttery. Seriously, in this day and age, how can a company fail to check the online presence and public pronouncements of people it's hiring to represent it? Nearly time I'm contacted about a potential different job (which doesn't actually happen that often, but does occasionally), I can tell that they've Googled me because they always mention my outspoken opposition to CAM. Some of my patients mention it, because—you guessed it—they Google me.

Interestingly, I note that his Wikipedia entry also tells us that Schneider has abandoned the Democratic Party and become a Republican. So much for another "liberal antivaxer." :-)

I really dislike the economic warfare that groups now wage against people with whom they disagree. I am as pro vaccine as they come and even enrolled our children in a study to test a new vaccine that is under development. However, I don't like targeting individuals economically like this. this turns into a tribalism as people get blacklisted in certain industries for having political views that differ from the majority. It is the opposite of an open and tolerant society.

The entire campaign? So the Hans & Franz ad is also gone? I was curious to see what other SNL skits from the 90s would make a re-appearance. I admit, I did find the whole campaign rather mystifying since I don't get the connection between old SNL bits and insurance.

@Mike - having a notorious anti-vax individual associated with a company that hosts its own Vaccine Awareness Month, is certainly cause to question....

Hans & Franz aren't gone. They're still featured as the cover images on State Farm's Twitter and Facebook pages.

As for why old SNL bits...my guess is that the ad people doing the campaign are of an age where they fondly remember those bits as part of their youth, and nostalgia did the rest. Personally, I'd love to see them do "Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood" as the basis for a commercial. The script is writing itself in my brain... :-)

It is so irritating when people play the 'Freedom lost!' canard in instances like this.

What about the freedom of us who are pro-vaccination to voice our opinions? What about State Farm's freedom to make decisions in the best interest of their business? Does the 1st amendment only apply to speech you like?

Now, if Rob Schneider were arrested and tortured for his views, THAT would be an affront to freedom.

Funny how its only 'freedom' if they are expressing views you agree with, but 'freedom losing' or some level of Godwin if they are expressing views you DISagree with.

Proof that anti-vaxxers cognition of freedom is on par with their grasp of science.

However, I don’t like targeting individuals economically like this. this turns into a tribalism as people get blacklisted in certain industries for having political views that differ from the majority. It is the opposite of an open and tolerant society.

On the surface I tend to agree with you, however this isn't just targeting someone economically that we disagree with. He is representing a company who sells health/life insurance and participates in Vaccine Awareness Month. State Farm didn't have to pull the ads and I'm gobsmacked that they wouldn't do a moment's vetting as Orac stated. Please also note Mike that the post does stipulate that targeting someone's employment solely due to philosophical differences is very bad form.

You make a good point about owning the message rather than trying to disavow ourselves. (I was one of the originators of the campaign and I added the name of my page to the press release) A lot of us, including myself, were fairly new to the concept of starting what turned out to be a fairly large social media campaign, and our goals may have not been clearly defined initially.

Contrary to how it may have seemed, the idea really wasn't carefully constructed and implemented, it sort of just fell together. The whole thing started when I made a simple observation after seeing the State Farm commercial: why is it that Gilbert Gottfried loses his job voicing a duck in insurance commercials because he made a joke(albeit a tasteless joke) on twitter, but yet Rob Schneider regularly spouts his insane nonsense about vaccines(which could potentially cause ACTUAL harm) and gets hired by another insurance company? I had actually began working on a post about it two weeks before I posted it on my page, when my computer shut down before I could save the work I had done on the graphic. I was frustrated enough to scrap the idea until I couldn't think of anything else for my page. I also posted it in a forum with other like-minded page admins, and it was quickly pointed out that this could turn out to be a big deal. After that, we all just started rolling with it.

The different page admins, as well as the many fans of our pages, all knew we had a major thing in common: We detest the propagation of harmful pseudoscience by public personalities such as Schneider. After that, it was pretty much everyone's own idea as far as what we were going to do about it. Are we attacking State Farm for hiring him? Are we asking for a boycott of State Farm, or are we asking that they make their stance on public health matters clear? Are we asking that Rob Schneider stop making horrible comedies? It was admittedly unclear, but it turned out that our voices were heard, even if no one knew exactly what our voices were saying.

There has definitely been some backlash as far as whether or not we did the right thing, or whether we went about it the correct way. The most legitimate complaint I've seen, in my opinion, is contained here in this blog. You are right, we shouldn't have tried to 'wash our hands' of the situation, and we should have owned up to it. I certainly learned a lot from this experience. I don't take delight in anyone getting fired from their gig, but I also don't think anyone should feel sorry for Rob Schneider. I'm glad I finally decided to finish that post, and I'm glad it turned out the way it did. If there are 10 people who now think skeptics are a little dickish, for every 1 B-list celebrity who decides to keep their idiotic, dangerous ideas to them selves as a result of this, I think I'm ok with that.

This series of ads will not be complete until they bring back 'Massive Head Wound Harry'.

The McCarthy with hunt for communists and black listing for communists was an affront to freedom even though no one was arrested or tortured. Being blacklisted from working because of your political or ideological views is an affront to freedom even if it does not implicate a violation of the Bill of Rights.

I butchered the spelling of witch. I am sorry for that error.

@ Mike, Schneider's rights aren't being violated at all. He is perfectly free to espouse any views he likes but there is absolutely no constitutional redress for companies who don't wish to do business with him. If Schneider were to become hired as a spokesperson for say Manny's Tire Shack then while we would point and laugh, but no action could ethically be taken against his employment with them and your argument would be valid. However, his views are very counter to State Farm's and while they should have done a modicum of homework on him, they are perfectly within their right to pull his ads.

What I find interesting about the whole thing on Twitter is that pro-science folks pretty much kept to the facts, letting State Farm know that Schneider is very, very vocally opposed to vaccinations and how this is at odds with State Farm's position as an insurance provider who, presumably, would want to cut costs through prevention.

Against this, the anti-vaccine folks have been responding with outrage and insults directed at State Farm. I've seen tweets calling them "pu**ies", cowards, threats of cancellation/boycott.

It illustrates quite well how all the anti-vaccine community has is emotion (primarily hate and anger); they don't have facts or science.

As for why old SNL bits…my guess is that the ad people doing the campaign are of an age where they fondly remember those bits as part of their youth, and nostalgia did the rest.

More importantly, the potential customers who would remember those bits with nostalgia are in their 40s. (I'm among this group.) That is one of the most highly sought after demographics in advertising, because those are the peak earning years for many people.

"Pumping Up with Hans and Franz" at least had some material to work with, namely Arnold Schwarzenegger, on whom the bodybuilding duo were modeled. I remember those skits much more fondly than the "Making Copies" bits. Of course a bit from "Middle Age Man" would also fit the theme rather nicely (more so now that I actually am that age).

The McCarthy wit[c]h hunt for communists and black listing for communists

The Hollywood blacklist was the fruit of HUAC, not McCarthy.

Being a little older, I remember "Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood" a bit more fondly. It would also make a hilarious backdrop for an insurance company commercial. :-)

If only Phil Hartman were around to bring back 'Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer". That would make me switch to State Farm.

To echo what others have said:

Had Rob been hired to 'make copies' for a new IBM printer, or anything NOT health care related, I wouldn't have batted an eye.

As far as 'economic' targeting - Rob has most certainly received at least a partial paycheck for his work. The SAG rules governing commercials are absolutely tedious - but there appears to be either a 'payoff' lump sum, or a smaller payment plus residuals (how many times the ad is shown and on what channel, etc).

So dare I disagree with Orac a bit? On further reflection I do.

Mel Gibson cannot get roles any more in part because of his antisemitic rantings. This is good.

The anti-vaccine movement will be defeated when it is made into something *shameful*- like being a bigot. Yes, parents who are genuinely confused about vaccines deserve tolerance and education. But the celebs and anti-vaxx docs who lie to them deserve all the shame and ridicule they can get.

We need to let companies who might employee them know that they are toxic people to our communities, lest being anti-vaccine be seen as a variant of normal, a simple lifestyle choice.

I just read a decent Dr. Oz take down on GMO and herbicides. I thought the community here would enjoy it.

http://www.biofortified.org/2014/09/dont-believe-what-dr-oz-is-saying-a…

On Schneider's defection to the Republican party, I think that is also telling of the current state of anti-immunization politics. It used to be a "something for everyone" thing--whether you're a crunchy granola liberal Democrat or a wingnut anti-government Republican, you're in. Now, there seems to be a much stronger Ron/Rand Paul aroma to the stuff the anti-immunization people are putting out (see aforementioned references to liberty and freedom by Wayne Rohde, which everybody loves, but Republicans really love to talk about).

With states like Vermont, Oregon, Washington, and California having passed nonmedical exemption reform laws, these issues seem to have found a greater level of ideological polarity. I think advocates for sound science need to look at the political makeup of states after the 2014 elections and pick their battles accordingly.

Caveat: this isn't a value judgment or partisan argument, just my assessment of which issues are resonating with whom.

I second the Mr. Robinson's neighborhood angle, complete with the escape out the window at the end. The first episode with that sketch had Gilbert Gottfried as Mr. Speedy who drops off "a package" for Mister Robinson. Eddie Murphy was my favorite all time on the show. This line of commercials started last year with "Da Bears" guys and Aaron Rogers. They were directed by a former SNL writer and I'm assuming they were popular enough to expand into other SNL bits.

Yvette says Mel is 'anti Semitic' but yet Mel loves Arabs.

Ask not if something is anti semitic, ask if it is true.

An anti semite is one who tells the truth about J EWs.

Can you children say "Li-a-bil-ity"? I thought you could. Yeah, I'd pay attention to Mr. Robinson trying to sell me insurance.

Mary Catherine Gallagher could make an appearance too. "Get State Farm and be a Superstar." Cue her falling backwards into something.

I watched a lot SNL back in the day...now, not as much, though I do love anything with Kate Mackinnon in it.

Hepatitis B vaccination of male neonates and autism diagnosis, NHIS 1997-2002.

US Natl Library Of Medicine

Universal hepatitis B vaccination was recommended for U.S. newborns in 1991; however, safety findings are mixed. The association between hepatitis B vaccination of male neonates and parental report of autism diagnosis was determined. This cross-sectional study used weighted probability samples obtained from National Health Interview Survey 1997-2002 data sets. Vaccination status was determined from the vaccination record. Logistic regression was used to estimate the odds for autism diagnosis associated with neonatal hepatitis B vaccination among boys age 3-17 years, born before 1999, adjusted for race, maternal education, and two-parent household. Boys vaccinated as neonates had threefold greater odds for autism diagnosis compared to boys never vaccinated or vaccinated after the first month of life. Non-Hispanic white boys were 64% less likely to have autism diagnosis relative to nonwhite boys. Findings suggest that U.S. male neonates vaccinated with the hepatitis B vaccine prior to 1999 (from vaccination record) had a threefold higher risk for parental report of autism diagnosis compared to boys not vaccinated as neonates during that same time period. Nonwhite boys bore a greater risk.'

http://www.autism.com/pro_research_metalexposure

--V accine-related cases go to a special court. And Despite the conflicts of interest, people have won cases showing their child’s autism was caused by a vaccine. But mainstream media says there’s no relationship…

But the fact still remains that mainstream news keeps insisting that no study has found a link between autism and vaccines. Over and over again, mainstream media says that. But wait, here’s a study that says:

Vaccinations: Mothers of children with ASD reported significantly more adverse reactions, and of a more serious nature, than did the mothers of the typical children

Here’s another study showing a link between vaccines and autism, that says:
http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/japvaxautism/

There's a reason I never saw any of the Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood sketches: by the time I was old enough to (be allowed to) watch SNL, Eddie Murphy had made his jump to the big screen (Beverly Hills Cop and Trading Places, that I remember offhand). But the concept seems sound enough to make it work.

As for Mr. Schneider: As others have said, it makes sense to use him as a pitchman for your 3-D printing company, or things like that. The "Making Copies" schtick plays into that sort of product. Insurance, not so much--especially when an anti-vax nut is hawking health insurance. And even more so when the schtick isn't that funny in the first place.

Where are the Autistic Amish boys and girls?

There are none, because they dont vaccinate!!

And live out long and productive lives as humans have been doing for 6000+ years!!

http://sharylattkisson.com/where-are-the-autistic-amish/

@A - well, the Amish thing is such a lie, it isn't even funny. Not to mention the issues around other, HUGE, genetic problems that we find in the Amish population in general....not exactly paragons of health (oh yeah, they do vaccinate & have rates of autism that approximate the national average).

What an idiot.

A @40 -- From this:

Not surprisingly, no part of the Amish fallacy — which has been kicking around for over a decade and gained new prominence and attention with this, purely anecdotal 2005 dispatch* — is true.

I call PRATT.

@A--Dan Olmsted called, and he wants his conspiracy theory back.
Anyone want to take a guess which RI troll is masquerading as "A"?

Tedious spam troll is copy-pasting his or her lies from Rense.com.

And live out long and productive lives as humans have been doing for 6000+ years!!
Tedious spam troll also appears to be a Young Earth Creationist. Ha!

Dorit, who has standing to sue to overturn Gov Browns decision?

Probably the only people who would have standing to sue would be the Legislative branches of the Ca state government.

if people were trying to prevent Schneider from getting gigs doing standup, a movie, or TV show

I think his own limited talents are doing that job just fine.

I've noted a trend of insurance companies trying to one-up each other on memorable commercials that have nothing to do with their product. I've found some of the Geico and esurance ones very clever, but I'm not about to buy their insurance based on them...

A...are you referring to the Amish Anomaly, which earned Olmsted a "nice entry" in Wikipedia?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_anomaly

“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.”
-(Marcia Angell, MD, “Drug Companies and Doctors: A story of Corruption.” NY Review of Books, Jan. 15, 2009.)

“Vaccines can and do cause damage.
“Neurological damage, brain damage.
“Parents of damaged children know this. There were there. They saw their children before vaccination and after vaccination.
“End of story.

“Everything else, and I mean everything is diversion. High-class sophisticated deceptive slimy arrogant diversion.
”Shuffling various disease and disorder labels; the studies claiming there is no link between vaccines and autism; the hoops the government makes parents jump through, in order to try to obtain financial compensation; the legal deal allowing vaccine manufacturers to avoid law suits; the invented cover stories claiming autism begins in utero or is a genetic disorder; the pretension that autism has even been defined—there is no defining diagnostic test for it—
“All lies. All avoidances.

“A child gets a vaccine. The child suffers brain damage.
“That happens.
“That’s the truth which the government buries in a mountain of obfuscation…”
What do we do? Believe the mother and not the greed-driven drug pushers.

