Over the last three days I've been complaining about how the Tribeca Film Festival selected for screening Andrew Wakefield's antivaccine propaganda- and conspiracy-laden quackfest of a documentary entitled Vaxxed: From Cover-up to Catastrophe. I also took TFF to task for its extremely disingenuous response about its being about "discussion and dialogue." You might also recall that I speculated, based on Andrew Wakefield's having bragged to the faithful that Leonardo DiCaprio was promoting his film (and then, just as fast, denying that he had ever said any such thing) that perhaps Leonardo Di Caprio or another big name star who was antivaccine-sympathetic had greased the wheels to get this film into Tribeca. Another possibility I suggested was one of the Tribeca Film Festival's founders, Robert De Niro, based on his having an autistic child.
Well, I just got an e-mail from Tammie Rosen at Tribeca Enterprises that reads:
I wanted to provide you with following statement from Robert De Niro, co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival, regarding Vaxxed at the Festival:
“Grace and I have a child with autism and we believe it is critical that all of the issues surrounding the causes of autism be openly discussed and examined. In the 15 years since the Tribeca Film Festival was founded, I have never asked for a film to be screened or gotten involved in the programming. However this is very personal to me and my family and I want there to be a discussion, which is why we will be screening VAXXED. I am not personally endorsing the film, nor am I anti-vaccination; I am only providing the opportunity for a conversation around the issue.”
Thank you,
Tammie
The statement appears legit, as it is now on the Tribeca Facebook page. Classic. Send out the press release admitting something bad (but not apologizing for it) on a Friday afternoon before a holiday and hope it doesn't attract much notice. I'm only surprised Ms. Rosen didn't wait until 5 PM. Of course, perhaps one of the intrepid reporters I mentioned the other day had discovered it was De Niro and the Tribeca Film Festival had no choice but to release a statement.
So it was De Niro who got Vaxxed into Tribeca. I had rather suspected as much, because someone who had worked on a movie in which De Niro was one of the leads a few years back (and who, of course, wishes to remain anonymous) e-mailed me and told me that De Niro's wife had been seen talking to Andrew Wakefield on the set and that the two seemed friendly. I know more, such as who else was there (and thus was probably the person who introduced Wakefield to her) and what movie set it was, but that's all I feel comfortable saying about it publicly. I don't want to risk any identities.
In any case, if Robert De Niro and his wife Grace want to help their autistic child, may I suggest that "dialogue" generated by a propaganda film by a known scientific fraud whose UK medical license was revoked featuring a viewpoint trumpeting a long-discredited idea that MMR causes autism grafted onto a conspiracy theory about the CDC "covering up" the evidence that vaccines cause autism that has no basis in fact is not a good way to go about this. If De Niro really wants "dialogue," maybe he should invite Brian Deer to attend the screening. If plane fare from the UK is too steep, then there are a number of experts he could consult on the East Coast. Heck, Paul Offit is in Philadelphia, a short Acela ride away!
I almost feel sorry for Mr. De Niro. Almost. He's about to be besieged by antivaccine cranks, who will now look at him as a hero and try to get him to support all sorts of wacky quack and pseudoscience causes. I hope he likes his new admirers.
Actually, I do feel a bit sorry for Mr. De Niro. He's now finding out the hard way why those of us who've studied him say that Andrew Wakefield discredits anything he touches. That now includes the Tribeca Film Festival.
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If he wants to help his daughter and other people with autism, this is the opposite of what he should do.
"I'm not anti-vax, but..."
Anyone else not surprised in the slightest?
No, I called it in private because of information e-mailed to me that I didn't want to discuss in public. In fact, the connection between Wakefield and De Niro's wife goes back at least a few years.
And it's a HORRIBLE film - bad production values, poor editing, poor sound.
It's barely high school film club level.
Shit.
Yiiii!
Just terrible.
A bad choice both scientifically and artistically.
It has nothing to do with facts or reality.
.
If it were a film by a parent who truly believed in anti-vax and told his own personal story, it might be at least forgivable, Andy is a charlatan looking for funds and fame.
That statement attributed to De Niro is pathetic. So you don't get involved with programming, ever, not once, in the past 15 years, but hey, this is personal, so of course, you got your way. And you're just asking questions. Naturally.
What a load of fucking bullshit, Mr. De Niro.
Oh and both New Haven and Detroit aren't very far away by Acela.
Dorit nailed it.
Allowing an airing to a documentary which is a pack of lies about vaccines causing autism damages autistics. It doesn't help us.
If De Niro wants to "further the dialogue" in regards to autism, then he just supported the most voracious predator preying against that necessary movement, literally letting the fox in the hen house.
Shame. I had such great respect for that man as an actor.
Just goes to show you how charming Wakefield can be. And yes, they've done the Friday afternoon PR dump-and-run on this one.
De Niro wants all of the issues surrounding the causes of autism be openly discussed and examined? Sir, you're setting the conversation back, not moving it forward or even keeping it current.
The Deer Hunter is one of our absolute favourite films and we were actually going to watch it again for the umpteenth time tonight. I just asked my husband to please pick another film because I have no desire to watch De Niro right now. When he asked why, I gave him a condensed version of events. And he rubbed his face and said, "He struck me as being smarter than to fall for Wakefield."
@ Cam the Cat:
I know. Sometimes smart, talented people make mistakes when they are suffering. -btw- De Niro had something to do with a film about his father, an artist, that was intriguing.
Mr. De Niro was about 55 years old when his son was born. Advanced parental age is one of the few known risk factors for ASD. Mr. De Niro seems to believe that ASD is caused by vaccines. What else could it be?
I now plan to boycott the Tribeca Film Festival for the foreseeable future. I also plan to not purchase any salad dressing produced by Mr. De Niro.
Cam the cat@10: Nailed it. I feel for the unfortunate product of De Niro's superannuated balls, having something like that creeping around the household. Contrary to what Hollywood tells us, monsters are real.
We focus so much on the indirect damage Andrew Wakefield does to children's health in general, it's easy to overlook just how much direct damage he does to this particular group of developmentally disabled vulnerable kids in particular. The man's a predatory sociopath, barely one step up from Fred West or Jimmy Saville on the list of people who absolutely should not be permitted within a hundred feet of any child (or any person, period, for that matter).
Had Andrew Wakefield been blessed with half the talent for medicine as he obviously possesses for charming and using people to further his own interests, perhaps he might've made himself its next Newton; toxic personality and all. But at this point Jason Voorhees would be the most appropriate comparison, were it not that his victims are living, feeling real human beings, not cartoon celluloid parodies whose horrific fate happily ends as soon as the lights come back up.
AoA links to the Slanted story and Kim has found a new icon.
A commenter thinks that Orac & Co are not fabulous.
To echo other commenters, yeah a damn shame DeNiro couldn't choose another way to channel his suffering. If he doesn't feel it now then soon he will know how toxic Wakefraud's taint* is.
*Not in the Popehat sense but could be too I suppose.
Awesome
@Delphiine, #12:
As a longtime fan of both early Jim Carrey and Mel Gibson, I've learned to force myself to distance their acting performances from their real-life person. Carrey is an anti-vax moron but damn it if "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" doesn't tickle my funny bone each and every time I watch it!
If "Deer Hunter" is your favourite film (it IS a great one!) you should not this come between you and your enjoyment of it. In fact, that would just make this whole travesty even more tragic.
Well, I'm a bit surprised it was De Niro. I was pretty sure it wasn't some celebrity calling in a favor with RDN or someone else at the TFF sucking up to a 'star'. I thought the best bet was some moneyed AV business-type working in or through the Tribeca board.
I want the minions to understand how extraordinary that statement from De Niro is. He may not have apologized, but he has confessed to an unforgiveable sin.
When a big star like RDN is President of a film festival, if he goes anywhere near programming choices or pushes a personal fave around the programmers, the festival loses all credibility and status. He's Bobby De Niro. If he wants 'Vaxxed' to get screened in NYC, there are any number of ways he can see that happens. He can rent a theater, take out advertising, do interviews, make it 'Robert De Niro presents;' But he didn't. He tried to hide it inside his festival.
I'm kinda surprised Orac didn't get a tip from someone inside the TFF. Up until his statement, RDN was letting the public think the staff could be implicated in this, burning their reputations, not to mention crapping on their attempts to do their jobs within respectable professional standards.
What this tells us is that Andrew Wakefield snookered Robert De Niro so thoroughly that De Niro did something that put the passion project that's been the central focus of his life for 15+ years in mortal jeopardy. This could kill not just the film festival, but the whole larger project of the Tribeca Foundation.
As such, I'm guessing this statement is the first step of De Niro falling on his sword, taking personal responsibility for this mishegoss to let everyone else at Tribeca off the hook. He seems to be hoping for a 'first-time offender' pass, but I doubt he'll get one. He may have to separate himself completely from Tribeca in an attempt to restore its credibility, but unless someone of similar stature stepped in to take his place, I'm not sure how well the various Tribeca ventures could go on without him.
So thanks, Andy, for wreaking your destruction on one of our country's more important cultural institutions. When you get back to Texas, can you arrange a meeting with Ted Cruz, please?
______
Noted without comment or conclusion:
From http://www.callous-disregard.com/reviews.htm:
From Wikipedia:
Surprised in the sense that if he had these concerns all along with the causes of autism, why not discuss them with the health care team and university scientists? Why go the route of promoting an opportunistic fraud?
Maybe Robert wasn't the one snookered ... perhaps Grace was friendly with Andy and became a believer. etc.
Sadmar@21: "This could kill not just the film festival, but the whole larger project of the Tribeca Foundation."
I doubt this will put that much of a dent in it. It's Hollywood; they'll just retconn the reboot and be back to doing sequels in no time at all.
Though we really should give Wakefield his credit: he may be a criminal quack and a garbage director, but he clearly demonstrates some talent for running the long con. Now, off to vomit all over my videotape of Desperado…
Too bad. As others have alluded to, under the circumstances it seems unlikely that DeNiro is really agnostic about this and is probably fully in the tank for Wakefield.
I'm going to stand by my initial gut reaction though that in the long-run, nothing much will come of this either way. For DeNiro's and TFF's part, I doubt anything sticks. The film is not up for any awards so the reputational damage to the festival seems limited. As for DeNiro, look at Jenny McCarthy. She's a much lesser celebrity and her anti-vax advocacy hasn't hurt her much. She has a steady XM radio gig and reality show and does interviews and appearances where none of this stuff comes up.
As for Wakefield, I still can't imagine that this single screening and TFF association will do much for him on balance other than net him a little extra cash.
An unfortunate situation, but I don't think long term this will move the needle much. I hope I'm right.
MarkN@22: Hell, after decades as a phenominally successful and respected Hollywood A-Lister De Niro can hardly be short of a bob or two, never mind a whole bunch of chums with deep pockets of their own.
If his honest intention was to advance knowledge and support for autistics and their families, why the hell didn't he put some of that wealth and influence into building something for autistics himself? The "De Niro Institute for Autism Research, Education, and Support" would've have a far nicer ring to it than the "De Niro Blank Check for Sociopathic Frauds". He's not just done obvious direct harm, he's ruined other possible avenues as well. Any sympathy I might have for the man as a parent of a developmentally disabled child and expertly played mark is quite undone at the thought of what he might have achieved for others had he employed even a modicum of caution and critical thought.
So Robert De Niro reveals his has the scientific intellect of Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey, and Rob Schneider?
No great surprise.
He's an actor who is a genius at playing pretend; however, in the scientific and medical fields he's an uneducated, drooling idiot.
Dunning-Kruger, Mr. De Niro. Look it up.
has@26 -- no lie. Our university hospital & research probably would be more than willing to put the money to great use, they have a kick-butt program for the kids that rocks!
total shame...or sham
Sad. I hope that De Niro and his wife come to understand the huge mistake which they have made and try to make amends. Helping to perpetuate the dreadful career of a phony messiah who cares nothing for children.
I just had a strange thought...if Wakefraud could get someone like Robert DeNiro to break his own rule of interfering with the Tribeca selection process then the Church of Scientology might have a Hollywood messiah competition on their hands. What a damn shame and a waste of resources.
@ TroubleMaker
I don't think it will hurt RDN professionally. As for Tribeca, maybe his 'owning' of the jiggering will keep the larger rep safe enough. If they put up some firewall to make sure no VIP can affect the programing again, maybe he can continue as executive and public face... It's not the public rep that matters here, it's the trust level of the staff, the indie filmmakers, and programmers from other festvals – a sort of networking ecology that may be more fragile than you'd think. Institutions have survived worse, but also started irreversible crumbling at less. We'll see... It's not good. As for Andy, a little extra cash is all he ever wants...
@has
Tribeca's not really Hollywood. Hollywood stuff is part of the festival, but the foundation is more about non-commercial stuff like documentary and weird 'art' movies, and doing some good work in the Tribeca neighborhood.
Also to be fair, we don't know that De Niro hasn't quietly spent more than a few bob on things that actually help autistics. He's not the loud 'Put my name on it!" type.
I agree that this is quite the con-job coup for Wakefield, and shows how much mischief he can still create. I doubt he (or anyone) can revive anti-vax to be a significant public health threat again, but he's still a menace. If nothing else, the way the autistic kids are portrayed in the Vaxxed trailer isn't helping them any. You know, they're 'ruined', whether the vaccines did it or not.
So my bottom line stays: He's sticking his head out of his bubble here. Let's take the opportunity to show everyone now watching just what a vile lying scumbag he is. The more folks who understand that he's poison, the lower his chances to con the gullible in the future.
Hollywood actors are paid to look good and bathe an audience in fantasy by playing the part of an imaginary character, or occasionally playing the imagined manners of a dead one.
Possibly not the ideal source for medical, scientific & political advice.
As long as they bathe. Or at least take a shower.
This.
Why so afraid of debate? If vaccines are safe and effective, science can prove it. Asking questions and conducting unbiased tests are scientific.
Indeed.
As friend Amethyst notes above, if you enjoy the performances, enjoy the hedoublehockeysticks out of them. But never forget that it's all an act.
My latest heartbreak is Keri Russell in The Americans. She plays a tough, smart, resourceful, woman, perched on a lovely bottom, everything I've been saving myself for (except for the evil communist part). But then she made an appearance on The Daily Show. She's everything she doesn't play on TV, but she still has a lovely bottom, and that just isn't enough for a good TV crush.
But I still enjoy the show, and have an even greater appreciation of her acting abilities.
And then we have actors who do turn out to be champions of science. Which is why I love Alan Alda.
"He’s about to be besieged by antivaccine cranks." Too late. The antis are out in force on the Tribeca facebook page, spreading their delight and support for Mr. De Niro, and spreading misinformation far and wide. Right now the only thing that might rain on Wakefield's parade is a large group of those on the autism spectrum and their families standing outside the theatre where the film is running and making sure their opinion of Wakefield is also heard.
brian: "Mr. De Niro was about 55 years old when his son was born. Advanced parental age is one of the few known risk factors for ASD. Mr. De Niro seems to believe that ASD is caused by vaccines. What else could it be?"
Whoa. I just checked his wife's IMDB page. She is two years older than me and they did not get married until 1997 (three years after the birth of my youngest). Let's do some simple arithmetic and realize that she was at least forty years old when she had their youngest child.
Excuse me, but there might be something much more than vaccines as a cause of autism. De novo mutations due increase with parental age.
I am not an "anti-vaxxer". I am a practitioner of East Adian Medicine, which is often criticized in blogs like this as being quackery. It never fails to astound me, the level of vitriol hurled by commenters. No level of critical thinking in any of the comments. Just personal attacks. So don't watch his films and boycott the TFF. And this is the rational side of the debate? Rather sad.
IMDB gives it to you direct
"Gave birth to her first child at age 42, a son Elliot De Niro on March 18, 1998. Child's father is her husband, Robert De Niro.
Became the mother in 2nd time at age 56, her daughter, Helen Grace De Niro, was born in December 2011 via surrogate".
Though simple arithmetic tells me that 5/6 of DeNiros children ( presuming all were vaccinated) DON'T have autism. Thats an 83% success rate of no autism with vaccines if they're all about correlation/causation.
I can say with perfect confidence that I've never even heard of East Adian Medicine. How does it differ from West Adian?
And this is the rational side of the debate? Rather sad.
I am concerned that "Trump tweet haiku syntax" is already being emulated by intertube numpties.
@ Narad
Dammit, I've been trying to make a West Adian joke referencing the actor Aidan Quinn, who, I just learned blames a vaccination for turning his daughter from "above normal" to “a completely damaged child" overnight. But I can't make it work and that "completely damaged" crap isn't funny anyway....
So, West Adian Medicine is just plain old quackery, and East Adian Medicine is the sociopathic variant that disingenuously avers that rationality and critical thinking would produce anything other that vitriolic personal attacks against Andrew Wakefield. Since I don't want to Godwin the thread: Why so afraid to debate cannibalism? Shouldn't all the issues be openly discussed and examined. The vitriol hurled at Mr. Dahmer is just so sad. If you don't like that sort of nutritional choice, just keep shopping at Whole Foods and boycott the Hannibal movies.
That's East Adian, I think...
I think #41 in addition to running afoul of the close proximity of the S & D keys also has no idea what critical thinking really means. I don't care that the TFF folks allow an airing of the Wakefield desperation piece as long as it's placed in the Science Fiction Docudrama category.
I find it hard to believe that this site is even legit!
You can't tell me that there are this many people who give a shit about the public seeing vaxxed. Really?
And you all felt you had to belittle the family and disgrace yourselves and vent about it on this assholes blog?
Amazing I can not and do not believe that you all have nothing better to do!
This seems more like a, lets get paid by big pharma and bash someone kinda site.
I hope you get paid! No sense looking like dickheads for free.
Karma's a bitch, enjoy!
@MarkN #23:
He may well have already discussed this with duly informed people, but I imagine they will have told him that we don't have any absolute or simple answers as to why autism occurs. So when he hears of someone offering a simple answer, the temptation to reach for it might be too strong to resist. It may be even more difficult to resist if someone has mentioned that there are risks associated with having children later in life (not even necessarily regarding autism). Wakefield offers him an opportunity to blame an external cause rather than face the niggling worry that perhaps he and his wife might somehow be at fault.
All in all, that would be a very human reaction. It's not the right one, but it's understandable how very easily it could happen.
The other day Orac wrote:
As I said before, it's not the techniques, it's what you do with them. They're just tools – in Orac's hands, a scalpel can save a life, but in other hands it can slit a throat. So the question is: just how far from any acceptable norm is Wakefield's use of filmmaking techniques?
Well, we haven't seen the film, but we do have the trailer and Andy's previous CDCWistleblower YT videos, and thanks to Kevin Barry, we have transcripts of a number of Hooker's surreptitious recordings of Thompson, against which we can compare Wakefield's uses of Thompson's audio to the things Thompson actually said.
When Matt Carey wrote about the fabricated soundbite at the beginning of the trailer, like Amethyst I figured this was just the tip of the iceberg – as I'd detected likely major audio diddling of Thompson in the YT vids when they came out. So I thought I'd check for other chunks of ice, at least verifying the ones I'd suspected from the telltale signs of audio editing. I found a library with a copy of Vaccine Whistleblower and put it on hold, and DLed at the YT vids including Thompson's voice. While I'm waiting for the book, I decided to compile a single edited video file of just the parts where Thompson's voice appears, to make checking against the book easier.
In going back to Wakefield's first CDC Whistleblower video – the one with the Tuskegee and Hitler comparisons – and skipping through those to the Thompson parts, I realized I hadn't taken a close look at how the BS sausage was constructed. I mean, I knew it' was going to be BS before I hit 'Play', and the outrageous genocide stuff smacked me in the face so hard my mind's eye just kind of glazed over and I was mentally skimming the rest of it. It just seemed not to matter, so obviously corrupt was the whole enterprise.
But now I've begun to look close, and what I see – it's a lot about how the image creates false contexts for the sound bites, as well as the surrounding audio of Wakefield, Hooker and others – is egregious fraud at every level in every filmic device. Maybe I'm (willfully?) forgetting something, but I can't recall any use of documentary material and technique anywhere near this degree of mendacity. This even goes way beyond the level of fabrication in Reality TV, which most sensible viewers at least intuit is staged and cut to fit a prepared fictional script anyway.
If my stomach holds out, I'll write up a close analysis, post it somewhere, and put a link here at RI. It won't tell you anything macro about Wakefield you don't already know, but it might, I think, offer a deeper appreciation of just how complete the perfidy runs, and how much work has to be done to create such a concentrated dose of audio-visual fraud. It's like he's sitting in his editing suite, twiddling his mustache, scheming until he comes up with the most sociopathic way to use every single element of production...
Mark Harrison #36:
This isn't about "debate". This is about a "documentary" constructed by a proven liar and fraud being given exposure. This is about the fact that there is good evidence of splicing, distorting and misquoting in said "documentary".
The rest of your argument is a giant straw man.
@sadmar #32:
De Niro's acting career is just about over anyway. Have you seen the films he's been in recently? B-Grade "comedies" that reference his career playing gangsters and tough guys. He's become a parody of himself. I believe that at this point the smartest thing he could do is take the fall for this and quietly end his career. That will save both Tribeca and him some face.
Afraid of debate?
There is no "debate" around Wakefield's ideas: he has been thoroughly discredited, his work shredded for the unscientific fraud it clearly is, his unprincipled financial impropriety over MMR and competing vaccines thoroughly revealed...
And do I need to reiterate that Wakefield had no training or expertise in anything to do with autism? He was a gastro-enterologist, not a paediatrician or a child psychiatrist. He had minimal training in mental health or child development, less than I had as a nurse who worked in CAMHS and he appeared to have less of a grasp of science than I got from doing a science degree...
There is no debate over Wakefield.
Bravo DeNiro!! Finally... I feel bad for doctors who won't be able to sleep at night knowing how much damage they have done to infants over the years.
go fuck yourself, Jess
Jess, your comment assumes that people like Wakefield will suddenly develop a conscience.
Looks like Mr. Wakefield's bio on the Tribeca website under the information for Vaxxed has suddenly just completely disappeared, if only temporarily. Hopefully they are updating it to more accurately reflect the man's background.
"Just asking Questions" or better known as "JAQ'ing" off....
Mark Harrison @36
Where were you when the debate was taking place? You will find past posts on this blog an invaluable resource when you check out how it went.
