No, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is NOT a "vaccine skeptic." He is antivaccine. So is Donald Trump.

You are spot on.

Anti-vaxxers love to blur the very clear line between them and us. This cannot happen, especially now. Those who attack vaccines with pseudoscience and lies cannot be allowed to misrepresent themselves to the public, even more so these next four years.

eight traits that define an antivaccine ideologue

I think a ninth trait can be added.
Insisting that vaccine preventable diseases aren't as dangerous as they're made out to be.

Thank you, Orac, for your good, persistent fight. Although it is absurd to have these debates in the XXIst century in America, the reality forces us to do that.

The guy is an incult (I regret that we do not use the word more often), besides a crank and an embarrassment for his family and for the Democratic Party. Why an incult? Because in a modern society, scientific knowledge and respect for science should be part of basic culture for any person, let alone for a graduate of Harvard, an environmentalist and a member of the political elite.

The next four years will be very difficult, to be polite, which is why all of us, cultured people, who support science and scientific inquiry will have to show stronger solidarity and support for the scientific community. And be very demanding of our elected officials to do the same.

The more I watch Trump, the more I am convinced that he doesn't believe in anything but himself. He met with RFK Jr. for no other reason than he knew it would generate headlines & allow him to continue to control the news cycle.

He literally doesn't care what side of an issue he's on, as long as it appears to be controversial....

I bet RFK Jr. will be waiting on the sidelines for quite a while (he shouldn't be holding his breath).....because Trump won't ever "do" anything, he'll just talk about it.

"Maybe I should think of a couple more, in order to bring the number up to an even 10. ?"

Well, here's a candidate for that even 10: the idea that vaccination programs are corporate welfare for Big Pharma, the guys who corrupt everything and everyone 100% successfully (except for the guy selling natural supplements. he's unimpeachable).

Orac writes,

And science advocates and real skeptics are going to be in for a long four years.

MJD says,

Orac and minions, please clarify the phrase "real skeptics".

Using Orac's "antivaccine ideologue" outlined in the article, it's clear that a "real skeptic" will/must be captured by Orac's antivaccine black hole.

In my opinion, if President-Elect Donald Trump is successful at appointing JFK, Jr for an autism/vaccine commission, it may result in healthy compromises that significantly reduce the number of vaccine skeptics.

@Orac,

For several years, I've whined and complained about being in auto-moderation. Now that I'm back in auto-mod, I will make every effort to make a Stephen Hawking like escape.

It is also instructive to compare this paragraph from RFK Jr.:

The enablers may not belong in Nuremburg, but they do belong in jail, Bobby said. “I would do a lot to see Paul Offit and all these good people behind bars,” he said, after listing Offit’s litany of lies and profit. Just to make sure people got the point, he returned to it in his speech. “Is it hyperbole to say they should be in jail? They should be in jail and the key should be thrown away.”

with this entry from John Baez's Crackpot Index:

40 points for claiming that when your theory is finally appreciated, present-day science will be seen for the sham it truly is. (30 more points for fantasizing about show trials in which scientists who mocked your theories will be forced to recant.)

RFK Jr. also ticks the entries for suggesting that a famous figure secretly disbelieves in a theory he publicly supports, playing the Nazi card, playing the establishment conspiracy card, the Galileo gambit, as well as multiple statements that are generally considered false and adhered to despite careful correction.

A psychoceramic study of the man might be amusing if the potential consequences were not so serious.

~ RFK, Jr. either lies or is deluded:
He spoke to one scientist ( ... ) who, he said, “was actually very honest. She said it’s not safe. She said we know it destroys their brains.” ~

I know anecdotes are not the same as data, but I am fully vaccinated, in addition to having had some extra stuff gratuitously "pumped" into my body like yellow fever, typhoid, Hep B, rabies... and I can assure Mr Kennedy that my brain is still functioning the way it was intended by its creator/intelligent designer and/or evolution. I know that everyone else who works alongside me in our area of research has received more or less the same number of shots, and all of us successfully went on to do postgrad work. But then... maybe things are different here in continental Europe? ;-)

As one who watches this nonsense from the opposite side of the Atlantic, can I be the only one who wonders if the only reason anyone listens to RFK Jr's rubbish is because of his name and family history?

If he was called Elmer Phudd and came from Biloxi, would we have ever heard of him?

Pretty much convinced yourselves, eh guys.

So why is there a government agency that has paid out over $2.5 billion to victims of vaccine injury?
https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/

Either you own your own body or the government doed.
http://www.primaryfundamentalright.org/index.php?pageName=pfrWhatIs

If vaccines work you don't need to worry about the unvaccinated, surely? I mean that's the whole point of them right? Unless of course they don't work.

Yes, but isn’t it the same with you all (and us as well) hanging on every word of One Of The Royals? Can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen the phrase, “the royal family have always used homeopathy”, over the last 40 years.

If he was called Elmer Phudd and came from Biloxi, would we have ever heard of him?

If he were Republican and were a member of Congress, then quite possibly yes. The competition for Dumbest Republican Politician is quite stiff, and one of the leading contenders is the chairman of the House Science Committee.

I have an autism spectrum condition.
Yes, RFK the Lesser, my brain is gone, hijacked and falsely imprisoned in a Nazi death camp.
What can I say in response except: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTmQWqXdBzM

I wonder if he really thinks he's pro-vaccine and just calling for safety or if he's aware that that's untrue. Doesn't make any practical difference: he's still anti-vaccine through and through. But I sometimes wonder about what these people think.

The danger from Trump and his henchmen goes beyond "mere" vaccine denial.
This article by Emily Willingham should scare you all as much as it scares me.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham/2017/01/12/donald-trump-is-…

@Nanea Taylor, I think it's both.
He has deluded himself so much that he doesn't realise he's lying. I believe it's the old case of "to be a successful liar, first deceive yourself".

darwinslapdog

I don't hang on every word of the Royals, though I'm not going to forget that our future king texted his then mistress now wife that he 'wanted to be your tampon'. I do keep an eye on what Charles is up to because he has undue influence that often needs to be countered by rational people.

" it's funny how this is all in private" - saith Orac

Yep, I've heard that before:
accomplished woo-meisters get SBMers admit to all sorts of malfeasance off the record and
there are secret documents ferreted away somewhere ( in Nebraska perhaps)
and the government hides data or distorts it
What else?
Research that no SB periodical will ever print,
things that doctors will never tell you etc.
I've heard it all a thousand times.

Mike Adams ( NN, today) mentions someone we know, Dr DG, in his latest anti-vax screed about child abusers ( i.e vaccine supporters)

Adams is now a heavy metal expert.
Right, probably likes Metallica .

A psychoceramic study of the man might be amusing if the potential consequences were not so serious.

C'mon aboard, I promise you, we won't hurt the kiln.

Adams is now a heavy metal expert.
Right, probably likes Metallica .

I imagine it's more along the lines of a large tuba section.

Remember, Opus played tuba with Deathtöngue (later Billy and the Boingers).

The more I watch Trump, the more I am convinced that he doesn't believe in anything but himself. He met with RFK Jr. for no other reason than he knew it would generate headlines & allow him to continue to control the news cycle.

He literally doesn't care what side of an issue he's on, as long as it appears to be controversial....

I don't think so. Not about this. He was saying the same sorts of things about vaccines and autism back in 2007, long before it could have been expected to make much in the way of headlines for him, and he's been utterly consistent since then about his belief that vaccines cause autism.

Bernard Palmer: "So why is there a government agency that has paid out over $2.5 billion to victims of vaccine injury?"

Here is a little math story for you to work on: This is a link to the NVICP statistics, and the first table is the data from 2006 through 2014:
https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/data/statisticsreport.pdf

Now look at that table and go to the very bottom where it says "Grand Total." Take the first number which is the total number of vaccine doses for that time period (2,532,428,541 doses). Then run your finger along that row and find the total number of compensated claims (2310 compensations). Now here is the hard part: divide the first number by the second number.

Please tell us what that number is, and then explain what it means.

I'll take famous, deluded Americans for 10 points. Cue Alex Trebek.

Here in Italy an online-only media, Il Post, has translated entirely (under license) the WaPo article, the first in your list.
They haven't translated RFK Jr. as "vaccine skeptic" but as "anti-vaxxer" and "conspiracy theorist".

Seen from abroad the health policies of your new President are very worrysome.

The Italian government has just reviewed the L.E.A. (Basic Levels of Care) granted free to all citizen by our S.S.N. (National Health Service). Some vaccines have been added, for example HPV for 11y.o. boys, anti-meningitis B for newborns, anti-meningitis booster dose for teens, and others.

I hope that the US are not going in the opposite direction.

@ #11 Bernard Palmer

So why is there a government agency that has paid out over $2.5 billion to victims of vaccine injury? . . . If vaccines work you don’t need to worry about the unvaccinated, surely? I mean that’s the whole point of them right? Unless of course they don’t work.

From the web site you linked to:

Since 1988, over 17,732 petitions have been filed with the VICP. Over that 27- year time period, 15,312 petitions have been adjudicated, with 5,143 of those determined to be compensable, while 10,169 were dismissed. Total compensation paid over the life of the program is approximately $3.5 billion.

The actual total payouts have been even greater than $2.5 billion. The average is about $700,000 per settled or adjudicated compensation, including lawyers' fees for dismissed cases. What is your point, that someone claims that vaccines can cause no harm to anyone, ever, or that vaccines are 100% prophylactic? I don't think you will find anyone around here painting with that broad of a brush. I advise stepping away from the straw man.

Dave @ 14, rarely do I click youtube video link, but I tried the one you provided.
Brought a smile to my face, which sent the cat running from the room.

@Orac, another addition, the antivaxer confidently informing one and all that polio still exists in the US, but is called EV68.
Despite the utterly different genetics between the two viruses.

#11 @Bernard Palmer

Come now, you'll have to try harder than that.

Old Rockin' Dave: Love that video. Applause!

MJD: Since everyone else has you on ignore, I'll bite. I'm bored and have nothing better to do.

A real skeptic has room for the possibility they are wrong, and are delighted when it is conclusively proved they are wrong because it means a wonderful new discovery has taken place. That's a big of an overgeneralization, but the basic idea is simply that.

A lot of people thought the idea of tetonic plates and a single continent was lunacy when it was first proposed. Ditto germ theory. Florence Nightingale did not believe in germ theory when it was first proposed; her Notes on Nursing's recommendations on light, fresh air, and cleanliness were right for the wrong reasons. But she wasn't a loon, she came around quickly when she saw the numbers and the statistics (were you aware that she is not only the Mother of Modern Nursing, but the Mother of Modern Statistics?).

Antivaccine loons can never be skeptics because there is no room in their world view that vaccines could possibly be safe. In fact, every time the evidence pulls them further and further away from a particular claim, they double down and invent new reasons why vaccines must be unsafe. That's why we went from thimerosol to aluminum adjuvants to formaldehyde as the villain of the week when it comes to vaccine manufacture.

Orac: if you need something else for your list, how about the fact most antivaxxers will say, "and I vaccinated my kids." Funny how many seem to claim that. I actually believe RFK Jr when he claims it; he can afford the best health care and to risk "spreading out the shots", leaving his kids at risk for exposure.

I'd also say in response to MJD's post, good compromises? Really?

Argument to moderation fallacy much.

Although most people don't compromise enough, there are times when there should be no compromise at all. There are times when one side of an argument is absolutely, completely wrong, and should be aggressively marginalized.

There is no ethical compromise between "saving as many children from childhood diseases as possible" and "letting some kids die because their parents are afraid of shots."

The first time a mother told me her child became autistic the very night he was vaccinated, I didn't believe her. I dismissed her. That is something I will always regret.

I'll suggest it's not cause for major worry that RFKJ is labeled 'vaccine skeptic', based on how J. Q. public likely takes the meaning and inference of the term. That is, it doesn't denote 'skeptic' in any of the philosphical senses, * just a "doubter" in the broadest descriptive sense. It's connotations are not necessarily good or bad. To the extent 'skeptic' alone deviates from neutral in value, it skews slightly to the negative. But where the connotations fall in the end depends on the context – which will, of course, be interpreted differently by different people. But for most folks, in the case of vaccines, I think 'vaccine skeptic' is more of a subtle dig than a subtle endorsement.

The first definition of 'skeptic' popped up by Google is vale-neutral: "a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual." The value that will attach then depends on how valid the reader takes the questioned thing to be. To call someone a 'gravity skeptic', would be to call them a nutjob. Part of the insult is that the use isn't just literal 'correct', but a form of amplification by understatement. In such a reading, it's just as nasty as 'denier' but in a different direction: being so mentally muddled as to doubt the undoubtable is in some ways worse than just being totally wrong-headed about it.

The difference is that 'skeptic' can be read different ways, while 'denier' is unmistakably pejorative – which is why it's unproductive to expect news reports to adopt the term, however true and warranted it might be. It violates the the news canons of 'balance' and 'objectivity' – which become the norm in the early 20th century not out any commitment to 'reason', but to make newspapers an effective vehicle for mass market advertising. 'News', as opposed to opinion, must appear to be non-partisan. Thus, the front page stories can only report, "Donald Trump said yesterday that...." instead of "Donald Trump lied yesterday that..." even when the latter is unquestionably true. More to the point at hand, news organizations have gone through many contentious battles over the terms used to designate different political positions, ultimately settling on using whatever groups chose to call themselves. Thus, in 'news' pieces, you will never see "anti-abortion" or "pro-abortion", only "Pro-Life" and "Pro-Choice". Regular news consumers intuitively understand that, in the realm of politics, euphemism is the rule in headline terminology. So no, you won't be seeing 'anti-vaxer' used in news stories, either.

Realistically, you can only expect a news editor to employ the most brief, descriptive, non-partisan, noninflammatory terminology. The only plausible alternative I can imagine an editor using for RFKJ is 'vaccine critic'. Would you find that objectionable? (...even if you would prefer stronger language). Well, I think 'vaccine skeptic' is more or a less a synonym for 'vaccine critic', except it's shaded more towards the pejorative (between the lines, as they say).

The reason for this, I think, is that 'vaccine critic' makes clear literal sense, and 'vaccine skeptic' doesn't. What does a 'vaccine skeptic' doubt? The actual existence of things called vaccines? That the shots actually vaccinate? Really, it's an odd term to denote 'someone who thinks vaccines cause autism'. In contrast to the far more straightforward choice of 'vaccine critic', it carries some subtextual pull of the silliness or non sequitur of its literal meanings.

In the end, labels used in news stories will tend to be open to interpretation to a degree that parsing their meaning won't get you very far in critical analysis. Those nine different stories Orac linked with heads calling RFKJ a 'vaccine skeptic' could have nine different shades of value associating the term with either sensible criticism or its antithesis. since most readers skip out of news stories a few paragraphs in, the best gauge of ideological framing is probably taking an overall impression of the headline and the first three paragraphs as a totality. [Which I don't have time to do, not that you'd find any write-up I'd offer here worth the bandwidth :-). ]
________

* BTW, in classical philosophy, 'skepticism' does not signify "the process of applying reason and critical thinking to determine validity" (Brian Dunning), but, in contrast, "it's impossible to know the truth about anything', (Academic Skepticism), or "one should refrain from making truth claims" (Pyrrhonic Skeptisim)... http://tinyurl.com/zyn7gqc

RFK is a spoiled rich child from an organized crime family.
Whadja 'xpect?

#18 Jazzlet

I thought Charles The Odd is to be bypassed? The Royal Family would be ridiculed should he be made King.

So let's see, the Presidential Commission on vaccine safety chaired by RFK Jr. will include the following panelists:

Suzanne Humphries
Sherry Tenpenny
Russell Blaylock
Andrew Wakefield
Tetyana Obukhanych
Neil Z. Miller
Dan Olmsted
Mark Geier
J.B. Handley
Mike Adams
Jenny McCarthy
Barbara Loe Fisher
and for balance:
Bob Sears

Who am I missing? Oh yes, the father-of-the-year:

http://patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/01/13/father-who-let-his-…

@Dangerous Bacon:
As long as Canadians are eligible, how about:
Christopher Shaw
Lucija Tomljenovic
Lawrence Solomon?

Take them...please.

Dangerous Bacon ask (#35),

Who am I missing?

MJD says,

Orac should be on the list to bring balance. Although Mike Adams probably wouldn't show if Orac was part of the autism/vaccine commission. :-)

"The first time a mother told me her child became autistic the very night he was vaccinated, I didn't believe her. I dismissed her. That is something I will always regret."
Chelsea, autism involves a distinctive set of structural changes in the brain caused by an alteration in the mechanism by which some structures are developed and pruned away.. This simply doesn't happen in the course of an afternoon, or even an afternoon and an evening.

@Dangerous Bacon #36: Dr. Mercola is a shoe-in for your list. His latest warning about vaccines is titled "Meningitis Vax Tied to Bell’s Palsy Risk".

#24, #27, #29

Bit scary eh? Bet you didn't know that website existed, did you? Not to worry. I except we'll find out a lot more once Mr Kennedy gets busy. Looks like the games up guys. Soon you'll all have to get real jobs.

Um, no Bernard. If Kennedy "gets busy" spreading his AV lies more publicly to terrify greater numbers of parents out of vaccinating, I will sadly be *busier* at my job keeping children healthy --treating more cases of pertussis, flu, chickenpox, rotavirus and quite likely cases of measles and meningitis (or admitting them to the hospitalist as is more likely today). Then the morbidity and mortality of these preventable disease outbreaks will be on Kennedy's hands and yours. Vaccines work so well people have forgotten what these diseases were like. Luddites like you, Bernard will remind them in the most contemptible way.

You mean a website detailing a public program, in existence for more than 30 years, who's information is public, has been public, and is advertised on every single VIS given before every vaccination in the United States?

And I thought anti-vaxers studied?

Dear Chris,
I'm glad you see yourself as a saviour for children. In my mind there is no greater task than that of tending to their well being. And though it may seem paradoxical that is why I am on websites like this ttrying to get the so called intellectual classes to open their eyes enough to see how much misery their myopia is causing.
Most vaccines are probably unneeded. MMR is dangerous in its present form. Autism is endemic and the medical profession is to blame. As simple as that. Hopefully Kennedy will will let some light in and soon.
Some 35 years ago I discovered that by laying a baby on it's stomach could activate the facial trigeminal nerves that in turn initiated a 'Diving Reflex" where the tongue became a sea water valve totally blocking off the airways. I did this by experiments on myself. Very scarey. Not being a medico it took me a long time to convince those in charge that a cold pillow/bedsheet was a possible hazard. The petechia in the windpipe helped and Tasmania became the first state in world to advocate putting babies to sleep on the backs. Crib death almost disappeared overnight.
Unfortunately I believe SIDS victims are in a state of extreme hibernation and are possibly alive until their autopsy. I call this cold air 'drowning' . I also think there is a strong possiblity that many autistic children are in a form of diving reflex 'drowning' possibly caused from either the pain of the jab or the ingredients which sends them into a 'surface' hibernation. Again the presence of petechia could prove /disprove this idea. As you know autism symptoms are similar to a near death drowning. This is why I think an oxygen/helium air mixture as used in deep water diving might help recovery.
Anyway, if you had not called me a Luddite we would not be having this interesting conversation. For me that is.

Well, that's a whole new heaping helping of crazy right there.....

(Dammit, my Return key isn't working again, pardon the overly-long single paragraph format.) I have a wild hypothesis: One thing we know about ASDs is that they include the sense of being constantly overstimulated or overwhelmed or overloaded with stimuli. So: start with a kid who is already showing subtle signs of ASD, and who will probably be diagnosed a little later regardless of anything else. The plain physical pain of getting their shots is overwhelming to the kid, and pushes him/her over the threshold into overt ASD behaviors, which the parents immediately notice and attribute to the shots, but for the wrong reason. If this is correct, then the simple expedient of using a topical anaesthetic should eliminate that problem entirely, and also eliminate much of the upset that all kids have about getting shots. (I have early childhood memories of the pain of getting shots and dreading going to the doctor because more shots. Anecdotes != data, but in any case it's certainly testable that children who are given a topical anaesthetic won't get upset & cry when they're given their shots.)

I didn't see (44) before I posted (46). Suffice to say they are not the same thing, and I'm highly "skeptical" (in the correct sense of the word) about "diving reflex" and "drowning response" as causes for ASDs, not to mention the idea that autism is like a near-death drowning. The latter should produce a near-death experience (NDE), so if that was even remotely correct, we would see folks with ASDs talking about light and love and oneness etc., same as other folks who have had NDEs. But we see no such behavior. In any case the mechanism that I'm suggesting may account for the anecdotes, is entirely different (extreme response to pain) and trivially easy to test (local anaesthetic).

Whoa. We haven't had as nutty a commenter as Bernard around here in a long time. SIDS victims are in a state of extreme hibernation and are possibly alive until their autopsy? That's a whole new level of crazy that I haven't seen in quite some time.

Ok, you're not a Luddite, Bernard. Feel better?

No, it's not dead. It's hibernating. Lovely plumage.

Hibernating, like the dead parrot?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218

@ # 41 Bernard Palmer

. . . Bet you didn’t know that website existed, did you? . . .

There is a web site you might find useful; it is called Google . You can use it to search for many things, even on specific web sites. I suggest you use it for this one, using the terms "Vaccine Court," "VICP," and "Vaccine Injury Compensation." You could also use the search function of this site itself. Failing this and just spouting stuff increases your chances of making a fool of yourself in public.

P.S. Please be advised that trying to post making claims based on the VAERS database (https://vaers.hhs.gov/) is very likely to have the same result

@Bernard Palmer (#44),

The ability to communicate your thoughts so skillfully at the age of 88 is a gift.

Though, I'm assuming your the articulate author Bernard Palmer from Austrailia:

http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/11089589?q&versionId=12981682+44282625

Dear Mr. Palmer,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts at the most judgmental, critical, and entertaining Science blog on earth.

Sorry Michael.
This is me.
http://www.primaryfundamentalright.org/index.php?pageName=disclaimer

Orac is correct as usual.

Oh wow....I haven't read a manifesto that crazy since the Unibomber......

Oh, Bernie, Bernie, Bernie.... Of course I have known that webpage existed for years. Which is how I came up with that little math story problem in the first place.

I see you are one of the many anti-vaxers who do not know how to divide the number of total vaccines given by the total compensated claims. Either you don't know what I mean when I said "divide the first number by the second number", or you have no idea there is built in calculator in any device that can access the internet.

"MMR is dangerous in its present form."

Which MMR in which country? The one used in Australia could be different from the one in the USA. When the UK first introduced MMR vaccination in 1988, they used three different ones.

Now, the USA has been using the same MMR since 1978. So where is the data showing autism increased in the 1980s due to that vaccine?

Most vaccines are probably unneeded. MMR is dangerous in its present form. Autism is endemic and the medical profession is to blame. As simple as that.

Except for the part where one, y'know, defends one's assertions.

This is why I think an oxygen/helium air mixture as used in deep water diving might help recovery

In that setting, the use of the mixture is to offset nitrogen narcosis:

Except for helium and probably neon, all gases that can be breathed have a narcotic effect...

Narcosis results from breathing gases under elevated pressure, ...

The cause of narcosis is related to the increased solubility of gases in body tissues, as a result of the elevated pressures at depth...

The precise mechanism is not well understood, but it appears to be the direct effect of gas dissolving into nerve membranes and causing temporary disruption in nerve transmissions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_narcosis

Well, Bernard Palmer, there is another medical use which may be more in line with your thinking:

Heliox, a mixture of helium and oxygen, has a density that is less than that of air. Breathing heliox leads to a reduction in resistance to flow within the airways, and consequently to a decrease in the work of breathing (WOB), particularly in disorders that are characterized by increased airways resistance. Beneficial effects have been observed in patients with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), bronchiolitis, bronchopulmonary dysplasia and upper airways obstruction. Until we have conclusive data that attest to the efficacy of heliox in such conditions, its use will remain controversial. Meanwhile, it appears wise not to incorporate heliox therapy into routine practice because of technical complications and high costs.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC137275/

Unfortunately I believe SIDS victims are in a state of extreme hibernation and are possibly alive until their autopsy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbE8E1ez97M

This is me.

"Palmer is also the designer owner of CashRamSpam, the world's first money based spam free email system."

Good L-rd, that was a dumb idea even for 2003.

Oh, Bernard, Bernard, Bernard! Oh, dear!
"As you know autism symptoms are similar to a near death drowning. This is why I think an oxygen/helium air mixture as used in deep water diving might help recovery."
Have you actually met any, you know, ...autistic people? Or does your knowledge of autism come from watching "Rain Man" on a loop? Or have you sucked it out of your thumb? I'm on the autism spectrum. My 60+ years of living with my form of autism is nothing like a near-death experience, of which I have had a few (choking, anaphylaxis, and, yes, near drowning).
The development of autism involves characteristic changes in the way that the growing brain develops and prunes away its components. The way it plays out pretty much rules out overnight change to autism, and there is growing evidence that signs can be seen at 6 months of age, and good reason to believe that it is not only congenital but may have a hereditary component.
The use of heliox mixtures in diving is due to the way that changing pressure affects the solubility of nitrogen in the blood and has nothing to do with whether one is diving, working in a bridge caisson, or doing anything that risks going from a high-pressure environment to a low-pressure one too quickly. or do you think babies in the crib turn autistic because they have the bends?

“As you know autism symptoms are similar to a near death drowning. This is why I think an oxygen/helium air mixture as used in deep water diving might help recovery.”

Speaking in a squeaky Donald Duck voice is NOT RECOVERY.

I would love to his his "comparison" of those supposed symptoms...

I have a question - When is it acceptable for a public figure to express skepticism about the safety of vaccines?

@Dorit It seems to me that with this criteria you are limiting the acceptability of skepticism statements to experts. Few non-experts can express their skepticism in such specifics. Probably not your intent, but it would have that effect.

Beth, John Salamone was a parent, not a an expert. Dorit was relating what really happened when the OPV was replaced by IPV.

Mr. Palmer: your fascination with child pornography is . . . chilling, to say the least.

Please quit pretending your obsession with vaccines has anything to do with child welfare. You've made it quite clear you don't give a damn about children.

Asking legitimate questions is fine - but when evidence (mountains of evidence, in fact) is provided that answers those questions, then continuing to pursue said "questions" is not appropriate.

I can only hope Bernard isn't a parent and if he is, his children have gotten far away from him at an early age. Good grief what a sicko.