Lawrence,

All peoples suffer genetic diseases of some type or another, whether Ashkenazi Jewish or Blacks, or the Amish to an small extent.

But that has NOTHING to do with Vaccines and a correlation with autism, an affliction they are seemingly exempted from, because they do NOT vaccinate.
A monkey can see the logic there, but somehow YOU cannot??

Kelly, it's pretty broad, and someone who can make a case that their children are at risk because people are getting exemptions they wouldn't otherwise have probably does. You'd have to demonstrate that, though, and the law only came into effect January 2014.

Anti-vaccine people can also claim discrimination because the religious exemption is so narrow, and that too is a strong claim that can result in the exemption being struck down completely - and the education requirement standing.

But that has NOTHING to do with Vaccines and a correlation with autism, an affliction they are seemingly exempted from, because they do NOT vaccinate.

They do vaccinate and they do get autism. Click on the link lilady posted.

A monkey can see the logic there, but somehow YOU cannot??

What kind of monkey posts obvious lies parroted uncritically from some antivaccine site? Think for yourself, don't be a sheeperson.

"68% stated that all of their children had received at least 1 immunization, and 17% reported that some of their children had received at least 1 immunization. Only 14% of the parents reported that none of their children had received immunizations"
- Pediatrics. 2011 Jul;128(1):79-85.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1542/peds.2009-2599

the number is low by herd immunity standards, hence the concern about underimmunization, but high enough that if there were an autism link, it would show. there isn't and it doesn't.

It appears that A may wish to reflect upon:

A few words of advice for people barging into established blogs, ready to lay down some contrarian opinions:

Heed Pablo's First Law of Internet Discussion

Really. Truly. It will save you much personal embarrassment.

What is Pablo's First Law?

Regardless of the topic, assume someone else commenting knows more about it than you do.

The shortcomings of a previous, similar Gallagher & Goodman presentation (a poster presentation, Hepatitis B vaccination of male neonates and autism diagnosis) was discussed in detail at Leftbrain Rightbrain in 2009. . Goodman & Gallagher's findings have never been replicated.

Since the original post is partly about "owning one's words", it seems appropriate to have a plagiarist troll who can't even come up with original stupidity but simply spams from other websites.

@A - why do you cling to such a transparent lie?

A monkey can see the logic there, but somehow YOU cannot??

Careful there; it appears as though you don't even reach up to the level of monkey-logic.

That hepatitis B study is laughable. We know autism rates have gone up, so anything that increased over the same time period will correlate, such as neonatal hepatitis B vaccination, and organic food.

A, kindly crawl back into your hole. Nobody here is buying what you're selling.

A notes a study that A thinks will bolster antivax views: "Hepatitis B vaccination of male neonates and autism diagnosis, NHIS 1997-2002.

Then A says "Here’s another study showing a link between vaccines and autism"...

After that, A approvingly cites Marcia Angell's opinion that "“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published".

So, A, if research is untrustworthy, why should we pay attention to the studies you cite?

Cool username, by the way. :)

I'd equate Schneider to the same level that Bear Grylls is to wilderness safety (i.e. none). Only to increase their entertainment value, they will do what they feel they need to do in order to maximize their popularity to an audience. By offering nothing of any intrinsic value, I simply see them as punk bitches looking at a vanity mirror. While I'll laugh at their trade just the same, I wouldn't trust their "expertise" on anything further than I could toss a rock.

If anyone says role model for others, I would simply say that people need to account for themselves the level of their own stupidity, and deserve their own shortcoming for allowing themselves misled.

Speaking of anti-vaxxers, did anyone see the bizarre leap a poster at AOA was making to link vaccinations to mental illness to drug abuse?

@ PGP:

I most certainly did!
It was on the post by Katie Wright. A commenter believes that mental illness was less frequent in Korea years ago because everyone ate kim chi- a probiotic- which youngsters now avoid.
Who would have thought: that kim chi is an antipsychotic.

I swear, I didn't make that up. It's all there and Conrick has a new post as well.

Echoing Yvette. I've been asking "What is to be done?" to raise public awareness levels of the evils being enabled by the anti-immunos, and build a public discourse supportive of choosing-to-immunize. To be really reductionist, you could call it pro-immunization branding.

I can't say for sure, of course, but IMHO it's a decent working hypothesis that the anti-immuno hysteria would not have risen to the level where community-immunity is failing w/o the celebrity of Jenny McCarthy. (Note to Mary M.: It doesn't help with fence-sitter moms to refer to a group of precious individual children as a "herd".)

So here we have a very public campaign of social media framed in parodic rubrics ('Chow Babe ' is a really good handle), leveraging not just Rob Scheider's individual celebrity, but the much larger fame of and love for the history of SNL, and aimed at a social force that can actually change things: the economic power of major corporations protecting their profit margins.

"That's the Ticket!" Gimme more!

In the Big Picture, a lot of the concerns mentioned above are comparative minutiae, and some should either be ignored or spun in deference to the Greater Good.

First, while the State Farm ad gives Schneider exposure, it hardly presents him in a positive light. As Orac noted, it's not funny, and Schneider's schtick seems forced. He's also the butt of the joke. If anything the (poorly executed) direct appeal in the spot would seem to be setting up the sympathetic young minority woman agent who is helping the very-contemporary expectant couple in contrast to the older-male-clueless-irritatingly-ingraciatingly-dolt embodied by Schneider. So we could say it's disingenuous to accuse State Farm of employing Schneider as a 'spokesperson' (as, say Dennis Haysbert is for Allstate or 'Flo' for Progressive) just as it's disingenuous for the Hunks 'n' Babes to say they didn't want the ads to be pulled. Well, State Farm is doing fine, will continue to fine, and needs neither tears nor any other form of concern.

The State Farm PR release is unusually revealing about how this works: “[Schneider's] ad has unintentionally been used as a platform for discussion unrelated to the products and services we provide.”

After we frown or smile in reaction to the fact the PR Director of a major corporation has issued such a grammatically mangled sentence to the public that none of his minions thought to fix we can parse a lesson here. I think I'd better translate first:
By broadcasting this ad, we unintentionally created an opportunity for activists to intentionally use it as a platform for discussion unrelated to the products and services we provide.

The key here is that he's not complaining about attack's against his company's integrity, politics, policy yada yada yada. They're an insurance company. They get that all the time. Routine. Water off a duck's back. No, the problem for State Farm is the social media campaign interfered with their advertising campaign, undermining the spot's effectiveness by changing the subject to something else.

It doesn't matter to State Farm what that something is: whether the critique is focus on Snyder, or on them, or the goal is an apology, or withdrawing the ad, or whether the complaints had come from troglodyte kooks offended by the casting of the young A-A woman as the agent and Rob as the bumbling assistant because they think it's the other way round IRL. All that really matters, in the terms of classic telecom theory, is the signal-to-noise ratio of the ad message.

The actual best outcome for activists would have been for State Farm to issue a disclaimer and keep running the ad, as that would have generated pro-immuno pub, but left the offending object in sight where it could have continued to draw critique translating into more pro-immuno pub. But State Farm is not dumb enough to do that. If their messenger gets a negative brand, no matter what or how, the distraction from the message must be removed. (AFFLAACK!)

So, what can we learn here?
1. The virality of social media is a powerful messaging tool for activists with scant financial resources and no access to conventional media.
2. There is a Judo of Fame. The celebrity of 'the other side's proponents can be leveraged againt them and flip the terms of public discussion.
3. Serious issues get more public penetration when wrapped in the values of popular culture -- specifically satire and entertainment (c.f. Stewart and Colbert). 'The Chow Babe vs. The Makin' Copies Guy' will draw exponentially greater attention than 'Dr. Novella vs. Dr. Wakefield'. As I type, Chris Hayes is interviewing 'FrostPaw', an activist from the Center for Biological Diversity who has just drawn a lot of attention to a climate change protest the media might otherwise have ignored by attending in a full-body polar bear suit, getting himself arrested for non-violent civil disobedience in the suit, thus providing a great photo ops and stories like this.
4. The message gets more traction (and the stakes are raised to the good) when the targets of discussion are institutional actors with real social influence who prefer to remain veiled behind the curtain -- e.g. especially major advertisers. Critiquing Wakefield < critiquing Schneider for supporting Wakefield < critiquing State Farm for employing Schneider.
5. It's OK to 'cheat' a little if you don't go overboard. e.g. ignoring the textuality of the State Farm spot and framing Schneider as a 'spokesperson.' That's not entirely the truth, but it's not unfair
6. Spin everything back at the people with the real power. The activists should feel no guilt for 'collateral damage' to the other actors in the spot who now won't get residuals. That's all State Farm's fault!! (Never mind that anybody State Farm hires to appear in a spot like that will be a top-of-the-foodchain tv-ad-actor with a steady stream of gigs and no shortage of income... Bad State Farm! Hurting poor struggling actors by making them spend hours on the set with Rob Schneider!)
7. This is capitalism. If you want to make waves, disrupt the flow of money.

So where would this strategy go from here? Well, who in the public eye has anti-vax views, and who do they work for, or who sponsors them? Just off the top of my head... How about "Medically Incorrect" --> HBO, Time-Warner, Comcast, Cox, etc., "Hot Air From the Wizard's Balloon" --> Oz's syndicator, carrying stations, regular sponsors... #DorothyJuniorsMeasles etc.

Not directly on point, but I can't resist linking to this classic work of culture-jamming genius.
http://theyesmen.org/wto/vidbig.html

Roadstergal wrote:
"I’ve noted a trend of insurance companies trying to one-up each other on memorable commercials that have nothing to do with their product. I’ve found some of the Geico and esurance ones very clever, but I’m not about to buy their insurance based on them…"

A lot of advertising appears weird that way, making no apparent claim about the product... Geico is probably the paradigmatic case at present.

Geico's bottom line is doing fine...

You would not believe the size of the budgets for major national ad campaigns. High economic stakes are involved. Sometimes agencies and clients go by their guts, but more often campaign concepts are market-researched and focus-grouped to death, correlated to sales, etc. Back in the 50's, David Ogilvy pioneered the use of coupons in 'regular' ads (as opposed to today's circulars) as a metric of advertising effectiveness: you try different ad approaches and see which one pulls more coupons.

A lot of advertising isn't trying to sell you anything, it's trying to get you to buy something you'd buy anyway from 'X' instead of 'Y'. And a lot of that consumer choice has to do with what ad folks call 'positioning' or 'branding' - differences in 'image' between products that are essentially the same at a functional level.

Exactly how the Gecko does this beyond the obvious mnemonics of name recognition I can't say, nor while the Gecko has legs while the Cavemen didn't, nor what the heck is going on with incredibly stupid "I'll bet you didn't know..." campaign. But Geico knows this stuff does sell insurance, and the research staff at their agency probably know why.

If there's any on-topic relevance here, it's that the fate of people vulnerable to VPDs probably rests less with the scientific arguments of skeptics, and more with issues of 'branding' and communication strategies that quickly cut through the pop culture noise of everyday life ("properly interruptive" in ad-speak) and draw attention to the topic. At the moment, the best-possible spokes-creatures for immunization would be Rocket Racoon and Groot. They're not going to available :-). But, going the other direction, I can imagine evil anthropomorphic cartoon caricatures of measles virus and pertussis bacteria gloating gleefully at the feeding opportunities provided them by the 'useful idiots' of the anti-immuno campaign.

Addenda to previous post:
Activists looking to spread the word in detail beyond 140 characters should look to YouTube. In recent years, I did a lot of research and commentary on a particular instance of racial injustice in the judicial system. I started a blog, and made several YT videos analyzing the facts of the case. The blog had <50 readers. One of the YT vids I made has over 200,000 page views.

I don't know- I think Mike has a small point when he compares getting Rob Schneider fired to the McCarthy era. Many of the people blacklisted WERE guilty of lying about Stalin's abuses. When is it OK to get fired A Lying Liar Who Lies?

Michael -- there's a big difference between a company (State Farm) retiring an ad prematurely and the blacklists of the McCarthy era.

No one is picketing Schneider's comedy club gigs (and if they were, I would denounce such activity).

I wouldn't have stirred so much as a finger if Schneider's ad was selling copiers or even chain stores like Staples, Office Depot, etc. It wouldn't be appropriate.

So, no, Mike does not have a point.

I most certainly did!
It was on the post by Katie Wright.

"Benedetta" (IIRC) does that all the time.

A commenter believes that mental illness was less frequent in Korea years ago because everyone ate kim chi- a probiotic- which youngsters now avoid.

Years ago, kimchi was buried in the ground and eaten over the winter, during which time it got stronger and stronger. A corollary is that the major LABs are cold-adapted. I tend to doubt that W. koreensis is going to be particularly happy in human intestines.

When a public figure uses his/her bully pulpit to provide an opinion about a public health issue, that person's actions are fair game for the science community.

State Farm, which sells health insurance plans, individual health care policies as well as Medicare "Gap" policies messed up...big time...as did their ad agency.

Did I read above that someone said there is a vaccine for EV-D68?

If so, from the CDC (if not, disregard):

Q: Is there a vaccine?

A: No. There are no vaccines for preventing EV-D68 infections.

It's too bad California's "informed consent" form isn't a legal acknowledgement of the criminal charges a parent could face if their child became dangerously sick, dies or passes on a communicable disease to someone who suffered likewise.

As for insurers, they don't exactly have clean hands either. I wonder how many provide cover for chiropractors, naturopaths etc. Perhaps some actuary has figured it's cheaper for hypochondriacs to be billed by a quack than a real doctor. The money could be spend it in better ways, e.g. free vaccinations or free gp visits for members.

Amanda: I said that a commenter at AOA suggested that ev-d68 is spread by vaccines. Which isn't true either. Then again, these people also think schizophrenia is a vaccine induced condition, but they wouldn't have a high school diploma if their parents hadn't bought it for them.

“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.”
-(Marcia Angell, MD, “Drug Companies and Doctors: A story of Corruption.” NY Review of Books, Jan. 15, 2009.)

You mean the same Marcia Angell, MD/former-editor-of-<i-The-New-England-Journal-of-Medicine who said this?

We certainly are in a health care crisis. If we had set out to design the worst system that we could imagine, we couldn't have imagined on as bad as we have. Here's a system in which we spend over twice what the next most expensive country spends on health care -- that's Switzerland. We spend roughly $4500 for every American, whether they have insurance or not. Switzerland spends maybe $2500 for every citizen. Canada spends maybe $2,000. Great Britain, poor little Great Britain, spends about $1,000 for every British citizen. And what do we get for it? What do we get for that $4500? Well, we certainly don't get our money's worth. We have roughly 43 million people with no insurance whatsoever, and among the rest of us, many of us are underinsured. That is, we have shrinking packages. This might be covered, but that won't be covered.