Debates are not a matter of attrition where the party who can keep talking longest wins: there should be a conclusion, and that was in the case of Wakefield, that the most august medical body in the UK found that he was a fraud and dishonest, and struck him off the register.
When there is a clear conclusion to a debate, unless new facts arise, you're entitled to use the logic of plausibility and burden-of-proof to avoid wasting your time in futile discussions.
Try debating someone who believes in bigfoot: that's roughly the level of most anti-vaxers.
I hate to take the negative route on this, but the age of Grace Hightower and Robert De Niro at the time of their son Elliot's birth is probably the biggest risk factor in his diagnosis of ASD. Grace is 60, and Robert is 72; and Elliot is 18, so by simple subtraction, they were 42 and 54, respectively at the time of his birth. Children born to mothers >40 yr old; AND fathers >35 have the highest risk of ASD diagnosis. It's certainly no-one's "fault" that they have a child affected by a disease, but De Niro should be better informed if he's going to "start a dialog".
If De Niro really wanted to shine the light on autism causation, he could have started with what we're fairly certain: autism has a genetic component, risk increases with the age of the parents, it's strongly influenced by sex of the child, and there are some specific in utero environmental risks. Once you add up all the known risk factors, there's really not much left for vaccines to cause.
I know some very nice researchers at Baylor College of Medicine who would probably be willing to meet with the De Niro/Hightower family and talk about their research. With a proper informed consent, they might even use a sample of Elliot's blood to look at what de novo mutations, and particularly gene copy number variations that he possesses. The De Niro/Hightower family could raise awareness about the lack of funding for autism research instead of letting a known fraudster and profiteer like Wakefield siphon public donations away from legitimate research and outreach programs.
Gang, forget about bringing De Niro and antivaxxers et al to Baylor to the correct evidence. For them, it's not about evidence but rather, the shame of bringing an autistic child into this world. It has always being about shame and will forever be. Work that angle and do think about it, why do you think that conman can be so successful? It's all about shame and I did the work previously to prove the hypothesis as much as I can but never realized it before just about now.
Alain
And yeah, I'm furious and madly pissed off at the chew toys but I'll keep this professional for now.
There will always be autistics forever :D
Alain
I was at a science fiction convention yesterday, and I met a woman wearing a badge that said "Hug Me, I'm Vaccinated!" I didn't hug her, but I did thank her on behalf of the immunocompromised of the world. :-)
I'm glad that sadmar is looking at this film in detail. If movie magic can make people appear to fly or emerge unscathed from raging firestorms, it can make nearly anything look like something it isn't.- which can be useful in fantasy projects.
Andy has adroitly transferred his mendacity to a new medium- rather than concocting results and "chiseling"** data, he now makes films.
AS you may know, there is an entire genre developing aimed at the anti-vaccine/ autism audience: a few films have been discussed here ( like Manoukian's'The Greater Good' or 'Trace Amounts'), but every woo-meister and disgruntled parent group appears to have a project in the works, many of them seeking funding: I read about this frequently at AoA and TMR: even today, a writer who works with horses, documents his method for assisting autistic kids with riding as well as shamanism in diverse international locales
( Horse Boy/ TMR). There are various projects involving parents ( "Canary Kids") as well as woo-meisterly epics ( Vaccine Nation, Autism: Made in the USA, etc).
What I find unsettling is the use of the term 'documentaries' to describe these efforts- they're not documentaries - 'Citizen Four' is a documentary - but these pastiches are decidedly not: they're fantasy, stagecraft and politicised self-aggrandisement as well as blame games.
** in the words of BD himself
And, hey, whatever I am. My mom was convinced for the longest time that I was an alien changeling or something. I figure I'm just the traveling type.
He's not based in New Mexico, is he? The mom of a couple of kids I used to nanny is (or was at the time) big into some guy in New Mexico who called himself a shaman and did/does a bunch of stuff with horses.
@ JP:
He's not a shaman, he's a shaman enabler ( I jest). He is Rupert Isaacson: I think he's lived in Texas: he's from the UK and South Africa. He has a few books and films out and a website. TMR just LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVES him.
You're not an alien or changeling- you're an artist/ writer. Not as bad.
Jake informs us today that "Doctor" Wakefield is taking steps to have his medical license restored. Maybe that will happen in the next day or so, and they plan to update the bio to include that he is a real doctor again. /sarcasm
http://www.autisminvestigated.com/wakefield-medical-license/
So, he's going to "sue" back in merry ole' England?
That would be hilarious......
@ Johnny:
But did you see on what basis he thinks it should be restored?
In other ( not real) news:
Truth Kings**.com speculates that the money for AJW's so-called documentary was supplied by Leo.
** seriously, isn't that the worst blog name ever?
#47 Wow
Nice try but not exactly the sophisticated attack we have come to know and appeciate. Clearly you have been listening to Ezra too much.
The issue is about lying and fraud in a so-called documentary that is produced by someone whom Peter Dugdale # 57 accurately characterizes as someone that the most august medical body in the UK found that he was a fraud and dishonest, and struck him off the register.
#62 Denice Walters
, a writer who works with horses
Argh, after I've been reading about acupuncture and homeopathy for horses I thought you were going to say there was someone discussing autism in horses. I don't know but riding horses might do autistic kid some good, but maybe not in the way your Horse Boy means it?
@ jkrideau:
I haven't read all of his material but I'm sure that riding horses might at least be fun for some autistic kids. He may be partially realistic although I don't know if visiting shamans all over the globe is therapy.
At least his son likes to film things.
Oh, sure, Denice, I read Jake's brain droppings.
You know it's a crock, I know it's a crock, and I suspect "Doctor" Wakefield knows it's a crock. The thing is, I suspect, from his point of view, it's the chance to convince a lot of people to send him a crock of money for another failed lawsuit.
If it's even true, I suspect there will be a Go Fund Me page in the near future.
# 71 Denice Walters
Well yes, he may be partially realistic but JP's comment at #64 is not reassuring.
BTW re your comment and Johnny's re Wakefield trying to get his licence back, Jake provides a link to a link to the Walker-Smith vs General Medical Council judgement http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2012/503.html
It does not seem favourable to Wakefield. He might better keep looking in boxes of crackerjack or do I mean cherrios?
The constant harping on the Walker-Smith case is nothing more than wishful thinking. If you read the transcripts of the hearing, WS really threw Wakefield under the bus (on multiple occasions).
I don't know how the anti-vaxers think that this helps Wakefield's case for reinstatement.
I was going to say it sounds like an MRA blog, but I think that's "Return of Kings." (Don't visit if you've recently eaten.) But yeah, anything with "Kings" in the title is generally already bad enough, but "Truth Kings"? Gag me with the proverbial spoon.
I wouldn't mind it. I will say that playing drums was one of my favorite forms of "therapy" when I had to be in the psych ward two times; I even played communally in a "drum circle" thing several times, which used to be anathema, given that I'm supposed to be a punk, not a hippie, or something.
Possibly it's just a good way to get some frustration or other emotions out. I was pretty royally p!ssed about the whole deal, given that being put on the highest allowed dose of Zoloft with scant monitoring was what probably set the whole thing off.
^And the animal visits. The animals visit were nice. Only dogs, I think, no cats, sadly.
@ jrkrideau:
Right. He has a website and foundation. Mysticism and a smattering of ( supposed) science. I haven't read it so I can't vouch but I suspect that the former outweighs the latter.
#47: "I find it hard to believe that this site is even legit!"
What do you have against the US Constitution's first amendment? Are you one of those unAmerican traitors that wish to subvert all opinion you dislike?
I saw the preview for the movie. Did anyone notice that one of the moms telling the story was one of the women who interfered in the Alex Spordalakis tragedy? One of the women who ended up screaming at the doctors to test him and talk Dorothy into using some of their biomedical quackery? I believe she is a RN or LPN. Again, how is she able to keep her license? Do they just recycle the same cast of people? I like DeNiro though, good actor.
Denise wrote:
Well, they are, just not good ones. One eensy-teensy bit of good that could come out of this – but probably won't – is that the wider public could develop a better understanding of what docos are, and how to judge them. The rubric is extremely elastic, and always has been. And from the very beginning – Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North – a good number of years before the term 'documentary' came into use, the border between fiction and non-fiction in film has always been messy. Because it has to be, due to the nature of the medium, or rather just because it is a medium. It's mediated. You have to make choices. Something's always distorted, because the choices come down to different kinds of 'distortions' one way or the other. One of my aphorisms is: 'You have to lie to tell the truth."
What do I mean by that? It's an observation borne of my experience making documentaries – none of them btw about 'hot button' subjects. We go out in the world and capture pictures and sounds of material reality. These days, for every minute of running time in the finished piece, we typically get between 30-60 minutes of raw material. We find if we try to assemble the pieces in any way that is 'faithful' to the precise conditions in which they were obtained, they simply don't come close to telling the truth. They give the audience either a manifestly false or utterly inadequate view of the 'big picture'. So we diddle. Usually a lot. If we're skilled, and honest, each diddle moves the perception viewers will take away closer to the truth.
Let me give just one example; In Gates of Heaven Errol Morris interviews Phil Harberts, an insurance salesman from Salt Lake City who has suffered a nervous breakdown. and moved back to Napa, CA to live with his parents and work in the family business, The Bubbling Well Pet Cemetary. Though his sales career has crashed and burned, Phil attempts to project business mastery in the form of often incoherent self-help lingo.
Anyway, Morris goes into Phil's little office at the pet cemetery to set up an interview shoot. Phil is going to brag about his previous successes in the insurance biz. The office is filled with sales trophies and memorabilia that show Phil is living in a fantasy vision of the past that is now hanging by a perilous thread. The DP composes a shot of Phil sitting behind his desk. Morris looks in the viewfinder. Phil's collection is mostly out of frame, and the bits visible don't 'read'. So Morris piles what he can on the desk, and moves all the wall hanging things to fill the space behind Phil visible in the shot. The 'truth' would have lied, because you wouldn't have seen an important aspect of Phil's character, how attached he is to these things, and the 'lie' tells the truth because you do.
In watching a documentary, you're never seeing 'the world' but somebody's story about the world. For whatever sets of things the camera eye falls on, there are a multitude of stories that could be told, and a multitude of ways to tell each of them. Viewers should always question the position of the story-teller, the boundaries of the story, and the methods of the telling.
When I taught documentary, I quickly learned to cut off any discussions of 'is that a documentary?' or 'what is a documentary?' after screenings. They were just utterly unproductive, empty and a total waste of time. Here is a film: what does it say? how does it work? what kind of 'truth' does it offer?
The closest I can come to a definition of 'documentary' is: a film that either documents something that happened in reality, or employs existing 'documents' of things that happened in reality. American Hustle for example, is about something that actually happened, but doesn't 'document' Abscam. The Vaxxed trailer uses 'actualities' of autistic kids, file footage of people speaking in public, and interviews that are documents in the sense of 'this is what Stephanie Seneff and Jim Sears said'. It also includes interview footage of Wakefield and Del Bigtree telling flat-out lies, but a fake document is documentation of fakery, if nothing else.
Anyway, I hope it's apparent that trying to define documentary is a useless task, and trying to judge a film on the basis 'is or isn't' is worse than useless, actually counterproductive. Every film is it's own individual thing, with it's own complex mesh of ways of using truth, representing the real, commenting on it, and so on. Take them all on their own terms, and view those terms with a skeptical grain of salt.
...merely on the basis of Anna Merlan's reportage of Andy name-dropping Leo on the ConspiraSea. I feel confident that with this coming from the lips of Wakefield and Truthkings, we can clear Mr. DiCaprio of suspicion.
# 78 Chris
What do you have against the US Constitution’s first amendment?
Let me count the ways ... :)
It was probably written in good faith by gentlemen who would not have anticipated some of the totally insane, brachiating, idiots that have emerged out of the cesspit of humanity to take advantage of it.
OTOH, it probably is not a poorly drafted as the Second Amendment.
"It was probably written in good faith by gentlemen who would not have anticipated some of the totally insane, brachiating, idiots that have emerged out of the cesspit of humanity to take advantage of it."
Like this delusional drivel?
I'm very disappointed that the Tribeca Film Festival isn't airing any documentaries on the Holistic Doctor Murder Conspiracy. We need to bring this out in the open; there are questions that need to be answered!
Here are the latest murders (and don't tell me you buy the "official explanation"):
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/found-slain-santa-barbara-county-hom…
I knew y'all would be running scared. This is awesome news. The damns are breaking. People don't believe you anymore. People are waking up to corporate JUNK science. We are watching the slow death of Pharmaceutical mysticism.
The writing is on the wall.
Robert De Niro is a hero. I knew there was a reason I liked him. He knows truth when he sees it. Unlike you people. Moohooowaaaa
THEO: "I knew y’all would be running scared. This is awesome news. The damns are breaking"
We're running?
"The damns are breaking."
Freudian slip much?
But yeah, anything with “Kings” in the title is generally already bad enough, but “Truth Kings”?
Brings to mind the Sand Kings from George Martin's story.
I found this to be extremely hilarious:
https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&q=%23FutureTribecaDocumentary
@FutureTribecaDocumentary
If we are trading classics, Bill Fay's "Time of the Last Persecution" is worth a listen. Both sides of the LP are up on the Youtubes.
I wonder if THEO ever got around to that conversation with his priest about the sanctity of life or whatever it is those folks talk about. Seems like protecting children from preventable, sometimes deadly, diseases would be pretty high on the list.
^ I believe I mentioned "Pictures of Adolf Again," one of the more memorable tracks of that great album, here in one of my more politically frantic moments.
Also this:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/cbpolis/science-twitter-drags-de-niro-15-funnie…
Holy hilarious hell, some people are really rolling with this:
https://twitter.com/YoniFreedhoff/status/713662013747118082
I feel sorry for De Niro really. Wakefield's been preying on parents - particularly, when he can, rich parents - for 20 years.
The techniques by which he gets his claws into them, and his fingers into their cheque books if he can, are incredible. The whole Englishman in America is often enough.
I don't want people to take this any way other than a factual observation, but I would be you fifty bucks that he had Grace giggling, possibly doing selfies with him, and that, by now, she's got a nagging doubt that her son may have a bowel disease.
Unless you knew how he works, you wouldn't think anything other than that he'd been cruelly mistreated, and that none of anything is true, and if only he had the money he would prove himself innocent.
It would take your breath away. But I can tell you, when his lawyers deposed me for 6.5 hours, he and that crank Clifford Miller sat there for every minute of it, until I went through the fraud in Table 2 of his paper. Then, he left the room.
I've seen him at a conference of young mothers put up an overhead slide of fulminant, ulcerating Crohn's disease, and wallowed in the gasps of mothers. Then he says that the bowel disease he discovered isn't this, but it's "similar". In fact, his bowel disease doesn't exist. It has never been imaged. He made it up.
As I say, I feel sorry for De Niro.
Sorry, not trying to spam, but this story has become Comedy Gold in the Twitterverse.
https://twitter.com/jtotheizzoe/status/713414630572367872
One is reminded of Rasputin.
"Rah, rah, Rasputin, lover of the Russian Queen..."
Mostly off-topic, but I'm disappointed about the second-round matchup here.
Anna Merlan is reporting it's pulled: http://jezebel.com/tribeca-film-festival-robert-de-niro-announce-theyre…
Tribeca FB Page:
https://www.facebook.com/Tribeca/posts/10154153954489758
Yes Frequent Lurker..#99...News of his pulling it just came thru my twitter feed.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2016/03/26/3763690/tribeca-anti-vaccina…
Thank you so much, Orac and the activists here and on other sites for bringing this issue front and center---and educating Robert Deniro re: Wakefield.
That stinks, sunlight being the best disinfectant, etc.
Thank god for that. I can watch Casino again for the 100th time. And Jackie Brown. And what's that one about Rupert Pupkin?
Wow. That's frightening that the pharmaceutical companies have that much say in what Americans can watch. We are literally living in a fascist state. Some of you have a hand is destroying babies lives.
Speaking as the resident canary, no, we're not. I'll let you know if it ever becomes the case. (It could happen here!)
No, see, it's once common and now easily preventable diseases which destroy babies' lives. Literally.
And it's science, for the win!
h/t: Dr Amy, SkepticalOB
Do you think "they" sent him a link to the Holistic Doctor Assassination Plot?
To be honest, the idea to yank it off the schedule proves the point. They are scared and know that they (Pharma companies and the medical community) kill / maim babies. It's funny, I'm just a normal person... No real connection to this issue (my kids reacted badly to their vaccinations but not enough that I feel overly passionate about the topic), but I would have to say we are now at a point where about 1/2 the people I talk to about the topic (and they aren't overly "crunchy" or "holistic" at all) know that vaccines trigger autism (and assorted other issues). It's unbelievable. After this that number will get higher. Lol! So many people know the truth about vaccine injury. People have seen someone's child, niece, nephew, brother, etc become injured... You can't deny that. And you guys have a twerp like Brian Deer and dork like Orac. Good luck with that!
We are literally living in a fascist state.
If Jen's comment #105 was intended as a satire of antivax stupidity and contempt for words and their meanings, I have to say it was excessively cruel.
Allow me to help.
Narad @98:
Who were you rooting for?
"Who"? The original defense was "opportunity for a conversation." A genuine, taped grilling of Wakefraud after the screening seems like it would be an excellent start.
Jen: "So many people know the truth about vaccine injury. People have seen someone’s child, niece, nephew, brother, etc become injured… You can’t deny that."
No, we cannot deny they make the claim. What we can do is ask for actual proof, often in the form of medical records. This is something that they will provide lots of excuses to avoid. Belkin is infamous for his mealy mouth mumbling about those records (it was very sad his baby died from SIDS, but it is terrible that if he had so much conviction it was the HepB vaccine, then he should provide the evidence).
I, on the other hand, do have the records and bills pertaining to my oldest child's seizures from a am actual disease before its vaccine was available. I also have photos of the suffering all three kids had with chicken pox (one being an infant).
By the way, my son is still autistic even though he missed so many of those evil vaccines because they did not exist --- he just suffered from at least two of the diseases.
The plural of anecdotes is still not data, even if I have the medical records. What you and your friends really need to do is to provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that counters the several studies done of the last fifteen years, many of which are discussed on this blog.
"And you guys have a twerp like Brian Deer and dork like Orac. Good luck with that!"
Why do you think insults are a valid substitute for evidence?
Ah. I happened to catch the Daily Show segment that image is the brain-child of, and most of the choices in the "bracket" are people, so I was just wondering if you'd picked some favorites or something.
"Living in a fascist state" ?
Madame, if that is true you'd better start REALLY worrying because that same government can read all of the things you've written about its malfeasance and corruption whenever you express yourself so freely on the internet.
I hear that they have drones.
On the Tribeca Facebook page the antivax loons have reached the conclusion that since De Niro is already rich, he'd be immune to payoffs from Big Pharma (as an incentive to pull the film). So the reason he pulled it is, wait for this, because one of his family members must have been threatened. (Maybe they'd send the "alterna-doctor" serial killer?)
Someone named Maurine Meleck is going apesh!t on the Facebook page, crying bullying and CENSORSHIP. I don't much follow the key players in the antivax crusade but maybe her name rings a bell to some of you.
Of course De Niro is now a pooopyhead whereas 24 hours ago he was a hero to the autism/antivax army.
I can't wait to see the outrage and uproar at AofA and NN when they become aware of this. So far they're still praising and thanking De Niro over at AofA. I'm sure Mikey will call for a boycott of De Niro films. And then try to sell some iodine.
Rupert Pupkin: was in "The King of Comedy"
My own absolute fave is Raging Bull, who knows why because I hate boxing but my g-d...it was great-
and it wasn't just the Cavalleria Rusticana music/ slo mo half naked man imagery either.
-btw- minions, I am very pleased to have come home- after a long day traipsing about the bourgeois wilderness an hour from here- and found out that the film was pulled.
Sceptics rule!
@ Woo Fighter:
Ms Meleck is a regular at AoA.
-btw- AoA already knows ( see their comments on the most recent posts there)
Here's some of the Facebook fun, for those of you who don't partake. For those who are on Facebook, it's a fertile feeding ground for trolls, for sport.
i'm going out to buy some popcorn.
Catherine Mary Tribeca - I will NEVER recommend you again!!! You (the Corporation) have NO TESTICLES OF TRUTH!!!! I am sooooo disappointed that there is NO ABILITY TO OPEN A DISCUSSION - money talk$ hmmmhmmmhmmm Money Talk$
Kris Nielsen Pulling Vaxxed was a terrible decision. Wtf. Goodbye first amendment. If the science is settled, play the movie. People should be able to prove it wrong in a heartbeat.
Gina Rose What's the matter?! Are you folks that bought and paid for by the ruling elite that you have to remove a VERY important documentary about the TRUTH! You even go as far as removing it from this page! Absolutely DISGUSTING humans you are!!!!!! When all these children, parents and people who have been vaccine injured! SHAME ON YOU! It's SO obvious that the truth is being silenced when one side of a debate is NOT allowed! I hope and pray that God gives you all what you deserve!!!!!!!!!!
Shirley L. Cedillo Big Pharma has you by the balls. Dont tell me this country is a democracy when corporations can influence free speech. You are a Sham Tribeca.
Jen my emphasis
Woo Fighter, have you seen the comments on the Tribeca site? "Soft kill," indeed.
If the US had perfected soft kill technology why wouldn't we be using it in the Middle East?
Jen my emphasis
That’s the thing, though. What’s unbelievable is what is being described as vaccine injury. And that includes autism.
If you truly have no real connection to the issue, why don’t you take the time to evaluate the stories. Compare what’s being claimed on websites promoting overinflated numbers of injuries, and the facts listed in the documents they cite. You’ll find they don’t add up.
Jen, Never mind. I just finished reading your comment and I no longer believe I am interacting with an adult old enough to have children of her own.
Shay,
I had been following the comments of the Vaxxed page itself at Tribeca's site (which had accumulated some 2700 comments at last check) including several contributions from pig farmer John Scudmore, who proudly defended his crackpot beliefs about Zionism, Sandy Hook and 9/11 in addition to repeatedly bleating his vaccination-is-murder and vitamin-C- cures-everything opinions with lots of links to his own whale.to.
Is there a another comments page about the film still active? Please send the link if so.
As for name-calling, etc... Sorry if "twerp" and "dork" offend you. I have read and seen the most vile words used by Brian Deer about parents who have suffered so much. He's a nasty, disgraceful man.