While numerous media sources fell for the "vaccine skeptic" description of RFK Jr., at least the Columbus Dispatch got it right. They ran an editorial yesterday titled "Vaccine panel could do harm - Especially with anti-vaxxer at the helm"

Excerpt:

"Perhaps a commission on vaccine safety is a good idea, if only to reassure fretful parents who have been misled by ignorant conspiracy mongers. Debate over vaccine safety has spread like a case of measles since Andrew Wakefield, a British doctor, published fraudulent research in 1998 liking a common childhood vaccine to autism. This false claim has been debunked — repeatedly."

"Ideally, shouldn’t such a panel be led by credentialed scientists and not self-proclaimed experts? Celebrity is no substitute for knowledge, fact and sound reasoning. Just who might Kennedy put on such a commission? Fellow anti-vaxxers Britney Spears and Charlie “Tiger Blood” Sheen?"...

"Trump himself has expressed support for the theory of an autism-vaccination link. But Americans had hoped that the real-estate magnate and developer would know what he doesn’t know and turn to experts. The possibility of a vaccine conspiracy theorist like Kennedy is alarming."

Chris - I said few not none. And I was specifically asking about public figures. Someone who's opinion is likely to make the first page, like RFK, Jr. It seems to me that Orac and most commentators here find skeptical opinions about current vaccine safety to be completely unacceptable in any publication for the general public. This is probably not the case. Hence my question regarding what circumstances would be acceptable.

Orac and most commentators here find skeptical opinions about current vaccine safety to be completely unacceptable in any publication for the general public.

Neither Orac nor the commentariat have veto powers over publications, and are not in a position to accept or otherwise, so I don't know what you're on about.

Beth: I can't presume to speak for others. But I'll speak for myself.

I find allegedly skeptical opinions about current vaccine safety based on long debunked conspiracy theories to be unacceptable in any publication whatsoever. I have a problem with falsehoods being presented as fact under the false flag of skepticism.

Real skepticism reflecting a potentially genuine concern, say for example a specific manufacturer was producing a vaccine with poor quality assurance controls (as happened with an influenza vaccine a few years ago leading to a shortage, or with privately compounded steroids in another case), are another matter entirely. But so called vaccine skeptics don't go that route because they begin with the presumption that vaccines are to be treated with suspicion regardless of how they are made. That's why we've jumped from one ingredient to the next as "contamination": from thimerosol to aluminum to formaldehyde. There is nothing in a vaccine that makes these people happy, so there's no point in indulging such idiocy any further.

Robert Kennedy is anti-thimerosal, that much is certain.

But who isn't really. Not even the most die-hard vaccine promoter can justify it: not Dorit Reiss, not Paul Offit, ect, ect.

They all end-up looking like anti-scientific Eli LIlly apologists.

Which pediatric vaccines still use it, Jessika?

Jessika, I'm not aware of any research that demonstrates any significant risk from thimerosol. It was removed pretty much to shut the cranks up.

It was never in the MMR.

Jessika, please tell us which vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule is only available with thimerosal.

Do not mention influenza, because there are three type that do not contain thimerosal.

Robert Kennedy is anti-thimerosal, that much is certain.

If this were ever true, I like to think that he would have conceded he was wrong, back in the days when thimerosal was removed from vaccines without any effect on the prevalence of the conditions he had blamed it for.

In the absence of such a concession, we are left with the sad conclusion that RFK Jnr is "pro free publicity for RFK Jnr", and nothing else.

ect, ect.
Is Jessika pro-electroconvulsive therapy?

Wow. I make a comment and I get two straw-man-like responses that are exactly the same: "what vaccines still have it" and whatnot.

That had nothing to do with my comment. I won't even bother responding to those knee-jerk automatons that haven't said anything original in years.

And for Panacea, there is plenty of research that demonstrates the toxicity of thimerosal. If you "are not aware of any", I would suggest that start looking.

And to German Dr., I am not pro-electroconvulsive therapy.
What are you a Doctor in anyway?

And for Panacea, there is plenty of research that demonstrates the toxicity of thimerosal. If you “are not aware of any”, I would suggest that start looking.

You make the claim, you produce the evidence. That's how it works.

Robert Kennedy is anti-thimerosal, that much is certain.

But who isn’t really. Not even the most die-hard vaccine promoter can justify it: not Dorit Reiss, not Paul Offit, ect, ect [sic].

Well, I can, but it's more straightforward to simply point out that you lose.

Medsape login page?

Looks like Narad is a heavy-hitter. Did you read the part where it said "Sign in for a free account"? I was expective something of substance.

What the hell is this supposed to show?

Jessika, you forgot to answer the main question: what vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule is only available with thimerosal?

This is not a straw man, it has to do with with actual reality. If you do not respond with actual data, then we will assume your stuck in the past. To be honest, you will answer that question. If you don't, then we will assume you are stuck in the past by over ten years.

So sad.

Ooops, grammar fail: "If you do not respond with actual data, then we will assume you' are stuck in the past. "

Come on, Jessika... do tell us what dangerous vaccines we need to be so afraid of in 2017. Oh, and please do not mention the DTaP that was discontinued five years ago... just like not mentioning influenza. Come on, do better than run away run away... do try better.

How about get off my back you braindead troll. You have been asking the same stupid question for years now.

As if your entire tangent comes down to: "We'll even if thimerosal had poisoned people, which it didn't, it doesn't matter because it's put into less vaccines in lower amounts now."

I would rather point out the use of a totally inappropriate substance in biologicals for decades just to show that the drug companies and government agencies are stupid at best and criminal at worst than answer your stupid childish pleadings: "Answer my question first!"

Bla bla bla.

Who do you work for? You have been asking the same stupid question for five years online seemingly 8 hours/day as if it were your job.

I won’t even bother responding to those knee-jerk automatons
That is certainly convenient.

And to German Dr., I am not pro-electroconvulsive therapy.
What are you a Doctor in anyway?
Now, now. Just because I am a pompous pedantic git, and I affect a Teutonic-sounding title, that does not make me German!
My PhD (since you ask) is in psychology, although I also have a degree in quantum physics, and I am certified to operate a Heidelberg rotary-platen offset printing press.

Anti-vaxers didn't want Thimerosal in vaccines, so they got their wish and it was removed (by the very same authorities they claim as hopelessly corrupt).

Studies were done that showed it wasn't a problem, but anti-vaxers still can't let it go.

It was never about an ingredient or adjuvant, they just hate vaccines.

Jessika: you started the who thing by claiming (incorrectly) that RFK Jr is anti thimerosol, not anti-vaccine.

This makes no sense considering thimerosol isn't used any more. Which is a shame, since it makes vaccines more expensive because it changes how we have to store them, and means we can't use multi-dose vials anymore (multi dose is cheaper, and easier when doing vaccination clinics in the developing world). But if thimerosol is not in vaccines, and RFK Jr is only anti-thimerosol, then why is he still ranting about vaccines?

Chris asked a good question. You can't answer it so you get defensive.

And yes, YOU should defend the notion thimerosol is dangerous because that's what YOU claimed. Defend your own position. I already understand the difference between ethylmercury and methylmercury. Do you? I also understand "the dose makes the poison." Do you understand what that actually means?

Table salt is perfectly safe to sprinkle on my food to improve the taste. Drinking sea water is not safe. Does that mean we should ban table salt?

Worse, sodium explodes on contact with water and chlorine is a poinous gas.....

Yet salt is legal?

How is that even possible, Jessika?

Jessika: "As if your entire tangent comes down to: “We’ll even if thimerosal had poisoned people, which it didn’t, it doesn’t matter because it’s put into less vaccines in lower amounts now.”"

Surely Jessika is aware, just as RFK Jr. is aware, that only a single formulation of a single vaccine on the childhood schedule still contains thimerosal preservative - multidose vial influenza vaccine, which isn't even commonly given in the U.S. and is easily avoided if one chooses.

In that light, it is colossally dishonest to call for "the removal of thimerosal from vaccines" (plural, as RFJ Jr. did in his recently published book) or make reference to thimerosal in vaccines (plural) as Jessika did.

Antivaxers who deliberately lie in this fashion should not be taken seriously, and certainly should not head up a commission purporting to deal with vaccine safety.

@Jessika:

I would rather point out the use of a totally inappropriate substance in biologicals for decades...

Thus speaks the arrogance of ignorance. Thimerosal's job was to be an antibacterial agent. It enabled multidose vials to be used, which were cheaper than single dose vials. Yet you, not knowing what the reason for including it was, dismiss it as "inappropriate".

Jessika, you have just admitted that you do not have a clue. You are just regurgitating the ignorance you read elsewhere, and got cornered when you were asked to support it.

I may post one or two comments on this blog per day, and yet in your anti-reality I am asking the same question 8 hours/day. Perhaps I ask it because I want you to learn how to think independently. The first step is to realize that lawyers are not qualified researchers of medical science.

Medsape login page?

Looks like Narad is a heavy-hitter. Did you read the part where it said “Sign in for a free account”? I was expective something of substance.

What the hell is this supposed to show?

Hey, who am I?

[T]here is plenty of research that demonstrates the toxicity of thimerosal. If you “are not aware of any”, I would suggest that start looking.

I may post one or two comments on this blog per day, and yet in your anti-reality I am asking the same question 8 hours/day.

Jessika does have a certain repeat-customer aroma.

Hmmm, a certain window washer in Wisconsin?

Hmmm, a certain window washer in Wisconsin?

The "five years" bit suggests otherwise, but there's time yet to see.

Just because I am a pompous pedantic git, and I affect a Teutonic-sounding title, that does not make me German!
Well not a Bavarian anyway, but I am sure I remember a reference to pickled herring a while ago. Clearly you grew up on the Baltic coast.

# 35 Spectator

I thought Charles The Odd is to be bypassed?

You must be joking.
It would, very likely, precipitate constitutional crises in a couple of dozen countries at a minimum. You might want to check her majesty's current titles. Queen of the UK is just one of many.

Let me stick a fork in the thimerosal issue so we can say it's done.
Yes, there are multidose vials of influenza vaccine that contain thimerosal. I have a documented violent thimerosal allergy; it used to be the preservative in contact lens solutions. I have been vaccinated from those multidose vials without any sign of an allergic reaction, or even a sore arm. The amount used is so small that it almost qualifies as homeopathic, certainly not enough to induce the slightest reaction in me.
If somehow vaccines could be preserved with organic kale juice, the antivax crowd is so given to kneejerk reactions they would be warning us that kale induces autism.

Well not a Bavarian anyway
Don't get me started on bayerische Schweinerie.

jrkrideau: Could you please elaborate? Like Spectator, I assumed that Charles was out of the running, mostly because of the divorce. Are you saying he still is going to inherit the throne? And I'd like to know more about these 'constituitional crises' since, as far as I know, Canada and Australia are only loosely affiliated with England, and most of the former British colonies are independent.

Autism or not, only a madman would use such a compound.

That fact that it was removed proves my point; it was never necessary to begin with.

But that didn't stop this online gang of propagandists from using that falsehood as an argument a decade ago before it was largely removed.

And they still defend it! Unreal.

"Autism or not, only a madman would use such a compound.
That fact that it was removed proves my point; it was never necessary to begin with."
The fact that it was removed proves that idiots who shout the loudest can drown out what's factual. It works. It's safe. It's only gone because that greedy sod Andrew Wakefield wanted to discredit the MMR vaccine so he could rake in the pounds with the vaccine he was working on, and he did it with money that was supposed to go to children who underwent medical accidents. He has the ethics of a wolverine in heat, and he deserved to be struck off the rolls.

[Thimerosal] was never necessary to begin with.

Technically speaking, seatbelts and airbags aren't necessary for a car to work either. I still put mine on though.
The bottom line is, thimerosal was investigated and proven to be safe in the dosages used. Many experts now say that had they known then what they know now, they would never have supported its removal.

Jessika, it is has been gone for fifteen years. Stop whining about it.

And RFK, Jr is still wrong.

That fact that it was removed proves my point

This one?

Not even the most die-hard vaccine promoter can justify it: not Dorit Reiss, not Paul Offit, ect, ect.

Oh, wait, you must mean your new "point."

Censorship is not science. It is a cult.

There is no scientific justification for the vaccination schedule. Never. The vax schedule is the product that should be tested and the volunteers for both sides exist in the millions. The unvaxxed is the control group. Decades into any schedule, still no study.

Then vaccines are so safe that every vaccine manufacturer in the world refuses liability. Thanks to that dandy NVIC Act of 1986.

Let's think. Would you buy a car that comes with no safety testing or mfr’s liability? You’re living on blind ‘faith.’

Anyone who would smugly say, “The science is clear” or “The science is settled” profoundly misunderstands what science is. Science is a process of inquiry. Any scientific knowledge that any given generation has is always subject to scrutiny. Science is never settled. As conditions change, so does science.

This nation has the most vaccinated children anywhere. The rates of neurological disorders and infant mortality are at record highs. But we're not a third world nation.

Conditions have changed but the science hasn't. Where’s that open debate at? Still living on blind faith.

Benign childhood viruses are not disease. They never were, until vaccines created the disease epidemics. And reclassified a simple virus to a disease status to peddle the product that causes the complications.

Polio was never 'eradicated' because now it exists under difference names to fool the fools. Meningitis, Guillain-Barre, the most popular new names. There's also poliomyelitis, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, epidemic cholera, cholera morbus, spinal meningitis, spinal apoplexy, inhibitory palsy, intermittent fever, famine fever, worm fever, bilious remittent fever, ergotism, post-polio syndrome, acute flaccid paralysis (AFP).

The NIH, CDC, FDA, HHS, and IOM are "captured agencies" of the pharmaceutical industry. So infiltrated by the industry that they no longer serve any regulatory function on behalf of the public, but instead exist to serve the agendas of their industry masters or co-profiteers. In the case of health care, that would be the pharmaceutical industry. It's no secret. Follow the dots.

The mainstream media brings in over 70% of its marketing venue from the pharma industry. Ask the CEO of Fox News.

The medical journals are filled with fraudulent science, but the pharmaceutical industry funds the bulk of its studies. Ask Dr. Richard Horton is the editor in chief of the world’s leading medical journal, The Lancet.

The higher learning institutions use the data from the medical journals to teach the MDs what they're supposed to know. Or the learning institutions will not receive the generous fundings for their new labs, new buildings, their new toys. Ask academia heads.

The MDs, the RNs, the hospitals, the medical complex reps are controlled by legislative policy (‘it is hospital policy’). Policy is controlled by the pharmaceutical industry. Pharma interference in legislative matters to insure profits. Caught red-handed. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3483914/

The CDC buys and sells over $4 billion worth of vaccines annually, the budget is set aside and is public knowledge. The CDC creates the demand by fear-mongering with its regularly scheduled public health regurgitations - "Zika is deadly, get all your vaccines", "The measles are deadly, get your vaccine", "The flu is life-threatening, get your vaccine." Review its financial reports.

You know what the industry wants you to know. It’s not about truth, it’s not about science, the money controls you.

The current "experts" of the field are drugging millions of people with pain killers and psychotropics, drugging children with Speed under the name of Adderall, injecting children and adults with mercury, aluminum, and formaldehyde, and recommending for the consumption of industrial waste (fluoride).

Stop throwing our children under the bus because your salary and your perks are more important to protect than our children are.

Nobody's buying your ‘religion.’ It’s over.

Jessika: thimerosol was necessary to allow vaccines to be distributed in multi-dose vials, and allows many vaccines to be stored without refridgeration. This is a major cost factor. Vaccination could be even cheaper than it is now if we could use the preservative.

That's huge in parts of the world with large populations that need vaccines (and there's a reason their parents will walk miles with their kids when they hear there is a clinic coming), or where electricity availability is shaky at best.

Thimerosol is not dangerous in vaccines, adverse reactions are very rare. There is no reason to exclude it, other than the lunatic ravings of people who have no idea what they're talking about.

And kids die because they can't get access to vaccines before they are exposed.

"lunatic ravings"

In a fashion the mercury turned them into raving lunatics. Yet just as with autism when the thimerosol was removed the lunatic raving continued unabated.

The current occurence of an ASD is 1 in 68 and rising quickly. What will it take for the pro vax side to accept that there is a serious problem with the current schedule? 1 in 10? 1 in 5? 1in 2? Take the blinders off!

With regards to the reference to pedophilia in 'What is the PFR?', to his knowledge Palmer has never seen any child pornography nor is interested to see any but he firmly believes what material you look at is again your business only. He also believes the witch hunt enveloping the western world for people who do look at child pornography will be as destructive on families as is the War on Drugs. He is surprised by the silence from influential voices who have failed to speak out against these modern day quasi-religious purges. He guesses they are all tongue tied by fear of association.

Bernard William Palmer:
1. Your argument fails to consider the fact that child p-rn involves victimizing actual, living, breathing children.
2. Fuck you, you evil piece human waste.

@Robert

The current occurence of an ASD is 1 in 68 and rising quickly. What will it take for the pro vax side to accept that there is a serious problem with the current schedule? 1 in 10? 1 in 5? 1in 2? Take the blinders off!

Quality evidence showing vaccines cause ASD, for one. Quality evidence that the occurence rate is actually "rising quickly". (How quickly? Since when? How steady a rate?National differences?)

PubMed links preferred.

@BustedHalo@BK
Don't want to type that much on my phone, but given that you say Polio was never eradicated, what about smallpox? How do you feel vaccines fared there?

"kids die because they can’t get access to vaccines before they are exposed"

I think they die because they aren't healthy enough to fight off the bugs assaulting all of us all the time. I'm pretty sure most of them were born with an immune system. Why intervene by sticking stuff someone else manufactured (at the expense of horrific torture to innocent animals by the way) straight into your body when you could instead intervene with good nutrition, sanitation, exercise? And if you get unlucky and something makes its way through anyway you can just follow the teachings of Dr. Fred Klenner and shoot up with ascorbic acid. And by the way, if anyone can reference any double blind randomised placebo controlled studies of vaccinated people vs. non I'd like to read it.

Benign childhood viruses are not disease. They never were, until vaccines created the disease epidemics. And reclassified a simple virus to a disease status to peddle the product that causes the complications.

Whoops.

"1 in 10? 1 in 5? 1in 2?"

We're targeting 120% by 2035. Soon neuro-typical will become the disease.

I wish Jessika would get around to that acquired, heritable immunity thingamabob. It would totes stink if it were just hand-waving and mumbling about "epigenetics."

Then vaccines are so safe that every vaccine manufacturer in the world refuses liability. Thanks to that dandy NVIC Act of 1986.

"NVIC law"? BustedHalo@BK seems to have confused the "National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act" with the group of antivax bullsh1t artists who get all spittle-flecked about it. An understandable confusion, I am sure.
I am not convinced that a US law actually covers the rest of the world.

We’re targeting 120% by 2035.

Noted autism expert Stephanie Seneff has this extrapolation thing all figured out:

https://xkcd.com/605/

This nation has the most vaccinated children anywhere. The rates of neurological disorders and infant mortality are at record highs. But we’re not a third world (sic) nation.

You don't have the "most vaccinated children anywhere" -- not even close. Infant mortality is not at a record high -- not even close. You're right on that last one, though, because no less developed country would have elected Donald Trump.

The Australian antivax mob (Meryl Dorey et.al.) have put out the call to supporters to go and fill in the Vaxxed form with their stories of 'vaccine injury' as well. Meryl has always had a hard time remebering that Australia is not America.
So any data from this story collection is going to have a lot of noise in it (but you knew that anyway).
The antivaxxers here have been salivating with glee that Trump is in and has been talking with RFK Jr and Wakefield, they see that as the final vindication of their beliefs and think the whole vaccine industry is going to come crashing down.
Unfortunately for them, the Australian Govt is not going to be changing its stance on vaccines any time soon. :)

You don’t have the “most vaccinated children anywhere” — not even close. Infant mortality is not at a record high — not even close.

The Great Gazoogle informs me that BustedHalo@BK has ventured out from the AoA comfort zone to exude the same multi-level fractal stupidity at Statnews.com (and to make the same complaints about Censorship!! Freeze Peach!!); and has already been given the opportunity to accept facts, by Guy Chapman among others. All to no avail.
I don't thnk that BustedHalo@BK is really here for good-faith debate.

Chris @116: " (at the expense of horrific torture to innocent animals by the way) " - this is not true. Vaccines are not made in animals (with the exception of influenza vaccines made in chicken eggs, which may not even be fertilized). They just plain aren't.
Vaccines are made in cell culture under very, very controlled conditions.
Now, I don't know all to components of the various media used to grow those cell cultures, so some may contain animal products (like proteins), but again, those are animals that were long dead and processed before ever having any interaction with upstream processing of vaccines.

As to the rest of your comment: well aren't you entitled? Why should you get to decide that millions of poor kids all over the world should die?
Also, sometimes even well-fed, exercising, squeaky-clean American kids die of VPDs. So, no, the immune system is not always enough.

BK@BustedHalo above is a troll who recently was infecting "Shot of Prevention."

She's an outright Germ Theory denier.

Feel free to head over to SOP to check out her ramblings.

Other Chris: "And by the way, if anyone can reference any double blind randomised placebo controlled studies of vaccinated people vs. non I’d like to read it."

Here is one dated before the Belmont Report: Efficacy of measles vaccine

Please note where it was done, and the third column of the Table 1. Be sure to tell us how you would design a study that would keep that column full of zeros.

Yes, we are assaulted with pathogens all the time. Except some are not so nice, like measles. I wonder why if the "healthy" child can fight off measles, mumps, pertussis, tetanus, diphtheria, Hib... why a vaccine would cause even more harm.

Of course, that is only if you ignore that those diseases have been known to permanently disable or kill "healthy" children. Oh, wait... you are ignoring all those less than healthy kids with immune disorders or getting treated for cancer, etc. Apparently since they are not healthy enough to survive diseases the deserve to die on your version of "Earth."

Obviously Ezekiel Stephan, Olivia Dahl and the little boy who died from diphtheria in Spain did not meet your expectations of genetic perfection.

Robert: "What will it take for the pro vax side to accept that there is a serious problem with the current schedule?"

Actual scientific evidence. Let us start with the MMR vaccine:

The first version was introduced in the USA in 1971, and updated version was introduced in 1978. If it was a cause of autism, then there should be records dated before 1990 noting that increase coincident with its use in the 1970s and 1980s. Where is it?

The USA is much much larger than the UK. Plus the UK only introduced an MMR (actually three different ones) in 1988. So if the MMR caused autism it would have been noticed in a country that was much larger and using the vaccine much longer than the UK.

Also, if thimerosal or number of vaccines was a problem: wouldn't the population of military brats who were vaccinated often for lots of things have a much higher incidence of autism. I am one of those and I have been vaccinated for smallpox. typhus, typhoid and yellow fever.. along with polio, tetanus and diphtheria. I had to actually measles (?), mumps and chicken pox. Something I wish I could have skipped Especially since I got mumps twice.

Chris (the dumb one)
when you could instead intervene with good nutrition, sanitation, exercise?

So you're basically saying that everyone born say, from 1930 to 1970 lived in an open sewer, ate whatever they could pick off the floor and never, ever went outside? 'Cause I'm pretty sure the older members of the commentariat lived in houses with indoor plumbing at the very least.

Good sanitation is important, but you can't very well sterilize the atmosphere or air. Or soil, if you want to grow anything in it. And oh, gee, the US army in 1917-1919 was made of very healthy, well exercised young men. Funny how it didn't do them much good.

The smart Chris: How did you pull that off? Asking for science.

" Why intervene by sticking stuff someone else manufactured (at the expense of horrific torture to innocent animals by the way) straight into your body when you could instead intervene with good nutrition, sanitation, exercise?"

Because back in the 1950s and 60s my brothers and sisters and schoolmates and I lived in a nice warm house with indoor plumbing and clean water and good food and we still caught all those vaccine-preventable diseases.

PGP: "How did you pull that off? Asking for science."

I have an autistic son, so I have been dealing with these folks for a long time... over fifteen years. I have a bunch of questions that they never answer.

Also, when you give birth to a medically fragile child (seizures / croup / genetic heart disorder) there is lots of time to read in medical waiting rooms. You can see where I get a bit prickly when someone claims a child needs to be "healthy."

Wzrd1: "When our children were in school, they were prohibited from using Wikipedia. I showed them how to find the citations and weed out the rubbish from the good citations, which resulted in excellent grades."

:-)

"Yeah, the yellow fever shot itself sucks, it just sucks a lot less than contracting yellow fever"

I don't remember what happened the first time I got it, because I was a newborn. I was born at Gorgas Hospital in was was then the Panama Canal Zone.

I was ten years old when I got my second Yellow Fever vaccine when my dad was stationed in South America. And then six years later I got myself to the Ft. Clayton medical center to update my smallpox, typhoid, diphtheria and tetanus boosters. By myself by bus... in what was still the Panama Canal Zone.

I am sure the other Chris has never had to walk by a beggar on a little wheeled cart because they were paralyzed by polio. Or gone by cemeteries of the thousands of Panama Canal workers who died from Yellow Fever. There is a reason that the hospital I was born in was named for 22nd Surgeon General of the United States.

"in was was then the Panama Canal Zone." should be "in what was then the Panama Canal Zone."

I have a collection of passports. The early ones are maroon, where my birthplace changed from "Canal Zone" to "Panama Canal Zone." Then when I got my first blue passport, I was told that my birthplace would now be just "Panama." Which is as it should have been all along.

Though when my boys were born in 1988 and 1990 their birth certificates listed the birth place of dad as "Canada", and me as "Other Foreign." Finally in 1994 they put me down as being born in "Panama."

(by the way my first language was Spanish, I speak it as well as any three year old)

Smart Chris: Whoops, I was actually asking how you got mumps, twice. I've been inoculated, but, well, mumps is an easy way to become sterile. (Or at least, easier than surgery, which I can't afford.)

"Benign childhood viruses are not disease. They never were, until vaccines created the disease epidemics."
So all those physicians of centuries past were imagining those epidemics that weren't created until the 20th Century and all those carefully described complications, some of them fatal? A viral infection that causes symptoms is not a disease?
"Polio was never ‘eradicated’ because now it exists under difference names to fool the fools. Meningitis, Guillain-Barre, the most popular new names. There’s also poliomyelitis, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, epidemic cholera, cholera morbus, spinal meningitis, spinal apoplexy, inhibitory palsy, intermittent fever, famine fever, worm fever, bilious remittent fever, ergotism, post-polio syndrome, acute flaccid paralysis (AFP)."
First off the bat, poliomyelitis is the full name of polio. That alone proves that you don't shit from Shinola about medicine. Anyone who thinks that cholera is polio is also proving it. Losing 20% of one's body weight through diarrhea is kind of difficult to confuse with paralysis. Ergotism is poisoning with lysergic acid. I can see how you could be confused. Polio is just exactly like a bad acid trip. As for meningitis, of course that's polio too, and all those cocci in the cerebrospinal fluid are just visiting.
Please tell me where you bought your medical dictionary. It appears to contain new and unique usages that I haven't encountered before. And please don't confuse your Google search with the medical training and real world medical experience of frequent commenters here.

