Bogus "challenges" to prove the scientific consensus: The M.O. of a crank

Health Ranger issues “drink mercury” challenge to toxic vaccine pushers who poison infants for profit, in which he challenges “mercury vaccine pushers to simply drink a liter of the mercury of their choice and either prove it’s safe… or not.”

Adams being a gunlicking 2nd-Amendment firearms fetishist, I challenge him to simply eat the bullet of his choice and either prove it's safe... or not.

And then there's the case of _Dr._ Stefan Lanka, who offered €100.000 (about USD 106.000) to anyone presenting a scientific publication which proves the existence of the measles virus.

David Bardens, at the time a student of medicine, provided him with several publications, which together proved the existence of the virus, but Lanka ultimately won in court because formally a single publication was required instead of a conglomerate of papers.

Anti-vaxxers frame this as Lanka having challenged the "pro-vaccine establishment" and having won. Essentially, he has lost the case about the virus, but anti-vaxxers don't care. They never do.

With regards DeNiro, it's getting worse, now he wants to get in on Wakefields act by making another anti-vax 'documentary' .

http://www.indiewire.com/2016/05/robert-de-niro-on-vaccines-harvey-wein…

The comments are littered with Anti-Vax talking points.

"...you might want to rethink your strategy."

I think the company they keep is not a bug, it´s a feature.

[Adams] challenges “mercury vaccine pushers to simply drink a liter of the mercury of their choice and either prove it’s safe… or not.”

The dose makes the poison. I'm pretty sure a liter of some mercury-containing compound would be toxic, and I'm equally sure that Adams won't pay up for anything less. Even vaccines that still contain thimerosal would have several orders of magnitude less than that.

In 1970, a 6th grade punk in the neighborhood bet me $1 that I couldn't drink a 2-liter container of water in 15 minutes.

I won, I puked, and it wasn't worth it.

It was humiliating, a nickle here at dime there until finally I was fully compensated.

Anyone that uses money to intentionally cause misery or harm is immature and deviant.

Same as it ever was

Ah, the Talking Heads song ('Once in a Lifetime) ... yes, David Byrne's (and Brian Eno's) wonderfully surrealistic song and ditto video is somehow strangely appropriate for the twisted world view of antivaccine cranks, in particular when it comes to science and health... Although Byrne's rather spastic choreography may send the wrong message in this context...

Anyway, in my opinion, these "challenges" are not just bogus, they're utterly hypocritical as well: the antivaccine cranks demand a standard of evidence for the safety of vaccines that is in fact impossible to meet (even ignoring the totally rigged nature of these challenges), yet their own claims about vaccine damage etcetera are not supported by evidence at all, or at best a sort of "evidence" that can hardly be classified as the flimsiest imaginable.

They are the ones claiming that damage is done through vaccination, contrary to at least a century of scientific consensus. So it's up to them to come up with convincing evidence before demanding that the scientific world prove them wrong.

"[Adams] challenges “mercury vaccine pushers to simply drink a liter of the mercury of their choice and either prove it’s safe… or not.”

We should establish a Colloidal Silver Challenge - drink a liter of the stuff to prove you won't turn a permanent shade of blue-gray. Or imbibe a similar quantity of 35% "food grade" hydrogen peroxide. Woomeisters who won't take up these challenges are admitting the dangers!!!

I think a fair bit of energy for this kind of stuff grows out of the old Aids denialist challenge to produce a single paper that proves HIV causes the syndrome.

( Natural News, today via bing.com)

Dear old Mikey believes that his critics have been poisoned by meds, vaccines and fluoride** and therefore their scoffing is a harbinger of the coming collapse of everything.

Only the pure can hear his message or suchlike.

He even adds a Bible verse.

Perhaps he'll now focus on 'preparedness' and survivalism.

I hear so much of this on prn.fm.

The tactic: *Scare them then Sell them Stuff*
Lots of crappy purification products, supplements to combat toxins, videos about surviving the coming storm.

** at least he didn't write 'flouride'

I wonder if you or a reader could contrast these bogus challenges to the Randi Foundations challenge. I have no doubt there is a difference, but it would be an addition to my skeptic education if this could be pointed out.

edit: foundation’s

(when will I learn to proofread?)

According to Mikey**, his critics have been turned into *animals* ***- REPTILES even!

No, we merely work for them.

** I believe that I was the first to call him 'MIkey'
*** actually, we are animals.

I still wonder if Kennedy knew what kind of tradition he is following and what kind of company he is placing himself in.

Someone also posted this counter challenge on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheSkepChef/photos/a.791733664294785.107374182…

I believe that woo-meisters ( like DJT) need to stir up controversies on a near-daily basis accusing everyone of nearly everything that is corrupt, criminal and despicable
IN ORDER to get readers/ viewers eyes off of their scurvy activities and BS.

readers'/ viewers'

I wonder if you or a reader could contrast these bogus challenges to the Randi Foundations challenge.

