CNBC publishes an antivaccine press release from the Weston A. Price Foundation and Leslie Manookian

One of the things I've noticed over the last decade of covering pseudoscience and quackery from a skeptical point of view is that no pseudoscientific trope ever really dies. This is particularly true of antivaccine tropes. No matter how many times this piece or that of antivaccine misinformation is slapped down, sooner or later it always resurfaces. Indeed, I remember one article that I've seen resurface on several occasions that inevitably bears a title that is some variation of a statement that a "new study vindicates Andrew Wakefield." Every time that article pops up, various antivaccine advocates will spread it all over Facebook and other social media. The article then disappears, only to reappear months—or even years—later. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Another thing that I've noticed over the years is a particularly sneaky tactic of antivaccinationists, and that's to get a press release or other bit of propaganda published in such a way that it looks as though it's a legitimate news story. Just this week, it's happened again. It's a story that fulfills all the criteria of such a technique: (1) it looks like a real news story if you don't look at it that closely (which most readers don't) and (2) it spreads antivaccine nonsense. In this case, it's a press release from the Weston A. Price Foundation that popped up on CNBC's Globe Newswire entitled Public Health Officials Know: Recently Vaccinated Individuals Spread Disease that's led people to question Why Is CNBC Posting Anti-Vaccination Propaganda? It appears on a web page in such a way that it looks like a legitimate story. A reader has to scroll all the way down to the very end of the story, with the contacts buried even beyond all the references:

CONTACT: Kim Hartke, 703-860-2711703-860-2711, press@westonaprice.org Leslie Manookian, 208-721-2135 208-721-2135, leslie@greatergoodmovie.org

Leslie Manookian? We've met her before. She's the producer of an antivaccine propaganda movie (The Greater Good) released a three years ago that was so chock full of egregious antivaccine misinformation that it got an even more detailed than usual patented Orac deconstruction. It deserved it, too, in a big way. She was also the moderator of a debate between Julian Whitaker, who argued the antivaccine side, and Steve Novella, who argued (and won) the pro-science side. In any case, the CNBC press release is virtually identical to this press release from a month ago posted on the Weston A. Price website entitled, Studies Show that Vaccinated Individuals Spread Disease Should the Recently Vaccinated be Quarantined to Prevent Outbreaks?

Just see how it starts out:

Physicians and public health officials know that recently vaccinated individuals can spread disease and that contact with the immunocompromised can be especially dangerous. For example, the Johns Hopkins Patient Guide warns the immunocompromised to "Avoid contact with children who are recently vaccinated," and to "Tell friends and family who are sick, or have recently had a live vaccine (such as chicken pox, measles, rubella, intranasal influenza, polio or smallpox) not to visit."

A statement on the website of St. Jude's Hospital warns parents not to allow people to visit children undergoing cancer treatment if they have received oral polio or smallpox vaccines within four weeks, have received the nasal flu vaccine within one week, or have rashes after receiving the chickenpox vaccine or MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine.

"The public health community is blaming unvaccinated children for the outbreak of measles at Disneyland, but the illnesses could just as easily have occurred due to contact with a recently vaccinated individual," says Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation. The Foundation promotes a healthy diet, non-toxic lifestyle and freedom of medical choice for parents and their children. "Evidence indicates that recently vaccinated individuals should be quarantined in order to protect the public."

Yes, The Weston A. Price Foundation and Leslie Manookian resurrected this hoary old corpse of an antivaccine myth, cleaned the dust off of it, propped it up like a mannequin, and somehow snookered CNBC into publishing it as a press release. For those not familiar with the Weston A. Price Foundation, just peruse its website. Take a look at its take on health topics: homeopathy, liver detoxification, anti-fluoridation propaganda, smart meter fear mongering, and exaggerated fear mongering (is there any other kind?) about root canals, among other serious woo.

It's very clear that the claim that children shed virus and are thus potential vectors for infection is important to antivaccinationists because it allows them to portray others as equally, if not more, the cause of outbreaks than their children, but is there anything to it? Regular readers can probably guess the answer to that question. The answer, of course, is that there's far less to the issue of virus shedding than meets the eye. For one thing, virus shedding can only occur with live virus vaccines, such as the rotovirus vaccine, oral polio virus vaccines (which are not really used in the US any more because of a one in 2.7 million risk of paralysis from the vaccine strain of the virus), or intranasal flu vaccines.

Of course, there's a difference between shedding and causing disease. For one thing, the strains of virus used in live attenuated virus vaccines are just that—attenuated. They've been weakened in some way so that they don't cause the actual disease. Otherwise, a live virus vaccine would be the equivalent of giving the disease to the person vaccinated, which would rather sabotage the whole point of vaccination, which is to produce immunity to the disease without the vaccinated person actually having to suffer through the disease itself. (Scratch that, it would be exactly the same as giving the person the disease.) The question, then, is whether secondary transmission (transmission of the vaccine strain virus to others who haven't received it) is a major concern. The answer to that question, is no, as these articles entitled Secondary Transmission: The short and sweet about live virus vaccine shedding and Live Vaccines and Vaccine Shedding.

We learn from the former article that these are commonly given live virus vaccines:

  • MMR - the combination measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine
  • Vavivax - the varicella or chicken pox vaccine
  • rotavirus vaccines - including two oral vaccines, RotaTeq and Rotarix
  • Flumist - the nasal spray flu vaccine
  • oral polio vaccine - the original oral polio vaccine (sometimes called the Sabin vaccine). Again, this has been replaced in the United States by the inactivated polio vaccine (Salk vaccine)

We also know that:

  • the MMR vaccine doesn't cause shedding, except that the rubella part of the vaccine may rarely shed into breastmilk (since rubella is typically a mild infection in children, this isn't a reason to not be vaccinated if you are breastfeeding though). What about the rare case of a person developing measles after getting the MMR vaccine? In addition to being extremely rare, it would also be extremely rare for a person to transmit the vaccine virus to another person after developing measles in this way.
  • the chicken pox vaccine doesn't cause shedding unless your child very rarely develops a vesicular rash after getting vaccinated. However, the risk is thought to be minimal and the CDC reports only 5 cases of transmission of varicella vaccine virus after immunization among over 55 million doses of vaccine.
  • the rotavirus vaccine only causes shedding in stool, so can be avoided with routine hygiene techniques, such as good hand washing, and if immunocompromised people avoid diaper changes, etc., for at least a week after a child gets a rotavirus vaccine
  • transmission of the live, nasal spray flu vaccine has not been found in several settings, including people with HIV infection, children getting chemotherapy, and immunocompromised people in health-care settings

In other words, the claim that virus shedding is a serious problem to the point that vaccinated children, not unvaccinated children, should be quarantined is a myth, the same myth propagated by the Weston A. Price Foundation, aided and abetted by CNBC, that is in this press release. Actually, it's the same antivaccine myth on steroids, given that I usually don't see this claim coupled to a suggestion that vaccinated children be quarantined, which goes "above and beyond" (or perhaps I should say, "below and deeper") than most antivaccinationist claims.

Basically, the only thing that the Weston A. Price Foundation press release is not incorrect about is that there is a concern about immunocompromised children, the same concern that leads to contraindications to vaccinating them with live virus vaccines. On the other hand, the Medical Advisory Committee of the Immune Deficiency Foundation has published recommendations that include:

Close contacts of patients with compromised immunity should not receive live oral poliovirus vaccine because they might shed the virus and infect a patient with compromised immunity. Close contacts can receive other standard vaccines because viral shedding is unlikely and these pose little risk of infection to a subject with compromised immunity.

Particularly important are annual immunizations with inactivated influenza vaccine; scheduled periodic pertussis vaccine (Tdap); pneumococcal vaccine; measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine; and varicella vaccine for older contacts whose routine immunizations might not be up to date

Since live oral polio vaccine is no longer used in the US, this means that there is no reason not to vaccinate close contacts of immunocompromised children and lots of reasons to vaccinate, particularly herd immunity. In other words, Sally Fallon Morell of the Weston A. Price Institute and Leslie Manookian are laying down hot, steaming piles of fetid dingos' kidneys. They do mention a case of a man who caught polio from the diapers of his recently vaccinated daughter, Dominick Tenuto. I've mentioned him before. His daughter received the live oral polio vaccine back in 1979. Once again, we no longer use the oral polio vaccine in this country; so this is a now irrelevant example.

The press release finishes up with an invocation of the "measles is harmless" myth that antivaccinationists have been promoting of late in wake of the Disneyland measles outbreak. Contrary to this claim, measles is not a benign disease.

Yes, I know this is a press release. It's rather interesting how it ended up on CNBC, though. As I pointed out, it first appeared on the Weston A. Price Foundation website over a month ago. From there it showed up on Alex Jone's all conspiracy all the time website Infowars.com and various other alternative health outlets, where it was thoroughly deconstructed by Reuben at The Poxes Blog. A month later, it pops up on CNBC, and yesterday appeared on Mike Adams' NaturalNews.com under the title Recently vaccinated children a threat to public health: Evidence shows they can SPREAD disease and CAUSE outbreaks, which, this being Mike Adams and all, is a complete lie, introduced thusly:

The following announcement appeared on CNBC.com via Globe Newswire. It is extremely well cited and it shatters the lies and propaganda of the vaccine industry -- an industry that's losing the P.R. on every front due to their verbal abuse of vaccine-damaged children, strong-arm intimidation tactics and attempted government coercion to demand vaccine obedience.

Ah, Mikey. No. As Reuben showed and I re-emphasized here, the citations were either irrelevant or didn't show what the writers thought they showed, and this press release "shatters" nothing.

Now, I know that someone out there is going to say, "Hey, it's just a press release!" News outlets publish them all the time. This is no doubt true. CNBC even makes that statement at the bottom, an editor's comment that wasn't there when you, my readers, first started sending this link to me but was apparently posted around noon yesterday after all the complaints started rolling in:

This is one of numerous press releases distributed by Globe
Newswire. CNBC carries material from several press release distributors as a service to our readers. (You can find them here ... http://www.cnbc.com/id/1000002....

These press releases do not reflect original reporting by or the editorial judgment of CNBC.

Yes, perhaps. And certainly this should be a cautionary tale in terms of teaching you and me always to look very carefully at seeming news stories like this. That's always a good thing to keep in mind. However, CNBC should ask itself this: Why is it that no other reputable news outlet published this press release? I'm sure the Weston A. Price Foundation sent it to other news outlets that publish press releases. I've done some Googling with snippets of text from the press release and all that comes up is CNBC, the Weston A. Price Foundation, antivaccine websites like VacTruth, the aforementioned Infowars link, and the like. Alone of all major news organizations, CNBC chose to run this press release. No one else other than crank and antivaccine sources. Just CNBC.

CNBC should ask itself why that is.

More like this

The Weston A. Price Foundation are a bunch of fruit cakes imbued with the idea that if only we lived shorter, brutish, disease-filled lives like our ancestors we would be healthier and not suffer diseases typical of old age.

Why would anyone take any of their press releases seriously?

So,

recently vaccinated individuals can spread disease and that contact with the immunocompromised can be especially dangerous.

But at the same time,

“measles is harmless”

And yet, the antivaccinationists do not see the blatant contradiction in those two comments?

By Julian Frost (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

I attempted to engage on the comments - and the amount of stupid that was generated in return was quite breathtaking.

The appalling lack of scientific (or even basic) education or understanding was enough to make me want to punch the Internet, right in the gonads.

CNBC has a lot of explaining to do......

“The public health community is blaming unvaccinated children for the outbreak of measles at Disneyland, but the illnesses could just as easily have occurred due to contact with a recently vaccinated individual,” says Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

This is a particular sore spot with me because it demonstrates how unbelievably stupid and dishonest the person stating something like this is. All Sally Fallon Morell has to do is show us that it is the vaccine strain which is causing disease outbreaks. Easy to understand for us, obviously a challenge for Ms. Morell et al.

By Science Mom (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

The outright dishonesty contained in that press release is quite amazing.

Advertising camouflaged as editorial content is all the rage in traditional media - so-called native advertising. John Oliver's take on it is worth watching on HBO or youtube (google john oliver native advertising). The CNBC piece has all signs of this particular type of advert.

Why is it that no other reputable news outlet published this press release?

That is an excellent question. It's routine for all sorts of organizations, not just anti-vax groups, to put out press releases. I'm sure the AMA and other professional medical groups do too. And it's all too common for ostensible news organizations to publish press releases as news items, not even bothering with the "both sides" fig leaf that comes up too often when they actually make a minimal effort to do some reporting. Reporters are just as lazy as other human beings, so they are all to willing to let a PR flack write the story for them. But they usually do at least check to see that the organization issuing the press release has some standing in the community (a business, an established political organization, etc.). Given the provenance on this press release, a competent reporter, even a lazy one, should be wondering just what the Weston A. Price Foundation is. That Alex Jones published it does not prove it's wrong, but it should raise a flag that extra due diligence is required.

By Eric Lund (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

It's clickbait. CNBC knows what it is doing, and prints crap like on purpose to get eyeballs to click links and see ads.

That's the bottom line.

@Panacea #8

It’s clickbait. CNBC knows what it is doing, and prints crap like on purpose to get eyeballs to click links and see ads.

This. Unfortunately, this kind of nonsense isn't just limited to social media outlets, where every seemingly real news article is a linkk to an herbal supplement ad. It's perpetrated mainstream news sites as well - sometimes they're clearly positioned as ads (like everything on the National Review website that isn't an anti-Obama screed) and sometimes they're not.

This is why I always talk to my kids (middle schoolers) about being cautious of ANYTHING you see on the internet anymore, even on a seemingly reputable website. There's way too much disinformation and it's easy to get suckered by an advert or press release posing as a news story.

Pure unadulterated click bait.

I got suckered in. The amounts of blinkered pseudoscientific smuggery going on in that thread was stupefying.

By Jeliwobble (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

Amazing.. do any of you guys really think vaccines are a good head ? Personally the only thing I think there good for is the balance sheet of the companies who make and promote them .

By Stewart Johnston (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

Thanks for doing a post on this Orac. I saw this come up yesterday and it made my blood boil. Unfortunately, the article looks "legitimate enough" where it would probably create some doubt in the mind of a casual reader, where all they see is a "well-cited news release" that may have some merits here and there. I wish CNBC editors would apply a little bit of critical thinking versus just reposting anything anyone sends them. Maybe have a little bit of responsibility towards the public good. I know, wishful thinking...

By Lenala Azhketh (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

I briefly had an internship where one of my duties included sending out press releases. Not writing them or anything, just firing up the fax machine (now you know how old I am) and sending the off to various media outlets. Back in those ancient days the media generally applied some editorial discretion as to what to do with those press releases. If it was a simple announcement of some event, it might go straight into a local paper's calendar of events section. But if there were a story there, someone might call to follow up, or they might check a few things out at least before printing it. But they did not routinely publish press releases verbatim. Seeing as how the group I worked for was an anti-war and social justice advocacy organization, it was rather common for our press releases to be simply ignored.

The new media landscape, in which the number of actual journalists on staffs has been drastically reduced at the same time the fast paced internet culture demands reams more content at low cost, many outlets have become far more accepting of simply publishing press releases and advertorials. But when these things look like new pages, and given that it's well understood that no one reads disclaimers and even if they do, they're ineffective in terms of how a story is judged relative to the rest of the presentation and when they're full of outright lies and are frankly dangerous, it's utterly irresponsible for publications not to do some editorial due diligence. Saying it's a press release published "as a service" is not excuse. In fact, publishing press releases without checking them out is a disservice to their readers and everyone else.

By Gus Snarp (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

@Gus Snarp #13

So much of what you said is true. If people are lamenting the lack of veracity in news reporting, it's due to the fact that there isn't nearly enough human checking of facts and research anymore. Some of that is the unfortunate side effect of news outlet budget constraints. Some of it is flat-out laziness. Some of it is the hypercompetitive news business, where getting the most hits and/or getting the story out first trumps accuracy.

@ a-non:

I'm in total agreement. The current state of reportege- with a few exceptions- is quite poor unfortunately.

Yesterday, Mikey ( Natural News) discussed the fact that CNBC put this out.
In his ostentatiously expanded reference list, he co-mingles sources like CDC and NYT with those from Mercola, Weston-Price and Natural Society..

I find that this is standard for woo-meisters:
create a long list and pepper it with reasonable sources to entice the reality-based who don't inspect too closely.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

That should be REPORTAGE.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

A friend gave me "Nourishing Traditions" by Silly Felon as a Christmas gift several years ago.

I just threw that f*cking book into the trash.

Great post, although I have a question about this part:

"transmission of the live, nasal spray flu vaccine has not been found in several settings, including people with HIV infection, children getting chemotherapy, and immunocompromised people in health-care settings"

According to the CDC, it has been shown to shed.

"Can people who have gotten the nasal spray flu vaccine spread the vaccine viruses to others?
Yes, it is possible, but it is very rare. Data indicate that both children and adults vaccinated with nasal spray flu vaccine can shed vaccine viruses after vaccination, although in lower amounts than typically occurs during shedding of wild-type influenza viruses. Rarely, shed vaccine viruses can be transmitted from vaccine recipients to unvaccinated persons. However, serious illnesses have not been reported among unvaccinated persons who have been infected inadvertently with vaccine viruses."

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/nasalspray.htm

Hmmm....

The Weston Price Foundation gave Andrew Wakefield an award. The "integrity in science award".

No, really, they did.

When challenged about this in their newsletter, they defended the action

Editor’s Response: Dr. Andrew Wakefield was singled out for the wrath of the pharmaceutical industry when his research found the vaccine strain of measles virus in the intestinal tracts of children whose parents reported regressive autism and inflammatory bowel disease after the MMR vaccine. In the pursuit of the link between childhood vaccines, intestinal inflammation, and neurological injury in children, Dr. Wakefield lost his job, his career, his fellowships and his medical license. Many other teams and papers have replicated his work; these studies have been peer reviewed and published. Dr. Wakefield is in fact suing the British Medical Journal (which repudiated his published research paper) and the journalist who attacked him most virulently. His boss and supervisor, prestigious pediatric gastroenterologist Professor John Walker-Smith, who was also stripped of his medical license and accused of the same supposed wrongdoings, sued in the High Court in Britain and was fully exonerated on all charges. The judge severely rebuked the British General Medical Council for its egregious misconduct. Dr. Wakefield’s findings of a novel form of bowel disease are now so accepted in the scientific community that vaccine makers are attempting to develop a vaccine for bowel disease in kids with autism. There are well over two hundred scientific papers and case reports published in peer reviewed medical journals documenting and exploring vaccine injury and death. (These can be found at http://www.greatergoodmovie.org/learn-more/science/.) Both the U.S. and Italian governments have conceded that MMR can cause autism. Finally, I should add that WAPF, which supports non-toxic therapies, has always opposed toxic vaccinations. The Foundation will continue to support Dr. Wakefield and others like him, who have the courage to say the truth.

How many mistakes in that one defense?

By Matt Carey (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

Argh, I am confused now! (Not about the Weston Price foundation. I figured them out after innocently buying their cookbook years ago....yeeesh.)

Friend of mine is immunocompromised s/t leukemia and bone marrow transplant. She has been told that she can't be around kids recently vaxxed with the MMR due to this concern. My kid is just MMR age and so this is figuring heavily into our social plans!

Is that a mistaken belief, part of the same woo, or is that the germ of truth inside the lies? I always thought it was the germ of truth inside the lies, but maybe it's not?

Thanks....

We'll do whatever her oncologist says, but I'm really curious now. And confused.

@Matt - all of them?

Thanks for this. One of my Facebook friends (who is anti-vax, anti-GMO, etc., etc.) posted the CNBC article as truth. I didn't want to get in an argument on her timeline (she blames all of her kids' problems on the evul chemikilz), so just hid her post. I've now posted your takedown on my timeline.

By MichelleAK (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

Science Mom:

All Sally Fallon Morell has to do is show us that it is the vaccine strain which is causing disease outbreaks. Easy to understand for us, obviously a challenge for Ms. Morell et al.

In her defence, it is very difficult to do this when it is not in fact true.

By Calli Arcale (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

" ... The Weston A. Price Foundation are a bunch of fruit cakes imbued with the idea that if only we lived shorter, brutish, disease-filled lives like our ancestors we would be healthier and not suffer diseases typical of old age.... "

They tend to neglect the " ... because you probably didn't survive infancy ... " caveat.

By Selena Wolf (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

@Rosemary

There's a theoretical risk that a recently vaccinated child might shed enough vaccine virus to cause an infection in an immune-compromised individual. At most, I think there are only a couple case reports of this possibly occurring. The risk is certainly very low, but I don't see any harm if you decide to wait a week or so following immunization.

@ Todd W.:

Right but alties speak as if these incredibly rare infections happened every day.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

Personally the only thing I think there good for is the balance sheet of the companies who make and promote them .

And your evidence that developing and marketing vaccines to prevent serious infectious diseases generate a greater return on investment than developing and marketing treatments fort those who have become infected would be...what exactly, Stewart? Be specific.

Right but alties speak as if these incredibly rare infections happened every day.

While simultaneously telling us these infections, rare or otherwise, are nothing to worry about anyway--after all, only a handful of people have died of the measles in the US in the past 10 years or so, so where's the problem?

Great post, although I have a question about this part:

“transmission of the live, nasal spray flu vaccine has not been found in several settings, including people with HIV infection, children getting chemotherapy, and immunocompromised people in health-care settings”

Annie, what this means is that the live nasal vaccine is cold-adapted and when introduced in a nice warm host, the virus loses the capability to replicate but can still be transmitted. This secondary transmission does not result in illness but post-marketing surveillance has reported that vaccine strain flu virus has been recovered in rare cases. Does that make sense?

By Science Mom (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

Rosemary, I suggest that you read Dr. Vincent Iannelli's article on "vaccine shedding" (with links), about exposing a youngster who has recently received the MMR vaccine to a person who has undergone a bone marrow transplant for leukemia treatment.

Dr. Iannelli discusses the consequences of not providing MMR vaccine for children who have close contact with the bone marrow transplant and the real danger of those unprotected children contracting measles-mumps-rubella and exposing a vulnerable person to the wild circulating viruses.

http://pediatrics.about.com/od/immunizations/a/live-vaccines.htm

As far as I know, the only contraindications for those who have close contact with a person undergoing bone marrow transplants, and are hospitalized in reverse protective hospitalization, is the LAIV (Live Attenuated Intranasal Influenza Virus). Hospital staff who care for these patients are advised to take the killed seasonal influenza vaccine injection.

http://www.immunize.org/catg.d/p4067.pdf

@ JGC:

While you are correct- they DO pooh pooh measles- I *meant* that the extremely rare infections the immunocompromised might get are spoken of as being frequent when they are nearly non-existent.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

OOOps!