"at the expense of horrific torture to innocent animals by the way"
Vaccines are not produced in animals, if they ever were. You're confusing them with antisera, which aren't used much any more, anyway.
Try to keep up.

More shit-brained propaganda from Panacea:

Jessika: thimerosol was necessary to allow vaccines to be distributed in multi-dose vials, and allows many vaccines to be stored without refridgeration.

Mot an accurate statement at all. Safer preservatives could easily have been used.

Setting up a false dichotomy with "not preservatives" and ":thimerosal".

Shit-brained.

These lines are from Dr. Humphries describing her and Mr. Bystrianyk's book "Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines and the Forgotten History," from this page:

http://www.dissolvingillusions.com/critiques/

If you think she's wrong you should let her know. She feels so strongly about this that she actually committed career suicide to help.

"The key point made in the book is that the majority of infectious disease mortality declined across the board before the advent of vaccines, at the same time as other disease deaths declined; some diseases for which there was no vaccine at all.

Most of the credit for infectious disease mortality reduction, really goes to the radical moves over many decades to improve hygiene, sanitation, nutrition, implement water chlorination, labor laws, provide electricity, etc.

The spectacular reduction in infant mortality from 1800 to now in every developed country with careful records, has everything to do with societal changes, and doctors learning to wash their hands.

“Isabella B” either did not understand this point, or has no idea that the period of public health that we focused on – the mid 1800s to mid 1900s – did NOT include vaccines, antibiotics or even most pharmaceutical drugs that exist today. Or, she chose to ignore it."

"Vaccines are not made in animals (with the exception of influenza vaccines made in chicken eggs, which may not even be fertilized). They just plain aren’t."

The production of vaccines is directly related to experimentation on animals. Each year thousands of rabbits, mice, hamsters, rats, guinea pigs, horses, sheep and donkeys are bled so that their antibodies can be used in the production of antiserums. [Ed Harlow and David Lane, \itAntibodies: A Laboratory Manual\it (Cold Spring Harbor: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories, 1988), p. 93.] Since the 1950s, hundreds of thousands of rhesus monkeys and green monkeys have been sacrificed so that polio vaccine could be grown in their kidney cells. The brain tissue of horses, sheep, and dogs has been used for many years to prepare rabies vaccines. [Harold Johnson and Charles Leach, "Studies On The Single Injection Method Of Canine Rabies Vaccination," \itAmerican Journal of Public Health\it 32 (1942): 176-177.] Rabbits, dogs, ducks, chickens, and guinea pigs are sacrificed to make cell cultures for live rubella and measles vaccines. [Coenraad Henricksen, \itLaboratory Animals in Vaccine Production and Control\it (Norwell, Massachusetts: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988), pp. 37-41.] In the small country of Holland, whose figures on animal experimentation are available, there were 1,208,539 animals used in medical research in 1986, of which 21 percent or 250,950 were experimented on for biological products: vaccines, serums, and other blood products. [Ibid.] It has been conservatively estimated that if about 10 percent of all the animals used in animal research worldwide are employed in some aspect of vaccine production, then ten to twenty million animals are maimed or sacrificed each year to produce vaccines, serums, and other blood products.
The courageous work of animal rights activists has called attention to the inhuman and sometimes barbaric treatment animals are forced to endure in military, other government, corporate, and university laboratories.

A segment of the potency test for the DPT vaccine is described in the Federal Register.

"The mice shall be observed for 14 days. Mice dying within 72 hours after challenge shall be excluded from the test. Records shall be maintained of the number of mice showing both paralysis and enlargement of the head at the end of 14 days. All mice that show both paralysis and enlargement shall be considered as deaths for the purposes of determining the ED 50. [21 C.F.R. sec 600.4 (1990).]

@Jessika:

Mot an accurate statement at all. Safer preservatives could easily have been used.

Name them. Describe their action and explain why they were a better choice.
@ Dimwit Chris, you cited Sue Humphries, a well-known name here. Thanks for the laugh.

The key point made in the book is that the majority of infectious disease mortality declined across the board...

Learn the difference between mortality and morbidity. Just because medicine got better at stopping diseased people from dying doesn't mean that those diseases weren't still dangerous. A few months ago, a German girl named Aliana died from SSPE, a known complication of measles.

If you think [Humphries is] wrong you should let her know. She feels so strongly about this that she actually committed career suicide to help.

Humphries IS wrong. And losing your job because you're too stubborn to admit it is nothing to be proud of.

those who are parroting the CDC/pharma line are not informed. Like religious zealots, they will avoid learning the science and that anti vaxxers use. the entire issue needs to be re-examined, instead of just taken as gospel, but pro vax folks seem unable to listen to even highly informed professionals. Who is a crank?

Phenoxyalcohol is one used in vaccines that inhibits phosphorylation, DNA, and RNA biosnythesis.

Mercury isn't necessary for a preservative Julian. I can't believe that you would challenge this obvious fact.

Is this your job?

The production of vaccines is directly related to experimentation on animals. Each year thousands of rabbits, mice, hamsters, rats, guinea pigs, horses, sheep and donkeys are bled so that their antibodies can be used in the production of antiserums.

Another dipstick proves to be incapable of understanding that vaccines and antisera are completely different.
Details at 11.

Mercury isn’t necessary for a preservative Julian.

Thimerosal is not mercury, just as table salt isn't sodium (explosive in water) and chlorine (very toxic).

\itLaboratory Animals in Vaccine Production and Control\it (Norwell, Massachusetts: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988), pp. 37-41
Dude, when you're cut-and-pasting spam from PETA cranks, you really should strip out the mark-up code so your lack of effort becomes less obvious.

Phenoxyalcohol is one used in vaccines that inhibits phosphorylation, DNA, and RNA biosnythesis.
Mercury isn’t necessary for a preservative Julian.

I for one look forward to the shrieks of outrage from the loonisphere when they hear about this NEUROTOXIC POISON that's being put in CHILDREN'S VACCINES.

Yup, that'd be Fucklesworth.

Phenoxyalcohol is one used in vaccines that inhibits phosphorylation, DNA, and RNA biosnythesis.

Mercury isn’t necessary for a preservative Julian. I can’t believe that you would challenge this obvious fact.

Is this your job?

This is just so beautiful. I think it's made my entire week.

"Mercury isn't necessary for a preservative Julian. I can’t believe that you would challenge this obvious fact."
Thimerosal was used because it is safe and effective.
Jessika, you are like Slim Pickens, whooping and hollering as you ride that bomb all the way into the ground.

PGB: "Smart Chris: Whoops, I was actually asking how you got mumps, twice. "

It happened quite often. There was an old wive's tale that it was because a kid had on one side at a time, which was wrong.

It was during the 1968 mumps epidemic, and the sheer number of virus may have overwhelmed any remaining immunity. The other explanation may have been getting measles a few years before that wiped our any previous mumps immunity.

Anyway, if immunity from actually getting the disease is not perfect it is not realistic to expect vaccines to be perfect.

Oooh, look the crazies have come out.

"My previous job involved killing people, while treating other people for various injuries and illnesses, all while operating under austere conditions."

I used to classify MOS designators as people who killed people (Combat), people who helped kill people (Combat Support) and people who helped the people who killed people (Combat Service Support).

Well, this is at least a bit encouraging. Business insider contacted the members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which oversees public health, including the CDC:

http://www.businessinsider.com/senators-reject-trump-anti-vaccination-2…

Sen, Murkowski and Sen. Collins are pretty durn close to being Democrats, but I'm very surprised at Sen. Alexander. At this point 'southern republican' is nearly synonymous with the Know Nothing party," and I don't think his home district will take kindly to him being pro-vaccine and therefore pro-science.

You are all sheep.

"You are all sheep."
Not you? You're just a sheep from a different herd.
Not me. I'm a coywolf. Or maybe just a coy wolf.

Chad, why?

Because we don't follow a lawyer going nuts over something that stopped being an issue fifteen years ago? Please explain in detail. The first thing you should do is tell us which vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule is only available with thimerosal.

Or are you just another sock puppet of the window washer from Wisconsin?

Why do sheep get all the bad press? I spent zero time on a farm, but growing up in a farm state we visited the livestock barns at the State Fair, saw the 4H prizes handed out, stuff like that. As animals go, sheep are OK. As for being easily led, I'd like to see Chad get into a territory dispute with a prize Ram.

Anyway, better a sheep than a cocked-up boy-chicken, or a cockroach...

Endless bullshit and propaganda from you all.

It's obvious that half of you people are professional propagandists.

"do you know what ED50 actually is? Please explain to us all what you think that it means."

As you read, and you know this is the important part, they're doing this intentionally to living beings that feel no less than you do: "paralysis and enlargement of the head".

"Humphries IS wrong."

Then you better tell her. And could you tell the rest of us too? What is she wrong about?

"A few months ago, a German girl named Aliana died from SSPE, a known complication of measles."

It sounds like the implication is that me and mine better get the vacine shots. Or maybe I'm wrong. Personally, though, I'll use the method proven to work by the copius public data - live clean eat right and exercise. Oh and by the way you guys can't fool me with your measles FUD. I know from experience that measles is a good thing. You get some itching and feel a little crappy for a few hours, if at all, and then you never get sick again. It's a great learning experience for your immune system. I'm sorry for the people who get hurt by it doesn't help anyone for me to get a shot.

"Name them. Describe their action and explain why they were a better choice."
Who you asking, me? Ask Humphries, she's the one who said it as you seem to know.

"@ Dimwit"
ad hominem is a common attack used in the vaccine religion.

"you cited Sue Humphries Thanks for the laugh"

What's so funny?

"hundreds of thousands of rhesus monkeys and green monkeys have been sacrificed so that polio vaccine could be grown in their kidney cells. The brain tissue of horses, sheep, and dogs has been used for many years to prepare rabies vaccines."

PGP #104

Chucky's divorce isn't really constitutionally relevant.

He would automatically become en-kinged on Brenda's death, but he could then abdicate, like his great uncle did.

Pretty sure we don't have a mechanism for skipping a generation and going straight to simpering Wills or to allow Chucky to step aside before he becomes en-kinged (not that his ego would countenance that - he is far too full of his own importance).

Aaaah me, it is a sad day for one of republican/anti-royal tendencies, such as me, that talking about the idiocies of UK-ian constitutional arrangements and our inbred numpties is preferable to much of the other nonsense BTL here.

“Humphries IS wrong.”
Then you better tell her. And could you tell the rest of us too? What is she wrong about?

She confused mortality with morbidity.

“A few months ago, a German girl named Aliana died from SSPE, a known complication of measles.”
It sounds like the implication is that me and mine better get the vacine shots.

Actually, my implication was that the diseases we vaccinate against can kill, even today in First World countries like Germany.

“you cited Sue Humphries Thanks for the laugh”
What’s so funny?

See the top right? There's a "Search this Blog" applet. Put Susan Humphries into the text box it and click 'Search'. Orac has dismantled Humphries's arguments already. That's why I found your citing her amusing.

Murmur: He would automatically become en-kinged on Brenda’s death, but he could then abdicate, like his great uncle did.

Pretty sure we don’t have a mechanism for skipping a generation and going straight to simpering Wills or to allow Chucky to step aside before he becomes en-kinged (not that his ego would countenance that – he is far too full of his own importance).

Isn't Charles like 60ish or 70? He could possibly be disqualified from inheriting because of health issues. Even if he did inherit, the damage he could do is pretty limited, I think. He doesn't have very many friends in parliament now.
And William doesn't seem that bad. He has enough sense to duck the limelight when he can.

Measles is harmless?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/25/in-2013-measles-…
Is SSPE all that rare? Are substantial numbers of children hospitalized from measles? Do children still die of measles complications?
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/sspe-a-deadly-and-not-that-rare-compli…
http://vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/blogs/ojohn/how-dangerous-measles
"It’s a great learning experience for your immune system." Not if you die from it. Vaccination is "a great learning experience for your immune system" and it doesn't kill you.

"you want to make an issue out of that which you fail to comprehend."

That's some cold stuff. As JFK said, "and we call ourselves the human race." It knows full well, and is doing its full best to avert its eyes, that the issue is the needless suffering caused to innocent animals. We all comprehend that really well if we let ourselves.

“hundreds of thousands of rhesus monkeys and green monkeys have been sacrificed so that polio vaccine could be grown in their kidney cells. . . ."

If you're attempting to refer to Vero cells, the line derives from one green monkey.

^ Unlike human diploid lung fibroblasts. They go through babies like there's no tomorrow for those.

What we know is that RFK Jr is a lawyer without any medical training, and is definitely behind the times by fifteen years.

It is best if he is ignored. And we should ignore you, since all you have brought to the discussion is pure nonsense. This includes not knowing the difference or relevance between mortality and morbidity.

Though if you wish to rectify that deficit you need to provide an answer to a question using actual PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers. The following is US Census data of measles morbidity (incidence) during the 20th century.

By "US" I mean the "United States of America." It is the country that the data is from, and because of this do not mention any other country. England and Wales are not American states. Also neither is Japan or any part of Australia. Just sayin'.

Also do not mention mortality (death), because it is morbidity (you should be able to find an online dictionary). Do not mention any other disease, because the data is on just one disease... and the other diseases are actually different (amazing how that works out).

Plus, do not mention any other decade unless the difference is much more than the what the question entails, and morbidity never ever increases afterwards.

Now after all of that, here is the question: After looking at the referenced US Census data, what caused measles incidence of cases to drop 90% between 1960 and 1970 in the United States of America? Be sure to provide the requested verifiable documentation:

From http://www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/99statab/sec31.pdf
Year.... Rate per 100000 of measles
1912 . . . 310.0
1920 . . . 480.5
1925 . . . 194.3
1930 . . . 340.8
1935 . . . 584.6
1940 . . . 220.7
1945 . . . 110.2
1950 . . . 210.1
1955 . . . 337.9
1960 . . . 245.4
1965 . . . 135.1
1970 . . . . 23.2
1975 . . . . 11.3
1980 . . . . . 5.9
1985 . . . . . 1.2
1990 . . . . .11.2
1991 . . . . . .3.8
1992 . . . . . .0.9
1993 . . . . . .0.1
1994 . . . . . .0.4
1995 . . . . . .0.1
1996 . . . . . .0.2
1997 . . . . . . 0.1

By the way, my question is directed to Other Chris.

Not Narad.

Measles is harmless?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/25/in-2013-measles-…

That WAPO article is yet another standard vaccine religion piece. The Lancet article referenced in that article shows that measles is the 43rd most popular way to die, it's the second to the least most popular way to die of a disease, and that most of those deaths are amongst poor people. It's the same as it's always been. Live dirty and don't eat right and the bugs get you - who would've predicted?

Measles is harmless and I know this from personal experience. It was standard practice to take your kids to go play with measles kids so they could catch it and it worked like a charm. It's poverty and vaccines that kill, not measles.

"Not if you die from it."
Water doesn't help you either if you die from it. The fact remains that all you need is good sanitation and nutrition, not a shot of unknown stuff, for good health. In fact this is now the official position of the same British General Medical Council that hounded Wakefield and colleagues out of medicine: http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/03/15/the-doctor-who-beat-the-…

"Vaccination is “a great learning experience for your immune system” and it doesn’t kill you."

That's not what the poor parents who've had to watch their child "go away" while suffering obviously horrific pain coincidentally after getting vaccine shots report.

all you have brought to the discussion is pure nonsense

It will be interesting to see whether Other Chris can figure out the IPV angle (spoiler: there is one) all on its lonesome.

^ Blockquote fail. Freaking stubborn 'k' key.

Live dirty and don’t eat right and the bugs get you – who would’ve predicted?

Are you suggesting that poor people are filthy?

Measles is harmless and I know this from personal experience. It was standard practice to take your kids to go play with measles kids so they could catch it and it worked like a charm.

Worked like a charm in that the kids caught measles, a potentially deadly disease? Measles is not harmless, no matter what kind of sh!tty and shallow anecdotal "evidence" you present to the contrary. SSPE kills.

Anti-vaxers still have chickenpox parties, where they take their kids in order to get them infected with a long and extremely miserable illness, which also puts them at risk for shingles later in life. If they'd had it when I was a kid, I would've taken the vaccine, thanks.

It was standard practice to take your kids to go play with measles kids so they could catch it and it worked like a charm.

Yah. Oddly, an entire birth cohort contracted the disease annually with no need for such production numbers.

This is just really low grade attempted trolling.

"all you have brought to the discussion is pure nonsense.
Right back atcha.

"This includes not knowing the difference or relevance between mortality and morbidity."

Here's what dictionary.com says:

mortality
1.the state or condition of being subject to death; mortal character, nature, or existence.
2. the relative frequency of deaths in a specific population; death rate.
3. mortal beings collectively; humanity.
4. death or destruction on a large scale, as from war, plague, or famine.
5. Obsolete. death

morbidity
1. a morbid state or quality.
2. the proportion of sickness or of a specific disease in a geographical locality.

The words I've seen Dr. Humphries use are death rates and disease rates, which I take to mean sickness rates. According to dictionary.com those sound like mortality and morbidity. She shows the publicly available data that death rates, or mortality as the echo chamber here appears to prefer, had already dropped typically by 90% or more compared to the bad old days of overcrowding and sqaulor, prior to the introduction of vaccines. What the vaccines are doing is preventing healthy people from letting their immune systems learn, and making them more vulnerable to diseases later in life because their immune system committed "original antigenic sin."

So that census data shows morbidity decreasing by a good 60% or more prior to the introduction of the vaccine, and then continuing to decrease except faster because after that people had less chance to catch it and train their immune systems. Again, when you look at the important number, mortality, you'll see in all the data sets that measles mortality disappeared without any help from drug companies.

@Chris #192:

The fact remains that all you need is good sanitation and nutrition

That worked so well for Aliana, whom I mentioned earlier, didn't it? And Dana McCaffrey, and Kaliah Jordan, and Kailis Smith etc.

"Are you suggesting that poor people are filthy?"

Are you suggesting that the authors of the Lancet article are wrong? According to their data the sick people are the poor people. Are you suggesting that most of those poor people their numbers referenced manage to live clean and eat well?

"the kids caught measles, a potentially deadly disease?"

Potentially. What isn't potentially deadly? Measles is potentially deadly with good living and good nursing if you're the unlucky one in a million of us. Not a good reason to get those vaccine shots. By the way I read over and over and over that most of the people who get sick from measles these days are the ones who got the vaccine shots.

"infected with a long and extremely miserable illness"
Wrong again. It's a week of mild itching and then lifetime immunity. Who should I believe, the vaccine religious zealot or my own lying eyes/senses?

"puts them at risk for shingles later in life."
At risk. Getting the vaccine shot is a risk too. Everyone I know got chickenpox growing up and not a single case of shingles.

"Aliana, whom I mentioned earlier, didn’t it? And Dana McCaffrey, and Kaliah Jordan, and Kailis Smith"

According to the data it has worked well for 90+% of people. That's a probability I'll gamble on long before letting someone stick me with that needle full of junk.

Isn’t Charles like 60ish or 70? He could possibly be disqualified from inheriting because of health issues.

Trust me, for I have done field-work among the English landed class and I know their primitive folkways... trust me when I say that this is not how it works.
I recommend watching "The Ruling Class" to get a better sense of it.

@Chris #200:

According to the data it has worked well for 90+% of people. That’s a probability I’ll gamble on long before letting someone stick me with that needle full of junk.

The rate of adverse events of vaccination are orders of magnitude less than the rate of adverse events from the diseases. I'll have the shots.

In response to the request for double blind placebo controlled randomised studies comparing vaccinated to unvaccinated:

"Here is one dated before the Belmont Report: Efficacy of measles vaccine

Please note where it was done
In Nigeria in the early 60s. Doesn't sound like a place with lots of good sanitation and well fed people.

, and the third column of the Table 1. Be sure to tell us how you would design a study that would keep that column full of zeros."

In all three of the studies both groups were given vaccines, and at least in the first one the author states that it was not blind. The author also references the crowded clinic and overworked medics, and their refusal to conduct a true study because their null hypothesis is that the vaccines are doing what they hope they're doing and so they think it would be unethical to do the study necessary to actually find the answer. This is the excuse always given, but studies have come out recently and the unvaccinated people are healthier. Sorry no don't have the link handy you'll have to do your own research.

"you are ignoring all those less than healthy kids with immune disorders or getting treated for cancer,"

That accusation assumes those kids are being ignored and it also assumes that they'd be better off getting the vaccine shots.

What is being ignored are the copius results reported by Dr. Fred Klenner, Cathcart, Thomas Levy and others showing that oxidative therapies like ascorbic acid (vitamin C) can cure just about anything. Those poor kids are getting ignored by an entire medical establishment echo chamber that is seemingly intentionally forgetting this information.

"Ezekiel Stephan, Olivia Dahl and the little boy who died from diphtheria in Spain did not meet your expectations of genetic perfection."

Yeah you busted me there. Screw them. Zieg Heil.

"The rate of adverse events of vaccination are orders of magnitude less than the rate of adverse events from the diseases. I’ll have the shots."

That's a good point. You're free to do your own research and take your chances. The only problem comes if you try and force your opinion on others.

For myself I don't see it that way. Good sanitation and nutrition likely gets me about 99.99999% of the way there, and if a miracle happens and I still come down with measles (or whatever) and it looks like I can't shake it there's always vitamins A and C and good old fashioned nursing. Dr. Klenner even experimented with IV vitamin C on his daughter. He reported that he could turn up the drip and her symptoms would go away and then turn down the drip and they would come back. He described that it was as if he was yanking the bug around with a leash.

"everyone born say, from 1930 to 1970 lived in an open sewer, ate whatever they could pick off the floor and never, ever went outside"

Yes that's clearly what I'm saying. Or maybe if one were to not pretend not to be able to read one might understand that it is the data saying, not I, that nearly all of your risk of disease comes from not being healthy. The bugs can make a living in a weak body but not a strong one.

"Good sanitation is important, but you can’t very well sterilize"

Sterilise? Wrong again. Good sanitation means not living in poop like millions of people did in the cities prior to the big sanitation efforts. Again, read "Dissolving Illusions" by Dr. Humphries to see how bad it was. Most people know that living in a sterilised place would be terrible for you because your immune system would learn nothing, and you'd be vulnerable if you ever stepped out of your sterilised place. Short of living in poop you're actually way better off to be around dirt.

Someone mentioned that Dr. Humphries has already been discussed and shown to be wrong, and told me to search for her name on this website. I found this article by someone going by "Orca" http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/12/19/quoth-dr-suzanne-humphries…

Speaking as a customer making the decision whether or not to purchase a vaccine shot, I couldn't find anything substantive in that article about what Dr. Humphries is getting wrong. Basically sounds like someone named "Orca" trying to convince me not to listen to a trained and experienced medical doctor. If living clean and eating right prevents disease why would I violate one of Hippocrates prime rules, to first do no harm? Even the British General Medical council officially states that vaccines aren't necessary for good health.

From The Ruling Class by Peter Barnes, 1968:

SIR CHARLES: What about Jack?
DR.HERDER: Remember he's suffering from delusions of grandeur. In reality he's an Earl, an English aristocrat, a member of the ruling class. Naturally, he's come to believe there's only one person grander than that: the Lord God Almighty Himself.
SIR CHARLES: Are you English?
DR.HERDER: No.
SIR CHARLES: Ah.

Dr. Klenner even experimented with IV vitamin C on his daughter.

What is it with you people and your desire to inflict your madness on your children? Don't you see how this is wrong? Can you not see it, really?

The idea that Americans in the 1950s and early 1960s were "living in poop" is as demented as the idea that anyone with a medical degree is automatically believable.

And yet diseases like Rubella, Polio, and Measles have been eliminated in countries where millions or more lack proper sanitation......

Flies in the face of "stupid" Chris' claims.

ANTI VACCINE - ANTI CODOM

Order of Malta and Pope in condom crises

Albrecht von Boeselager was removed on December 8 after he refused a demand by the top knight to resign over revelations that the order’s charity branch distributed tens of thousands of condoms in Burma under his watch.

Grand Master Mathrw Fasting was ordered by the Pope to remove the condom-distributors.

But in a December 22 announcement of its investigation, the Vatican cited its status as a “lay religious order” that is at the service to “the faith and the Holy Father”.

The knights trace their history to the 11th century with the establishment of an infirmary in Jerusalem that cared for pilgrims of all faiths. It now counts 13,500 members and 100,000 staff and volunteers who provide health care in hospitals and clinics around the world.

Source: The Catholic Herald

The international Catholic weekly The Tablet said the move has sparked “open warfare” inside the Church’s oldest and most illustrious military order, founded in the 11th century during the crusades and which ruled over Malta between 1530 until their expulsion by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798.

Good thing little boys don't get pregnant, because Good Catholic Pedophile Priests don't use condoms, while buggering little boys!

Other Chris, do you even know that the PubMed index exists? I still only see pure nonsense from you.

What the heck is that screed above?

Chris @205:

You’re free to do your own research and take your chances. The only problem comes if you try and force your opinion on others.

You know those four names I mentioned? All were too young to be vaccinated, all caught diseases from intentionally unvaccinated people, and all died from those diseases. By remaining intentionally unvaccinated, you are exposing children too young to be vaccinated to the risk of disease. In other words, YOU are the one "forcing your opinions on others".

Idjit Chris: Or maybe if one were to not pretend not to be able to read one might understand that it is the data saying, not I, that nearly all of your risk of disease comes from not being healthy. The bugs can make a living in a weak body but not a strong one.

Actually, I was attempting to show how absurd your argument was. Measles, mumps and many other childhood diseases weren't in fact, class-based as you allege- rich and poor alike caught those diseases. Heck, several royal families were decimated by smallpox. Roald Dahl was solidly middle-class, if not actually rich when he lost his daughter. And very probably living in a house with indoor plumbing and a city that had a well functioning sewage system.
And according to your data, Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family shouldn't have gotten measles, since there isn't much food that's cleaner than the things you hunt and grow for yourself. The fact that they did, suggests that either the universe is wrong or you are profoundly stupid.

Idjit: Good sanitation means not living in poop like millions of people did in the cities prior to the big sanitation efforts.

And good sanitation had sweet fuck all to do with the prevalence of measles. It's AIR-BORNE, idjit. And as I pointed out, you can't very well filter the friggin' atmosphere.Also there's the small issue of tetanus being present all the time in the soil.