One important difference is that the terms of James Randi's One Million Dollar Challenge were open for negotiation between applicants and the James Randi Educational Foundation, as opposed to the unilateral and rather onerous terms stipulated by these antivaccine cranks.
Also, no financial barriers were set up; instead, applicants were simply asked to provide preliminary 'credentials' in the form of at least a local reputation and support from at least one academic source. No doubt, others can point out several more differences (e.g. unbiased judgment of test results).
To my knowledge, not one of approximately a thousand candidates over the years contested the fairness of the challenge, even though they invariably failed the test.

And oh, another important difference is the overall nature of the challenge: the JREF challenge was relatively simple, usuallly asking to demonstrate a single positive (e.g. correctly dowsing 8 out of 10 hidden objects or something like that), whereas this antivaccine challenge demands proof of a universal negative (safety can only be defined as the absence of harm), defined in vague wording ('safe' is not a precise qualification at all), in the form of just one study, no less.

Dear old Mikey believes that his critics have been poisoned by meds, vaccines and fluoride

Obviously Gen. Ripper--I mean Mr. Adams--is concerned about our precious bodily fluids.

What better way to diffuse the issue of the safety of injecting mercury than to jumble it in with nonsense? Like drinking vaccines (ridiculous false equivalency); "climate science denialism" (doublespeak--no one denies climate science, they just disagree about what it proves); and biblical creationism versus Darwinian theory (false dialectic--there are many other possibilities).

The lesson: don't challenged so-called "consensus science" (two incompatible terms combined to imply indisputable truth). If you do, you'll be laughed at. "OMG, no--anything but that!" Derision is a primary tool of thought control. But hey, I guess you gotta work with what you have. :D

"Derision is a primary tool of thought control. But hey, I guess you gotta work with what you have."

Which is all you have. Oddly enough you failed to control my thoughts with it. So much for your hypothesis.

@Dorit Reiss -- The safety of injecting mercury has nothing whatsoever to do with the so-called "consensus" on climate and human history, and your assertion about "gambits" that "can't win on the merits" is false. You are employing the same strategy employed in this article. It's interesting that a relatively minor challenge to the vaccine paradigm, like eliminating mercury, is facing such ferocious opposition--considering RFK is staunchly pro-vaccine.

Lolita Shrugged (THE MYTH OF AGE-SPECIFIC MATURITY)

I have held off commenting on this because it's tangential at best to the subject of the thread, but this caught my eye right away when I first read the post this morning. I don't doubt that, e.g., certain women are more sexually mature at 16 than certain other women are at 18, but the analogy to Nabokov is way off base, for at least two reasons:
1. Lolita is only 12 years old. There is a reason the age of consent is higher than that in most jurisdictions that have one.
2. More importantly, Humbert is Lolita's stepfather. That's inappropriate no matter how old she is (cf. Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn).
I haven't read Doubleday's book (and don't think I want to), so I don't know for sure that Doubleday was making a case for incest, but that's the appearance this book title gives.

@NWO Reporter

It’s interesting that a relatively minor challenge to the vaccine paradigm, like eliminating mercury...

Um, in cause you haven't noticed: thimerosal was eliminated from all or virtually all childhood vaccines in 2001. The effects of this measure became exceedingly clear in the years to follow: none whatsoever. There was no noticeable change in children's health whatsoever, including the autism ratio.
This alone is very solid proof that the 'mercury' in vaccines had no significant effects on the health of children, and that RFK's 'challenge' is not just disingenuous, but in fact plain stupid. The evidence he is demanding has already been delivered in vast abundance in the past fifteen years.

considering RFK is staunchly pro-vaccine.

Well, he could have fooled me...

Richard:

There was no noticeable change in children’s health whatsoever, including the autism ratio.

Actually, that's not true. There was a change -- the autism rate has continued to rise, which of course the autism alarmists have continued to hype despite the fact that it even more soundly defeats their fretting about mercury in vaccines. Whatever is causing the rise in diagnoses*, it's clearly not mercury. Anyone who still insists it must be is therefore clearly not interested in the real cause of autism; they just want to prove their pet theory correct.

*Increased surveillance, greater willingness to diagnose "edge" cases, diagnostic substitution, greater focus on keeping kids in school rather than letting them drop out, a more intensive environment making the condition more disabling than it used to be, maybe even an actual increase in incidence due to increased parental age and so forth, etc.

Derision is a primary tool of thought control.

This is exactly backwards. Derision is a tool typically employed to fight against people in comfortable if not powerful positions doing ridiculous things, like offering a reward they have no intention of paying. Which is what RFK Jr. is doing here. Or insisting that news linking him to Russia is fake and the people leaking the information should be punished, as Donald Trump is doing.

There are people who try to use derision as a tool for bullying, but that hardly ever works. Humor is much more effective when it punches up than when it punches down.

RFK has stated unequivocally many times that he is a strong believer in vaccines

Actions speak louder than words. RFK Jr. may claim to be pro-vaccine, but he acts like an anti-vaxxer. Whom should I believe: RFK or my lying eyes?

I thought I would take a look at what would happen if you were to drink a liter of elemental mercury. The first issue is that a liter of mercury basically weighs 30 pounds. 30 pounds is a little much for your stomach at one time.

From MedlinePlus:
ELEMENTAL MERCURY

Elemental mercury is usually harmless if it is touched or swallowed. It is so thick and slippery that it usually falls off the skin or leaves the stomach and intestines without being absorbed.