Our life expectancy is shorter. Our infant mortality is higher. Our childhood immunization rate is lower.

(http://www.pbs.org/healthcarecrisis/Exprts_intrvw/m_angell.htm)

Because, ^^as you can see, she's pro-vaccine. And the article you're quoting doesn't say one word to suggest otherwise.

There are some serious, unrelated problems with it, though. BTW.

@ Narad:

Because of their Wakefuddlian philosophy, these partisans believe that ASDs are mediated through the GI tract and thus, they seek out comestibles as medicamentes. The probiotics, GFCFSF diets, GMO-free, organics, veganism, living foods ad nauseum. As a matter of fact, TMR will be hosting an e-conference ( @ 40 USD) on this very subject.

The Wall St. Journal today is running an op-ed by Dr. Offit on "The Anti-Vaccination Epidemic":

http://online.wsj.com/articles/paul-a-offit-the-anti-vaccination-epidem…

No terribly new information for most of us here, but very well said.

*there's some irony in the Journal running this. The antivax movement continually relies on anecdotes, hypes the opinions of fringe scientists and non-experts in an effort to denigrate strong scientific consensus and resorts to conspiracy theories - tropes and tactics which the Journal doesn't fall for. Yet the same problems are endemic in the climate change denialist movement, which the Journal editorially endorses.

Switzerland spends maybe $2500 for every citizen. Canada spends maybe $2,000. Great Britain, poor little Great Britain, spends about $1,000 for every British citizen.

Why "poor little Great Britain"? We have a larger population and GDP (PPP) than Switzerland and Canada put together. Not that I'm bothered but it just struck me as odd.

There are 2 other MMR vaccine whistleblowers

by Jon Rappoport

September 24, 2014

NoMoreFakeNews.com

We all know about CDC whistleblower William Thompson now.
On August 27, he released a statement through his lawyer, Rick Morgan, in which he admitted research fraud.

Thompson confessed he and his co-authors cooked the data in a key 2004 study, thereby exonerating the MMR vaccine from any connection to autism.

But what about Stephen Krahling and Joan Wlochowski?
Who?
They’re two former Merck virologists who filed a qui tam suit against Merck, the manufacturer of the very same MMR vaccine.

The suit claims Merck defrauded the US government by selling the vaccine, under a federal contract, when Merck knew the mumps component of the vaccine was far less effective than advertised.
Of course, Merck disputed this claim, but on September 5th, Judge Jones, of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, gave the green light for the suit to move forward.

Krahling and Wlochowski assert several levels of Merck fraud:
To achieve a slam-dunk success, Merck tested the effectiveness of the MMR vaccine against the version of the virus in the vaccine, rather than against the natural mumps virus a person would catch in the real world.

Merck irrelevantly and deceptively added animal antibodies to the test results, thus giving the false appearance of strong human immune response to the vaccine.

On top of that, Merck faked the quantitative results of the tests to which the animal antibodies had been added.

Here is where these two Merck whistleblowers and Thompson, the CDC whistleblower, intersect:
In 2004, Thompson wrote a letter to CDC Director, Julie Gerberding, warning her that he was about to present troubling and sensitive data about the MMR vaccine at an upcoming conference on vaccines and autism.

Thompson’s meaning was clear. He had found a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism.
Gerberding never answered his letter, and Thompson’s presentation at that conference was canceled.

There are 2 other MMR vaccine whistleblowers

by Jon Rappoport

September 24, 2014

NoMoreFakeNews.com

We all know about CDC whistleblower William Thompson now.
On August 27, he released a statement through his lawyer, Rick Morgan, in which he admitted research fraud.

Thompson confessed he and his co-authors cooked the data in a key 2004 study, thereby exonerating the MMR vaccine from any connection to autism.

But what about Stephen Krahling and Joan Wlochowski?
Who?
They’re two former Merck virologists who filed a qui tam suit against Merck, the manufacturer of the very same MMR vaccine.

Merck irrelevantly and deceptively added animal antibodies to the test results, thus giving the false appearance of strong human immune response to the vaccine.

On top of that, Merck faked the quantitative results of the tests to which the animal antibodies had been added.

Thompson’s meaning was clear. He had found a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism.
Gerberding never answered his letter, and Thompson’s presentation at that conference was canceled.

Oh FFS, not this Merck drivel again. AT, this has already been mentioned on this site. Let's just say that your comments are a misrepresentation, and I'm being nice.

Misrepresentations of "allegations" not proved facts either.

They’re two former Merck virologists who filed a qui tam suit against Merck, the manufacturer of the very same MMR vaccine.

If you knew what qui tam meant in this context, then you would know that the DOJ wasn't sufficiently impressed to take the case themselves.

Jon Rappoport is not known for intelligence nor veracity.

Also, the mumps bit is silly. There are plenty of studies from all over the world looking at the Jeryl Lynn mumps strain, often compared to the Urabe and Rubini strains:
http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/mumps-vaccine-ef…

And by the way, mumps immunity wanes even after you have had the disease. I had it twice, and I know of others who have had it twice. The myth that went around in the 1960s, especially during the 67/68 mumps epidemic (when I had my second bout) was that you can get it on one side, and later on the other side. Hah! I had it on both sides, both times!

It is silly to think a vaccine should provide better immunity than the actual disease.

@Chris - you might want to clarify that last sentence.

What is to clarify. These guys complain that the vaccine is not good enough, but even getting mumps, the actual disease, does not give perfect permanent immunity.

The vaccine is a weakened form of the disease, it does offer immunity. But it is silly to think that immunity should be better than the disease, when the disease does not offer permanent immunity.

Does that maker better?

It is like expecting the pertussis vaccine to provide more long lasting immunity than getting the disease, when some who after coughing up a lung for two months can get it again in as short as five years (if you are lucky up to twenty years). With the vaccine, that may be only four years. See Duration of immunity against pertussis after natural infection or vaccination.

Basically I am saying the Nirvana Fallacy is silly. These guys don't like vaccines because they are not perfect, but their belief that the diseases offer "permanent" immunity is very wrong.

Please ignore the typos. I was thinking faster than my fingers.

@Sadmar: I recently read a book from the library that might interest you: "Don't Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style", by Randy Olson.

He's a former professor of marine biology who decided to become a full-time filmmaker (though I haven't seen his movies, yet). More memoir than guide, but it's an interesting take on science communication from someone who's been on both sides of the wall, so to speak.

@chris - got it.

http://www.salon.com/2014/09/25/your_free_speech_isnt_being_oppressed_a…

@Chris - sorry, been reviewing contracts for most of the day & my brain was mid-fry...

No problems, Lawrence. But thanks for reminding me of the fried brain effect after I spent a day reviewing shake table test reports.

@Sadmar #68 - I have known some advertising people, and I definitely do not now and will not ever 'get' it. I'll leave that one to the experts.

It is silly to think a vaccine should provide better immunity than the actual disease.

Maybe an equally concise re-statement? "It is silly to think a vaccine should provide more persistent immunity than the actual disease." I'd make the case that the vaccine is always substantially better immunity than the actual disease, because you don't have to catch it! :)

"I’d make the case that the vaccine is always substantially better immunity than the actual disease, because you don’t have to catch it!"

Good point, even if you have to have boosters.

Good point, even if you have to have boosters.

Which are an improvement over demanding that other people fall ill in order for one to receive "natural" boosting.

Chris @93 -- Shake tables? Last I remember hearing about those was in the context of rocket payloads being tested to be sure they'd survive launch. Grad students who'd sunk a solid year of their life into a thesis instrument would sit there sweating watching their precious instrument basically gettingp the s*** kicked out of it .... good times, esp. since my thesis didn't demand that.

Jerry Lee Lewis, of course, had the last word.

I take a harder view than many of the commenters here.

I have no problems with going after Schneider and pushing for anyone looking to hire him for an acting job kick him to the curb instead.

Why? Because he actively uses his celebrity status to push his views. Since he does that it is IMHO completely ethical for people to disagree with his views to attack his ability to be a celebrity. He's the one who chose to link them together by his actions. He doesn't get to have it both ways.

If he were quietly donating money, or writing letters to the editor, or signing petitions, or doing things decoupled from his day job, then I'd agree he should be left alone other than in cases like this where his views are oxymoronic to the organization that hired him for the gig.

Hey, Quantum Mechanic --

I have what I hope you'll believe is a sincere, non-antagonistic question. Because it is. But it might not sound like it.

Anyway. Here goes:

How is your justification for actively aiming to discourage people from hiring or employing Rob Schneider as an actor distinct from the same reasoning as it might be applied to (let's say) a distinguished professor of philosophy who was a very vocal advocate for (let's say) a Palestinian state?

I mean, a person in such a position usually does trade on his or her academic renown in order to get booked for TV shows, or attract crowds to rallies, or raise funds for some cause-related goal, and so on. So one might justly say:

I have no problems with going after [Professor Lastname] and pushing for anyone looking to hire him for an academic job to kick him to the curb instead.

Why? Because he actively uses his status as a scholar to push his views. Since he does that it is IMHO completely ethical for people to disagree with his views to attack his ability to be a professor. He’s the one who chose to link them together by his actions. He doesn’t get to have it both ways.

Looks the same to me.

I'm actually not sure that I follow the argument here at all.

Is it that it's just to deprive Rob Schneider of a professional opportunity that he earned on merit because he holds such dangerous views that expressing them isn't protected speech, a la shouting fire in a crowded theater?

I mean, I realize this wasn't an intended outcome. But is that more or less the reasoning behind celebrating it? .

@Ann

I disagree we've deprived Rob of a professional opportunity. He's certainly received some payment for his work already - however he will most likely lose some earning potential from a lack of residuals.

If Rob were makin' copies for Staples, or acting in a commercial for any product outside of a healthcare related one, I wouldn't have minded a bit.

He loses out on getting his face on TV and being associated with an insurance provider. I don't have an issue with that, given his blatant anti-medicine views.

How is your justification for actively aiming to discourage people from hiring or employing Rob Schneider as an actor distinct from the same reasoning as it might be applied to (let’s say) a distinguished professor of philosophy who was a very vocal advocate for (let’s say) a Palestinian state?

Do you similarly object to the public's raising of complaints about a football team's hiring Michael Vick?

^ Put another way, is there any more reason to be concerned about the fate of Rob Schneider than there is of the recently dire situation of Gallagher?

In less than amusing EV-D68 news, Pravda graces the world with this gem:

Three times in the past month, the University of Chicago Medicine Comer Children’s Hospital has had to divert ambulances to other hospitals because its emergency room was filled with children, most of them younger than 5, with severe respiratory illness. Before the outbreak, the hospital had not had to divert ambulances in 10 years, said Dr. Daniel Johnson, the interim section chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the hospital.

What is omitted here is that the regular ER around the corner has been on more or less permanent diversion status for years. Comer, on the other hand, is supposed to be a cash cow, so it's apparently time to Get in Front of the Message.

@ann

'Protected speech' doesn't meant 'consequence-free speech'. Protected speech means the government doesn't have the right to pass a law to make you shut up unless it has a really, really, really good reason to do that. It doesn't mean that anyone else has any obligation to listen to you, agree with you, or give you a job afterwards.

I thought it was appropriate that Michael Vick was hired again after he paid his debt to society by serving his prison sentence. I would not advocate for him never having a job again.

@Mike #106

I'd have an issue if he were, say, involved in a commercial for pets, the SCPA, or a rescue organization.

He wants to be in a commercial for shoes, cars, etc - no issue.

Do you similarly object to the public’s raising of complaints about a football team’s hiring Michael Vick?

I didn't object. I asked a question. And that question was quoted right above where you wrote ^^that. So I'm pretty sure you saw it.

Put another way, is there any more reason to be concerned about the fate of Rob Schneider than there is of the recently dire situation of Gallagher?

That, again, would be what I'd have to call non-responsive. I wasn't expressing concern about his fate.

But just for the record: AFAIK, nope. Less, if anything.

@TheGrouchyBeast --

Yes, I know. I mean, there's a little more to it than that. But sure. I'm not saying otherwise. I'm just asking two questions.

They're right up there @ #99 and #100.

I disagree we’ve deprived Rob of a professional opportunity. He’s certainly received some payment for his work already – however he will most likely lose some earning potential from a lack of residuals.

If Rob were makin’ copies for Staples, or acting in a commercial for any product outside of a healthcare related one, I wouldn’t have minded a bit.

He loses out on getting his face on TV and being associated with an insurance provider.

How is that not a professional opportunity?

I don’t have an issue with that, given his blatant anti-medicine views.

Because medicine and/or health-insurance and/or [thing worth protecting of your choice here] would be harmed by his portrayal of the Richmeister on a State Farm commercial how, exactly?
.
:

I didn’t object. I asked a question. And that question was quoted right above where you wrote ^^that. So I’m pretty sure you saw it.

OK.

How is your justification for actively aiming to discourage people from hiring or employing Rob Schneider as an actor distinct from the same reasoning as it might be applied to (let’s say) a distinguished professor of philosophy who was a very vocal advocate for (let’s say) a Palestinian state?

One may note that "distinguished" breaks the parallelism, but it's not so long as the nature of the speech is boxed off. The thing is that for the discouragement to work, somebody has to look inside the box. Is there likely to be any practical effect of complaining that someone vocally advocates a Palestinian state? Wouldn't this be likely known in the first place?

Something else that it's not different from is Arthur Butz's colleages publishing a letter stating that "we wish that he would leave our department and our university and stop trading on our reputation for academic excellence."

On the second question,

Is it that it’s just to deprive Rob Schneider of a professional opportunity that he earned on merit because he holds such dangerous views that expressing them isn’t protected speech, a la shouting fire in a crowded theater?

I do not see the relevance of protected speech here.* Nor do I see where the notion of the outcome's being "just" in an abstract sense is relevant: An employee at will, for example, can be fired for any reason or no reason at all, and that encompasses constitutionally protected utterances that the employer doesn't care for.

Schneider presumably had a contract from someone. He also at least was a SAG member;** whether he's SAG-AFTRA I don't know, but the point is that there are ways that he can protect his interests if he plans to be a moronic spokesperson against public health. Perhaps next time he'll plan ahead.

* I would recommend this on the analogy itself, though, if you haven't seen it before.

** BTW, would it be unjust to deprive him of professional opportunities if his political views caused him to refuse to hold a union card?

One may note that “distinguished” breaks the parallelism,

True.

but it’s not so long as the nature of the speech is boxed off.

I take this to mean "it's not different so long as the nature of the speech is boxed off." The problem is that I don't know what I take that to mean. The premise is that the activism is publicly done and publicly known, but distinct from the work he does as a scholar and teacher.

Does that constitute boxed off?