As I said previously... About 1/2 the people I interact with know the damage that is being done by vaccines. At the end of the day, this latest stunt will be seen for what it is... An admission of guilt. They know they kill babies, they know vaccines trigger autism, they know Mercury destroys brain cells. I'm thankful that I protect my kids from that toxic sludge. For that I am so grateful for those who came before me telling their stories of the damage that has been done. And yes, many of you have blood on your hands.
Jen,
I dispute that they know. Period.
Alain
WooF, my bad! thank you for catching that. The "soft kill" comment is actually on the Variety webpage.
http://variety.com/2016/film/markets-festivals/tribeca-film-anti-vaccin…
Jen: "As for name-calling, etc… Sorry if “twerp” and “dork” offend you. "
No, it is not because is offensive, it is just that it just another boring excuse for not provide actual evidence.
Jen: "They know they kill babies, they know vaccines trigger autism, they know Mercury destroys brain cells."
Accusations are not evidence.
"I’m thankful that I protect my kids from that toxic sludge. For that I am so grateful for those who came before me telling their stories of the damage that has been done."
Please thank you responsible neighbors that maintain your community's immunity to diseases by vaccinating their families.
"And yes, many of you have blood on your hands."
Yeah, sure. You keep telling yourself that:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2016/03/11/another-child-dead-from-qu…
He’s a nasty, disgraceful man.
For exposing a money-grubbing fraud? Your ethical outlook is sadly askew.
Jen,
Please thank your responsible neighbors that maintain your community’s immunity to diseases by vaccinating their families. They are protecting your children.
Shay,
Reading comprehension isn't your strong point, is it? Brian Deer is disgraceful for what he has said and done to parents of children with vaccine injuries. Disgusting man.
Chris,
I don't want anyone to risk the lives of their children to protect mine! Stop the nonsense. We are injuring babies with unsafe vaccines. Tragic.
Jen @ 125 thank you for the response.
Don’t apologize to me; I was just pointing out that using them make you appear immature and foolish.
If your comment is truly written by someone who “ ha[s] no real connection to the issue,” I am sorry to inform you that you have been misled by those “ [a]bout 1/2 the people I interact with.”
Count those babies for me, Jen. How many? How many babies are killed by a vaccine? When you’re done counting those, count how many babies in this age using vaccines are killed by infectious disease – diphtheria, pertussis, measles. Count them for me. Then go find out how many babies died from those diseases before we had the vaccines.
So much for “ no real connection to the issue.” You should be thanking your neighbors for vaccinating their children and allowing you to be smug about skipping it for yours.
" many of you have blood on your hands'
I for one can't fathom that one..
How?
Because we support vaccination?
Most people who support SBM are not doctors or nurses and do not have direct influence or contact with patients like this-
it also means that we can't really take any credit for better community health -btw-
What a bizarre world view where health protective measures are considered dangers!
Curious if Jen wants to comment on any of the issues I brought up here. Most apropos is Wakefield's dishonest editing in the trailer.
Jen
No, Jen, that’s you and your vaccine-rejecting compatriots who convinced these parents vaccines were harmful:
http://globalnews.ca/news/2079381/boy-dies-from-diphtheria-in-spain-par…
Jen
Please post direct quotes with links. Repeating something doesn’t make it true.
Jen: "Stop the nonsense. We are injuring babies with unsafe vaccines. Tragic."
Prove it.
Post the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that any vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule causes more harm than the disease.
You know, like HiB:
https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/ezekiel-stephan-another-pediatric-…
Or like measles:
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-measles-sspe-20150624-story…
From the story: "The boy, born in the United States, was only 5 months old when he was infected with a severe viral illness. After he turned 3, the once healthy young boy began to struggle with behavioral problems and seizures. Soon he was diagnosed with SSPE."
Cam @96 Thanks and just re-tweeted. Enjoying your comments on the Tribeca post. Sadly some rather douchey "pro-vaxx" commenters are creating more noise than signal. Keep up the good work.
Jen wrote:
Well, that's the problem, You need to get out more and interact with people who actually understand science and medicine instead of devoting your time to discussions with people in wacky anti-vaccine echo chambers.
Save it for LJ Goes, Jeanna Reed, Wakefraud, and the rest of the biomeddlers who were accomplices in Alex Spourdalakis's murder.
Tribeca moved the whole shebang. Damn, should have grabbed some screenshots, good blog fodder with some of those anti-vaxx comments and their pleas to read their NaturalNewsJonRappaportMercolaTenpenny websites and watch YouTube videos. For what it's worth I would have preferred letting it air and having some hardball questions from the discussion panel afterward.
About 1/2 the people I interact with know the damage that is being done by vaccines.
Imagine my surprise to learn that Jen's social circle consists of morons.
And yes, many of you have blood on your hands.
Not me! I always wear gloves!
Reading comprehension isn’t your strong point
Evidence-based thinking isn't yours. Chemmomo is right; post direct quotes with links.
We are injuring babies with unsafe vaccines. Tragic.
Oh joy, another bampot trying to imitate Trump Twitter Haiku syntax (or the same bampot with a different nym).
A genuine, taped grilling of Wakefraud after the screening seems like it would be an excellent start.
The loons are already convinced that he's a martyr; no need for the St Lawrence treatment.
#120 TESTICLES OF TRUTH!! How does that work? Do you use them like Wonder Woman's lasso? OUCH!
At least it appears that De Niro finally came to his senses and ended up pulling the plug on Wakefield's pseudoscientific garbage.
Jen
Repeatinmg with the blockquote end added.
I have read pretty much all Brian has ever written on this subject and all I have seen from him with regard to the parents of the children involved in Wakefield’s fraudulent study is compassion and understanding. However, unless you are just parroting untruths you have heard from other AV’s, you no doubt can easily provide cites/links for where and when Brian acted as you claimed.
For someone who claims to have no real attachment either way to the subject, you do appear to like shooting the messenger, i.e. Brian Deer and Orac, while regurgitating disproven AV tropes.
# 83
Like this delusional drivel?
Well not really the man may be a idiot but he is still roughly coherent, more so than I would have expected. Perhaps his helpers may have supplied some editorial advice.
Well you would expect a certain higher class of con-men in a Nevada jail (which is where he and others were transported to from Oregon).
When a child is ill with something that is likely to last a lifetime, the parents will grasp for any straws offered to them, even if handed out by educated, reasonable-sounding charlatans who know how to mix fear with fiction sounding like fact. I think this is what happens with these parents. They are so desperate they will do and believe anything.
" We are literally living in a fascist state. "
Not quite. While it's true that a high government official (Bill Posey) apparently attempted to force a private organization to show a film that they didn't want to show, which is consistent with fascist ideology, this attempt at bullying was successfully resisted - a triumph over fascism.
However, your claim " many of you have blood on your hands" is certainly the kind of filthy accusation that would fit in well on any Nazi poster. Good work.
@Jen #125
Why are you talking about mercury when :
1) the movie is about MMR, which never contained thiomersal
2) it was phased out of the vast majority of pediatric vaccines 10+ years ago anyway, with zero effects on autism.
Ummm... don't mean to sound like the devil's advocate but... hasn't Dr W Thompson already admitted that there was a cover up at Merck about the link between MMR and Autism.
And Lou V, MMR did contain thimerisol but it was agreed by Vax manufacturers to remove it due to the bad publicity. It's also still in Flu shots and meningococcal and trace amounts are still used in the manufacturing process because of it's anti-bacterial properties. I know this is not what anyone here wants to know, but this info is publicly available. Just sayin'.
hasn’t Dr W Thompson already admitted that there was a cover up at Merck about the link between MMR and Autism.
Indeed? In this supposed admission, did Thompson explain (a) what the alleged link was, and
(b) how Merck knew about it, and
(c) how Thompson knew about Merck's alleged cover up?
Oh sorry i was under the impression this was a science blog but now I've realised the reason everyone has pseudonyms... so they can bully others with legitimate questions.
If thimerisol wasn't in MMR then it was definitely in the DTap and still in flu shots - how does this make it any better when babies are being exposed to this?... didn't see you argue that point about it being in other vaccines!??
And Dr Thompson has openly admitted that he was complicit in distorting data while he worked for Merck that African American boys were 340% more likely to present with autism at 36 mths. This was also exposed by Congressman Bill Posey. I'm not sure how you can deny this information when it's public knowledge.
I'm starting to think the bloggers on here are just pro-vax denialists and not about the science at all.
The bad publicity would have been if thiomersal had ever been in the MMR vaccine. Think now, do live viruses and thiomersal get along Marsha?
MMR did contain thimerisol
Thank you for establishing that you have no idea what you are talking about, Marsha.
No, he didn't. He just didn't. In fact, Thompson still works for the CDC.
Used to be, going on 15 years now and thimerosal-free influenza vaccines are so abundant, most people including infants receive those. Funny how you complain how your science is served to you when you can't even get your basic facts straight.
Ok so now you've proved... this is just a site for people wanting to bully others...
And you admit that Thompson did admit corruption to Hooker and Posey (while working at the CDC) and contributing to a misleading study as publicised by mainstream media AND that thimerisol was in vaccines and is still in some flu shots (and is in pneumococcal too!) But interestingly when the autism debate started approx. 15 yrs ago (must have felt that thimerisol was a contributory culprit) decided to remove from most vaccines. Otherwise why would they remove it if it was such an important ingredient and so safe? And why censor a movie about fraud within the CDC when it's already on public record & RFK Jnr supports this argument?
everyone has pseudonyms
That is news to me.
Ummm… don’t mean to sound like the devil’s advocate but
Rest assured that you sound more like a mendacious idiot.
^ Aside from noting my blockquote fail, I'm now wondering whether "astrosmurfing" could be recaptured.
Hey, how did Marsha get to invoke the "reply" indent?
Good L-rd, your head is filled with tapioca pudding. Hint: "ex rel."
Dear Marsha,
No.
XOXO,
Dr. Bully
Marsha Broad wrote, "African American boys were 340% more likely to present with autism at 36 mths."
Like BS Hooker, you seem unable to understand the difference between the odds ratios that can be derived from a case-control study and the nonsense that dribbles from an attempt to hijack case-control data for another purpose. You might want to crack a book--and then tell Hooker. This is embarrassing for both of you.
Embarrassing is when you try to support an opposing position when even the scientist conducting the study says the risk is statistically significant.
While you're there maybe you could find me an independent( i.e. not funded by pharma) study that uses a double blind placebo without the use of adjuvants as the placebo and uses saline, with the outcome that vaccine don't cause any adverse reactions... thanks, haven't been able to find one and not one pro-vax 'so called evidence based scientist' has been able to provide one to support their argument.
The story so far:
Marsha:
Dr W Thompson already admitted that there was a cover up at Merck about the link between MMR and Autism
Dr Thompson has openly admitted that he was complicit in distorting data while he worked for Merck
Reality:
Thompson never worked at Merck.
Marsha:
So you admit that Thompson did admit corruption to Hooker and Posey (while working at the CDC)
---------------------------------------------------
Homer Simpson gets away with this kind of self-serving dishonest non-logic because he's supposed to be a bullsh1tting self-deceiving halfwit afflicted with delusions of adequacy. What's Martha's excuse?
I'll take that as a 'yes'.
Ok so now you’ve proved… this is just a site for people wanting to bully others…
Is this a five minute argument, or the full half hour?
If Martha wants Abuse, that's Mr. Barnhart in Room 12
Marsha Broad
Did you ask any questions? You have posted multiple statements that are factually incorrect. Maybe there was one in there, but it was written rhetorically, as a challenge not as a question requesting information.
In 3 posts, Marsha Broad makes two accusations of bullying because she was corrected on easily verifiable facts. I don’t think Marsha Broad actually understands what constitutes bullying.
Oddly enough, there seems to be no trace of any "Marsha Broad" from Australia. Then again, having shed the location, it has now done the same with the surname.
The ability to indent inclines me to put 2 quatloos on a bored Dodson.
I see Marsha applies the same innumerate skills to measure elapsed time as to read statistical results.
Wakefiled's study about MMR - which is somewhat related to this thread's topic - was published in 1998. "Debate" about autism and vaccines were already in full swing back then.
We are in 2016. That's a bit more than 15 years. Like, 20% more.
By the same token, I can say I'm approx. 35-ish.
As someone who has been bullied in school, I concur.
Anyway, with the thimerosal thingy, she amply demonstrated she cannot be bothered with facts. Publicly available facts.
It's all very clear now... the bullied become the bullies... this is like nerd revenge!
Still haven't seen a peer reviewed independent double blind placebo =with saline instead of adjuvants used- in the study from anybody...(because there aren't any!) I see you're more comfortable with inane commentary and mutual tugging in a lame attempt to belittle others than 'real science' to back up your statements on this site.
If Orac screened out all the troll posts, and Narad created a troll-comment-generator (like the Deepak generator thingy) to drop chunks of the same old wootoric at random into the threads, and a minion-response-generator to drop a dozen replies of I-can't-believe-anyone-has-to-repeat-basic-facts, I don't think anyone would notice the difference...
@Marsha - there's a NSFW joke that ends with the punchline "you're not really here for the hunting are you?"
Based on your refusal to respond to those who made very polite corrections to your comments or who asked polite questions about them, I suspect you're not really hear for the discussion.
If you'd like to actually discuss this, then please stop the accusations of bullying and make a point or ask a question.
Thanks.
P.S. I hope there were no trigger words in my comment. If there were, they were unintended.
"not really HERE"
@Marsha: HPV was done with double blinded studies with adjuvents AND WITH SALINE as you would see if you had looked at the package insert.
And if you are looking for a blinded study by an independent researcher : create one, get it passed by an IRB, and then PAY for it. Lots of antivax groups out there with money. Then find the volunteers to have the study done, knowing that some will end up in the vaxed side who DON'T want to be there, and vice-versa. Oh - and you can't drop any current standards of care - that's against all IRB standards (see Geneva Convention)
Now, call me a bully since, like many others, I pointed out a factual error in your statements.
And MI is my birth state and Dawn is my name, as Orac and a few others can vouch.
And, by the way - no. I won't join your study. I refuse to take the risk that I or my children will go without the protection of vaccines.
2 additional thoughts:
1. Isn't ist funny that all the anti vax groups call for a "vaxed vs unvaxed" study but refuse to create one, get it passed by a REAL IRB and pay for it?
2. I just realized that my parents and I failed at parenthood money-grabbing. My sister consistently hyperventilated with vaccines, so that she would actually pass out and have seizures. We should have reported that to VAERS instead of smacking her upside the head and telling her to quit it. My daughter was the same way (sans seizures) and we treated her the same. I guess I *should* have reported it to VAERS and then gone to the Vaccine Court for money when she didn't get into big prestigious major east coast university that costs lots of money (TM)
The Salk field trials were funded by the March of Dimes. Anything else?
@ Marsha
We just had someone in a previous thread asking the same questions as you.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2016/03/22/wtf-andrew-wakefields-anti…
The interested reader could go over there and look up the links provided by various readers starting around the 80-90th comments. Julian Frost, Chris, LouV, squirrelelite, Narad, among others, provided plenty of resources.
OTOH, I don't feel like wasting time on spoon-feeding data to dishonest trolls. Looking for a study? Pubmed and Google Scholar are your friends.
'nerd'? Now, who is belittling who?
When I am wrong, people call me on it, and my answer is "my bad, I was mistaken".
Your answer in the same situation? "you are bullying me".
Don't ask for respect when you showed none.
@Marsha
Hi, could you please clarify something? You ask for an independent, double-blind, saline-placebo controlled trial. Could you please provide a definition of what you consider "independent"? I will assume that anything that is funded or conducted by a vaccine manufacturer (such as the studies conducted as part of the approval process) are inadmissible. Are there any other categories that you would not consider "independent"?
Also, as noted already, do you accept that you were factually incorrect when you claimed that Thompson worked at Merck and that MMR had thimerosal in it? Those are both false and are easily verifiable.
"In this randomized, double-blind trial, 1781 sexually naive children were assigned (2:1) to quadrivalent HPV-6/11/16/18 vaccine or saline placebo administered at day 1 and months 2 and 6."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17484215
Back in my first dorm the common greeting was "hey gnurd". In a good way - we were all gnurds. The term has come into such common usage now that I can't see it as an insult.
It wasn't an insult, it was an observation.
Marsha wrote: "Embarrassing is when you try to support an opposing position when even the scientist conducting the study says the risk is statistically significant."
It's really embarrassing to fail to understand what "statistically significant" means, especially in the context of a study that suggested that that "statistically significant" result was not biologically significant. Thompson's co-authors suggested that the observed increase in the odds ratio for vaccination in the tiny subsample of African American boys who did not receive MMR on time was due to the vaccination requirements for entry preschool programs for special needs children: the children were vaccinated because they were autistic rather than they became autistic because they were vaccinated.
Brian I think you should re-read your statement about what Thompson's co-authors 'suggested'... sounds like they were ducking for cover after being exposed! What a ridiculous comment... vaccinated because they were autistic??... why? The corruption in the CDC has already been exposed... when there's books and movies about it, you know you have a problem!
Lots of antivax groups out there with money.
Wakefield's Strategic Autism Initiative, for example, which between 2010-2013 collected about $600k, and who handed out grant monies totaling ...$80k. Where did the rest of that donated money go?
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2014/11/07/andrew-wakefield-paid-316k-…
Nice work if you can get it.
Marsha, did you read the paper? Here's the final sentence from the discussion:
There are books and movies about a universe that includes Jedi Knights. I'm not seeing a problem, but perhaps you see differently.
OK, so you don't have trouble distinguishing fact from fiction, you can listen to a Doctor/ Researcher explaining very comprehensively the faults/ distortions/ manipulations in the 'scientific' studies for Gardasil and the lack of study into adverse reaction related to reproductive health. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoWUSuGCo-I&ebc=ANyPxKrY04nLoclbvjKXxON…
Oooh, evidence by YouTube, of an obstetrician on a religious channel! Well that obviously is much better than vast numbers of studies done by scientists and doctors around this planet.
And it has nothing to do with the American MMR vaccine.
If you bothered to watch Chris, you'll see she pulls apart those 'vast number' (a handful) of studies by other scientists usually employed by the pharmaceutical company. Brian raised Gardasil... I was merely responding.
Respectfully my husband has a med science degree and he along with the editors of many pre-eminent medical journals, has also come to the conclusion that many scientific studies are flawed, hence the need for organisations such as the Cochrane Group.
Ah Deirdre Little, National Bioethics Convenor for the Catholic Women's League.
Are you able to spell: conflict of interest?
Yes, conflict of interest is spelt, "Murdoch on the boards or having shares in Glaxo, Merck etc and demonising anti-vaxers in the media and big pharma donating to government officials & ministers and Gates & Sloan getting to De Niro...
Marsha, one in ten thousand women between the ages of 15 to 29 suffer premature ovarian failure. It would be surprising indeed if some Gardasil recipients did not suffer POF. The question is this: is the prevalence of POF higher in vaccinated than in unvaccinated populations?
After the distribution of nearly 100 million does of HPV vaccines, the answer certainly appears to be "no." [Stillo M et al. Safety of human papillomavirus vaccines: a review. Expert Opin Drug Saf. 2015 May 4; 14(5): 697–712.]
'Distribution from the lab does not equal administration... as many vaccines are disposed of due to compromised conditions, being disposed of due to expiry dates etc so the doses administered will be significantly lower, so your figures for VAERs will always be distorted.
Real scientists publish in the scientific literature, not put up YouTube vids.
Yes some scientific studies are flawed which is why no single study is accepted at face-value. Peer review is flawed which is why we must ever strive to improve it. As much as I love the Cochrane Collaboration, even they are flawed. That doesn't mean YouTube videos superior in evidentiary quality than the scientific literature. It sounds like your husband's "med science degree" isn't doing him or you much good. Respectfully of course.
Read, dig deeper if you have to. In this case distribution means administration.
In response:
1. Shay - Husband's degree is in histopathology.
2. Science Mom - What nobody goes to med conferences anymore that are recorded? Time to check in your library cards and 'check the net'. If you bothered to watch you'll see it presented a number of studies, one of which was offered here previously as 'evidence' as use of saline in placebo's but flawed in methodology to prove efficacy.
3. Science Mom - Prove that distribution is administration...(in this case) given that many vaccines are disposed of before use.
"my husband has a med science degree"
So does my older brother. He's an x-ray technician.
conflict of interest is spelt
NO NO NO this is spelt.
hence the need for organisations such as the Cochrane Group.
Pro-tip: Spell it "Cochraine" for Bonus Trolling Points.
How does RI suddenly have nested comments, but only for Marsha?
How does RI suddenly have nested comments, but only for Marsha?
For Marsha and other Sciencebloggers.
You call that a conference? And if she had anything substantive she would have published a review in a reputable journal. It's still argumentum ad YouTube. (forgive me Latin scholars.)
Just a back of the envelope calculation of those studies I could access to confirm, 703,954 doses administered and a non-overlapping 29,491,994 doses distributed. What you should have done.
Marsha, you raised the idea that HPV vaccination causes premature ovarian failure. When I pointed out that the evidence refutes that idea, you chose to focus on the idea that not all of the distributed vaccines had been administered as if that somehow supported your point. Since HPV vaccines are used in ca. 66 countries including the US, Canada, Australia, and most of Western Europe, and since vaccine uptake is increasing (by 2013 about 57% of girls and 37% of boys age 13-17 in the US had been vaccinated) it should be clear that millions of adolescents have received HPV vaccines.
The evidence does not support the idea that Premature Ovarian Failure is more common among girls vaccinated against HPV than in the unvaccinated population. In fact, the evidence just doesn't support the tropes that you've gleaned from anti-vaccine echo chambers and spewed here as you attempted to slide from one refuted position to another. That's all.
Okay second time I've seen this reference. Care to spill?
Marsha:
Supporting evidence needed. Your say so is not proof.
1. Shay – Husband’s degree is in histopathology.
So? My university studies in neuroscience doesn't prevent one of my brother from being a functional illiterate despite all my best effort to help him...
Alain
Comment was for Shay.
I also have a brother like that much to my dismay.
Care to spill?
The ability to add replies to comments as sub-threads suggests that "Marsha" is a blogger, with "tongue so firmly in cheek as to protrude from the vulgar bodily orifice".
I am not familiar with the entire Scienceblogs ecosystem, but my reading of Narad's uncharacteristically cryptic comment #180 was that one particular member has prior form for stirring things up.