You will have problems if you inhale minute droplets of mercury.

A person could drink a liter of mercury (of your choice) not have mercury poisoning. Drinking it would not be pleasant for reasons I think we can all imagine.

Mikey you loose as usual.

What better way to diffuse the issue of the safety of injecting mercury than to jumble it in with nonsense? Like drinking vaccines (ridiculous false equivalency);

This comment may have some relevance if anyone was injecting mercury. But no-one is.

@NWO Reporter, #28

thimerosal is still contained in flu vaccines given to children, pregnant woman and other adults

Only the flu vaccines in multidose vials still contain thimerosal. The vast majority of children receive the 0.5 ml single dose variety. And in lots of countries including here in the Netherlands, thimerosal has never been used in childhood vaccines; yet here too, autism and other disorders are just as prevalent as they are in the US. So it is very safe to state that no, thimerosal in vaccines has no effect on children's health.

RFK has stated unequivocally many times that he is a strong believer in vaccines...

Yes, I know that. But then could you explain why he does very stupid things such as offer this bogus 'challenge' which only serve to undermine the public's trust in vaccines? And also please note that politicians are not exactly known for their truthfulness -- especially the one presently residing in the White House and those hobnobbing with aforementioned specimen.

I'd also point out that the overall uptake of the Flu vaccine is extremely low, compared to vaccines like the MMR & DTaP (neither of which use preservatives, at all).

So, you have low uptake, along with a very small percentage receiving the Flu vaccine from multi-dose vials...again, I have no idea what RFK JR's point is.

@Calli Arcale, #29
Well, yes, the number of ASD diagnoses kept rising unabatedly, so yes, that is change. But it is of course clear what I mean: abandoning thimerosal in the vast majority of childhood vaccines was not followed by any sudden change in the state of health or health trends.

NWO Reporter" "It’s interesting that a relatively minor challenge to the vaccine paradigm, like eliminating mercury, is facing such ferocious opposition"

RFK Jr. is criticized because he (like you) leaves a false impression that mercury pervades the childhood vaccine schedule, when in reality only one vaccine (multidose flu) still contains it, most kids get the single-dose version, and thimerosal has not been shown to have any detrimental health effects anyway.*

Lying and obfuscation are tools of thought control that antivaxers should stop using.

*just let it go, like the many antivaxers that have gone on to other vaccine "toxins" like aluminum, casein, albumin, sucrose, aborted baby parts, rusty auto parts, eye of newt etc.

Ignoring the fact, also, that even back in the day, the vast majority of vaccines never used it in the first place.

Can you tell us Lawrence, why it was used at all?

If you had the choice of using Thimerosal or phenol, what would you choose and why?

Go away Travis - you're boring.

A person could drink a liter of mercury (of your choice) not have mercury poisoning. Drinking it would not be pleasant for reasons I think we can all imagine.

IIRC, people drank mercury (in smaller quantities) in the Renaissance years, to treat constipation. The idea was that anything that heavy was going to go *somewhere*, and anything in the way would come out first. Then you could retrieve the Hg from the chamberpot, wash it, and save it for next time (Renaissance cuisisne had a lot to answer for).

How much this contributed to the general craziness of the Renaissance intellectual milieu is a moot point.

I hope this doesn't go on at Renaissance Faires.

As for your deep conviction that injecting mercury is safe, well…I guess you should have no problem claiming that $100k. The terms of the challenge do not seem particularly onerous.

Exactly. Injecting mercury cannot possibly be safe. This would lead to Minamata's of the brain.

biblical creationism versus Darwinian theory (false dialectic–there are many other possibilities).

How cute... NWO Troll pretends to believe the Creationist theocrats when they pretend to only want intellectual diversity. Remember when they tried to rebrand their creationist textbooks as "Intelligent Design" and screwed up the search-&-replace?

The rival schools of thought are
1. Gradual changes of species through inherited variations; or
2. A powerful magical fairy did it.

If you knew anything about how vaccines are shipped, stored, and used in the field, you'd know that the "vast majority" of vaccines in the 3rd World "don't" use Thimerosal either.

It is still used in some, because there is currently no other method to get vaccines to some of the worst places on Earth, where electricity is scarce to non-existent.

And most, if not all, pharmacies, carry both multi-vial and single dose flu vaccines.

In California, for instance, all of the Flu vaccines are single dose, by law.

The "terms" as have been explained above, are Bullshit.

Basically, RFK Jr. decides who wins.

That's not a "challenge," it's a con.

Derision is a primary tool of thought control.

No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapons are sarcasm. Dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and satire...

No, wait, that doesn't sound right.

Could somebody who reads Japanese better than I do tell us what our kana-nymmed friend claims to be? I discovered that I don't have Asian character sets enabled on this computer.

I agree that he is almost certainly a troll.

"Harte" or "Haruto"

It is still used in some, because there is currently no other method to get vaccines to some of the worst places on Earth, where electricity is scarce to non-existent.

No other way to distribute vaccines besides spiking them with Thimerosal?

Okay Lawrence.

Type that comment into your computer using C++ and watch it explode.

Linus Pauling facepalms in his grave over comments like that.