The immunocompromised might get from vaccine shedding.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

Stewart Johnston: Amazing.. do any of you guys really think vaccines are a good head ? Personally the only thing I think there good for is the balance sheet of the companies who make and promote them ."

Perhaps you would favor us with the economic analysis showing that it is cheaper to treat measles instead of preventing it with an MMR vaccine. The last Wales outbreak at about one in twelve cases require hospital care. Use that as your benchmark.

Make sure your analysis has similar caliber as An economic analysis of the current universal 2-dose measles-mumps-rubella vaccination program in the United States.

I am sure the NHS would very much value your learned input.

For a laugh break, skim the bios of the board members of the Weston A. Price Foundation. A true meeting of the minds.

“Her interests include music, gardening, metaphysics . . . and of course cooking.”
“has been featured prominently as an “inner Circle” expert on [mercola dot com]”
“is a practicing naturopath, specializing in the past 20 years in the field commonly called magnetic, intuitive, spiritual or psychic healing.”
“he set up an anthroposophical medical practice”
“Professional studies include biological science and pre-med but her life took a turn to the restaurant business”
“Stephanie Seneff”
“developed a new hypothesis to explain atherosclerosis that was named Acidity Theory of Atherosclerosis”
“she trains apprentices in the shamanic arts”

By CTGeneGuy (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

" ... anthroposophical medical practice ..."

A what?!?!

By Selena Wolf (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

Nobody is pumping neurotoxins, antibiotics, Mercury, formaldehyde and other assorted garbage into my child. If you sheeple choose to poison your children that's your business, leave mine alone! Besides, if your vaccines work so well for you why do I need to vaccinate mine! "Herd immunity" is a myth! It doesn't last that's why you sheeple have to keep pumping this poison into yourselves and your children on a regular basis. Natural, lifetime immunity is the only true immunity. Vaccinated "immunity" also cannot be passed on to babies by their mothers whereas natural immunity can! I'm 60 years old and have not been vaccinated for anything since I was six-years old and suffered a serious Ezcema outbreak after receiving vaccines for entry into first grade. I have had flare-ups off and on all my life (since the outbreak occurred only hours after receiving the vaccinations, there was no doubt that the vaccine caused it!) As a result of this vaccine-induced autoimmune condition, I received waivers all through school. I have had all childhood diseases so have all my friends and everybody recovered nicely and didn't even get that sick. Our parents deliberately exposed us to these things to achieve natural lifetime immunity. As a result of what happened to me there was no way I was going to have that poison pumped into him. I did not get him vaccinated at all and he never gets sick. I raised him on a nutrient dense diet of real food, saw that he got regular exercise and the proper supplements. My son and daughter-in-law have said they will homeschool their kids if they can't get waivers for them for school. These crappy vaccines screw up your natural immune system, cause autoimmune disorders and expose people and children to toxic substances on a regular basis. No one with autoimmune disorders can take vaccines for a reason. No one with any kind of allergy (which is an autoimmune response) should get vaccines either. The media downplays negative responses to vaccines but that doesn't mean they don't happen. They happen more often than people like to think! As for autism, well autism is known to be caused by exposure to environmental toxins and poisonous chemicals. Ingredients in vaccines qualify. Healthy children fed a nutrient dense diet of real food (not that highly-processed, chemical additive-laden crap most of you probably eat!), get regular exercise and the proper supplements DO NOT DIE FROM CHILDHOOD DISEASES! If you're afraid of your child dying of these relatively benign childhood diseases then maybe you better ask yourself why your child's immune system isn't worth crap. As for the flu, the flu shot makes people sick and doesn't guarantee that you won't get the flu. It's a waste of time and just exposes you to toxic substances yearly for no reason. If you're afraid of the flu and feel that your body can't fight it off then your immune system is crap! I don't get sick. I've only had the flu three times in my entire life. I haven't had a cold in six years! You don't need a flu shot if you take Vitamin D3 and wash your hands! The only people I know who get colds and flu every year are people who take flu shots! As for the Hep B and HPV vaccine, well, these are "lifestyle diseases" and avoidance is the best vaccine. People eat garbage, drink garbage, abuse drugs and alcohol, smoke, over eat, conduct themselves like dogs in heat then run to Big Pharma to have themselves injected with MORE garbage! Then later on in life they wonder why they're falling apart! I firmly believe that most disease is the body's way of dealing with an overload of garbage and poison. Nobody in my family has ever died under 80. With more than one family member passing the century mark. All without any help from Big Pharma or vaccines! Wake up sheeple! When it comes to the efficacy and safety of vaccines and the "science" of herd immunity--someone is pissing on your leg and telling you it's raining and you're falling for this crap hook, line and sinker! Think about it! I bet you dollars to donuts I'll outlive all you walking chemicals!

” … anthroposophical medical practice …”
A what?!?!

Ala Rudolf Steiner. In short, vaccines are bad, diseases are awesome and help children achieve a higher level of being. And they probably don't have black crayons in the waiting room.

By Science Mom (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

PS: Even though they were never vaccinated, after they had me they believed it best to have me vaccinated. They grew up at a time when disease was common, including polio. After my Ezcema outbreak, they told me later on that they were heartbroken. They believed the "science". It crushed them to learn that they were wrong. I was never vaccinated again and my parents were anti-vaxxers until the day they died.

I blame a lot of this endless recycling of myths on the 24/7 news cycle. There are blank screens and empty pages to be filled and precious few important, and well researched, stories or new thoughts. When those deadlines loom large the temptation to dig up a corpse, stuff it into a new suit, and trot it out as news, becomes irresistible. They know they will never win a Pulitzer Prize doing that sort of thing but it gets the editor off their back until the next deadline rolls around.

Rosemary: I suspect her oncologist is being hyper-cautious for legal reasons; if she's exposed to a kid who just got his MMR and she subsequently experiences any adverse events of any sort, you're looking at a possible malpractice suit. He may well be following the advice of his malpractice carrier.

There’s a theoretical risk that a recently vaccinated child might shed enough vaccine virus to cause an infection in an immune-compromised individual.

Fun fact: The "naturally immune" can also shed measles virus in urine.

If one considers vaccine-associated measles disease rather than than the horribly pervasive, imaginary threat that the antivaccine brigade would like to cling to, it is here suggests merely that "exclusion and administration of immune globulin may be considered for susceptible, immunocompromised contacts of cases of vaccine-associated measles in immunocompromised patients." This would seem to represent an upper limit on the secondary transmission of measles vaccine.

Mumps (particularly L-Zagreb) appears to be a different story, but I have to run out.

On seeing these things posted on social media, how does one cope knowing that your friends are fruitcakes? I engaged with a semi-crazy raw milk advocate (who was a friend of a friend) who blocked me. I realized I couldn't talk to this person after she stated flat out that I couldn't show any illnesses or deaths linked to raw milk consumption and I posted links to CDC. When she came back with 'you can't trust anything the government says' I was at a loss. I don't know where to take an argument when someone isn't living in the real world. Do you just unfriend these people? Hide their posts? Ask them to seek professional help? I just wonder what other people do. Depending on my level of engagement with the person I often ignore them or hide their feeds. I generally leave the unfriend ball in their court.

Corporate misconduct has caused the vaccination issue not the media. Pharmaceutical science has had some dirty little secrets that have broken people's trust (Vioxx,etc) and it is coming back to bite us all. It also seems to me that as I peruse the blogs both for and against the science of vaccines that both camps are more about "I am right" than about science. Perhaps people who hold so tightly on to science need to remember, that some of the most amazing scientific discoveries began as what you like to refer to as "quackery". Pasteur, Fleming, Marshall, Pauling, Jenner all had theories that went against the grain of conventional thought and were considered "quacks" but their "quackery" has changed our world. In fact, I believe that "quack" Pauling, don't quote me, might have had his theory about vitamin c proven. Just sayin

I understood your meaning--it's just that the ability to simultaneously embrace the positions "Vaccines are dangerous because those vaccinated might very, very rarely shed vaccine strain viruses, which might even more rarely cause disease in immunocompromised individuals" and "The disease the virus prevents and the shed virus might cause is so trivial we don't need to vaccinate against it anyway" raises cognitive dissonance to the level of an Olympic event.

Pasteur, Fleming, Marshall, Pauling, Jenner all had theories that went against the grain of conventional thought and were considered “quacks”

I'm sure you'll be more than happy to demonstrate these 10 assertions with something more substantial than bluster.

Oh, wait, your pseudonym is a punctuation character. I suspect you put about as much thought into the whole lot.

If you sheeple choose to poison your children use so-called "paragraphs" that’s your business

FTFY.

Actually, ?
In fact, I believe that “quack” Pauling, don’t quote me, might have had his theory about vitamin c proven.

No, he didn't, at least not with the megadoses he proposed. In fact, megadoses of Vitamins have shown to increase mortality in some cases. Possibly the biggest thing to come out of some of the vitamin C studies was the placebo effect for reports of symptoms based on patients who were able to figure out they were receiving the vitamins.
http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/pauling.html

By Frequent Lurker (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

Annie, what this means is that the live nasal vaccine is cold-adapted and when introduced in a nice warm host, the virus loses the capability to replicate

Ahem.

Cammi, I have donated 15 cents to the Get-A-Paragraph Foundation in your name.

By Dangerous Bacon (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

@Kiiri

I "UNFRIEND" them.

By darwinslapdog (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

^ Now that I'm situated for more than quips, live vaccines have to replicate to be effective. Cold adaptation reduces where this can happen well.

@Annie at #19 - My BFF's husband is immunocompromised, and this year she went EVERYWHERE trying to find a pediatric flu shot (rather than mist) for their 4 year old. She finally found one, then after the fact her pediatrician (or possibly a pharmacist) told her that the recommendation had changed this year, and they could have gone with the mist after all. I'll try to get more details.

By Emma Crew (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

Why would antivaxxers want newly immunized children to be quarantined? If such children shed the measles, that makes them the perfect guests of honor at a measles party. The measles virus in the MMR is in fact a strain of measles. Antivaxxers object to the measles *shot* because it contains ground-up babies and the like, but by exposing their children to a freshly vaccinated child, they can get the advantage of natural infection and natural immunity while the vaccinated child takes all the risk. What's not to like?

Other than the fact that people freshly vaccinated with the MMR don't shed the measles virus, of course.

Sorry about the lack of paragraphs, but I stand by what I said. Unless you have ADHD you should be able to read it.

Well, there's always the horrible disappointment the poor children will go through when they don't, in fact, get those marvelous measles from the freshly vaxed friend. One wouldn't want to take a chance of disappoint the children. Of course, it would be the stupid vaccine's fault- a decent vaccine would get other kids sick for real.

Dirty little LAIVed kids. What, exactly, is contact immunity'and reliance upon that when considering 'uptake' supposed to imply but 'sickifying' others?

Contact immunity is the property of some vaccines, where a vaccinated individual can confer immunity upon unimmunized individuals through contact with bodily fluids or excrement.

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

I guess there are 'no studies to show' that said replicating virii can mutate from dicked-with form back to nasty when considering mechanisms of transmission to others.

Snopes implies that "Patient Zero" in the Disneyland outbreak wasn't previously immunized -- That is to say, there has been no disclosed evidence that they were or not.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/patientzero.asp

Cammi Pa, the comments you have seen about paragraphs in your original post was ridicule (just in case you missed it.) There is so much nonsense contained in it. I suspect the effort to refute it would be totally lost on you.

There are two things I would suggest you consider looking into before you post again:
1) Simple statistics. An understanding of this analysis methodology would help you gain some insight in the nonsense you spew about herd immunity.
And 2) Gain some critical thinking. It will astound you how much you will be able to understand exactly stupid the nonsense you wrote really is. Critical thinking will have the added benefit of eventually stopping you from pushing your ridiculous perspective any further.

Give it a try, the world will be an infinitesimally smarter place.

Taken together, the comments upthread on how the PR release wound up on CNBC are a pretty decent account. It's not any one thing, most likely, but some combination of a number of them, and maybe a few others. Why no other reputable news outlet published this release and CNBC did could just be random – i.e. some low-level staffer somewhere was going to see a clickbait value in the headline, not know or dig into the background, have some content quota to meet, and put the release up without thinking about it – and it just happened to be CNBC. Or it could be that the odds are just that one big news source will have a low-level staffer friendly to ant-vax views, and that happen to be CNBC.

For all I know, in this new age, the process could be highly computerized, with some algorithm parsing the PR feeds with crude filters for topics know to be of interest to CNBC-wed readers, and maybe even calculating any native advertiisng revenue kickback into the equation: feeding a list of suggestions to a human being for final Yes/No, and whoever does that is too bored to do anything but click 'Yes".

The thing is, what goes up on the Web in these news aggregation sites isn't vetted at all by anyone with any real investment in framing a 'voice' or 'position' for CNBC. They're still basically a TV network. What gets on the air is what they care about. On the Web, the material related directly to the on-air programming will crafted with some care, by folks higher up the food chain. But that general news feed where PR releases get dumped, no.

I don't have time to look, but I'd guess that wherever rubric that Price/Manookian bit showed up is full of ripped-straight-from-the-feed PR copy from all sorts of sources, most of them appearing benign to most readers who have little investment in the topics at hand.

This is a very bad practice in terms of what used to be called "the social responsibility of the press", but the only intent behind it is shoring up shaky bottom lines. It's an example of how 'non-ideological' choices in terms of intent have practical ideological effects.

The good news for sbm advocates is that this 'story' did get flagged and the disclaimer added. That means a either a fair number of readers or someone with clout saw it and complained. Because CNBC-web has undoubtedly shoved thousands of PR releases right into the hopper un-vetted, without ever having cause to put that little disclaimer at the bottom.

Cammi, I quit reading after "sheeple."

Ad hominem attacks are really not the way to make a convincing argument.

@ Narad, thanks for the correction.

Unless you have ADHD you should be able to read it.

Keep digging Cammi.

By Science Mom (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

@Kiiri #44
I've been struggling with the same thing. How do you get through to these morons? Two months ago I naively thought there was only Jenny McCarthy, Andrew Wakefield, Bob Sears and their small but determined band of idiotic followers. Since I've tried to reason with these people I've been subjected to the nonsensical rants of Jack Wolfson, Mike Adams, Suzanne Humphries and whatever other bs Health Impact News or Natural News decides to highlight.

If you ask them for evidence to support their claims, or provide a critical review of the dumb sh*t by Tomljenovic and Shaw which they will try to pass off as independent research, they will pout like petulant children and call you things like "sheeple" in the "pocket of Big Pharma".

Alas "Against logic there is no armor like ignorance." - Laurence J. Peter

Right Cammie Pa?

Cammi,

I guarantee you that there is at least one person with ADHD reading this blog and its comments. Stop indulging your ableism and do the work of making your writing readable for as many people as possible. (You have the advantage of knowing what you are trying to say.)

The solution is for Orac and his not so secret other site to start issuing press releases of their own :)

Cammi: I not only have ADD, but I mastered paragraphs at 10. If you had a Salk's polio shot, you must be somewhere in your 60s and still haven't learned to write. Odd, considering even the women who became housewives from your generation usually at least graduated from high school, if not college.
What cult compound did you escape from, and would you please go back? *Salutes with middle finger*

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 05 Mar 2015 #permalink

As an education professional I am constantly berated that the education system has gone downhill. Then I see people like Cammi.

But just in case you're interested in learning, let's start with one little thing. How about you choose one vaccine and tell us the specific toxins it contains?

^ Sorry, I forgot to note that "[u]nless you have ADHD[,] you should be able to read it."

"I’ve only had the flu three times in my entire life."

And, I only had influenza once in my life...58 years ago...during a serious pandemic:

https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?_adv_prop=image&fr=yhs-mozil…

I had many of the "natural" childhood diseases; pertussis, varicella, measles, mumps and received a rubella vaccine about 40 years ago before conceiving my son, and had high titers when tested for all these disease more than twenty years when I applied for a job as a public health nurse. A few years after the Tdap booster was approved for children and before it was approved for adults as a one-time booster, I contracted pertussis (about 8 years ago). Pertussis immunity whether derived from "natural" disease or from pertussis-containing vaccines "wanes"...as does the immunity from against diphtheria and tetanus...whether or not you receive the whole cell pertussis vaccine or the acellular pertussis vaccines.

Perhaps Cammi would like to provide us with some basic immunology lessons to explain why I was vulnerable to pertussis and not vulerable to contract those other childhood diseases? Please be specific Cammi and make certain to explain the differences between primary vaccine failure and secondary vaccine failure, as well as antigenic drift and antigenic shift of influenza viruses.

Perh

Weston A Price Foundation Honorary Board Members

... Stephanie Seneff ...

I think that explains quite a number of things.

As an education professional I am constantly berated that the education system has gone downhill. Then I see people like Cammi.

I normally fail my students if they are unable to write in paragraphs.

Clearly your standards are quite a long way below mine.

Over at AoA, Kent Heckenlively is doing a Pauline Hanson.

I am laughing hysterically.

For those who don't follow antipodean politics, Pauline Hanson started a far-right party (and subsequently got booted from it, so started another) on an anti-immigration platform. She is widely regarded as a fruitcake.

AoA is a laugh a minute at the moment. Sadly I seem to be permanently banned from commenting.

There is a praise for an article written by Levi Quackenboss about the misogynistic treatment of Jenny McCarthy.

The article focuses on the fact that when Jenny McCarthy talks about vaccination it is always reported in connection with the fact that she was a playboy bunny. Apparently, this is misogyny.

The reality is that Jenny McCarthy's only obvious skill is taking her clothes off. This is not a good background to giving medical advice. I wouldn't take medical advice from Dennis Rodman either.

The comments on the AoA version are really worth a read - especially the contribution from 'not an MD' (at least they are honest).

@ Cammi Pi #37

" ... relatively benign childhood diseases ... "

Seriously? Benign? I invite you to come to the cemetery where I work and read through the 1850-1930 burial registers; page- after page of children who died of measles, scarlet fever, typhus, diphtheria, whooping cough, and other vaccine preventable diseases throughout the course of daily living. When the worst outbreaks hit, you will see lists of families who lost several children, sometimes within days of each other. Wiped out. Poof! I cannot imagine the heartbreak of those parents.

"Benign" my sweet patootee.

By Selena Wolf (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

Cammi Pa@56:

Sorry about the lack of paragraphs, but I stand by what I said.

Better by than in it, I suppose. You'd only ruin your shoes.

Corporate misconduct has caused the vaccination issue not the media.

People have been pitching exactly the same kind of know-nothing tantrums over the horrors and dangers of vaccination since 1802 that they are now.

That was well before Vioxx.

It's always been the same neo-luddite fear-based kneejerk crap it is today.

You can say anything about me that you want, I don't care. Whether or not you want to believe me or not, I suffered adverse reaction to vaccine as a child. That's why I'm stuck with Ezcema to this day even if, most of the time it's under control.

The MMR vaccines contain neomycin which can cause damage to the kidneys, hydrolyzed gelatin that possibly be contaminated with mad cow disease, sorbitol, which can cause sever abdominal pain in people with gastrointestinal problems, MSG, which can cause migraines and mood changes in chemically sensitive people (me included). Flu shots contain thimerosol (Mercury) and formaldehyde. These are neurotoxins that can stimulate the immune system into autoimmunity. The Hep A and Hep B vaccines contain forms of aluminum, which is also a known neurotoxin. I get these ingredients off of the CDC website. Now, I'm sorry but I simply cannot understand why anyone would want to have these substances into their body. That's scary.

Another thing that scares me is the government's use of bullying, intimidation and coercion to get these vaccines. Why should it matter if some people choose to vaccinate and some people don't? If these vaccines work so well then the vaccinated have nothing to fear from the unvaccinated. I am also concerned with this one-size-fits-all approach to health care. Not everyone's system can handle the introduction of the above toxins into their bodies. I know I can't. I can't even eat food with a whole lot of additives in it. They cause my Ezcema to flare and cause, in the case of artificial dyes, mood changes. I do have to thank Big Pharma for one thing, though, because of the adverse reaction I had to vaccine years ago, no one has ever been able to force me to get anymore vaccines and no one ever will! I'm really glad about that!

I also question the wisdom of, basically, replacing the body's natural immune system with toxic vaccines. Over use of antibiotics gave rise to antibiotic resistant "superbugs". What happens if the body, with its natural immune system subjected to these toxins on a regular basis, simply loses its God-given ability to protect the body from disease? People won't be able to survive without shots. Scary. Herd immunity will give way to herd management. More scary.

In my opinion, vaccines would probably not be so bad for people who can take them if Big Pharma could make them without those very nasty toxic ingredients.

Have a nice day. Be healthy and raise healthy children. When you get right down to it, that's what we all want!

Hey, stop hating on Cammi you guys! She cleared my entire anti-vaccine trope bingo card in a single post. That’s amazing.

I translated it to “RI/SBM condensed” prose, for those interested:

Neurotoxins, mercury, formaldehyde! Sheeple. If your kid is vaccinated, why worry about mine trope. Herd immunity is myth. Sheeple! Vaccine immunity is not natural, real; not in breastmilk. A vaccine temporally correlated with, and therefore caused, my eczema. I had childhood diseases and they weren’t bad. My unvaccinated kid is not sick; eats nutrient dense food and supplements. Childhood diseases only kill kids who don’t eat what my kid eats. Media conspiracy! Autism is caused by toxins and vaccines. The flu shot is not 100%. Dogs in heat! (?) Big Pharma. Most disease is caused by poison. I have a centenarian in my family. Sheeple! “Science” in quotes. Think! Hook line and sinker, dollars to donuts. Chemicals. [end]

By CTGeneGuy (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

@Selena Wolf: But those people lived back before we had SANITATION and STUFF. And they were MEANT to die because they were obviously NOT eating a ORGANIC diet and lived in FILTH.

Ugh. Now I feel dirty. I don't like thinking like the antivax set.

I know what you mean. Most books written before the 1960s that mention the "normal diseases" also mention how the parents feared them. Not a lot of deaths named, but there are some!

Gee, Cammie. Thanks for re-writing EVERY anti-vax trope in the book. As if I wasn't bored enough with what you had to say.

Can't we get some anti-vax commenters who actually have done some decent research and have intelligent things to say? The quality is awful.