Then I am sure you'll have no problem answering the detailed criticisms of the book and the trailer that have been published here, on ScienceBasedMedicine or Left Brain Right Brain ?
https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/vaccine-whistleblower-bj-hooker-an…
https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/review-of-vaccine-whistleblower-a-…
https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/vaccine-whistleblower-an-antivacci…
I saw it earlier "today" from one non-Marsha commenter; it may be platform dependent, viz., another half-assed job from the thought-free SB IT monkeys. (Note their earlier tinkering with on-again, off-again direction of comment links to HTTPS versions.)
I got a nested comment by hitting reply in the email notification of comments.
@Marsha
Would you be so kind as to answer the questions I asked you in comment #191? Thanks.
I'm more than happy to think that Marsha is from Australia, because of her spellings of certain words. I can't check IP addresses, but her verbiage and statements remind me a lot of another Marsha whom Reasonable Hank showcased in one of his postings.
And, Marsha has totally ignored those of us who pointed out Gardisil had saline double blind trials. She obviously only believes in HER version of the truth...
Marsha, the HPV vaccine will not prevent measles, mumps and rubella. Wakefield's little fictional film was on the American MMR vaccine, so you blatherings are pointless.
Thanks Dopey,
But the HPV conversation was with someone else who thought they'd try to source a double blind placebo vaccine study that actually used a saline instead of adjuvants... keep up! Obviously there haven't been any conducted for MMR as vaccine manufacturers usually prefer to distort the results by not using saline. Kapeesh?
HDB: Oh, man! I hate to think that I wasted time replying to a bored Scienceblogger--but , um, I otherwise wasted time replying to someone whose best defense of her blathering is that she is married to someone with a science degree.
Alain -- what you said.
I was married for 21 years to an infantryman (now I'm married to an ex-infantryman). This does not in any way, shape or form qualify me to set up a defensive perimeter with interlocking fields of fire and a coordinated barrier plan.
(although I still do know what MOOSEMUSS stands for).
Marsha: "when there’s books and movies about it, you know you have a problem!"
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&…
And don't miss the YouTube videos which confirm there's a Chemtrail Problem.
@229
Yes, certainly. I went to YouTube and learned I could get rid of the chemtrails by spraying them with Windex. I feel much safer now.
#228 & #229 The point was that we research this subject together and if I have questions... as my degrees are in other areas, I refer to him... hence we don't vaccinate our kids (with the blessings of our 2 family med doctors, one of which has written a book on the subject).
Clearly there's a problem when people o this site can't distinguish fact from fiction.
Obviously denial isn't just a river in Egypt...
PS This is so much fun... and no, not a bored blogger, but yes, am familiar with Unreasonable Wank, but not a target... yet!
Please refer to comment #233.
And I'm impressed you were able to find a saline placebo... the first yet! Most pro-vaxers just resort to abuse and denigration instead of doing their homework. Not the MMR but Gardasil will do... obviously you didn't watch the lecture by Dr Deidre Little or you would have seen her discredit it with many other 'fast tracked' studies with low sample due to massive drop out rates and limited scope to observe affects on reproductive organs. Oh well, guess you can nurse your daughters through those lovely side effects in years to come.
By the way, I noticed all of you only bothered to comment on the YouTube clip and not the other pubmed studies i posted. Typical... cherry picking!
"The point was that we research this subject together"
Scouring the Internet for antivax glurge is not "research".
"we don’t vaccinate our kids (with the blessings of our 2 family med doctors"
Too bad they're apparently so badly out of touch with the rest of their profession.
http://www.healthisprimary.org/aug132015release
And you totally ignored the other 3 studies I posted... see comment #234
Marsha Marsha Marsha.........
one of which (sic) has written a book on the subject
Could you please provide a link to the book?
I'm married to a guitarist of some repute. I can't even play an open G without screwing it up and I like to annoy him by referring to Jaco Pistorius as Paco Rabanne. But whatever works for you both, dear.
Oh so patronising, Dear.
So this is the part where you attempt to systematically discredit one of my doctors?
https://herbsarespecial.com.au/books_and_dvds/vaccination.html
Dr Peter Baratosy - Started out in the military as a GP (That's a General Practitioner i.e. medical doctor in Australia) and became disillusioned so has done further research and broadened his studies into other modalities.
*over-the-shoulder-indignant-correction PASTORIUS
#235 -
"Too bad they’re apparently so badly out of touch with the rest of their profession."
I wouldn't say out of touch, I would say enlightened and disillusioned with the 'sickness industry' perpetuated by big pharma and their lobbyists who have so comprehensively infiltrated your government to enforce such draconian policies such as mandatory vaccinations for all school children in most States??!! So much for land of the free! You're only free if you relent to let your government stick a bunch of toxic substances under the guise of 'protection'- Mengele style - into your otherwise healthy baby!... "Aahhh... America, the best democracy money can buy!" I can say that because my parents are ex-pats.
Going back to De Niro... if Freedom of Speech is so important to you Yanks... why are you trying to censor a movie?
You seem to be unclear on the concept.
So, Marsha, why do you think insults are a valid substitute for data and evidence? Still the subject of Wakefield's little fictional film is the American MMR, not the HPV vaccine. Please stop mixing them up.
Now please provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers (not elderly GP's who sells herbs in Australia) that the American MMR vaccine causes more problems than measles, mumps and rubella.
"Going back to De Niro… if Freedom of Speech is so important to you Yanks… why are you trying to censor a movie?"
Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from criticism. Also the film festival is a private organization and not the US Congress (yeah, go read the first amendment to the US Constitution). I believe I am within my rights to block the channels on my DVR that show porn. Why would you force me to allow my children access to that content?
Well done you!
Apparently you missed the part about the Salk trials.
Oh please Narad, you're making this too easy...
And in your polio research you must have missed the part about the Cutter Incident (adding 40,000 new cases, paralysing 200 and killing 10) written by none other than your hero Paul Offit.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1383764/
Also about the part where the clever scientists thought they'd slice and dice a bit of SV40 monkey virus into the mix to give 98 million polio recipients cancer to boot! So if the polio doesn't get ya the cancer will!! (Add Dr.Evil laugh).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10472327
Haven't they re-named polio Guillane Barre Syndrome... you know the bonus diseases you get after the flu shot... otherwise the punters wouldn't think the vaccine worked!
Oh so patronising, Dear.
So this is the part where you attempt to systematically discredit one of my doctors?
https://herbsarespecial.com.au/books_and_dvds/vaccination.html
Yes!! This is the part!!!
http://whatisvaccination.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Chicken-Pox-by-…
Thank you for explaining what "GP" means, very helpful!!
(pro-tip, not all of the minions are American)
BTW Marsha, I waded deeper upthread and was heartened to see that you invoked the notion of bullying. I just don't think people on the internet feel victimized enough these days.
Can you think of no other reason that a placebo might not be appropriately used in a vaccine trial?
Although there has been a placebo-controlled trial of MMR [1] as wells as similar trials [e.g., 2] of other combined measles vaccines, such trials have been uncommon in recent years for ethical reasons. For background information, you might want to read the Declaration of Helsinki and the Belmont Report.
FDA and the World Health Organization take the recommendations in those documents seriously--and so do physicians and scientists around the world. If a vaccine for a particular disease already exists, WHO suggests that a comparator should be used instead of placebo in a trial of a new vaccine or combined vaccine except in specific and largely local circumstances, so that both the experimental and the control groups receive active treatment. [3]
1. Peltola H, Heinonen OP. Frequency of true adverse reactions to measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. A double-blind placebo-controlled trial in twins. Lancet. 1986 Apr 26;1(8487):939-42.
2. Englund JA et al. Placebo-controlled trial of varicella vaccine given with or after measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. J Pediatr. 1989 Jan;114(1):37-44.
3. Rid A et al. Placebo use in vaccine trials: recommendations of a WHO expert panel. Vaccine. 2014 Aug 20;32(37):4708-12.
Aaand the Godwin point.
By someone who has no idea what Mengele was doing, but never mind.
Since then, Marsha also added the "polio was relabelled" cliché.
I think I can say Bingo.
Um. I don't remember Marsha posting studies before #234. Let's search the thread.
The Youtube clip, I found the link on this thread.
The "other pubmed studies" Marsha posted before #234... I must have missed them.
-------------------------------
Now, as of #244.
Ah, the Cutter incident.
Sad evidence that BigPharma screw up from time to time.
SV40; OTOH...
Next to the 1999 article Marsha linked to, the NCBI helpfully linked to a few review articles (a summary of many articles). In short, the involvement of SV40 in cancer is controversial.
While a review in 2000 concluded of the guilt of SV40, two other reviews in 2005 and 2006 seem to go in the opposite direction.
e.g; 2006
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16963733
#249 Helianthus
Ah, the Cutter incident.
Sad evidence that BigPharma screw up from time to time.
ARE YOU SERIOUS? Screw up from time to time???
Big Pharma kill more Americans in one year than you lost in every world conflict!!
Here's a few more cock-ups from pharma...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13QiSV_lrDQ
Here's a lovely interview with Offit vs Dr Boyd Haley PhD (I think you'll find he's pretty well qualified).
There's even a new textbook researched by 8 scientist researchers from around the world that connect the dots between vaccines and autoimmune diseases.
http://au.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118663438,subjectCd-…
Next you're going to tell me that Dr Judy Mikovits PhD doesn't know what she's talking about!!
https://vimeo.com/146831570
Look, I've got better things to do, so this is my last comment... you pro-vaxers can shoot up your kids and yourselves with neurotoxic adjuvants, but I'd prefer to keep my kids healthy. They enjoy being some of the few kids at their school camps who don't have to line up for the medications for inflammatory diseases like asthma, exzema and allergies, like all the other sick vaccinated kids... and yes, before the next person says, oh but they might get an infectious disease instead... they've already had some and got through it very well because they're healthy and their immune systems haven't been crippled by toxins AND now have life long immunity.
AND many vaccinated kids get sick from THOSE diseases too... if you're scientists you'll know that the vaccine don't prevent you from catching the diseases per se and if you read the CDC page you'll also know that newly vaccinated people are also more like to spread some diseases immediately after vaccination. That's why oncologists often tell their immuno-compromised patients to avoid newly vaccinated people. So, on that note, farewell & live long... well as long as you can under the circumstances. :) x
There are countless 'screw ups' for vaccine around the world... India sued the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for awful adverse reactions from the Gardasil vaccine, Japan had a high infant mortality rate and started delaying their vaccinations until over age 2 and now have the lowest in the world. There are many outbreaks around the world in vaccinated populations. I have a personally friend who had their 5th baby and was advised by the hospital nurse to have a pertussis jab to see his baby and he is now disabled - Ben Hammond, lives in WA, Aust.
#242
(Still the subject of Wakefield’s little fictional film is the American MMR, not the HPV vaccine. Please stop mixing them up.)
Keep up Chris, the HPV was raised by one of your cohorts, I merely responded.
(Now please provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers (not elderly GP’s who sells herbs in Australia) that the American MMR vaccine causes more problems than measles, mumps and rubella).
Find me one not funded by big pharma that says it's safe and hasn't used adjuvants ain the placebo i.e. not 'studied' by the manufacturer so it's independent.. you know, not bollocks. But given your research was conducted by a lying criminal Poul Thorsen with a track record of falsified studies, can't expect your MMR studies will be worth the grant money he stole.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-crime-research-funds-idUSTRE73C8JJ201…
Here's something interesting ...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-376203/Former-science-chief-M…
(Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from criticism. Also the film festival is a private organization and not the US Congress (yeah, go read the first amendment to the US Constitution). I believe I am within my rights to block the channels on my DVR that show porn. Why would you force me to allow my children access to that content?)
Don't mind criticism, but your cohorts attempted to shut it down with their demonstration plans earlier - wreaks of fear and facism to me - can't let the truth come out. Don't care what your do in the privacy of your own home, but the public have a right to see a movie which simply depicts the story of a whistle blower and information that is already on the public record i.e. the CDC is corrupt and has a revolving door to big pharma and the FDA... conflict of interest.
wreaks (sic) of fear and facism to me
To me, it reeked of bullying.
That Daily Fail article is from 2006:
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2006/02/09/peter-fletcher-melanie-phil…
Do try again, but with PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that the American MMR that was introduced in 1971, and modified in 1978 (which was the favored vaccine for the Measles Elimination Program) causes more harm than measles, mumps and rubella.
Ten year old news articles do not qualify.
but the public have a right to see a movie
And the only person stopping them from seeing the movie is Andy Wakefield, with his refusal to upload it to YouTuba, so I don't know why Marsha chosen RI for her tantrum.
Says the person who thinks thiomersal was in MMR, Thompson claimed fraud at Merck, refusing to show a film at a private film festival is censorship, YouTube is research, her husband's degree means expertise and a woo-struck physician knows more than thousands of vaccine researchers.
@Helianthus, no she didn't have a single cite other than her YouTube video when she whinged about no one reading her other cites.
As for her anti-vaxx doctor:
So this is the part where you attempt to systematically discredit one of my doctors?
Not necessary. It seems to me as if the good doctor is doing a great job of systematically discrediting himself.
From his own website:
Dr Baratosy believes that the best approach in the treatment of disease is the use of "natural" medicine: lifestyle, diet, nutrition and natural therapies. That is what he considers real medicine. Some have referred to the natural approach as "complementary" medicine... as if the natural approach complements the sanctioned modern, drug, surgery approach.
Dr Baratosy disagrees.
Modern medicine should be called "complementary medicine" because it is complementary to the natural, preventative approach, and not the other way around.
The natural, preventative approach is the best means of dealing with health problems. In spite of what has just been said; modern medicine cannot be totally dismissed... it does have a place; its main usefulness is possibly only in life and death situations and, possibly, as a last resort.
Dr Baratosy uses many natural techniques in the treatment of disease, such as diet and nutrition, including intravenous Vitamin C and other nutrients, acupuncture, prolotherapy, chelation, homeopathy, hypnotherapy, bio-identical hormones and herbalism.
Just by the by, as Marsha's decidedly low-rent performance isn't exactly holding my interest (not to mention having to scroll back for the nested comments), I was just reading an interview with John Baez that mentioned his Crackpot Index, which I had forgotten about.
I take it that the overlaps with antivaccine cranks will be obvious.
^ For example, after being supplied twice with another (massive) double-blinded, saline-placebo-controlled trial, the best that Marsha could come up with was changing the subject:
Just another poorly built automaton.
The Crackpot index is terrific; thanks for sharing that. It would only take some minor modifications to apply that to anti-vaxx cranks. I think I'll have a go at it sometime soon.
a lying criminal Poul Thorsen with a track record of falsified studies
Please to provide evidence of falsified studies. Please to provide conviction for alleged criminality.
Poul Thorsen - Autism researcher funded by the CDC to discredit Wakefield ...and fugitive http://oig.hhs.gov/fraud/fugitives/profiles.asp
Don’t mind criticism
"Desperately seeking disagreement martyrdom" would be more accurate.
Marsha’s decidedly low-rent performance isn’t exactly holding my interest
It's been a variation on the Gish gallop. Pack five lies into as many sentences; wait for other commenters to refute four of those five lies; triumphantly brandish this response as a tacit acceptance that the fifth lie was actually true.
Haven’t they re-named polio Guillane Barre Syndrome… you know the bonus diseases you get after the flu shot
I would like to know more about the time machine that Guillane and Barré must have been using, when they described their eponymous syndrome back in 1916.
Marsha: "Haven’t they re-named polio Guillane Barre Syndrome… you know the bonus diseases you get after the flu shot… otherwise the punters wouldn’t think the vaccine worked!"
Marsha: "I've got better things to do"
...hopefully including a psychiatric consultation.
Japan had a high infant mortality rate and started delaying their vaccinations until over age 2 and now have the lowest in the world.
No, Japan doesn't have the lowest rate of infant mortality in the world (though it is low, there are other countries in which the rate is equal at 4/1000) No, their rate of infant mortality did not fall in the wake of changes to their vaccine schedule.
Here's a 2014 chart on Japan/childhood immunization. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2014/10/04/lifestyle/vaccination-choic…
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
Meh. Marsha's shtick is not nearly colorful or interesting enough to pass for real madness.
Oh I missed this but not hard considering the copious amount of copralite Marsha is leaving around. But speaking of copralite, Marsha exhumes this from Vera Schreibner and doesn't even get the crank's claim right.
Okay so now that I've been arsed to look it up, Japan's at 2/1000. Same for Sweden, Norway, Slovenia, Iceland, and Singapore.
Delphine #268
You'll see that vaccines are linked to SIDS deaths and the US is worst developed country for IMR - ranked 34 in the world for Infant Mortality rate after many developing countries and has the highest numbers of vaccinations on their schedule. Those with fewer vaccines have better IMR'shttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170075/Also http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-17509/Why-Japan-banned-MMR-va…
Science Mom #266 Who's Vera??
Is that regurgitated Vera garbage? I wondered where she got that. It makes little sense, if you're truly committed to being anti-vaccine. Is there something magical that happens after the 2nd birthday that makes vaccines A-OK, or do they just write them off to suffer and die from the terrible side effects??
But speaking of copralite
I use real organic-grown FairTrade copra and help keep independent coconut growers in business.
@ HDB, well that serves me right. Hurumph, grumble.
Disagreeable people pay more attention to typos and minor grammatical errors.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0149…
Is this the one that uses the nauseating concoction "grammos"?
Grammos? Like the breakfast cereal recommended by 9 out of 10 English teachers?
@ Science Mom
Thought so.
Don't read the articles we provided but insist we read the articles she didn't provide.
Shifting the goalposts to the point of removing them from the playground altogether.
For someone draping herself in honesty and moral high ground...
Say, anyone has a spare crank Bingo card? I started writing on the blank backside of mine, but it's overflowing, now.
A troll Bingo card would do, in a pinch.
Speaking of COIs (haven't bothered reading Marsha's posts but I'm sure she said something along the lines) the study she linked to in #269) has a correction because the authors initially failed to disclose COIs and funding sources. Seems to be a common theme for antivax papers. Yay transparency!
@Marsha #269:
False.
http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk/en/publications/reanalyses-of…
From the abstract:
Vaccines do not cause SIDS.
Marsha, Marsha, Marsha: "Japan had a high infant mortality rate and started delaying their vaccinations until over age 2 and now have the lowest in the world."
How did I miss this classic anti-vax gem. Oh, wait... it was surrounded by lots of other nonsense. This is one insidious lie that has been around by decades. Yeah, the reason they could not blame the vaccine for SIDS is because more kids actually died from pertussis!
Here is an actual study:
Expert Rev Vaccines. 2005 Apr;4(2):173-84.
Acellular pertussis vaccines in Japan: past, present and future.
Here is verbiage from the abstract: "After two infants died within 24 h of the vaccination from 1974 to 1975, the Japanese government temporarily suspended vaccinations. Subsequently, the public and the government witnessed the re-emergence of whooping cough, with 41 deaths in 1979. This series of unfortunate events revealed to the public that the vaccine had, in fact, been beneficial."
Here is a more detailed explanation: Impact of anti-vaccine movements on pertussis control: the untold story
Oh, and about Japan and their MMR vaccine, see Measles vaccine coverage and factors related to uncompleted vaccination among 18-month-old and 36-month-old children in Kyoto, Japan. Which says:
Yeah, the public health decisions instead of scientific ones tended to cause deaths in Japan. They are not the country to look for guidance on sound vaccine policy. Plus the Urabe mumps vaccine strain was never used in the USA.
Marsha, Marsha, Marsha --- please stop lying and provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that the American MMR causes more issues than measles, mumps and rubella.
I am sorry, but Japan is not an American state. Do try to brush up on your geography.
Julian than why is sids listed as a side effect on some vaccine package inserts? If side wasn't a possible consequence of vaccines why is it on many vaers?
And Chris, I live in Australia which is in Asia (so more relevant to me than you, no doubt)... Not sure if our MMR is same as yours... & haven't got time to check right now...
P.S. I went to the link Marsha provided. It's "Infant mortality rates regressed against number of vaccine doses routinely given: Is there a biochemical or synergistic toxicity?" Authors are Neil Z Miller and Gary S Goldman, familiar names to the readers here. In addition, "This article has been corrected. See Hum Exp Toxicol. 2011 September; 30(9): 1429."
I went to the Corrigendum. Miller and Goldman failed to disclose several conflicts of interest.
Not quite the slam dunk you thought, Marsha.
My apologies for leaving out several important words in one sentence: "Yeah, the public health decisions based on politics instead of scientific ones reasons tended to cause deaths in Japan"
Yeah, because politicians don't care about science. Ever hear of Orrin Hatch and his protection for supplement manufacturers?
Obviously Masha's "better things to do" were done rather quickly, and did not include searching for links to research she was asked to provide and insists people haven't read....
Marsha. Apologies.
@Marsha #250
I see that you chose not to comment on the graphic provided by Delphine @265, which completely contradict your claim that Japan "started delaying their vaccinations until over age 2". Unless by "2" you meant "2 minutes / hours / days".
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3824286/
They suspended the whole cell pertussis vaccine in the 70s, but introduced the acellular pertussis vaccine in the 80s (this vaccine is also used in western countries).
So I failed to see how any of this could have a link with the SIDS rate nowadays.
Also, using the "Reply" function doesn't help to see your new comments for those of us who are reloading the page, and puts them in the wrong order chronologically ; this might explain why we missed your Pubme links.
I meant #269.
Is this the one that uses the nauseating concoction “grammos”?
Also, "peevers".
It does point to how little use this function attracts, though. I recall people stating that it wasn't working at all, and I infer that it's HTML-mail, which wouldn't work for me in any event.
Has anybody tested how deep the nesting will go?
@ LouV
On the latter, not likely.
When Marsha published her reproachful comments #234/236, the comment #245 with the pubmed links, in response to Narad #244, was not visible yet. And #234/236/244 were not published using the reply function, so they should be in chronological order.
And to my knowledge, #245 was the first comment with pubmed links at that time.
If there is another Marsha comment with pubmed links before #234, I would like it to be pointed to me. I do read them.
@ Chris #279
The interesting part is, that the info you just quoted was already present in the Daily mail article she quoted, if a bit in a confusing way. The issue with the Urabe mumps strain is presented midway down.
And right in the closing sentence, the 90-ish deaths of babies from wild measles following the MMR ban.