Anyone who receives a flu vaccine at a drug store–which many do–will typically received the multi-dose vaccine, and they are given elsewhere as well.

False. The vast majority of flu jabs available are thiomersal-free. Pharmacies carry primarily single dose jabs. Children and pregnant women receive primarily, if not exclusively thiomersal-free jabs. You'd be very hard-pressed to find someone who has received a TCV.

Oh and Travis Schwochert, you aren't doing your job search any favour by continuing to post comments here and anywhere else.

It's Haruto.

Pretending that Thimerosal is the only way to preserve vaccines is weapons-grade stupid.

Fukushima-grade stupid.

Again, Travis just go away.

Spend some time talking to someone from "Doctors without Borders" - ask them how they get vaccines to most of the places where they operate (Syria, Somalia, Afghanistan, etc).

Places where you'd be lucky if you could find cold storage within 100 miles of where ever you were at....

But still, most vaccines (including the MMR - which is vital in the 3rd World) requires no preservative.....

No, it's Travis-troll.

Go away.

Lawrence! There are dozens of other preservatives!

One of the most disingenuous lines that pro-vaxxers take is implying that Thimerosal served a function that could not have been served better by something else.

It was negligent from the start.

Looks like our latest troll (or latest incarnation of Fendlesworth, if that's what he is) is projecting like a multiplex theater. Nobody is saying that thimerosal is the only way to preserve vaccines. It is used when preferred methods such as cool storage are not available.

Believe it or not, there are places in the world where reliable electric service is not available. For instance, war zones: war tends to do nasty things to infrastructure.[1] The people who live there don't need preventive health care any less than us first worlders.

And then he tops it off by invoking Linus "Vitamin C Cures Everything" Pauling.

[1]Old engineering joke: Civil engineers don't build weapons systems. They build targets.

Do you get the thimerosal-free version for your children, Science Mom? Do you think it matters?

For the record, I always get a thimerosal-free version, because that is all that I am offered.

Nobody is saying that thimerosal is the only way to preserve vaccines.

His "original" trip was "phenoxyalcohol," before things devolved into utter self-debasement.

And then he tops it off by invoking Linus “Vitamin C Cures Everything” Pauling.

I don't think he went quite that far, but you should listen to quantum chemists when it comes to molecules.

Just because the cardiologists didn't want to abandon their little con game for a cheap molecule doesn't mean you have to ridicule the man. There is no indication that would lead me to believe that Pauling is incorrect in his assessment of the ætiology of cardiovascular disease.

You should read his Journal articles before you ridicule him. His quantum mechanical treatment of hybrid bond geometry proves that he was not a flake, but a very hard-headed scientist.

Sorry, but this particular "quantum chemist" seems to know nothing about actual biology.

Go away Travis.

Derision is a primary tool of thought control.

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a motley-clad court jester waving a bladder-onna-stick at a human face -- forever.

Ewan McGregor did an interesting documentary following the cold chain through India up into Nepal. Showed the difficulties faced trying to get vaccines to some of the really remote villages.

Meanwhile, no crank signs are given off by professors who misrepresent COIs to university IRBs: http://tinyurl.com/jexto5s

Here, Jake, have a bladder-onna-stick!

Young Master Crosby is using a tinyurl to link to his own silly blog.

The Gnat buzzes and annoys. It's what gnats do.

Young Master Crosby is using a tinyurl to link to his own silly blog.

The Gnat being The Gnat and getting around certain spam filters. Bad Gnat.

you should listen to quantum chemists when it comes to molecules

You wouldn't know a basis set from a CGI'd talking urethra, Fucklesworth.

I always wondered what's a gnat :)

Wonder no more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnat

Interesting critter :D

Al

But anyway:

Nobody is saying that thimerosal is the only way to preserve vaccines. It is used when preferred methods such as cool storage are not available.

The only relation between these two things is that multidose vials put less of a strain on the cold chain.

I have to say, that picture at the top of the post with RFK Jnr in front of a "National Press Club" sign, that is the ugliest-ass kerning I have seen for a long time.
You would think that the NPC could afford a half-competent typographer. Please make it go away.

Orac - Pardon the digression, but check out the current "special issue" of National Geographic on the news stands and supermarket checkout lines. "Home Remedies." With a big bowl of pretty herbs & flowers on the cover. And plenty of articles that appear to tout quackery & BS. I didn't bother to look inside while I was on the checkout line because a) didn't have my glasses and b) didn't want to be seen reading dreck (yah, "coward!", guilty as charged).

Don't let it cause you to ditch this forum (for anyone who doesn't know, this site is owned by National Geographic). Better to do a scathing takedown; presumably TPTB won't retaliate because you have the biggest audience of anyone on this site. (I'll bet that two of the tactics used in the magazine are "both-siderism" and "self-serving questions.")

@ 60 Eric Lund

And then he tops it off by invoking Linus “Vitamin C Cures Everything” Pauling.

You mean the only person as far as I am aware to be awarded to single person Nobel Prizes in Chemistry? Or in any field, I believe.

He did go emeritus over Vitamin C but he was, apparently, an absolutely brilliant chemist. We tend to forget that because he made a fool of himself over Vitamin C.