@Cammi Pa

Flu shots contain...formaldehyde. These are neurotoxins that can stimulate the immune system into autoimmunity.

You might want to learn a little more about formaldehyde. In large doses, it can be dangerous, but in smaller doses, it's something your body produces as a necessary part of amino acid synthesis. A more complete discussion can be found here: http://www.harpocratesspeaks.com/2012/04/demystifying-vaccine-ingredients.html.

Likewise, MSG is not a substance to be feared in the amounts found in any vaccine.

I also question the wisdom of, basically, replacing the body’s natural immune system with toxic vaccines.

Vaccines don't replace the body's natural immune system. They train the immune system to recognize antigens that cause disease so when they encounter the real deal, they can defend against infection.

Flu shots contain thimerosol (Mercury) and formaldehyde. These are neurotoxins that can stimulate the immune system into autoimmunity. The Hep A and Hep B vaccines contain forms of aluminum, which is also a known neurotoxin. I get these ingredients off of the CDC website. Now, I’m sorry but I simply cannot understand why anyone would want to have these substances into their body. That’s scary.

You already have all of these in your body, either produced naturally or ingested by eating certain foods. Instead of parroting the anti-science line, why not educate yourself in, say, basic chemistry?

Here's a tip -- Harpocrates' Speaks has two excellent posts for the layperson, one on aluminum and one on formaldehyde. I suggest you read them.

I see Todd has beaten me to it.

@ ChrisP:

He compares his compatriots to Russian dissidents, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela and American revolutionaries.

In earlier posts, he compares them to Guardians of the Galaxy, Supernatural detectives and the Free People of Middle Earth.

Psychologists take note whensoever people compare too many things to too many other things. It implies a certain looseness of connections.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

Cammi,

I have been reading that same tired anti-vaccine screed on message boards for the better part of 15 years. If I didn't know better, I'd swear it was a cut and paste from the Mothering.com forums from 2004.

While it may have made you feel better to get all of that "chemicalz are bad natural living is good" off your chest, the reality is that nobody here believes a word of it. It's all been refuted, over and over again. You'll never accept or understand that it's been refuted, because you're a true believer, but there may be vaccine-concerned parents that come to this board that can be swayed.

So here is my message to those parents: the only things Cammi got right in her posts are:

1. Her name. (I assume)
2. This quote:

Have a nice day. Be healthy and raise healthy children. When you get right down to it, that’s what we all want!

She's right about that. Going about the entirely wrong way, but her intentions are good.

It implies a certain looseness of connections.

Uh-oh.

TheHealthyHomeEconomist.com/it-only-took-50-years-cdc-admits-polio-vaccine-tainted-with-cancer-causing-virus/

@ JP:

Uh-oh is correct.

Another thing I notice is that this looseness of connectivity may be expressed in diverse ways-
if items or events seem vaguely similar or the author would like them to be connected- by any means- they are.
If there is any way of connecting them- by hook or by crook- it'll happen.

For example, if I ask what do you think of first when I say 'dog'- you most likely will say 'cat'- it's a small mammal, often a pet. This illustrates a little about how memory is organised into semantic networks; strength of association ( or distance) can be measured across large groups of people.

HOWEVER not all people respond that way- and I'm not talking about those who are being deliberately creative or snarky-.these 'far associations' are associated with various conditions.

So rather than the connection being of a categorical nature based on meaning as agreed upon by most people, the connection is idiosyncratic, not based on meaning, somewhat random and imposed by its creator.

If I try to use consensus and external evidence to explain why something happens I get a very different result from imposing my will upon several un-related events or persons and forcing them into line in order to support my theory, that's quite different.

I DO see a lot of that around woo-ville.
See also 6 degrees of separation by Jake.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

I know! Cammi has been in moderation for years, that's why all her posts contain such old anti-vax tropes! She actually wrote her posts years ago, before learning more about the ebil toxins.

(one can live in hope, right? That she really WILL research and learn?)

You seem to forget that "science" also convinced us that cigarettes were safe. Cocaine was originally in Coca-Cola. That was safe. Asbestos was supposed to be safe so was lead paint! We all know how those things worked out..Excuse me if I don't just accept everything "science" has to say. Vaccines were NOT safe for me!

Just keep throwing those links at us Cammi, that is the sure way to convince people. They have all been seen before, and dealt with, probably on this very blog, possibly multiple times. Everything you have posted so far is old, stuff that has long been addressed, including that last link. Educate yourself, read some of the posts that deal with this issues, and at least argue against those, rather than acting like this is new information.

Oh my god, the cigarettes were good trope. Cammi is in a time warp. It never ends. Endless hoary old tropes, recycled endlessly.

I can't be bothered to wade through Cammi's non-prose.

Did she trot out the "they took out the mercury, but increased the aluminum" trope?

Cammi--

Cigarette companies and advertising agencies told us cigarettes were safe. Scientists proved otherwise, and the Surgeon General--an employee of the United States government--spread the word. So why do you distrust government health warnings?

As for cocaine, most of us don't get our health advice from soda manufacturers.

Thimerosal & Aluminum Salts do two completely different things - and were contained in completely different vaccines...trying to equate the two is like telling someone that apples and oranges are the same thing.

Denice Walter @ 90:

For example, if I ask what do you think of first when I say ‘dog’- you most likely will say ‘cat’- it’s a small mammal, often a pet. This illustrates a little about how memory is organised into semantic networks; strength of association ( or distance) can be measured across large groups of people.

HOWEVER not all people respond that way- and I’m not talking about those who are being deliberately creative or snarky-.these ‘far associations’ are associated with various conditions.

So rather than the connection being of a categorical nature based on meaning as agreed upon by most people, the connection is idiosyncratic, not based on meaning, somewhat random and imposed by its creator.

Like this:

Plus they give you those word association
tests. I love those.

JERRY: Those are great. There's no wrong answer.

GEORGE: Potato

JERRY: Tuberculosis

GEORGE: Blanket

JERRY: Leroy

GEORGE: Grass

JERRY: Tuberculosis

By The Very Rever… (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

MI Dawn: "Can’t we get some anti-vax commenters who actually have done some decent research and have intelligent things to say? The quality is awful."

If they were intelligent, they wouldn't be anti-vax.

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

If you think that vaccines are safe by all means use them but leave people alone who disagree with you. People should have the right to decide what they want to put into their bodies and the bodies of their children. If neither you nor your children suffered an adverse reaction to a vaccine then good, I'm happy for you. Trying to convince someone like me who suffered an adverse reaction to vaccines that vaccines are safe is not going to happen. I might add that later on in life I also developed vitiligo and aloepeia universalis--both autoimmune disorders. Although I can't link these other two autoimmune disorders directly to a long-ago vaccine, I can say that my immune system has been on auto pilot ever since then. Trying to convince me that vaccines are safe is simply not going to happen because I know they were not safe for me. Who knows, if this did not happen to me I would probably be on your side but it did that's why I'm not.

@everyone up thread helping me out:

Thanks! I wouldn't be surprised if the legal concern was the going thing, here. I'm not gonna fuss over waiting a week post-MMR, so we'll just do that but now I have more info.

@CTGeneGuy

Thank you toooooo!! Your summation of the gish-gallop there was masterful. I giggled in public. ;-)

People should have the right to decide what they want to put into their bodies and the bodies of their children.

Yet another trope, Cammi is just full of them. How has anyone taken or will take anti-vaxxers precious right to keep their spawn "pure and free of toxins" away?

Trying to convince me that vaccines are safe is simply not going to happen because I know they were not safe for me.

Riiiiiight. Because you have demonstrated such an elegant grasp of biomedical sciences we should readily believe your self diagnosis.

By Science Mom (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

Excuse me if I don’t just accept everything “science” has to say.

This would be easler if you didn't completely ignore direct rebuttals in favor of just disgorging more of the same old stale material.

@Cammi pa

Trying to convince me that vaccines are safe is simply not going to happen because I know they were not safe for me.

Thank you for openly admitting that you are wedded to an ideology and that nothing will change your mind.

This demonstrates the difference between people like you, and people like the rest of the commenters here. We are willing to change our minds when presented with good evidence.

@Cammi - it would be easy to ignore you, if you and your ilk weren't putting others at risk of infectious disease because of your own stupidity.

Unfortunately, not-vaccinating has consequences - both for the individual & public health at large.....that's why we can't ignore your ignorance.

I suppose this isn't the time to point out to Cammi that cocaine is actually still used in some specific hospital surgeries as a topical local anesthetic? And that even in the 1800s people were aware that smoking led to cancers?

Also: While Cammi *might* have actually has a vaccine reaction, I love the way she links her decades later auto-immune problems to the 1 vaccine she had as a child which immediately gave her eczema (I had several friends with eczema - most fully vaccinated but a few who weren't at all due to family allergies. I don't ever recall hearing eczema as being due to vaccines).

Ezcema runs in my family - I have it, my kids have it & my Dad (and his Dad) had it.....nothing to do with vaccines.

"sorbitol, which can cause sever abdominal pain in people with gastrointestinal problems"

You know that is only when it is inside the lumen of the intestines, and only when they eat enough grams of it to increase their gas volume above their pain threshold (how much may depend on how many other fermentable carbohydrates they are eating in their diet and their particular GI flora).

If you are scared of the sorbitol besides avoiding a fair number of low-carb/ketogenic psuedo-foodlike substances as well as some sugar-free candies and gums you must avoid all apples, pears, peaches, apricots, plums/prune, nectarines and cherries. Also never eat most naturally sweetened processed foods as most use either concentrated pear or apple juice.

@Cammi Pa:
I've got three bits of bad news for you:
1) "Natural immunity" to measles isn't always lifelong. Reinfection by measles isn't all that uncommon when and where measles is endemic.

2) Allergies don't mean the definition of "autoimmune disease". They meet the "immune" part but not the "auto" part.

3) Neurotoxic chemicals affect the nervous system, not the immune system.

By justthestats (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

mc @ 63
If you are pretty new to all this,or have not been following the antivaxers that intently,I have another name for you.

Jake Crosby.

http://www.autisminvestigated.com/about-us/

MiDawn @81
The quality of the writing from antivax posters here really has gone down hill of late,but still has a way to go before we hit the flaming freeperism and conspiracy mongering seen at AoA late.Thanks ChrisP,I just went over and read some of the more recent posts and comments.Jimmy Kimmel is a shill for Agenda 21.Yeah right.

Alex Jones himself couldn't do better.

Come back Sid,we miss you.

By Roger Kulp (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

Cammi: Funny, isn't it? You're the one who's calling us "Sheeple". But let me ask you something. When you heard about the "Toxins" in vaccines, did you bother to check with other sources, or did you simply accept what they said without question?

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

I am mostly a lurker here, please forgive me if this has been mentioned before.

I am really curious what the long-term effects might be for unvaccinated children and their children? I'm wondering if there are any resources available that address this? I suppose it would just be speculation, although maybe there are some educated guesses?

I'm wondering because soon we will see a significant number of unvaccinated adults entering into the population, going on to have their own children. I do wonder what might happen at that point, if there might be unforeseen harm done to the grandchildren of anti-vaxxers.

Thank you for your seemingly tireless efforts at debunking psuedoscience and quackery, Orac.

“Natural immunity” to measles isn’t always lifelong. Reinfection by measles isn’t all that uncommon when and where measles is endemic.

Citation?

"The quality of the writing from antivax posters here really has gone down hill of late,"

- On which point, do you think that someone could write to the ludicrous Ann Dachel, who claims that her son emitted a high pitched scream on the night of his Hep B as a result of mercury in the shot.

Maybe someone with, say, elementary school biology, or cookery, could explain to her that the only way that mercury could elicit a high pitched scream from a baby would be if you dropped maybe half a pound of it on his head.

By Brian Deer (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

On which point, do you think that someone could write to the ludicrous Ann Dachel, who claims that her son emitted a high pitched scream on the night of his Hep B as a result of mercury in the shot.

My dad swears that a beetle the size of a dinner plate did the same thing when he stabbed it in half with a shovel in the back yard. Then again, it was Arkansas.

Tami: "I do wonder what might happen at that point, if there might be unforeseen harm done to the grandchildren of anti-vaxxers. "

Aside from having awful personalities, you mean?

Cammi: I think you're confusing 'winter' and vitiligo. Everyone loses pigment this time of year.

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

Aside from having awful personalities, you mean?

Could you please just stop this? Really, just stop; I'm embarrassed for you since you lack the sense to be embarrassed yourself.

By Science Mom (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

The MMR vaccines contain neomycin which can cause damage to the kidneys,

At levels of exposure achievable as a consequence of vaccination according to the recommended schedule? Citations needed.

You do recall the fundmanetal prinicple of toxicology, don't you? Say it with me: "The dose makes the poison."

Tami@ 114:
The first major risk that comes to mind for the grand children of anti-vaxxers is rubella. If a woman gets rubella (German measles) during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy there is the risk of major birth defects due to congenital rubella syndrome. There is also about a 20% risk of miscarriage.

Separately, there is a truism that 'childhood diseases' are much harder on adults than children, so if the children of anti-vaxxers also choose to not vaccinate their children the parents would be at risk of catching the VPDs if their children get them, and having a much more severe disease outcome.

As for resources, I would say the CDC for what to do (get vaccinated!) and history for the possible outcomes.

I hope this was more useful than some people's nasty and unhelpful comment.

By JustaTech (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

Trying to convince someone like me who suffered an adverse reaction to vaccines that vaccines are safe is not going to happen.

What adverse reaction that you believe you suffered as a consequence of being vaccinated have you causally linked to the vaccine you received, and how did you do so?

I can say that my immune system has been on auto pilot ever since then.

What does this even mean? How does one distinguish between immune systems which are on auto-pilot, and those that are not?

Can you imagine if we had to consciously control our immune system?

We'd be an extinct species pretty quick.....

@Narad:
Doh! I was misremembering the fact that you can get mumps again.

By justthestats (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

My Ezcema being caused by vaccine is not a self-diagnosis. A couple of hours after receiving a vaccination I broke out in a terrible rash all over my body. I scratched myself raw. After my mother took me to the pediatrician HE told my mother that it was a reaction to the vaccination. He told my mother that I was not to be vaccinated again for anything and I never was. He gave my mother waivers for me for school. There was no history of allergies, Ezcema, asthma, hay fever or anything of that nature in my family and evidentially a medical doctor attributed this outbreak to an adverse reaction to vaccination. This is NOT my self diagnosis. Also, I am not connecting my other two autoimmune disorders. All I'm saying is that my immune system has been on automatic pilot for almost all of my life ad I have Ezcema outbreaks every so often. My current medical doctor has also agreed with me after hearing what happened to me and agreed that with my autoimmune disorders I should not get vaccinated for anything and will give me waivers should I need them when I go back to school next year. I didn't come up with this by myself.

Most attention to the fears about vaccinations have to do with autism. Well I don't really know what causes autism. I didn't develop autism from a vaccine--I developed an autoimmune disorder as a result of a vaccine as per a medical doctors opinion and no one here can prove any different.

@JustaTech - thank you for your comment. I have been looking at the CDC website, haven't run across any extrapolations yet, but I'll continue to keep an eye out for something similar.

Thanks also for the information on the effect of measles in the womb, too. I knew of this but I wasn't sure of the percentages, I'll double check that.

Just as a note - yes, I am vaccinated, and yes, my child is also vaccinated (all on schedule). I am just as flabbergasted as anyone when I see the talking points from antivaxxers. I have several friends that lean toward the crunchy side, although as far as I know not to this extreme.

I just wondered what sort of difficulties parents might be setting their children up for down the road, even assuming they don't contract any of the vaccine-targeted diseases in childhood. It's an awful thought that they may also be putting their grandchildren at risk, but I wonder if even that would have any effect on the here and now.

Cammi Pa, we have no reason to believe your story.

For all you know, you may have brushed against a plant you are sensitive to, or perhaps developed a nickel allergy. There are so many other reasons for eczema.

"On which point, do you think that someone could write to the ludicrous Ann Dachel, who claims that her son emitted a high pitched scream on the night of his Hep B as a result of mercury in the shot."

That "high pitched cry" theme is from Professor/Doctor Cia Parker who classifies it as an "encephalitic cry" associated with her child's birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. Parker did not take her child to a hospital emergency room, for an evaluation to determine if her child actually had encephalitis.

Nine years ago, Ms. Dachel described the onset of her son's symptoms which eventually led to his ASD diagnosis as quite different:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/opedne_anne_mce_060821_the_really_bi…

".....When John was three, his talking and interacting with people began to regress. It was so subtle that it's hard to remember when he first wasn't the alert, energetic little toddler he once was. Nobody seemed all that alarmed about it but me.

I enrolled him in a speech therapy class at the university which helped a little, but no one could explain why this was happening. I enrolled John in school at five and the next four years were one long struggle that I'd like to not even think about. No one understood him and his autistic behaviors were viewed as signs of immaturity, defiance, and anxiety.

In the second grade in 1993, John was diagnosed as "possibly autistic" by a psychologist from Minneapolis. I'll never forget how she made the statement that autism was a "rare disorder...."

re Dachel et al on their children's cry as being a marker for "brain damage".... and OBVIOUSLY, their bad writing

I've heard this meme many times and it may be related to tales that infants with severe congenital CNS-related disabilities have distinctive and intolerable cries...

I think that this tale transmutes into 'right after the vaccines' the disturbing cries begin ( to be perfectly honest, all infants; cries sound rather alarming to me) PROVING that the vaccines causes the problem.

Cia Parker says it's an "encephalopathic cry" or something similar.
Kim Stagliano discusses post-vaccine crying - as well as linking a tape of it 18 years later- presently @ AoA.

AND yes, these ladies are extremely bad writers. Oh let me count the ways. On second thought, let's NOT. I'm currently reading someone's fledgling writing effort and I don't need to spoil my ear by going into detail over Anne, Kim, Lisa and various other mummies. Mac Neil is working on a novel I hear. Heh.

To be brie,f I find that quite a few of the usual suspects ( both anti-vax and general woo) present rather juvenile metaphors and weak analogies; their attempts at joking or at lightweight, breezy commentary seem much too strained and heavy handed for my taste.

HOWEVER they do seem to understand their audiences' need- and little else.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

Cammi, you're full of it. The only vaccine contraindicated with eczema is vaccinia. Depending upon the vaccine you could have had an allergic reaction to a component, that's it. And you wonder why people like you have zero credibility.

By Science Mom (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

My Ezcema being caused by vaccine is not a self-diagnosis. A couple of hours after receiving a vaccination I broke out in a terrible rash all over my body. I scratched myself raw. After my mother took me to the pediatrician HE told my mother that it was a reaction to the vaccination. He told my mother that I was not to be vaccinated again for anything and I never was.

Okay. I believe you.

But that doesn't mean the vaccine gave you an autoimmune disorder.

What it means is that when your immune system gets to work, it sometimes produces proteins that mistakenly attack you rather than the virus or bacteria that they were called up to fight. Which results in eczema.

And that's genetic. Something would have triggered it sooner or later, even if you'd never had any vaccines.

“encephalitic cry”
A term originally acquired from 19th-century homeopathic literature. mainstreamed by Blaylock, and now a shibboleth in anti-vax circles.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

^^

What I'm saying is:

The vaccine caused the outbreak, but it didn't cause the eczema. Because it couldn't have. That's not how autoimmunity happens.

Politicalguineapig: No, it's vitiligo. Had it for years and it was diagnosed vitiligo by a dermatologist.

@Denice (#90):

I think I was actually making a brief quip at my own expense just before I jumped in a car to head to Wisconsin. I've been known to engage in a little bit of "knight's move" thinking myself, especially when over-caffeinated, but my seeming non-sequiturs at such moments are usually the result of my failing to spell out aloud one or two connections between one thing and another.

Speaking of non-sequiturs and Wisconsin, I have currently been left to my own devices in a drinking establishment while my friend is on a (precisely) one hour visit to his very straight-laced brother. (Whose wife is an MD!) His family is generally kind of freaked out by his friends - I suppose I cannot blame them - so I stayed behind. But hey, there's wifi here!

@ JP:

Of course.
My point was that you can learn much from a person's writing if you know how: people do study this stuff. AoA is a treasure trove.

re your travels:

But isn't it fun to shock people? I usually do that verbally.
I try to appear more run of the mill than I am , it makes life easier for me.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

My point was that you can learn much from a person’s writing if you know how: people do study this stuff. AoA is a treasure trove.

Yeah, it's fascinating, for sure. If the peeps over there were actually better writers and artists, and their subject matter were less reprehensible and consequential (in a bad way) it might be even more so.

But isn’t it fun to shock people? I usually do that verbally.
I try to appear more run of the mill than I am , it makes life easier for me.

Yeah, sometimes I like to shock people in sort of the reverse manner. I was used a couple of times in Polish classes in Krakow as an example of "appearances can be deceiving." "For example, Pani Jamie here looks like some sort of freakish thug, but she is in fact a very nice, interesting, and erudite person."

In any case, it was more or less announced to me that I'd be on my own for an hour or so, which I actually don't mind all that much. To be honest, though, I got along quite well with Mr. Derek's family at his wedding this past summer, at least his parents. But then, weird as I am, my friends parents have always really liked me for some reason.

^ Should be "friends' parents."

Cammi,

My current medical doctor has also agreed with me after hearing what happened to me and agreed that with my autoimmune disorders I should not get vaccinated for anything and will give me waivers should I need them

If this is true, you need to stop spreading antivaccine misinformation.

On the contrary, you should be encouraging everyone around you to stay current with their own vaccines to help protect you.

Speaking of AoA, Heckenlively is now trying to compare himself to Boris freaking Nemtsov. I am mad enough to spit.

I might add that later on in life I also developed vitiligo and aloepeia universalis–both autoimmune disorders.

Again, I believe you.

Although I can’t link these other two autoimmune disorders directly to a long-ago vaccine, I can say that my immune system has been on auto pilot ever since then.

Okay. But that's how autoimmune disorders frequently are. There's an underlying predisposition that gets turned on for reasons that are poorly understood if they're understood at all. And then they're there.

There's no vaccine ingredient that you don't get regularly exposed to similar amounts of through other sources just in the course of going about the business of life. I mean, you may say:

I bet you dollars to donuts I’ll outlive all you walking chemicals!

But you're made of chemicals, same as me and all living beings. And inert ones, ftm. Incuding the chemicals tiny amounts of which are in vaccines. They're a part of life. A natural part.

Trying to convince me that vaccines are safe is simply not going to happen because I know they were not safe for me. Who knows, if this did not happen to me I would probably be on your side but it did that’s why I’m not.