And here's the kicker; I grew up in a city and a house with all the amenities, including that indoor plumbing you're so fond of (why are you so infatuated with toilets, anyway?), with a family that made meals from scratch, mostly, and I still got chickenpox, flus and strep. So I know from experience that you're full of crap. Sure, a healthy lifestyle helps, but it's not a gold-plated guarantee. Stop acting like it is, you smug, judgemental, smarmy pompous bastard.

HDB: I'll check that out. I still doubt that anyone would let Charles near the real levers of power. In fact, he'd be worse off than Queen Elizabeth, since his attempts at manipulating Parliament were not appreciated and will be remembered.

I found this article by someone going by “Orca”

Now, that's what I call utter trolling failure.

"smug, judgemental, smarmy pompous bastard."

"By remaining intentionally unvaccinated, you are exposing children too young to be vaccinated to the risk of disease."

Sounds good until you think aboot it. By remaining unvaccinated, intentional or not whatever that's supposed to mean, my immune system gets to get good at it's job, and I don't get sick and don't expose anyone else to my bugs because I can't host any. By suckering and letting "them" stick you with those vaccination shots your immune system commits original antigenic sin and isn't able to get as good at it's job, because it's first learning experience was erroneous and got it started down the wrong path. Which means you're the one more likely to provide living habitat for bugs and spread them to those innocent kids you care aboot. It's like if you tried to compute a cannonball trajectory assuming g = 15 feet/sec^2 and then were surprised when you can't predict where it lands.

"Everyone I know got chickenpox growing up and not a single case of shingles."

And I live with someone who had chickenpox as a child and shingles as an adult, so my anecdote cancels out your anecdote...

Isn't it easy when you can ignore epidemiology and virology?

Everyone I know got chickenpox growing up and not a single case of shingles.

I had chickenpox as a child and shingles in my 40s. So your argument from ignorance is worthless.

Everyone I know got chickenpox growing up and not a single case of shingles.
Chris's sample of n=2 is not particularly persuasive.

Had chicken pox age 5, shingles in grad school. Outside of labour, the latter was the worst pain I've ever experienced.

@213, fail. Too much verbiage to plow through before the inevitable anti-Catholic pedophilia punchline.

Mr. Delphine didn't get chicken pox until he was a teenager, despite repeated exposure. Because he's still sleeping I can talk about his penis - he had them under his foreskin. He had one of the worst cases of CP his GP had ever seen, and missed three weeks of school.

I had Chicken Pox, and I just had Shingles....and I know a number of people who have had Shingles.

"Stupid" Chris seems to think that he can receive natural immunity without getting sick....what the hell are we teaching in schools if that's what he believes?

Lawrence: The idjit was probably homeschooled.

Not ORCA... *ORAC*

Orca is over at whale.to

@Chris #220:

By remaining unvaccinated, intentional or not whatever that’s supposed to mean, my immune system gets to get good at it’s job, and I don’t get sick and don’t expose anyone else to my bugs because I can’t host any

How do you think diseases spread before vaccinations? Someone got infected, became ill, then became infectious/contagious and spread the disease to other immunologically naive individuals. That's how outbreaks happened. Or are you suggesting that constant exposure to different diseases means that your immune system is able to tackle diseases it's never been exposed to before? Because if you are...
"That's not how it works!
That's not how any of this works!"

By suckering and letting “them” stick you with those vaccination shots your immune system commits original antigenic sin and isn’t able to get as good at it’s job, because it’s first learning experience was erroneous and got it started down the wrong path.

Well then it's very interesting that each time after vaccination for a specific disease started the rate of infection for that disease fell by over 90%.
Or maybe you don't have any idea what you're talking about.

The bugs can make a living in a weak body but not a strong one.

How do you know this? What evidence do you have that a strong body cannot host pathogens?

What practical implications does this have? Is there some method of training your body to, say, be 90% less likely to catch rabies than the general population? If so, what is it and how do you know that?

Another dipstick proves to be incapable of understanding that vaccines and antisera are completely different.

Well, there is that tetanus toxoid thingie. But, considering what tetanus is like, to hell with those animals.

Tetanus toxoid is produced by culturing – tah dah! – C. tetani. The tetanospasmin is then denatured with formaldehyde.

TiG, by contrast, is a human blood product (which generated a great deal of irony at MDC when those who didn't think the vaccine worked – "yah can't vaccinate against ah poizzin!" – recommended it instead). "Tetanus antitoxin" is a livestock product that is basically just TiG of equine origin. I've seen conflicting information regarding the manufacturing process; these guys state that toxin challenge is used to generate antibodies, but it's not clear to me whether the donors are sacrificed.

My kid did not get chicken pox, even though exposed at school. My kid had the vaccine.

Me, on the other hand - well, I get to hope I can get the shingles vaccine before I end up with shingles.

As for the Suzanne Humphries fanboi: I hope your children don't suffer for your mistakes.

"As for the Suzanne Humphries fanboi: I hope your children don’t suffer for your mistakes."

Right back atcha vaccine cultist with the clever insults. Your innocent kids don't deserve to get the risky witch doctor shot when you could instead ask questions with the intent of doing what's best for them, instead of looking for evidence to support your foregone conclusion.

As far as Doctor Humphries, everyone in this echo chamber chortles in smug superiority every time she's mentioned, and one told me to research this site to find how she's been debunked. As noted previously, I found this article http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/12/19/quoth-dr-suzanne-humphries… written by someone going as Orac (oh the horror that I mis-spelled it previously, this must prove that the vaccine cultists are right.) Orac seems to be outraged that someone, an experienced MD no less, dares to contradict the canons of the vaccine religion. It (I don't know if it is a he or a she) says "Humphries knows about as much about immunology as she does about..." Apparently insisting we believe the assertions of an anonymous article writer over the clear explanations provided by the MD. By the way if you read Humphries, or Klenner, or Levy, or ..., you may be able to make better decisions for your kids since you'll be armed with more knowledge.

Apparently insisting we believe the assertions of an anonymous article writer over the clear explanations provided by the MD.

Orac is the pseudonym of the writer of this blog and of that piece. If only we had some way of finding out who he really is, like some sort of worldwide, interconnected database at our fingertips...

"each time after vaccination for a specific disease started the rate of infection for that disease fell by over 90%.
Or maybe you don’t have any idea what you’re talking about."

The participants of this echo chamber seem to feel pretty smart as they lecture the hoi poloi about the difference between morbidity and mortality. The problem is that in virtually every data set the mortality rate had already gone down by 90+% prior to vaccine introduction. Yes this means people were still getting sick but they were apparently getting less sick because almost no one was dying from the bugs. This was noticed by, for example, the Director General of Health in a report published in the Appendices to the New Zealand Parliamentary Journal, for the year 1932. In addition to talking about the decline in death, he mentions that the remaining diseases assumed a milder form, and thus a reduced complication and death rate.

"An outstanding feature noteworthy over many years is that the death-rates from the common infectious diseases appear to show a steady and definite reduction. The greatest example is typhoid fever. A five-year average taken fifty years ago gave a mortality more than forty times that for the five years ending in 1931. We still experience epidemics of scarlet fever, diphtheria, measles, and whooping-cough, but these epidemics give an annual death-rate very much lower than that experienced in former epidemics, while in the intervening non-epidemic years the sporadic cases have assumed a milder type and give a reduced death-rate."

When it came to Infant mortality the Director General had this to say:

"As is well known, the infantile death-rate of New Zealand (made up of infant deaths from all causes) has been very greatly reduced, and during recent years infants under one month of age are sharing in this lessened mortality.
These reductions are so great and so sustained that one is forced to the conclusion that good environment (to use a comprehensive term which includes measures taken to improve diet and hygiene) is steadily removing these diseases. This same tendency in lesser degree is noticeable in the vital statistics of closely populated England and is coincident in both countries with improving nutritional and hygienic conditions, including welfare measures directed mainly to those in special need of guidance or protection. The thought then arises, despite the prophesies of certain epidemiologists who, on historical grounds, predict a recurrence of high infectious disease virulence and mortality and perhaps undervalue the influence of improved environment, and those of immunologists who regard the subject as essentially one of acquired immunity, whether or not New Zealand and even closely populated England can by the maintenance or even the improvement of a good environment retain the natural resistance of their peoples to these diseases."

The vaccine cult worships a false idol.

Delphine: " If only we had some way of finding out who he really is, like some sort of worldwide, interconnected database at our fingertips…"

Oh, what could it be? How do we find the worst kept secret online? Well one way is to not tell Other Chris, because figuring out the identity of the mysterious Orac is this site's intelligence test.

So far, Other Chris is not doing very well.

Speaking of which, he says "The problem is that in virtually every data set the mortality rate had already gone down by 90+% prior to vaccine introduction."

Uh, huh. He has already failed answering the my comment. I specifically told him to not mention mortality. Yet in his bungled attempt to answer he ended with " Again, when you look at the important number, mortality, you’ll see in all the data sets that measles mortality disappeared without any help from drug companies."

Cut and paste of my comment follows, try again Other Chris...WIth verifiable documentation and without mentioning mortality.:

Though if you wish to rectify that deficit you need to provide an answer to a question using actual PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers. The following is US Census data of measles morbidity (incidence) during the 20th century.

By “US” I mean the “United States of America.” It is the country that the data is from, and because of this do not mention any other country. England and Wales are not American states. Also neither is Japan or any part of Australia. Just sayin’.

Also do not mention mortality (death), because it is morbidity (you should be able to find an online dictionary). Do not mention any other disease, because the data is on just one disease… and the other diseases are actually different (amazing how that works out).

Plus, do not mention any other decade unless the difference is much more than the what the question entails, and morbidity never ever increases afterwards.

Now after all of that, here is the question: After looking at the referenced US Census data, what caused measles incidence of cases to drop 90% between 1960 and 1970 in the United States of America? Be sure to provide the requested verifiable documentation:

From http://www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/99statab/sec31.pdf
Year…. Rate per 100000 of measles
1912 . . . 310.0
1920 . . . 480.5
1925 . . . 194.3
1930 . . . 340.8
1935 . . . 584.6
1940 . . . 220.7
1945 . . . 110.2
1950 . . . 210.1
1955 . . . 337.9
1960 . . . 245.4
1965 . . . 135.1
1970 . . . . 23.2
1975 . . . . 11.3
1980 . . . . . 5.9
1985 . . . . . 1.2
1990 . . . . .11.2
1991 . . . . . .3.8
1992 . . . . . .0.9
1993 . . . . . .0.1
1994 . . . . . .0.4
1995 . . . . . .0.1
1996 . . . . . .0.2
1997 . . . . . . 0.1

""The bugs can make a living in a weak body but not a strong one."

How do you know this?"

Vast store of publicly available empirical data. Again a good place to start is Dr. Humphries' book "Dissolving Illusions."

"What evidence do you have that a strong body cannot host pathogens?"

I think this is a straw man attack, as I don't recall anyone saying that "a strong body cannot host pathogens." In fact, as I understand it, your body is full of pathogens and getting attacked by pathogens 24/7. Clean living, good nutrition and a well trained immune system allows your amazing body to kill them. In fact, the vaccine story is that they are a way to cheat, and train up your immune system without getting sick. Basically the pitch is that you get your cake and eat it too so it makes sense that it gets a lot of sales. But it is a lie, because original antigenic sin.

"What practical implications does this have? Is there some method of training your body to, say, be 90% less likely to catch rabies than the general population? If so, what is it and how do you know that?"

Sounds like a 6yo. What practical implications do you think it has? The practical implications I take from it are to be informed about what nutrients my body needs and then take steps to make sure it gets them. I also wash my hands after taking care of important business, etc. And I don't let the witch doctors stick me with the vaccine poisons. Instead I choose to behave as if Dr. Klenner and others are not lying or wrong and anything that gets past defenses developed over hundreds of millions of years can be fixed with vitamin C. It's not rocket science.

Come, Other Chris... answer the question: why did the number of measles cases plummet 90% in the USA between 1960 and 1970?

Provide verifiable documentation. Not videos, not random webpages, not random whining... just real scientific studies by qualified reputable researchers. You can find them at www.pubmed.gov.

Do not mention mortality or deaths.

Do not mention any other disease.

Do not mention any other country. England, Wales, Japan, New Zealand and Australia are not American states and therefore not part of the US Census data I used.

Do not mention any other decade, except if the number of measles cases dropped more than 50% and did not go up in a later decade.

By the way, Dr. Frederick Klenner never provided any real evidence... and yet after his not verified "study" of fifty people with polio, kids kept getting measles. Klenner was not a reputable researcher:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2014/09/05/high-dose-vitamin-c-can-cu…

By the way, have you figured out who Orac is yet?

"I specifically told him to not mention mortality."

Telling others what to do - a common trait amongst the vaccine cultists. They expect the rest of us have their mental model of the world and have hissy fits when we don't.
Doing it in an insufferably smug way - a seemingly universal trait in this echo chamber.

If you're concerned with getting sick but not concerned with dying that's your business. If you get little sick for a few days and it only happens once and you don't need to take any chances with a vaccine shot and I'm better for it afterwards then I'm interested.

I saw that data and already replied, oh and by the way it's so impressive that you know those big words. What's going on here is that reported measles cases shrunk rapidly after vaccine introduction, but almost no one was dying from it either before or after. By sticking everyone with the dirty vaccine shot they were preventing people's immune systems from getting real experience with the real disease, not the concoction shot straight into the body without mediation by the body's layered defense system. Hence the constant sales pitch for "booster" shots.

Also note again that that data is reported sicknesses. One reason for the drop in reported sickness could be that many people in the USA were becoming more comfortable with the disease and treating it at home just like parents and doctors in the UK were, as described in the BMJ in 1959. Measles reports from general practitioners. Feb 7;1:380-383

The 1950s medical literature stated by the attending doctors of the day that measles was generally considered a mild disease which doctors didn't recommend trying to prevent. There was no inclination to prevent measles spreading, and children rarely needed any medical treatment at all. The infection was over in a week, and as BMJ published, the doctors said that many mothers remarked that their children were better for it afterwards. There were no special attempts made to prevent measles infections even in young infants in whom the disease has not been found to be especially serious.

Other Chris, measles was never considered a mild disease. It was just considered something every kids was going to get, and it scared parents. This article is over a hundred years old, and measles is not treated lightly (note: this is a paper found on PubMed):
A STATISTICAL STUDY OF MEASLES (1914)

Answer the question: why did the incidence of measles drop 90% in the USA between 1960 and 1970?

"... the UK were, as described in the BMJ in 1959. Measles reports from general practitioners. Feb 7;1:380-383"

Again, do not mention any other country. Also, it is impossible for something written in 1959 to explain what happened in the following decade. It is better to get something written after the specified decade:
The Benefits From 10 Years of Measles Immunization in the United States

Now answer the question with real evidence, and not random whinging.

"Do not"
"Do not"
"Do not"
"Do not"

Someone's full of themselves. See previous answers. The story here of course is that reported measles cases decreased after 1963 and correlation equals causation so the vaccine must be responsible.

In 1963 there were two measles vaccines. The first was the killed measles vaccine, which did not protect against measles. The recipients of that vaccine – when they came in contact with measles afterwards, got a much more serious form of measles; a susceptibility which the medical literature states lasted for up to 16 years[D. Griffin et al., “Measles Vaccines,” Frontiers in Bioscience, vol. 13, January 2008, pp. 1352–1370.].

At the same time, a non-attenuated live measles vaccine was used, which caused such severe side effects that it had to be administered with gammaglobulin to reduce the side effects and the severity of disease in the recipients. Anyone who got measles from this vaccine was not reported as having had measles.

So in the period between 1963 – 1968 one totally ineffective type of vaccine was used, which made recipients susceptible to a worse form of measles, and the other vaccine was a live, semi-attenuated one which “gave” people measles which was antidoted with gammaglobulin injected at the same time as the vaccine. Those were the ONLY two “vaccines” being used in the USA at the time that the so-called “landslide decline” in measles cases occurred.

The decline in reported cases can only be a statistical artifact similar to “observer bias”. In the years of the “landslide”, in the USA between 1963 and 1968, doctors simply got in first with the “vaccine” and created a blanket of “non wild-measles cases”, which they neutralized with gammaglobulin. These vaccine-induced cases took the place of wild measles transmission.

In short, the numbers so proudly and repeatedly displayed "proving" that measles vaccine prevents measles sickness are doctored, and a lie.

Again, the important part here is mortality*.
* Blucher!

Regarding Dr. Klenner, if you study up you'll find that he was known as St. Klenner to his patients. Yes, it could be true that Dr. Klenner managed to publish 28 times while either being a liar or a quack and the editors and peer reviewers of those journals were mistaken. It also could be true that the reports from his patients were true, and he was a good doctor, and the editors and peer reviewers of those journals were correct. Do your own research and take your chances. You might also check out other good doctors like Cathcart, Levy, Humphries, and more.

By the way I'm still interested in reading a double blind placebo controlled randomised study of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated people. The one provided in response was not double blind or placebo controlled.

So, even with some partially effective vaccines and not everyone vaccinated: measles dropped 90% in the USA. That is pretty good.

The rest of your whinging is just silly. By the way, the words in blue letters are links to other pages. If you click on them they go to more words. One had lots of words about Klenner, who is dead and was not known for his honesty.

Oops,... missed my entire name:
So, even with some partially effective vaccines and not everyone vaccinated: measles dropped 90% in the USA. That is pretty good.

The rest of your whinging is just silly. By the way, the words in blue letters are links to other pages. If you click on them they go to more words. One had lots of words about Klenner, who is dead and was not known for his honesty.

"Oh, our error, it’s your way or no way."

Nope and you know it. If you want to get the vaccine shot that's your business. The problem as you know comes when you insist that everyone else has to do it.

"How short of a word is too long, four letters? Five? Three? One?"

Wow that's clever.

"Still no reputable citation."

Talking about the mortality reduction? Here's one: Public Health England, Measles notifications and deaths in England and Wales, 1940-3013. You can find lots more if you look.

Wzrd1 said "I sincerely hope that the first case in any outbreak is within your family"

Wzrd1 said "the first amendment to the US Constitution should be repealed"

Basically Other Chris admitted that even though the first measles vaccines had issues, they worked and caused the drop of incidence.

By the way, in 1971 a much improved vaccine was introduced that also dealt with mumps and rubella: MMR. And another improved version of the MMR was introduced in 1978.

Real medicine actually works to get better. I sincerely doubt the very dead Fred Klenner is improving prevention of any disease with any vitamin.

Other Chris: "Talking about the mortality reduction? Here’s one: Public Health England, Measles notifications and deaths in England and Wales, 1940-3013. You can find lots more if you look."

Wow, you have grown from a half wit to a complete idiot. Improvements in mortality only measure medical advances like antibiotics, artificial ventilation and vaccines. Morbidity measures how well a prevention method is... and since measles plummeted in every country after the introduction of several vaccines, it turns out they work.

"One had lots of words about Klenner, who is dead and was not known for his honesty."

I've never heard that and the link about 10 years of measles vaccines is broken. I'm interested to read about the dead person was dishonest about if you know of anything.

"measles was never considered a mild disease."

That's not what the doctors said after better environmental conditions had resulted in huge measles mortality reductions.

"it is impossible for something written in 1959 to explain what happened in the following decade"

The important part is that the medical professionals in the years right before introduction of the measles vaccine didn't consider it a big deal, and neither did the parents. Again, this exactly correlates with my personal experience. The people who do get hurt from measles are usually nutritionally deficient, especially vitamin A deficient. [ntonio C. Arrieta, MD; Margaret Zaleska, RN; Harris R. Stutman, MD; and Melvin I. Marks, MD, “Vitamin A Levels in Children with Measles in Long Beach, California,” The Journal of Pediatrics, July 1992, p.75.][http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=9006061]

The soil is everything and the vaccine cult worships a false god.

And again, are there any randomised double blind placebo controlled studies of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated? Preferably with statistically valid data set sizes.

"grown from a half wit to a complete idiot. Improvements in mortality only measure medical advances like antibiotics, artificial ventilation and vaccines"

Ad hominem is the most popular logical fallacy amongst the vaccine cultists. It states, then, the improvements in mortality, especially in times and places lacking antibiotics, artificial ventilation and vaccines, had nothing to do with environment?

"since measles plummeted in every country after the introduction of several vaccines, it turns out they work"

The vaccine cult echo chamber can only hear the vaccine dogma. As explained previously, the USA measles disease rate numbers displayed twice above, which shows the disease rate decrease coincident with the vaccine introduction, uses manipulated data. It's a lie. Measles didn't plummet, the reported cases plummeted. Even now, if you catch measles but it is from a vaccine, they don't report it. They're lying to you.

IdjitChris: ...armed with more knowledge.

Considering how you have consistently failed to demonstrate anything close to intelligence in your comments, any source recommended by you would have to be taken with an ocean of salt. Everyone and their freaking dog knows Humphries is only in it for the money.

Wzrd1: Strong bodies and immune systems were preferentially killed by the 1918 influenza pandemic.

Yup. I guess Numpty here thinks soldiers are weak, since the US and British armies got decimated by the pandemic. Actually one could make the case that the 1918 flu was actually TWO pandemics, since pnumonia usually followed the flu.

Other Chris: "uses manipulated data. It’s a lie."

Prove it. And not with speculation whinging on one of the first vaccines, there were two others. Still, even with not as effective vaccines and very few vaccinated, the numbers plummeted.

a few years after vaccines were introduced the numbers were easier to report since the incidence went down. Every person born before 1957 was assumed to actually had measles before age 15:
http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/189/Supplement_1/S4.long

Sorry about the link to the ten years after measles vaccine, I made a cut and paste mistake (it was easy to see the link if you looked):
The Benefits From 10 Years of Measles Immunization in the United States

By the way, Other Chris, the person who manipulated data and lied was Freddy Klenner in the 1940s and 1950s:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2014/09/05/high-dose-vitamin-c-can-cu…

A search for Klenner and his polio “cure” yields hits that nearly all come from pro-quackery sites, such as Whale.to and Orthomolecular.org. There’s also a chapter in a free book in which he describes his beliefs and evidence that vitamin C can cure polio. It is basically identical to this publication, represented as his actual presentation to the AMA in 1949. One aspect of his treatment that amazed me was that this was some truly high dose vitamin C. I mean, seriously. Klenner administered 2,000 mg (that’s 2 g, people) of ascorbate every six hours (8 g/day) supplemented with 1,000 to 2,000 mg by mouth every two hours (that’s 12 to 24 g). So basically, Klenner treated polio with 20 to 32 g per day of ascorbate. for the prototypical 70 kg man used in medical school as a teaching reference for drug doses, that’s nearly half a gram per kg body weight. In the Wikipedia entry on Klenner, which is remarkably skepticism-free, he is described as having administered up to 300,000 mg (300 g!) of ascorbate per day. For those who aren’t scientists in the US and therefore might be metric system-challenged, that’s 0.66 lb of ascorbate.

A search of Pubmed on F. R. Klenner reveals five publications, ranging from 1948 to 1952, all of them in the same journal, which doesn’t appear to be a particularly prominent journal, and unfortunately no abstracts available for any of them. (Whatever his other publications, I’m guessing, they must not be indexed in PubMed.) A review of the titles of the articles match the titles of chapters in a book, Injectable Vitamin C: Effective Treatment for Viral and Other Diseases. It includes titles such as: The Vitamin and Massage Treatment for Acute Poliomyelitis and Massive Doses of Vitamin C and the Virus Diseases, among others, all with the same theme, namely that massive doses of vitamin C will cure pretty much any viral disease that ails you. The other theme running through this is that there are no clinical trials. All there are are case reports and case series, all uncontrolled.

Other Chris:

“Do not”
“Do not”
“Do not”
“Do not”

The reasons were explained before posting the question. It boils down to the answers being relevant to the provided data, which happens to be US Census date from the 20th century.

It was on measles, so do not change the subject.

It was data collected in the United States of America, no where else. Stuff that happens in England and Wales will not affect the the reasons behind the US Census data.

The particular decade was chosen because it was the only one where incidence dropped so much, and then never went up. People like to point out the years during the Great Depression and World War II, but the drops were not as dramatic and measles rate went up.

Also, the folks who use those decades obviously do not know much about the history of Europe, the USA and rest of this planet during those times.

It is not being full of oneself, it is trying to get you to think without resorting to the excuses that have been posted in places like whale.to and by other fools. So without your standard cut and paste screeds, you now seem to be reduced to some kind of conspiracy theory.

I am now 76 and my work consisted helping people for many years with their problems.
I can state that the healthiest, outgoing children I ever came across were always unvaccinated. No eczma, asthma, constant runny noses and chestiness. No ADD, ADHD, Autism etc. BUT I also was aware that vaccines shed for several weeks after a child is vaccinated and pass onto anyone who comes into contact with them.
I was found to have the drug tamoxifen in my system and had recently had a friend stay that was on it after breast cancer.
A friend asked to be advised when children in the Nursery School were vaccinated so she could keep her children away from them and let them contact measles, mumps, chicken pox naturally etc. just as they should when young. They are then immune for life NOT like the vaccinated where I met a group of mothers whose children were boasting how many times they had had measles.
I also know you can lead a horse to water but cannot make it drink! Everyone has to make his own mind up on this issue and that is my biggest gripe, DO NOT force toxic chemicals onto me I want FREEDOM OF CHOICE!

Oh, I forgot...

Other Chris, the US Census data was on incidence, also known as morbidity. So using mortality would be changing the subject, just like using another disease.

Of course, any honest person would answer the question without changing it to things not in the given data. Since anti-vax folks continually want to change the answer things not in the data, they are not being honest.

Your behavior follows that trend. You are in no position to claim American measles incidence data was manipulated and lies.

Other Chris: "Ad hominem is the most popular logical fallacy amongst the vaccine cultists"

You idiot... it was not an ad hominem. An "ad hominem" is when you are dismissed by what you are. An example is that "Oh, he is a guy, so he knows nothing about feelings."

Call you a complete idiot is actually just an "insult." Do they teach basic vocabulary where you went to school? Because you seem to have lots of problems with it. Wait, English is not my first language (though I speak Spanish as well as any three year old), so I must ask: Is English your second language? Did you start studying a few months ago.

Again, not an ad hominem.... but an insult based on observation on your basic illiteracy.

Wzrd1: "It saved my life on quite a few occasions."

As an Army brat, I understand. There are stories from my dad that include very close calls.

“Figures don’t lie, but liars figure”.

Hence the invention of "P-hacking." First this:
http://io9.gizmodo.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-…

And another classic example:
http://retractionwatch.com/2014/10/04/journal-makes-it-official-retract…

@Pam Blowers:

I also was aware that vaccines shed for several weeks after a child is vaccinated and pass onto anyone who comes into contact with them.