(as an aside, could not find the date of publication of this Daily mail article. Most vexing)
Look, I’ve got better things to do, so this is my last comment…
That was a remarkably short-lived flounce.
I will admit to some curiosity as to what Marsha is up to, with her craving for martyrdom and her initial pretence of "just asking questions" that she was unable to maintain for more than one comment. As M O'B noted back at #183, she's "not really here for the hunting". If she wanted to change people's minds, she would try some more effective rhetorical strategy than this sh1tweasel tactic of spewing up an entire lap-full of lies and then claiming vindication when some of them aren't refuted immediately. But she's putting a lot of effort into her project of presenting as a mendacious Dinobdella ferox arse-leech.
So I am inclined to pigeonhole her as a Poe.
But then I though the same thing about Phildo, the potty-mouthed chiropracticing Essex alcoholic*.
* Some of these descriptors may be redundant.
@Marsha:
1) This is "Argument by Package Insert". Any adverse events, regardless of whether they could be provably linked to the vaccine or not have to be reported.
2) From the Package Insert for Infanrix:
Just because an adverse event occurred during a vaccine trial doesn't mean the vaccine was the casue of the adverse event.
Just because a report is made to VAERS it doesn't automatically mean that the vaccine caused the adverse event. It means the vaccine may have caused the adverse event. What the researchers do is look for patterns of increased events after vaccinations. As that study I linked to pointed out, there is no correlation between vaccination and SIDS.
#260
Please to provide evidence of falsified studies. Please to provide conviction for alleged criminality.
Let us pause to admire the complete absence from Marsha's unresponse of evidence for falsified studies or conviction for criminality. The whole exercise in mendacity exhibits a kind of platonic perfection.
#280 Marsha
That is news to me ...
I see that Marsha has predictably failed to stick the flounce.
Oh gosh, another Wakefield fan just showed up on the next day thread (March 26).
To do: rinse the discussion, repeat the same old counter-arguments, head-desk out of sheer frustration.
Sysiphe had it easy. At least the stone made no pretense of having the high ground.
Regarding the "Australia which is in Asia"... how is geographical proximity relevant ? I live in France, but that doesn't mean that the vaccine schedule in United Kingdon or Germany or Spain is relevant to me, even though they are much closer than Japan and Australia. Our government and public health are separated.
And I looked up "MMR australia Urabe", which gave me at once http://www.immunise.health.gov.au/internet/immunise/publishing.nsf/Cont…
Australia is in Asia? I suppose it's way too late to track down my sixth grade teacher and correct her on world geography. She'd be 110 by now.
This is a keeper.
OK, so Marsha hasn't been profiled by Reasonable Hank. But I suspect her name was in one of the other postings, as a syncopant to the profiled one, in FB comments, which is why she's so familiar to me. Anyone who refers to the disgusting Unreasonable Wank webpage is an automatic Fail in my book.
I don't need to rebut her droppings, because the others are doing so well. But I think I'll ask my friends in Oz if they are in Asia, just to watch them roll on the floor with laughter. It's pretty obvious that Marsha (since she states she's an expat) had the typical American schooling about geography and hasn't bothered to learn anything since.
I'm not ex-pat, my parents are.
Delphine #268
You’ll see that vaccines are linked to SIDS deaths and the US is worst developed country for IMR – ranked 34 in the world for Infant Mortality rate after many developing countries and has the highest numbers of vaccinations on their schedule. Those with fewer vaccines have better IMR’shttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170075/Also http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-17509/Why-Japan-banned-MMR-va…
Vaccines don't cause SIDS.
Marsha, I'm saying this in the nicest possible way, as an extremely tired person who is as yet insufficiently caffeinated and dealing with a dog with the runs -- you really, really need to "do your research" elsewhere.
Exhibit A: The USA and IMR. Marsha, do you know why the USA ranks the way it does for IMR? It's a serious question. I'll give you one hint -- it has to do with the way the US measures IMR and the way that other countries don't. Look it up, and come back, and we can talk about IMR. There are other reasons, but that's where you should start.
Also, I linked you to a chart demonstrating that Japan vaccinates well before 2. This was easily accessible information. It kind of throws out the whole "Japan's IMR is so low because VACCINES" argument.
Marsha, Marsha, Marsha (I missed this): "And Chris, I live in Australia which is in Asia (so more relevant to me than you, no doubt)… Not sure if our MMR is same as yours… & haven’t got time to check right now..."
Big freaking deal. Wakefield's little fictional deal is blaming the CDC, a department in the USA, of malfeasance. So you babbling about vaccines that do not prevent measles and are not used in the USA is completely off topic. The whole bringing up a mumps strain that was never used in the USA (and apparently also not in Australia) was a pointless diversion.
So answer my question and provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that the American MMR causes more risks than measles, mumps and rubella.
"I suppose it’s way too late to track down my sixth grade teacher and correct her on world geography. She’d be 110 by now."
You never know. I occasionally speak to my second grade teacher when I visit my hometown. She's pushing 100, if not past that (I don't ask). When we met last year she corrected my grammar. That made us both laugh. As she said, "once a teacher, always a teacher. I can't stop myself."
I often run into a favorite professor of mine (she mostly works as a reference librarian, but teaches with others occasionally) when I'm back in Olympia. The last time I saw her she was picking up some beer for a young man who'd dog-sat for her for some time. She said she figured he wouldn't take money, but he would take beer.
She herself doesn't drink anymore; had one of those academia-and-ex-husband-induced drinking problems.
I might run into some of my old teachers when I go to visit my hometown later this month. I wonder if they'll recognize me with the mohawk and all; probably, especially since I'll probably be with my mom if we make a trip into town. They were all super excited when they found out I was in college; I wonder what they'll think of the PhD adventure. They saw it coming, I expect. "Smartest student in the White Salmon school system!" they used to say. My typical retort was, "well, that ain't saying much."
Heh, Wiki_p categorises Vaxxed as "docufiction"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaxxed
@Marsha
Just in case you don't stick the flounce, would you be so kind as to answer the questions I asked you waaaay back at #191?
Also, I noticed that you haven't read package inserts very closely, or else you would have seen the statement that adverse events are listed whether or not they were actually caused by the vaccine. This post may help you understand package inserts a bit better: http://www.harpocratesspeaks.com/2014/09/package-inserts-understanding-what-they.html
I would challenge Marsha to find any studies comparing MMR against adjuvant as the placebo, considering that MMR does not contain any adjuvants, nor has it ever had any adjuvants. Much like her erroneous claim that MMR had thimerosal in it, it appears that Marsha also does not know that MMR has no adjuvants.
India sued the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for awful adverse reactions from the Gardasil vaccine
That's a new one on me, as Lemmy remarked while counting his moles.
It you inquire into the source of this particular lie, the first few pages of search results are the usual Two-girls-one-cup spectacle of antivax grifters plagiarising material from other antivax grifters. Eventually, however, you get to the origin of the story, in which:
1. No-one is suing the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
2. India is not suing anyone.
3. There were no "awful adverse reactions from the Gardasil vaccine".
Rather, the Indian government is being sued, by health activists, unhappy with an abortive field trial of Gardasil. They were unhappy with wide-spread violations of parental / guardian informed-consent requirements... it turns out that corruption is so institutional in the Indian polity that if a system can somehow be manipulated to extract money from it, it will be manipulated, and in this case scammers were consenting to the vaccination of adolescents over whom they had no authority.
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Bill-Gates-faced-trial-in-India-f…
So the lawsuit was essentially that the Indian federal government should have predicted this degree of corruption and ethics violations, as should PATH (the Gates-funded organisation, jointly organising the trial). India is simply not a place where one can fund public-health initiatives.
Whoever is occupying the Marsha-skin, he or she must be monitoring the alt-med echo chamber, and thought this new addition to the catechism should be brought to wider notice.
Science Mom:
If you haven't already done so, check out the "Talk" section of that Wiki entry (there's a small tab to click on at the top of the home page).
References to Mike Adams and his "food lab" have repeatedly been deleted (edits reversed) by moderators as not credible. The back-and-forth from his defenders and anti-vaxxers is quite entertaining (as it is for any controversial subject: our former resident troll DJT got banned from editing the Burzynski page and complained loudly to moderators in "Talk." The page for almost any quack is full of edit efforts and whining.)
Looks like Marsha got tired of being a chew toy and finally stuck the flounce.
Yes Australasia or Oceania or Asia Pacific... pick one as I know Americans are notoriously ignorant about geography anywhere outside the US but could probably tell you where any town was in the US within 10 kms. (That's kilometres, not miles).
Would love to continue playing the sand pit (sand box to you)but have assignments due this week and next... have to prioritise... like all working/ studying mums.
Heh, Wiki_p categorises Vaxxed as “docufiction”
The Whackweedia is a paid saboteur, an accomplice of the Big Pharma doctor-assassins!!
https://pharmakills.st/paid-saboteurs/
... along with RetractionWatch, Jeffrey Beall, the GMC, Quackwatch. Sadly, Orac is not listed among the accomplices.
Something tells me that there's a relationship here with mhracorrupt.st.
^ And gsy.st, which confirms that "Ben Porter" is not just an administrative contact name.
That’s a new one on me, as Lemmy remarked while counting his moles.
Marsha has yet to return because she's researching how vaccines caused Sir Lemmy's demise.
"The USA ranks Number Terrible!!1!" for IMR gets tossed out to support both anti-vax and pro-Koi pond birth agendas. Here's hoping Marsha was arsed to delve deeper.
What am I saying..............
I can't be bothered to check, but I think Marsha's debut in the comments here timestamped March 31 based on the US date, but that would already be April 1 in Australia. The same Australia that's not in Asisa.
Could "Marsha" have just been an elaborate prank?
Asia. Of course.
“Ben Porter” is not just an administrative contact name
It is possible that Sao Tome strictly enforces its domain-registration rules, and that the "Ben Porter" who registered gsy.st and gcmaftruth.st and all the associated sites is using his real name.
http://www.tcpiputils.com/browse/ip-address/190.97.165.90
But neither Porter's e-mail address nor his cellphone number are in use anywhere else, and he does appear to be primarily concerned with the enemies of David Noakes and the various injustices heaped upon Noakes to bring his name into contumely.
"Contumely" is sadly under-used as a word, and now I want to incorporate it in a limerick.
Wasn't there something in the board game Risk called "Australasia?" Might be where the confusion came from.
We were taught as children that it was part of "Oceania." (Sp?) Whatever, it's a giant island (okay, continent) full of snakes and spiders and scorpions. If I had my pick, I'd probably visit New Zealand.
@Herr Doktor #317:
Mr Porter's rhetorical style is very similar to that of David Noakes, in particular his propensity to present his argument in the form of tallies, viz:
"4 cancers...
50 other diseases...
200 scientists...
8 nations...
400 doctors...
120 scientific research papers...
32 other research papers...
10,000 people...
80 nations...
six people penniless...
94 fabulous results..."
... and a partridge in a pear tree.
Australia is a lovely place with lovely people, but a buddy passed along a bit from a safety brief that he sat thru prior to a port call in Sydney.
"If it doesn't stick you, it will sting you. If it doesn't sting you, it will bite you. And if it doesn't bite you, it will eat you."
...and if it does none of those things, it will just fall out of a tree onto you.
Oi - hdb! You leave our West Island fauna alone. You're just jealous because you kiwis ate all your moas. No lesser authority that The Australian Museum had carefully documented Thylarctos plummetus - though I do note that the first aid measures recommended for attack used to mention review by psychiatrist.
@rhwombat #322:
The good doktor has legitimate reasons to be concerned about the dangers posed by Thylarctos plummetus. Studies have shown he is in a High Risk Group for such attacks:
http://bit.ly/1RSzYJC
But it is full of kiwis who will insist on talking about ruggaz and making you eat fush nd chupps.
ruggaz
This is rugby, yes?
We have friends who hail from the Auckland area. They are fans of the All Blacks. No, let me amend that. They are completely, unstintingly devoted to the All Blacks.
re 'Australasia'
I do recall reading that long ago as a geographic region.
More recently, my friend, Mike, visited a guy he attended university with 30 years ago. The AUS-ian had a governmental position as an engineer IIRC but was forced into early retirement and didn't have much money. So he let my friend stay for a week but they didn't really go out, just to the beach and cooking shrimp/ prawns at home.
So Mike, deciding that he wanted to see more of AUS spent his last 3 or 4 days in Sydney's Chinese section at a discount hotel and found really excellent food.
I guess that's Australasia.
"Wasn’t there something in the board game Risk called “Australasia?” Might be where the confusion came from."
If you find a really, really old version of the game you can invade Gondwanaland or Laurasia. But beware the monsters lurking in the Tethys Sea.
Marsha: "..pick one as I know Americans are notoriously ignorant about geography anywhere outside the US but could probably tell you where any town was in the US within 10 kms."
My irony meter just exploded. Apparently this is from a person who had no clue that the MMR vaccine never contained thimerosal, and that she did no know which country's MMR that Wakefield docufiction was about.
Marsha, again -- lots of folk here, including the one to whom you responded (Julian even helpfully identified "South Africa" but apparently reading comprehension is still a challenge) are not Americans. I'm Canadian by birth but have lived in several countries. Not Japan, though, where they vaccinate well before age 2. I did however live in the US. Would still love to discuss why their IMR is what it is with you, once you've had a chance to look it up.
nber.org/papers/w20525 is where you could do some reading, Marsha. Sorry if I've borked the link, typing on my phone under 130 lbs of dog.
Heh, the Wikipedia page for "Vaxxed" even mentions our beloved host.
So Marsha, underneath my comment, writes:
...but seems unaware that my location was "South Africa", which is not only not part of the USA, but on a different continent.
The snide, mocking ripostes just write themselves.
I'm mildly interested in the question "within 10 km of what," but that will no doubt become clear when Marsha gets around to Springfield.
@Narad: can we at least make her tell us WHICH Springfield? In which state? I mean, it's not like states don't repeat city names or anything....
…but seems unaware that my location was “South Africa”, which is not only not part of the USA, but on a different continent.
You mean East Rand is not up the road from Baltimore??!
@Marsha #312
JP #320
That's what we are taught in France too.
Anyway, that doesn't change my point from #297 : the proximity between two countries doesn't have influence over their vaccine programs, especially in the case of the Urabe strain in MMR.
This comment is directed towards the writer of the article.
You really should open your mind.
What you fail to understand is that there are a lot of people that are not anti vaccine but merely want to create an awareness that doctors and scientists are not miracle workers, they are human beings, and human beings make mistakes. No matter what you think to be true its just your opinion. Vaccines are NOT 100% safe, period. Vaccines may have saved thousands of lives from terrible diseases and do have some efficacy but if there are even just a small portion of the population who may have been harmed there is reason to speculate and ask questions. Who are you to say otherwise. All people are asking for is transparency and a willingness of these institutions to go back over their research to see where a problem may lie. If you know anything about a vaccine, there are adjuncts in them to reduce immune function so that the vaccine itself can penetrate. Maybe herein lies the problem. This is just a question that may need to be answered, or we can go with your opinion to do nothing and believe that they are 100% safe. Wouldn't that be stupid.
We are living in the year 2016 and the fact that I even have to write this to point something out to people who are so stubborn and close minded is ridiculous.
Chad: " Vaccines are NOT 100% safe, period."
Please post the link to the comment where that claim was made.
"This is just a question that may need to be answered, or we can go with your opinion to do nothing and believe that they are 100% safe. Wouldn’t that be stupid."
Really, please tell us who on this blog (author or commenter) has claimed that any vaccine 100% safe. Just post a link to that comment or one of Orac's articles where that claim is made.
"All people are asking for is transparency and a willingness of these institutions to go back over their research to see where a problem may lie. If you know anything about a vaccine, there are adjuncts in them to reduce immune function so that the vaccine itself can penetrate."
The MMR vaccine has never contained any adjuvants. Something you would have known if you had bothered to read the comments to Marsha.
"We are living in the year 2016 and the fact that I even have to write this to point something out to people who are so stubborn and close minded is ridiculous"
Okay, change out minds. Since Wakefield's docufiction was on the American MMR vaccine, then you need to tell us how it is so risky. Please post the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that it causes more ,problems than measles, mumps and rubella.
They're called adjuvants and they are used to increase the body's immune response, not reduce it. Reducing the immune response would be counterproductive.
I don't think anyone has much of an issue with that. What problem should they be searching for and how do you know it exists?
"If you know anything about a vaccine, there are adjuncts in them to reduce immune function"
And here I was, thinking that the adjuvants are to *exacerbate* the immune response. I must have been taught the wrong Science.
" so that the vaccine itself can penetrate.”
See, there's your problem. On my planet we invented needles for that.
They’re called adjuvants
Perhaps Chad wrote "adjunct" as short for "adjunct professors". Each dose of vaccine includes millions of nano-sized, under-paid educational assistants (miniaturised with Fantastic Voyage shrink technology) who travel around the body lecturing the lymphocytes until they do their jobs properly.
"This comment is directed towards the writer of the article.
You really should open your mind."
He tried that but his cerebellum kept flopping onto the floor and getting dusty.
"Vaccines may have saved thousands of lives from terrible diseases and do have some efficacy"
Sorry, but you've just forfeited membership in the Wackadoodle Antivax Warriors Club. Vaccines never helped anybody, it's all a pharma lie.
We are indeed in 2016, but it seems that ignorant people blathering on about how vaccines do not work still exist.
Chad, the list of your failures in your post include:
1. The claim that vaccines are not 100% safe. No-one has claimed they are. They are merely much safer than getting the disease they protect against.
2. The claim that adjuvants (not adjuncts as others have pointed out) reduce the immune response. They don't. The whole point of the adjuvants is to increase the immune response.
3. The claim that the adjuvants are required to get vaccines to penetrate. Vaccines are typically applied intramuscularly, there is no reason to add anything to get them to penetrate. (some are applied in other ways - by ingestion or inhalation, but once again there is no need to add anything to get them to penetrate.
4. That somehow everyone ignores side effects of vaccines. They don't, millions of dollars are spent researching how to reduce the small number of serious side effects from vaccines.
I don't get paid at all by the institution where I am an adjunct.
No matter what you think to be true its just your opinion
There are these things called facts. You're entitled to your own opinions and beliefs, but you aren't entitled to your own facts.
I believe the canonical form is
"Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man."
That's true. But speculative questions would need to be explored using valid evidence and research methods. So this comment is irrelevant to the discussion of 'Vaxxed', which is manifestly fraudulent in misrepresenting William Thompson's recorded comments to Brain Hooker, and a variety of other things.
While I'm willing to omit Andy Wakefield from the category of 'people' (i.e. 'a human being') most anti-vaxers – who are asking for MUCH more (specifically, the 'freedom' to spread life-threatening illnesses to the immuno-compromised) – however delusional and pathological with NPD they may be, do qualify as 'people', as their reality-field-distortions are all too human.
Sadman, you clearly have no idea if you think that unvaccinated people spread diseases. ALL PEOPLE ARE CARRIERS whether vaccinated or not... in fact many Oncologists will tell their immuno-compromised patients to avoid newly vaccinated patients due to the risk of shedding such as polio virus through faecal matter etc and from the injection site.
Vaccines do not prevent anyone from getting the disease, their only purpose is to 'potentially' reduce symptoms in those who have them... and have nothing to do with spreading infection. You're obviously one of the 'herd mentality' cohort which is a fiction invented by big pharma for profits!.
I'm also sure William Thompson would have brought a case against Brian Hooker had he been misrepresented.
Telling fairy stories now... bit hard to misrepresent something that recorded.
After a few days of ignoring AoA (which are likely to continue), a quick visit netted the Dachelbot's plumping for Cliff Kincaid.
^ BTW, Blaxill's attempt at the "Utah whistleblower" (reprised in the Weekly Fishwrap) is such a hilarious fever dream that it may well merit a takedown somewhere or another.
I, for one, am impressed at Marsha's laser-like focus on completely humiliating herself with this one.
Marsha, Marsha, Marsha: " newly vaccinated patients due to the risk of shedding such as polio virus through faecal matter etc and from the injection site.'
This is hilarious! First, it has nothing to do the American MMR vaccine.
And the pooping from an injection site is hilarious! (hint: the IPV did not shed... guess why... it has to do with the "I" in "IPV" versus the "O" in "OPV").
Chris are you Autistic or something, possibly aspergic?? i.e. have difficulty with reciprocal conversation or connecting abstract thought processes?
: ” newly vaccinated patients due to the risk of shedding such as polio virus through faecal matter etc and from the injection site.’
The example was Polio from faecal matter etc (and in reference to other vaccines) and from the injection site.
You have to be American as you are FAR too literal to be from the UK or Australia.
Oh boy.
If even a vaccinated person is a carrier, why do diseases not spread when immunity reaches a certain level? If herd immunity is a fiction, then why are children too young to be vaccinated unlikely to get the diseases in areas where herd immunity levels are maintained?
Julian Frost... Herd immunity is a marketing campaign. Diseases DO spread through vaccinated communities... there have been many here recently in Australia and US - link from CDC and babies can get diseases from vaccinated parents. If a parent has a pathogen in their nostrils from the community it can be easily spread to other's in the home including babies. Other diseases spread by other means such as Polio and Rotavirus can also be contracted through the faeces of newly vaccinated people.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000359.htm
http://www.state.nj.us/health/cd/documents/mumps/mumps_clinical_faq.pdf
Marsha:
Except Hooker was the one who made the recordings, not Thompson, so unless Thompson also made recordings he has no proof. Your argument fails.
She's not even competent at internalizing the talking points that she's trying to regurgitate, as the "many Oncologists" line reveals (there's a single locus for this one, IIRC).
Then again, her comment 350 simply repeats her comment 250. To the extent that there's thought going on, it's badly malfunctioning, which is part of why I didn't even bother with the pesky bits about viral entry and so forth.
Does she even know what our esteemed host do for his $DAYJOB?
Inquiring mind want to know...
Alain
L-rd, more regurgitation. Your "logic" forces you to acknowledge that Wakefraud's proving to have been nothing but piss-proud with his very serious promise to sue Emily Willingham and Forbes is a wholesale concession.
Well played.