I'm not trying to convince you. But I don't really follow your reasoning there. I mean, even if you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that you would not have developed eczema if you hadn't gotten that vaccine, it wouldn't justify putting the lives of thousands upon thousands upon thousands of others at more serious risk.

Would it?

running off topic. Lawrence gave me a partial earworm with

Ezcema runs in my family – I have it, my kids have it & my Dad (and his Dad) had it…..

Finally figured it out: Blind Willie McTell's Statesboro Blues

Big Eighty left Savannah, Lord, and did not stop
You ought to saw that colored fireman when he got that boiler hot
You can reach over in the corner mama and hand me my travelin' shoes
You know by that, I've got them Statesboro blues

Mama, sister got 'em, auntie got 'em
Brother got 'em, friend got 'em, I got 'em
Woke up this morning, we had them Statesboro blues
I looked over in the corner, grandpa and grandma had 'em too

I guess maybe I'm just old. I don't really see what everyone's so afraid of. When I was about 7 or 8, my mother took me over to my cousin's house. He had the measles. Back then mothers wanted their kids to catch it and get it over with. It was just no big deal. It's a fever, a runny nose, a cough and an itchy rash, that's all. When I got sick mom slapped calomine lotion on me, sent me to bed, gave me Bayer Children's Aspirin for the fever and loads of orange juice and Vitamin C. Hot cereal and fruit for breakfast and loads of my nana's homemade chicken soup. It was all over in few days as I remember. I got a week home from school to do nothing but stay in bed and watch tv. It was no biggie. No one made a big deal over it. It emptied out my school but everyone recovered and nobody died. So unless measles has mutated into something else, the measles I grew up around was nothing to get bent out of shape about. Seems like today people seem to be afraid of everything.

Cammi Pa: "Back then mothers wanted their kids to catch it and get it over with. It was just no big deal. It’s a fever, a runny nose, a cough and an itchy rash, that’s all."

Are you sure that it was not German measles? That sounds more like rubella, and parents wanted girls to get it before they were old enough to have children. It was to prevent Congenital Rubella Syndrome, which is one real known cause of autism.

"I got a week home from school to do nothing but stay in bed and watch tv. It was no biggie."

Sounds more like rubella. Red measles is more like two weeks of pure fever induced misery, and eyes too sensitive to watch TV.

Tell that to Roald Dahl's family. I think they will disagree with you. Do know who The BFG is dedicated to and why?

"So unless measles has mutated into something else, the measles I grew up around was nothing to get bent out of shape about. Seems like today people seem to be afraid of everything."

We are not going to base our decisions to vaccinate based on your childhood memories. We prefer the actual factual historical accounts, such as those that show before vaccines between 400 to over 700 children were reported to die each year from measles in the USA, and thousands more were permanently disabled.

Justatech: "I hope this was more useful than some people’s nasty and unhelpful comment."

Hey, I was stating a fact. Anti-vaxxers are awful people and they'd end up raising awful, spoiled children. So, you end up with three generations of liars, egomaniacs and brats. I'd compare the most prominent ones to pond scum- but I think the pond scum would be insulted.

Cammi: "No, it’s vitiligo. Had it for years and it was diagnosed vitiligo by a dermatologist."

Was this an actual went-to-med-school dermatologist or a naturopath calling themselves a dermatologist? The two aren't the same. Given that you don't seem to have a high regard for the truth or facts and that vitiligo affects a whopping 1% of the human population- well, you can see why I'm skeptical.

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

I developed an autoimmune disorder as a result of a vaccine as per a medical doctors opinion and no one here can prove any different.

I take it that pointing out that it's impossible to "diagnose" a cause without some sort of pathophysiological mechanism above "something something immune something" doesn't count.

It's quite impressive that the very same vaccines "cause" any and every variety of autoimmune disease (which eczema isn't yet), no matter how disparate, when someone can gin up something vaguely resembling a correlation correlation. Type I diabetes? Why, M, M, R, Hep B, and Hib, of course!

Lather, rinse, repeat. There's no telling where the wave function is going to collapse! Yay!

Well, OK, it's definitely going to collapse with a 'BAD' component in the eigenvector. That's certain.

I got a week home from school to do nothing but stay in bed and watch tv. It was no biggie.

Then you didn't have the measles. With the measles you lie in bed in a darkened room and cry because your eyes hurt and you're so miserable.

At least that's how it hit me, fifty-some years ago.

Seems like today people seem to be afraid of everything

Says the person who thinks aluminum and formaldehyde are scary.

So, you end up with three generations of liars, egomaniacs and brats.

Ah yes and you're just the paragon of grace, charm, altruism and good manners.*

*And that's coming from a badass.

By Science Mom (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

Sciencemom: You've never met me offline. Dunno how I do on grace, but at one point I was volunteering at two different places, at least three days a week. And you wouldn't believe how often I get complimented on my manners.

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

Most attention to the fears about vaccinations have to do with autism. Well I don’t really know what causes autism. I didn’t develop autism from a vaccine–I developed an autoimmune disorder as a result of a vaccine as per a medical doctors opinion and no one here can prove any different.

Of course we can't. You won't provide any real medical evidence to that fact, just your testimony. Your doctor, if he or she was worth anything, would have reported that in case literature since that's a pretty extraordinary claim, but I'm sure that isn't the case.

Honestly, you believe what you want to believe, just like all the hardcore anti-vax wingnuts. You have no interest in hearing an opinion that contradicts the story you (and perhaps a sympathetic doctor) have created for yourself. And while I never like to tell other commenters on this blog what to do, my suggestion is to stop wasting time.

Oh, and Cammi, just thought I'd add regarding Hep B, that 'lifestyle choice' disease you can just avoid by not being like a dog in heat. Try again:

Between 12,000 and 24,000 Hep B infections annually in children under the age of 10 in the U.S. Long term liver damage and side effects. I guess those kids were all just 'in heat', huh?

Childhood hepatitis B virus infections in the United States before hepatitis B immunization.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11694691

@ PGP:

Can you perhaps venture a guess as to why what you said is objectionable to some SB supporters/ minions ?

I think I DO know what you mean - but I think that you can express it in a more clear fashion which would qualify the statement somewhat.

How would Orac express his disgruntlement with anti-vaxxers?

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

And you wouldn’t believe how often I get complimented on my manners.

You're absolutely right; I wouldn't believe. Geez, even I have a filter online and if your so faboo in meatspace then try demonstrating that at least occasionally.

By Science Mom (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

@ Science Mom:

I need to add 'faboo' to my vocab- it'll go well with 'fave'.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

@Cammi Pa --

That does sound like German Measles, not Measles.

I'm also old. I had all of the now vaccine-preventable diseases except mumps (which I didn't catch, though exposed) and pertussis (vaccinated against).

And polio. I'm not that old. I did get the small pox vaccine, however.

The nice thing about being sick was that I got to watch cartoons.

Pleasant as it's been reminiscing with you, there are 300 million or so other people in this country alone. If none were vaccinated, almost all of them would catch measles. It's very contagious. Hundreds would die every year, and many more would be left blind, deaf or otherwise permanently seriously impaired. Children would be orphaned. Women would miscarry. Parents would be left to mourn their infants.

I'm glad that you have your naturally acquired immunity and some pleasant memories to keep you warm at night. It must be very lonely not caring about anybody else in the world. heart. But you don't have to be that way. You are not, in fact, alone.

.

So, you end up with three generations of liars, egomaniacs and brats.

Is PGP letting her inner Buck v. Bell flag fly?

@ Tami,JustaTech,and Ann@ 141

I would like to bring up something that always puzzled me.I am coming to an end of a six year journey starting from having "just" an autism diagnosis,to having multiple diagnoses,including mitochondrial disease.I have at least one secondary immune deficiency,which I have been treating the last few years.I had a discussion on Facebook last week with a woman whose daughter also has both diagnosed autism and mito.Her daughter has not lived with this stuff undiagnosed for many years,like me,and has not had as much sickness as I am,but the pattern was the same as me.Get an infection,have a prolonged sickness,be very ill for weeks or months,suffer both an autistic regression,and develop one more lifelong medical problem.A year or two later,get hit with another acute infection,and the same thing happens all over again.Lather rinse repeat.

It was such a blessing to join these groups on Facebook,and find a few others like me,even if they were children.Some even see the same doctors I do.These are all children whose parents are very afraid of infections their kids get,and for good reason.These parents vaccinate.

One thing I still don't get about antivaxers,is they always talk about how sick their kids are,and what delicate flowers they are,yet they never talk about what happens when their kids do get an infection.Do antivax parents talk about their kid getting the flu,having it turn into pneumonia,nearly die,regress again,and develop,say, heart problems on top of that?This was my life.If the kids do have problems like that,do the parents simply not talk about it,or do they blame some mythical "toxins" the kid might have.

PGP@145,again I cite Jake Crosby as an example.Crosby is what you get when antivaxers raise kids.

By Roger Kulp (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

DW: " Can you perhaps venture a guess as to why what you said is objectionable to some SB supporters/ minions ?

How would Orac express his disgruntlement with anti-vaxxers?"

Um, as far as I can tell, he lights into them with guns blazing. Perhaps no one here objects because he leaves the kids out of it? And I'm sorry if anyone has to put up with anti-vax people in real life.

Narad: Buck vs. Bell was vastly different. They were dealing with made-up facts and a misunderstanding of nature. I am simply extrapolating from the sort of parenting techniques anti-vaxxers use, and the usual result of such parenting.

RK: Yup. That's why I don't think the grandkids have any chance. Though, thankfully , the chance of Crosby reproducing is slim. There's always a chance he could pull his head out of his end and make a stab at becoming a reasonable human being..and there's also the chance that the magnetic poles of the Earth could reverse during my lifetime.

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

Narad: Buck vs. Bell was vastly different. They were dealing with made-up facts and a misunderstanding of nature. I am simply extrapolating from the sort of parenting techniques anti-vaxxers use, and the usual result of such parenting.

Mmm Hmmm?

By Science Mom (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

It’s quite impressive that the very same vaccines “cause” any and every variety of autoimmune disease (which eczema isn’t yet)

Not decisively. But I don't think it's controversial to characterize it that way, is it?

...

I guess I don't know where I stand on this particular semantic issue. Seems to me that there's a very fine line between "idiopathic" and "autoimmune" when it comes to non-lethal why-me?-type chronic dermatological conditions. That aren't secondary to something else.

But maybe I just think that.

I got a week home from school to do nothing but stay in bed and watch tv. It was no biggie. No one made a big deal over it. It emptied out my school but everyone recovered and nobody died.

Yah, I'm old, too. I remember going to a coupla high school graduations back in the day around my 17th (only one that I was the guest of honor), and there might or might not be a student that was mentioned for perfect attendance.

Fast forward a few years (like 20 +/- 5) and I go to a few more (the things I do for family and friends*). Often 6 to 10 are mentioned as having perfect attendance records.

These kids today don't know how well they have it, what with no school days off and all.

*I don't have kids. The mumps fried my nuts**. Great if you came of age in the 70's, and the dating world was a target rich environment, not so good if you expected to get married and have a kid or two (well, two and a mistake, as was the custom of the day).

**Ya know that wrinkly skin your balls are in? Do ya know it will stretch a mile before it will tear an inch? It looked like I had my fist stuffed inside my nut sack. Felt like it, too. I do not recommend it.

@Roger Kulp - thank you for your insight, you have my sympathy for having gone through so much for such a long time. I'm very glad you have found some help handling your health problems, and others you can relate to.

I, too, wonder at the contradictory way in which antivax parents describe their children. On the one hand, they characterize them as you've said, as delicate and susceptible to every form of "toxin" they've ever heard of, yet on the other hand they insist their children are "pure" and robust and more than able to fight off any bugaboos with a simple nutrient-rich diet and the parents' fervent beliefs. I don't think they even realize the contradiction.

Take Cammi Po - she first claimed to live a healthy, robust lifestyle, but every subsequent post reveals a new chronic illness from which she suffers.

Cammi Pa #78,

"In my opinion, vaccines would probably not be so bad for people who can take them if Big Pharma could make them without those very nasty toxic ingredients."

Absolutely agree.

I blindly trusted the FDA and vaccinated my kids per the CDC schedule. I was stabbed in the back. My son developed multiple life-threatening food allergies and asthma.
Vaccines are also contaminated with numerous food proteins. This contributes to the food allergy epidemic.

Every time a vaccine is due, I agonize over the decision. I spaced the TdaP and meningococcal vaccines more than a month apart. I avoided the HPV. I choose my flu vaccine after careful research of the package inserts.

JGC #120 writes "The dose makes the poison.”

But that is selectively applied. The dose of food allergens in vaccines is unspecified and unregulated by the FDA. No safety studies have been performed. The FDA, US Pharmacopeia and vaccine maker Sanofi Pasteur have confirmed that to me.

Mercury is added to vaccines to save a few dollars. Mercury allows the use of multi-dose vials.
For all these years, it was considered justifiable to inject a neurotoxin into babies to save a few dollars.

Aluminum is of course immunology's dirty little secret.
http://www.nature.com/nri/journal/v8/n5/full/nri2317.html

It was accidentally discovered that aluminum contaminated vaccines work better. How it works is still not understood.
Now many vaccines are "contaminated" with aluminum by design.

Aluminum is known to bias towards IgE or allergic diseases. Aluminum in vaccines is considered "safe" because the allergies it causes are conveniently ignored. So no one has to spend the money to find better alternatives.

The risk of toxic ingredients MAY be justified to control an emergency epidemic. Routine administration over decades is impossible to justify. But the FDA is in no hurry to spend the time or money to make vaccines safer.

Vaccine safety today is therefore equal dose science and quackery. Quackery driven by commercial considerations.
Our kids pay the price.

Johnny: Ouch. My sympathies.

Science Mom: Nurture can be fixed, nature can't be, but it takes a lot of effort to not be a twit when a kid's been raised like a prince or princess, fawned over by the parents, and the parents run roughshod over any contradictory voices. All of the above apply in anti-vax households.Unfortunately, as we see in Jake's case, a lot of children raised by anti-vaxxers can't overcome their upbringing.

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

Narad
One assertion, five scientists whose struggles are well documented. I am happy to provide five more: Tesla, Wright brothers, Semmelweis, Galileo and Pruisner. You seem pretty smart. I have a feeling you already know about these guys but if not, please feel free to research at your local library.

Ann
Unfortunately, in the U.S., you do not have adequate medical coverage for your poverty stricken. It is this demographic that is struggling to vaccinate their children either fully or at all.
http://acsh.org/2014/08/new-cdc-survey-reports-babies-vaccinated/
Also mainstream media is tossing around how Silicon Valley's immunization rates are falling behind. I think they kinda embrace the whole technology thing.

frequent lurker
I think they are still running phase l/ll trials on vitamin c. It might be too early to say yet. Although it might yield a very weak result there would still be some truth to the theory.

Selena wolf
Im sure that documentation was very interesting to go through. A professor friend of mine and I both went through death records for a region of southern ontario. Although we looked at the data separately, our conclusions were the same, that consumption(tuberculosis) was the leading cause of childhood deaths between the time period you refer to, followed by Brights Disease. Unfortunately, I can't cite this, as it wasn't a study but the death records can be obtained online. Please feel free to judge for yourselves.

Cammi Pa #78,

"That’s why I’m stuck with Ezcema to this day"

Vaccines are certainly capable of causing autoimmune disorders. Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS) is the most well known.

When an intramuscular shot is administered, it tears skin, muscle and nerve tissue and deposits it them along with the vaccine antigens and adjuvants such as aluminum salts. Aluminum adjuvants enhance immune response apparently by creating a depot effect. They store the antigens, exhibiting them to the immune system for a longer period of time.
When multiple proteins are present, the immune system "kills multiple birds with one stone" by a process called epitope spreading. It efficiently creates antibodies to multiple proteins at once. So as antibodies to vaccine antigens are being created, autoantibodies to skin, muscle and nerve tissue can be created. The result can be a number of autoimmune disorders.

Anti-myelin autoantibodies and autism:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7682457

Eczema autoimmunity:
http://www.healthline.com/health-news/study-proves-eczema-is-an-autoimm…

Tropomyosin is a muscle protein:
Das, KM; Dasgupta, A; Mandal, A; Geng, X (1993). “Autoimmunity to cytoskeletal protein tropomyosin. A clue to the pathogenetic mechanism for ulcerative colitis”. J Immunol 150 (6): 2487–2493. PMID 8450225.

Autoantibodies in dogs following tissue trauma:
http://www.sardogs.com/health_purdue_vaccination_study.htm

Further, some vaccines contain human lung fibroblasts and pancreatic digest.
These can result in synthesis of autoantibodies that attack lung tissue and the pancreas (Type I diabetes).

Antilung antibodies and asthma:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7137117

Cammi Pa #78,

P.S. to Cammi: APV, aka vinucube, i.e., Vinu Arumugham, also has as a hobby lying about being a medical student at Medscape. Because the comment form says that it's intended for medical professionals. And Vinu is some random guy who works at Cisco.*

So, hey presto! He's a medical student. And refuses to so much as acknowledge the situation.

I mean, sure, he's a leader in the field of artificial intelligence already,** so why not?

The only reason he's slithered out of the woodwork here is because he's desperate for attention, not because he gives a flying fυck about anybody else. Indeed, he's never commented here anywhere but the thread linked above, which just happened to automatically and mercifully close after three months.

I suggest that when evaluating his counsel, you take a glance at that thread with an eye to the overall question "How much time do I want to spend sorting fact from fiction in writing of an indisputable liar who cannot answer direct questions and 'responds' to substantive critiques by changing the subject and then, once he thinks the heat's off, claiming out of the blue that he has 'proved' them wrong?"

Myself, I'm just putting Vinu into the spot in the killfile that he has so richly earned many times over.

* How on Earth this happened is anybody's guess:
h_tp://www.joesdata.com/executive/Vinu_Arumugham_976673968.html

** All while finding the time to baffle people with his obtuseness in what's supposed to be his field of expertise, mind you:
h_tps://www.freelists.org/post/si-list/Questions-on-Reference-Planes-for-DDR3-s…

@ #128 Lilady:

How do we know these are Ms Dachel's words? Her name is at the end of page 3, but the post is from that loon Evelyn Pringle.

You may know this, but "high pitched scream" surfaced in the DTP lawsuits of the 1980s, and were supposedly (according to Mark Geier) due to endotoxin in the pertussis bacterium membrane. It was accompanied by "bubbly baby" in the media, and extraordinary precociousness described in mothers' accounts of their pre-vaccinated children.

But, of course, if that article is the words of Ms Dachel, it's hard to believe that she had forgotten the purported events that she now says changed John's life irrevocably, and that later she remembered them more clearly. That would be too much like John Walker-Smith, who for a decade thought he'd done medical research with Andrew Wakefield, and then suddenly remembered that it was purely clinical care.

And isn't it curious how ferociously Ms Dachel accuses others of "lies"?

By Brian Deer (not verified) on 06 Mar 2015 #permalink

John Walker-Smith, who for a decade thought he’d done medical research with Andrew Wakefield, and then suddenly remembered that it was purely clinical care.

John Walker-Smith's sudden recollection that he wasn't doing research despite putting his name on the now fully retracted Lancet paper came at a very convenient time.

Yet again, APV straight up lies.

Vaccines are certainly capable of causing autoimmune disorders. Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS) is the most well known.

From the now-closed thread where APV first dropped his load.

the old claimed link with Guillain-Barre syndrome that is almost certainly not real

And Orac @ #98:

Newer research indicates that the risk of Guillain-Barre syndrome is higher after getting the flu than it is after vaccination against seasonal influenza

He also put in links to research about it.
The supposed link between vaccines and GBS is fictitious. APV has been told and shown this, yet he repeats it. He lies.

By Julian Frost (not verified) on 07 Mar 2015 #permalink

Unfortunately, as we see in Jake’s case, a lot of children raised by anti-vaxxers can’t overcome their upbringing.

(a) Is Jake a lot of children? OK. Then no, we can't.

(b) Unity and Jessica Mitford were both raised by anti-vaxxers.** They responded to their upbringing in very different ways, as many children do.

(c) Nurture is inherently unpredictable, because people are. What with being individuals and all.

**Jessica Mitford lost an infant daughter to measles, in fact.

APV...saving lives online from his office space google-u cubicle, one keystroke at a time

Need to point out that the one death in Germany of a child from measles missed out some vital facts. The child was a vaccinated child and also had a heart condition. A death, however caused is terrible. What is disgusting is you guys using this death to claim some efficacy for vaccination. Germany has 95% uptake of MMR so herd immunity failed too.

You guys only seem to exist on cherry picked news articles, how about some proper scientific reporting for a change?

No, I have never been to a Naturopath. A dermatologist, a medical doctor, diagnosed the vitiligo. It is only on my hands and does not cause any problems. As for the measles, it WAS measles as it was diagnosed by the pediatrician my mother took me to. Yes, I did get sick. I guess my mother and grandmother knew what they were doing because, no, I didn't suffer all that much. I guess I wasn't raised to give into everything that makes me feel bad. I have zero, and I mean zero faith in a Big Pharma and their so-called "medicine". A lot of people, including myself, prefer to do things the natural way. Don't knock it until you've tried it. Just because Big Pharna can't make money off of natural remedies (which I believe is why "modern science" knocks them) doesn't mean that they don't work or don't have merit,

As one would expect, the high lord of Godwin edits the posts whilst the shit of vaccine propaganda oozes forth.

You know if we reported on all the people who died from cancer after your kind of treatment it would look pretty bad. I know lots of people who chose Gerson and survived, if you were a real scientist............... well pigs may well fly.

keep up the vitriol, it is amusing to read from time to time, nice to see its is the same old shits still polishing your turd.

No, I've never been to a naturopath. A dermatologist, an MD, diagnosed the vitiligo, it's only on my hands, it never spread and doesn't cause me any problems. As for measles, yes it was the measles, it was diagnosed by the pediatrician my mother took me to. I didn't say I didn't get sick. I guess my mom and grandmother knew what they were doing because I didn't suffer all that much and I wasn't raised to give into everything. I for one have zero, I mean zero faith in Big Pharma and their so-called "medicine". A lot of people, myself included, choose to do things the natural way. Don't knock it 'till you've tried it. Just because Big Pharma can't make money off of natural remedies (which is why, I believe, "science" dismisses them) doesn't mean they don't have merit and don't work. The only thing Big Pharma cares about is their bottom line. Thousands of people die each year from side effects of prescription drugs and we're supposed to trust them? I don't.