False. Give evidence that any vaccine on the schedule has infected an immunologically naive individual.

A friend asked to be advised when children in the Nursery School were vaccinated so she could keep her children away from them and let them contact measles, mumps, chicken pox naturally etc. just as they should when young. They are then immune for life NOT like the vaccinated

Nope. People have got those diseases more than once. in addition, measles eradicates immune memory, meaning that if you had an illness then suffered measles, you were then susceptible to that illness.

where I met a group of mothers whose children were boasting how many times they had had measles.

S**t that never happened for $1,000, Alex.

"Prove it."

Prove it's wrong. Or more realistically, since we all know that prove is a strong word, show us evidence that it's wrong. I quoted Dr. Humphries above about what happened with the reporting so feel free to read it and tell me what you think she got wrong. I trust her a lot more than this echo chamber. Turns out the same thing happened with polio too by the way.

"using mortality would be changing the subject"

Someone raised the subject by insisting on an explanation of why the measles incidence dropped after vaccine introduction in the USA. I explained as requested, even though the subject is not mine, and in retrospect it was a mistake because if you say anything against the vaccine religion here it is dismissed without thinking. The question I'm asking myself and searching for evidence to decide the answer, is should I and mine get stuck? For that question, the important part is mortality. You are the one all hyped up on morbidity, I assume because it is the only piece of empirical evidence you can seize on to support your foregone conclusion.

When I know from experience that measles isn't a big deal, when the doctors and parents prior to vaccine introduction didn't think it was a big deal, it doesn't make any sense to fixate on morbidity unless you're trying to convince yourself that your vaccine religion is the one true one. If death rates were nearly zero prior to vaccine introduction, which I have to assume they were because the alternative is that somehow those large data sets are false, that means that measles isn't the deadly threat all the nervous Nellies say it is.

"you idiot… it was not an ad hominem."

Okay name caller. That make ya feel better? ad hominem, name calling, insults, whatever you want to call the communications techniques methods used in this cult echo chamber, it all works out to the same thing - I'm outraged that you would question the sacred texts of my religion so I'm going to call you names, and then try to get into a nerd argument if you call me on it.

"You are in no position to claim American measles incidence data was manipulated and lies."

Dr. Humphries is, she's studied up on it. If you think she's wrong you should tell her.

"It is not being full of oneself"

Yes it is. It insisted on an answer to the question it asked, not me. It insisted on an answer to the question because it was all ready to joyously proclaim it's victory over the heathen who was supposed to be forced to admit that vaccines work after all. See above. My question is to stick or not to stick.

If Dr. Orac, apparently the oracle of vaccinations, believes so strongly that we should all get stuck, it would be helpful if he or she or they would actually debunk Dr. Humphries. All I see is an article filled with outrage and venom and no professionalism, which is pretty much all you'll get out of any of the vaccine cult. Please, tell us, and her, what she's doing wrong and help save humanity from her dangerous words.

And finally and again, it sounds like it is true that there do not exist any published double blind randomised placebo controlled studies comparing the health outcomes of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated people, or at least none showing that vaccinated have better outcomes. For a bunch who claim to place so much weight on peer reviewed research, that's a pretty big gaping lack of evidence. The tough part for the cult is that studies have begun coming out that show that unvaccinated people have better health outcomes. If you all care about humanity as much as you profess, you should try getting out more.

For everyone who is interested in learning something new, here is an article by Andrew W. Saul, Assistant Editor, Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, about Dr. Klenner, complete with references, including one to what the staff at the hospital where he delivered babies called “Vitamin C Babies.”

http://www.doctoryourself.com/klennerbio.html
It says Reprinted with permission from J Orthomolecular Med, 2007. Vol 22, No 1, p 31-38

Not a single PubMed study in sight, more homage to the idiot known as Freddy Klenner, and other idiots... and you have not actually figured out who Orac is...

That is precious. I now dedicate this ear worm to you:Trollin' Trollin' Trollin'
Trollin' Trollin' Trollin'
Trollin' Trollin' Trollin'
Trollin' Trollin' Trollin'
Rawhide!
Trollin' Trollin' Trollin'
Though the threads are swollen
Keep them comments trollin',
Rawhide!

Move 'em on
(Head em' up!)
Head em' up
(Move 'em on!)
Move 'em on
(Head em' up!)
Rawhide!
Cut 'em out
(Paste 'em in!)
Paste'em in
(Cut em' out!)
Cut 'em out
Paste 'em in,
Rawhide!
Keep trollin', trollin', trollin'
Though they're disaprovin'
Keep them comments trollin'',
Rawhide
Don't try to understand 'em
Just rope, laugh, and ignore 'em
Soon we'll be discussin' bright without 'em

Ad hominem is the most popular logical fallacy amongst the vaccine cultists.

There's no need to repeatedly demonstrate that "knowing the difference between insult and ad hominem" is yet another item that is not in your cognitive repertoire.

Dr. Humphries is, she’s studied up on it. If you think she’s wrong you should tell her.

Lots of people are stupid and wrong. Some of them are even wrong on the Internet. However, I am not Bowerick Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, so I feel no obligation to explain the full extent of their wrongness and stupidity to each of these numpties individually.

Turns out the same thing happened with polio too by the way.

Slothful version of the Greenberg Gambit, check.

For everyone who is interested in learning something new . . . .
. . . .
J Orthomolecular Med, 2007

Take it away, Buddy.

The witch hunt against Wakefield is the fraud:

http://elliottfreed.weebly.com/truth/that-one-study

References Wakefield et al 1988:

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2897%291…

Which concludes "We have identified a chronic enterocolitis in children that may be related to neuropsychiatric dysfunction. In most cases, onset of symptoms was after measles, mumps, and rubella immunisation. Further investigations are needed to examine this syndrome and its possible relation to this vaccine."

"I feel no obligation to explain the..."

That's what I thought. You got nothing.

References Wakefield et al 1988:

h[]tp://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2897%2911096-0/…

Which concludes

Yawn.

"Not a single PubMed study in sight"

Not a single double blind placebo controlled randomised study in sight

, more homage to the idiot known as Freddy Klenner, and other idiots… "

More name calling to compensate for lack of knowledge

"and you have not actually figured out who Orac is…"

And you have not produced valid evidence that vaccines are good for you. Vaccines as controls is all that exists and you know it.

" Which concludes

Yawn."

I know you haven't read the Lancet paper yawner. They set Wakefield up in that press conference simply because of that conclusion which I quoted above, which didn't show sufficient deference to the vaccine gods. If you read the paper and the article I linked above you'll see that there is nothing controversial in the paper. "They" chose Wakefield because he was lead researcher therefore the logical one to sacrifice in order to send a message.

"Don’t try to understand ’em"

It lies along with it's name calling bullying. I'm the one who followed the link to the measles study that wasn't double blind or placebo controlled. There's no such thing and it's causing the vaccine cultists a terrible case of cognitive dissonance.

Not a single double blind placebo controlled randomised study in sight

The fail, it burns.

I know you haven’t read the Lancet paper yawner.

Again, you're painfully bad at this. Bottoms up, johnnycakes.

As a former CAMHS senior nurse (y'know, working with autistic bairns, and more), with a science degree, I actually have read Wakefield et alia's original Lancet "paper", and all the following legal shenanigans, retractions, the GMC findings and anything else which was actually published, as it kinda impacted on my professional area and I could spot some piss poor attempts at "science" in the original. Quite why The Lancet published that in the first place is a bit of a mystery.

Oh, and Wakefield, as I keep pointing out, had naff all experience and certainly NO expertise in anything to do with autism: he was not a paediatrician nor a child psychiatrist nor an LD specialist.

It is not for nothing that Wakefield is widely known over here as Mr Lying Pants Fraudy Trousers.

That’s what I thought. You got nothing.
Chris seems to belong the "Let's you and him fight" school of trollery. "Don't argue with me -- argue with Dr Humphries! Argue with Klenners and his evidence-free claims!"
But Humphries isn't here, and Chris is, and why argue with the organ-grinder when you can argue with the monkey?

When I know from experience that measles isn’t a big deal

From Wikipedia:

It causes the most vaccine-preventable deaths of any disease. It resulted in about 96,000 deaths in 2013, down from 545,000 deaths in 1990. In 1980, the disease was estimated to have caused 2.6 million deaths per year.

Not a big deal?

when the doctors and parents prior to vaccine introduction didn’t think it was a big deal

Oh but they did. Just because everyone caught measles didn't mean nobody was worried.

Only an idiot would think parent's didn't think measles wasn't a big deal.....

It wasn't considered benign, it was considered inevitable. Parents would just have to hope and pray that their child was one of the lucky ones, who didn't go blind or deaf, or ultimately die from SSPE.

There used to be hundreds of schools for the deaf and blind, before vaccinations nearly eradicated childhood blindness and deafness too.

These are just historical facts that "stupid" Chris conveniently ignores.

“”The bugs can make a living in a weak body but not a strong one.”

How do you know this?”

Vast store of publicly available empirical data

So you have no reliable evidence, then - just a vague reference to common knowledge.

What evidence do you have that a strong body cannot host pathogens?”

I think this is a straw man attack, as I don’t recall anyone saying that “a strong body cannot host pathogens.”

It's a reasonable interpretation of your statement above. You've stated words to the effect that you won't get sick and won't spread disease if you have a strong body (whatever that means in this context). I merely restated it as I understood it. Your discussion certainly seems to support my interpretation.

The practical implications I take from it are to be informed about what nutrients my body needs and then take steps to make sure it gets them. I also wash my hands after taking care of important business, etc. And I don’t let the witch doctors stick me with the vaccine poisons. Instead I choose to behave as if Dr. Klenner and others are not lying or wrong and anything that gets past defenses developed over hundreds of millions of years can be fixed with vitamin C.

So you believe in hand washing (good) and massive doses of vitamin C. Despite the lack of data to show that massive doses of vitamin C actually prevents disease.

It’s not rocket science.

Well, no, because rocket science has been demonstrated to work.

I learned a new term today, coined by Kelly Ann ConwY, "alternative facts."

Alternative facts aren't facts, they are lies.

Just like stupid chris' above....

Not that Chris but the other
Regurgitates anti-vax blather,
..With innumeracy and and quackery galore
..Conflation, correlation and more
Tracing convolutions that would puzzle Mithrandir.

@ Lawrence:

Me too!
-btw- Isn't political news starting to sound uncomfortably close to the type of BS woo websites that we usually follow?

The bugs can make a living in a weak body but not a strong one.

Strong bodies did so well during the Spanish 'Flu epidemic...
http://www.clinicalcorrelations.org/?p=1862

I see Chris decided to return, possibly because he wanted to display his foolishness (to be kind) some more.
Like deluded antivaxers everywhere, he finds a line of argument that has been shot full of holes before and thinks he's the first person it ever occurred to.
The particular nonsense I'm responding to is the old "Improved hygiene and nutrition" gambit. It doesn't account for the decline of those diseases after mass vaccination campaigns where hygiene and nutrition remained poor. It doesn't account for the last remaining pockets of polio in the three places where terrorists are resisting vaccine programs. It leaves out the programs where oral vaccine "traps" decrease the incidence of rabies in foxes and other wildlife. The there's the eradication of smallpox from it's last redoubts in Somalia and Bangladesh coinciding with aggressive vaccination campaigns.
Chris, I'd like you to show me how improved hygiene and nutrition eradicated rinderpest in east African cattle, and why that eradication occurred in Africa and India after vaccination campaigns.
By the way, just because someone is in a remote area of a third world country doesn't automatically mean they're undernourished, unwashed, or in poor health. Your information about nonwhite areas of the world must come from Pat Buchanan speeches and Tarzan movies.

I also wash my hands after taking care of important business, etc.

Which generally doesn't do much to protect you, but is important to protect others from you and yours.

I see Chris decided to return, possibly because he wanted to display his foolishness (to be kind) some more.

Oh, it may well be back yet tonight. The "original antigenic sin" routine certainly hasn't received nearly the ridicule that it deserves, anyway.

BTW, did Other Chris and Jessika overlap, or was it a clean baton pass?

Narad, I was surprised to see "other Chris" mention the original antigen sin, it's usually way too advanced for most of the anti-vaxxer trolls we get around here.
And given the way Other Chris tried to use it, it is clearly way, way past his understanding as well. Probably thinks it has to do with Catholics and sex. *snort*

"Just because everyone caught measles didn’t mean nobody was worried."

Again: "The 1950s medical literature stated by the attending doctors of the day that measles was generally considered a mild disease which doctors didn’t recommend trying to prevent. There was no inclination to prevent measles spreading, and children rarely needed any medical treatment at all. The infection was over in a week, and as BMJ published, the doctors said that many mothers remarked that their children were better for it afterwards. There were no special attempts made to prevent measles infections even in young infants in whom the disease has not been found to be especially serious. BMJ 1959. Measles reports from general practitioners. Feb 7;1:380-383

Read this if you want to understand more than the vaccine dogma: http://drsuzanne.net/2015/10/why-dr-suzanne-humphries-an-anti-vaccine-a…

"Despite the lack of data to show that massive doses of vitamin C actually prevents disease."

That's a good point. Dr. Klenner could have published lies or been wrong, and the peer reviewers could have missed it 28 times, and the hospital staff stories about his "vitamin C babies" and the reports from his thousands of patients who referred to him as St. Klenner could be lies. And all the evidence presented in Dr. Levy's book below could be wrong. And it could also be right, and Dr. Klenner and others could have really cured thousands of people with IV, IM and oral ascorbic acid therapy. You pays your money and you takes your chances. Go ahead and cover your eyes and ears if you want, maybe you're right and there's nothing outside the vaccine dogma.

" "It’s not rocket science."

"Well, no, because rocket science has been demonstrated to work."

So has vitamin C. See "Curing the Incurable" by Dr. Thomas Levy.

Idjit: which doctors didn’t recommend trying to prevent.

Because they didn't have a vaccine, antibiotics don't work on a virus, and measles is worse and less survivable if you're an adult. The best they could do was quarantine individuals and keep 'em quiet. By the way, I'm pretty sure you're deliberately misquoting the BMJ.

As far as the former Dr. Humphries is concerned, if she's moving her lips or her fingers she is lying. I don't think she's ever told the truth as an adult.

"Improved hygiene and nutrition” gambit. It doesn’t account for the decline of those diseases after mass vaccination campaigns where hygiene and nutrition remained poor."

The vaccine religion tries to use the magician's trick of diverting ones attention. They insist we focus on disease rates but not pay any attention to death rates. If the disease rates go down after vaccine introduction, but pretty much nobody was dying from the disease anyway, what good did the vaccine do? It sounds to me like these poor kids are getting robbed of an opportunity to develop lifetime immunity without the risks of the vaccine. And then I find out that the vaccine manufacturers are subsidised by being made legally immune to product liability lawsuits. Not a difficult decision.

"Idjit:"

From https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem
ad hominem
Ad hominem attacks can take the form of overtly attacking somebody, or more subtly casting doubt on their character or personal attributes as a way to discredit their argument. The result of an ad hom attack can be to undermine someone's case without actually having to engage with it.

"former Dr. Humphries"

I think it lies. Any evidence?

" is concerned, if she’s moving her lips or her fingers she is lying. I don’t think she’s ever told the truth as an adult."

Again, evidence to support that slander? Or is it because she speaks heresy against the vaccine cult? Someone above said the matter had been settled and I could find the details by searching this site for her name. All I found was an article by the great "Orac" which contained great wailing and gnashing of teeth but nothing to make me doubt her concusions.

Chris, Suzanne Humphries is lying to you. I was able to google that BMJ article.

The infection was over in a week, and as BMJ published, the doctors said that many mothers remarked that their children were better for it afterwards.

The claim that mothers said their children "were better for it" does not appear in the article. That is a lie. In addition, the article mentions that some children caught measles for a second time. Humphries is pulling the old trick of lying about what a source says, knowing full well that most people won't check.

"Narad, I was surprised to see “other Chris” mention the original antigen sin,"

Here's a pertussis example:

in pertussis (whooping cough) those who are vaccinated are more likely, due to original antigenic sin, to be carriers of the bacteria longer than the non-vaccinated, even when asymptomatic. In his article published in Clinical Infectious Disease in 2004 (https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/38/4/502/351500/Determination-of-S…) Dr. James Cherry pointed out that adults, re-vaccinated against pertussis, don’t develop any antibacterial activity whatsoever. He went on to explain why. The current vaccines contain a few antigens, which create “original antigenic sin”, whereby the immune response to the vaccine is abnormal. That first-learned response then becomes the default position the immune system takes, on future booster shots. So in the case of the whooping cough vaccines there are key protein virulence factors which have not been included in the vaccines including ACT, TCF, TCT, as well as BrkA and DNT.

Because the first three are not included, the default immune response does not prevent colonization, and furthermore, Cherry stated that the “original antigenic sin” results in the vaccinated being unable to clear the bacteria from their lungs. The non-vaccinated have immunity to all the front line virulence factors and very quickly clear the bacteria on re-exposure.

"the anti-vaxxer trolls"

Echo chamber occupants could try looking in the (virtual) mirror.

" we get around here."

We?

"The claim that mothers said their children “were better for it” does not appear in the article. That is a lie. In addition, the article mentions that some children caught measles for a second time."

The claim that Humphries is lying is a lie.

From the second page of the article,

"Dr. JOHN FRY (Beckenham, Kent) writes:

ln the majority of children the whole episode has been well and truly over in a week, from the prodromal phase to the disappearance of the rash, and many mothers have remarked "how much good the attack has done their children," as they seem so much better after the measles.
...
Over the past 10 years there have been few serious complications at any age, and all children have made complete recoveries. As a result of this reasoning no special attempts have been made at prevention even in young infants in whom the disease has not been found to be especially serious."

Furthermore, regardless of the exact quote, the article exactly supports her point, which you know full well since you read it. Here's a few more good quotes:

Regarding measles outbreaks:

"Dr. G. I. WATSON (Peaslake, Surrey) writes (regarding complications): "Four cases of otitis media occurred in the first 25 children, but only one had pain. No case of pneumonia has occurred, but one child had grossly abnormal signs in the chest for a few days after the fever
subsided, uninfluenced by oral penicillin. One girl had a tear-duct infection and another an undue blepharitis. Of three adult males with the disease, two have been more severely affected than any of the children."

"Dr. R. E. HOPE STMPSON (Cirencester, Glos) writes: We make no attempt to prevent the spread of measles, and would only use gamma globulin to mitigate the severity of the disease in the case of the exposure of a susceptible adult or child who is already severely debilitated.

Experience bears out the expectation that children under 2 years old usually have mild attacks, and under 6 months often escape the disease altogether. These mild attacks in infancy do not appear to give a solid immunity, and such children are often subject to a second attack when they reach school age."

"Dr. KEITH HODGKIN (Redcar, Yorks) writes: If the present measles epidemic of nearly 100 cases is compared with the two previous epidemics (250 cases), no obvious differences are observed. ...
In the three epidemics there were no deaths and no admissions to hospital, and in no case did pulmonary complications persist long enough to show on an x-ray when the child was well."

Idjit: That's not an ad hom, that is a DESCRIPTION. I have not seen any evidence that you are intelligent. So far, all you've down here is attack people, spew lies, and attack people again, rinse and repeat. You have yet to post a single actual fact that comes from a reliable source. And you distorted the one actual source you quoted from.

Other Chris: "blah blah blah... more nonsense..."

The only response other than ignoring is:

Trollin' Trollin' Trollin'
Trollin' Trollin' Trollin'
Trollin' Trollin' Trollin'
Trollin' Trollin' Trollin'
Rawhide!
Trollin' Trollin' Trollin'
Though the threads are swollen
Keep them comments trollin',
Rawhide!

Other Chris @86: Interesting paper, but it doesn't say what you think it does. Original antigenic sin was discussed in relation to children who failed to develop immunity to the vaccine (but were reported to have less severe disease than unvaccinated children).
Second, the adults had active B. pertussis infection, not re-vaccination. Also, the adults did express B. pertussis-specific antibodies, the antibody production did decay at different rates.
"The persistence of antibodies to the latter 4 antigens may result from continued stimulation by cross-reacting antigens from other infectious agents [23, 24]. Antibody to PT decreases more acutely because this antigen is B. pertussis exclusive."
This has nothing to do with original antigenic sin.

So, close but no cigar. I'll offer the same advice I've offered to other commentors here: read Janeway's Immunobiology (7th edition or newer).

“Narad, I was surprised to see “other Chris” mention the original antigen sin,”

Here’s a pertussis example

Nope. Here is your claim:

In fact, the vaccine story is that they are a way to cheat, and train up your immune system without getting sick. Basically the pitch is that you get your cake and eat it too so it makes sense that it gets a lot of sales. But it is a lie, because original antigenic sin.

Go figure out what a highly conserved region is.

"immunity is now a subsidy! Now, go look up the word subsidy.
Immunity was provided by the government assuming the risk, thereby encouraging vaccine manufacture."

As the second sentence says, We The People of the USA generously relieve the vaccine manufacturers of product liability consequences, meaning we pay when their products maim. Or maybe it's confused about what the government is. It understands that all that dough the government pays out was first collected from us taxpayers at gunpoint, right?

"You continually incorrectly think that nothing was done, therefore it wasn’t a big deal."

The published reports from doctors and parents, and my personal experience, report that the measles wasn't a big deal, and the children were the better for it. Dr. Klenner reported curing 61 patients of polio during an outbreak. I know the vaccine cultists will howl in outrage that the good doctor was a quack, but they've produced no substantiating evidence, nor have I found any in my own searching. Just like they lie about Dr. Humphries.

"no company in the entire world create vaccines, so we could all have families with dead children in them"

Yes, clearly, dead kids is what I'm hoping for. The logic is that if I manufacture one product that hurts people then I get sued and have to compensate my victims, even if some of the consumers benefited from my product. But if I manufacture a certain different product that hurts people then all you tax payers will pay my legal costs. Arbitrary and capricious and I don't consent to pay just because people like you have decided for me that vaccines are saving us all. It's one thing for the vaccine cultists to have their opinion, but another thing entirely, a crime, when they get to force me to behave as if I had the same opinion.

"Other Chris: “blah blah blah… more nonsense…”"

I asked for a DBPCR (Double Blind Placebo Controlled Randomised) study with a statistically valid sample size showing long term outcomes of vaccinated vs unvaccinated people. Instead I was directed to a non double blind, non placebo controlled study in which much of the data consisted of cases in which the doctors weren't sure if it was measles.

I've asked several times since then, but nothing except put downs and bullying. For someone so into peer reviewed research I'm surprised that a study wasn't quickly produced. Pretty sure all the other reports I've read, that no such study exists, are TRUE. So what we're left with is evidence that

1) Disease death rates, mortality, were down to near zero prior to the introduction of vaccines.
2) Disease rates, morbidity, at least in the case of USA measles, appeared to drop rapidly after the introduction of vaccines in 1963. However, at least part of the drop was a data artifact due to reclassification of vaccine measles cases as not measles, and so likely the drop in morbidity was due to the same factors that had already resulted in the drop in mortality.
3) No solid evidence supporting the hypothesis that your health outcome is likely to be better if you get the vaccine shots. All the studies use vaccinated people as controls, and all the researchers, at least the ones I've read, assume a priori the answer to the question I'm asking, which is "are the shots good for me"? And just to top it all off, the same organisation that did the witch hunt against Dr. Wakefield et al (British General Medical Council) then later went after Dr. Donnegan. But this time it picked on the wrong lady and as a result now officially states that vaccines are not needed for good health.
4) A ton of evidence exists showing that if good sanititation and nutrition don't do the trick then IV ascorbic acid will.

Seriously, if there is a DBPCR study I want to read it.

"You have yet to post a single actual fact that comes from a reliable source."

The British Medical Journal isn't a reliable source?

"Levy never had his results replicated by others"

Dr. Levy's book "Curing The Incurable" consists of his compilation of the research of others. Aboot the second half of the book is citations.

#94

The same Jayne Donegan (correct spelling here) who the GMC in para 17 of their findings state that she does acknowledge the benefits of immunisation and its positive impact on public health and that she would recommend vaccination to parents concerned about the consequences of not doing so?

And para 25 of the findings also states that "this case is not concerned with the efficacy of vaccines nor with the risks and benefits associated with them".

The same Jayne Donegan who did accept during the hearing that on at least 2 points in her reports she HAD given a misleading impression about pertussis and rubella? That's para 31 by the way...

And who accepted that the conclusions of authors of references she used were different from her own conclusions and that she should have cited those conclusions? That's para 32...

While the GMC did not find the charges proven (not unusual for FTP cases at the GMC) I cannot find anything that supports what you say about the GMC officially stating that vaccines are not necessary for good health, especially, as per para 25 of the findings, because that was not what the case was about.

Amusingly the only transcript of the GMC findings I could, errrr, find was on whale.to. Just shows even that has its uses at times...

Idjit: The British Medical Journal isn’t a reliable source?

Not the way you're using it, no. Actually, you quoted Suzanne Humphries, the liar, again, attempting to misquote an article for her own gain. And dude, you should check out her net worth sometime. You don't make millions by being honest.

Chris the antivax fantasist said: "1) Disease death rates, mortality, were down to near zero prior to the introduction of vaccines."

False. Consider for example the case of measles.

"Before 1963, approximately 500,000 cases and 500 deaths were reported annually, with epidemic cycles every 2–3 years. However, the actual number of cases was estimated at 3–4 million annually."

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/meas.html

The parents of those 500+ dead children annually (in the U.S. alone) would probably differ with your characterization of mortality as being "near zero". And that's just one vaccine-preventable disease.

The diseases-didn't-decline-they-were-just-reclassified meme is classical antivax bogus claptrap.

Doesn't it ever occur to you spreading lies like these embarrasses your cause, and you personally?

DB:

Chris the antivax fantasist said: “1) Disease death rates, mortality, were down to near zero prior to the introduction of vaccines.”