From [h_tp]://scienceblogs.com/insolence/author/oracknows/
Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski. That Orac has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 30 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)
Respectful Insolence™ is a repository for the ramblings of the aforementioned surgeon/scientist concerning medicine and quackery, science and pseudoscience, history and pseudohistory, politics, and anything else that interests him (or pushes his buttons). Orac's motto is: "A statement of fact cannot be insolent." (OK, maybe it can be just a little bit insolent. Sometimes. OK, fairly often. Orac tries to keep his insolence respectful most of the time, but readily admits that he sometimes fails in cases of obvious quackery and pseudoscience, responding to personal attacks on him, examining poor critical thinking skills, bigotry or racism, and just general plain stupidity. When the stupidity to which Orac is responding reaches a certain very high level, he just can't help it and makes no apologies. You will know this is happening when Orac uses the phrase "the stupid, it burns" or some variant thereof.
Of particular note: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1515983
Al
Little did I know that quoting our esteemed host about page would result in my quoted post being in moderation.
Dear esteemed host, I will have to change email address soon as my domain is no longer valid...
Al
You can leave your E-mail address here the same as it always was (and, yes, I received your new one). It's just a text key paired with the "name" field.
Wow. Even Th1Th2 didn't go that far.
... I see Marsha, when contradicted, still prefers to jump to another (incorrect) argument rather than adress the counter-argument or admit error.
Better to nitpick on "Australasia" and supposed American geographical ignorance than adress the fact that Japan and Australia always had different MMR (at least regarding the Mumps strain), or that Japan doesn't delay vaccinations until 2 years.
You people can't complain about being ignored when you make this kind of easily checkable mistake and ignore / don't adress the corrections.
Oh, and on that note :
Actually, it is not that hard, especially if the person recorded is unaware of it. This blog, Science Based Medicine and Left Brain Right Brain discussed many misrepresentations ; I even posted links at #221.
It may seem like jumping around to you but when you're responding to 10 different people, other's will not understand if they didn't see the original question... hence the tangent about Australasia...
Getting back to the original subject, is it the scientific practice to attempt to discredit any scientist who comes up with a conclusion different from your own 'opinion' because you're all so worried about your sponsors/ donations/ grant funding? This is all so reminiscent of Clair Patterson's fight against the lead additives organisation to get lead out of products, being the expert in the field, but eventually took 30 yrs to occur... there are many studies showing links to autism from vaccines... why are they ignored in preference of studies funded by pharma even though these peole are also highly qualified but no conflict of interest. Just wreaks of big tobacco, big sugar, big food, big oil etc. My view is that this is an inconvenient truth.
"There is no science that shows vaccines cause Autism", except in these published studies which show links
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3878266/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21623535
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25377033
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24995277
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12145534
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21058170
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22099159
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3364648/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17454560
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19106436
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3774468/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3697751/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21299355
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21907498
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11339848
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17674242
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21993250
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15780490
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12933322
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16870260
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19043938
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12142947
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24675092
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788 – 1860)
… I see Marsha, when contradicted, still prefers to jump to another (incorrect) argument rather than adress the counter-argument or admit error.
Game of Whack-a-mole with round-robin for a predefined set of answer.
It's also one attempt to bring everyone down to her level and then win by wearing everyone down. That remind me of a nasty critter who used the same strategy but in the case of the nasty critter, father was an abusive cop and he was born and raised with the bar set to Jupiter...you all can imagine the result.
Al
@Helianthus: please be careful. Too many repetitions might work like Beetlejuice, and I haven't had enough coffee yet for that much bizarreness. Marsha is bad enough; I'll give her points for coherency, even if she's wrong in almost everything she posts.
Or more charitably, it was a case of zealous Autocorrect.
I sometimes would need a cryptologist to decode the messages my boss wrote on his smartphone.
@Marsha
I see you still haven't answered the question about what you consider to be "independent" research.
Ah, you are a mind reader, then? Why so certain? Thompson is a person who could very well speak out about all of this without fear of repercussion, yet he has said that he will only appear before Congress if they subpoena him. And if I recall correctly, when he found out that Hooker had recorded him, he didn't want his name revealed, but Wakefield went ahead and outed him anyway. That doesn't sound like someone who wants the spotlight a lawsuit would bring.
Todd you must be the mind reader to know Thompson thoughts... where is this quote exactly? i.e. about "not wanting the spotlight and will only appear yada yada"
Marsha, you mentioned your studies above. What is your field of study, if you don't mind sharing?
Did you get a chance to read the paper to which I linked you?
@350:
"Marsha, what you just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response, were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."
Marsha should realize that not only are inactivated vaccines safe to give contacts of immunosuppressed cancer patients, but a number of live attenuated vaccines are safe as well (according to guidelines of the Infectious Diseases Society of America):
MMR (measles, mumps and rubella)
Varicella & Zoster (chickenpox and shingles)
Rotavirus
Yellow Fever
Typhoid
They should NOT receive the oral polio vaccine.
https://www.oncolink.org/experts/article.cfm?id=2657
Marsha has it exactly backwards - immunosuppressed patients are truly at risk from people with vaccine-preventable diseases, not the vaccines themselves. This is why cancer centers like M.D. Anderson call on all employees to get the flu vaccine. And why parents of children with cancer become upset when other parents fail to get their kids vaccinated.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/02/open-letter-parent-unvac…
So you've confirmed they shouldn't go near someone who has received the polio or rotavirus... correct?
Also how to germs discriminate which nostrils they infect... the vaccinated or the vaccinated... again a ridiculous concept that only diseases are spread in unvaccinated populations when there have been outbreaks all over the world of measles, pertussis etc in highly vaccinated communities. Anyone can have a germ in their nostrils (which is the usual catchment area) and sneeze it onto someone else.
This makes the whole ridiculous argument about getting vaccinated for other's sake null & void. Vaccines are only designed to reduce the symptoms in recipients, not the spreading of diseases.
Marsha, Marsha, Marsha: "So you’ve confirmed they shouldn’t go near someone who has received the polio or rotavirus… correct?
Also how to germs discriminate which nostrils they infect… the vaccinated or the vaccinated…"
Do you understand what route polio and rotavirus both take? They mostly bypass the nose. Have you heard of how vaccines educated the immune system to deal with the germs?
By the way, when do you plan to provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that the American MMR causes more risks than measles, mumps and rubella?
"Vaccines are only designed to reduce the symptoms in recipients, not the spreading of diseases."
Marsha, Marsha, Marsha --- the following is US Census data showing measles cases during the 20th century. Please tell us why incidence dropped 90% in the USA between 1960 and 1970. Do not mention deaths (mortality is not morbidity), do not mention any other decade, do not mention any other disease and do not mention any other country (Japan, Australia, England and Wales are not American states):
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
Marsha, Marsha, Marsha: "“There is no science that shows vaccines cause Autism”, except in these published studies which show links "
Ha ha ha ha ha... oh, that is hilarious:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/?s=geier
But the big question is -- who is going to be replaced? Who is going to come off? It could be Jaspers, Hegel, or Schopenhauer!
i.e. have difficulty with reciprocal conversation or connecting abstract thought processes?
Gold. :)
When I was at university, I came to realise that some of the things I believed deserved another look. Confronted with facts, I engaged in a process of reappraisal. Sometimes it was simple, other times, arduous.
Frequently, the outcome was such that I was forced to alter my belief. It was often hard to admit that what I once believed to be unquestionably true was actually quite wrong. I hope through your studies that you are able to experience the same, Marsha.
Logic of itself cannot give anyone the answer to any questions of substance; but without logic we often do not know the import of what we know and often fall into fallacy and inconsistency. Peter Geach, British philosopher
From another science blog I put the question to about ALL PEOPLE BEING CARRIERS REGARDLESS OF VACCINATION - clearly they're not as one-eyed as this site.
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1m7er0/can_a_vaccinated_pe…
Most definitely. Not only are there no vaccines that have a 100% efficacy rate, but you can have variations within a disease (classic example being influenza) that allow you to become infected even if you're vaccinated. Some vaccinations have scarily low rates of efficacy, an example would be the BCG Vaccine against TB, which has an efficacy between 0 and 80% depending on a whole range of factors.
Another fairly obvious way in which you can spread disease despite not being infected with it is simple physical transmission. I shake hands with someone who has sneezed on their hand, then shake hands with a third person, and they can catch the disease person one had due to infectious agents such as viral particles or bacteria being physically transferred person to person, regardless of whether I became infected.
A final way that this can occur, and perhaps the most interesting is that some diseases can form physical structures within the body and effectively 'hide' from the immune system, then can be released at a given time. The classic example of a disease doing this is Tuberculosis. If you do happen to inspire some particles of M. tuberculosis, and they happen to reach your lung, they can form what is known as a Tubercule within your lung, a small round nodule of bacteria surrounded by fibrous tissue that is ignored by your immune system. You can carry these while not infected with TB for decades, but rupturing one through physical trauma or respiratory distress (Such as heavy coughing) can activate an infection in you and/or make you infection to other people.
And another thread:
I believe some vaccines eradicate carriage and some do not. I am thinking of meningococcal vaccines in particular. I know for a fact that one popular one does eradicate carriage and one does not. So... one of them would both prevent the person from carrying the disease in their nasopharynx and protect from infection. The other would simply prevent infection. That being said neither is 100% effective (I believe they are both ~85%). So... it is possible, yes
Maybe you guys should get your info from a Merck insider (with a conscience)...invest 20 mins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OfX7CTdXio
@Marsha:
Hardly anything has a 100% efficacy rate. That doesn't mean that vaccines (many of which have a success rate > 90%) aren't effective.
That's why you get a yearly flu shot. Also, can you give us examples of diseases with variations that render vaccination against them ineffective, or are you just throwing mud and hoping some sticks?
So if they're not 100% effective, how can they be mandated for children to attend school. Where's there's risk there must be choice. Any country that forces medical procedures o their population is just sick.
The flu vaccine is just a push for profit... every year it's the big marketing campaigns... "This year's flu season (by the way flu isn't a season last time I checked) will be the worst yet!" Every year the big hype and every year, oh it wasn't so bad and the vaccine was only 14% effective. What bollocks!
Get your flu shot if you want Guillane Barre syndrome... I know of 3 cases personally.
@Marsha:
False. The principles behind herd immunity were discovered when it was found that even if not everyone in a community had been vaccinated against smallpox, it would stop spreading once a certain percentage had been vaccinated. Your denialism of a provable process is laughable.
Strange then that in every recent outbreak, a disproportionate number of patients were unvaccinated.
Or maybe vaccines do their job very well, albeit not perfectly.
Firstly, in a lot of those cases, the victims were too young to be vaccinated. Secondly, the outbreaks were in communities with high levels of non-vaccinators. Not quite the slam dunk you thought.
#383
Alex Jones? Bahahaha! You'll forgive me for not taking that video seriously at all. Sadly, it is not all fun and games: it is terrifying and depressing to see the like/dislike-ratio on it as well as reading the comments.
“There is no science that shows vaccines cause Autism”, except in these published studies which show links"
Hooker, Geier, Geier, Hooker, some more Geier...False equation of neurological damage from mercury with autism, forgetting that thiomersal/thimerosal/whatever isn't used and hasn't been used since a long time ago, a couple of commentary articles on Hooker's p*ss poor attempts at epidemiology...Is that it?
For the hard of understanding, and apologies to regular readers who have seen this one before: assessment for autism was part of what I did for a living; I worked in a service which included an international authority on autism; if there was any credible evidence linking vaccination to autism or mercury or whatever easily preventable thing the entire CAMH and paediatric services of the UK (I won't speak for any other country) would be all over it, screaming at politicians and drugs companies to do something about it. There isn't, we haven't.
Terminology. Look it up.
For me, "carriers" means "have the bug at this very moment" - as in "being carrying it". In this case, I stand by my "no, that's false".
If by "CARRIERS", you mean "potentially capable of transmitting the disease, if they happen to have the bug on them", well, yes. So what?
You seem to be fixating on the possibility that a vaccinated person may be "shedding" the viruses in the vaccines (a concern only valid for live attenuated virus vaccines, BTW - properly killed bugs don't replicate). If the virus persistence is an issue with the attenuated virus, it's very likely to be an issue with the wild virus as well.
Ah, but you are going to tell me that nowadays, almost everybody is vaccinated against measles, but almost no-one has the wild measles. Well, 60 years ago (or even just 40 years ago, in my country) it was the other way round - everybody had an encounter with the wild measles virus.
Personally, I prefer to be surrounded by people shedding a weak virus rather than by people shedding an aggressive one, but it's only me.
Not to mention that this supposed shedding is an overblown concern. In recent measles outbreaks, like the one in Disneyland, the responsible virus' genome has been typed and found to be the wild virus, not the one used in the vaccine strain.
Your "vaccinated get the disease, too" is just more of your basic calculus fail.
If the ratio of vaccinated:non-vaccinated is in the 90:10 to 95:5 range, but the people getting sick have a ratio in the 50:50 range, i.e. non-vaccinated people are over-represented, well... It seems that vaccines have been working for a lot of people, finally. It also seems that the wild virus is targeting non-vaccinated people. Funny that.
Your long tirade about washing hands and so forth just demonstrated the importance of personal hygiene. Again, so what? No-one here is saying that vaccines are the start and end of preventing diseases. Nutrition has a role, hygiene has a role. It's about using all the weapons available in our arsenal.
And having an immune system prepped against the disease is a very important role - because, funny enough, you can only catch most diseases once, or even if you get it twice, your immune system's response is much faster and efficient the second time. And the lower your illness, the sooner your body get rid of the bug, the less you are a "CARRIER".
And it's that vaccines are doing (OK, trying to do - doesn't work all the time): giving your body the benefits of a first infection, without most of the drawbacks. No more, no less.
In some cases, vaccines are actually the only way to get immunity - and survive. Tetanus is the perfect example.
You are just deep into the Nirvana fallacy. If it's not 100% efficient, then it's useless.
By your logic, why should we bother to wash hands* or clean our house? It's not 100% efficient at getting rid of all bugs, either. Notably the airborne ones.
* note to the lurkers: believe it or not, but when scientists came with the germ theory of disease in the 19th century, and started hinting at the need for more personal hygiene, there was some contrarians to seriously say it was a conspiracy by soap merchants.
Plus ça change...
First, not specifically talking to about shedding viruses but also just general viruses from regular human contact that populates the nostrils and hands... they don't discriminate to vaccinated or not, so a vaccinated person can sneeze that virus onto someone else and spread the virus, just as easily as an unvaccinated person. So the argument to get vaccinated so diseases don't spread is ridiculous.
Like to see the data/ test that shows 'wild measles' at Disneyland as we know CDC is corrupt to story will be whatever suits their agenda.
Lovely to see a reference to Dr Semmelweis (yes a doctor sacked for reducing the incidence of death after childbirth simply by washing his hands... what a maverick!
Yes, event he CDC has acknowledged that nutrition and sanitation are the best health measures, so why not send clean water and food and soap to 3rd world countries instead of toxic vaccines whose benefits (if any) are short lived and do not offer life-long immunity. Exposing the person to repeated shots of neuro-toxins like aluminium, also polysorbate 80 and human and animal DNA etc.
It's less hazardous to keep my family clean, then take risks with medical interventions described the Vaccone Comp Court as 'unavoidably unsafe'.
@Marsha #368
In fact, this answer completely illustrates my point about you getting basic facts wrong and not adressing this, instead jumping on another point. This is called a Gish gallop and you can't be expected to be taken seriously if you are doing this. I am not bothering to answer to your diversion, others have already done so ; and you aren't going to acknowledging their answers either, just use other long debunked arguments ad nauseam. (or please prove me wrong)
What mattered to me wasn't the bizarre nitpicking about Asia / Australia, but the two facts about vaccines in Japan / MMR in Australia you got completely wrong.
The worse is, I am in favor of criticizing vaccines, to make them safer. I can acknowledge there were instances some of them had to be pulled from the market, that some adverse effects were proven (the 1st US rotavirus vaccine, the OPV which had to be replaced by IPV, the whole cell DTP replaced by the acellular DTP, narcolepsia caused by one H1N1 vaccine, etc.).
But these effects have never been discovered thanks to arguments like yours.
You've got no shame to compare yourself to Patterson, when she would never have won her fight with a methodology that cartoonish.
And people like you make so much noise that it drowns legitimate criticisms of vaccines, decredibilize them.
Going back to Japan for a minute... this is interesting...
http://ddata.over-blog.com/3/27/09/71/2012-2013/confid.pdf
Still trying to find the reference i used to have for the Japan experience... but this is the info just to share....
"In 1975 there were a series of deaths related to the triple antigen vac (DPT). The doctors 'black banned' the vaccine. Note it was the doctors not the government. Eventually the vaccination age of children in Japan was raised to 2 yrs. The cot death rate dropped in Japan which resulted in the lowest infant mortality rate in the world. Even the incidence of whooping cough has fallen in the 0-2 yr age group. In the period 1970-1974 while the triple antigen vaccinations were still given at 3 to 5 mths of age, the Japanese national compensation system paid out claims for 57 permanent severe vaccine injury cases and 37 deaths. Compare this to the 1975 to 1980 where the triple antigen was delayed to 2 yrs of age, there war 8 severe reactions and 3 deaths. This represents a drop of 85 to 90%."
Lou V - Clair Patterson is a man. And I was not comparing myself to him I was merely saying that he was deemed a threat to big business as well.
Also I have no problems with vaccine per se, as long as they're not forced on me! Having researched the ajduvants and ingredients I would prefer not to have that many doses of human and animal DNA, aluminium, polysorbate 80 and thimerisol (flu & meningococcal) etc etc injected into my kids with a lifetime of additional doses to remain 'current'.
If they are deemed as 'unavoidable unsafe' i.e. with risk then there has to be a choice and current government policy (in Aus & US) is to force, bribe or shame those who opt out.
In Australia thankfully our children can still attend school without it being mandated however, we still do not have a vaccine compensation fund like you do in the US and the govt has a disclaimer on the Immunisation website saying that they do not take responsibility for the information to vaccinate yet have a No Jab No Play and No Jab No Pay policy for childcare centres which means parents who don't vaccinate their children are denied the same benefits that parents who do vaccinate their children get - which is blatant discrimination especially when informed choice is still a legal option.
Myself and my kids are healthier than most (whereas the western world seems to be getting sicker and have the highest use of pharmaceutical medications/ products in the world) and I would prefer not to expose them to a cocktail of chemicals etc that have been linked to long term effects and auto-immune diseases just so large companies can fear-monger to make profit.
(Damn, forgot that Patterson was a man.)
@ LouV
Indeed, fact-based criticism of vaccines is important. If memory serves,, in the UK it was thanks to the lobbying of a father whose son contacted polio by the OPV vaccine that the health authorities advanced the time to shift to the IPV.
The IPV is much safer, but also a less efficient vaccine than OPV, so there were legitimate concerns that shifting to IPV too early in a anti-polio campaign may result in a backlash of wild polio infections, with the IPV failing to protect as many people as the OPV would have.
OTOH, as some point the OPV would start causing an unacceptable amount of polio cases as side-effects, in regards to all the cases it"s otherwise preventing.
Tricky risk/benefit analysis, with these two vaccines.
@Marsha
Ah, I see that instead of answering my question about what you consider to be "independent" research, you nitpick on my opinions about why Thompson might not want to sue Wakefield or Hooker. I will take that as an admission that you have no good definition of "independent", and that any study which contradicts you will be deemed by you to not be independent.
Also, how's that search coming for studies comparing MMR to adjuvant alone? Or will you acknowledge that you got that detail wrong, along with all of the other factual errors you made?
Question: is this Marsha the same "Grandma Marsha" we went round and round with before? If so, I'm done with her. She wouldn't admit she was ever wrong, especially about "vaccines cause autism!!111111!!!!"
But I'm enjoying the brilliant responses by my fellow minions.
No, 1st time in tho group & def no grandma!! Interesting you refer to yourselves as minions... Of what? Big pharma?
ALL PEOPLE ARE CARRIERS whether vaccinated or not
Even now I am carrying Ebola, Zika and several diseases so rare as to be unknown to science. Despite having never been exposed to them. Only a strenuous regime of hop-flavoured fluids keeps the infections under control.
I’m also sure William Thompson would have brought a case against Brian Hooker had he been misrepresented.
I interpreted Marsha's comments as proof of her stupidity and self-chosen ignorance. I'm sure she would have brought a lawsuit against me if I had misrepresented her.
@hdb
You raise a good point. I mean, mere misrepresentation is a suable offense, as every lawyer knows. I'm sure you can expect to be served by Marsha's legal team any day now.
And has she denied my comparison to a "mendacious Dinobdella ferox arse-leech"? I THINK NOT.
Marsha, I watched the Infowars video. Will you read the paper to which I linked you? Or comment on the chart with Japan's immunization schedule?
Will fairies fly out of my bum first?
Vaccines are only designed to reduce the symptoms in recipients, not the spreading of diseases.
Are you immunized, Marsha? If that's what you believe to be true, are you immunized? Just off the top of my head:
1. My uncle and aunt were unable to have children as my uncle contracted mumps as a teen and was rendered sterile. No vaccine available at that time.
2. My husband didn't get chicken pox until he was a teenager, despite repeated childhood exposure. He missed 3 weeks of school and had pox everywhere, including UNDER HIS FORESKIN. I type that in caps because that's how he says the words. In caps. No vaccine available at that time.
3. I got the flu in 1996 and ended up in hospital with pneumonia. I lost 11 pounds (I'm thin) and looked and felt like I was dying. Could not walk 3 city blocks to the subway without resting for over a month after I came home. I had not received a jab for influenza that year.
4. My late Dad's first memory is of his father running with him in his arms at night through London's blacked out streets during the Blitz. He had a severe case of measles and needed to be in the hospital. As an adult he still bore the scars on his face. No vaccine available at that time.
5. My paternal grandmother was felled in quick succession as a child by measles then scarlet fever. She ended up with rheumatic fever and was never the same. She suffered a stroke giving birth to my aunt, and ultimately died at just 38. No vaccine available at that time, nor antibiotics for strep.
So, are you immunized, Marsha?
Definitely NOT vaccinated Delpine, my mum wasn't my kids aren't...
I have had most of the usual childhood illnesses and now have lifelong immunity and my kids & husband got chicken pox a few yrs ago (from a vaccinated neighbour I might add)and got through it very well. Kids bounced back much quicker, probably because their immune systems haven't been compromised by toxic vaccines whereas my vaccinated husband suffered more (when I say vaccinated I mean with the limited schedule from the late 60's 70's when varicella wasn't available).