<blockquote. The thing is that for the discouragement to work, somebody has to look inside the box. Is there likely to be any practical effect of complaining that someone vocally advocates a Palestinian state? Wouldn’t this be likely known in the first place?

Now I'm just totally lost, though. Could you rephrase?

Something else that it’s not different from is Arthur Butz’s colleages publishing a letter stating that “we wish that he would leave our department and our university and stop trading on our reputation for academic excellence.”

Well. I don't know about that. The university had already declined to rid itself of him. So I'd say it was more of a dissent for the record than it was a call for action. And they're speaking primarily because their direct, immediate personal interests are implicated. (As opposed to "simply because he expresses views that affront their humanity.")

I was presuming protest by otherwise uninterested parties who had a quarrel with the speech.. .

I do not see the relevance of protected speech here.*

It has none, directly. I just meant: "Is the argument that he's done something other than express his execrable and ignorant beliefs?"

Because although his right to do that is (obviously) not consequence-free, that doesn't give people who disagree with him a limitless license to assail and oppose him wherever and whenever he dares to show his face. IMO.

It's also strategically ineffective over the long haul, imo. But that's a tactic-by-tactic judgment call, by definition. There's room for disagreement.

Anyway. Protected speech has no relevance. I was being inexcusably loose with words and concepts. I'll go read whatever's at your link now in a penitential spirit..

** BTW, would it be unjust to deprive him of professional opportunities if his political views caused him to refuse to hold a union card?

No.

And if he chose to cross picket lines, it would also be okay for protesters to set up a giant inflatable rat in the street and shout "Scab!" at him.

Put another way, is there any more reason to be concerned about the fate of Rob Schneider than there is of the recently dire situation of Gallagher?

Was Gallagher brought down by Big Watermelon?

I don't see the problem with telling a company that I am less likely to buy their products because of the views of the actor they have chosen to represent them. What that company chooses to do with that information is their business.

For me it's more about my confidence in State Farm's ability to keep their eye on the ball, rather than trying to punish Schneider for his behavior by depriving him of employment. If that has a knock-on effect of discouraging celebrities from taking foolish positions on vaccination or anything else, that's an added bonus.

I don’t see the problem with telling a company that I am less likely to buy their products because of the views of the actor they have chosen to represent them.

That characterization might be okay under the letter of the law. But we're not talking about Bill Cosby and Jell-O Pudding Pops here. They chose to represent themselves via a bunch of commercials based on old SNL characters, one of whom was played by Rob Schneider.

He hasn't rated this much attention in years. It's really better publicity for him than money could buy.

That characterization might be okay under the letter of the law.

What law?

Because although his right to do that is (obviously) not consequence-free, that doesn’t give people who disagree with him a limitless license to assail and oppose him wherever and whenever he dares to show his face.

And where did this licentousness manifest? How is Rob Schneider being "assailed and opposed" in an "unlimited" manner "wherever and whenever he dares to show his face"?

Was Gallagher brought down by Big Watermelon?

I blame the stress of the legal dispute with "Gallagher Too."

Now I’m just totally lost, though. Could you rephrase?

I get the impression that you have been attempting to draw specious analogies, culminating with biochemistry.

In this case, Rob Schneider was likened to "a distinguished professor of philosophy who was a very vocal advocate for ... a Palestinian state." This is an attempt at a syntactic analogy. I'll risk redundancy by stating that it doesn't mean anything without a semantic payload.

ann,

That characterization might be okay under the letter of the law.

As Narad asked, what law? I was explaining my personal ethical approach to this area. I'm not an expert on US law, but I don't think this comes even close to infringing Schneider's legal right to free speech, if that's what you mean.

But we’re not talking about Bill Cosby and Jell-O Pudding Pops here. They chose to represent themselves via a bunch of commercials based on old SNL characters, one of whom was played by Rob Schneider.

As a Brit I may be missing a bit of intertext here, but I assume GF used Cosby's intelligent, wholesome, family-man image to promote a dessert aimed at children (though I see he advertised Jell-O Pudding Pops before he starred in the Cosby Show and became very well known for that role). I understand the difference with Schneider, but that just makes State Farm's apparent lack of research into Schneider of less concern than if they were using Schneider's personal image to promote them. It doesn't diminish my concerns entirely, since State Farm isn't selling desserts, it's selling insurance, a more serious business altogether.

One might hope that an insurance company would be better at due diligence. It takes just a few seconds of Googling to learn that Schneider described the US immunization schedule as, "something out of an Orwellian nightmare or something out of Nazi Germany".

He hasn’t rated this much attention in years. It’s really better publicity for him than money could buy.

I disagree. Anyone who considers hiring him in the future is likely to see State Farm dropped him and to think carefully about following in their footsteps. Not all publicity is good publicity, despite the aphorism. How's Mel Gibson's career doing lately?

I am not a State Farm customer and have not watched their commercials thanks to ReplayTV (skipping commercials since 2003). It is my considered opining that Rob Schneider wrote and acted in some of the worst sketches in the history of the show (particularly the Hub's Gyro sketches, which was stupid the first time and progressively worse with each new one and the comment in the last one that, "It's getting very boring, huh?"). How that helps sell insurance is beyond me.

Mel Gibson has been in one film a year since 2010. Supposedly his net worth is US$425million. While it is reported that others don't want to work with him, some argue that he's still a box office draw.

I'm sure all the folks that are boycotting State Farm won't see the commercial during any NFL games, right?
I mean, who in their right mind promotes a "company' that is knee deep in domestic violence?

M.O'B.,

Mel Gibson has been in one film a year since 2010.

True - I checked before referring to him above - but I hadn't heard of any of them. 'The Beaver' was a flop, 'Get the Gringo' went straight to DVD, 'Machete Kills' was a flop that failed to break even, 'The Expendables 3' did better but Gibson plays a minor role, 'Blood Father' has a director and co-stars I have never heard of (quite possibly my bad), and hasn't yet been released.

He might still be working, but his antisemitic, homophobic and other obnoxious remarks have certainly had a damaging effect on his career.

@Paul L,

It's not so much that the NFL is knee deep in domestic violence. I saw a number quoted that their incidence of such cases is less than the national average, but I have no idea how accurate that statistic is.

What really ticked people off was their casual, slap on the wrist, response to a highly visible incident.

And, I suspect, State Farm will advertise where they're likely to get people to watch.

Krebiozen and Ann are Anti Gentile and AntiChristian.

See how easy it is to attack the messengers, using Marxist tactics like YOU employ?

Ann...some great WW2 quotes for you and yours.
Toodles

CHARLES LINDBERGH (Heroic Aviator)
“The leaders of the British and Jewish races, for reasons which are as understandable from their viewpoint as they are inadvisable from ours, for reasons which are not American, wish to involve us in the war.”

NEVILLE HENDERSON (British Ambassador to Germany)
“The hostile attitude in Great Britain was the work of Jews and enemies of the Nazis.”

NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN (UK Prime Minister) told to JOSEPH KENNEDY (Family Patriarch)
“Chamberlain (speaking off the record to Kennedy while playing golf) stated that America and the world Jews had forced England into the war”. (The Forrestal Diaries ed. Millis, Cassell 1952 p129).

JOSEPH KENNEDY (Family Patriarch & US Ambassdor to the UK)
“As Ambassador to England, Joe would later make clear that he thought the Jews had `brought on themselves’ whatever Hitler did to them. During a 1938 meeting at the German Embassy in London, Kennedy assured the German ambassador that America only wanted friendly relations with Hitler.
Joe said that Hitler’s government had done `great things’ for the country, and that the Germans were `satisfied’ and enjoyed `good living conditions.’ Joe told the ambassador that a recent report which said the limited food in Germany was being reserved for the army could not be true. After all, Joe said, the professor who had made the report `was a Jew.’
Excerpt from “The Sins of the Father”

LORD BEAVERBROOK (Owner of UK’s biggest newspaper)
“There are 20,000 German Jews in England – in the professions, pursuing research. They all work against an accommodation with Germany.”
In a subsequent letter, Beaverbrook adds:
“The Jews have got a big position in the press here. . At last I am shaken. The Jews may drive us into war.”

“It is untrue that I or anyone else in Germany wanted the war in 1939.
It was desired and instigated exclusively by those international statesmen who were either of Jewish descent or worked for Jewish interests.”
– Adolf Hitler, April 29, 1945

“We Jews Are Going to Bring a War On Germany.”
– David A. Brown, National Chairman, United Jewish Campaign, 1934 (quote “I Testify Against The Jews” by Robert Edward Edmondson, page 188 “The Jewish War of Survival” by Arnold Leese, pg 52

“Judea Declares War On Germany! Jews of all the World Unite!”
– London Daily Express Headline, March 24, 1933

WWII A ‘Jewish Creation’
9-13-2

At the end of the First World War, Germany was essentially tricked [see Paul Johnson A History of the Modern World (1983) p24 and H Nicholson Peacemaking 1919 (1933) pp13-16] into paying massive reparations to France and other economic competitors and former belligerent countries in terms of the so-called Treaty of Versailles, thanks to the liberal American President Woodrow Wilson.

Germany was declared to be solely responsible for the war, in spite of the fact that ‘Germany did not plot a European war, did not want one, and made genuine efforts, though too belated, to avert one.’ (Professor Sydney B Fay The Origins of the World War (vol. 2 p 552)).

http://pridecomethbeforeafall.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/life-in-germany-…
Photos of 1930s Germany, what a glorious nation in contrast to AmeriKa, fleeced of its savings or Jewed with the Great Depression and Banks closing ie A Wealth Transfer.
Money doesn't vanish, it just changes hands.

Krebiozen and Ann.

Would YOU describe yourselves are Anti Gentile and Anti Christian?

AT/AT/A (all of whom are the same person): Alright. This is your one and only warning. I'm very "hands-off" when it comes to moderation. I rarely ban anyone for anything. However, there is one thing I will not tolerate, and that's blatant bigotry. Your antisemitism qualifies. Knock it off. There will not be a second warning. You will just be banned.

Amazing to see the pure drivel of an intellectual vacuum. Good riddance.

History proves vaccines are quite safe—really?
Sep 29
by Jon Rappoport

NoMoreFakeNews.com

In 1987, when I was writing my first book, AIDS INC., I decided to look into vaccines as a cause of immune-system suppression.

I had never dug below the surface of that subject before.

Of course, the authorities and experts have been forever telling people how effective and safe vaccines are. They issue their remarks with great assurance.

Here are just a few of my findings, from 1987. They paint a different historical record.

“Smallpox, like typhus, has been dying out (in England) since 1780. Vaccination in this country has largely fallen into disuse since people began to realize how its value was discredited by the great smallpox epidemic of 1871-2 (which occurred after extensive vaccination).” W. Scott Webb, A Century of Vaccination, Swan Sonnenschein, 1898.

“… Barker and Pichichero, in a prospective study of 1232 children in Denver, Colorado, found after DTP [diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis vaccine], that only 7% of those vaccinated were free from untoward reactions, which included pyrexia (53%), acute behavioral changes (82%), prolonged screaming (13%), and listlessness, anorexia and vomiting. 71% of those receiving second injections of DTP experienced two or more of the reactions monitored.” Lancet, May 28, 1983, p. 1217

“Publications by the World Health Organization show that diphtheria is steadily declining in most European countries, including those in which there has been no immunization. The decline began long before vaccination was developed. There is certainly no guarantee that vaccination will protect a child against the disease; in fact, over 30,000 cases of diphtheria have been recorded in the United Kingdom in fully immunized children.” Leon Chaitow, Vaccination and Immunization, CW Daniel Company, Ltd., p. 58.

“… the swine-flu vaccination program was one of its (CDC) greatest blunders. It all began in 1976 when CDC scientists saw that a virus involved in a flu attack outbreak at Fort Dix, N.J., was similar to the swine-flu virus that killed 500,000 Americans in 1918. Health officials immediately launched a 100-million dollar program to immunize every American. But the expected epidemic never materialized, and the vaccine led to partial paralysis in 532 people. There were 32 deaths.” U.S. News and World Report, Joseph Carey, October 14, 1985, p. 70, “How Medical Sleuths Track Killer Diseases.”

“At a press conference in Washington on 24 July, 1942, the Secretary of War reported that 28,585 cases of jaundice had been observed in the (American) Army between 1 January and 4 July after yellow fever vaccination, and of these 62 proved fatal.” Sir Graham Wilson, Hazards of Immunization, Athone Press, University of London, 1967.

“Between 10 December 1929 and 30 April 1930, 251 of 412 infants born in Lubeck received three doses of BCG vaccine by the mouth during the first ten days of life. Of these 251, 72 died of tuberculosis, most of them in two to five months and all but one before the end of the first year. In addition, 135 suffered from clinical tuberculosis but eventually recovered; and 44 became tuberculin-positive but remained well. None of the 161 unvaccinated infants born at the time was affected in this way and none of these died of tuberculosis within the following three years.” Hazards of Immunization, Wilson.

“So far it is hardly possible to gain insight into the extent of the immunization catastrophe of 1955 in the United States. It may be considered certain that the officially ascertained 200 cases (of polio) which were caused directly or indirectly by the (polio) vaccination constitute minimum figures… It can hardly be estimated how many of the 1359 (polio) cases among vaccinated persons must be regarded as failures of the vaccine and how many of them were infected by the vaccine. A careful study of the epidemiologic course of polio in the United States yields indications of grave significance. In numerous states of the U.S.A., typical early epidemics developed with the immunizations in the spring of 1955… The vaccination incidents of the year 1955 cannot be exclusively traced back to the failure of one manufacturing firm.” Dr. Herbert Ratner, Child and Family, 1980, vol. 19, no. 4, “Story of the Salk Vaccine (Part 2).”

“Suffice it to say that most of the large (polio) epidemics that have occurred in this country since the introduction of the Salk vaccine have followed the wide-scale use of the vaccine and have been characterized by an uncommon early seasonal onset. To name a few, there is the Massachusetts epidemic of 1955; the Chicago epidemic of 1956; and the Des Moines epidemic of 1959.” Dr. Herbert Ratner, Child and Family, 1980 vol. 19, no. 4.

“Administration of KMV (killed measles vaccine) apparently set in motion an aberrant immunologic response that not only failed to protect children against natural measles, but resulted in heightened susceptibility.” JAMA Aug. 22, 1980, vol. 244, p. 804, Vincent Fulginiti and Ray Helfer. The authors indicate that such falsely protected children can come down with “an often severe, atypical form of measles. Atypical measles is characterized by fever, headache… and a diverse rash (which)… may consist of a mixture of macules, papules, vesicles, and pustules… “

“Assistant Secretary of Health Edward Brandt, Jr., MD, testifying before the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, rounded… figures off to 9,000 cases of convulsions, 9,000 cases of collapse, and 17,000 cases of high-pitched screaming for a total of 35,000 acute neurological reactions occurring within forty-eight hours of a DPT shot among America’s children every year.” DPT: A Shot in the Dark, by Harris L. Coulter and Barbara Loe Fischer, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Yes, a different history. Is there a school anywhere which would dare teach it?

Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe.

Hitler blamed the Jews for WW2 therefore it must be true? That has to be one of the dumbest things I have ever read. I'm glad this discussion has exposed AT's true beliefs. To paraphrase Gandhi, it's important to make bigotry visible.

AT's posts are about the typical level of Holocaust denial rhetoric. Yes, much of it is just that dumb.

AT definitely is ready for the rubber romper room.

In this case, Rob Schneider was likened to “a distinguished professor of philosophy who was a very vocal advocate for … a Palestinian state.” This is an attempt at a syntactic analogy. I’ll risk redundancy by stating that it doesn’t mean anything without a semantic payload.

That's not what I meant at all. And it's a very unfair reading.

I was asking an earnest question that proceeded from perceptions that may well be mistaken in some way that I don't or can't see, for reasons presently unknown to me. I'm open to correction, if so. That's why I asked the question to begin with.

The "distinguished" isn't important. I just threw it in for flavor. He (or she) could be a total hack of a professor without affecting the premise, as long as the protest is over the outside activism. Please feel free to strike it.

get the impression that you have been attempting to draw specious analogies, culminating with biochemistry.

I've already said that I don't understand why it's specious, and asked in what way its having a social context makes it so.

That's because I'd genuinely like to know why my thinking is specious, if it is. And also because it's not self-explanatory. To me, at least.

So please quit ascribing ill intentions to me that I don't have, honey. I'm totally willing to accept that I'm being maddeningly dense. But I'm not doing it on purpose. Have a heart.

Would YOU describe yourselves are Anti Gentile and Anti Christian?

No.

And I'd have a lifetime of words and actions contradicting me if I did.

If you'd asked me if I'd describe myself as "pro-Semitic" or "pro-Jewish," I would have said the same thing, incidentally.

Why do you ask?

"Judea Declares War On Germany! Jews of all the World Unite!”
– London Daily Express Headline, March 24, 1933

As I was just saying over on the other thread, that's not a declaration of war, AT.

But I'm sure you can see that. Of course. So I guess you don't want to.

@118 --

It's a figure of speech. A metaphor, to be precise. It's commonly used as such. And while it's true that it might also be used literally in a legal context, absent one, it's generally presumed to mean, "This is technically correct, but connotes something more than the facts support."

I'm surprised you've never heard it.

How’s Mel Gibson’s career doing lately?

Quite well. Actually.

He might still be working, but his antisemitic, homophobic and other obnoxious remarks have certainly had a damaging effect on his career.

That's true in the sense that increasing age and instability have had a damaging effect on his career as a leading man.

But he was already well into the Clint Eastwood, producer-director stage of the Hollywood career cycle when that DUI happened. And his anti-Semitism had been widely, publicly known for years by then anyway.

I mean, he's probably lost some parts. But he's not primarily an actor anymore. He's still a very wealthy man, who has many powerful, influential friends and admirers who are perfectly willing to do business with him. (For example, I note from the linked article that he's still repped by Alan Nierob, who is Jewish.)

And there are fairly regular proofs of that every couple years. He got a standing ovation at Cannes in 2011. And so on.

That's about par for the course for ex-leading actors his age who are doing quite well. And when he was still worth big bucks at the box office, his offensive views made no difference at all.

The Jim Carrey/Rob Schneider parallel would founder on similar shoals if it hadn't already run aground.

I mean, we're talking about show business. It actually isn't simply true that companies don't hire people with extreme views to sell or represent their products. It depends on the costs and benefits.

Whatever ones opinion regarding autism and Amish children via vaccines, It’s really worth pointing out here: the Amish have not succumbed to plagues of polio, measles, mumps, rubella, or all the other things that most every American child is vaccinated against repeatedly, nor have they passed on these plagues to the tourists and such who visit them and buy their wares.
Even more stunning, the population of Amish is exploding…and they’re avoiding vaccines. If vaccines are so necessary that it is mandatory for citizens to get them, why are the Amish thriving without them? “Herd Immunity” doesn’t apply here, since the Amish, quite obviously, live as a group, and totally travel through modern society with some regularity. It really, really, seems like there’s a question or two worth asking there.

Mr Orac,
I am not a Holocaust denier. I know that the Soviet statisticians are correct in their reporting of the deaths of 66 million Christians from 1917-1949, at the hands of the Bolshevik butchers, per Aleksandr Solzhenitzyns book Gulag Archipelago.

Or are you referring to the Armenian Holocaust, or The Native American Holocaust, or Irish Catholic Holocaust in the so called Potato famine, when Millions of Irish had their livestock and other grain foods removed at Gunpoint from English Soldiers to make payment to absentee English landlords, and subsequently starved?
Or is it the Jewish Holocaust you refer to?
OK, I believe that 6 billion Jews died, or 6 trillion Jews or whatever it is the official narrative is these days. Perhaps its 5,999,999. Is that number acceptable if its 1 person less than 6 million?
I sure hope so.
You must admit that Its interesting that in 7000 pages of personal memoirs from FDR, De Gaulle, and Churchill, there was not one mention of Genocide or Gas chambers though...they were anti semites I guess.
Even Hogans Heroes, the popular sit com, did not portray any German war crimes. I guess the writers were all anti semitic though.

I mean, I can see why it gets overlooked. But the thing that really made that DUI damaging was that it was one.

That's a much more concrete problem, for movie-making purposes. And past a certain point, it's just a deal-breaker.

He and Robert Downey Jr. (half-Jewish, I think) aren't close friends and mutual supporters for no reason at all. Is what I'm saying.

In this case, Rob Schneider was likened to “a distinguished professor of philosophy who was a very vocal advocate for … a Palestinian state.” This is an attempt at a syntactic analogy. I’ll risk redundancy by stating that it doesn’t mean anything without a semantic payload.

You can actually make it Arthur Butz. He's a perfect example.

The question would then be:

How is it different for people to mount a campaign for State Farm to drop Rob Schneider because he's anti-vax than it would be if they mounted a campaign for Northwestern to drop Arthur Butz because he's a Holocaust denier?

Because -- as I'm sure it will gladden AT's heart to know -- not only would I not support the latter campaign, I'd march in protest if the university fired him as the result of one.

I'd also sign a letter saying I wished he would leave if I were one of his colleagues and the university had already declined to act.

Or if they hadn't, maybe. I just wouldn't demand that he be fired, effectively or actually. I think Northwestern was right.

This appears to me to be the same. But maybe it's not. Or maybe we just disagree.

Vaccine researcher charged with felony crimes for research fraud; may spend 20 years in prison over faked AIDS vaccine

Wednesday, June 25, 2014
by Mike Adams

(NaturalNews) Scientific fraud is so common in the vaccine industry, it's practically the default business model. The truth is that most vaccines don't work, so in order to make them appear to work, researchers routinely spike blood samples of vaccinated test subjects with antibodies, making it appear the vaccine caused the body to produce those antibodies.

This is exactly what Merck does with MMR vaccines, according to the company's own former virologists who filed a False Claims Act with the federal government. It's also why up to 97% of children who contract measles or mumps were already vaccinated against measles and mumps.

Now, a National Institutes of Health-funded vaccine scientist who was celebrated as achieving a breakthrough vaccine against HIV has confessed to spiking the test subject blood samples with antibodies. Dong-Pyou Han had taken $5 million in NIH grant money to further his "research" at Iowa State University. The mainstream media and vaccine advocates hailed his research as groundbreaking, "game-changing" advancements in the search for an AIDS vaccine.

But now, it turns out Han committed outrageous scientific fraud that wasted taxpayer money and diverted resources away from other important research projects. So federal prosecutors have taken the extraordinary step of charging Han with making false statements to the government. He now faces four felony counts, each of which carries a maximum prison sentence of five years. (Yes, lying to the government is a federal crime. But the government lying to us, well... that's another matter altogether.)

"It's an important case because it is extremely rare for scientists found to have committed fraud to be held accountable by the actual criminal justice system," said Retraction Watch co-founder Ivan Oransky in an ABC News article. (1)

The vaccine industry routinely gets away with fraud: Why aren't more criminal charges filed?
All this brings up the question of why more fraudulent vaccine researchers aren't charged with felony crimes. It also begs the question of why companies like GlaxoSmithKline, which openly admit to committing multiple felony crimes in the routine bribing of doctors, are still allowed to conduct business with the government at all.

The vaccine industry, you see, is run like a criminal mafia that has blanket legal immunity thanks to the U.S. Congress. Vaccines are the only product sold in the USA which can be defectively manufactured and kill people, yet still face zero legal liability in the courts.

This is true even when vaccines have been found to contain tiny shards of glass, high levels of toxic mercury, a brain-damaging heavy metal, or even live viruses that literally infect people with the very disease the vaccine claims to prevent.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/045726_research_fraud_AIDS_vaccine_science-b…

Why cant historical events, any events, be scrutinized and questioned?
Why do some nations impose laws for such thought crimes, if ones research leads one to an alternate conclusion than that imposed by an official narrative?
Why can question the existence of GOD, The Virgin Birth, The assumption but one better not dare question The Holocaust or that 6 million Jews died.
So if as a researcher, I claim that 5,999,999 died, am I a denier and anti semite?

Arthur Butz was a Doctor of Engineering at Northwestern, and he authored a book called The Greatest Hoax Of The 20th Century after doing a decades worth of research on this event.

Jew David Cole was personally attacked for stating his public denial of many questionable elements of this event, as was David Irving-England Great historian, Ernst Zundel, Germar Rudolph and many others...again Isimply ask why as a scientist or researcher one cannot question an event?

As long as we're risking redundancy, may I say again that all those charges of syntactic and semantic jiggery-pokery are very f'ing unfair?

I made him distinguished so that he would be high-profile enough for his activism to be public. I made that activism pro-Palestinian because it's such a conflicted issue.

And that's all there was to it. I didn't really anticipate that it would be received as if I was just pulling sh*t out of thin air at random as I went along. It's a pretty standard-issue argument.

Anyway.

Butz works just as well, if not better. So let's use Butz.

Whatever ones opinion regarding autism and Amish children via vaccines, It’s really worth pointing out here: the Amish have not succumbed to plagues of polio, measles, mumps, rubella, or all the other things that most every American child is vaccinated against repeatedly, nor have they passed on these plagues to the tourists and such who visit them and buy their wares.

You might want to check out the reported outbreak of measles in Ohio, particularly among the Amish who have a lower rate of vaccination than the general population. See http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/06/24/323702892/measles-outbreak-i…

M. O Brien,

We are getting outbreaks of measles and other viruses from ILLEGALS brought here by our Government!

The Amish are not being affected, but are concerned due to the hype, which is a Media PR Circus disinfo campaign.

Ann,

However, if I were a parent considering whether my child should accept an admissions offer at Northwestern, I would certainly take the presence of Arthur Butz on the faculty into consideration, and I might also inform the university and anyone who would listen exactly why this was a concern for me. Likewise if I were a prospective donor to the university, I'd be concerned about the risk of my name being associated with professor Butz's views on this topic.

And yes, I know that Arthur Butz teaches electrical engineering and is quite qualified for that. I also realize that his views on the Holocaust should not enter into his coursework.

I would have similar - though stronger - concerns about a university employing Ward Churchill.

Given that most Central and South American countries have mandatory vaccine laws, these "illegals" as you call them, are better vaccinated than the average American.....you racist-bigot-asshat.

Whatever ones opinion regarding autism and Amish children via vaccines, It’s really worth pointing out here: the Amish have not succumbed to plagues of polio, measles, mumps, rubella, or all the other things that most every American child is vaccinated against repeatedly, nor have they passed on these plagues to the tourists and such who visit them and buy their wares.

And that would be because (contrary to myth) the Amish vaccinate their children against those infectious diseases, AT.

We are getting outbreaks of measles and other viruses from ILLEGALS brought here by our Government!

Citation needed, AT.

JGC,

The Amish are not known for widespread vaccinations.
But then, YOU already Knew this.
Some communities do, and succumb to media PR Blitzing as preventitive, but most do not.

On Illegals spreading disease...
http://www.abc15.com/news/national/immigrants-bringing-diseases-across-…

Lawrence,

I think of myself as a realist and racialist..

The term racist was invented by a Communist Marxist 'Israeli' Lenin in 1930. It had no efficacy nor significance until the 1960s brought to you by you know who Liberals..

Lawrence,
Notice WHO is making these claims abotu Illegals bringing disease

News for illegals cause outbreak diseases

CNN
CDC Warning: Immigrant Children Could Be Spreading This New Mystery Virus In Public Schools

Western Journalism - 20 hours ago

These unaccompanied illegal immigrant children have been allowed into ... In fact, back in February of 2014, an outbreak of a polio-like illness caused as ... You also immediately increase the risk of deadly disease outbreaks.'

As a Brit I may be missing a bit of intertext here, but I assume GF used Cosby’s intelligent, wholesome, family-man image to promote a dessert aimed at children (though I see he advertised Jell-O Pudding Pops before he starred in the Cosby Show and became very well known for that role).

Right. I was using him as the archetypal example of celebrity spokespersonship. Or brand ambassadorship, as people sometimes seriously say, hard though that is to believe.

So. Taking it from the top. You said:

I don’t see the problem with telling a company that I am less likely to buy their products because of the views of the actor they have chosen to represent them.

It's technically accurate that Rob Schneider is an actor whom they chose to represent them. But that's not how you'd ordinarily describe a company's decision to cast an actor for a one-time role as a character in one commercial. And it is how you'd ordinarily describe brand ambassadorship.

That's what I meant by letter-of-the-law, blah, blah, blah.

That he's playing a character does also seem like a relevant and meaningful distinction to me.

I mean, I personally make a distinction between what Spike Lee says when speaking as himself and what Spike Lee says when playing Mars Blackmon on a Nike commercial, wrt questions of whether what he's saying represents his true beliefs. Or Nike's. Or anybody's, ftm.

I was under the impression that a sign of intact reality testing.
(Imperfect analogy, since the character was a brand ambassador in that case; but never mind.)

I understand the difference with Schneider, but that just makes State Farm’s apparent lack of research into Schneider of less concern than if they were using Schneider’s personal image to promote them. It doesn’t diminish my concerns entirely, since State Farm isn’t selling desserts, it’s selling insurance, a more serious business altogether.

Oops. That posted itself before its time.

@Mephistopheles O'Brien --

Sure. Yes. That's all very reasonable, as well as not at all the same thing as going full #droparthurbutz instead.