@Alain: gnats are only interesting under glass. Otherwise they are just small annoying buzzy things. Like Jake. How amusing that he still has a bee in his bonnet about Orac.

C'mon, Jake, can't you investigate the real criminals like Suzanne Humphries or Sherry Tenpenny? People who advocate abuse and injury to austistic persons?

@Eric Lund: Pauling was pretty brilliant when it came to chemistry. However, he did go bats*** crazy over Vitamin C, even when studies showed it didn't do what he claimed it did. IIRC, double-blinded studies showed it *may* reduce the length of a cold by a day or so. But it didn't have any of the other wonderful effects that its proponents claim it does.

Do you get the thimerosal-free version for your children, Science Mom? Do you think it matters?

It's all we've ever been offered. In fact that's all that was on campus during uni flu jab drives years ago. But it doesn't matter to me because I know what a piteously small amount of thiomersal is in a jab.

You mean the only person as far as I am aware to be awarded to single person Nobel Prizes in Chemistry? Or in any field, I believe.

Lots of people have won single person Nobel Prizes. Literature is almost always awarded to a single person, and the Peace Prize is frequently awarded to a single person or organization. It's less common these days for the science Nobels to be awarded to a single person, but looking at the list of all winners, I see the following single winner science prizes just in the last ten years:
2016, Physiology or Medicine, Yoshinori Ohsumi "for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy"
2015, Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Science, Angus Deaton "for his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare"
2014, Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Science, Jean Tirole "for his analysis of market power and regulation"
2011, Chemistry, Dan Shechtman "for the discovery of quasicrystals"
2010, Physiology or Medicine, Robert G. Edwards "for the development of in vitro fertilization"
2007, Chemistry, Gerhard Ertl "for his studies of chemical processes on solid surfaces"
Single winner awards were more common in the early days of the Nobel Prizes. Physics last had a single winner in 1992 with Georges Charpak "for his invention and development of particle detectors, in particular the multiwire proportional chamber" (the Chemistry award that year was also to a single person, Rudolph A. Marcus "for his contributions to the theory of electron transfer reactions in chemical systems", as was the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Science, Gary S. Becker "for having extended the domain of microeconomic analysis to a wide range of human behaviour and interaction, including nonmarket behaviour"). All of the 1971 Nobel Prizes were awarded to single individuals, the most recent year this has happened.

@80 Eric Lund

I think the second "to" in your quoted sentence was meant to be "two" which gives a slightly different slant on it. If so jrkrideau was nearly correct. Apparently Linus Pauling is the only person to have won two unshared Nobel prizes. He won the prize for chemistry in 1954 (for his work on the chemical bond) and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962 in recognition of his peace activism. He was certainly a brilliant chemist but, as mentioned above, he went "emeritus" over vitamin C, biology being outside his area of expertise.

@NWO Reporter

You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that thimerosal accumulates. It doesn't.

Not only doesn't it accumulate, but again, most Flu vaccines are single dose, which doesn't contain Thimerosal anyway.

Seriously, what an idiot.

Some of the conversation about Linus Pauling is hilarious. He wins a Nobel Prize, thereby demonstrating his brilliance within the approved paradigm...but as soon as he steps outside the approved paradigm, he's a crank. Does it ever occur to any of you who are disrespecting his work that you aren't brilliant enough to pass judgment on it? But who am I kidding...you have plenty of "experts" within the approved paradigm from whom to regurgitate an opinion. :D

So, which vaccines used internationally still use Thimerosal, if you're so smart?

Sir Isaac Newton spent the last years of his life trying to prove that Alchemy was real....

Genius is no guarantee against quackery.

Some of the conversation about Linus Pauling is hilarious. He wins a Nobel Prize, thereby demonstrating his brilliance within the approved paradigm…but as soon as he steps outside the approved paradigm, he’s a crank. Does it ever occur to any of you who are disrespecting his work that you aren’t brilliant enough to pass judgment on it?

It's as common as dirt for Nobelists to go emeritus. Does it ever occur to you that there may have been a long time between his work that was honored and his babbling about vitamin C? Or so much as to see how it's held up since he shuffled off the mortal coil? The references in How to Feel Better and Live Longer were quite underwhelming, as I recall, but it's in storage.

A “piteously small amount”…multiplied by a yearly vaccine from age 6 months to 80 years. Hmm…makes sense. If given a choice, why not go for the thimerosal-containing version–I’m sure you could request it. You could use your child to prove a point…assuming he elected to continue with the plan as an adult. What could possibly go wrong?

You're ignorant. You haven't proven any harm from thiomersal-containing vaccines and put up a flaming strawman when you couldn't paint me into a corner. We all have had plenty of TCVs numpty and thiomersal doesn't accumulate like that. By the by, less thiomersal and a higher autism prevalence; it's a complete non-starter.

It shuld also be noted tha Krebiozen recounted his testing it out on more than one occasion. I leave it to someone wiho's less stressed out and actually has a working machine to dig up the best version.

The mere fact that a famous and brilliant scientist said something - regardless of the evidence for or against - is not actionable evidence, period. You're talking to the grown-ups now.