Wow, only someone dumber than a rock would say that. From the Disease Statistic Appendix of the CDC Pink Book (with added notes from me):

Disease: Measles in the USA
Year__Cases____Deaths
1950__319,124__468 (by they way, these are seriously
1951__530,118__683 under counted, there were
1952__683,077__618 many many more!)
1953__449,146__462
1954__682,720__518
1955__555,156__345
1956__611,936__530
1957__486,799__389
1958__763,094__552
1959__406,162__385
1960__441,703__380
1961__423,919__434
1962__481,530__408
1963__385,156__364
(^^ first vaccine licensed)
1964__458,083__421
1965__261,905__276
1966__204,136__261
1967___62,705___81
1968___22,231___24
1969___25,826___41
1970___47,351___89
1971___75,290___90
(^^^ MMR licensed)
1972___32,275___24
1973___26,690___23
1974___22,690___20
1975___24,374___20
1976___41,126___12
1977___57,245___15
1978___26,871___11
(^^^ Measles Elimination Program started)
1979___13,597____6
1980___13,506___11
1981____2,124____2
1982____1,714____4
1983____1,497____1
1984____2,587____1
1985____2,822____2
1986____6,282____2
1987____3,655____2
1988____3,396____3
1989___18,193___32 (this is what happens when
1990___27,786___64 measles vaccine coverage
1991____9,643___27 is reduced)
1992____2,237____4
1993______312____0 (vaccine coverage returns)
1994______963____0
1995______309____2
1996______508____1
1997______138____2
1998______100____0
1999______100____2
2000_______86____1
2001______116____1
2002_______44____0
2003_______56____1
2004_______37____0
2005_______66____1
2006_______55____0

The actual data has more, but we do not want to strain the very limited attention span of Other Chris. Who will dismiss it as some kind of conspiracy theory, which is why he is a troll.

I asked for a DBPCR (Double Blind Placebo Controlled Randomised) study with a statistically valid sample size showing long term outcomes of vaccinated vs unvaccinated people.

Why no, you didn't. In any event, you got the most glaringly obvious example, so this whining is misplaced:

I’ve asked several times since then, but nothing except put downs and bullying.

It’s one thing for the vaccine cultists to have their opinion, but another thing entirely, a crime, when they get to force me to behave as if I had the same opinion.

Nobody's forcing you to do anything, dipshіt.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/alex-jones-white-house-press-acc…

Fellow nutjob Alex Jones is claiming that Trump gave him a White House press pass, with the White House staff denying this. This outcome is similar to RFK Jr claiming that Trump offered him the chair of the vaccine commission, then the denial that any such offer was made.

I'm starting to think that Trump throws these offers around without any intention of following through, leaving his staff to clean up the mess. It also means that a lot of nutjobs are going to be disappointed and pissed off.

Good.

The results of the first ever study comparing the health of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children was published online in Frontiers in Public Health after being accepted November 2. The study compared children’s health via surveys of 412 mothers of children aged 6-12 years. Nearly 40 percent of the 666 children had never been vaccinated, so the control group was adequate to provide a comparison against children who had been vaccinated.

However the study was unpublished by the journal after coming under heavy, sustained criticism from vaccine lobbyists and mainstream media. Why? Could it be because the first scientific study into the health of vaccinated children found that they were a staggering three times more likelythan unvaccinated children to be diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism?

The abstract specifically stated:

“A total of 415 mothers provided data on 666 children, of which 261 (39%) were unvaccinated. Vaccinated children were significantly less likely than the unvaccinated to have been diagnosed with chickenpox and pertussis, but significantly more likely to have been diagnosed with pneumonia, otitis media, allergies and NDDs (defined as Autism Spectrum Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and/or a learning disability).”

The study further concluded:

“In this study based on mothers’ reports, the vaccinated had a higher rate of allergies and NDD than the unvaccinated. Vaccination, but not preterm birth, remained significantly associated with NDD after controlling for other factors. However, preterm birth combined with vaccination was associated with an apparent synergistic increase in the odds of NDD. Further research involving larger, independent samples is needed to verify and understand these unexpected findings in order to optimize the impact of vaccines on children’s health.”

The paper was peer-reviewed by Linda Mullin Elkins, a chiropractor at Life University, and Kelly Hsieh from the University of Illinois at Chicago. It was edited by Amit Agrawal at Gandhi Medical College in India.

"Nobody’s forcing you to do anything, dipshіt."

Yes they are and you know it name caller. Mine and yours tax money is being used to immunise vaccine manufacturers from liability for injuries caused by their products.

"Why no, you didn’t. In any event, you got the most glaringly obvious example, "

Why yes, I've asked a bunch of times as you know full well since you've obviously been reading the comments, with no pointers to such a study. I assume you meant to link to where the other Chris provided a link to the early 60s measles study. As you can see in the comments I followed the link. It wasn't double blind or placebo controlled as I've pointed out in detail many times. I would be very much interested in reading one, since I want to make the right decision. None of the vaccine cultists can take the ego blow of 'fessing up that no such study exists.

It's okay to be wrong vaccine cultist, it doesn't mean you're a bad person. Anyone can be wrong, and it's okay to change your mind when you learn more.

"Ohhh! I’m paying a fraction of a penny on something that I don’t like! I’m a slave!
Pathetic."

Or you could just admit that what you said is a lie. You and I are in fact being forced to subsidise the vaccine manufacturers, along with whatever else we each would not personally fund if we were allowed to spend the products of our labour as we see fit.

“Why no, you didn’t. In any event, you got the most glaringly obvious example, ”

Why yes, I’ve asked a bunch of times as you know full well since you’ve obviously been reading the comments, with no pointers to such a study. I assume you meant to link to where the other Chris provided a link to the early 60s measles study.

Now you don't know what a link is?

Mine and yours tax money is being used to immunise

Hmph.

vaccine manufacturers from liability for injuries caused by their products.

No, the trust fund is paid for by the tax that manufacturers pass through to the vaccine consumer. Why do you even bother with such idiotic attempts?

Here's a couple of fun quotes:

Dr. Richard Horton, the editor-in-chief of the Lancet

“a lot of published research is in fact unreliable at best, if not completely false.”

‘The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness…'

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Dr. Marcia Angell, Editor NJM over 20 years:

“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgement of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine."

"Now you don’t know what a link is?"

I followed the link and it took me to a few comments below where the link to the measles article was provided. I don't know if you meant to link to the measles link or something else. If you know of DBPCR study you could just link to it.

You and I are in fact being forced to subsidise the vaccine manufacturers, along with whatever else we each would not personally fund if we were allowed to spend the products of our labour as we see fit.

I'm reminded of the time that Gerg tried to pretend that he wasn't Canadian, with a little spritz of Phildo Hills for effervescence.

"paid for by the tax that manufacturers pass through to the vaccine consumer. Why do you even bother with such idiotic attempts?"

Hmm. Where do the vaccine consumers get the money to pay that tax? Pretty sure we're getting robbed here in some complex way. And thinking about it, something's smelly about this arrangement. Why make the manufacturer pay a tax, then pay the victims with the tax from a special court outside the tort law system? Why not let tort law do it's thing and pay victims directly when juries find the manufacturers liable? Why is the tax man in the middle?

@Chris:

The study compared children’s health via surveys

There's yer problem. Surveys are known for being very poor at getting a true picture. That and the small sample size are why the paper was withdrawn.

The paper was peer-reviewed by Linda Mullin Elkins, a chiropractor at Life University

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Inadvertent comedy gold right there!

Hmm. Where do the vaccine consumers get the money to pay that tax? Pretty sure we’re getting robbed here in some complex way. And thinking about it, something’s smelly

Well, you got something right. Now scurry back to that trial that you're pretending you weren't handed.

I followed the link and it took me to a few comments below where the link to the measles article was provided. I don’t know if you meant to link to the measles link or something else. If you know of DBPCR study you could just link to it.

I did, brainiac, and then I had to point you to where it was again.

The results of the first ever study comparing the health of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children was published online in Frontiers in Public Health after being accepted November 2.

Imagine my shock to find lazy-arsed troll engaging in cut-&-paste plagiarism.

Radio Yerevan adds: The claim in the plagiarised post is largely correct, apart from the study not being the first ever vaccinated-vs-non-vaccinated comparison, and the results not being ever published.

If the results had been published, then lazy-arsed trolls would have no difficulty cut-and-pasting the entire paper. But they never do... only the Abstract. It's almost as if they are making sh1te up, or regurging sh1te that they read somewhere else.

Julian @ 117

Beat me to it!

Do we really need to do the Numpty Guide on why using self-report, parent report and the like WITHOUT any form of objective support is nigh on useless, either clinically or in research?

Oddly, not to far from here I just had to point this out to Vinu, as well as that his reference didn't say what he said it said, bit like I did with Other Chris just up there...

@New Chris
The study you quote at #105 has been commented here : http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2016/11/29/antivaccinationists-promot…
Not only was it bad (come on, an Internet survey ?), it isn't even "the first ever study comparing the health of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children". What happened for example to the KIGGS study, whose results anti-vaxxers love to deform ?

As for quoting Angell, she is continuously misquoted and used by people who don’t want to bring constructive criticism of real problems in current research ; they quote her to reject any research they don’t like, by pretending she shares their cartoonish representations of medical research.
It’s even more ironic when they quote her in vaccination debates, since she is very pro-vaccination.
– In her book she is far more POed at “me-too” drugs and regrets vaccines aren’t more available (see chapter 5 p.91-92)
– She uses immunization rates as a measurement for health care quality here : http://www.pbs.org/healthcarecrisis/Exprts_intrvw/m_angell.htm

Constructive criticisms of problems in medical science publishing like Angell's, Horton's, Ioannidis' etc. are constantly quoted as if it was a magical joker to not take any research article into account. (In fact, if we apply this logic, we can also directly eliminate the studies you quoted, and then where does that get us ?)

From Chris @ #102 (currently on this page):

"1989___18,193___32 (this is what happens when
1990___27,786___64 measles vaccine coverage
1991____9,643___27 is reduced"

Due to mutated strain (not disputing a point, just offering more fyi). I made a comment in another topic, with the advent of the NCVIA in '86, a revised vaccine was able to get manufactured and distributed, and we see the positive result as time continued. Still, a three year period where we got hammered by the disease.

Clearly I'm a latecomer to this little party.It's fairly obvious Other Chris here is pretty much a newcomer to this blog,with so much he needs to be brought up to speed about.Since Other Chris is so hung up on measles,I'm kind of surprised no one has posted this for him to read
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2015/05/15/the-benefits-of-the-measle…

Wzrd1@74. Here is a little more background about why polio has not been fully eliminated,especially, in parts of Africa.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/08/23/polio-is-…

As for your comments @42 when was the last time an antivax parent ever gave a damn about the health of a vulnerable individual,who might be exposed to their little disease vectors?

MarkN: "Due to mutated strain (not disputing a point, just offering more fyi)"

This is absolutely the first time I have heard of a "mutated" strain. Especially since I had very small children during that time, it was quite scary. I very much remember an article in the paper quoting a grieving mother of child who died for measles who thought they were not necessary since measles was "no longer around."

The explanations I had read is that many were unvaccinated toddlers because parents would wait to vaccinate for kindergarten, hence the creation of "Every Child by Two" by Betty Bumpers and Roselyn Carter. They also addressed that problem of undervaccination of kids due to poverty and lack of health insurance:
http://www.ecbt.org/index.php/about/article/about_us

And this:
West J Med. 1996 Jul-Aug;165(1-2):20-5.
Pediatric hospital admissions for measles. Lessons from the 1990 epidemic.

I also, remember at that time our health insurance refused to pay for the well child visit/vaccines for our four year old in 1992... but they did for the second child in 1994. Apparently they learned it was cheaper to pay for the vaccines and well child check ups after that epidemic.

Then there were those who were vaccinated in the mid to late 1960s with an ineffective measles vaccine before the intro of the MMR in 1971. Which happened to Dr. John Snyder:
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/danger-zones-of-parental-vaccine-refus…

Also, the last time I heard the MMR vaccine was revised was in 1978 with the modification of the rubella strain.

So, this is kind of a long way of saying: citation needed.

Oh, and I forgot... another thing that changed after that epidemic was the addition of the second MMR dose. At first it was entry to middle school, so my oldest got it when he was eleven.

Then that was changed to a second dose before kindergarten. My younger children would have been allowed to wait until they were eleven years old, but some unvaccinated brought measles back from a trip. Then it spread all throughout a private school full of unvaxxed snowflakes.

Since Snowflake Prep was a bit too close to where we live, I took my younger kids in for the second dose when they were four and eight years old.

@ TBruce:

re Alex having a press pass-

I wouldn't be surprised as i heard recently ( probably on MSNBC) that the new press room is much larger ( and in a new locale) so that the ( normal) press would be joined by more altie outlets and bloggers.
So far, Trump has hung with Brietbart, RT and Alex Jones.

MarkN, here is another study from California:
Measles epidemic from failure to immunize.

Also, many deaths did not happen until much later:
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-measles-sspe-20150624-story…

There is a higher probability of SSPE for those who get measles before their first birthday. The introduction of the above link says that was the age group with the highest incidence.

Here's a quick cite, Chris. Note last sentence of the abstract.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2596022

There was a substantial re-vaccination campaign across college campuses during this time due to findings of previous vaccine shortcomings.

MarkN, which country? That paper is from 1989, and the researchers are in Switzerland. It does not seem to be in the USA.

And I see nothing about the MMR II, which was introduced in 1978 being modified.

I should note that there are different measles vaccine strains used in different countries. That paper specified the Edmonston strain. The MMR II uses the Enders' attenuated Edmonston strain, which is slightly different:
http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/m/mmr_ii/mmr_ii_pi.pdf

There was some discussion on creating measles vaccines in the Dr. Paul Offit's biography of Maurice Helleman, Vaccinated.

Here's more context of what was going on during that time, note, it's not mutual exclusivity between unvaccinated/poor compliance and vaccination failure due to the mutations:

U.S. recommendations
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001454.htm

Further, the outbreak from Swiss:
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001681.htm

Again, both, a poor compliance and also showing the beginning of understanding that the vaccine available at the time was not efficacious.

The effect in the U.S. was the huge spike in disease outbreak and mortality/morbidity, and also a large re-vax campaign to catch those in the time period, notably for me was college campuses. I don't know if your area was significantly different from where I was, which was the southeast U.S. at the time.

But (again), the concern was mutation that the previous vaccine couldn't cover.

At this point, I think there's enough shown to lay out the context of what was going on 89-91 for the spike in disease outbreak. Any further, and I'm just beating a horse.

Le sigh. Both of those do not include the peak of the epidemic in 1990, and the Swiss one included a large number of unvaccinated persons. The Editorial of the USA report pretty much is what I had stated (undervaccinated preschoolers, and need for a second dose).

After the full period of the outbreak, the vaccine efficacy was checked... and it was not affected. The problem was low compliance in preschoolers, and that with one dose at least 5% were still vulnerable. That means for a very infectious disease like measles, that there were large number (especially in schools) that could get sick.

There were studies done, and the solution was to add another MMR vaccine dose to the schedule (like I mentioned, which was probably done on college campuses), and to make sure very young children received their vaccines on time (like I mentioned).

That was because the studies showed that the measles vaccine was as effective as before (even with a genomic shift), but that was still not enough.

First study from 1991: Clinical efficacy of measles vaccine during the 1990 measles epidemic.:

Because of increased measles incidence in the United States during 1989 and 1990 and the recent finding of genomic differences between vaccine virus and contemporary wild measles viruses, we conducted a study to determine whether the current measles vaccine had become less effective. Household secondary attack rates for 203 California children ages 1 to 5 years were 4.2 and 77.8% for vaccinated and unvaccinated children, respectively, and the vaccine efficacy was 95% (95% confidence interval: 89%, 97%). The protective efficacy for postexposure vaccination and use of IG were both low, 4% (95% confidence interval: less than 0, 36%) and 8% (95% confidence interval: less than 0, 59%), respectively. The measles vaccine efficacy found in this study is similar to those obtained in previous years and indicates that the measles epidemic of 1989 to 1990 occurred despite high vaccine effectiveness.

Another study from 1992: Epidemiology of measles in the United States in 1989 and 1990.:

During 1989 and 1990 measles incidence increased sharply in the United States. We compared cases reported during these years with those reported between 1981 and 1988. Incidence increased 462% in 1989, and incidence in 1990 (11.2/100,000) was the highest in more than a decade. Although all ages were affected the greatest increases were in children < 5 years and in adults. Incidence was 7- to 10-fold higher among racial/ethnic minority preschoolers than whites, and 80% of vaccine-eligible preschool age cases were unvaccinated. Complications occurred in 9418 (20.5%) cases, most frequently in young children and adults. Large urban outbreaks affecting predominantly unvaccinated preschoolers were common; 47% of all cases reported in 1990 were associated with 5 outbreaks. Reasons for the increased incidence are not clear. Current information suggests no change in vaccination coverage among preschool age children or in vaccine efficacy. Continued surveillance and evaluation of epidemiologic and laboratory data are necessary. The most pressing need is to improve age-appropriate vaccination among preschool age children.

There was no need to change the vaccine, the only thing done was to add a second dose and make sure even poor children get vaccinated in preschool.

Also, there is a call for some to get a third MMR dose due to the rise in mumps. Unfortunately that part of the vaccine is only 80% effective, and any immunity to mumps can be overwhelmed by sheer numbers of virus (like what one would see on a college campus).

Oh, shoot... that two paragraphs should not be blockquoted.

it is as if in archeology you suddenly stop (start) finding objects at one level and do (dont) find them at another ( think dinosaurs) you might reason something has changed( ie no dinosaurs.

Are you under the impression that humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time or something?

I'm an educated, informed mother of two, without any medical training. I am trying to research the issue of vaccination in order to make the best decision for my children. I constantly read articles on vaccination and look for new evidence for and against. What I find, time and time again, are slanging matches and personal tirades. How can I be expected to learn anything when the people ostensibly informed on this crucial question are more concerned with scoring points and denigrating others than establishing facts? Shame on you all.

"I did, brainiac, and then I had to point you to where it was again."

Nope link still doesn't work condescending name caller.

"MarkN, here is another study from California:
Measles epidemic from failure to immunize."

At the end of the report it says:

"The key to preventing future measles epidemics is raising immunization levels among preschool-aged children, especially in low-income communities."

Nowhere in the paper is any mention made of nutrition, especially amongst the most popular place to get the measles which was the low-income people who are notoriously the hardest hit victims of the high calorie low nutrient foods produced by big Ag.

"Other Chris is so hung up on measles"

Nope, other Chris is responding to the measles stories as demanded by vaccine cult Chris.

"when was the last time an antivax parent ever gave a damn about the health of a vulnerable individual,who might be exposed to their little disease vectors?"

Right back atcha - when was the last time a vaccine cultist ever gave a damn about the health of a vaccine injured victim. Your refusal to take care of yourself doesn't constitute my obligation to get stuck with your quack poison. In fact you should thank me for taking care to get educated and take action to keep a strong immune system so I don't get sick and accidentally spread some bugs around.

"demanding a blinded study on vaccines, while there are numerous articles on this site as to why such are unethical in the extreme."

Asking not demanding, and that's exactly the point. The answer to the question is assumed without actually asking the question. The vaccine cultists complain often about the people who refuse their poison so we know there are non vaccinated folks out there. There's enough data out there now that apparently campaigners for The Donald were able to identify individually which houses would be worth the time of canvassers, so there's a pretty good chance that if a qualified team put the effort in a reliable answer could be found. And yes, I knew the vaccine cultists would have a hissy fit over an internet survey, but it's the closest thing to vaccine vs. no vaccine data existing to date. The more shrill condescending ad hominem attacks I get here, and the obvious complete absence of capability of questioning ones assumptions observed, the more confident I get that I'm making the right decision.

@Chris (the silly one):

Nowhere in the paper is any mention made of nutrition...

Gee, how interesting. It's as if the experts looked at the question and realised that proper nutrition wasn't as important at stopping measles than vaccination.

Your refusal to take care of yourself doesn’t constitute my obligation to get stuck with your quack poison.

Leaving aside the fact that good nutrition is ineffective at reducing measles, you do have an obligation not to spread diseases to those too young to be vaccinated and the immunocompromised.
Re the vaxxed/unvaxxed double blind trial.

The answer to the question is assumed without actually asking the question.

There are other ways to do studies. One of them is retroactively. Those have been done. The result? Outcomes for vaccinated children were better than those of the unvaccinated children. The answer is not assumed, it is known.

And yes, I knew the vaccine cultists would have a hissy fit over an internet survey, but it’s the closest thing to vaccine vs. no vaccine data existing to date.

Wrong again. See comment about retroactive studies above.

Do not feed the clueless troll.

Julian Frost said (after yet another insult):

"There are other ways to do studies. One of them is retroactively."

That's what I said, that it seems like there should be enough data out there to do this. The one study I've seen showed better overall health outcomes for unvaccinated.

"Outcomes for vaccinated children were better than those of the unvaccinated children. The answer is not assumed, it is known."

Can you provide any details? Links, journal references?

"In their study, the authors compare the occurrence of infections and allergies in vaccinated and unvaccinated children and adolescents. These include bronchitis, eczema, colds, and gastrointestinal infections."

"The evaluation showed that unvaccinated children and adolescents differ from their vaccinated peers merely in terms of the frequency of vaccine preventable diseases. These include pertussis, mumps, or measles. As expected, the risk of contracting these diseases is substantially lower in vaccinated children and adolescents."

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/03/11/for-the-anti-vaccinationis…

Of course, those who deride that study's deficiencies (mainly, the small size of the unvaccinated population) will happily glom onto a similarly limited antivaxer study that consists of a survey of home-schooling parents.

Bah ha ha ha ha ha... one of the first "relevant studies" on the "VaxTruth" (more accurately "VaxAltTruth") site is the self-selected online survey by a German homeopath:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/08/31/an-anti-vaccine-administer…

Thanks for the laugh smokey!

Am I the only one who smells another of Travis' socks?

"Thanks for the laugh"

Funny that it doesn't mention any of the other studies referenced in that link showing better outcomes for those not getting those vaccine shots.

In the comments section of a 2011 article on this site someone mentioned that the precautionary principle argues for getting the vaccine shot. I urge everyone to think hard on that one. Might be safer to follow Sally Fallon's advice and eat and live like what your body is designed for (lots of plants and "good" fats and not living in filth) to have a healthy immune system that fights off any bugs, and to follow Dr. Klenner's (and Levy, Cathcart, Humphries, etc, etc) advice and ingest lots of ascorbic acid if it looks like the bugs are winning in spite of that.

"As expected, the risk of contracting these diseases is substantially lower in vaccinated"

As expected. See there's a problem right there. The vaccine religion looks for what it thinks is there instead of looking not knowing what it will find.

"those who deride that study’s deficiencies (mainly, the small size of the unvaccinated population) will happily glom onto a similarly limited antivaxer study that consists of a survey of home-schooling parents."

Nope. Results are what they are, as long as they're getting us closer to 'truth'. But I thought I noticed that there were only 94 unvaccinated in that study vs. 13K vaccinated? I'm having trouble putting a lot of weight on the results just for that reason.

“As expected, the risk of contracting these diseases is substantially lower in vaccinated”

As expected. See there’s a problem right there. The vaccine religion looks for what it thinks is there instead of looking not knowing what it will find.

You sir are a complete dunce.

Scientific research operates from the development of hypotheses that explain all previous evidence. This hypothesis makes a prediction. The prediction is then tested under fair conditions. There can only be two outcomes: the prediction is correct or the prediction is incorrect.

So as expected means the fair test produced a result that was predicted, rather than any of the millions of possible alternative results.

What a maroon.

Once again, an antivaxxer shows dishonesty.
Chris waited almost a month before commenting on this thread again, asking for evidence. When evidence is presented, he gloms on to the words "as expected" and accuses vaccine science of being "vaccine religion", ignoring the fact that that is what the evidence says.
Par for the course, however.

Julian Frost: "Par for the course, however."

Which is why we should not feed that particular troll. He is just a "repeater." He cannot think for himself, but just repeats the nonsense he reads from elsewhere.

Another mumps outbreak in pro ice hockey:

http://www.foxsports.com/nhl/story/canucks-mumps-troy-stecher-markus-gr…

If I was a coach/team owner of a playoff-bound team, I'd be asking all players to either get a blood sample drawn to demonstrate adequate levels of mumps-related IgG (to show immunity) or have them revaccinated. It'd be a shame to lose out on a Stanley Cup because of a mumps outbreak.

I haven't heard of any team taking such precautions, though.

Also just noticed this one today:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/02/27/vitamin-d…

Vitamin D Is More Effective Than Flu Vaccine, Study Says

"You sir are a complete dunce."

"What a maroon."

"as expected means the fair test produced a result that was predicted"

The phrase it's looking for is "null hypothesis." Just because you choose a certain outcome to be your null hypothesis for the purpose of your study doesn't mean you personally expect or predict it, or whatever semantic hoops you have to jump through to keep the vaccine faith. In fact, you're more likely to get closer to truth by having no personal opinion about the outcome at all prior to the study.
As it full well knows, the meaning of "expected" in the context of this site is that the gospel is that "we" "expect" vaccinated outcomes to be better.

"an antivaxxer shows dishonesty."

"ignoring the fact that that is what the evidence says."

Someone needs to look in the mirror and stop lying. As stated right in that post I noticed that the evidence presented in that study consisted of 94 kids not getting the shot and 13K kids getting the shot. If I read it right - I'm assuming that's what 'n' meant, and I thought I saw 13K. Not sure if we should put too much weight on it because of the disparity.

I also noticed in this study that was linked above:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/03/11/for-the-anti-vaccinationis…

that the vaccine faithful ignored all the studies showing better outcomes for unvaccinated.

For the other Chris:

Trollin' Trollin' Trollin'
Trollin' Trollin' Trollin'
Trollin' Trollin' Trollin'
Trollin' Trollin' Trollin'
Rawhide!
Trollin' Trollin' Trollin'
Though the threads are swollen
Keep them comments trollin',
Rawhide!

Move 'em on
(Head em' up!)
Head em' up
(Move 'em on!)
Move 'em on
(Head em' up!)
Rawhide!
Cut 'em out
(Paste 'em in!)
Paste'em in
(Cut em' out!)
Cut 'em out
Paste 'em in,
Rawhide!
Keep trollin', trollin', trollin'
Though they're disaprovin'
Keep them comments trollin'',
Rawhide
Don't try to understand 'em
Just rope, laugh, and ignore 'em
Soon we'll be discussin' bright without 'em

"It’s as if the experts looked at the question and realised that proper nutrition wasn’t as important at stopping measles than vaccination."

It's as if there are compartments in the experts' minds where they dare not look, else be attacked for heresy.

"Leaving aside the fact that good nutrition is ineffective at reducing measles"

Lie. See Dr. Suzzanne Humphries' book "Dissolving Illusions" or look up the publicly available data. All those big bad diseases were on the way out prior to vaccine introductions, coincident with improvements in sanitation and nutrition. It turns out that the best way to stay healthy is to be healthy in the first place.

"you do have an obligation not to spread diseases to those too young to be vaccinated and the immunocompromised."