I have to admit that this part...

if I were a parent considering whether my child should accept an admissions offer at Northwestern, I would certainly take the presence of Arthur Butz on the faculty into consideration,

...made me feel a little wistful for those long-ago childhood days when you could pretty much take it for granted that there were about the same number and kind of kooks, crackpots and extremists at any university as at any other, all other things being approximately equal.

But I was a faculty brat. And times have changed.

We are getting outbreaks of measles and other viruses from ILLEGALS brought here by our Government!

You lose, Losey McLoserson.

You might want to check out the reported outbreak of measles in Ohio, particularly among the Amish who have a lower rate of vaccination than the general population.

Or the appearance of polio.

^ Type 1 VDPV, BTW.

The Amish are not known for widespread vaccinations.But then, YOU already Knew this.

But I don't know this, AT. All teh evidence I've seen indicate that the majority of Amish parents choose to vaccinate their children. That's precisely why I'm asked you to provide evidence demonstrating otherwise.

I mean, you do have some...right?

Why cant historical events, any events, be scrutinized and questioned?
Why do some nations impose laws for such thought crimes, if ones research leads one to an alternate conclusion than that imposed by an official narrative?
Why can question the existence of GOD, The Virgin Birth, The assumption but one better not dare question The Holocaust or that 6 million Jews died.
So if as a researcher, I claim that 5,999,999 died, am I a denier and anti semite?

Arthur Butz was a Doctor of Engineering at Northwestern, and he authored a book called The Greatest Hoax Of The 20th Century after doing a decades worth of research on this event.

Jew David Cole was personally attacked for stating his public denial of many questionable elements of this event, as was David Irving-England Great historian, Ernst Zundel, Germar Rudolph and many others…again Isimply ask why as a scientist or researcher one cannot question an event?

Note that I let a couple more AT comments through in order to demonstrate without a doubt that he is a Holocaust denier. His techniques of denial are the very same as the ones chronicled in:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/denial/
http://www.holocaust-history.org/denial/revisionism-qa.shtml

http://www.nizkor.org/features/techniques-of-denial/
http://www.nizkor.org/features/revision-or-denial/
http://www.nizkor.org/features/qar/

Then there's his bit about claiming not to be a racist but a "racialist," which is basically admitting he's a racist. If there were any further doubt that AT is a grade-A, unrepentant, racist, anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying asshole, he eliminated it himself.

Now, back to automatic moderation for him. Any more racist or Holocaust-denying spew will not be approved, now that no further evidence is required to demonstrate his Holocaust denial.

I went to the link you provided about undocumented aliens bringing diseases across the border, but found no evidence that this offered in the text of the article. It simply reports the opinion of Border Patrol agent and Rio Grande Valley Union representative Chris Cabrera.

Certainly nothing there argues,, as you've claimed, that illegal aliens are brining measles into the coutry. the word 'measles' doesn't appear once in the entire piece.

I know it sounds more credible if you claim the CDC is warning that illegal aliens are spreading diseases. It's also, unfortunately, completely untrue.

The CDC has issued a Health Advisory to doctors about 8 polio-like vrirus cases in Colorado, and said EV-D68 was detected in four of the eight sick children who were tested for the virus. The CDC, in their health advisory, confirmed that they are looking into the possibility that the nationwide outbreak of EV-D68 is causing the polio-like illness. They aski doctors around the country to be on the lookout for similar cases and to report any similar neurological illnesses to the CDC. The warning does not, however, implicate illegal aliens as a contributor to these cases or the larger EV-D68 outbreak.

That's the unsupported assertion Robert Richardson, the author of "CDC Warning: Immigrant Children Could Be Spreading This New Mystery Virus In Public Schools" on the Haven website (http://www.westernjournalism.com/obama-adminstrations-immigration-polic…) who far from claiming the CDC is warning this is the case instead complains they are "completely ignoring the fact this this virus seems to have been spread by illegal immigrants who’ve been dumped throughout the country".

@JGC - what would you expect from a racist-bigot-asshat who has no idea what actual goes on in the world outside of the four little walls of its own cave....and certainly has no context for history or even vaccination policies of other countries (which are usually more stringent then our own).

Funny guy.

I know it sounds more credible if you claim the CDC is warning that illegal aliens are spreading diseases. It’s also, unfortunately, completely untrue.

I hope you are not too shocked to find AT quoting from some Stormfront-wannabee blogger who simply makes stuff up about CDC warnings.

And where did this licentousness manifest? How is Rob Schneider being “assailed and opposed” in an “unlimited” manner “wherever and whenever he dares to show his face”?

Rhetorical speech is a thing whereby a person might seek to express the idea that just because holding anti-vax (or, ftm, any) views comes with social consequences, that doesn't necessarily mean that any and all social consequences that occur as a result of them are reasonable, proportionate, desirable and/or natural like so:

Because although his right to do that is (obviously) not consequence-free, that doesn’t give people who disagree with him a limitless license to assail and oppose him wherever and whenever he dares to show his face.

So the answer to your question is that I don't think that's happening. But I do think that "#DropRobSchneider" was a disproportionate response, relative to the offense. Which, as far as I can see, consisted of being the same Rob Schneider whose objectionable beliefs we can and do decry when he expresses them, except that he wasn't expressing them.

Properly speaking, the social consequences were more the result of his *having* anti-vax beliefs than his expressing them. As a matter of fact. And that does bother me a little bit.

But it's mostly the disproportion. I mean, "#DropRobSchneider" is about as socially consequential as you can get without crossing the boundary between "social consequences" and "sanctions." If someone decided to make a dedicated habit out of it, it would be vigilantism. Or maybe harassment. But either way, it's very f'ing extreme to call for someone to be fired for any reason, let alone because you disagree with the beliefs they express when not on the job.

So it's a little disingenuous to agitate to get someone fired and then just say, "Oh, well. Social consequences, dontcha know?" as if that was all there was to it. In fact, it's sort of like chasing someone in front of a car, then blaming the driver for hitting them. But only sort of.

...

Well. That's a bad analogy. Getting dropped by State Farm is legitimately a social consequence of speech, and so is organized protest. Whereas chasing someone in front of a car is a bad act. But still. It's a little disingenuous.

I think that tactic should be an absolute last resort, if that. And probably not even that.

I mean, I wouldn't want to see Orac's alter-ego targeted at his day job for what he says on this blog. That seems to me clearly to cross a line. (And yes, I do know that it's happened.) And I wouldn't want something like that to happen to me. Or to you.

So. Axiomatically, as a matter of principle, you can't just reserve those courtesies for people you agree with. If it's crossing the line for one, it's crossing the line for all. So I also wouldn't want it to happen to AT. I don't care if he doesn't return the favor. He's entitled to his beliefs.

I didn't realize that was so controversial.

He also knows nothing of the Amish - except what he's told by his anti-vax friends.....

Then there’s his bit about claiming not to be a racist but a “racialist,”

I didn't see that.

...

Not that I expect it all to cohere or anything. But you'd think that would come into direct, unavoidable conflict with the Khazar convert thing. Wouldn't you?

I understand the difference with Schneider, but that just makes State Farm’s apparent lack of research into Schneider of less concern than if they were using Schneider’s personal image to promote them. It doesn’t diminish my concerns entirely, since State Farm isn’t selling desserts, it’s selling insurance, a more serious business altogether.

No matter what they're selling, it's not reasonable to expect companies to research every actor that plays a character in one of their commercials once, but doesn't otherwise represent them.

Or any actor that plays a character in one of their commercials once, but doesn't otherwise represent them. They're just thinking: Hans, Frans, and the copy guy. Because that's who 99.9 percent of the world would perceive as their having hired to represent them.

It's really just in the immediate social context of people who read this blog that Rob Schneider is so closely tied to anti-vaxitude at the level of identity that he invites social consequences just by appearing in a commercial. That's the thing about social context. It's inherently subjective.

Anyway. I doubt that from their POV, they were hiring him to represent them personally. And he's not that personally famous. So I don't blame them for thinking there wasn't any diligence due. Under those circumstances, it's more of a long shot than is worth the work.

Measles Facts, What is not reported:

http://www.activistpost.com/2014/04/measles-witch-hunt-anti-vax-parents…

The Amish in Ohio contracted the disease through missionaries, it was brought here according to the county Health Dept, as was her admission of them being traditionally low in vaccination rates

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/14/amish-missionaries-measles-out…

I note that, besides his idiocy on vaccines, behind the scenes AT is still spewing Holocaust denial tropes. I am, however, saving you from having to see them.

Under those circumstances, it’s more of a long shot than is worth the work.

What work? Google the guy, and his frikkin' Wikipedia entry tells you he's antivaccine! Seriously.

@AT - oh, you racist bigot you, don't you realize you just made an argument in favor of vaccination?

All recent outbreaks have been from people bringing measles back from overseas....seems like a fantastic reason to get vaccinated if you are going to come in contact with endemic measles overseas and coming back.

Arthur Butz was a Doctor of Engineering at Northwestern

WTF is this supposed to mean? He's some guy who never made a full professorship but somehow managed to get tenure as an associate.

The Amish in Ohio contracted the disease through missionaries

You're brain-dead.

The term racist was invented by a Communist Marxist ‘Israeli’ Lenin in 1930.

Can't win for losing, can you?

(note--previousy posted this to the wrong thread)

Not according to Dr. Wiznitzer, AT.

For the record, here the text containing Wiznitzer’s 1 in 10,000 number for autism in the Amish community (from the CNN’s Larry King Live program transcript at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0904/03/lkl.01.html)

KING: Are you saying it will show that vaccinations played a part?
KARTZINEL: Absolutely.
KING: How will you respond to that, Dr. Wiznitzer?
WIZNITZER: Years ago, I thought about this idea among the Amish population here in northeast Ohio, to whom I am actually the neurologist. And I went to the public health nurses and said, tell me about their vaccination rates. And I was told that there is a very high rate of vaccination amongst the Amish population. Out of ten thousand of individuals in our population, we have one child with autism. I see all these children.
The fact is, we can’t basically use the argument. It’s much more complex than just vaccinated versus unvaccinated.

The CDC has issued a Health Advisory to doctors about 8 polio-like vrirus cases in Colorado, and said EV-D68 was detected in four of the eight sick children who were tested for the virus.

This isn't particularly surprising. If it's become neurovirulent, there doesn't seem to be any reason to blame the "wetbacks."

Measles was not fatal in Ohio.. Cold like symptoms.
Yet YOU monkeys want people to inject formaldehyde and monkey cells into ones bloodstream so Big Pharma can cha ching more profits to report to their shareholders.

0.5 mL and contains not less than the equivalent of 1,000 CCID50 (50% cell culture infective dose) of measles virus 5,000 CCID50 of mumps virus; and 1,000 CCID50 of rubella virus. Each dose of the vaccine is calculated to contain sorbitol (14.5 mg), sodium phosphate, sucrose (1.9 mg), sodium chloride, hydrolyzed gelatin (14.5 mg), human albumin (0.3 mg), fetal bovine serum (‹1 ppm), other buffer and media ingredients and approximately 25 µg of neomycin. The product contains no preservative.

The growth medium for measles and mumps is Medium 199 (a buffered salt solution containing vitamins and amino acids and supplemented with fetal bovine serum) containing SPGA (sucrose, phosphate, glutamate, and human albumin) as stabilizer and neomycin.

The bovine serum looks extremely attractive.
Lawrence...don't flatter yourself. Youre a disinfo shill. Vaccinated people are still contracting the same virus!!!

http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/outbreaks-of-measles-in-vaccinated-chi…

Firstly Ann, thank you for your comment at 169. It clarifies a lot. however...

I do think that “#DropRobSchneider” was a disproportionate response, relative to the offense.

I have to disagree. State farm sells Medical Insurance, among other things. My Medical Insurance Provider lets me get the flu vaccine for free and even awards me points for doing so. Schneider's antivaxx views contradict this. As an actor in an advert for State farm, Schneider is effectively a spokesman for State Farm, albeit a paid one. I see no difference in State Farm dropping him and a jewellery company rescinding its sponsorship deal with an actress for wearing a different company's jewellery in public (yes, that has happened).

Measles was not fatal in Ohio.. Cold like symptoms.

Did you pick up that morsel of brillance mind-boggling idiocy from the latest Traditionalist American Knights newsletter?

the latest Traditionalist American Knights newsletter?
Now that AT is denied an outlet for the racism and antisemitism, I am waiting to see how long until he explodes in a bursting-boil pop of MR Advocacy and climate-change denial.

AT,
I'm feeling kind, so I'm going to explain to you why those scary-sounding ingredients are perfectly safe. Most people here have heard this a hundred times before, so apologies to them for the repetition, but you clearly haven't, otherwise you wouldn't have posted this comment.

Yet YOU monkeys want people to inject formaldehyde

The most formaldehyde you will find in any vaccine is 0.1 milligrams. In any case, formaldehyde is a simple and natural substance that is an essential part of plant and animal metabolism. Many foods naturally contain formaldehyde such as apples which contain up to 22.3 milligrams per kilogram, pears up to 60 milligrams per kilogram and dried shiitake mushrooms with up to 406 millligrams per kilogram. Your own body produces far more formaldehyde every hour than there is in every vaccine shot in the entire schedule.

The only way formaldehyde is toxic or carcinogenic is in concentrations many thousands of times higher than you find in vaccines.

This is pointed out to "safe vaccine proponents" over and over, yet they still come out with the same old ridiculous nonsense, and wonder why we mock them.

and monkey cells into ones bloodstream

No vaccine has ever contained monkey cells, and vaccines (sigh) are not injected into one's bloodstream.

so Big Pharma can cha ching more profits to report to their shareholders.

As others have frequently pointed out, Big Pharma would make far more money selling drugs to treat VPDs than it does selling vaccines to prevent them. Recent measles outbreaks in Europe (almost all in unvaccinated or under-vaccinated people) have resulted in many cases of pneumonia, encephalitis, several deaths and at least three cases of SSPE. Preventing these with MMR would have been far cheaper than treating them.

0.5 mL and contains not less than the equivalent of 1,000 CCID50 (50% cell culture infective dose) of measles virus 5,000 CCID50 of mumps virus; and 1,000 CCID50 of rubella virus.

If you have a way of making an effective vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella that doesn't contain attenuated viruses, do share. Otherwise I suspect you are simply afraid of things you are too lazy or perhaps unable to understand, like medical terms, foreigners and Jews.