@Nick J - seems, then, that the best way to stop babies from contracting Hep B would be for adults to avoid getting it. I still say avoidance is the best vaccine for Hep B.

That one measles death in Berlin was in a child who was vaccinated and with a heart condition. They have 95% vaccination uptake so looks like its fail all round there. What is disgusting is the provaxx unit making milage out of vaccine failure and turning it into antivaxx bile.

20,000 people die each year from prescription drugs that are legal and given to them by a doctor.

Brian, so why were you the only person who complained about Wakefied and why were none of the parents allowed to come to the hearing? Especially seeing as none of them complained?

If the just said "measles" it may be German measles which most of the people report a course similar to yours where the biggest risk is to the unborn exposed in utero. Red measles usually makes people sicker and causes a lot of inflammation in the eyes and people who have had it usually had to be kept in a completely dark room because of severe eye pain from light.

Now maybe you had an atypical presentation of red measles.

That being said, one person surviving an illness with few complications if the happened to get a mild version or strain of it does not negate all the people who had the same illness with serious consequences.

Been to the naturopath, although maybe the reason he was ineffective as he could not understand the difference between a disorder similar to sleep apnea and insomnia when I happened across the paperwork. He certainly did not know better than the MD that diagnosed me.

In other anti-vax non-news and sweaty desperation...

Dan Olmsted tells a senator that Wakefield is not a fraud, perseverates on Father 11 and criticises Brian Deer's journalism.

Now pardon me whilst I follow Dan's lead by calling Mr Lagerfeld and instructing him in clothing design:
( Actually I probably know a lot more about design than he does about journalism).

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 07 Mar 2015 #permalink

# 181. Johnny. Because of your polite tone, I will explain to you.

I was not the only person who "complained", as you have evidenly been misinformed. Enormous numbers of people did, including research scientists and a member of parliament. I supplied my full findings, at the express request of the General Medical Council, which launched an inquiry following substantial media coverage of the discovery that Wakefield was paid to make a case against MMR. It would have been perverse and irresponsible to withhold material from a public tribunal investigating a matter impacting on the safety of children. It would also have been bad journalistic practise.

Wakefield's lawyers took proofs of evidence from parents of children enrolled in his research, with a view to calling them as witnesses in his case. (A "proof of evidence" is a written statement of what it is a witness is to say). After collating these in early 2007, it was realised that they contradicted Wakefield's story, as parents said they had brought their children to the hospital because he was doing research on the MMR. It was therefore decided, by Wakefield, not to call the parents to give evidence.

In fact, the GMC itself called one parent, Rochelle Poulter, who supplied numerous documents used in evidence against Wakefield. When she finished her evidence in chief, Wakefield asked no questions.

In the end, Wakefield called no witnesses whatsoever. Nor did he ask any questions when the head of the UK government's vaccine programme gave evidence.

The parents were perfectly entitled to come and give evidence, but they needed to be called by defence or prosecution. As in a court case, people can't just turn up and generally "have a say". Wakefield chose to deny them that opportunity.

I hope that answers your questions.

The plain fact is that Wakefield and websites such as Age of Autism lie and lie, all the time. They do this, in my view, for the purpose of making money.

If you want to see another lie, that you can check with reference to a document, I have just posted one regarding a deception by Dan Olmsted and Age of Autism:

http://briandeer.com/solved/dan-olmsted.htm

By Brian Deer (not verified) on 07 Mar 2015 #permalink

@Cammi Pa

Healthy children fed a nutrient dense diet of real food (not that highly-processed, chemical additive-laden crap most of you probably eat!), get regular exercise and the proper supplements DO NOT DIE FROM CHILDHOOD DISEASES!

While it is certainly true that malnutrition and vitamin deficiencies increase the risk of death from disease, how do you know that your statement is true? Please be specific. Thanks.

By Mephistopheles… (not verified) on 07 Mar 2015 #permalink

I'm a minor minion, and my name is his name, too. But the Johnny above is not the same as the Johnny at this IP.

I may be an idiot, but I'm not that kind of idiot.

Cammi: "I guess my mom and grandmother knew what they were doing because I didn’t suffer all that much and I wasn’t raised to give into everything."

And here we have the classic wooist superiority complex in action. Only weaklings with poor immune systems get sick, while the power of the Woo protects those who are superior due to genetics or supplement pills.

By Dangerous Bacon (not verified) on 07 Mar 2015 #permalink

Need to point out that the one death in Germany of a child from measles missed out some vital facts. The child was a vaccinated child

The hospital and German authorities agree that the child was not vaccinated against measles.
According to Johnny's voices, the child was vaccinated against measles.
Whom to believe?

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 07 Mar 2015 #permalink

I'll again recount my own experience with measles- c. 1963-
I recall very little about it but my much older cousins have filled me in about details:

I probably lost 3-4 weeks of school and was restricted to a darkened room for most of the time and couldn't do any of my regular activities ( I used to like to draw and read and go to dance classes). I don't remember seeing a doctor but maybe that my mother spoke to one on the phone. I don't really recall eating.

My cousins say that the adults were very worried about me- esp about my vision and not eating much. An older relative took a long trip to see me, having to arrange for someone to drive her. She usually didn't visit unless if the weather was fine.

Afterwards, I seemed to have become very light sensitive and was given sunglasses to wear - fortunately, I lived in a rather atmospheric locale- it wasn't sunny often. My aunt helped me to find fashionable glasses - it was the 1960s so you can imagine.
I still wear sunglasses unless if it is rather foggy or rainy. If I visit a place like California, the Mediterranean or the islands, I get darker lenses and wear a wide-brimmed hat. It's not just a fashion statement: I can't drive without sunglasses.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 07 Mar 2015 #permalink

I find Johnny's (comment 180, not the one at 127.0.0.1) attempt to spin the death of a German child from measles incomprehensible. Consider:
- this clearly reminds people that measles can kill despite modern medicine, which rather deflates the "it's a harmless childhood disease" argument.
- had the child been vaccinated as Johnny claims, it would show that not only can some vaccinated people catch measles but they can die from it. This would contradict the "how does my unvaccinated child endanger your vaccinated child?" argument.

By Mephistopheles… (not verified) on 07 Mar 2015 #permalink

Cammi Pa, you have not addressed the Roald Dahl family. Do you think that a child who grew up in a large spacious house with a large vegetable garden would be under nourished? Especially since her mother was an actress and her father was a successful author?

Do tell us how Olivia Dahl suffered from neglect and lack of nourishment.

We weren't exactly impoverished ourselves.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 07 Mar 2015 #permalink

@ Brian Deer: The link I provided to Anne Dachel's story of her child's "encephalitic cry/scream" is genuine. Ms. Dachel refers to that story here. He was diagnosed with autism while in the second grade and he has a driver's license, owns a speedboat and works as Ms. Dachel's videographer when she attends autism conferences.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/02/27/the-really-big-lie-about-autism/

Johnny: how about a link to your source about the death of an 18-month old child in Berlin from measles?

@herr doktor bimler:

It's funny, because you look very much like a 20-years-older (or so) version of the very friend we came up to Wisconsin to visit, and who is lying on the floor snoring as I type this. (We were up until 7 in the morning arguing about various things.) The main difference is that he does not wear glasses.

Also, you are adorable.

Johnny,

20,000 people die each year from prescription drugs that are legal and given to them by a doctor.

Assuming that this is true, it is meaningless unless we consider the benefits of these drugs as well. How many people's lives are saved by "prescription drugs that are legal and given to them by a doctor"? How many of these patients would have died anyway, without conventional treatment? How many patients have their quality of life improved by these drugs?

For example, anticoagulant drugs are among the most dangerous prescription drugs; they cause an estimated 2,800 excess major bleeds a year in the UK. They also prevent an estimated 16,100 strokes a year, including 4,400 fatal strokes (PDF) and the NHS estimates that prescribing more of them would prevent an additional 3,500 deaths each year. I'm sure that the figures in the US are very similar.

Insulin is another dangerous drug that kills people when overdosed, either deliberately or accidentally. Insulin also saves millions of lives and prevents countless amputations and cases of blindness.

Other drugs, painkillers such as opiates and NSAIDs don't save lives directly, but they do dramatically improve the quality of life for millions. Opiates can kill, and can be addictive, and some NSAIDs can cause GI bleeds or increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. It would be nice if we had safer drugs that have the same benefits, and I am confident that we will in the future. I am equally confident that it will be 'conventional' medicine that develops them, not any altmed practitioner.

We happily trade risks against benefits in other areas, for example most of us don't think twice about traveling by car, yet over a million people are maimed and die in RTCs globally every year. Why do some people think about prescription drugs differently?

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 07 Mar 2015 #permalink

Julian Frost #172,

"The supposed link between vaccines and GBS is fictitious."

Even the FDA does not believe your story:
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedPr…
"----------------WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS-----------------
If Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) has occurred within six weeks
of previous influenza vaccination, the decision to give AGRIFLU
should be based on careful consideration of the potential benefits
and risks. (5.1)"

I’m a minor minion, and my name is his name, too. But the Johnny above is not the same as the Johnny at this IP.

#177 has a certain odor of Philip Hills about it.

More about the death of the unvaccinated 18 month-old child from measles...who, btw, did not have any preexisting medical conditions:

http://justthevax.blogspot.com/2015/02/18-month-old-unvaccinated-previo…

".... Today, the Berlin health senator confirmed that on 18 February 2015, an 18 month old toddler, who had not been vaccinated against measles, and did not have any chronic disease, died after having been treated for measles infection in the Charité hospital for 5 days. While the child was vaccinated against some diseases, according to the German media, he had not received the recommended MMR. In Germany, the first MMR is usually given between 11 and 14 months and the second is recommended between 15 and 24 months...."

You're a liar, Johnny.

According to Johnny’s voices, the child was vaccinated against measles.
Whom to believe?

Gesundheitsminister Daniel Bahr also floated the idea of mandatory vaccination in 2013 but backed off in favor of more "persuasion." Sooner or later, it's going to gain traction. The periods between the large outbreaks are too short.

The problem with 97% MCV1 coverage (92% at school entry) is, as usual, concentrations of nonvaccinators.

"Compared with the other areas, individuals who live in southern Germany are more likely to be anthroposophic or vaccine-sceptic or both. The existence of vaccine-sceptic physicians in some districts and general shortages of physicians in certain rural districts may also cause geographical gaps in vaccine coverage. In a review in 1988 of more than 86 000 immunization records of Bavarian children aged 10–12 years, only 54.8% of the children were found to have received one dose of measles vaccine. Due to a lack of concerted catch-up campaigns of measles vaccination, it seems likely that the many children who were unvaccinated when aged 10–12 years in 1988 still are unvaccinated. Low vaccine coverage in southern Germany presumably contributed to several major outbreaks of measles in the area over the previous years. Analysis of notification data indicates that Bavaria was hit by a major measles outbreak every two–three years between 2001 and 2013. The absence of characteristically prolonged interepidemic spacing intervals suggests that Bavaria has probably not yet reached a pre-elimination phase."

As for the measles, it WAS measles as it was diagnosed by the pediatrician my mother took me to. Yes, I did get sick. I guess my mother and grandmother knew what they were doing because, no, I didn’t suffer all that much. I guess I wasn’t raised to give into everything that makes me feel bad.

Well, pin a rose on you. You're a hero.

It's not like you're the type of whiner who goes around acting like a victim just because you have a minor common skin condition that affects 35 million Americans.

Please tell us more fascinating anecdotes about how you and your family members continued to draw breath, uneventfully, until you reached adulthood.

That's quite the heritage. How proud you must be.

Just because Big Pharma can’t make money off of natural remedies (which is why, I believe, “science” dismisses them) doesn’t mean they don’t have merit and don’t work.

The vitamin, mineral, herbal and non-herbal supplement industry is closing in on about $250 billion's worth of business worldwide.

The pharmaceutical industry is worth about $300 billion.

And you are a sucker.

The only thing Big Pharma cares about is their bottom line. Thousands of people die each year from side effects of prescription drugs

Please elaborate. I'm on the edge of my seat.

.

^ "92% MCV2 at school entry"

Good for Cammi that she obviously had a very light, non-serious case of the measles. My mom's was fairly similar, although she was in bed for 2 weeks and between measles and mumps missed 3 months of school that year (along with various colds as measles is known to weaken the immune system, leading to a tendency to catch everything that comes around). My grandmother was also very talented at caring for sick children, and they had a very healthy diet. But, my then-3 year old uncle was sick for 3 weeks, 3 days of which they watched and prayed that he wouldn't die. My family got off lucky - he didn't die. My mom's best friend did die. So we don't hear about HER problems...they died with her...

Lawrence #197,

"@APV – why are you lying again?"

Your source is old.

https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/03/31/2014-06102/counterm…

"Multiple studies performed to monitor the safety of 2009 H1N1 vaccine provide evidence that demonstrates a small, statistically significant increased risk of GBS in the six weeks following administration of the 2009 H1N1 vaccine, as outlined below."

individuals who live in southern Germany are more likely to be anthroposophic or vaccine-sceptic or both

I've heard Bavaria described as "the Texas of Germany". I don't know where Swabia fits in this equation but the Prussian in me wants to say "Mississippi".

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 07 Mar 2015 #permalink

CammiPa:" I for one have zero, I mean zero faith in Big Pharma and their so-called “medicine”. A lot of people, myself included, choose to do things the natural way. "

And yet, you went to a doctor. Hmm. If there's one thing I dislike more than an out and out anti-vaxxer, it's a wishy-washy anti-vaxer, who spouts the same old factless tropes out of one side of her face, and then goes to the same people she despises. So, do you just go to doctors to spoil everyone's day, or do you go to a special botique doctor like Jay Gordon?

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 07 Mar 2015 #permalink

@ Cammi Pa #176: the 2 years I didn't get a flu shot (one year lazy, other year waited too long) I got the full blown influenza that turned into pneumonia, and I was sick for months.

The years I get the flu shot? I don't get the flu.

I've tried "natural." It sucks. I'll take preventative medicine over deadly disease any day.

Big Pharma can't make money off "natural remedies" because they sell medicine. To call "natural" medicine, you have to have proof of safety and efficacy. When Big Pharma investigates a natural source for a new medication, it stops being an herb and becomes medicine.

Tell me, has a "natural" supplements company EVER submitted an herb, say St. Johns Wort, to the FDA for their approval process? I mean, they could get on the Big Pharma action . . . except if they call it a nutritional supplement they don't have to, allowing them to save all that money on actually proving something works and focus on profit.

@APV #204: Old doesn't mean wrong. Yes, the CDC hasn't updated the information since 2009. So what? It's still correct.

You, on the other hand, linked to a vaccine insert without realizing that much of the information in those is designed to err on the side of caution. That doesn't mean vaccines are dangerous. It's meant only to highlight all the potential risks, which sometimes includes ones that are so rare they are unlikely to happen (but could) and are increasingly considered not to be caused by vaccines themselves.

But hey, here's something more recent.: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/806978

Panacea #207,

May be you did not read this part of your article, including
"follow the money" part of it:
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/806978

"Others Say Study Not Convincing

All experts do not agree, however, with the conclusion of the report by Dr. Baxter and colleagues.

Nobuhiro Yuki, MD, PhD, research professor in the Department of Medicine at National University of Singapore, told Medscape Medical News he believes a few vaccines could well have caused GBS, and he finds the paper title ("Lack of Association of Guillain-Barré Syndrome With Vaccinations") misleading.

"A number of cases of GBS developing in patients who received the rabies vaccine have been reported. GBS has been associated with 2 forms of rabies vaccines, the Semple rabies vaccine and the suckling mouse brain vaccine," said Dr. Yuki, who researches GBS but was not involved in this study. "According to their study in a small population, they could not find the association of GBS with vaccines. That's all. The title is too catchy, and I have no idea why this journal accepted their paper."

The study was supported by America's Health Insurance Plans and the Centers for Disease Control. Dr. Baxter and one coauthor report financial relationships with Merck & Company, Pfizer, Sanofi-Pasteur, Novartis Vaccines, GlaxoSmithKline, and Med-Immune. Dr. Yuki has disclosed no relevant financial relationships."

Bottom line is GBS CAN be caused by vaccines.
I am not claiming vaccines are THE cause of GBS. They are A cause of GBS.

I’ve been wondering why vaccine opponents are so quick to blame the parents of children who have had serious complications from vaccine preventable diseases for their child’s outcome. This idea that the child had a bad outcome from a “benign childhood disease” because their parents did not feed them right or exposed them to toxins seems to be a popular trope. The first example that comes to my mind is when the Drs. Wolfson, in a particularly vile post that has now been taken down, blamed the mother of a child who died from complications of chicken pox for her daughter’s death. Commenters on many “pro-vaccine safety” blogs seem to share the same beliefs.

As a pediatrician I’ve had to accept the fact that this just isn’t true. Bad things happen to people who don’t deserve it all the time. It is just bad luck. Accepting this fact, however, means that you also have to accept the fact that bad things can happen to you or your loved ones as well. You have to accept that despite your best efforts there is not a damn thing that you can do to prevent it. I just don’t know if those who resort to victim blaming are prepared to accept this. I have to believe that this trope in particular is a desperate attempt to convince themselves that they have control over something that no one can control. This is not just limited to vaccine opponents, but also to those Gerson/alt-med believers who blame treatment failures on the cancer patient because they failed to adhere to the protocol appropriately or simultaneously accepted conventional treatment.

@Cammie: I don’t like anecdotes. They seem to condense everything down to one person’s myopic view of the world and are the enemy of scientific thought and debate. However, I will say this based on personal experience – vaccine preventable disease is the source of death and lifelong disability. I have seen healthy children die from influenza, babies stop breathing and turn purple from pertussis, and children develop life-long disabilities from meningitis more than once. My mother is deaf because of the measles. All of these children had loving parents and were well nourished. Many were too young to be immunized. For you to suggest that these parents are in any way responsible for their child’s morbidity and mortality is reprehensible.

I'm afraid my last recent post may be misinterpreted by some as me saying there is nothing you can do to prevent disease so you shouldn't do things like vaccinate, accept evidence based treatments and eat a healthy diet. This is not what I'm saying. I'd like to qualify my last post by saying that science is the closest thing we have to truth but nothing is 100%. I firmly believe that everyone should take full advantage of what medicine has to offer and there has been a lot of progress and lives saved due to medical advancement. But if these things fail we should never resort to victim blaming.

I understood, mc. My firstborn has a genetic heart disorder, it was just a bad roll of the genetic dice.

Forgive me (again) if this has already been discussed in these threads, but one reason I think antivaxxers and so-called "natural" medicine believers distrust standard science-based medicine might possibly have its roots in the scientific method we use to approve drugs itself.

I am a layperson, so if I use the incorrect terminology I apologize. Consider that here in the U.S. we have a long, expensive system for bringing any drug to market which involves extensive testing for effectiveness and safety. Research papers are peer-reviewed which serves as a safety net to catch errors or poor methodology, and it works.

Yet what the layperson also knows is that papers ARE published with mistakes sometimes, or poor analysis of the data, or any one of many things that makes the study or paper invalid. This is supposed to happen, to catch mistakes, and further, better research is undertaken to explore a more accurate answer.

Take, for example, Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent paper. It was published, and (to laypeople) that seems to say "it passed inspection". But then, the normal review process took place, the results were found to be fraudulent and misrepresented, and ultimately the paper was retracted. Again, to laypeople this doesn't show that the system is working, it shows that the system is broken. Laypeople don't generally know the difference between medical journals and publications, so honestly would not know if it were a reputable or disreputable journal (nor, as in the case of the Lancet, if it were a new journal looking to make a name for itself).

So, (again, to laypeople such as myself) it becomes "Well, they were wrong about Wakefield, so what else might they be wrong about? What else might at some later date be corrected?" Consider also the Fen-phen and Redux recalls of the '90s (when a lot of these antivax parents were growing up) - the publicity was inescapable. Here was a case where something that had been approved was suddenly (to the layperson) shown to be deadly. I would think that's something a lot of them remember.

The very faith people have in Science Based Medicine might actually be part of what turns them away from it. They start out believing that science has all the answers, definitively, and when a correction is made later due to improved techniques or more accurate technology or study design, they see it as a failure to not get it right the first time. The very safeguards built into the process read as failures to people who believe science is infallible.

Pseudoscience doesn't have this "handicap". This might be partly why long-discredited quackery persists. Since it did not go through the same system of checks and balances and is not challenged by others in the same community, it is seen as "right" and successful.

Add to that, as @mc noted above, a lot of pseudoscience adherents seem to have strictly black-or-white thinking - something is either good or it is evil. If something is ever shown to fail, it ceases being good and becomes evil. I don't wonder at the way they describe a failure in SBM as "betrayal". To them, it was supposedly failsafe.

Anyway, just an observation.

APV,

Bottom line is GBS CAN be caused by vaccines.
I am not claiming vaccines are THE cause of GBS. They are A cause of GBS.

If influenza vaccines do increase the risk of GBS, which is doubtful, we know it must be a very small increase. We know for sure that getting influenza itself increases the risk of GBS, by a factor of 16 according to this study, making influenza at least 17 times more likely to cause GBS than the vaccine. This paper uses a mathematical model to estimate the relative risks, and concludes that influenza vaccination reduces the overall risk of GBS. I'm sticking with the annual vaccine.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 07 Mar 2015 #permalink

Tami,

(nor, as in the case of the Lancet, if it were a new journal looking to make a name for itself).

A minor point - I think you'll find The Lancet has been around for quite a while, since 1823 to be precise. It and the BMJ are the two top medical journals in the UK (I think it's fair to say). I tend to agree with your arguments though :-)

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 07 Mar 2015 #permalink

@Krebiozen, thank you, and I apologize, I knew I would get some things wrong, darnit. I thought I remembered reading a post by Orac that had somehow indicated that the Lancet had less stringent requirements and I thought it had been due to it being relatively new. I am sorry, I should have gone back and tried to find it.

Also, I wanted to mention that I wrote the above post mainly because I was trying to think about why antivaxxes and quack afficianados are so entrenched in their point of view, and how it might be possible to reach them in any way. (Haven't figured that one out yet).

And tbh, the fact that it is a long-standing and top medical journal actually makes it "worse" in the minds of laypeople that the Wakefield study was published.

I think of it this way about some of the very top science and medical journals. Part of what makes them top journals is that they publish papers that are going to be cited by many people and make a big contribution to the field.