Nope. You and the other cultists don't own anyone else. I do my part of my own free will, not from guilt trips from the cult, by staying too healthy for the bugs. By the way since you're into guilt trips, I'd say that you have an obligation to look at the issue honestly instead of through your vaccine coloured glasses. Lot of kids getting hurt bad thanks to the shrieking from the vaccine religion. The most embarrassing part is that you're helping sell products for the manufacturers but not even getting paid!

"Outcomes for vaccinated children were better than those of the unvaccinated children."

The only study I've seen showing that is the 94 vs. 13K one. All the other evidence I've seen show better outcomes by not getting the shots.

The cultists like to go on and on about how measles (or whatever) disease cases went down in the USA after vaccine introductions, but they completely ignore the data manipulation that helped with that outcome (same as for polio) and they also never stop to ask the other question: What if the vaccine had not been introduced?

Mortality was already near zero, and morbidity was right behind it. Is it not possible for the religiously addled brain to conceive of the possibility that if you attacked the problem from a different direction, by helping people live healthy, that you might get better outcomes? Instead of acting like spoiled 2 year olds stamping your feet and trying to force those complex immune systems to "learn" what you decree?

"Trollin’ Trollin’ Trollin’"

That's how I'd respond too if I was afraid I might be wrong, and get cast out from the church.

Isn't this the one who produced the non-double blind placebo controlled randomised study when the opposite was asked for?

Might be safer to follow Sally Fallon’s advice

*SPLORF*

Why she hasn't renamed WAPF in her own honor is anybody's guess.

Isn’t this the one who produced the non-double blind placebo controlled randomised study when the opposite was asked for?

Was that when I provided you with the field trials of the Salk vaccine? That sounds about right. Anyway, if this is what you're committed to harping on, it's time to play Design Your Own Fυcking Study, Already: CI, power, endpoint, and margin of similarity that will cause you to explicitly renounce an association with the endpoint.

Barf 'em up, and your lazy ass gets your sample size.

Lie. See Dr. Suzzanne Humphries’ book “Dissolving Illusions” or look up the publicly available data. All those big bad diseases were on the way out prior to vaccine introductions, coincident with improvements in sanitation and nutrition.

Lies.
Firstly, Measles is airborne. No amount of sanitation will stop its spread.
Secondly, medicine may have got better at keeping victims alive, but that doesn't mean that the rate of infection was going down. In fact, other Chris has a table showing the number of cases of measles every year. It was only after the introduction of vaccination that the rate fell.
Suzanne Humphries is a well-known name around here. Your reliance on her is an epic fail.

“you do have an obligation not to spread diseases to those too young to be vaccinated and the immunocompromised.”

Nope. You and the other cultists don’t own anyone else.

Lovely straw man there. Gvoernments have the right to quarantine infectious people. It's not about ownership, it's about protection.

I do my part of my own free will, not from guilt trips from the cult, by staying too healthy for the bugs.

The Native American populace followed very healthy diets. It didn't stop them from being cut down in the millions by diseases like measles and smallpox. You can live as healthy a lifestyle as possible. It won't stop you from becoming infectious.

Mortality was already near zero, and morbidity was right behind it.

Lie. Sensible Chris, would you post that table please.

Julian: "Lie. Sensible Chris, would you post that table please."

As you wish, but I did it before and the idiot ignored the data. This is why I declared him to be a troll in his early infestation of this blog. But for lurkers I shall again try to get the fool to think for himself. Which would take a miracle, because I don't think he knows how.

Okay, Troll Chris... the following is US Census data from the 20th Century. This means it is data from the United States of America collected between the years 1900 and 1999. I always include the large PDF file when I ask this question, you might try reading it sometime. The table I got the date from includes a few other diseases (ask a fourth grade teacher how to read table of data).

Here is what you need to do... again... tell us why the rate of measles incidence in the USA dropped 90% between 1960 and 1970. Provide actual factual scientific citations to support your answer.

Some rules apply:

1- This data only applies to the United States of America, which is mostly located between Mexico and Canada, though it includes a bit of property off of the northwest corner of Canada and some islands around the globe. Do not mention any other country. England, Wales and Japan are not American states.

2- Do not mention mortality/deaths. The data is only on morbidity/incidence, so mentioning the former is actually changing the subject. Plus decreasing mortality only measures improvements in medical care, not the effect of a vaccines. Besides medical care is expensive, so prevention saves the cost of ventilators and drugs.

3- Do not mention any other decade unless the drop of incidence was greater than 50% and did not go up again.

4- Do not mention any other disease since the data I am providing is only on measles. So don't change the subject.

Now here is the data (again, I really hate feeding the troll):

From http://www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/99statab/sec31.pdf
Year.... Rate per 100000 of measles
1912 . . . 310.0
1920 . . . 480.5
1925 . . . 194.3
1930 . . . 340.8
1935 . . . 584.6
1940 . . . 220.7
1945 . . . 110.2
1950 . . . 210.1
1955 . . . 337.9
1960 . . . 245.4
1965 . . . 135.1
1970 . . . . 23.2
1975 . . . . 11.3
1980 . . . . . 5.9
1985 . . . . . 1.2
1990 . . . . .11.2
1991 . . . . . .3.8
1992 . . . . . .0.9
1993 . . . . . .0.1
1994 . . . . . .0.4
1995 . . . . . .0.1
1996 . . . . . .0.2
1997 . . . . . . 0.1

"Measles is airborne. No amount of sanitation will stop its spread."

It lies again. Youl realise people are getting hurt from these lies, don't you? As it can see in the text from me it quoted, the reference was to "those big bad diseases", not specifically measles. The mortality rates had already dropped to near zero across the board, prior to vaccine introduction, while at the same time radical improvements were made in sanitation and nutrition. Without checking what the liar says, I'll take your word for it that living clean doesn't stop the bugs from jumping through the air. What living clean does do, however, is lower the assaults on the body from the filth, thus leaving it in better shape to combat the airborne bugs. See the upcoming response to "smart" Chris about the measles morbidity data from the census document.

"Suzanne Humphries is a well-known name around here."

Yes, the cultists are quick to point out that they know about her. But no evidence that she is lying or any other dirty tricks from her. One of the previous posts claimed that such evidence existed and provided a link, but it didn't say what they claimed it said, and there was no response when I pointed that out.

Chris, you are lying about me lying. Sanitation will not stop the spread of Measles as it is an airborne disease. That you dismiss this demonstrable truth as a lie speaks volumes.

"Okay, Troll Chris"

It seems concerned about trolling, but it's starting to look more and more like as case of the pot calling the kettle black.

"… the following is US Census data"

Is it groundhog day? I already pointed out the problems with that data and there was no response. Go back and look.

This blog won't let me insert a graph, so you'll have to follow the link (and save your whining about the good Dr. Humphries and Roman Bystrianyk unless you have real evidence of their malfeasance): http://drsuzanne.net/2015/10/why-dr-suzanne-humphries-an-anti-vaccine-a…

Go down approximately 10% to find a plot titled "Measles Cases in the United States (1912 - 2001). It says source is United States Census Bureau, No. HS-18 Specified Reportable Diseases. It says the plot is at http://www.census.gov/statab/hist/HS-18.pdf but that link is broken. However, the year by year numbers, not the one with gaps in it the cultist seems to have fallen in love with, are tabulated at http://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2004/compendia/statab/123ed…. The numbers in this tabulation match "smart" Chris' tabulation above, and seem pretty close to the plot on Dr. Humphries' page.

As Dr. Humphries points out, linear interpolation between the peaks on the plot shows that morbidity was indeed decreasing prior to vaccine introduction in 1963. From a peak of aboot 672 in 1941 it fell to aboot 260 by 1962, an approximately 60% decline. There's no reason to think the decline would not have continued in the absence of the vaccines.

So as the "smart" Chris is stamping it's little foot and demanding an answer for, why did measles morbidity decline at the same time vaccines were introduced?

1) It was already declining, and substantially. Correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation.

2) As Humphries and Bystrianyk explain in "Dissolving Illusions", from 1963 to 1968

"one totally ineffective type of vaccine was used, which made recipients susceptible to a worse form of measles, and the other vaccine was a live, semi-attenuated one which 'gave' people measles which was antidoted with gammaglobulin injected at the same time as the vaccine. Those were the ONLY two 'vaccines' being used in the USA at the time that the so-called 'landslide decline' in measles cases occurred."
Then the cases were not reported as measles cases if the person had been vaccinated. So wild measles was replaced with vaccine measles and then not counted, accounting for at least part of the decline in measles morbidity starting when the vaccine was introduced.

"why the rate of measles incidence in the USA dropped 90% between 1960 and 1970."

An honest look at the evidence indicates most likely not due to vaccines (thus leaving sanitation and nutrition, especially Vitamins A and C, as likely culprits.)

And finally, this is all a bunch of fuss aboot morbidity, when "they" use mortality to scare people into getting the vaccine shots, and Dr Peter Aaby wrote in 2012[2] that “The ultimate goal is to save lives, and vaccination programmes measure potential impact in terms of the lives saved.”

"you are lying about me lying. Sanitation will not stop the spread of Measles as it is an airborne disease."

It either can't read or it is lying about me lying about it lying. Quoting myself above:

"I’ll take your word for it that living clean doesn’t stop the bugs from jumping through the air. What living clean does do, however, is lower the assaults on the body from the filth, thus leaving it in better shape to combat the airborne bugs."

What living clean does do, however, is lower the assaults on the body from the filth, thus leaving it in better shape to combat the airborne bugs.”

Like I said:

The Native American populace followed very healthy diets. It didn’t stop them from being cut down in the millions by diseases like measles and smallpox. You can live as healthy a lifestyle as possible. It won’t stop you from becoming infectious

Healthy living is not a panacea, and will not stop you from falling ill or becoming infectious.

"1963, an average of 549,000 measles cases and 495 measles deaths were reported"

Isn't that an alternate way of stating the incidence per 100,000 which was already discussed above?

"it is likely that, on average, 3 to 4 million people were infected with measles annually; most cases were not reported."

This is consistent with doctor and parent reports that measles isn't a big deal for most people, especially if they have sufficient vitamin A levels.

"Of the reported cases, approximately 48,000 people were hospitalized from measles and 1,000 people developed chronic disability from acute encephalitis caused by measles annually.”"

1) 1000 out of 549,000 cases is 0.18%.
2) "“The spectrum of encephalitis in children has changed due to vaccination programs. The incidence, however, appears to be about the same due to increasing frequency of other associated old and new microbes.”

Koskiniemi 1997. Epidemiology of encephalitis in children. A prospective multicentre study. Eur J Pediatr 156: 541-545

"Healthy living is not a panacea, and will not stop you from falling ill or becoming infectious."

True. But the publicly available empricial data indicates that it might substantially reduce your chances of getting sick.

"Native American populace followed very healthy diets. It didn’t stop them from being cut down in the millions by diseases like measles and smallpox."

Good point, and I don't have an answer for that puzzle. The fact remains, however, that amongst our immediate ancestors, who were descendants of the people who brought those diseases with them, the diseases were pretty much gone prior to vaccine introductions.

Well, the Native Americans ate quite a bit of cooked Buffalo. They were not perfect in their eating habits. Also, the role of smallpox was greatly inflated to mitigate the systematic genocide of the Natives. This was caused more by bullets than by germs.
History is a weird thing with a tremendous nationalistic bias. For instance, in school we would hear that "America was discovered by Christopher Columbus." Now, how do you discover land in which people already live? Had it not been already discovered?
History books in the United States view the Natives as non-people.

[A]mongst our immediate ancestors, who were descendants of the people who brought those diseases with them, the diseases were pretty much gone prior to vaccine introductions.

As you have already been told, just because medicine got better at keeping people alive, it doesn't mean that those diseases were going away. You have been shown several times that the rate of infection only started to fall after the introduction of vaccination.

The fact remains, however, that amongst our immediate ancestors, who were descendants of the people who brought those diseases with them, the diseases were pretty much gone prior to vaccine introductions.

WTF are you talking about?

TBruce: "WTF are you talking about?'

Nothing to do with reality. Nothing to see here, go about your business. Shoo, shoo... stay away from the crazy person.

In short: ignore the troll.

@Smart Chris: while I will, after this comment, ignore the troll, I do have to point out 1 thing to him/her:

@Silly Chris: of course our ancestors survived. It's really, really hard for a person who died from the disease to reproduce. So are you now talking eugenics? Where only the people whom you identify as "healthy" live?

“Healthy living is not a panacea, and will not stop you from falling ill or becoming infectious.”

True. But the publicly available empricial data indicates that it might substantially reduce your chances of getting sick.

Publicly available empricial data also indicates that the broadcasting of color TV programming exacerbates wars in Vietnam. I mean, they both happened at the same time, people; how much more proof could anyone possibly need??

You know, there's a simple flaw with the "it was sanitation, not the vaccines" argument which I've never seen any of its proponents even attempt to address: namely, that if indeed "clean living" is what supposedly reduced the frequency of all those diseases, why didn't it do it at the same time? Why was my generation's "clean living" able to keep most of us from getting measles and mumps and rubella and pertussis, but not chicken pox? What drastic improvement in "clean living" occurred in just twelve years, such that my next youngest sibling's cohort didn't get chicken pox, either?

I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the varicella vaccine was introduced during that twelve-year period.

" there’s a simple flaw with the “it was sanitation, not the vaccines” argument"

That's a good point. We're treating correlation as if it is causation, which it may or may not be. Sanitation and nutrition and overcrowding showed significant improvements during the same time in which disease mortality and morbidity rates decreased significantly. Could be a coincidence. Maybe it's because medicines to treat those diseases were improving a lot during that same time (as I've "been told", according to the previous poster). But can we credit improved medicine for simultaneously falling morbidity rates? I think not, since medicine is something you only take after you're sick, unless you are doing like Hippocrates admonished, by letting your food be your medicine.

The important part, as concerns the vaccine church echo chamber, though, is that the disease mortality rates were all pretty much gone prior to vaccine introductions, and morbidity rates were following right behind. Vaccines get zero credit for that.

Then enlighten us as to the "miracle of sanitation" that led to a 95% reduction in the incidence of HiB in the late 1980s....

And please show us this falling incidence rate, before vaccines....

And, to put lie to your statement, Smallpox still killed between 25 - 95% of people it infected, right up until eradication.

A perfect instance of mortality rates being constant, even with modern medical care.

"really hard for a person who died from the disease to reproduce."

Okay. As people who can read know, the sentence is addressing why the European invaders of the Americas ended up acquiring immunity to the diseases whereas the Indians were wiped out.

The invaders were getting hit hard too during the same time when their poor people were living him squalor in cities, and lost a lot of people until nutrition and sanitation improved for them. Plus, as Buffalo pointed out above maybe the numbers of Indians getting killed by diseases has been exaggerated to minimise the outraight slaughter being inflicted on them by the invaders.

"show us this falling incidence rate, before vaccines"

See post @177 above.

You mean that bullshit written by Humphries?

Sorry, try to do better then her drivel.

as Buffalo pointed out above
???
Perhaps someone was confused with the feminine form of the noun, 'bufala'.

"Nothing to see here, go about your business. Shoo, shoo… stay away from the crazy person.

In short: ignore the troll."

Now that's funny. Let's see,

First, I asked if anyone knew of a randomised, double blind, placebo controlled study showing better outcomes by getting vaccinated vs. not. It produced a non randomised, non double blind and not placebo controlled study.

After I pointed that out, it goes silent until then stamping it's foot and demanding answer to why census data shows measles morbidity in USA goes down subsequent to vaccine introduction. I answered, and it goes silent again except to call names.

Then it stomped it's feet again and demanded the same answer aboot the same measles census data. I answered again, in post number 177 above, in much more detail, and once again crickets except for the ongoing name calling. (You can't call it what it is, ad hominem attack, or it will have another hissy fit over that!)

Maybe it's just a language problem. Maybe it forgot to tell us that when it says troll, it means:

Troll (noun): Someone who commits heresy against the church of vaccine.

And maybe the name calling is just slip ups, and it didn't really mean it. Here's an example, just from the latest foot stamping answer demanding post where it apparently didn't really want an answer:
"the idiot"
"declared him to be a troll"
"his early infestation of this blog"
"try to get the fool to think for himself. Which would take a miracle, because I don’t think he knows how"
"ask a fourth grade teacher how to read table of data"

"???
Perhaps someone was confused"

I meant Shay in number 183.

Sorry, but the measles data (and polio instance), don't support your supposition at all....

"measles data don’t support your supposition at all…"

Yes they do. Details in post number 177, unlike this unbacked assertion.

Sorry, but public health data directly contradicts you.

https://www.r-bloggers.com/looking-at-measles-data-in-project-tycho/

Perhaps using Humphries as a source is your key mistake.

Also, diseases by nature are cyclical...their rate of outbreaks are determined by the suceptible population,magics amounts to the number of individuals who can be infected compared to immune individuals.

Which is why the measles numbers wax and wane, depending on the size of previous outbreaks.

Post number 177? Suzanne Humphries?
Give me a break...

http://americanloons.blogspot.ca/2013/11/783-suzanne-humphries.html

Hey, care to explain what "decline" in sanitation allowed 95,000 cases of measles to occur in the US in the early 1990s?

And then what "improvement" led to the eradication of domestic US measles by the year 2000?

"enlighten us as to the “miracle of sanitation” that led to a 95% reduction in..."

Make me an offer. Or do the research yourself.

It seems like the vaccine church fallback is that medicine is responsible for the mortality and morbidity reductions prior to vaccine introductions, and that it couldn't have anything to do with improvements in sanitation, nutrition and overcrowding.

I know some will wail that mortality reduced prior to vaccine introduction due to improved medicines, and that the diseases were then eradicated by the vaccines to eliminate both mortality and morbidity. But the data is not consistent with that hypothesis. It shows both mortality and morbidity decreasing prior to vaccines. Also, at least in the case of measles, we have widespread reports from physicians and parents that measles was not a big deal, that the sicknesses were getting less severe year over year, and that the kids were the better for it later.

And, by the way, can anyone point me to evidence consistent with the thesis that improvements in medicine were responsible for disease mortality reductions?

Yes, Project Tycho.

Help yourself.

And Smallpox still managed to kill over 300,000,000 people in just the 20th Century, before eradication.....

"using Humphries as a source is your key mistake"

Perhaps closing your eyes and ears when someone dares to contradict the holy vaccine scriptures is your key mistake.

As carefully documented in post 177,

1) The measles case rates were indeed decreasing prior to 1963. This can also be seen in the data linked to at https://www.r-bloggers.com/looking-at-measles-data-in-project-tycho/

2) Humphries and Bystrianyk explain that the measles cases didn't decrease as much after vaccine introduction as the data purports to show. This is due to the fact that "wild" measles was basically replaced with vaccine induced measles case, which were not counted.

I meant Shay in number 183.

I suspect that Shay was pulling your leg, or making stuff up to see what you'd believe.

More proof the Humphrey doesn't know sh@t about immunology.

"Shay was pulling your leg, or making stuff up"

Okay. The vaccines still can't be credited with disease getting rid of diseases that were already mostly gone, and would likely have continued the trend.

"Project Tycho"

That's a lot of data, for people spending full time looking at stuff. I take it you know of nothing specific consistent with the idea that we can credit medicines for mortality reductions?

You're a smart guy, all of the data is there.

Afraid of a little actual research?

Figures.

Immunology and Epidemiology are hard areas of science, involving decades of research.

Anti-vaxers, like Chris, prefer simple, stupid answers, because they can't handle the complexity of the topics involved.

"https://americanloons.blogspot.ca/2013/11/783-suzanne-humphries.html"

That article is a simple hit piece, authored supposedly by "G.D.", that has nothing the vaccine religion has not already parroted over and over. In fact, some of the links the provided go right back to this site.

Dear Idiot Chris: The blathering by Humphries does now qualify as the verifiable scientific documentation. The following is the cut and paste of what I asked for on the first page of comments to this article:

Though if you wish to rectify that deficit you need to provide an answer to a question using actual PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers. The following is US Census data of measles morbidity (incidence) during the 20th century

Your response is proof you are a clueless troll and should be ignored.

"Anti-vaxers, like Chris, prefer simple, stupid answers"

Vaccine worshipers, like Lawrence, prefer to ignore evidence not supporting their foregone conclusions. And when requests are made for evidence supporting their assertions that improved medicines, not improved living conditions, were responsible for disease mortality rate reductions, prefer to point to giant databases and say "it's in there somewhere, go look."

And again, regardless of why the mortality and morbidity rates decreased, we know for a fact that they decreased prior to vaccine introductions, coincidentally at the same time living conditions were improving for many millions of people. Deal with it. Read "Dissolving Illusions" by Humphries and Bystrianyk. The data is all plotted for you there.

Obviously this particular Chris is illiterate, and does not understand words like "PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers." And totally forgot the I posted the actual data a couple of months ago.

To refresh the troll's memory:
From http://www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/99statab/sec31.pdf
Year.... Rate per 100000 of measles
1912 . . . 310.0
1920 . . . 480.5
1925 . . . 194.3
1930 . . . 340.8
1935 . . . 584.6
1940 . . . 220.7
1945 . . . 110.2
1950 . . . 210.1
1955 . . . 337.9
1960 . . . 245.4
1965 . . . 135.1
1970 . . . . 23.2
1975 . . . . 11.3
1980 . . . . . 5.9
1985 . . . . . 1.2
1990 . . . . .11.2
1991 . . . . . .3.8
1992 . . . . . .0.9
1993 . . . . . .0.1
1994 . . . . . .0.4
1995 . . . . . .0.1
1996 . . . . . .0.2
1997 . . . . . . 0.1

Also, the link to the US Census data I provided is not broken. All the more reason why Humphries is not worth reading.

"Idiot Chris"

Name calling, again.

"Humphries does now qualify as the verifiable scientific documentation"

It stamps it's foot again and shouts that only the evidence it says can be accepted will be accepted. Humphries and Bystrianyk document how measles cases in vaccinated people don't get reported, and provide evidence that that continues to this day. If that is true then the census data doesn't mean what it thinks it means. And if it's not true then it should notify Humphries and Bystrianyk. I've never seen any evidence indicating that they are wrong or lying, and I'm pretty sure they aren't.

"you need to provide"

"need to" I wonder if it is this bossy in real life, or only behind the safety of it's screen.

"response is proof you are a clueless troll"

There exists real, verifiable evidence that those census numbers are not good approximations of reality. And also real, verifiable evidence that measles morbidity was decreasing prior to vaccine introduction. I think the troll it refers to can be found in its mirror.

It stamps it's foot and demands that only certain sources be believed, but some experts warn to be cautious:

"The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.” ~ Dr. Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet

“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine” ~ Dr. Marcia Angell, editor-in-chief of the New England Medical Journal

Chris the troll@217:
Hit piece maybe, but what errors are there? Does Humphries not believe, without evidence, that vaccines cause kidney failure? Does she not endorse homeopathy? Does she not believe in "energy medicine"? Does she not publish in Natural News?
In my opinion, any one of those beliefs or activities is reason enough for me to dismiss anything she claims.

And yet the US Census data that is fully accessible by the link I provided shows no permanent decline of measles until after 1960. The plot of the decline is even on Humphries full of bovine excrement blog post. Yet, she waves her hand over it like it never existed.

So that is what Chris the troll is also doing... waving his hands around trying desperately to distract from the actual factual data. This hand waving uses all of the things I said to not include like mortality, and other countries.

"Chris is illiterate"

Another putdown? But I'm having trouble taking offense from a cult victim.

"does not understand words like “PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers."

Sure. So the supposition here apparently is that if it doesn't exist in this set then it doesn't exist? Not a good way to make important decisions, and I'm certainly not using that method. It asked why measles morbidity went down and I answered. Twice now. It could also stamp it's foot and demand that only Dr. Suess be cited for answers, and I wouldn't do that either.

"totally forgot the I posted the actual data a couple of months ago"

As seen in post 177 I specifically mentioned the first time answers were demanded.

"the troll"

the mirror

Again, see post 177. I saw the data, and was able to corroborate it with a more complete set of the same census data and with the data presented by Mr. Bystrianyk and Dr Humphries.

"the link to the US Census data I provided is not broken"

I never said it was. As noted in post 177, the link in the plot on Humphries' page is broken, but I was able to find the data anyway. (Tabulated, not plotted.)

"more reason why Humphries is not worth reading"

Religious fanatics of course know where not to look. I can understand why it doesn't want to read Humphries and Bystrianyk - it would cause uncomfortable cognitive dissonance.

"Does Humphries not believe, without evidence, that vaccines cause kidney failure?"

The link in that page leads to a hit piece encyclopedia type article that has two links to support that claim. It claims that she insinuates the blanket statement that "vaccines cause kidney failure." In the first link I couldn't find those lines, and the second link does not work. What she has reported is that she first started wondering why vaccines seemed like a kind of third rail when her orders to not vaccinate her kidney patients were countermanded. They were her patients, her responsibility, and she understandably was shocked at the breach. If you read her page she explains her reasoning. It wasn't because she was anti-vaccine, but because of sound reasons specific to the cases. I've never come across anything she has claimed that was not supported by voluminous evidence.

"Does she not endorse homeopathy?"

She says that she studied it for one or two years and then quit without graduating. And her endorsement or not of homeopathy is irrevalent to evidece.

"Does she not believe in “energy medicine”"

Don't know, and don't know what that means.

"any one of those beliefs or activities is reason enough for me to dismiss anything she claims"

You're free to commit logical fallacies if you like. I've followed the evidence she presents and it is true, it's right out there in public view.

Think you want to have an iron lung?
Want leg braces???

Naw, idiot Chris wants this back:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-polio_syndrome

And again, regardless of why the mortality and morbidity rates decreased, we know for a fact that they decreased prior to vaccine introductions, coincidentally at the same time living conditions were improving for many millions of people. Deal with it. Read “Dissolving Illusions” by Humphries and Bystrianyk. The data is all plotted for you there.

Measles mortality did decrease due to antibiotics and ventilators but then have remained at a steady state even up to now. Polio and rubella mortalities actually increased due to "improved living conditions". Morbidity did not decrease until vaccines. The data support this and if you wish to refute this then you'll have to do better than a non-reviewed book written by a non-expert.

.And her endorsement or not of homeopathy is irrevalent to evidece.

I rest my case.

"Census data that is fully accessible by the link I provided shows no permanent decline of measles until after 1960."

Wrong. Census data it provided does not include all the years, as noted in post 177. I provided there the link to the tabulation of every year worth of data. Again, draw a line from peak to peak and there is a 60% morbidity decline from 1941 to 1962. It was on it's way out already prior to vaccine introduction. If it was not on it's way out, we would expect the peaks to remain high. And then the numbers were manipulated after to make the vaccine look good, just like it wants.