Interestingly, I have read of links between people who have the DTap being more susceptible to pneumonia after illness and low and behold when we all got a cold a couple years ago, my husband (only one vaccinated) got pneumonia and we all (unvaccinated ones) recovered quickly. In relation to your flu, you were probably more susceptible to it because you had the pertussis vaccine or DTap. I've haad Swine flu and others and recovered within the usual 7-10 days with no complications.
In reference to your Uncle and mumps, it is much safer to have mumps as a child to avoid sterility. Unfortunately with the vaccine schedule this is delaying the onset of these 'normal childhood illnesses' and putting men more at risk of sterility as they get older as many do not have their 'booster shots' and more like to get the diseases as the vaccine wears off.
In reference to your Dad in the blitz... not surprising someone who is suffering stress in a wartime situation is immuno-compromised and likely to contract an infection or disease and end up in hospital. Hence the reason more people die of these things in 3rd world countries. You should also remember that people vaccinated with the old inactivated measles vaccine are also at risk of contracting atypical measles which is often more serious than measles itself.
An grandparents, well what can I say... they certainly didn't have the nutrition, sanitation and hygiene that we have today. Typhoid and cholera are diseases that are esily remedied with better living conditions and clean water and in many countries there never vaccinations for Scarlet Fever or small pox and these were eradicated without intervention.
Maybe it's worth your while to explore the dark side and get to know many of the vaccine injured children and families that I know and advocate for. They too are in their thousands and included in pharma studies such as the GSK confidential study link attached where 36 babies died. I personally have friends with life long seizures, brain damage, paralysis, autism etc thanks to vaccines. My Dad is the only one vaccinated in our family (he refused to have us vaccinated) and he is the only one with chronic asthma and everyone else not vaccinated has no inflammatory illness.
So Delphine, I can see your argument and that's it's personal but we have our lived experiences too.
Sorry here's the link to the GSK study
http://ddata.over-blog.com/3/27/09/71/2012-2013/confid.pdf
That is a rather sweeping generalization, and, like many generalizations, is not true. Whether vaccines prevent the spread or just prevent symptoms really depends on the vaccine.
For example, live or whole-cell vaccines prevent infection and spread. They train the immune system to target the organism as a whole, rather than a product of the virus of bacterium. Vaccines that use inactivated viruses or only pieces of a bacterium may prevent spread, or they may only prevent/reduce symptoms, again, depending on the vaccine.
Let's look at a couple of examples. Whole-cell pertussis vaccine prevents infection and spread of pertussis. However, it also has a slightly greater risk of adverse reactions compared to the acellular pertussis vaccine. wP has all of the bacterium in it, so the body learns to attack the wild type bacteria. By contrast, the acellular pertussis vaccine uses portions of the toxin produced by the bacterium. Much better safety profile, and it works very well to prevent serious disease in those who are vaccinated, but because focuses mainly on the toxins produced by the B. pertussis, it doesn't work as well at training the immune system to recognize and fight the bacteria before they are able to replicate to the point of being able to spread to others. It's a known issue with the current vaccine, and is why work is being done to find an alternative that is as good at preventing disease in the vaccinated as the current and wP vaccines, but safer than the older, more effective wP vaccine.
Another example is polio vaccine. OPV enables the body, and particularly the digestive portion of the immune system, to recognize and fight the virus before it can replicate and cause disease or spread to others. However, it does have some risks associated with it, such as the rare but serious risk of VAPP. IPV, however, only trains the body to fight off the infection systemically. It doesn't really gear up the immune system in the gut to prevent wild type poliovirus from replicating and shedding; it just prevents disease once the virus gets through the gut and into the rest of the body. So it is technically possible for someone immunized with IPV to get infected with wild type poliovirus and spread it without actually getting any symptoms of the disease themselves. Again, this is an issue that is known among virologists and immunologists, who are actively working on what the next steps are once we eliminate wild type polio cases worldwide.
The difference between Marsha and science-based people is that we acknowledge the nuances of vaccines. Marsha, however, takes a black-or-white stance, where any positives are ignored and any negatives are magnified beyond reason.
Todd,
Which type of polio vaccine is this described in the video?...
http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Catholics-protest-over-polio-vaccine/-/105…
Is it the one laced with 'poison that affects female fertility" send to 3rd world countries or the one that the Indians are suing their government for provided by Bill Gates and his epigenetic program? Or is this the new Gates Foundation formula as discussed on TED where he admits to controlling the problem of the world's population with vaccines?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WQtRI7A064
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjj4Iq-rsNg&ebc=ANyPxKpRB-mOeondOEUmOrM…
Helianthus: Indeed, fact-based criticism of vaccines is important. If memory serves,, in the UK it was thanks to the lobbying of a father whose son contacted polio by the OPV vaccine that the health authorities advanced the time to shift to the IPV."
In the USA it was John Salamone who actually became a member of the CDC's group that decides on the vaccine schedule:
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1999-03-16/news/9903160091_1_polio-vac…
@ Chris
Maybe I was thinking of John Salamone, so in the US, not the UK.
I committed the story to memory as a cautionary tale, but I was unable to track it back..
Not only are there no vaccines that have a 100% efficacy rate
There are no forms of contraception with that efficacy rate either. Are you going around advising people to stop using birth control because it doesn't work?
"Maybe I was thinking of John Salamone, so in the US, not the UK."
Well, there could have been someone in the UK also.
Marsha: "Interesting you refer to yourselves as minions… Of what? Big pharma?"
We are all shills and minions of Lord Draconis Zeneca.
https://www.facebook.com/draconis.zeneca
Wowsers... need to stop wasting my precious time with freaky 'gamers'. This site just lost any credibility.
I had hoped to be a myrmidon.
Marsha, Marsha, Marsha: "“In 1975 there were a series of deaths related to the triple antigen vac (DPT). The doctors ‘black banned’ the vaccine. Note it was the doctors not the government. Eventually the vaccination age of children in Japan was raised to 2 yrs. The cot death rate dropped in Japan which resulted in the lowest infant mortality rate in the world. Even the incidence of whooping cough has fallen in the 0-2 yr age group."
Which is a total lie. This is what really happened:
Also, they can't blame SIDS on a vaccine a child never received. Japan has a habit of letting politics dictate vaccine policies instead of science. This leads to more deaths.
Hahah ... cutting and pasting the bits that suit you?? What happened to the next section?
Furthermore, researchers and the Japanese government proceeded to develop SAFER pertussis vaccines. Japan now has the most experience worldwide with acellular pertussis vaccines, being the first country to have approved their use. This review describes the major events associated with the Japanese vaccination program. The Japanese experience should be valuable to other countries that are considering the development and use of such vaccines.
So thanks to the anti-vax campaigners they developed safer vaccines... well good on those concerned parents for forcing the government to look at the situation and develop something SAFER!
Couldn't find the source so you made something up? Bless your heart.
It's from Dr Peter Baratosy's book, but trying to locate his reference.
@ herr doktor bimler:
I like the sound of *cortigiana onesta* myself.
Julian,
I'd like to see your references for your vaccinated vs unvaccinated studies as the links I put up said those outbreaks were 'fully ' vaccinated communities.
Similar you might want to refer to the FDA press releases that discuss that the new pertussis vaccine doesn't work (even though it has less adverse reactions) and towards the bottom that newly vaccinated people are infecting others (citing a study from baboons where they compare the vaccines in an attempt to understand why there are so many pertussis outbreaks and why vaccinated people are getting infected and infecting other's such as babies).
http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm376937.htm
Marsha, Marsha, Marsha: "Dr Peter Baratosy’s book"
So it is now proven he is a liar. See link to Watanabe paper I linked to.
Would it matter? Let's cut to the chase: what sort of "vaccinated vs unvaccinated" study would cause you to concede that you've simply been wrong?
This is very simple: You just need to choose a single endpoint and specify what degree of similarity between the two study arms would convince you. The necessary sample size follows promptly.
If you fail in this assignment, all your babbling related to the subject is mooted.
Marsha, Marsha, Marsha: "What happened to the next section?"
It had nothing to do with the deaths of children who got pertussis from not being vaccinated. Quoting that part was sufficient to show that Peter Baratosy is a liar.
For a more in depth discussion read Impact of anti-vaccine movements on pertussis control: the untold story.
Also, the vaccine they developed, DTaP, is now coming under fire for not being effective enough.
This thread isn't 'feeding the troll'. It's giving the troll a free pass to a deluxe all-you-can-eat buffet. Which is kinda face-palming in a crowd that thinks 'False Balance' is a Thing, and rips anyone else who 'goes there'. [sarcasm] Hey, let's give Marsha even attention, as I'm sure that will keep other trolls away! [/sarcasm]
s.m.h.
_______
A few minutes North of where I grew up, there was a very popular smorgasbord called The Jolly Troll on a major highway. I never went in there...
Quoting that part was sufficient to show that Peter Baratosy is a liar.
We don't know that because we don't know his actual words, only Marsha's unsourced rendition of them.
He's a homeopathy / acupuncture dingbat so his actual honesty is not really an issue.
Cherry picking again... and he's a medical doctor with Armed Forces experience.
Well anyone who claims that went Japan prevented SIDS by delaying DTP vaccination until age two is a liar. I first saw it in Alan Phillips "Dispelling Vaccination Myths" over fifteen years ago:
http://www.pathguy.com/antiimmu.htm
Viera Scheibner also uses that lie, and she is a well known anti-vaccine liar. So we can now assume that Marsha is a pathological liar.
Sound like you're getting a little 'testy' Chris!
you know how these things start... one person says something, then they tell 2 people,, then they tell 2 people... and all of a sudden you have a 'herd mentality' lie that's been all blown out of proportion and takes on a life of it's own. you know like vaccines saved the world, when if you look at statistics they have been on the downward slopes for over a century!
Well I think you all need to back up what you say and post your vaccine records... because if you're all not UP TO DATE on ALL your vaccines on the US adult register (if that's where you live) then you're all technically 'anti-vaxers' and 'refusers'. :)
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/downloads/adult/adult-combined-sc…
Like this lie, Chris... http://www.australiannationalreview.com/smallpox-eradication-historys-b…
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
That's funny right there... I don't care who you are! (said in my best Mater voice, Cars Movie.)
It is from Rawhide, a 1960s American wild West TV program that included Clint Eastwood.
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
Sweet Jesus, there's not an original thought in your cowardly head, is there? If it's any help, I have Twinrix and PPSV23 on top of the usual schedule, and I'm going to be requesting an MMR booster tomorrow during an overdue primary-care visit, because I've almost certainly never had the second dose.
How about yours?
IIRC, "Grandma Marsha" is Marsha McClelland, and her main bad trip is that everything is prions.
The Rawhide theme was recorded by Country/Western legend Frankie Lane, and the single went to #6 on the UK pop charts. The theme's popularity was considered a key to the series' ratings success in the US.
For "trolljn'" we ought to come up with something to replace 'Rawhide'. What do you think, Chris? 'Brain fried'? 'Go hide'? 'All lies'? 'So tired'? 'Fool tide'? 'Bugeyed'? All of the above?
Marsha @ 432:
Oh look, an article by Suzanne Humphries!
http://americanloons.blogspot.ca/2013/11/783-suzanne-humphries.html
Excuse me while I point and laugh.
Rawhide, 1958: http://tinyurl.com/myuux5z
Not to be confused with the Link Wray instrumental of the same name, also from 1958, seen here live in 1974 (Wray was 45 at the time): http://tinyurl.com/zpa4bn2
[I will take any excuse to post Link Wray links. Inventor of the power chord, and the original badass of the electric guitar. OT, but a better use of bandwidth than engaging MarshBog.]
sadmar: "For “trolljn'” we ought to come up with something to replace ‘Rawhide’. What do you think, Chris? ‘Brain fried’? ‘Go hide’? ‘All lies’? ‘So tired’? ‘Fool tide’? ‘Bugeyed’? All of the above?"
Doesn't rhyme.
Rawhide aired until about 1965... and was in syndication forever! If you don't like my troll riff, come up with something else. Surely a journalism professor can come up with something better then an engineer who grew up during the 1960s.
Though I did hum the "Rawhide" theme when dealing with groups of small children --- sometimes while helping at a school or just with my three kids. Plus I do not know of a better hymn to go with herding cats.
Of course there is this sign that I took a picture of that also describes the problem this thread is having:
http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q27/SewUntalented/IMG_0300.jpg
Enjoy.
So, how many Johns does this fille de joie have here?
http://tinyurl.com/oy35gm7
[Stan Freburg, 1926-2015. Laugh in Peace]
Those who thought Robert De Niro got religion and came round to rationalism after consulting "scientists" before canceling the Tribeca showing should look at this:
Fox5 NYC interview from April 6 2016:
http://www.fox5ny.com/good-day/118077722-story
YouTube copy of the Fox5 report:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGX2TVigyfs
He seems to be dancing around and seems to imply that he believes there is a connection between vaccines and autism and that he'd still like to help disseminate Wakefraud's propaganda.
From his weak "explanation" after pulling it from screening at TFF I kinda' thought he might be as dumb and gullible as any other actor and swallowed the anti-vaccine, anti-science lies in his ignorance.
It seems to me we haven't heard the last from this knucklehead.
FTFY, Marsha. You're a rather poor quality antivaccine crank, given that attention-whoring seems to be the only thing in play.
@Chris:
No, not two syllable rhymes, but I did get 'em from Rhymezone. I'm not rippin' the riff, just suggesting a little tweak for the Mo' Better.
I was actually creating my own Freburgian song parodies long before anyone ever heard of Weird Al Yankovic. Maybe I'll try to come up with a troll song someday, though I wouldn't be so presumptive as to tread wholesale on anyone else's work. Besides, "Cut 'em out, paste 'em in" is comedy gold...
Yee haw!
For the record, I did get my PhuD in a School of Journalism, getting schooled in news studies and such, but I went there for general media theory, and the sections of my dis about popular entertainment were twice as long as the stuff about news. My professor gigs were mainly teaching film/video making with side-helpings of film/media theory/criticism, web design, dramatic writing, and even public speaking. I never taught journalism per se past being a TA in grad school, though I did teach documentary film, which has some overlap. My last official title was Associate Professor of Theater – (Film Studies). The 'professional work' that got me tenure was a combination of scholarly publication and documentary filmmaking.
Marsha #385:
Do you know what else is mandatory and yet not 100% effective? Seat belts. Car seats for toddlers. Hygiene protocols in food preparation.
Nothing in life is completely free from risk. In the case of vaccines, the risks of being vaccinated according to schedule are far outweighed by the risks of the diseases they guard against. Every single disease we vaccinate against can kill, and can cause severe negative sequelae in those who survive.
My Medical Aid not only allows me to get the flu shot for free, it awards me points for getting it. They have these people called "actuaries" who look at risk. The actuaries' calculations show it's better for the Medical Aid for me to get jabbed than not.
#393:
Marsha, I went to that link. I then did a word search for the passage you quoted. It wasn't in that document.
Did you really think that we wouldn't check your claims out? You've just been caught in a lie. Also since in your comment #418 you said "Hahah … cutting and pasting the bits that suit you??", I'd call you a hypocrite.
@sadmar #426:
We engage the trolls for the sake of lurkers who may be undecided. And it works. It worked for me. I know, sample size of 1 and all that. In 2010, I read of a gastroenterologist named Andrew Wakefield who had been found guilty of a bunch of charges related to research he'd done on autistic children. Curious, I read more. Eventually, I came across Respectful Insolence. At the time, antivaxx warriors were still strong. The calm refutations to their false claims not only convinced me that the antivaxxers were wrong, they taught me how to spot and refute bad arguments.
Marsha, your link at #432 is by "ChildHealthSafety", a name well known to regulars of this blog. Let's just say that if you're relying on Clifford Miller and John Stone, you are wrong.
Man, being reduced to regurgitating this slogan is just sad. The topic is U.S. school vaccination requirements, yes?
There's a transparently obvious choice. It is called "homeschooling." Complaining about it from the antipodes is profoundly unimpressive.
Oh, FFS. </killfile>
Jesus Fυcking Christ, it's one-upping Eternal September with preciously punctuated condescension.
<killfile>
Julian Frost
Seconded.
There's a certain glibness about Marsha which has to be countered, and many thanks to those who make the effort.
It's been a good illustration of how, once their point has been countered, they move seamlessly on to another without dealing with the facts they've been confronted with.
Truly, the glib shall inherit the earth.
@ Julian Frost
Most of my own efforts are a mix of a bit escapism (venting on anti-vaxers to avoid e.g. yelling at the @sshole colleagues next door) and a strong case of SIWOTI.
But if I can pass on some relevant info, I guess my time is not utterly wasted.
It's annoying to leave the questions unanswered. Especially when the lies these questions support can kill. I positively hate the anti-HPV brigade lies that carcinoma cancer could be prevented/cured by frottis. No, it could be detected by frottis.
Detection is not the same as prevention. Terminology, look it up.
I have to admit, the feeling of déjà vu was very strong about 250 comments up. We could save everybody's time by making a FAQs website and just refer any visitor to it. It's always the same old stuff coming back (now, it's Bill Gates).
Sadmar's recent comments are very disheartening. I feel we are useless.
----------------------------------------------------
I was riled recently by a front-page article in a local French newspaper, an interview of one Pr Joyeux. So I discovered one of our own brand of anti-vaxer.
To put it short, he is anti-all. Anti-vax (sorry, "pro-safe vax"), anti-pill, anti-milk, anti-pesticides*... A good example of crank magnetism. But he is a nice grand-dad with a happy smile, and a Professor and a Cancer Surgeon, so he gets a free pass.
He is also in relation with a couple of fraudsters whose business is based in part on using internet petitions to collect personal info and sell the list to anyone interested.
* Not that there aren't good reasons to be cautious about all of these.
But after sampling some of his work, and seeing it was a mix of the usual exaggerations (or outright fabrications) and universal, non-relevant truths (nutrition is important! so is breastfeeding!), one gets the feeling the activities of Joyeux et al. are more about riding the bandwagon and milking the state and the layman for all the money they could throw his way than about public safety.
The above-mentioned fraudsters are financed by one of our research agency, for FSM sake. Their effect on the field? Nil. They claim credits for other lobbying associations' successes.
Some days, I'm tired of all this manure.
If Marsha wants (as it appears from her comments about wotsisface being not only a medical doctor but having - oooooooh, impressive - military experience) to play the argument from authority game, I'm afraid I can trump that: in 30 years as a nurse, mostly in CAMH, the years prior to that at university being around quite a lot of medics, having family friends who are medics all my life, I cannot think of one who would support the stuff she cites...
And, going back to vaccines and autism, if the likes of Michael Rutter, Lorna Wing, Uta Frith, the Gilbergs, Simon Baron Cohen and...and...and...every psychiatrist and paediatrician I worked with who was involved in assessment and diagnosis of autism did not think there was any evidence linking the 2 that is good enough for me (especially as I have never seen any good evidence either and I have good training in reading scientific papers).
Think you might have an argument with the thousands of parents who witnessed their child regress immediately after a vaccine...
Why would they make any attempt to want to link the 2- what's their motivation to dig any deeper? Everyone knows what pharma did to Wakefield and what they do to anyone who speaks out against them... takes guts to be a whistle blower.
And, for any lurkers or anyone else who's not come across it, I will recommend this - http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Read-Paper-Basics-Evidence-BasedMedicine/dp… - as a handy helper in sorting out decent papers from utter guff like the Geiers and their ilk.
And Marsha still hasn't told us what constitutes an "independent" study. Such a simple question, yet she consistently refuses to inform us. How are we to have any kind of reasonable discussion if we don't know what she'll accept?
Oh, and Marsha, as to your Bill Gates bit, let's look a bit at public health. We know that when children are healthy and likely to survive to be adults, the number of children that couples have goes down. That's because they don't need to produce a lot of children in order to have a good chance of some surviving. What Gates is talking about is just that: make people healthier so that they don't have to have a lot of kids. This seems to be a concept that is absolutely lost on anti-vaccine activists like Marsha.
Those who thought Robert De Niro got religion and came round to rationalism after consulting "scientists" before canceling the Tribeca showing should look at this:
Fox5 NYC interview from April 6 2016:
fox5ny(dot)com/good-day/118077722-story
YouTube copy of the Fox5 report:
youtube(dot)com/watch?v=KGX2TVigyfs
He seems to be dancing around and seems to imply that he believes there is a connection between vaccines and autism and that he'd still like to help disseminate Wakefraud's propaganda.
From his weak "explanation" after pulling it from screening at TFF I kinda' thought he might be as dumb and gullible as any other actor and swallowed the anti-vaccine, anti-science lies in his ignorance.
It seems to me we haven't heard the last from this knucklehead.
(I tried to post this late last night with active links and the screen merely flashed and took me to the top of the page. I thought that maybe the active links kicked it to moderation, but I don't remember anyone claiming that happens so I don't know what happened.
2nd time's a charm.)
HELLO Reality! ( I've always wanted to say that)
Along similar lines about De Niro-
see prn.fm frontispiece article " Why the CDC is Petrified about the Film VAXXED" ( or suchlike, I didn't copy it)
The crappy writers assert that RFK jr reported that De Niro told him he was under great pressure to pull the film. ( in an early paragraph of the long, dodgy piece of concentrated woo that even includes Celia Farber!).
Definitely NOT vaccinated Delpine, my mum wasn’t my kids aren’t…
I have had most of the usual childhood illnesses and now have lifelong immunity and my kids & husband got chicken pox a few yrs ago (from a vaccinated neighbour I might add)and got through it very well. Kids bounced back much quicker, probably because their immune systems haven’t been compromised by toxic vaccines whereas my vaccinated husband suffered more (when I say vaccinated I mean with the limited schedule from the late 60’s 70’s when varicella wasn’t available).
Interestingly, I have read of links between people who have the DTap being more susceptible to pneumonia after illness and low and behold when we all got a cold a couple years ago, my husband (only one vaccinated) got pneumonia and we all (unvaccinated ones) recovered quickly. In relation to your flu, you were probably more susceptible to it because you had the pertussis vaccine or DTap. I’ve haad Swine flu and others and recovered within the usual 7-10 days with no complications.
In reference to your Uncle and mumps, it is much safer to have mumps as a child to avoid sterility. Unfortunately with the vaccine schedule this is delaying the onset of these ‘normal childhood illnesses’ and putting men more at risk of sterility as they get older as many do not have their ‘booster shots’ and more like to get the diseases as the vaccine wears off.