So papers that are groundbreaking and a bit "out of the box" are their stock and trade. Because when done well these are the papers that everyone in a field will cite for years to come. Journals get ranked based on how many people cite the papers and the higher the ranking you have the more you need to publish the groundbreaking stuff.

Unfortunately in the quest to be groundbreaking sometimes people will do things that range from design flaws to rarely outright fraud. Like any other field sometimes people will let their ambition be more important than their ethics.

The good news with science is other scientists try to replicate these kinds of studies so we are highly likely to find out fairly quickly when someone did something fraudulent.

Often the editors know that something may be little too far out of the box and with the paper you will get a commentary along the lines of if this is true it is revolutionary, but here are the concerns. I'm thinking of Science and Nature when publishing the cold fusion and memory water papers. They didn't publish them straight with no editorial commentary.

So in other words you really can't take any single paper out of context by itself and base your whole whatever on that one paper. (or even worse when people try to take one data point out of a paper and use it to base their whole whatever on, because hey it is published evidence and it fits whatever the are trying to promote).

More "Callous Disregard".Thank you Andy,that's such a wonderful phrase.

Cammi Pa is like so many antivaxers.(S)he talks about how diseases measles or chicken pox pose no threat to healthy children,even though that's a bold faced lie.But it's pretty much a great big middle finger to children who are too sick either to be vaccinated or to have diseases like measles or chicken pox without major complications.

Lilady@193

The piece you link to is a prime example of something that the Dachelbot has been spouting for years,that is there are no older adults with autism who have severe complex medical issues.She has finally begun to back off from this,as I,and parents of other severely disabled autistics,in their 40s and 50s,have opened up serious cans of whoop-a** for her in the comments section going over our stories in grizzly detail.

By Roger Kulp (not verified) on 07 Mar 2015 #permalink

Take, for example, Andrew Wakefield’s fraudulent paper. It was published, and (to laypeople) that seems to say “it passed inspection”. But then, the normal review process took place, the results were found to be fraudulent and misrepresented, and ultimately the paper was retracted.

This, I'm afraid, is a mischaracterization. Peer review is not designed to detect fraud, period. Post-publication scrutiny has been turning up plenty of cases of image manipulation, and rarely, it's possible to declare a data set "too good to be true." The latter is hard.

There was nothing normal about the uncovering of Wakefield's fraud. It took Brian Deer's reporting and the massive GMC hearing before the Lancet finally pulled the plug.

Mr. Kulp: "Thank you Andy,that’s such a wonderful phrase."

Actually that is how the GMC described Wakefield in its final decision. So he took it as the title of his book.

OK Chris thanks.

And thanks for the link @ 210

Wonderful site

By Roger Kulp (not verified) on 07 Mar 2015 #permalink

Yes, "Callous disregard" was what the GMC panel of three doctors and two lay members said was his attitude to the pain and suffering of children, who he described in a video presentation to parents as having cried, fainted and vomited at a kid's birthday party when he bought blood from them for his "research".

The coverage of the video, screened in the UK in most major news bulletins, rather overshadowed the panel's findings of dishonesty regarding his research.

By Brian Deer (not verified) on 08 Mar 2015 #permalink

And Callous Disregard was the title of Wakefield's own account of his truth, and he had the courage to take this obscenity of a phrase and to throw it back into the face of people like yourself Mr Deer.
BTW you obviously have no sense of humour. Andrew Wakefield' description of the' reactions of the parents' (most of whom were his professional colleagues and friends), at this now' infamous' - thanks to your twisted reporting - birthday party, was meant as a lighthearted comment that he thought his mainly professional medics audience would appreciate.
Nobody 'fainted' Mr Deer, nobody 'vomited' Mr deer, and the children were hugely pleased to receive a very welcome' fiver' for their 'noble contributions to the practice of medical research'.
But then you would never have seen it all in this light Mr Deer because you are paid to report it as a sinister episode in the medical history and practice of a 'fraudulent' doctor. Anything to prop up the antics of your paymasters Brian.

APV, you are making a post hoc ergo prompter hoc error.
As has been pointed out, GBS following flu is 17 times more common than following a vaccine. GBS following vaccination may be due to random chance. As was pointed out on the previous thread, just because an adverse event is mentioned doesn't mean the vaccine caused said adverse event.

By Julian Frost (not verified) on 08 Mar 2015 #permalink

Regarding Wakefield's fraudulent Lancet paper, it is somewhat galling that it required Brian Deer's excellent work uncovering the fraud to convince elements of the mainstream press that there was no link between MMR & autism. Scientifically, the link had been thoroughly refuted already by larger, better studies. The Wakefraud study was a tiny case series of only twelve subjects.

In my opinion, the media, which whipped up the MMR-autism manufactroversy, was as responsible, if not more so, as Wakers for the fall in immunisation rates. The media narrative now implies that the Lancet paper was strong evidence of a link between MMR & autism, the link being undermined only by evidence of fraud.

By DrBollocks (not verified) on 08 Mar 2015 #permalink

Brian Deer, that incident at Wakefield's child's birthday party and the manner in which Wakefield testified (laughing and joking about the children's distress), should have been the tip off that he was and is a vile, uncaring individual.

In other news, the Sunday journalist at AoA discusses a letter she has sent to mainstream media journalists about her child's "vaccine(s) injury". She filed a claim and revised the claim for "vaccine(s) injury" in the United States Court of Federal Claims. The claim was tossed due to lack of proof in the form of the child's medical records, and lack of an expert witness who could offer evidence that the MMR vaccine and/or other vaccines caused his "vaccine injuries":

http://www.cofc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions/VOWELL.JAMESO…

@ lilady:

I never could understand why Andy used that particular phrase as a tittle for his book. Oh I suppose he thought it that would be meaningfully ironic because he is truly a self-sacrificing saviour of children but I can't imagine anyone using an appropriately insulting term- which that is in his case- and managing to turn it in on itself -except perhaps Christopher Hitchens.
And that's only maybe.

And Jameson.
I honestly believe that she and her friends ( @ AoA, TMR and Fearless Parent: see recent screeds/ see the 2015 Autism One speakers list) need to take up dancing or learn home repair or another useful activity** because they have too much time on their hands in which to
misinform other parents and make up stories.

They don't only offer 'group therapy gone wrong' but timely misinformation on the hour, it appears.

** altho' Stagliano took up martial arts and that doesn't seem to have stemmed the endless flow of detritus originating from her keyboard.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 08 Mar 2015 #permalink

@DrBollocks - absolutely, I don't think there's really any argument that the media, in addition to our 24/7 news cycle, carries a high responsibility for the doubt laypeople have. I think there is a general lack of understanding how the approval process in our society works, and it is only compounded by extremely shoddy medical journalism that latches onto the most sensational findings.

This is of course what only adds to the mistaken perception among laypeople that "every day they change what's good/bad for us, what's safe or unsafe! I might as well ignore all of it" that leads to deep mistrust and suspicion. I daresay it's also what leads many to embrace woo, which: a) offers definitive answers and b) doesn't have those pesky "failures" from the routine drug approval process.

Again, I'm just interested in how to untangle the reasons people ignore good scientific evidence in favor of unproven (and often dangerous) pseudoscience, not in excusing it. Outside of the SuperWoo cult cranks, I think there are a lot of people that CAN be reached, particularly in regard to vaccinating.

@ Denice Walter: Jameson's child actually has a seizure disorder, which, if you read the first claim presented to the Vaccine Court, she attributed to the Thimerosal in the MMR vaccine...ooops.

She was given the opportunity to resubmit her claim, where she then claimed Thimerosal in other vaccines, caused the onset of her child's autism. There is no proof in the child's personal medical records that her child's autism (or seizure disorder), was caused by the MMR vaccine...or any other vaccine(s).

She needs to focus on raising her N-T children and her special needs child.

@ Tami:

'Every day they change what's good/ bad for us. what's safe or unsafe'

This meme is utilsed by alt med advocates constantly. I listen to and read a few of the major players daily and this undermines faith in SBM although, in reality, it's about *progress*.
For example, they might say that AZT was a dangerous drug and never should have been given to hiv/aids patients. In truth, it needed to be given in lower doses and/ or combination with newer drugs .Initial approval was speeded up because of patient demand and the fact that there were absolutely no drugs that would affect this illness early in the epidemic.
Research sorted this out and now hiv is a treatable condition.

Woo-meisters leave out several parts of the equation and invent the rest in order to discourage whatever faith people may have in SBM. They tell tales of 'cures' of aids through vitamin C or other nonsense.

One question I might ask them: Why don't we see so many profoundly suffering aids patients at death's door as we did in 1985?
( Answer: because they are living with hiv as a chronic condition controlled by meds , not as a death sentence)

.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 08 Mar 2015 #permalink

Half way through Cammi's first post and I was fairly convinced that she was a regular doing a satirical post; i.e. Cammi Pa was really Cammi Poe. Surely no-one could deliver that many anti-vaccines cliches with a straight face I thought.

Either way, I filled my anti-vax Bullshit Bingo card in one go. House!

By Charlotte (not verified) on 08 Mar 2015 #permalink

Heheh, I see CTGeneGuy @79 has already completed his card and is on his way to the bar. Mine's a G&T if you are getting them in...

By Charlotte (not verified) on 08 Mar 2015 #permalink

AND I thought this might be the place to put this....

( from AoA Facebook)
Autism Trust USA will sponsor the
'Give Autism a Chance Summit 2015'
in Austin in April.

Carol Stott, Polly Tommey and AJW will amongst the luminaries presenting their ... um... presentations. The day-long event will only set you back 50 USD ( plus a small processing fee) per attendee if you reserve early.
Charitable donations are being solicited as well.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 08 Mar 2015 #permalink

Julian Frost #225,

"GBS following vaccination may be due to random chance"

Multiple studies showing "statistically significant increased risk of GBS" is not "random chance".

https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/03/31/2014-06102/counterm…

“Multiple studies performed to monitor the safety of 2009 H1N1 vaccine provide evidence that demonstrates a small, statistically significant increased risk of GBS in the six weeks following administration of the 2009 H1N1 vaccine, as outlined below.”

Julian Frost #225,

"As was pointed out on the previous thread, just because an adverse event is mentioned doesn’t mean the vaccine caused said adverse event."

Using that logic, why do package inserts only contain a GBS warning? Surely, within six weeks of vaccination numerous diseases have been diagnosed in people. By your logic, all those diseases should be listed.

APV, those selfsame studies showed that the risk of GBS was 17 times higher in those who caught the flu than in those who were vaccinated.

By Julian Frost (not verified) on 08 Mar 2015 #permalink

JGC #120 writes “The dose makes the poison.” But that is selectively applied. The dose of food allergens in vaccines is unspecified and unregulated by the FDA. No safety studies have been performed."

What 'food allergens' are present in vaccine formulations, at what concentrations, and what evidence indicates a need that studies addressing these food allergens be performed? Be specific.

Mercury is added to vaccines to save a few dollars. Mercury allows the use of multi-dose vials.

No, mercury isn't added and has never been added to any vaccine formulation, multi-dose or otherwise. Thimerosal has, but thimerosal and mercury are two entirely different chemical entities, just as table salt and metallic sodium are entirely different chemical entities.

For all these years, it was considered justifiable to inject a neurotoxin into babies to save a few dollars.

Your evidence that at exposure levels achievable by routine vaccination thimerosal causes neurotoxicity would be...what exactly, APV? Be specific.

I mean, you do have some--right?

Aluminum is of course immunology’s dirty little secret.

"Secret" in what sense? Surely no attempt has been made to conceal the fact that aluminum salts are included as adjuvants in vaccine formulations.

Aluminum in vaccines is considered “safe” because the allergies it causes are conveniently ignored.

Your evidence that exposure that the use of aluminum adjuvants in vaccines is causally associated with allergies would be what exactly, APV? Be specific. Again--you do have some, right?

@Nick J – seems, then, that the best way to stop babies from contracting Hep B would be for adults to avoid getting it.

To date the most effective way we've found to keep adults from getting Hep B is to vaccinate them against it as babies.

More on vaccine denialism:

-Some woo-meisters I survey ( Adams, Null) have been happily quoting or re-playing John Oliver on various topics ( wiki-leaks, pharma esp) as entertaining support for their woo but they won't be too thrilled about what he said recently: when listing achievements from the past 100 or so years, he said ( paraphrase)
that we eliminated measles and BROUGHT THEM BACK again.

- Dan Olmsted continues his perseveration upon Brian Deer by over-focusing on Father 11 and Deer's most recent piece.
I am convinced that Dan has issues beyond his problems as a reporter. So perhaps we should be more kind.

Commenters there compare Deer to a notorious financial fraudster, an American president who misled the public- and several governments into war on false premises and a television news anchor who elaborated his experiences in wartime Iraq.

I suppose that the Times, BMJ and television never employ fact checkers, editors and lawyers so BD could blithely write whatsoever he chose- just like Dan.

I am of course joking.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 09 Mar 2015 #permalink

Multiple studies performed to monitor the safety of 2009 H1N1 vaccine provide evidence that demonstrates a small, statistically significant increased risk of GBS in the six weeks following administration of the 2009 H1N1 vaccine, as outlined below

Well, I'll make sure I avoid the 2009 H1N1 vaccine this year...Oh, wait!

And Callous Disregard was the title of Wakefield’s own account of his truth, and he had the courage to take this obscenity of a phrase and to throw it back into the face of people like yourself Mr Deer.

With the same commitment to accuracy and respect for fact he exhibited in the retracted Lancet paper, apparently.

See http://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOVACJ/TOVACJ-6-9.pdf

@Cammi

Years ago, I got a yellow fever shot. I immediately got up out of the chair after getting the shot so I could walk out to my car and put more money in the parking meter.

I was hit by a car. Less than 4 minutes after getting the yellow fever shot.

Should I assume therefore that yellow fever immunization can cause pedestrians to be struck by motor vehicles?

@ Delphine:

A few years ago, a few days after receiving a flu shot, I caught my sandal on a broken pavement outside a restaurant and hurt my leg, causing minor problems for several months.
No VAERS report though.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 09 Mar 2015 #permalink

@ Denice

I am convinced that Dan has issues beyond his problems as a reporter. So perhaps we should be more kind.

I'm tempted to paraphrase Donald Westlake and say "when you meet a loon with a big stick, first remove his stick from him, and pity him afterward".

@ JGC

To date the most effective way we’ve found to keep adults from getting Hep B is to vaccinate them against it as babies.

This.

Historical chronicles are adamant on it, adults are very bad at keeping out of troubles.

By Helianthus (not verified) on 09 Mar 2015 #permalink

@Denice

Fortunately, I was able to get up, pay the meter, walk back into the clinic, and receive the typhoid vaccine.

Upon emerging from the clinic a second time, I did not get hit by a car. Strong evidence that typhoid immunization does NOT cause pedestrian/motor vehicle incidents.

@Denice Walter #241. Good points. The other thing we have in England is just about the most taxing libel jurisdiction for publishers outside Putin's Russia.

We have no first amendment, or Sullivan v New York Times. Journalists can't hide behind lack of malice, as in the US. We are held liable for the truth or falsity of what we say and, historically, people have come from all over the world to sue each other in London.

Anybody who thinks that three unrelated media groups - Times Newspapers, Channel 4 Television, and BMJ Publishing - would all publish proof of heinous misconduct by Andrew Wakefield without being sure of their facts probably needs quite serious education in public affairs.

These big media groups have employed a phalanx of lawyers to go over my work, before and after publication, and have unanimously praised the work and the evidence behind it.

But you don't need to take my word for it. There's another thread in this legal aspect that intelligent, educated, people will easily grasp. I have published all of the same material on my website, briandeer.com, for which I have unlimited personal liability. I did not have to do this. It was no condition of my employment by the above named publishers.

So two questions arise: (a) why would someone with sufficient professional skill to be employed by the above publish the material unless it was true, and (b) why has Andrew Wakefield not sued me, here in London, over my website?

After all, I have republished the headline of my investigation - that he "lied and lied again" - as recently as yesterday.

http://briandeer/com/solved/dan-olmsted.htm

By Brian Deer (not verified) on 09 Mar 2015 #permalink

@Denice Walter: well, if Gardasil can cause drowning, yellow fever vaccine can cause motor vehicle accident. And this does have a VAERS report:

VAERS #379570: “…patient accidentally fell in open well (granite quarry filled with water), drowned and expired. This event occurred 49 days of receiving first dose of GARDASIL.”

By Dorit Reiss (not verified) on 09 Mar 2015 #permalink

Should be "accidents".

By Dorit Reiss (not verified) on 09 Mar 2015 #permalink

The birthday party, according to Rosemary, that well known Wakefraud apologist and accolyte:

Nobody ‘fainted’ Mr Deer, nobody ‘vomited’

Rosemary, you assert Wakefield was lying when he said what he said. So why was he deliberately deceitful during his presentation? If he was lying, just for dramatic effect, does that not make you worried that a large proportion of the rest of his talk content is also unadulterated fiction?

(Sorry to feed the drive-by troll, but it needs saying)

@Brian Deer
I always gain great satisfaction knowing that Olmsted's attempts to show you were a liar (when you presented evidence that Child 11's autism predated his MMR) backfired so spectacularly.
By breaking the story that the father claimed the autism occurred 3 months after the MMR, Olmsted inadvertently revealed Wakefield to be a deliberate fraudster and liar (Wakefield had published in the Lancet that autism occured within 1 week of the MMR).

I have the transcript from Wakefield's GMC Fitness-To-Practice Hearing right here (Day 34):

http://wakefieldgmctranscripts.blogspot.com/2012/02/gmc-fitness-to-prac…

"....Again, for those who have heard the story, you can put your hands over and you can take time out here, but this is again my son’s birthday party, 32 healthy controls. You line them up, with informed parental consent of course, they all get paid £5 – which does not translate into many dollars, I am afraid – but when they put their arms out, they have a cup on to have the blood taken, all entirely voluntary. (Laughter). When we did this at that party, two children fainted, one threw up over his mother (laughter), one child, who is my son’s best friend, [name], put his arm out – very bold – had the tourniquet put on, then went pale and sort of ‘wait until next year’. (Laughter). He was nine at the time, and his four year old sister came up, stuck her arm out, had the blood taken, took her £5 and walked off. (Laughter) He then burst into tears, ruined his birthday party. People said to me, ‘Andrew, you know, you can’t do this, people, children, won’t come back to your birthday parties’. (Laughter) I said, “You are wrong’, I said, ‘Listen, we live in a market economy, next year they will want £10’. (Laughter) We have a birthday party coming up as well when I get back so we will be going. They charge me a fortune. Urine – I mean, come on, they charge me a fortune. (Laughter). But, they were all less than ten years of age and none had been revaccinated against measles and none were within 18 months of vaccination. So, these were the two comparable groups....."

@ dingo199

The background was that to unload money from the UK government's legal aid scheme, the lawyers and Wakefield had to show a very definite temporal link. I have lawyers' letters stating that otherwise they couldn;t get legal aid.

So they made up the 14-day thing - which was the temporal link made up for the DTP vaccine litigation a generation previously (we'll say it was the vaccine if it occured within 2 weeks, but not if it didn't - as if that makes any sense).

So Wakefield - sometimes with parental assistance - chiselled the data to create that tight link. The paper was then promoted to cause a public storm, huge numbers of clients were recruited by the lawyers in the weeks that followed, and the legal aid fund came up with a further big pile of money.

Had the Legal Aid Board in those days had a website, it would probably have had button: "STEAL TAXPAYERS' MONEY".

By Brian Deer (not verified) on 09 Mar 2015 #permalink

Lilady @ 254

The hilarity continued long after. Blood was taken from 3 of Wakefield's own children, to use as negative controls for the PCR work which Wakefield later used to claim that measles in MMR was the cause of autism.

His own three children's blood was reported positive for measles.

By Brian Deer (not verified) on 09 Mar 2015 #permalink

The AoA server was down for a while, but is now up with Olmsted's "spin" on Wakefield's study....with the usual suspects congratulating Dan for his journalism.

Brian Deer, the British press is just getting around to publicizing how attorney Richard Barr looted the Legal Aid Fund...effectively "STEALING TAXPAYER MONEY:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/26/mmr-autism-lawyers-sued-…

@ Brian Deer:

Thanks.

If the world were just, you yourself would be able to sue people like Dan- who have written so much fictitious nonsense about you- to kingdom come. But in reality, it would be much too messy, expensive and time-consuming.

Through the internet, we actually have an international, unlimited fact checker:
all of what Dan, John, Andy, Martin, Jake AND the miserable Mothers write persists and can be revealed as the venomous rubbish it truly is.

It will take time, but seriously, they'll be relegated to the darkest, dustiest, most fantasy-driven recesses of cyberspace exactly where they belong.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 09 Mar 2015 #permalink

@ Dorit Reiss:

There's a co-factor to my vaccine injury:
I was reading a menu in either Portuguese or Spanish ( I forget which) at the time.
So Iberian languages may serve as the trigger.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 09 Mar 2015 #permalink

Narad, are you claiming that the fourteen million Pounds Sterling paid out to Wakefield and his colleagues, for "expert witness" fees for a case for "MMR Vaccine Enterocolitis", which never was brought before the Court, was justified?

http://briandeer.com/wakefield/legal-aid.htm

Why didn't the parents of the 12 children who were part of Wakefield's Lancet case series, ever testify (under oath), on behalf of Wakefield at his GMC Fitness-To-Practice Hearing?

Ever since I was vaccinated for smallpox and polio, I have been addicted to water. I shudder to think of how I'd react if I went without it more than a few days.

I also have not been able to play the saxophone since receiving the yellow fever vaccine.

By Mephistopheles… (not verified) on 09 Mar 2015 #permalink

Narad, are you claiming that the fourteen million Pounds Sterling paid out to Wakefield and his colleagues, for “expert witness” fees for a case for “MMR Vaccine Enterocolitis”, which never was brought before the Court, was justified?

Um, no, I'm noting that the story in your link (the McCafferty lawsuit) didn't wind up happening.

No matter how many times this piece or that of antivaccine misinformation is slapped down, sooner or later it always resurfaces.

Hrmmmm. Maybe that's a sign that your treatment plan doesn't work. But hey... maybe if you keep doing the same thing over and over again one day it will magically work!

*woo woo woo*

Actually, I find it as a sign that anti-vaxers are even more stupid than they appear to be.