Each dose of the vaccine is calculated to contain sorbitol (14.5 mg),

Sorbitol is a natural sugar alcohol, found in apples, pears, peaches, and prunes.

sodium phosphate,

You would be dead if you didn't have this flowing through your veins.

sucrose (1.9 mg),

A few grains of regular sugar. Terrifying.

sodium chloride,

A grain or two of table salt, also terrifying.

hydrolyzed gelatin (14.5 mg),

Some nutritious amino acids.

human albumin (0.3 mg),

Another ingredient that you would be dead without it flowing in your veins, about 40,000 mg in every liter of your blood.

fetal bovine serum (‹1 ppm),

A trace of cow's serum? One part per million in 0.5 mL is about 0.5 micrograms, so tiny an amount I doubt its is visible to the naked eye - a grain of salt weighs less than 100 micrograms. Perhaps this might be a problem for some vegetarians, but when many people happily eat their way through several ounces of beef protein, I struggle to see it as any sort of health threat.

other buffer and media ingredients

What else could possibly be used?

and approximately 25 µg of neomycin.

A vanishingly tiny amount of an antibiotic that is too small to have any measurable effect on a person, unless they have a severe allergy to neomycin.

The growth medium for measles and mumps is Medium 199 (a buffered salt solution containing vitamins and amino acids and supplemented with fetal bovine serum)

That sounds very similar to some of the products I have seen on sale on health food stores; a nice cocktail of nutritious natural substances.

containing SPGA (sucrose, phosphate, glutamate, and human albumin) as stabilizer and neomycin.

Sucrose is sugar, phosphate is an essential nutrient, glutamate is so important our health our bodies make it, and without human albumin in your blood you would be dead.

The bovine serum looks extremely attractive.

It's the clear fluid from cow's blood, which is widely used in laboratories for various purposes, including culturing various microorganisms. As I pointed out above, the amount present is so small I doubt it is even visible to the human eye. You probably breathe in more dried particles of bovine serum than this when you walk past the meat counter in the supermarket.

Now you know all this, and you can verify it easily if you don't believe me, you can start reassuring people that all those scary-sounding ingredients are all harmless or even beneficial, instead of trying to frighten them. That's assuming you have any interest in the truth, which seems doubtful judging by past form.

ann,

But I do think that “#DropRobSchneider” was a disproportionate response, relative to the offense. Which, as far as I can see, consisted of being the same Rob Schneider whose objectionable beliefs we can and do decry when he expresses them, except that he wasn’t expressing them.

I tend to agree. I personally wouldn't join or even actively support a campaign like that, though I support the rights of those that have done so to do so. I also support Schneider's right to express his views, and assert my right to disagree with them and to tell State Farm that I think the worse of them for using him to advertise their brand. I also support the right of idiots to write to Orac's employers to try to get him fired, as despicable as I find that behavior - I certainly wouldn't want it to be made illegal. That's the double-edged sword of free speech: even obnoxious speech is protected, as long as it isn't inciting an actual crime (that's my understanding of the law in the US, which may be incorrect).

I think this disagreement, such as it is, is largely about teasing out what is acceptable behavior for oneself personally and what one thinks is acceptable for others. The two are not necessarily the same: I don't expect others to hold my ethical views, though in extreme cases I support forcing them to adhere to them, in the case of assault, murder, theft etc..

Measles Symptoms - Diseases and Conditions - Mayo Clinic
Nonspecific signs and symptoms. Measles typically begins with a mild to moderate fever, often accompanied by a persistent cough, runny nose, inflamed eyes ...'

Why in the Hell is anyone worried about cold like symptoms?! What a laugh You all are.

Krebiozen.
Didnt we learn that in elementary school science that mercury is toxic? Dont touch the mercury? No, but lets inject it in our bloodstream folks.
Formaldehyde is used on DEAD People. Again dont want it injected in my blood and cells.
How about some MSG for you too? You guys are a joke.

http://vaxtruth.org/2011/08/vaccine-ingredients/

Confirmed: India’s Polio Eradication Campaign in 2011 Caused 47,500 Cases of Vaccine-Induced Polio Paralysis

A paper published earlier this year in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics should have made headlines around the globe, as it estimated there were 47,500 cases of a polio-like condition linked to children in India receiving repeated doses of oral polio vaccine in 2011 alone. The incidence of non-polio Accute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) in India is now 12 times higher than expected and coincides with huge increases in OPV doses being given to children in the quest to “eradicate” wild type polio infection and paralysis.

What work? Google the guy, and his frikkin’ Wikipedia entry tells you he’s antivaccine! Seriously.

That's only not much work if people have some way of foreseeing which of the many models and actors who appear in their company's promotional materials in association with its products but who would not conventionally be perceived as brand representatives will be recognizable to those with a special interest in some particular issue as advocates for something that's both objectionable and relevant in the context of your business.

Which they don't. That being the case, they just vet the people they're actually hiring to represent the brand.

I mean, would you say that Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon were State Farm representatives? How about the actors who played the expectant couple in the Rob Schneider spot?

It happens to be easily discoverable for Rob Schneider. As you point out. But that's kind of a sui generis thing. There aren't that many distinct positions people are perfectly willing to go around openly claiming that are simultaneously readily grasped and broadly reviled by the general public, yet under-the-radar to most of it. That kind of thing tends to be either well-known or well-concealed. And to comprehensively check everyone out whenever there was any possibility of an undesirable association really would be a lot of work.

So they just reserve the extra scrutiny for the people they reasonably expect to be scrutinized. That seems normal to me. Sensible even. I mean, anybody *might* be. You have to go by the odds.

What word in 'dose makes the poison', don't you understand?

I support the rights of those that have done so to do so.

Absolutely. I'm not condemning anyone or anything. It's a judgment call, and can't be anything else. That's just how it works.

Or....You know. It's a legitimate tactic. I don't dispute that. My point is more that the imposition of social consequences on people who hold unpopular, minority views can have other, less desirable social consequences. And since that's never (and can't be) immediately apparent, you have to bear it in mind.

IMO. But it's a judgment call.

I also support Schneider’s right to express his views, and assert my right to disagree with them and to tell State Farm that I think the worse of them for using him to advertise their brand. I also support the right of idiots to write to Orac’s employers to try to get him fired, as despicable as I find that behavior – I certainly wouldn’t want it to be made illegal. That’s the double-edged sword of free speech: even obnoxious speech is protected, as long as it isn’t inciting an actual crime (that’s my understanding of the law in the US, which may be incorrect).

Well....It can be an actual crime, if it amounts to harassment. Or in some places and circumstances, hate speech. And defamation is also not okay. But for the most part, you can say whatever stupid, reprehensible thing you think. Which is as it should be. But it's not very enjoyable.

People are just impossible. The cause of all the wars in the world, etc. That's the problem.

It's difficult to think of a final solution to it that wouldn't be worse, though.

As I am catching up backwards, just wanted to say that I posted some thoughts about hiring actors and their political views on the Food Babe thread. Haven't read this post or comments yet but thought I'd mention the other comment in case it adds anything to the similar discussion here. Will try to catch up asap so I can better participate.

I see no difference in State Farm dropping him and a jewellery company rescinding its sponsorship deal with an actress for wearing a different company’s jewellery in public (yes, that has happened).

Well....The difference is that there wasn't a #dropthatactressforwearingadifferentcompany'sjewellery campaign, if there wasn't.

But point taken. There's room for disagreement.

What word in ‘dose makes the poison’, don’t you [AT] understand?

Those would be:
"dose",
"makes", and
"poison"

I imagine he struggles with the use of definite articles too, but I will give him the benefit of the doubt on that one.

A paper published earlier this year in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics should have made headlines around the globe

@AT
That's the trouble with your woeful lack of originality and the necessity to "copy and paste" comments pretending they are all your own work.... You get simple things like dates mixed up.

This comment is an old one from early 2012, and not "earlier this year".

As papers go, this one had about as much value as the paper it was written on, coming from the notorious antivaccine doctor Jacob Puliyel, and demonstrating his alarming lack of comprehension that the new National surveillance programme looking specifically for all types of infant neurological disease might detect more background neurological disorders unrelated to polio than was previously appreciated in the days before they started surveillance.

Interesting that AT(173) picked that news story about the Amish measles outbreak in Ohio.

The center of the Ohio outbreak is Knox County, where 40 cases have been reported. Thousands of Amish in Knox and surrounding areas have lined up to be vaccinated, said Pam Palm, spokeswoman for the county health department. Though the Amish traditionally have low vaccination rates, “they have been very receptive to coming in and getting immunized” to stem the outbreak, she said.

Some of the unvaccinated missionaries told local health officials they would have been vaccinated for measles before going to the Philippines if they had been told there was an outbreak there, Palm said. “One guy we spoke to feels just terrible that he brought the measles back and exposed his family.”

I remember reading that the people traveling to the Philippines were vaccinated against other diseases, but measles was not one of the ones suggested/recommended.

And, FWIW, I think I've read that book by Paul Johnson, who's a pretty good author. I seem to remember that Woodrow Wilson tried to encourage more moderate terms in the settlement but was overruled by the British and French.

And Vera Scheibner's article cited in #182, despite its title, doesn't have any references to what's happening now in the 21st century, uses the declining mortality graph to try to show a decline in morbidity/incidence (which wasn't declining). It also gripes about a problem with the original killed measles vaccine which hasn't been used for 50 years.

Not even well written, much less persuasive or relevant.

Why in the Hell is anyone worried about cold like symptoms?! What a laugh You all are.

You clearly are not familiar with the phrase "begins with". If you'd bothered to read the rest of the information, you'd have seen that after 2 or 3 days you get "Spots and bumps in tight clusters give the skin a splotchy red appearance. The face breaks out first, particularly behind the ears and along the hairline.

Over the next few days, the rash spreads down the arms and trunk, then over the thighs, lower legs and feet. At the same time, fever rises sharply, often as high as 104 to 105.8 F (40 to 41 C). The measles rash gradually recedes, fading first from the face and last from the thighs and feet." If you read on about complications, you'd have seen that 1 in 1000 cases results in encephalitis. Pneumonia is listed as a common complication as are ear infections (which can cause hearing loss), and it causes miscarriages in pregnant women. Per the CDC , "Even in previously healthy children, measles can be a serious illness requiring hospitalization. As many as 1 out of every 20 children with measles gets pneumonia, and about 1 child in every 1,000 who get measles will develop encephalitis. (This is an inflammation of the brain that can lead to convulsions, and can leave the child deaf or mentally retarded.) For every 1,000 children who get measles, 1 or 2 will die from it. Measles also can make a pregnant woman have a miscarriage, give birth prematurely, or have a low-birth-weight baby."

AT,

Measles Symptoms – Diseases and Conditions – Mayo Clinic Nonspecific signs and symptoms. Measles typically begins with a mild to moderate fever, often accompanied by a persistent cough, runny nose, inflamed eyes …’ Why in the Hell is anyone worried about cold like symptoms?! What a laugh You all are.

You seem to have missed the part where the Mayo Clinic describe the complications of measles:

Ear infection. One of the most common complications of measles is a bacterial ear infection.
Bronchitis, laryngitis or croup. Measles may lead to inflammation of your voice box (larynx) or inflammation of the inner walls that line the main air passageways of your lungs (bronchial tubes).
Pneumonia. Pneumonia is a common complication of measles. People with compromised immune systems can develop an especially dangerous variety of pneumonia that is sometimes fatal.
Encephalitis. About 1 in 1,000 people with measles develops encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain that may cause vomiting, convulsions, and, rarely, coma or even death. Encephalitis can closely follow measles, or it can occur months later.
Pregnancy problems. If you're pregnant, you need to take special care to avoid measles because the disease can cause pregnancy loss, preterm labor or low birth weight.
Low platelet count (thrombocytopenia). Measles may lead to a decrease in platelets — the type of blood cells that are essential for blood clotting.
Are you really happy for your child to suffer any of the above? When an extremely safe vaccine can prevent it? If so, perhaps you shouldn't be a parent. What about the people in Europe who have died or been permanently injured by measles in the past few years? Do they not exist or do they just not matter?

Didnt we learn that in elementary school science that mercury is toxic? Dont touch the mercury? No, but lets inject it in our bloodstream folks.

Elemental mercury is a great deal more toxic than thimerosal, no vaccine is injected into the bloodstream, only multi-vial flu vaccines contain mercury, and that in the form of thimerosal which is harmless in doses hundreds or even thousands of times higher. What is so hard for you to understand about that?

Formaldehyde is used on DEAD People.

So are clothes, wigs, soap, and make-up. Eugh, you won't catch me wearing clothes again, dead people wear them.

Again dont want it injected in my blood and cells.

>
Formaldehyde is present in in your blood and cells right now, thousand of times more than there is in any vaccine. It's ridiculous to think that a tiny bit more is going to do any harm. Why are you (presumably) happy to eat fruit and vegetables which contain hundreds of milligrams of formaldehyde but afraid of 0.1 milligrams in a vaccine? That's not rational, is it?

How about some MSG for you too? You guys are a joke.

You mean the monosodium glutamate that is naturally present in a many foodstuffs, such as tomatoes and cheese? The glutamate that your brain requires to function? What is a joke is that anyone is so ignorant they are afraid of these things.

Apologies for blockquote fail. First blockquote should end after "essential for blood clotting", but I misspelled "blockquote". Sigh.

Why in the Hell is anyone worried about cold like symptoms?! What a laugh You all are.

If measles only caused cold-like symptoms you'd have the start of an argument. As it is, however, you're simply demonstrating you don't comprehend the risks associated with contracting a measles infection.

Before measles immunizations were available, nearly everyone in the United States got measles--on average between about 3 and 4 million cases annually, with significant numbers of patients requiring hospitalization and significant numbers of patients dying of the disease. bwtween 1953 and 1963, for example, there was an average of 450 measles-associated deaths reported in teh US each year.

AT, let's take your list of ingredients in vaccines one at a time. We can start with formaldehyde:

What evidence demonstrates that at levels of exposure acheivable by vaccination formaldehyde is suficiently toxic that the risks associated with being vaccinated exceed the risks associated with remaining vulnerable to infection by the disease it protects against? Be specific.

(After we've addressed formaldehyde we can consider sodium phosphate.)

And BTW, that bovine serum albumin you're so worried about? You get a mouthfl every time you bite into a steak.

Rabies, Polio, AIDS, and Ebola all start out with flu-like symptoms. Why would anyone be concerned about something that's just like the flu?

The best argument I have for not getting the influenza vaccine is this: if I get flu-like symptoms, the best thing it could be is influenza. Everything else with flu-like symptoms is way, way, worse. If I'm already immunized against influenza, then I'd know I had something that could easily kill me. Not vaccinating for the flu keeps hope alive.

The incidence of non-polio Accute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) in India is now 12 times higher than expected and coincides with huge increases in OPV doses being given to children in the quest to “eradicate” wild type polio infection and paralysis AFP surveillance, which has to be detected at a minimum rate of 2 per 100,000 aged under 15 for adequate counting.