"Humphries full of bovine excrement blog post."

Never gets far without put downs.

"she waves her hand over it like it never existed"

The one who says others are illiterate either can't read or refuses to look in the forbidden areas. If it read her post and what I noted in post 177 she specifically and extensively addresses that data. She demonstrates that morbidity declines substantially prior to vaccine introduction and how vaccine induced measles cases don't count toward the measles tally. She provides links to two newspaper articles about measles cases not getting counted, but does not provide evidence to corroborate her claim that this counting method was used starting in 1963. However, I have no reason to suspect that she's lying or wrong about that. It is entirely consistent with the MO of the vaccine religion.

"Chris the troll"

Is it some sort of tic or something? Maybe there's a vaccine for it.

"waving his hands around trying desperately to distract from the actual factual data."

What "smart" Chris is doing is waving hands claiming that dumb Chris didn't use the same data "smart" Chris posted, except not incomplete.

"uses all of the things I said to not include like mortality, and other countries"

"said to not" The vaccine religion seems very authoritarian. It will notice in post 177 that no non USA countries are mentioned, and that mortality is only mentioned at the end regarding how it's the important part. Morbidity is only used because it hopes this one piece of census data allows it to cling to it's foregone conclusion.

It's not like this effort to try and corner someone into your preferred answer isn't transparent.

"Morbidity did not decrease until vaccines."

Actually, as presented in post 177 and discussed extensively since, it did. At least according to US census data for measles. And for all diseases according to other public data.

"The data support this"

Wrong.

"have to do better than a non-reviewed book written by a non-expert"

I have no reason to think that the non-reviewed book written by a so called "non-expert" (so called because she is a qualified nephrologist who, along with Bystrianyk, studied the matter thoroughly) has faked data in it. And we both know that any review by someone satisfactory to the vaccine religion could never be even slightly favourable.

This is an especially trying week at work, so I don't have the patience to explain at length to Purported Earthling Chris all the logical errors I can see in their argumentation. Frankly I can't even figure out whether they are even sincere in their beliefs or simply a dedicated contrarian. Some people are seekers after truth; others are simply seekers after the pleasant sensation that comes with believing you have The Truth.

If I believed PE Chris to be educable, the key point on which I would try to educate them would be that of the burden of proof. When a vaccine gets approved, it's because it's gone through clinical trials which demonstrate that it does what it's meant to do, i.e., prevent people from getting the disease, which in turn reduces the spread of the disease. When that vaccine is then widely deployed, and in the areas where it's widely deployed, the spread of the disease is reduced, the null hypothesis is that the vaccine is doing the very same thing in the large population that we already proved it to do in the trial groups! Anyone who wants to argue that some other cause is responsible, it's incumbent upon them to meet the burden of proof. And frankly, if their idea of "proof" is to simply assert "yeah, you see that decline in morbidity? That would have continued even if no vaccines had come along. Trust me, it just would have," then they're going to fail that task.

Purported Earthling Chris could get seriously injured by his own hands with all of that bobbing, weaving and hand waving!

"Think you want to have an iron lung?
Want leg braces???"

Yes, clearly.

a) It turns out that for the vast majority of people poliomyelitis is a non-event. They don't even know they caught it.

2) Iron lungs never went away, they turned into respirators.

iii) President Roosevlet caught Guillain-Barre Syndrome

d) in 1955, a very creative re-definition of poliovirus infections was invented, to “cover” the fact that many cases of ”polio” paralysis had no poliovirus in their systems at all.

v) Dr. Fred Klenner reported complete cures for 61 out of 61 cases of poliomyelitis during an epidemic in his town.

Actually, as presented in post 177 and discussed extensively since, it did. At least according to US census data for measles. And for all diseases according to other public data.

I presume you mean this from an non-expert source:

“one totally ineffective type of vaccine was used, which made recipients susceptible to a worse form of measles, and the other vaccine was a live, semi-attenuated one which ‘gave’ people measles which was antidoted with gammaglobulin injected at the same time as the vaccine.

There are a couple of problems here, one is that the vaccines were not "totally ineffective" and another is that reported cases fluctuated greatly since epi data began. What you see is a combination of a somewhat effective vaccine programme and a natural trough in disease prevalence.

I have no reason to think that the non-reviewed book written by a so called “non-expert” (so called because she is a qualified nephrologist who, along with Bystrianyk, studied the matter thoroughly) has faked data in it. And we both know that any review by someone satisfactory to the vaccine religion could never be even slightly favourable.

She is a nephrologist not an epidemiologist and reading some journal articles and websites doesn't make one an expert. Her "data" are cherry-picked and grossly misconstrued to promote her own agenda. Please provide the original sources to demonstrate that you can read them and as a service to those of us who know how to parse them ourselves and not through the lens of cranks. As a courtesy, please change your username as the other Chris has been commenting here for years and it's confusing in the comments feed.

iii) President Roosevlet[sic] caught Guillain-Barre Syndrome

One doesn't "catch" GBS and President Roosevelt had polio.

v) Dr. Fred Klenner reported complete cures for 61 out of 61 cases of poliomyelitis during an epidemic in his town.

And this report is in the scientific literature where?

" the burden of proof"

Very good point. Study of economics and ethics helps here. I am the customer. Some companies, aided by unpaid sales agents such as the many posters here, would like me to purchase their product.

The claim is that this product will substantially lower my chances of getting a certain disease, and that there is low probability that it will hurt me.

I find overwhelming evidence that their products do not do what they claim. For example see post 177 and the extensive detailed replies to "smart" Chris where I repeated the things it does not want to know. That was for measles, but similar findings for other diseases. The product could not have removed the diseases because the diseases were already gone.

Then I find that nearly every study out there uses vaccines for the control in vaccine studies.

Then I've found out that doctors who dared stray from the bounds of allowed thought have found that oxidative therapies, such as ascorbic acid (vitamin C), can cure just aboot any disease. See Dr. Klenner for example.

And to top it off I read many many reports from parents reporting terrible hurt in their kids coincidentally immediately subsequent to vaccinations, and reports that their child "goes away."

So no, these companies have in no way convinced me to purchase their product. That's how the burden works.

"One doesn’t “catch” GBS"

Thanks.

"Roosevelt had polio."

Not according to this: Goldman.2003.”What was the cause of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s paralytic illness?” J Med Biog, 11:233-240.

"this report is in the scientific literature where?"

Journal of Applied Nutrition Vol. 23, No's 3 & 4, Winter 1971

"presume you mean this from an non-expert source"

As can be seen by reading what I wrote, I mean the census data plus the "non-expert" comments on data manipulation after vaccine introduction.

"the vaccines were not “totally ineffective”"

The authors never said the vaccines were "totally ineffective." They said one of them was.

"What you see is a combination of a somewhat effective vaccine programme and a natural trough in disease prevalence."

What _I_ see is measles cases declining substantially in the 21 years prior to vaccine introduction, and Humphries and Bystrianyk reporting that vaccine induced measles cases were not counted. Is Science Mom saying that vaccine measles cases was and/or are counted? If so she should report that to Humphries and Bystrianyk because I'm sure they would like to correct the error.

"reading some journal articles and websites"
You're implying that that is the extent of the work Humphries and Bystrianyk put into their research?

"“data” are cherry-picked and grossly misconstrued to promote her own agenda"

What is misconstrued and cherry picked about the USA measles census data? Is the census data wrong? If measles cases were not declining prior to vaccine introduction would we not expect to see the peaks remain high? What is their agenda? I think their agenda is an honest desire to help people.

"Please provide the original sources to demonstrate that you can read them"

At least this one asks nicely. Still an authoritarian tone. I've read enough original sources, including some provided in the comments above, to see that vaccines are always used as controls.

"through the lens of cranks"

Yes, if the conclusion is not in line with the orthodox beliefs then we shall call them names and dismiss them. You are aware, aren't you, that not too long ago a couple of examples of orthodox beliefs were that cigarettes are good for your health and black people can't care for themselves?

"more indicative that he suffered from paralytic polio than GBS."

According to Dr. Humphries, here: http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2011/11/17/smoke-mirrors-and-the-disa…

Prior to 1954,
"Included under the umbrella term “Acute Flaccid Paralysis” are Poliomyelitis, Transverse Myelitis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, enteroviral encephalopathy, traumatic neuritis, Reye’s syndrome etc."

“Roosevelt had polio.”

Not according to this: Goldman.2003.”What was the cause of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s paralytic illness?” J Med Biog, 11:233-240.

Free-wheeling association with no hard data to support this. Please point me to compelling, replicated verification of your claim.

Journal of Applied Nutrition Vol. 23, No’s 3 & 4, Winter 1971

The only mention of poliomyelitis in that article was this:

Case History: Poliomyelitis

Although we were able to cure many cases of polio with massive doses of ascorbic acid, one single instance demonstrates the value of vitamin C. Two brothers were sick with poliomyelitis. These two boys were given 10 and 12 grams of ascorbic acid, according to weight, intravenously with a 50 c.c. syringe, every eight hours for 4 times and then every 12 hours for 4 times. They also were given one gram every two hours by mouth around the clock. They made complete recovery and both were athletic stars in high school and college. A third child, a neighbor, under the care of another physician received no ascorbic acid. This child also lived. The young lady is still wearing braces.

There appears to be considerable discrepancy between what your Humpries cites and what is in the literature. If you can find what you claim, great. I would caution you to vet your sources more carefully on you own rather than believe what someone with an agenda feeds you. It may be easier and massages your own biases but that's not the way to acquire knowledge.

I find overwhelming evidence that their products do not do what they claim.

Why don't you just test it out? Hep A and yellow fever should be straightforward enough, just off the top of my head. Leptospirosis if you can wrangle something in Cuba. Hell, maybe tetanus is on the table. Get cracking.

"Free-wheeling association with no hard data to support this."

Isn't that also the extent of the hard data to support the claim that Roosevelt had poliomyelitis? Especially if it is true, as Dr. Humphries claims, that prior to 1954 lots of things were called polio?

"your Humpries"

Sounds condescending. I don't know if Dr. Humphries cites Dr. Klenner, I may have found him through other means. My mistake on the Klenner cite above. Try this one: https://www.seanet.com/~alexs/ascorbate/194x/klenner-fr-southern_med_su…

The Treatment of Poliomyelitis and Other Virus Diseases with Vitamin C
Fred R. Klenner, M.D., Reidsville, North Carolina

Aboot half way through it talks about the 60 cases he treated during the one epidemic (again my mistake about 61.) It says "every patient of this series recovered uneventfully within three to five days."

"vet your sources more carefully on you own rather than believe what someone with an agenda feeds you. It may be easier and massages your own biases but that’s not the way to acquire knowledge."

Definitely condescending. What is Dr. Humphries' and Mr. Bystrianyk's agenda?

Also, I notice that there is no response to the USA measles census data. If morbidity was not declining in the years prior to vaccine introduction, would we not expect the disease peaks to remain high? Does the census bureau have an agenda?

"Why don’t you just test it out?"

I am, of course. Not letting religious cultists persuade me to violate Hippocrates maxim to first do no harm, by sticking their junk into me. Go ahead and go to Cuba if you want.

What _I_ see is measles cases declining substantially in the 21 years prior to vaccine introduction, and Humphries and Bystrianyk reporting that vaccine induced measles cases were not counted. Is Science Mom saying that vaccine measles cases was and/or are counted? If so she should report that to Humphries and Bystrianyk because I’m sure they would like to correct the error.

I don't know where you are getting 21 years prior from. Measles case reporting never captured the actual number of cases and there were fluctuations in cases throughout reporting history. Given the reproductive rate of measles virus and serology, nearly all children were infected by the age of 12 which translates to an entire birth cohort infected each year. But reported cases are an order of magnitude less than actual cases.

The first Rubeovax (actually Moraten) was introduced in 1963, it was only after that did the number of reported cases fall consistently. You can see in this graph how reported cases wildly fluctuated since reporting began: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1619577/pdf/amjph00684-003… Given the relatively low attenuation of the Moraten strain (as compared to the current Edmonston strain), it is entirely possible that those cases were reported.

You’re implying that that is the extent of the work Humphries and Bystrianyk put into their research?

Without question. They have conducted no original research of their own with regards to disease epidemiology nor vaccinology.

What is misconstrued and cherry picked about the USA measles census data? Is the census data wrong? If measles cases were not declining prior to vaccine introduction would we not expect to see the peaks remain high? What is their agenda? I think their agenda is an honest desire to help people.

Please, it's not census data; it's reportable diseases. The data aren't wrong; the interpretation of those data are wrong. If reporting was consistent then you wouldn't see such fluctuations to begin with but if you look at all the years you see swings from one year to the next that are more than 4-fold. Numerous events can and do affect disease reporting statistics. That's the beast of epidemiology and non-experts like Humphries show their lack of expertise by not considering these factors. She just hunts out trends that support her agenda. She may have started out with the desire to help people but has descended into something quite antithetical to that goal. The why is something else entirely.

Yes, if the conclusion is not in line with the orthodox beliefs then we shall call them names and dismiss them. You are aware, aren’t you, that not too long ago a couple of examples of orthodox beliefs were that cigarettes are good for your health and black people can’t care for themselves?

Using tobacco industry "research" and ancient racist "research" are hardly comparable to the data available on vaccines we have conducted by thousands of scientists from scores of countries.

“Why don’t you just test it out?”

I am, of course.

How? Go give yourself tetanus a few times. It's perfectly straightforward. Then get a tetanus vaccine and repeat the exercise.

Isn’t that also the extent of the hard data to support the claim that Roosevelt had poliomyelitis? Especially if it is true, as Dr. Humphries claims, that prior to 1954 lots of things were called polio?

Unfortunately no tests were available to confirm a polio diagnosis however his illness, age and symptoms were consistent with poliomyelitis. "Lots of things" weren't called polio then. Severe GBS could resemble poliomyelitis but it's extremely rare. While the possibility exists that he did have GBS, it's hubris to claim he unequivocally did.

Aboot half way through it talks about the 60 cases he treated during the one epidemic (again my mistake about 61.) It says “every patient of this series recovered uneventfully within three to five days.”

Instead of me talking at you, can you spot the problems with this report? Is it well-conducted? Do the results support the claim? Why or why not?

"I don’t know where you are getting 21 years prior from."

According to the census data repeatedly cited by "smart" Chris, from the peak in 1941 to the peak in 1962 was a 60% decrease in reported, as you pointed out, measles cases. To me that sounds consistent with a disease that is gradually disappearing. Of course I understand that all the cases wouldn't be reported, but I bet that the trend in reported is indicative of something actually happening.

So if nearly every kid was infected by age 12, and disease mortality and morbidity rates were on the decline, how does that mean we all have to get the vaccine shot? Especially given the reports from doctors and parents that measles wasn't a big deal and that the kids were the better for it after.

"They have conducted no original research of their own"

I see. I did not think they had. I'll let you have it your way, but I have a hard time believing that the good doctor gave up her well paying job and that her and Bystrianyk were not able to read and understand the research of others when they took the time to produce a well written and documented book on it.

And yes, I understand that there are lots of experts who swear up and down that vaccines are the saviours of mankind, but I've also noticed that typically state in the abstract assertions to that effect, almost as if to make sure to not be attacked by the hgh priests of vaccine. I've also noticed that none of them conduct placebo controlled randomised double blind studies. I know everyone will howl that that is unethical, but that is begging the question. You can only think it is unethical if you already think you know the outcome of the study, which you can't without doing the study.

"the interpretation of those data are wrong."

The "smart" Chris is misinterpreting? He's the one stuck on the one version of the census data that is missing many years.

"she just hunts out trends that support her agenda."

What is her/their agenda? (Humphries and Bystrianyk) In Dissolving Illusions they present many plots of historical, reported data as you point out, that all show disease and mortality rates decreasing substantially across the board prior to vaccine introductions. You're saying that data shouldn't be intrepreted to understand that the pre-vaccine trend mortality was down, nearly to zero?

"tobacco industry “research” and ancient racist “research” are hardly comparable"

Yes I understand that of course. You have to remember, though, that the refrain that "we" "know better now" is always the story, no matter the time and place. In 50 years people will be looking down their noses at us.

"can you spot the problems with this report?"

I understand that it is considered anecdotal (I assume that's what you're implying). I also know that Dr. Klenner published many papers reporting the same thing over many years, and I've read stories reporting that his patients called him Saint Klenner, and the nurses at the hospital referred to the babies he delivered as "vitamin C" babies because they were invariably healthy. I've also read other literature consistent with the vitamin C stories, including what Humphries and Bystrianyk reported, and including what Dr. Thomas Levy reported in "Curing the Incurable", which is about half citations and I'll confess right now that I followed none of them. The problem I have is persuading myself that they are just making this up, or are flat wrong. What problems do you see with Dr. Klenner's report?

Again, Measles outbreaks were cyclical - some years, cases were lower & in other years, they were higher...heck, even the year to year numbers provided show that cases were lower in some earlier years than in the 50s & early 60s.

How much of that is reflected in the ways the data was collected? Probably more than a bit - especially since methods of communication weren't instantaneous or as complete as we can make them today.

Do we know that just about everyone eventually got measles by the age of 16? Yes, we do.

Your assertions about measles being "benign" ignores recent evidence that shows that the disease may, in fact, "reset" the immune system & make children more vulnerable to other diseases down the road.

There is no "benefit" to getting sick - there is merely the hoping and praying that your child isn't one of the unlucky ones.

When these vaccines first became available, parents waited for hours in long lines to get their kids vaccinated...this wasn't done because of propaganda - this was done because these parents knew first-hand how dangerous these diseases were.

Your reliance on the faulty logic and faulty evidence of Humphries, in fact ignoring that she's no expect in immunology or epidemiology, that you ignore science from individuals and organizations which have spent decades doing real research, just shows your bias...you only see what you want to see.

You have yet to prove or offer any tangible evidence on "why" exactly, there would be this "supposed" decline in measles cases....you wave your hands & claim "nutrition and sanitation."

Okay genius, please point to the specific change-points - what occurred, specifically - when and where, that brought about these changes that you claim happened.

Surely you can make specific points, right?

Because we can point, specifically, to the release of the measles vaccine & the drop in cases of measles.

You should be able to do the same - I mean, didn't Humphries bother to find specifics? Or did she just make blatant assertions without evidence?

According to the census data repeatedly cited by “smart” Chris, from the peak in 1941 to the peak in 1962 was a 60% decrease in reported, as you pointed out, measles cases. To me that sounds consistent with a disease that is gradually disappearing. Of course I understand that all the cases wouldn’t be reported, but I bet that the trend in reported is indicative of something actually happening.

You are cherry-picking a trend you want to see. You can't make that claim given the extreme fluctuation in cases since reporting began. Why don't you change your username so you don't have to be a churlish whiner?

So if nearly every kid was infected by age 12, and disease mortality and morbidity rates were on the decline, how does that mean we all have to get the vaccine shot? Especially given the reports from doctors and parents that measles wasn’t a big deal and that the kids were the better for it after.

Mortality had two significant drops which were due to antibiotics/ventilators then again after vaccine introduction. It remained static at 1-3 deaths/1000 cases after the first drop and only declined because people were getting vaccinated. Morbidity did not decline until the vaccine. That's just what you want to believe. But the problem is, is that you can't have a decline in one of the most infectious diseases without a significant change to that pathogen and there wasn't any. The "decline" you see is purely administrative.

I see. I did not think they had. I’ll let you have it your way, but I have a hard time believing that the good doctor gave up her well paying job and that her and Bystrianyk were not able to read and understand the research of others when they took the time to produce a well written and documented book on it.

What makes you think she gave up her job? It sounds to me she wasn't particularly welcome at her job when she went anti-vaxx crank. She's very dodgy on the issue. She wrote a freakin book whoop-de-doo. That's not original research and she has zero training in anything related to vaccinology but here you are touting her as an expert and ignoring the real experts. You're not exactly original there.

What is her/their agenda? (Humphries and Bystrianyk) In Dissolving Illusions they present many plots of historical, reported data as you point out, that all show disease and mortality rates decreasing substantially across the board prior to vaccine introductions. You’re saying that data shouldn’t be intrepreted to understand that the pre-vaccine trend mortality was down, nearly to zero?

Pre-vaccine mortality wasn't nearly down to zero; your sources are just not correct and don't jive with the actual evidence. Retrospective studies demonstrate that once again mortality remained at 1-3 deaths/1000 cases as recently as the 1989-1991 outbreak: https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/189/Supplement_1/S69/2082538/Acute… Again you are relying upon Humphries non-expert interpretation of data; she doesn't know how to parse epi data and it's that simple.

Yes I understand that of course. You have to remember, though, that the refrain that “we” “know better now” is always the story, no matter the time and place. In 50 years people will be looking down their noses at us.

What you fail to see is that we have so many good quality studies that have been replicated by different people in different countries that don't suffer from the biases in your examples. Just because you don't want to accept this doesn't make it so.

I understand that it is considered anecdotal (I assume that’s what you’re implying). I also know that Dr. Klenner published many papers reporting the same thing over many years, and I’ve read stories reporting that his patients called him Saint Klenner,

You're sure that's the only problem? Publishing the same story repeatedly isn't replication you know. Here are the glaring problems; first there was no disease confirmation in all subjects, then no control groups and finally most poliomyelitis patients will spontaneously remit with no intervention. So even if all 60 patients did have poliomyelitis, it wouldn't be at all unusual for the disease to run it's course without progressing to paralysis. Can you see why relying upon such weak data is a problem?

According to the census data repeatedly cited by “smart” Chris, from the peak in 1941 to the peak in 1962 was a 60% decrease in reported, as you pointed out, measles cases. To me that sounds consistent with a disease that is gradually disappearing. Of course I understand that all the cases wouldn’t be reported, but I bet that the trend in reported is indicative of something actually happening.

So if nearly every kid was infected by age 12 . . . .

Prompt self-contradiction is not a very persuasive rhetorical technique.

Here is an article noting the cherry picking by Humphries and Bystrianyk:
http://skepchick.org/2015/02/bad-chart-thursday-the-truth-about-bad-mea…

I found an interesting graph on the website of Roman Bystrianyk (Suzanne Humphries' antivax illusions co-author). It doesn't quite illustrate that measles deaths were a non-factor before the measles vaccine was introduced:

http://healthsentinel.com/joomla/images/stories/graphs/us-measles-1900-…

(Bystrianyk is unhappy with this graph because it uses a logarithmic scale on the y-axis , but more importantly because it plays havoc with his contention that measles was unimportant by the time the vaccine was introduced).

I guess we should listen to him though - who better to get advice on keeping our kids healthy than a guy who has a software degree and runs a quackery-promoting website?

A related pair of articles on the effect of measles vaccination during the mid-1960s in Los Angeles County. The effect was dramatic, and even surprising since the vaccination levels were not terribly high;

Mass measles immunization in Los Angeles County

Measles epidemiology and vaccine use in Los Angeles County, 1963 and 1966

It was results like this that prompted more access to measles vaccines.

The effect of measles vaccination was noted to be very beneficial:
The Benefits From 10 Years of Measles Immunization in the United States

And the dangers of measles was known a century ago:
A STATISTICAL STUDY OF MEASLES (1914)

http://who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs286/en/

Interesting for our other Chris to note that there was a 79% reduction in measles deaths (worldwide) between 2000 & 2015.

Please tell us by which miracle of "sanitation and nutrition" that this might have occurred?

"a guy who has a software degree" really should be able to do what I did several years ago and write a graph reader. I got tired of trying to read graphs with weird scales, inadequate subdivisions of axes, etc. & whipped up some code to spit out a table of values that can then be replotted or stuffed up some other program.

In the last thirty years there were times when measles vaccination lagged, with real death and injury.

First in the USA, going back to California data, and not the cost to the state's Medicaid program:
Pediatric hospital admissions for measles. Lessons from the 1990 epidemic.

And then there was Japan, with is own special brand of anti-vaccine zealots and vaccines policies based on politics instead of science:
Measles vaccine coverage and factors related to uncompleted vaccination among 18-month-old and 36-month-old children in Kyoto, Japan

Which says:

In 1993, the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) withdrew the domestically produced MMR vaccine [9]. As of 1994, an amendment to the Immunization Law made vaccination voluntary and not mandatory. According to the present law, a single dose of measles vaccine is recommended for children over one year of age. Children are eligible to receive measles vaccination after 12 months following birth but not beyond 90 months. Until January 2004, adminisiration of measles vaccine was recommended between 12 and 24 months of age, instead of between 12 and 15 months when children have the greatest risk of contracting measles [10]. In Japan, measles vaccine coverage has remained low, and either small or moderate outbreaks have occurred repeatedly in communities. According to an infectious disease surveillance (2000), total measles cases were estimated to be from 180,000 to 210,000, and total deaths were estimated to be 88 [11,12]. Measles cases are most frequently observed among non-immunized children, particularly between 12 to 24 months.

Here is a legal opinion of expertise of Bystrianyk and Humphries:
http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2015/2015onsc2201/2015onsc2201.html

Judge's view:

Many of the assertions as set out above were backed up by citations from individuals who were advocates of no vaccinations. Dr. Suzanne Humphries, MD and Roman Bystianyk’s web site and articles on “Dissolving Illusions” amounted to much of the corroborating literature cited by Ms. Willem. I find that the data relied on by those offered as experts by the mother amounted to a cherry picking of resources derived from anti vaccination advocates. This form of evidence offered as expert evidence does not amount to evidence from a person with special skills who can assist the court in drawing a conclusion that it could not otherwise make.

Note that other than the above Canadian legal ruling, all of the cites I posted were PubMed indexed papers by reputable qualified researchers. I am still waiting for Other Chris to provide evidence of like quality to show why the incidence of reported measles in the USA dropped 90% between 1960 and 1970.

I’ve read stories reporting that his patients called him Saint Klenner, and the nurses at the hospital referred to the babies he delivered as “vitamin C” babies because they were invariably healthy.

I realise that this is asking a lot, but did anyone record the actual names and testimonies of these loquatious patients and nurses? Otherwise it's all in the realms of firend-of-a-friend.

To Planet Earth Chris,

I have a small reading assignment for you (hopefully your reading level is actually high enough): The section on Measles in Control of Communicable Diseases of Man manual. Page numbers will vary depending on which edition you find. I have the 17th edition so the pages are 333 to 335.

You may actual learn something of value if read real science.

I hope that I am not being too demanding by declaring that we are sorely in need of higher quality trolls at RI:
we will get rusty without the necessary shoot downs.

Yeah, this is one is now just stomping his little feet crying "Humphries! Klenner! Waah!"