Ah Mr 'Award Winning' Deer, you know full well why you are allowed to get away with defamation of Andrew Wakefield both in the UK and in the US. In the UK you were never challenged in a court of Law, due to the fact that Wakefield was not able to fund such a trial and the timing was legally inappropriate. And in the US the trial never came to light even though Wakefield had the funding and was able to get to court, because of legal technicalities it never progressed. The plain fact of the matter is mr Deer is that you have lied, you have defamed and you have so far gotten away with it by legal nicities and loopholes. You know this. Everyone who has ever had an interest in this case knows it too. You do not fool anyone Mr Deer. And your exposure is on the horizon. Your problem is Mr Deer that the truth IS out there and people are beginning to judge for themselves.

In the UK you were never challenged in a court of Law

I guess the GMC hearings don't count as a place where Wakefield could have had a chance to defend his position.

By Helianthus (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

@rosemary:

In the UK you were never challenged in a court of Law, due to the fact that Wakefield was not able to fund such a trial and the timing was legally inappropriate.

Given that Wakefield not only brought suit against Deer, but sent Deer a cheque for his legal expenses after dropping said suit, horse droppings.

And in the US the trial never came to light even though Wakefield had the funding and was able to get to court, because of legal technicalities it never progressed.

Those "legal technicalities" were because the Texas Court ruled that it didn't have jurisdiction in the matter.

The plain fact of the matter is mr Deer is that you have lied, you have defamed and you have so far gotten away with it by legal niceties and loopholes.

False.

And your exposure is on the horizon.

Fallacy of future vindication.
I guess you call yourself rosemary because you're not sage. And thanks for the target practice.

By Julian Frost (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

Rosemary, you seem to be making things up again.

Andrew Wakefield did bring an action against Brian Deer, but the judge eventually threw the action out on the basis that Wakefield was using the action for publicity and was showing no signs of wanting to conclude the action.

Wakefield's action in Texas got thrown out on the basis that he had no standing given all of those he was trying to sue were based in the UK, not Texas. Wakefield requested an extension to file an appeal against the dismissal of his first appeal, but then failed to file any documents in support and so the case was closed.

The failure to adequately prosecute either action rested squarely with Wakefield, because these actions were more about keeping the donations rolling in than anything else.

It seems that Wakefield must have convinced Dan Olmsted to put his name back in front of the public. I guess chiropractor conventions must not pay quite enough.

And in the US the trial never came to light even though Wakefield had the funding and was able to get to court, because of legal technicalities it never progressed.

Those "technicalities" don't apply in the UK.

What's preventing him from taking his funds and suing there?

ChrisP, Julian Frost, and Helianthus.....
The GMC was not a Trial but a Hearing......i.e. it was not a proper legal court of UK Law. It was a travesty of justice and was proven to be so by the Hugh Court Judge when Prof Walker Smith brought an independent case against the verdict of the GMC. The Judge's comment on that GMC Hearing were derisory and are well known in the UK. And in the US. You all know this to be a fact. The world and his wife knows it.
There are simply no arguments against the fact that Brian Deer has not yet been brought to trial in any court of Law for defamation.
And if Andrew Wakefield has not yet succeeded in his efforts to clear his name in a court of Law, it was not because there is no case to answer but because of a lack of funds and ill advised legal advice - not for any other reason, however Mr Deer would like to present his so called 'facts'.

The GMC was not a Trial but a Hearing……i.e. it was not a proper legal court of UK Law.

False. A GMC Hearing has the same standard as a court of law.

Prof Walker Smith brought an independent case against the verdict of the GMC.

The basis of Walker-Smiths' appeal was that he acted in good faith and was duped by Wakefield. Walker-Smith's own lawyer declared the vaccine autism causation hypothesis as false. Walker-Smith's successful appeal makes Wakefield look worse, not better.
As for your comments about lawsuits, it has been pointed out to you that Wakefield has brought suit against Deer not once but twice. Your insistence that Deer hasn't "been brought to trial in any court of Law for defamation" is demonstrably false and you are a liar for making that claim.

By Julian Frost (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

Please bring back preview.
A GMC Hearing has the same STANDING as a court of law.

By Julian Frost (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

The thing about people like Rosemary is that they are part of a network of people who are variously too stupid or too dishonest ever to get anything right. They have next to no knowledge of public affairs or, if they do have such knowledge, they are so crooked that they wheedle around it to mislead others.

Such people then bat their falsehoods back and forth until their bogus information congeals into some kind of simulacra fact.

The fact is, my investigation of Wakefield has been analysed, in depth, by countless lawyers, appraised by my professional peers, and in significant parts prosecuted against Wakefield. At every stage, every material fact and implication has been substantiated.

No wrongdoing, impropriety or ethical shortcoming by me, of any kind, has been demonstrated by anyone. If anybody knows of one, I suggest they get a UK media organisation to publish it, and I will issue proceedings for libel in London.

Ok, in the grey web of crank blogs and suchlike, all manner of bizarre concoctions have been promulgated by the crooks, quacks and clowns of which Rosemary seems like an example.

So far, Wakefield has issued four different legal proceedings against me, all of which have failed. Three have been in the UK, which, if pursued, would have led to his utter annihilation in court. He would have faced a legal bill, probably, somewhere in the region of $3 million, and would have joined the Holocaust-denier David Irving - who sued Penguin books along similarly sociopathic lines - living amid the ruins of his deception.

By Brian Deer (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

Mr Award Winning, (Pulitzer Prizewinner - I think not), Deer,
I note that I only 'seem' like one of those 'crooks, quacks and clowns'...how interesting, an element of doubt in your voice.....
Mr Deer you are yourself at this present time 'living amid the ruins of your own deceptions' and becoming more desperate by the day if your own site is anything to go by.
A word of not so friendly advice....You should refrain from insulting and libeling and defaming people Mr Deer, they might just take you seriously one day.

@rosemary - after a few different attempts, which failed miserably, I don't think Mr. Deer has anything to worry about....Wakefield, on the other hand, should he ever be required to take an oath in Court....that's a whole 'nother story.

@ Lawrence:

I like to think that Wakefield is well on his way to becoming a contrarian hero to rebels against rationality, indeed a less-deadly version of hiv/aids denialist, Peter Duesberg.

Over the years, his fabulous earth-shattering theory has become less newsworthy and more entirely a contaminated niche that attracts the willfully scientifically illiterate and the socially unconscious who would enjoy riding the imaginary tsunami of paradigm shift to glory alongside him.
Which ain't ever going to happen.

As any chance of popular acceptance escapes them, they'll become a more tightly encapsulated cult basically talking amongst themselves.

I suppose that the internet has become rife with these constellations of solipsists who occasionally collide because they share one aspect of crank nonsense or another.

Perhaps Andy will run an alt media website like those idiot pseudo-savants I monitor spewing forth biased political and economic quasi-news as well as crank science selling products and advert space.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

@Lawrence

Actually, I find it as a sign that anti-vaxers are even more stupid than they appear to be.

Our assessments are not mutually exclusive.

@rosemary - to quote Lucky Ned Pepper from "True Grit", I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man.

By Mephistopheles… (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

@rosemary

Earlier upthread, you stated:

In the UK you were never challenged in a court of Law, due to the fact that Wakefield was not able to fund such a trial and the timing was legally inappropriate.

Do you admit that you were wrong about this, given the evidence presented since then that Wakefield brought three different actions against Mr. Deer in the UK?

Is Mr. Deer a journalist who published in an American media outlet, which would make him eligible for the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Journalism?

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

Perhaps Rosemary will provide her legal opinion about why the parents of the children who were part of Wakefield's case series, did not testify on behalf of Wakefield at the GMC Fitness-to-Practice Hearing.

Can you say P-E-R-J-U-R-Y Rosemary?

Todd W
You have misunderstood the phrase 'challenged in a court of Law'. It means to appear in person in a court, be placed under oath and cross examined.

M O Brien. Thankyou kindly Sir.

And if Andrew Wakefield has not yet succeeded in his efforts to clear his name in a court of Law, it was not because there is no case to answer but because of a lack of funds and ill advised legal advice

Lack of funds? Pull the other one. Note that since the Texas debacle, he's promised to sue Emily Willingham and pretended to legally menace Elizabeth Steiner Hayward. He chose Texas not because of "ill advised legal advice" but, very likely, because he knew he'd lose (and wouldn't be on the hook for the other parties' bills). The only miscalculation seems to have been about the anti-SLAPP law, which would have blown up in his face had it been reached.

What this dumb know-nothing fails to have been informed on her little circuit of deceit is that I have been "challenged in a court of law" by the research cheat Andrew Wakefield.

I was deposed, for six and a half hours (plus breaks), under oath and videotaped by the cheat, and his lawyers. This was executed under the laws of Texas. And they came up with precisely nothing.

I was questioned about my income, my stories, the documents that supported them. His principle lawyer had a session of screaming at me across the table. Wakefield himself stormed out of the room (as he did for his viva for the MS he was never awarded). The fat fuck Clifford Miller sat there like a buffoon.

The highlight was me going through Wakefield's paper identifying fraud after fraud after fraud. The low point (for them) was when I identified how much money I was paid to hear the GMC's case against him, and the television network who paid me.

No, Rosemary. You have it the wrong way round. Andrew Wakefield knows where to find me, and he knows what will happen to him.

By Brian Deer (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

And if Andrew Wakefield has not yet succeeded in his efforts to clear his name in a court of Law, it was not because there is no case to answer but because of a lack of funds and ill advised legal advice – not for any other reason, however Mr Deer would like to present his so called ‘facts’.

But Rosemary, you said that Wakefield had sufficient funding to sue Mr. Deer and that, "In the UK you were never challenged in a court of Law, due to the fact that Wakefield was not able to fund such a trial and the timing was legally inappropriate." But Wakefield has brought four suits against Mr. Deer. Which is it Rosemary?

By Science Mom (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

Another curiosity she might like to deal with is how come John Walker-Smith (funded by the UK Medical Protection Society) appealed against the GMC's decision, and Andrew Wakefield (funded by the UK Medical Protection Society) didn't (well, he did, but then withdrew it)?

Please, Rosemary, cast your pearls before us.

By Brian Deer (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

And in the US the trial never came to light even though Wakefield had the funding and was able to get to court, because of legal technicalities it never progressed.

Technicalities? This is John Stone–level dishonesty. They knew perfectly well what they were doing in trying to invoke the Texas Long-Arm Statute. The attempt to claim that filing the anti-SLAPP waived the special appearances was simply a desperate fall-back. In fact, the Third Court of Appeals noted, sua sponte,

"Although not expressly raised by the Defendants, we note at the outset that the anti-SLAPP statute suggests that a defendant may be able to maintain its right to challenge personal jurisdiction under Rule 120a while simultaneously pursuing its rights under the anti-SLAPP statute. Section 27.011 of the anti-SLAPP statute provides that the statute 'does not abrogate or lessen any other defense, remedy, immunity, or privilege available under other constitutional, statutory, case or common law or rule provisions.' Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 27.011. This provision appears to undermine most, if not all, of Wakefield’s waiver arguments."

Mr AW Deer
As both you and this 'dumb know-nothing' well know, making a' deposition' in a' Direct examination' aka a 'Deposition' in a court of law, is not the same as being' Cross examined' in a Trial which usually follows this initial procedure... Leading questions, are not allowed in a Direct examination.. whose purpose is purely to gather information i.e. it is simply a 'tool for discovery, and the requests for documents'. The atmosphere may indeed get heated. But it is Not for proving innocence or guilt of charges made.

I do hope that the ' 'f*t f*ck' Clifford Miller hears about your account of his demeanor in that courtroom.

Tut tut Mr Deer.your obscenities know no bounds.

.

rosemary: "Clifford Miller hears about your account of his demeanor in that courtroom."

Who is the same idiot that posted comments on several UK based websites that Brian Deer made the whole thing up several years ago. As you can see, Mr. Deer thinks so little of Miller, that he has not tried to bring him up on libel.

Why should Mr. Wakefield clear his name in a court of law?

As he claimed to be a researcher, why didn't he chose to clear his name with data? He was offered the chance at the Royal Free and declined. He had years at Thoughful House and never managed to do it.

Mr. Wakefield's ideas were heard in a court. Three test cases took on the idea of the MMR vaccine causing autism--Mr. Wakefield's hypothesis. In all three cases, his idea failed.

By Matt Carey (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

Unfortunately, Rosemary has been given misleading information by a raft of unscrupulous people who have something to sell:
products, services, theories or merely themselves.

Wakefield was not well-known until he advanced his outlandish theory: it gave him instant fame and an avenue for marketting all manner of products and services aimed at ameliorating autism caused by vaccines ( which doesn't exist). After losing his livelihood, he needed to resort to other means of enrichment- which includes suing people, writing books, producing films, heading a charity and making appearances at various crank conventions- the next one's in April, then another will take place in May.

Anti-vaccine activists frequently manage blogs and organisations where they receive a measure of fame as well as monetary recompense: partisans look up to them as role models and even buy their books. Parents like these are able to shake off guilt that their compliance in vaccination led to their child's autism ( not true) or the shame some may feel because their child is imperfect ( as though children are perfect) further boosting their self-esteem. They take on a new role as advocate and instructor, rather than just a carer for a disabled child or adult.

Alternative medicine entrepreneurs benefit because they can use the tale ( and a tale it is) of governmental cover-ups and pharmaceutical industry malfeasance to boost their own anti-establishment agenda as well selling supplements or diet plans to compensate for vaccine damage to children ( also not real).

In addition, all of these prevaricators have another reason to point their fingers in blame at anyone who discusses Wakefield realistically:
because it distracts their audience away from thinking too deeply about their own unseemly deeds- telling, tales, fixing data, manipulating distraught parents and selling quack merchandise and literature to them.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

Mr AW Deer
'Pearls before swine indeed'....how very apt Mr Deer.
Why didn't Andy Wakefield appeal against GMC findings in the High Court as did his colleague Prof walker Smith?
His insurance carrier said 'no more' in the coffers Mr Deer - as you know very well. Go ask his accountant.

@ #290 Chris:

In point of fact, while I missed some things at an earlier time, Mr Miller has had it made very clear to him that if he maligns my reputation or professional conduct in any way that harms me, then I will bring proceedings against him. And I will. If he wishes to be the surrogate for Wakefield in the High Court, then he can be.

This man has spent a decade with the wretch Stone, essentially stalking me -even generating secret reports, in countless drafts, and god knows what. And they came up with nothing whatsoever they dare stake their homes on (not that Mr Miller appears to have much of a home these days).

By Brian Deer (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

I wish Mr. Wakefield had had a chance to clear his name in a court of law.

I wish that he had been brought before a court of law to answer for his actions.

Unethical treatment of disabled children should be met with criminal action, not a "fitness to practice" hearing. Wakefield was unfit to practice, so what? He lost a license that even he admitted he didn't need. How is that punishment?

In the process he got the biggest PR boost of his new career. The man still uses a picture from his GMC hearing as his facebook background. What a sad little man he is. But there are many sad little men who do not act unethically with their disabled charges.

By Matt Carey (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

As both you and this ‘dumb know-nothing’ well know, making a’ deposition’ in a’ Direct examination’ aka a ‘Deposition’ in a court of law, is not the same as being’ Cross examined’ in a Trial which usually follows this initial procedure…

In the sense that a deposition is in most ways a more hostile environment for the witness, sure.

Leading questions, are not allowed in a Direct examination..

This is a pretty amusing place to decide to try to plant a flag. Andy didn't get a chance to have someone try to put words in your mouth! Waaaa!

rosemary:

His insurance carrier said ‘no more’ in the coffers Mr Deer – as you know very well.

Yes, the poor, defenseless Wakefield might have had to spend some of his own actual money for a change. Not something he is accustomed to doing, sponge that he is.

Seriously, is your best defense (other than a particularly laughable semantic argument against Brian Deer, and being aghast at his colorful metaphors) to suggest astonishment that Wakefield might ever have to pull his own weight in the world? Because that's what that comes down to. The man made a *ton* of money off of his baloney. Yet he avoids paying for his own fees as much as possible. He gets friends to represent him pro bono because he's too cheap to hire a lawyer (though possibly a more charitable impression is that it's a tactical maneuver to convince his followers that he's poor, which he clearly is not).

By Calli Arcale (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

Why didn’t Andy Wakefield appeal against GMC findings in the High Court as did his colleague Prof walker Smith?
His insurance carrier said ‘no more’ in the coffers Mr Deer – as you know very well. Go ask his accountant.

I see that Rosemary is now down to non sequiturs.

No more in the coffers? Yes, because Kieran Coonan QC, Wakefield's lawyer, advised his insurers that he was not likely to win on appeal, (and therefore they wouldn't get their money back).

However, following a 2010 appeal court ruling of Lord Justice Leveson about the requirement for the GMC to set out its full reasonings in complex cases, EVERYBODY INVOLVED (including me) knew that Walker-Smith's case would be quashed long before it was ever heard.

The only question that was open was whether the GMC would both to reconvene a panel and supply the reasoning in the side-show case of this retired doctor who submitted to the court that no "respectable" body of opinion supported Wakefield's theories..

As Mitting J explained in his subsequent judgment:

"The panel had no alternative but to decide whether Professor Walker-Smith had told the truth to it and to his colleagues, contemporaneously. The GMC's approach to the fundamental issues in the case led it to believe that that was not necessary – an error from which many of the subsequent weaknesses in the panel's determination flowed. It had to decide what Professor Walker-Smith thought he was doing: if he believed he was undertaking research in the guise of clinical investigation and treatment, he deserved the finding that he had been guilty of serious professional misconduct and the sanction of erasure; if not, he did not, unless, perhaps, his actions fell outside the spectrum of that which would have been considered reasonable medical practice by an academic clinician. Its failure to address and decide that question is an error which goes to the root of its determination."

They could have gone back and done that, but sensibly didn't bother.

By Brian Deer (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

Where's Rosemary?

She never replied to my comment...

"Perhaps Rosemary will provide her legal opinion about why the parents of the children who were part of Wakefield’s case series, did not testify on behalf of Wakefield at the GMC Fitness-to-Practice Hearing.

Can you say P-E-R-J-U-R-Y Rosemary?"

I'm with Matt Carey when it comes to the appropriate punishment for Andrew Wakefield...he should have lost his medical license AND he should have faced criminal charges for his medical assaults on defenseless, developmentally disabled children.

Mr AW Deer
It wasn't 'good sense' that prevented the GMC from reconvening a new hearing after Prof Walker's successful Appeal.
It was because they are an informal gathering, normally asked to deal with routine ethical and medical misdemeanors of General Practitioners, way out of their depth in such a complex case, 'not fit for purpose' were the Judge's own words. An inadequate establishment tool. They knew when to leave the stage. Unlike some.

Only God, Mr Deer, and your good self of course, knows with absolute certainty what is in a man's mind.....at any given moment in his life..
As for 'respectable body of opinion' those were the Judge's words, which Walker had no option but to agree with.

And what pray is 'a respectable body of opinion' but just that......Opinion.

I'm orff......bored with all this.

Prof Walker Smith brought an independent case against the verdict of the GMC.

Yes. He argued that evidence showed that Wakefield was the one who was engaging in egregious professional misconduct.

And the court agreed. Because that's what the evidence does show.

I’m orff……bored with all this.

Without answering my question about why he's not using the funds that "technicalities" prevented him from spending in Texas over to the UK and filing a suit there?

Say not so.

Arguing that Walker-Smith's successful appeal was "good" Wakefield is hilarious - given that WS threw Wakefield under the bus during the appeal.....

the GMC ... are an informal gathering

Tell me more of the informal nature of the Medical Act (1858), and the Medical Act (1983), and the The Medical Act 1983 (Amendment) Order 2002 from the Privy Council.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

herr doktor bimler - I've never been counselled in a privy.

By Mephistopheles… (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

Though I did know a lawyer once who ran his office out of the bathroom.

By Mephistopheles… (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

Any relation to LBJ? He evidently used to hold important conversations while sitting on the can with the door open.

He also once made a hilarious pants order, which, praise the L-rd, happened to be recorded.

Mr. Deer: "In point of fact, while I missed some things at an earlier time, Mr Miller has had it made very clear to him that if he maligns my reputation or professional conduct in any way that harms me, then I will bring proceedings against him. And I will. If he wishes to be the surrogate for Wakefield in the High Court, then he can be."

Good to know. He was warned when he made those libelous comments. If memory serves, some of the UK based blogs deleted his comments.

Amazing. He did a degree in physics, and became a lawyer. Now he has dug himself so deep he can never climb out of his wretched hole of misinformation.

An inadequate establishment tool. They knew when to leave the stage. Unlike some.

I do so love foreshadowing.

I’m orff……bored with all this.

Oh, c'mon, Rosemary, you don't have to run away in a huff. You can do it in a minute and huff.

@ Chris:

J-sus! What type of personality leads a person to first study physics and then law?

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

I’m orff…
Great! Play something from Carmina Burana!
"Olim lacus colueram" would be nice.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

I'll take some funny little instruments instead.

Rosemary has changed her composer identification.
Now she's Haydn.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

"I'll be Bach!"
-- Arnold Schwarzenegger.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

I'd like to take this moment to share my favorite mis-attributed (I think) quote ever.

^ OK, I guess he did write that sentence once, but that mug is still freaking hilarious.

@Brian Deer --

I stand corrected.

(About what the evidence showed.)

Thanks.

Great! Play something from Carmina Burana!

"Official anthem" of the Neo-American Church back in the Boo Hoo Bible days, BTW.

Just to cover off on one point above. In my last comment, I pointed out to rosemary that Andrew Wakefield had sued Brian Deer in the UK for libel, but had the case thrown out by the judge on the basis that Wakefield was making no attempt to prosecute the case.

Rosemary then responded to me that the GMC was not a case but a hearing.

Just to be clear, I had not mentioned the GMC proceedings, but an actual libel action brought by Andrew Wakefield.

@ ChrisP

Just to be clear, I had not mentioned the GMC proceedings, but an actual libel action brought by Andrew Wakefield.

I was the one who mentioned the GMC hearings to rosemary, so I guess this part of her answer was initially for me. (funny how she walks around attempts by Wakefield at libel case)

And she missed my point anyway. Whatever the statute of the GMC and the objectiveness of the panel, Wakefield had a chance to provide publicly his side of the story.
Instead, he forgot to call his patients' parents to testify for him, and apparently forgot to bring forward a few things he later put into his book.
Cynical people may wonder if such selective memory has something to do with the fact that people - including people with a medical background - could have contradicted him during the public hearings, but not while he was writing his book.

I see now that rosemary has resorted to the "it's just your opinion" defense.

The regulars have already called forth a few classics (including Groucho Marx, if I read it right). May I add brave sir Robin?