Seriously. Elementary fallacy, one of the first ones taught in any critical thinking course. Pathetic.

NWO - you're not serious, certainly not brilliant. You don't understand the elementary concepts of evidence. I know this will make your head explode, but if someone pulled out the same fallacy in favour of a position I agreed with, I'd say the same thing. Rationality is topic-independent and certainly not decided by a 'star system'.

If given a choice, why not go for the thimerosal-containing version–I’m sure you could request it.

Your assuredness is misplaced. I always request extra mercury, and nobody has multtidose vials. This is unsurprising, as they, y'know, expire after opening, so the only place one is likely to find them is at a large-scale event. Neither pharmacists nor the local university medical center has had them for me.

"Unless you’re a child in a poor third world country. But who cares about them anyway, right?"

Certainly not antivaxers, who trivialize measles as a minor ailment, when it still kills about 135,000 children every year (way down from when it used to kill 2.6 million a year, before widespread measles vaccination was instituted).

I also ask for extra thimerosal each year when I go in for my flu shot, but they only have the single-dose version available. :(

for anyone who doesn’t know, this site is owned by National Geographic

No, it is and has always been owned by Seed Media. The partnership with NatGeo was short-lived.

@NWO: if thimerosol was so bad for you, many, many of my generation (1960s) would have been autistic, since Merthiolate (TM) was the antiseptic of choice for most households and was slapped liberally on any open wound (not counting the times we used it to differentiate the "Indians" from the "Cowboys" by painting it all over any exposed skin we had. It was used copiously. Yet, weirdly, very few of my generation had autism diagnoses.

We had plenty of "weird" or "retarded" kids, but no autistic ones. Gee...wonder what happened to the kids who were either "weird" or "retarded"? You might actually think the diagnostic criteria changed or something...

since Merthiolate (TM) was the antiseptic of choice for most households and was slapped liberally on any open wound (not counting the times we used it to differentiate the “Indians” from the “Cowboys” by painting it all over any exposed skin we had. It was used copiously. Yet, weirdly, very few of my generation had autism diagnoses.

Missing the right parenthesis.
Are you seriously asking us to believe that you painted your face with merthiolate?
Are you thinking about mercurochrome?

I’d agree thimerasol is certainly not the only, or even the worst, perpetrator of brain injury from vaccines. Autism can be one manifestation of it, certainly not the only one, but it’s a diagnosis of behavior, not of brain injury.

You just contradicted yourself. Encephalitis on the order of ~1:1mil doses of vaccines (primarily MMR) is the only "brain injury" resulting. You know what causes far more "brain injuries" than that?

but as soon as he steps outside the approved paradigm, he’s a crank.

The reality is, each branch of science has a lot of knowledge that can only be acquired by years of intense study in that field. A photoplasty contest on the Cracked Website described it.

REAL SCIENTISTS
This paper is on phytoplankton and my specialty is zooplankton.
Better call Professor Joad as that's his field.

FICTIONAL SCIENTISTS
This is biochemistry and I'm an astrophysicist.
Eh, I got this.

@Narad, I'm really worried about Krebiozen. The last time he commented was one year ago.
Literally. His very last comment is dated February 28, 2016.

but as soon as he steps outside the approved paradigm, he’s a crank.

The reality is, each branch of science has a lot of knowledge that can only be acquired by years of intense study in that field. A photoplasty contest on the Cracked Website described it.

I don't see how this follows. You are merely stating the obvious.
People who have original theories are not necessarily branded a quack just for that reaso; this word is reserved for competitors of the AMA and does not necessarily mean that the person has been prove wrong.
Some of the most effective healers of cancer are quacks, by definition.
I would take a quack over a maimstream oncologist anyday, and you should too.

"Ridicule is the first and last argument of a fool."

You know, we have these things called MRIs - which allow us to create very detailed images of human brains.....and identify actual "brain damage."

Autism isn't "brain damage."

Forgive my typos above; the "n" key on my keyboard is a bit choppy.

(too much searching for the word "porn" no doubt!)

Funny - the people we see who went to "quacks" don't seem to live very long or well, for that matter.

Yet, the people I know who received conventional treatments are alive and well today.

To give NWO credit. He/she is the first one to imply that a scientist might just know more about their field than A.N.Other and ten minutes on Google.

I don’t see how this follows. You are merely stating the obvious.

The fact that Linus Pauling won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry twice does not automatically mean that he knew what he was talking about when he mentioned Vitamin C as a Panacea. That was my point.

People who have original theories are not necessarily branded a quack just for that reaso; this word is reserved for competitors of the AMA and does not necessarily mean that the person has been prove wrong.

It means that, according to our current state of knowledge, their hypothesis is dubious, to put it politely.

Some of the most effective healers of cancer are quacks, by definition.

Give examples.

Measles was never considered "benign."

It was considered inevitable...it was so contagious that it was a forgone conclusion that every child would eventually catch it & since there was no treatment (until the wide-spread use of antibiotics, which allowed for the control of secondary infections and pneumonia, which was common in cases of measles), parents just had to hope and pray that their child wasn't one who died, or went deaf or blind.

Then there is the pesky SSPE - a 100% fatal complication of measles which occurs in around 1 in 2000 or 3000 cases. It still kills kids today.