FTFY.

Hell, the flu starts out with flu-like symptoms. It still kills thousands of people in the US every year.

Nonspecific signs and symptoms. Measles typically begins with a mild to moderate fever, often accompanied by a persistent cough, runny nose, inflamed eyes …’

Why in the Hell is anyone worried about cold like symptoms?! What a laugh You all are.

So the common cold results in a hospitalization rate of 1 in 36?

Didnt we learn that in elementary school science that mercury is toxic? Dont touch the mercury?

No. Now do me a favor and tell me (1) how alkylmercurials cross the blood-brain barrier, (2) how they're dealkylated, and (3) what happens to the inorganic mercury afterward.

You seem to have missed the part where the Mayo Clinic describe the complications of measles:
"Missed" or "deliberately omitted"?

Didnt we learn that in elementary school science that mercury is toxic? Dont touch the mercury?

I didn't.

I remember back in about 3rd or 4th grade (early 1960's), learning about elements and melting temperatures, the teacher said mercury was a metal, and you could hold melted mercury in your hand. One of the other kids had a toy maze with a gob of mercury, the object of which was to get all the mercury together in the center. He said we could take the mercury out. So we did. The teacher carried it around in her hand to each of us, and let us touch it.

(sarcasm)
The next day, we all had autism.
(/sarcasm)

Yeah, it was a stupid thing to do. About as stupid as making a mercury filled toy.

DONT Touch the mercury and DONT you dare ingest the mercury as it is a neuro toxin. Yes, that was 4th grade.

Big Pharma kills 100k per year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVeUc9dxwus&list=UUngq92xrmmsfEgGdfAJ6g…

The Flu is Spread BY The Vaccines!
They call it flu season but advertise FREE FLU SHOTS for the idiots at the pharmacy in the late Summer and and presto. we now have Flu Season.

This is a bad comedy act with most of you.
Just stick this needle in your arm and all will be well.
Ooh, Ooh that smell.

Good grief AT. You remind me of that (hopefully apocryphal, but possibly not) story about the king who found out that the areas with the highest rates of plague also had the most doctors, and on that basis ordered all doctors to be put to death.

@ Denice

Because of their Wakefuddlian philosophy, these partisans believe that ASDs are mediated through the GI tract and thus, they seek out comestibles as medicamentes.

Errr, I highly doubt that they are basing these beliefs off of what Wakefield said 15 years ago.

Are you familiar with any of the research that is going on in this field currently?

Pretty interesting, and probably more likely as to why these are topics of discussion.

The connection between the microbiota and developing immune system is a hot topic right now. Couple this with the explosion of research implicating the immune system in depression, autism, schizophrenia, tourettes, etc, then it should be no wonder looking at the microbiota and its contribution to aforementioned syndromes is logical and also exciting as to the possibilities. It should also be no wonder that there is the suggestion that probiotics could play a role in therapy or prevention of these syndromes as well.

Anyway, if you(or anyone else) are/is interested--just go to pubmed and type in "autism and microbiota"

There will be a plethora of info for you to survey if you are inclined.

"The Flu is Spread BY The Vaccines!
They call it flu season but advertise FREE FLU SHOTS for the idiots at the pharmacy in the late Summer and and presto. we now have Flu Season."

I saw that episode of the Simpsons (it was called "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes") - Home uncovered the flu shot conspiracy years ago http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Computer_Wore_Menace_Shoes

DONT Touch the mercury and DONT you dare ingest the mercury as it is a neuro toxin. Yes, that was 4th grade.

Given that you seem to be stuck at about that level, perhaps your "memory" is more vivid than mine. Unfortunately for you, ingested elemental mercury is practically inert, and similarly for dermal contact. The problem is mercury vapor.

And yes, we used to "Touch the mercury."* In fact, I wish I still had my childhood copy of this.

* Heh.

AT? Still waiting for your eidence demonstrating that formaldehyde, at levels of exposure acheivable by vaccination, is suficiently toxic that the risks associated with being vaccinated exceed the risks associated with remaining vulnerable to infection by the disease it protects against.

Perhaps you could anser the question before jumping ahead to things like mercury?

(Which, BTW, has never been an ingredient in vaccine formulations. The preservative thimerosal has, of course, but they're dmonstrably not the same thing, any more than table salt is exactly the same thing as elemental sodium or elemental chlorine.)

@ brother and sister sceptics:

I would be so pleased if one of you would respond to skeptiquette's rx to my ANCIENT comment re AJW as I don't want to re-iterate what we've already done before IIRC a few times.
In short, yogurt/ GFCFSF given to 6 year olds would rid them of ASDs.
-btw- Kreb probably has the whole thing memorised by heart.

-btw- that 'in short' was meant hyperbolically
THX in advance

Kreb probably has the whole thing memorised by heart.

Heh. Funnily enough I was just reading about the microbiota in 'Think Like a Freak' (by the Freakonomics guys). An extended quote is warranted, I think:

Just how many microbes do each of us host? By one estimate, the human body contains ten times as many microbial cells as human cells, which puts the number easily in the trillions and perhaps in the quadrillions. This “microbial cloud,” as the biologist Jonathan Eisen calls it, is so vast that some scientists consider it the largest organ in the human body. And within it may lie the root of much human health . . . or illness.
In labs all over the world, researchers have begun to explore whether the ingredients in this sprawling microbial stew—much of which is hereditary—may be responsible for diseases like cancer and multiple sclerosis and diabetes, even obesity and mental illness. Does it seem absurd to think that a given ailment that has haunted humankind for millennia may be caused by the malfunction of a microorganism that has been merrily swimming through our intestines the whole time?

Perhaps—just as it seemed absurd to all those ulcer doctors and pharmaceutical executives that Barry Marshall knew what he was talking about.

So, I agree with skeptiquette that we have a lot to learn about the microbiota, and that it is possible autism may be one of many disorders that are related in some way to dysfunctional bacterial flora. However, it is very early days, and the role of gastrointestinal problems in autism, if any, is far from clear - are the GI problems reported within the normal range, or are they the result of autistic behavior? Or is there really something about autism that affects the gut? The evidence is equivocal.

It's certainly far too early to start making any claims about treatments based on this idea. Giving autistic individuals probiotics is unlikely to do any harm, but the current gold standard treatment for a dysfunctional microbiota is, of course, a fecal transplant from someone with a healthy microbiota (aka a "transpoosion"). I shudder to think what the AoA brigade might do with this idea (they are probably sending healthy fecal samples to each other in the mail already, along wiith the chicken pox lollipops).

One Australian gastroenterologist, Thomas Borody, claims to have cured a range of illnesses including ulcerative colitis and Crohn's. We shall see.

Clearly Wakefield's hypothesis that measles virus from MMR infect the gut leading to autism is wrong. That doesn't necessarily mean that the gut-autism link is a red herring; I think Wakefield's fraudulent study has delayed research in this area by decades, by making it a disreputable area of research.

The Flu is Spread BY The Vaccines!
They call it flu season but advertise FREE FLU SHOTS for the idiots at the pharmacy in the late Summer and and presto. we now have Flu Season.

Oh, come ON.

There had already been decades of flu season within my living memory by the time widespread vaccination campaigns for it became a thing.

As far as I can recall, the subject simply didn't arise for most people under 65 until....maybe the late '80s? I'm not sure.

But flu shots weren't common. And flu season was inevitable. I swear it.

Practically every single person in the United States who was born before 1980 should be able to back me up on that one, I think. Ask around.

Errr, I highly doubt that they are basing these beliefs off of what Wakefield said 15 years ago.

I do seem to see a lot of claims that anything vaguely related to the microbiome validates Wakefraud, though.

I've set this aside because of limited available attention span, but given that I've left a lot hanging, I'll try to pick up some of the slack.

How is it different for people to mount a campaign for State Farm to drop Rob Schneider because he’s anti-vax than it would be if they mounted a campaign for Northwestern to drop Arthur Butz because he’s a Holocaust denier?

It's not, unless the campaign to drop Butz originated purely within the NWU community.

Because ... not only would I not support the latter campaign, I’d march in protest if the university fired him as the result of one.

I have no objection to the latter campaign. I doubt that I'd have bothered as an undergraduate had I chosen NWU, but that has to do with the general impression I took away from campus protestors where I did go.

I’d also sign a letter saying I wished he would leave if I were one of his colleagues and the university had already declined to act.

One thing to keep in mind is that Butz had tenure, so the options were limited.

Or if they hadn’t, maybe. I just wouldn’t demand that he be fired, effectively or actually. I think Northwestern was right.

I think Northwestern was right as well, even with the tenure issue. But allow me to propose a hypothetical scenario: Suppose that Butz, an associate professor, didn't have tenure. Would you condemn a multiyear student boycott of enrollment in his class sections, thus devaluing his position and perhaps giving the university an excuse to jettison him?

Dear Author,
Anti-vaccine movement is different from a desire to make sure vaccines we give children are safe. Please recognize the distinction. Its all fun & games for you and the other pro-vaccine ideologues who espouse opinions without any stake in the game...until your child gets brain damage from a vaccine like one of mine did. When this happens to you or to a loved one, you will feel differently. You will be enraged to find that you don't have the legal right to a trial by jury because of a congressional act passed in 1986. You will suffer the financial burden of raising a disabled child without insurance coverage for most of the services he/she will need. The "safe vaccine" movement is full of people with real life experience. It does not make sense to me that you would drop an insurance carrier because you didn't like a guy in one of their commercials. Your insurance coverage and the commercial are completely unrelated. I am dropping my State Farm policies now that they have fired Rob Schneider, because I believe in free speech. I also know that Rob is right about vaccines, because my 7 year old son is mentally handicapped from a vaccine injury. I am not flaunting my vocabulary, or trying to come across as superior in some way to other commenters like nearly everyone else on your site seems to be. I know the truth, and I don't see why people like you hate it when people like me refuse to accept the disabling of our youth. Vaccine injury happens. It is indesputable. It is in the literature the drug companies publish about their own vaccines...but they can't be sued. Its illegal to sue them. If Whole foods sold a bag of kale chips (or whatever you people eat :) ) that caused brain damage in 1 in 50 (or 1 in 100...or 1 in 10,000) people who ate it, they would be sued and they would not keep selling the Kale Chips even though the kale chips might be beneficial to the bodies of many of the people who ate them. Even though Kale tastes like dirt and I do not eat it, I would support those who were injured and wanted justice. I would not call them uneducated, rant on websites about how great kale is for most people, or turn a blind eye to falsified lab tests that let the bad kale hit supermarket shelves in the first place. For some reason, that's what people like you do to people like me and my wife whose little babies have brain damage. You try to beat them down and name call, for what? We are victims of vaccines who want justice. We want to have the right to a trial (bill of rights anyone???). What's not to support? If you want vaccines you can get vaccinated. You can get one every week if you so choose. My advice to you would be to keep your mouth shut until you have children of your own. Get them vaccinated, especially if they are boys, wait for the mental regression to happen about 18 months in, watch your child stop talking and eating and looking at you and responding to their name. Watch them turn 7,8,9,10 years old while still using a diaper. Be the one to call the police and frantically search the neighborhood when a guest leaves a door open and your child wanders off. Only then should you talk about vaccine injury. People like you writing articles like this is the equivalent of a five year old giving Jeff Gordon advice on how to drive. You are David Duke oppressing and intimidating victimized people of color. You are a back woods redneck harassing and condemning homosexuality. If you think that's a stretch you need to meet my son. He is as much a victim of circumstance as anyone has ever been or ever will be. A baby, healthy and perfect, given a vaccine that rendered him severely mentally disabled. I am lucky though. Many peoples children have DIED. DIED - Think about that for a minute. Teenage girls have DIED from a vaccine for genital warts. The vaccine industry would claim that the vaccine was 100% effective in prevention of warts in those cases.
You haven't been through anything related to these vaccine injuries personally. How can you think you are worthy to have feelings and thoughts on this subject? Since you have no experience with it, you are merely choosing which side of this issue to regurgitate onto the web. I am fighting for my child's brain. Fighting to make it right, but mostly to prevent it from happening to millions more children. Its too late for my son. He disappeared before he was two. He re-emerged as something very beautiful, but very different. He will need care forever. He may never live by himself, have children, get married, learn to read or write, etc. I hope you see where I'm coming from, but you probably won't.

@Lee - let us know how your case went with the Vaccine Court, where you didn't have to face an adversarial system (or a jury trial) with only the need to either show an acceptable table injury or provide evidence (50% + a feather to show causation) for compensation.....

"Teenage girls have DIED from a vaccine for genital warts."

Please post the PubMed indexed case reports. Not the raw VAERS data.

"The vaccine industry would claim that the vaccine was 100% effective in prevention of warts in those cases."

Please link to an official Merck website making that statement.

Also, try to learn how to use paragraphs.

Anti-vaccine movement is different from a desire to make sure vaccines we give children are safe. Please recognize the distinction.

That would sound better if it were not immediately followed by a whole lot of anti-vaccine bullsh1t.

It has already been pointed out that the "pro-safe vaccine" movement is identical to the anti-vax movement.....especially in light of the bullcrap that was posted above.

You will be enraged to find that you don’t have the legal right to a trial by jury because of a congressional act passed in 1986.

By the way, Lee, how did those pre-1986 jury trials work out overall? Hint: You're essentially advocating a lottery system for compensation.

Okay then Lee, which current vaccines on the schedule should we give to children? Which ones should we drop?
And give evidence to support both.

Gee, Lee. None of us have ever given birth to a special needs child or cared for a child with severe developmental disabilities. So, you are correct that we are cold, heartless people who want to put generations of children at risk for vaccine injuries.

Which vaccine(s) caused injury to your child?

Have you made a claim before the United States Court of Federal Claims (Vaccine Court), on behalf of your vaccine injured child?

I know the truth

Yes, I suppose retweeting things from "thetruther3" fits in here somewhere.

I think Northwestern was right as well, even with the tenure issue. But allow me to propose a hypothetical scenario: Suppose that Butz, an associate professor, didn’t have tenure. Would you condemn a multiyear student boycott of enrollment in his class sections, thus devaluing his position and perhaps giving the university an excuse to jettison him?

No. Not at all. In fact, I'm not really sure I see the theoretical grounds on which it might be inferred from my comments here that I would, .But I wasn't expressing myself very well. So it's altogether possible that I inadvertently suggested it.

In any event.

No. I'm not really the condemning type, though. I try to err on the side of non-condemnation when it seems to me that the possibility of error exists. To a fault, maybe.

But I certainly don't condemn others for disagreeing with me about that. Within reasonable parameters. As is the case here.

Thank you very much for your courteous and thoughtful reply.

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