By Helianthus (not verified) on 10 Mar 2015 #permalink

Chris P and others
Let's all be quite clear then shall we, about this so oft mentioned 'failed attempt' by Andrew Wakefield to bring about a libel case against MR Award Winning Deer.

In Andy's own words, why not, these are facts, go verify them if you are interested enough, .it's all out there.
"I was forced to abandon my action for libel, after an interim ruling in the High Court ordered that it had to run concurrently with the GMC case, which my lawyers advised was physically impossible. We naturally decided the priority was to concentrate our efforts on the GMC hearing."
Believe what you want guys.......but that is the truth of what happened. Whatever your leader the Mr Award Winning Brian Deer attempts to tell you otherwise.

rosemary, to be clear there was more than one litigation against Brian Deer by Wakefield. In each of the litigations Wakefield requested a stay of proceedings at an early stage on the basis that the GMC was conducting an investigation. In this example the judge did not allow the stay in proceedings. Indeed the judge noted:

" I am quite satisfied, therefore, that the Claimant wished to extract whatever advantage he could from the existence of the proceedings while not wishing to progress them or to give the Defendants an opportunity of meeting the claims."

Just 12 months afterwards, Wakefield abandons all of the libel actions.

This judgement is completely at odds with Wakefield's claims that he was forced to abandon the proceedings while the GMC case ran. He himself requested they be stayed.

@ ChrisP

Careful, it's the judge's opinion.
It doesn't count if it runs contrary to rosemary's opinion.

By Helianthus (not verified) on 11 Mar 2015 #permalink

Wait, in Wakefield's own words he wanted to concentrate on the GMC hearing?

If that is the case, why did he not actually provide a defense in that hearing?

Someone seems to lying out of his ass....

helianthus

Ha ha .....I would not dream of expressing my Opinion on this informative and fun filled site, brimming with knowledge, wit and expertise.
I come here while I am waiting for paint to dry.
The plain fact remains...Mr Award Winning Deer has never yet been cross examined under oath in any court of law by Andrew Wakefield's attorneys.. Apart from his oh so painful 6 hours of deposition and I do hope you guys now know the difference between a deposition and a real grown up trial.

Ha Ha Ha!!!!

Someone doesn't know the first thing about trials...a lawyer will never ask a question they don't already know the answer to, hence why depositions are more contentious.

I notice Wakefield has never seen the inside of a Courtroom either, never testified under oath....he always seems to find some excuse to drop the case. I wonder why?

@rosemary - I also think you've been watching too many episodes of Matlock or Perry Mason....there is no "gotcha" moment at trial...that's what depositions are for, so both sides know exactly what facts will be put before the trial judge (or jury).

I'll pose this question to Mr. Deer - was Wakefield deposed as part of the Texas proceedings?

I come here while I am waiting for paint to dry.

Paint fumes. That explains it.

“I was forced to abandon my action for libel, after an interim ruling in the High Court ordered that it had to run concurrently with the GMC case, which my lawyers advised was physically impossible. We naturally decided the priority was to concentrate our efforts on the GMC hearing.”

Of course, they didn't "naturally" decide this until 13 months after the stay was denied, which was still six months before the GMC hearing began.

@rosemary

You really don't know much about law, do you?

But please, keep posting, for we certainly do need a fool to laugh at.

#332 Narad. The events surrounding Wakefield's lawyers terminating funding for the libel action that Mr Justice Eady said he believed was brought for "public relations purposes" were:

(a) The revelation in The Sunday Times that, despite Wakefield's claims in litigation, he was secretly paid £435,643 plus expenses, and but for the UK's then-new Freedom of Information Act we would never have known about.

(b) A ruling by Eady that GMC documents were to be disclosed for inspection by us just like any others.

(c) Wakefield's lawyers received proofs of evidence from parents that exposed his defence before the GMC to be false. They said they had brought their children to the hospital because they wanted to know if they were damaged by MMR.

It was nothing to do with "physically impossible", unless this was a euphemism for "fuck off you lying shithead", which I believe was rather more the attitude between lawyers and client by that stage.

His particulars of claim against me are, in hindsight, just beyond a pack of lies. And when his QC, Kieran Coonan stood up at the end and folded Wakefield's case, you couldn't believe the tone in his voice. It was like: "Don't blame me, this is only my day job."

Brian -
a, b, and c,....
are ALL products of your own
Warped imagination
Opinion,
Supposition,
Invention,
Fabrication........argh.. and plain old lies.

Can't help observing BTW how your obscenities are now becoming even more graphic, grandiloquent. even.

'It is a tale told by a hack journalist.... full of Sound and Fury, Signifying nothing' ..
Sorry William.
.

‘It is a tale told by a hack journalist…. full of Sound and Fury, Signifying nothing’ ..
Sorry William.

Meanwhile rosemary appears to be taking the collective works of John Stone, Martin Walker and Andrew Wakefield as gospel. Oh how bloody rich.

By Science Mom (not verified) on 11 Mar 2015 #permalink

rosemary-
It took me all of 60 seconds to locate the Sunday Times story on the FOA findings referenced in (a) and the court documents describing Eady's ruling referenced in (b). Are you just hoping that no one bothers to check when you allege lies and fabrication?
You are getting methodically roasted with verifiable facts by a professional investigative journalist, and you are choosing to respond (#335) with what might appear to be liberally punctuated e.e.cummings poems. Have some self respect and either post some kind of actual content, or stop posting.

By CTGeneGuy (not verified) on 11 Mar 2015 #permalink

Funny how rosemary seems rather upset by words like
'sh!t' and 'f@ck'** but tolerates volumes of lies and fantasy written by Wakefield et al.

** no, I'm not a candy@ss but I want to escape moderation

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 11 Mar 2015 #permalink

argh.. and plain old lies.

The simple fact of the dates on the documents gives the lie to the Wakefield quote that you foolishly ventured.

You should have stuck the flounce.

CTGeneGuy, I had already posted a link to the Eady opinion. It is well worth a read.

Sadly, rosemary won't bother. She seems to be repeating the claims of others as indicated by Science Mom. Although she forgets Clifford G. Miller, Andrew Wakefield's solicitor in the UK, proprietor of the completely misnamed ChildHealthSafety website and all round strange, strange person. Miller once opened an e-mail exchange with me in which he insisted in writing in the first person plural.

The whole Wakefield story that Rosemary believes in was crafted, out of whole cloth, by the folks over at AoA, starting with John Stone.

The narrative is compelling, if any of it was actually true, but as has been shown over and over again, the whole mess is nothing but one big fabrication to burnish Wakefield's status and money-making potential.

I suspect this point must have been made already--

but recall that Mr. Wakefield's attorney was instructed to give no defense. From his sanction:

On behalf of Dr Wakefield, no evidence has been adduced and no arguments or pleas in mitigation have been addressed to the Panel at this stage of the proceedings. In fact Mr Coonan specifically submitted:

“......we call no evidence and we make no substantive submissions on behalf of Dr Wakefield at this stage.” “...I am instructed to make no further observations in this case”.

So, let's say you are an insurance company. You've just spent a ton of money for a proceeding that went over 100 days. And the guy whose case you were supporting decided to not respond to the case that had been made against him.

Do you throw more money at this gentleman? To what end? He had a chance to defend himself and chose not to.

By Matt Carey (not verified) on 11 Mar 2015 #permalink

The plain fact remains…Mr Award Winning Deer has never yet been cross examined under oath in any court of law by Andrew Wakefield’s attorneys..

Because he dropped the suit, which his attorneys somehow managed to continue pursuing for thirteen months after they informed him that it had become physically impossible for them to do so, according to his account of the matter.

But be that as it may. The GMC hearings have now concluded. And due to "technicalities," he won't have to spend whatever funds he was going to use in the Texas action going to trial there. So he's also now either got funds or access to same.

So why doesn't he sue in the UK, where no technical impediments prevent it?

Six and a half hours examination by Wakefield's lawyer, videotaped, on oath. Three declarations - 102, 86 and 42 pages - on penalty of perjury. Thousands of pages of discovery permitted.

Nothing to hide. Nothing to fear.

http://briandeer.com/solved/slapp-introduction.htm

By Brian Deer (not verified) on 11 Mar 2015 #permalink

r I am a follower of A Weston A. Price Foundation and live by a lot of their nutritional recommendations like bone broth, raw milk, and animal fats. This foundation actually helped me over come my fear of all the horrific misconceptions on how to heal from these so called horrible childhood diseases like measles and whooping cough by adding enough vitamin D and A and C in the diet by eating a whole food traditional diet. The fact that they don't recommend vaccines is just an added plus. I would rather my children get these so called horrid diseases and have life long immunity then them having life long depleting effects from the vaccines we are going to be forced to get just so our children can attend school. Like I said before it isn't about theses diseases it is about our freedom to choose what we INJECT into our children and our bodies. it is our right to choose. Some children and adults just couldn't handle the amount of toxins that one or 7 different vaccines have in them.

By Fawndove Brubaker (not verified) on 12 Mar 2015 #permalink

Fawndove Brubaker: "I would rather my children get these so called horrid diseases and have life long immunity then them having life long depleting effects from the vaccines we are going to be forced to get just so our children can attend school."

Please provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers about what and how vaccines have "depleting effects."

Also even if you suffer and survive a disease that is no guarantee of permanent immunity. Neither tetanus and diphtheria provide immunity after you survive. And immunity to pertussis can wear off in five or so years.

I had mumps twice. And apparently that was not uncommon before the vaccine was introduced in 1968. It was explained that one could get it again if it only affected one side. That is a myth, and I was definitely painfully swollen on both sides of my face. I could barely open my mouth, so I pretty much had to sip nutrients for over a week.

Which brings me to ask you what kind of parent believes in myths, and thinks it is okay dokay for kids to get very very sick. Only a sadistic person would want a child to suffer a high fever and be in pain for up to two weeks, or cough their lungs out for two months. Enough vitamin D and A help the kid to not die, they still get to suffer as their "strong" immune system fights off the pathogens (that is why there is often a high fever and production of lots of mucus).

Though you have probably never had to take care of a six month old baby with chicken pox, or had a child suffer seizures from a disease a few years before its vaccine was available. Your children are being protected by others in your area who vaccinate.

Be sure to thank you responsible neighbors who vaccinate, because they are the ones who are maintaining your community's immunity that protects your children.

"Some children and adults just couldn’t handle the amount of toxins that one or 7 different vaccines have in them."

If they are so delicate, why would they do any better if they get measles, mumps, pertussis, Hib, rotavirus, etc? Explain that to us, with some real citations.

Why do people feel the need to give fancy names to soup?

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 12 Mar 2015 #permalink

I don't know. I have been making my own beef and chicken stocks for over thirty years. Though after I skim off the fat, I cook down to a nice glace de viande, which is good for sauces, and I rehydrate for soup.

With the beef stock I make very good French Onion soup, and last night I used the chicken stock in risotto, which I tossed in fresh herbs from the garden (the sorrel and chives are up, parsley is always in the yard, plus I have basil in a window).

There is a Fawndove Brubaker listed as a massage therapist in Vancouver WA. Don't know if it's the same Fawndove as above.

I don’t know. I have been making my own beef and chicken stocks for over thirty years. Though after I skim off the fat, I cook down to a nice glace de viande, which is good for sauces, and I rehydrate for soup.

That's a luxury in these parts – I can only get chicken necks and backs at the farmers' market (no premium, BTW), and the Booth School's Chosen Grocer makes working from ground beef cost-effective on the occasions that I only need a decent broth.

I have a somewhat dim opinion of Christopher Kimball and company, but if it weren't for the Chosen Grocer's weirdness, I could at least try the Rachel Ray.

Chris: You're making me hungry. Recipes?

Narad: Have you checked for chicken feet? Those make amazing soup.

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 12 Mar 2015 #permalink

Narad, first I roast a whole chicken. We eat it and the rest goes to stock. Beef bones are available at Asian markets.

Fawndove Brubaker

whole food traditional diet

What Tradition, Siksika, Tsutina, Nakoda, Ugyur, Viking, Korean, Irish, Roman, Yoruba, Kikuyu, Masai, !Kung, Norman, Mongol, Mayan, Albanian, Peigan, Tamil, Inuit etc?

By Militant Agnostic (not verified) on 12 Mar 2015 #permalink

Since we're discussing food...
There's a South African snack: fried chicken feet and beaks. It's street name is "walkie-talkie".

By Julian Frost (not verified) on 12 Mar 2015 #permalink

Narad, first I roast a whole chicken. We eat it and the rest goes to stock. Beef bones are available at Asian markets.

Yeah, that's what we used to do when I lived with a bunch of friends in Portland. Roast a chicken, save the bones and scraps for soup, save the schmaltz for cooking, or mostly chopped liver. (Howard's from SoCal, and his mom's chopped liver recipe involves avocados. It's pretty good, if you like that sort of thing.)

Man, my cooking is so much more boring now that I live alone. I'm not sure how I would exist, culinarily speaking, without five or six different bottles of hot sauce.

Beef bones are available at Asian markets.

It must be hard having a car and the concomitant expectations.

Huh? Depending on the city one lives in, Asian markets can be within walking/biking distance. I used to go to one fairly often in PDX for real fish sauce and other assorted things.

I think I know what city Chris lives in, and there are Asian markets all over the place there.

The only reason that I'm awake is that I'm waiting on a massaman curry. "Real fish sauce" is not an issue. "Biking distance" is not an issue. The assumption of ready Calgon veal bones is an issue.

The only reason I'm awake is because of insomnia.

In other news, I'm using White Sugar because the only place that had piloncillo folded and Devon isn't within Biking Distance for jaggery or gur.

Regardless of whether it's within Biking Distance, would it even be open this time of night? I'm thinking it's 3:00 there, because it's 4:00 here.

i'm glad there is somebody awake to be annoyed with me. It's one of my favorite things.

There is a Fawndove Brubaker listed as a massage therapist in Vancouver WA. Don’t know if it’s the same Fawndove as above.

Think about it; how likely is it that there's more than one Fawndove Brubaker? ;-)

By Rebecca Fisher (not verified) on 12 Mar 2015 #permalink

We live in a designated refugee resettlement city; there are more than 40 different primary languages spoken at the school my youngest kiddos go to and the foodscape's changed dramatically since I was a kid here.

The school has an annual potluck, where you bring a dish traditional to your ethnicity. Our pb and fluff on squishy white bread looked pretty pathetic next to the samosas, spring rolls, bhutanese fiery noodles, bosnian pierogi like dumplings and greens interpreted by cooks from 14 different african countries.

Never underestimate the power of a Peanut Butter and Marshmallow Fluff sandwich.....

hdb - thanks, I'll share it with you.

give you Peanut Butter and Raspberry beer.

I'd try it. I just had a chocolate/raspberry beer from Founders last night and it was sort of like drinking cake. The peanut butter could be interesting, though.

bosnian pierogi like dumplings

Dangit, now I want ćevapi. I think I know what city you're referring to, actually.

JP: "I think I know what city Chris lives in, and there are Asian markets all over the place there."

Indeed, there is even a chain of Asian markets:
http://www.uwajimaya.com/

We usually go to an international market on HiWay 99. I go to the Indonesian section for Dutch hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles). It also has an aisle for Russian and Eastern European foods.

The butcher section has both beef and pork bones for soup.

If they have a Russian/Eastern European deli at all, I recommend picking up some cold-smoked mackerel. I haven't had it myself in ages, as the Russian grocery store here in town turned out to be run by pretty vocal pro-separatists. (My Ukrainian friends boycott the place, so I felt like I should follow suit.) There are evidently some other places closer to Detroit, but I don't have a car, so I don't go there either.

Red caviar, too. Definitely get some red caviar.

Some children and adults just couldn’t handle the amount of toxins that one or 7 different vaccines have in them

What toxins are you speaking of, Fawndove, and what evidence demonstrates that some children and adults "just can't handle" these toxins at exposure levels achievable by routine vaccination. Be specific.

@ Chris

The Indonesian section for Dutch hagelslag? On one hand, that sounds pretty weird, on the other hand, the logic behind it, would be Indonesia was a former Dutch colony.
I live close to The Hague, which has the best Indonesian food stores in the country, basicly because it is the place were most people from Indonesia, who lived there when it was still a colony, but had some Dutch connections, went there.
No hagelslag in Indonesian food stores though.

Renate, my late father-in-law did his service in the Dutch Army in Indonesia. His brother served there as a Dutch Naval flyer (unfortunately he died when the plane crashed). We got to explain it to our teenage children at the Resistance Museum in Amsterdam, which also had a display about Indonesia, including the conflict after WWII.

I assume there is not hagelslag in the Indonesion foods stores where you live, because it is in the regular grocery stores. Regular stores here in the USA typically do not carry them.

I picked up a poffertjes pan the last time we were in the Netherlands visiting relative, because they aren't in stores here. We also got tins of cookies. I put them in the same checked bag, which when we picked it up after returning home had a big "Security Checked" sticker. I am sure that the cast iron pan and the cookie tin were big splotches on the X-ray.

This site is anything but "science". Real science invites debates, and when science refutes, it does not use the kind of weasel words, loaded phrases, and regurgitated memes used on this site. in fact, this site's techniques are beautifully explained here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bYAQ-ZZtEU

As for me, I wouldn't trust the vaccine industry given that the incentive to provide safe vaccines has been removed by the National Child Vaccine Injury Act, which, of course, they lobbied for and got enacted.

I don't buy this idea that vaccines give to society more than they take. There are are no shortcuts to health, no pill, no vaccine, is going to make you healthy, and you do need to be healthy to thwart disease. Vaccines are a mirage, and the most important question is not being asked, let alone answered: "What are the long term effects of vaccines given the ever increasing vaccination schedules, comparing vaccinated children to non vaccinated children". The CDC refuses to do that study, and the logic they use to not do it is lame to the extreme. Until we have the answer to that question, I'm going to give not being vaccinated the benefit of the doubt, so you can keep your toxic metals, chemicals, foreign DNA, etc., I'm doing just fine without vaccines, and I'm 64.

By Patricio Da Slva (not verified) on 28 Apr 2015 #permalink

Drive-by comments from the Huffington Post! What larks!
I suppose a long-abandoned comment thread is the appropriate place to leave a litany of long-refuted claims.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 28 Apr 2015 #permalink

There's nothing like a poster complaining about regurgitated memes who goes on to regurgitate some of antivaxers' most unpalatable, chewed-over memes.

"There are are no shortcuts to health, no pill, no vaccine, is going to make you healthy, and you do need to be healthy to thwart disease."

And if (god forbid) you ever wind up in the emergency room with an evolving stroke, sepsis or a myocardial infarction, you should be happy if physicians deny you tPA, antibiotics or other drugs to save your life or preserve function, because gosh, you were supposed to be healthy to thwart disease.

And don't consider getting shingles vaccine despite your age placing you in a vulnerable group, because you're supposed to be healthy enough to prevent the virus in your body from reactivating.

By Dangerous Bacon (not verified) on 28 Apr 2015 #permalink

Vaccines are a mirage, and the most important question is not being asked, let alone answered:“What are the long term effects of vaccines given the ever increasing vaccination schedules, comparing vaccinated children to non vaccinated children”. The CDC refuses to do that study, and the logic they use to not do it is lame to the extreme.

Perhaps you could elaborate on your demanded study design.

Given that you FB "like" "Homeopathy Worked for Me," I'm sure it will be carefully elaborated.

Patricio: Thank you for spewing all your lies in one post, rather than spreading them out like manure through dozens of posts

I also award you a special hypocrisy trophy for criticizing this blog for "weasel words, loaded phrases, and regurgitated meme" seconds before starting your frothing. As a parting thought, please think about this question : Why does this blog allow you to post here, while antivax blogs take pride in censoring all opposing voices?

"I’m doing just fine without vaccines, and I’m 64."

Hubris is waiting in the wings with a case of shingles.

I’m doing just fine without vaccines, and I’m 64.

Sorry, that's not how the song goes.

Im in neither the "Pro" or "Anti" camps here. Just playing a little devil's advocate… Because thats what good science needs!
My main issue with this article, and comments above, is that I keep seeing the words "pseudo-science" and "fear-mongering". But there's plenty of that to go around on both sides of such a contentious issue.

So… This leads to one of the main problems with vaccine research, and that’s bias. In a 2010 review I found that Tom Jefferson and his group at Cochrane Collaboration (an independent group that does meta-analyses of studies on various topics) published, they actually included a warning in bold text that was underneath the authors’ conclusions, and I want to quote from this as well. It says:

“Warning: This review includes 15 out of 36 trials funded by industry (four had no funding declaration). An earlier systematic review of 274 vaccine studies published up through 2007 found that industry-funded studies were published in more prestigious journals and cited more than other studies independently from methodological quality and size. Studies funded from public sources were significantly less likely to report conclusions favorable to the vaccines.”

Meaning the rate at which studies were cited had nothing to do with how good they were. It had everything to do with whether they were funded by the industry or not.

That is a well-known phenomenon in the world of medical research. It's something called the “file drawer” phenomenon. Where if a drug company does a study and the results are not favorable to the drug, then that study will end up in, you guessed it, the file drawer.

Like it or not, there is just as much bad science (or "pseudoscience") going on with both sides of this debate.

At this point and time, the main argument should still be about why there are so few, properly done, non-biased, independent studies out there. Instead of having to hear people who've already made up their minds just shout at each other from the rooftops. There's still too much gray area.

Last point: Don't forget with an issue like vaccines, average people are just looking for whats best for them and their families. Even with the article in question, they are just putting out there what they truly believe to be good information. Right or wrong, I doubt there is any malice behind it. And both sides it should be met with constructive debate, not anger and name-calling. That doesn't move the data forward.

MikeP, I think the issue is that the average person (parent or otherwise) is not capable of reading a research paper and determining whether it was correctly designed and the conclusions are valid.

They have to fall back on something they *do* understand.

That is a well-known phenomenon in the world of medical research Tom Jefferson and influenza.

FTFY.

It’s something called the “file drawer” phenomenon.

Publication bias is broader than this, and given that not all research is conducted by Big pHARMa, not especially relevant.

Like it or not, there is just as much bad science (or “pseudoscience”) going on with both sides of this debate.

No, there's not, and as phrased, there is no debate either.

In a 2010 review I found that Tom Jefferson and his group at Cochrane Collaboration (an independent group that does meta-analyses of studies on various topics) published, they actually included a warning in bold text that was underneath the authors’ conclusions....

BTW, it always helps to cite one's source, especially when making claims about typography.

Checking the current version doesn't hurt, either.