Of course, modern medicine could keep kids alive better. Even Iron Lungs could keep people from dying of Polio - but it wasn't until vaccines that we could actually prevent people from being infected in the first place.

I'm always amazed at the ignorance of people like you, who obviously no nothing about immunology, biology or even medical history.

I am also amazed that anti-vaxers consider a disease "benign" which, even today in western countries, kills around 1 in 1000 people who get it...and also has the added benefit of causing SSPE, which is 100% fatal.

And, of course, this anti-vaxer (like all of them) doesn't appear to know the difference between mortality and morbidity.

More amazing BS from the anti-vaxer.

Here's something most anti-vaxers don't get - even contracting measles is no guarantee of lifelong immunity. Between 8 - 10% of those who contract the disease won't sero-convert, which means they can get the disease again.

Also, if the vaccine wasn't effective, explain how we went from hundreds of thousands of cases per year (in the US) to effectively having zero domestic cases per year.

And let's talk about the hundreds of schools for the deaf and blind, which are no longer needed.....childhood diseases like the measles and mumps were the #1 case of pediatric deafness and blindness.

Funny, don't see too many schools for the deaf and blind around anymore.

Yes, it is rather silly Travis - quoting a paper that's nearly 40 years old.

Go away.

And yet the anti-vaxer shows that he doesn't know the difference between a reported adverse event & a side effect.

He's batting 1000 on the anti-vaxer idiocy scale.

According to the manufacturer’s insert for the MMR vaccine, serious adverse reactions that have occurred following vaccination...

Argument by Package Insert? Seriously? Just because an adverse event is mentioned in a Package Insert doesn't mean that the vaccine caused the adverse event, just that the adverse event occurred within a certain time of the vaccination. Package Inserts are CYA Documents written by lawyers, and have to include adverse events reported, even when there is no good evidence that the vaccine caused the event in question.

Go away Travis - this got old a long time ago.

“Ridicule is the first and last argument of a fool.”
--John Peer

“One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent.”
―H. L. Mencken

According to the manufacturer’s insert for the MMR vaccine, serious adverse reactions that have occurred following vaccination include (among others):

And you don't know how to read a package insert either. Hint: "reported" =/= "causal". Measles was not benign for crying out loud. In the U.S alone measles mortality has been ~1-3/1000 cases, which translates to ~4-5k deaths/year prior to the introduction of the vaccine. That doesn't include SSPE which is 100% fatal.

So, these same Pharma Companies you believe are part of some huge conspiracy, just happen to list all of these bad things on the most public documents available?

Wow, some conspiracy.

Again, you have no idea what the difference is between a reported adverse event listed on the insert and a real side effect, do you?

And Travis, f@ck off.

And why would parents take their children to the doctor for a disease with no treatment available?

And I've read the available public health data - made available through Project Tycho.

Perhaps you should do the same, before making asinine comments.

re Linus Pauling

One of the woo-meisters I survey claims to have had a close relationship to LP wherein he learned about the many benefits of overdosi... I mean using MEGAdoses of vitamins to cure just about everything. ( -btw- IIRC, Pauling died of cancer)

- Supposedly, they both did research at the Institute for Applied Biology ( which may or may have ever existed) involving chemotherapy.
- Later, the woo-meister enlisted physicians and nurses as enablers to help cancer and hiv/aids patients to overdose on vitamin C via IV.
- AFAIK this practice continues under the auspices of the infamous woo-nurse, Luanne Pennesi of NY ( website Metropolitan Health)

*Excusez-moi*
that's Metropolitan WELLNESS

Except that many cases of measles were never even reported by that time, because it had become such a benign disease, many parents never even sought medical care.

Do you even know the difference between morbidity and mortality?

BTW, hint: Don’t try to convince parents they shouldn’t pay any attention to the adverse events listed on the manufacturer’s vaccine insert. It makes you sound like a psychopath.

Did you even read the package insert and clinical trials where that information was derived? All events have to be reported whether they are caused by the vaccine or not. Are you seriously going to claim that diabetes is caused by MMR? Typical antivaxxer.

But, nice try. BTW, hint: Don’t try to convince parents they shouldn’t pay any attention to the adverse events listed on the manufacturer’s vaccine insert. It makes you sound like a psychopath.

dithii@gmail.com
February 28, 2017
Richard Gere name his asshamster “Lawrence”.

Anyone doing a search, the above comment was made by Travis Schwochert of Endeavor, Wisconsin.

Borked my blockquote in #132

According to the manufacturer’s insert for the MMR vaccine, serious adverse reactions that have occurred following vaccination include [long list redacted]

You fell for one of the classic blunders. The best known is, never get involved in a land war in Asia. But almost as well known is this: Just because B occurs after A does not mean that A causes B. This one is so old it has a Latin name: Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Some of the conditions listed might have plausible causal connections to the vaccine, but many of them do not, and some of the ones that do have other possible causes as well.

And even when an adverse event leads to a payout by the Vaccine Court, remember that the standards of evidence in the Vaccine Court are significantly lower than in regular courts, as Orac has explained repeatedly. In regular civil court, you have to show by preponderance of evidence that the vaccine produced the adverse event, and the defense would be able to introduce evidence that other things may have caused the event. In Vaccine Court, IIRC, you only have to prove a plausible causal relationship.