In reference to your Dad in the blitz… not surprising someone who is suffering stress in a wartime situation is immuno-compromised and likely to contract an infection or disease and end up in hospital. Hence the reason more people die of these things in 3rd world countries. You should also remember that people vaccinated with the old inactivated measles vaccine are also at risk of contracting atypical measles which is often more serious than measles itself.
An grandparents, well what can I
say… they certainly didn’t have the nutrition, sanitation and hygiene that we have today. Typhoid and cholera are diseases that are esily remedied with better living conditions and clean water and in many countries there never vaccinations for Scarlet Fever or small pox and these were eradicated without intervention.
Maybe it’s worth your while to explore the dark side and get to know many of the vaccine injured children and families that I know and advocate for. They too are in their thousands and included in pharma studies such as the GSK confidential study link attached where 36 babies died. I personally have friends with life long seizures, brain damage, paralysis, autism etc thanks to vaccines. My Dad is the only one vaccinated in our family (he refused to have us vaccinated) and he is the only one with chronic asthma and everyone else not vaccinated has no inflammatory illness.
So Delphine, I can see your argument and that’s it’s personal but we have our lived experiences too.
You can see *my* argument? But it was your argument that vaccines don't prevent the spread of disease, they merely mitigate the symptoms. Yet none of you are immunized! If that's what you truly believe, when suffering from a VPD, wouldn't you want to reduce your symptoms if you could?
It pains me very deeply to type this, Marsha, but I am forced to conclude that when it comes to your true motives, you are (wait for it) not being entirely honest here.
I just can't let this one go: An grandparents, well what can I say… they certainly didn’t have the nutrition, sanitation and hygiene that we have today. Typhoid and cholera are diseases that are esily remedied with better living conditions and clean water and in many countries there never vaccinations for Scarlet Fever or small pox and these were eradicated without intervention.
Firstly, no country has a vaccine for scarlet fever, because a vaccine for scarlet fever doesn't exist.
Secondly, my grandmother contracted a VPD (measles) because a vaccine for measles didn't exist in the early 1900s. She contracted scarlet fever shortly thereafter because a. there is no vaccine for scarlet fever and b. her immune system was likely compromised due to the prior measles infection.
Thirdly, as for sanitation, hygiene, and nutrition, I would posit that an upper class child living in the English countryside (and not suffering from typhoid or cholera, but measles then scarlet fever, Marsha) was quite likely not the starving ignorant unwashed example you reached for, Marsha.
Lastly, Hence the reason more people die of these things in 3rd world (sic) countries is probably not a topic you should broach.
Julian Frost: "We engage the trolls for the sake of lurkers who may be undecided. And it works. It worked for me."
I personally find the Japan DTP lie to particularly noxious. For one thing it is a very old lie, and there is easily available PubMed literature to show that it is a lie.
The bit about Bill Gates promoting eugenics is just plain idiotic. Yeah, he is putting his money into making sure kids are healthy and have a chance to grow up, so families go from six kids to just two kids.
@Delphine
Very likely that measles played a role in the scarlet fever, considering measles virus suppresses the immune system for 2-3 years after infection.
"An grandparents, well what can I say..."
As a grandparent (a great grandparent, no less) I am often amused, appalled, and above all, irritated by nonsense like this. One would think my parents and grandmother who lived with us, never fed me fruits and vegetables, and that after sending me outside of the cave to play in the cesspit, didn't bother to tell me to bathe.
Another candidate for Dara O'Briain's sack.
because a vaccine for scarlet fever doesn’t exist.
I was wrong. George & Gladys Dick did develop a vaccine for scarlet fever in the mid 20s, but it faded from use with the advent of penicillin. Wouldn't have helped my grandmother anyway, she had scarlet fever long before the vaccine.
I'm sure it will come as quite a surprise to S. pyogenes to learn that scarlet fever has been "eradicated," whatever the fυck that's supposed to mean in the first place.
The smallpox prong, of course, is simply drooling idiocy.
Just when I thought it was safe and that the brouhaha surrounding Andy's miserable film was over and done with...but
NO!!!!
According to Celia Farber ( The Truth Barrier**), Andy learned that his Neue Meisterwerk has been tossed by another film fest ( Houston World-Fest) because of.....
you know.
Farber spoke to Andy and Carmel on the phone who told the sordid tale.
Maybe Del will do a film about how they will Fight The Power etc.
I have to go to my dance class
** I'll say there's a barrier to truth
Murmur@#451,
does that qualify: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Interpreting-Medical-Literature-Gehlbach-Paperb…
I got it for 0.01$ canucks money some time ago on the Canucks version of amazon...
Alain
Hi, all! Sorry I posted and ran yesterday; didn't mean to leave you with the explaining of the affectionate "minions" term to Marsha. Thanks for those who did. I'll talk to Lord Draconis about extra shill money (and exemptions from having to feed the hatchlings for a while).
Funny...if smallpox wasn't eradicated, how come we no longer give the vaccine? Yes, isolation of those infected helped, but so did given the vaccine to prevent those doing the isolation from getting the disease.
Not that I ever expect Marsha to read anything with documentation, but "Inside the Outbreaks" by Mark Pendergrast has a great section about the eradication of smallpox, for those of you who enjoy that kind of book.
Never vaccinated for it in Australia.
They stopped giving smallpox vaccine right before my youngest child was born. I gave the doctor such a hard time about that, until he quietly and patiently was able to explain why she wasn't going to need protection from smallpox in this country. Probably went home and told his wife about the crazy mother in his office that day. Some of us are very concerned about protecting our children from VPD.
Thanks MI Dawn for mentioning that book. It looks interesting and I found a nice cheap used copy on Amazon.
MI Dawn, OT but you would like this. Had an at-school lunch with a group of fellow mothers from my daughter's school today. One brought along her adorably squooshy newborn. Another woman in the group had the temerity to ask how he was born.
New Baby Mom: I had a cesarean due to previa.
Clueless Nosy Parker: Wouldn't they let you even try for a vaginal birth?
New Baby Mom: Sure, but I told them I wanted to live.
We exchanged phone #s, I like her already... :)
Marsha: never say silly stuff; you should know by now we will call you on it. Of course they used to vaccinate for smallpox in Australia. History of Smallpox in Australia Or do you get a kick out of us showing how you lie?
@Delphine: AAACCCKKK!!! Thank goodness your friend has brains in her head. And much enjoyment of the new little one.
Marsha: the last smallpox case in Australia was 1938. Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1978. Most countries stopped routine vaccination on or before that point (many, like Australia, were able to stop before that, as they could just have people sit in quarantine until they were sure those people, most who came by ship, didn't have any communicable diseases).
The fact that we no longer have to give the smallpox vaccine to ANYONE because we have successfully eradicated it proves we could do this with many other disease that don't have an animal carrier, like MEASLES and MUMPS and POLIO. In fact, polio was almost eradicated, until you stupid antivaxxers started yammering, and certain intelligence agencies did stupid things.
So, Marsha: why do you like seeing people anywhere in the world suffer from vaccine-preventable diseases? Why don't you want to help your fellow humans?
You see the lie is in the label... 'vaccine preventable'. Firstly I don't think that this is true when I see many people getting the diseases they were vaccinated for i.e. chicken pox (in my neighbours case), pertussis (many outbreaks in vaccinated communities, measles...
AND I could ask you the same question! How can you possibly let an uneducated doctor (and they are - I have asked many GP's in the past what the ingredients are and their risks and what are the chances of getting the disease to a chance of an adverse reaction) and none could tell me. They go to their pharma funded Universities to learn their pharma funded 'studies' and then go into practice to go to their pharma funded conferences and get pharma funded to push their drugs, vax etc
So again, how can YOU let an uneducated GP (med doc) stick an injection directly into your child's blood stream full of adjuvants and chemicals known to cause neurological problems like aluminium (amongst a huge list of adverse reactions) and then say you've made an informed choice to sing 'Que Sera Sera' while these ingredients de-myelinize your child's nervous system and cause brain damage through encephalitic reactions, make them seize, paralyse them (which happened to 2 friend's babies) or worse die. Did you never look at a VAERS list and feel sick prior to vaccination especially when the US vaccine schedule has something like 74 vaccines which is probably in excess of 40 shots (if they're in combinations) and that's only up until you're 18 yrs old. Then it's boosters for the rest of your life.
I once worked out the chances of an adverse reaction compared to winning the lottery and I was 45 x more likely to have an adverse reaction than win and that's based on the broad 1:1,000,000 stats that the CDC give you for a serious reaction, which we all know is bollocks and given the high level of corruption and revolving doors between the FDA, CDC & pharma, why would you trust them? Just like they thought DDT, thalidomide and many other public health initiatives and drugs were safe only to find out later they weren't.
So why would I stick a chemical cocktail into my beautiful healthy child's body when they already have strong immune systems and cripple it with adjuvants and toxins when their chance of getting the disease for which they're being vaccinated for is rarely life-threatening or disabling (especially in the western world) and the chance of severe adverse reaction is far greater? I think I'd rather chance a few spots and a fever for a week with lifelong immunity than a life time of allergies, asthma, exzema, seizures, brain damage, possible autism, auto-immune disease or death, just because the government / medical community (who are known to get it wrong regularly) say so!?? My kids can do what they like when they get older but for now, it just doesn't make sense to me to inject a healthy child with a concoction of poison many times over with a huge list of likely reactions, on a 'what if'.
Paging Drs Dunning and Kruger...
Marsha, Marsha, Marsha: "Think you might have an argument with the thousands of parents who witnessed their child regress immediately after a vaccine…"
Alex, I'll take "Unverified anecdotes by imaginary people" for 200 dollars.
@ Hellanthus
That's because your tone often is condescending.
Having studied Wakefield for years, I really do think you give him too much credit here. He's clever, but not that clever. He's a short term con man, not chess player who plans several moves ahead.
@Marsha #472:
MMRV is very recent. Are you sure your neighbour was vaccinated against chicken pox?
FTFY. In addition, all of the cases I've read about occurred in people who had been deliberately unvaccinated, or children too young to be vaccinated.
Pharma Shill Gambit noted.
Vaccines are not injected directly into the bloodstream, you champion ignoramus.
Ever heard the saying "the dose makes the poison"? There is more aluminium in a banana than in the entire vaccine schedule. I eat bananas almost every day.
Did you not see my comment above where I said that VAERS is a list of adverse events that occurred within a certain timeframe of vaccination, so events that MAY HAVE, not must have, been caused by vaccination?
To quote Penn and Teller, "Bovine Faeces!"
Citation needed that that statistic is an understatement.
As I pointed out above, all the diseases we vaccinate against can kill, and have other negative sequelae like blindness, deafness, permanent lung damage, sterility and permanent brain damage, and at orders of magnitude many times that of vaccine adverse events. Basically, Marsha, you are leeching off herd immunity and risking subjecting your children to diseases that could kill or disable them.
I now agree with sadmar. It was a good exercise for my mind to engage you when you first showed up, but now you're just throwing out PRATTs (Points Refuted A Thousand Times) like miscalculations of risk, the Toxins Gambit and the Pharma Shill Gambit, and easily refutable claims like Australia never using the smallpox vaccine. In addition to being dishonest, you've now become boring.
Ah, but you forget that Marsha and her kids are of the Anti-Vax Ubermensch - nothing will ever get past their super-human immune systems! Or if, perhance, it does it will be nothing but a mild cold, you see.
Alain @465
Yup, Gehlback will do; I used Greenhalgh as it is a pretty commonly used text in UK-ian medical and nursing schools.
Julian @478
You've pretty much summed it up.
Just add in the "unsupported, unverified anecdote trumps clear clinical evidence" trope...
Oh, as the concept of "regression" in autism was introduced, it should be pointed out (yet again) that this whole area is fraught with difficulties, lack of clear, repeatable definitions, observer biases and the like, making it very, very hard to be sure that regression occurs anywhere near as much as some claim.
the US vaccine schedule has something like 74 vaccines
In much the same way that a sparrow is something like an ostrich.
chemicals known to cause neurological problems like aluminium
I for one applaud the correct spelling of "aluminium". And it is true, it is known to cause neurological problems if a large enough chunk of it falls on your head, but this is true of most things, except perhaps helium.
Maybe that's because you are not supposed to win at the lottery.
Like any state-sponsored or mafia-sponsored game of chance, its purpose is to part the customer of its money. Giving a little money to a very few customers is an acceptable side-effect.
Wow the comparison with Big Pharma are amazing... 'state sponsored mafia' and keep making promises of success but actually giving very little benefit to their customers to keep them coming back for more!
@ Sadmar
You posted it, it was on the first thread about Tribeca.
I actually answered you, pointing you that
1 - Wakefield would have reacted either way, maybe not following an established tactical tree (I will trust Orac's analysis above), but he would certainly not have waited patiently if it looked like he was going to be swamped under critics during the projection at Tribeca.
2 - skeptics are the opposite of a borg collective. We are not unified, there are many "leaders" and many currents, most of them ignoring each others. The flamewars between the currents could be quite intense, I found out.
So expecting an organized and well-thought reaction is, if not beyond the possible, at the minimum highly unlikely.
And I'm not sure uniting the skeptical movements is something to wish for.
Like some of the others, I am going to give up on Marsha. Once she posted the 2 ridiculous statements ("vaccines injected directly into the bloodstream" and OMG ALUMINIUM!!!!111111!!!!), I realized that I had better things to do, like mow the lawn and talk to people of intelligence who actually read and do research. (Which means avoiding some of my own antivax friends for a while, or I'll bite their heads off.)
Hey, MI Dawn:
Can you come over and mow my lawn when you're done with yours? It's really tiny, just a little strip behind the mobile home at the back of the lot. but I can't seem to get to it as I'm too obsessed with posting comments on RI...
(all in jest, <3)
I'll just leave this here for Marsha. It might help her understand why her "something like 74 vaccines" bit is utter nonsense. Or, if not Marsha, perhaps the lurkers.
"the mobile home at the back of the lot."
I'd be more concerned about the tornados it'll attract. For the grass all you need is a goat.
@rs
Correlation ≠ causality. Scientist have actually studied this, and found trailer parks don't attract tornadoes, tornadoes attract trailer parks.*
____
* Actually, they concluded that due to economics, zoning, etc., trailer parks had just been built disproportionately in spots where tornadoes tend to land.
Sadmar,
You pay my passport and the round-trip plane ticket (or train if applicable), I'll mow your lawn and make you a batch of spaghetti sauce :D
Al
So Marsha returns and places a comment under Helianthus's one at #484, but instead of making claims, she descends into snideness.
Marsha, you lose.
@Julian
What did you expect? That she accepted defeat?
Hmmmm....well let's see, over the past 70 years, we've seen a huge drop in infant mortality rates, across the board, life expectancy continues to rise year over year, several types of Cancer can now be cured, while overall survival rates also increase, diseases that once were common are now no longer so (including the eradication of Smallpox & the near eradication of Polio)....and I could go on and on....seems like "Big Pharma" has actually done more to alleviate human suffering than anything else in human history.
I think we should keep an open mind and thoroughly evaluate an argument. Calling a belief or conclusion of someone "quackery", does not merit as a valid analysis. Ideally, as a nation that suffers from hugely rising rates of autism (as well as metabolic disorder), we should be focusing on funding independent research on its possible causes. (Research studies are conducted and funded by vested interests currently.)
This site, and its author, resorts to the method of "destroying the source" in order to argue against an argument. What about addressing an argument head-on, or at least acknowledge the need for proper studies to determine the causes of autism?
@Peg Futrell:
This "argument" HAS been thoroughly evaluated. Multiple large well-designed studies have been done looking at whether the MMR Vaccine causes autism, either on its own or in conjunction with other vaccines. None found any link.
It does when it is backed up by numerous citations and independent sources. And it does when the belief is demonstrably flawed.
Rising rates of autism, or rising rates of diagnoses of autism?
The current research strongly points to a genetic cause for autism. As I said above, the research done into whether or not vaccines cause autism argues very strongly that it doesn't.
False.
Did you see those blue words in the text? They're hyperlinks to evidence for Orac's claims.
De Niro may love his son very much, but on this matter he is wrong. Wakefield is a proven liar who was hired to find evidence implicating MMR in autism, conducted research without proper approvals, subjected autistic children to invasive tests (blood draws, colonoscopies, Lumbar Punctures) to gain evidence, cooked the data when it pointed AWAY from a link, set up businesses to profit from his scare-mongering about MMR (including creating his own vaccine), did not disclose his multiple conflicts of interest and finally, when given the option to perform a much larger study, stalled for years.
The proper studies have been done. The fact that you don't like the answers doesn't give you the right to reject them as being done by "vested interests" when they're not, or to say that they haven't been done.
In your response to my comment, you have proved my points.
One, you call people liars and "wrong" (De Niro suggests that we keep an open mind. Are you saying that that is wrong? If that is not what you mean, then what is "wrong"?).
Two, you assume that I don't like the answers of the studies that you cite. I did not state on which side of the argument I'm falling, but rather let's keep an open mind and ensure that studies are done by independent groups.
Third, you respond with a simple "false" that I say the studies are funded by vested interests. (I can come up with a lot of documentation on this, if you're interested.)
Finally, do you really think autism rates are not rising? Do you have your head stuck that far into the sand?
We could keep this dialog going, but I don't think you're mature enough to even have it. There is nothing scientific or open-minded about you. So ... keep on name-calling, it serves you well, and your fans here seem to love it.
Ah, so you're a tone troll. Good to know.
@Peg Futrell: since you apparently ignored Julian's lovely comment, I'll respond also.
One, you call people liars and “wrong” (De Niro suggests that we keep an open mind. Are you saying that that is wrong? If that is not what you mean, then what is “wrong”?). De Niro is suggesting we keep an open mind about vaccines causing autism. Numerous studies have shown that isn't true. Why should we keep testing this? My mind is open IF new studies done properly and published in peer-reviewed journals show something different. That's how science works.
Two, you assume that I don’t like the answers of the studies that you cite. I did not state on which side of the argument I’m falling, but rather let’s keep an open mind and ensure that studies are done by independent groups. OK. What's independent? Studies not done in the US? Done already. Vaccines don't cause autism. Studies not done by drug companies? Same result. Studies not done by ANY government funding? Try the open poll done by (IRRC) JB Handley's group which showed vaccines were actually protective. WHAT would you accept as a study that could actually pass an IRB board? How would you fund it? Who would do the study?
Third, you respond with a simple “false” that I say the studies are funded by vested interests. (I can come up with a lot of documentation on this, if you’re interested.) What vested interests? (see above) Are you actually claiming EVERY first world country has a vested interest in vaccines and thus falsifies results?
Finally, do you really think autism rates are not rising? Yes. We don't believe autism rate aren't rising. What we DO believe is that *diagnosis* of autism and related ASDs is improving. Note that in the UK when they did a survey, they found the same rate in older adults, who just didn't have official diagnoses as children. Do you have your head stuck that far into the sand? No, I'm sure, knowing Orac, that his head isn't stuck in the sand. However, I am sure that you will refuse to view all the evidence.
If you have an open mind, go to Matt Carey's blog (Left Brain, Right Brain), follow the links, and look at all the "whistleblower" documents that Matt obtained and made public. Which Wakefield, Hooker and all had MONTHS previous to Matt, and didn't make public. Maybe because they didn't want their lies exposed.
My kingdom for an edit function...
To clarify:
In a sense, every country *does* have a vested interest in vaccines. Vaccines protect their citizens and keep them healthy. But in Peg's sense of "financial interest", most countries don't have a vested interest.
And, to correct another statement:
"Yes. We don’t believe autism rate aren’t rising..." should be : Yes. We don't believe autism rate ARE rising...
For Peg Futrell:
In advocating for vaccines, I refuse to stigmatize autistic people.
Autism is a natural variation in being human.
Vaccines don't cause autism.There's no "debate" over vaccines and autism.
On the one hand, there's the overwhelming weight of the scientific evidence: vaccines are not causal in autism. On the other hand, there are people who passionately believe that vaccines cause autism.
The "vaccines cause autism" belief, while heartfelt, is erroneous and harmful.
This mistaken belief causes harm to autistic people in many ways. One example is that the focus on vaccine causation has diverted time, money, and social resources away from meeting the real needs of autistic people. Another is that the vaccine myth has lead parents to subject their children to harmful and useless "cures" such as bleach enemas, long courses of unneeded medications, and/or restrictive diets.
Dismissing positive studies due to vested interests then saying we need to be open about Hooker's and Wakefraud's work just blows my mind. Doublethink at its finest
No need to say anything else about Wakefraud but I wonder how many antis realize the main reason Hooker's reanalysis was retracted was because he failed to disclose his ongoing NVICP petition. He also serves on the board of an AV organization. He has a direct financial incentive to promote the autism-vaccine myth and appears serially incapable of disclosing it.
One, you call people liars and “wrong” (De Niro suggests that we keep an open mind. Are you saying that that is wrong? If that is not what you mean, then what is “wrong”?).
If somebody lies about something very important or lies several times, that person is a "liar" by definition. Wakefield's charts on his patients did not match what he wrote about those patients in his Lancet article. That is scientific fraud, aka lying.
If you take a test in a science class, some of your answers may be marked wrong. Because thanks to science human beings can sort answers that are much better than others. For example, we know the Earth travels around the Sun, not the other way around. And we know how vaccines work. And we know that it's just a coincidence that around age 2 is when kids get their early shots and learn to talk. Problems with social relatedness stand out more with new communication challenges.
PF seems unaware that research on the actual causes of autism has been derailed by the necessity of devoting mucho $$ and person-hours into debunking the damn MMR nonsense. The ethos of the comment appears to be that any question of fact on which a minimum number of people dissent from cnsensus ought to be approached with an open mind by everyone, no matter how fringey their numbers or justifications. I shan't ask what PF might exclude from this mandate, but I can rate a few 'controversies' myself:
• the sun revolves around a flat earth: EXCLUDE
• the first moon landing was faked by Stanley Kubrick: EXCLUDE
• Ted Cruz is Satan incarnate;Trump and Clinton are reptilian alien shape-shifters; DISCUSS
• the MMR causes autism: EXCLUDE
PF seems to be tone trolling the wrong website. There is no greater absence of open-mindedness than those whose unquestionable bedrock first principle is 'the vaccines damaged my child", and are blind to the harmful consequences of their ideology for autistics, as Liz notes above.
@sadmar: I do have questions about Cruz and Trump. Clinton...I think she's just one of Lord Draconis' hirelings.