Any and all "adverse events" are required to be reported as part of the manufacturers insert, as it is a legal document, not a scientific one.

In fact, broken bones would be required to be reported on the insert as well.

And all adverse events are noted and tracked, to see if they are related. Which is why we not only have VAERS, but the Vaccine Safety datalink, which is an active reporting system as well.

And also why follow up studies are done. In fact, the safety tracking systems are so sensitive, that researchers were able to determine that the original Rotavirus vaccine was responsible for one additional serious adverse event, per 100,000 doses, which was enough to have the vaccine withdrawn from the market.

"Your comment is incredibly deceptive. “"

No. Yours is. You only mentioned VEARS, Lawrence mentioned VEARS and the Vaccine Safety Link.

In fact, broken bones would be required to be reported on the insert as well.

What? I am getting brain damage just reading this guy's comments.

Okay, idiot - two things you got wrong there.

1) The CDC admits no such thing. The information cited by anti-vaxers is actually related to adverse events for medication, nothing about vaccines.

In fact, serious adverse events are "more" likely to be reported, not less. The events not likely to be reported include, soreness at the injection site & a fever lasting less than a day, which constitutes the bulk of events that occur after vaccination.

And as I stated above, VAERS is merely one system used to track vaccine safety (in fact, it was VAERS reports which started the investigation into the Rotavirus vaccine).

The Vaccine Safety Datalink is an active system, which is utilized by medical professionals and care networks around the country.

You also appear not to have ever read a VIS - which is given by every doctor to every patient receiving a vaccine. Not only is VAERS specifically mentioned, but the NVICP is also mentioned, specifically. And each and every patient is required to be given the VIS, by law.

And even before a vaccine is approved, it is required to go through the exact same clinical trial process for any drug - which includes multiple testing phases, of which phase I & phase II are specifically designed for safety testing.

Anti-vaxers claim they have "researched" but you really are incredibly ignorant about basic facts regarding vaccines and vaccine tracking.

Go away Travis - your constant harping just shows desperation.

And yes, all adverse events reported during clinical trials are required to be reported and listed, including car accidents, broken bones, and even drownings (whether they are related to the drug in question or not).

And perhaps you should read the fine print on the insert, which explains it all anyway.

@Lawrence von Ribbentrop
But to imply that something so biologically implausible as broken bones could actually be listed on a vaccine label is just ridiculous.

No doubt there were car accidents after vaccinations. There is no declared risk of auto accidents on the vaccine inserts. The adverse events need more proof (or at least plausibility) than simple association.

You're trying to make a mockery out of the anti-vaccine movement.

The fact is, many people have died following vaccinations. This is not a laughing matter; there is no need to ridicule our position.

Go away Travis.

And just take a look at the VAERS reports for "deaths" for Gardisil, for instance.

There are few of them - listings for drownings, falling down a well, and even death by car accident.

Tell me, which of those is plausibly linked to getting vaccinated?

And yes, all reported adverse events during clinical trials are required to be included, whether plausible or not.

Something else anti-vaxers don't understand or just don't care to understand.

That's why they are called "reported adverse events" and not side effects.

Oh, and I don't have to make a mockery of the anti-vax movement.

They do fine all on their own.

You’re trying to make a mockery out of the anti-vaccine movement.
That hardly seems necessary.

Tell me, which of those is plausibly linked to getting vaccinated?

What did I just say?

NWO @140: You said " and many parents don’t even know it exists." That's funny, I was just looking at the vaccine information sheets for several vaccines and *all* of them listed both the likely side-effects, the unlikely but serious side effects and the VAERS website and phone number with instructions to report any and all side effects.

So if parents don't know it exists it's not for lack of trying on the part of VAERS, the vaccine manufacturers and doctors.

I searched for Gardasil on VAERS and found 1,330 instances of death.

Probably because like listen to idiots like NWO above, instead of doing real research.

Poor Lawrence is making a mockery of himself. According to the FDA, the Adverse Reaction section on the vaccine insert includes events “for which there is some basis to believe there is a causal relationship between the drug and the occurrence of the adverse event.” But by all means, link us to an insert that lists "car accident" or "drowning." It surely could not make vaccines look worse than they already do. :D

I was watching a program about the folklore of Britain and one of the things that struck me was the belief in "changelings", which were fairy children who replaced your child after it was stolen by the fairies.
Among the ways that you could tell your child had been replaced by a changeling was changes in behavior or odd behaviors or physical disabilities.

And I wondered how many of these "changelings" were kids with SSPE? Behavioral changes, sickliness, physical degradation, that sounds like it could have been SSPE (or a whole lot of other things).

NWO Reporter, were you vaccinated as a child? If so, for what? Are there any vaccines that you would take now if there was a clear risk of exposure to the disease?

“for which there is some basis to believe there is a causal relationship between the drug and the occurrence of the adverse event.”

Exactly! Nice find. All Lawrence does is put on his spinny-propeller-hat and goes "Woo!"; he contrives a ridiculous scenario in order to take the edge off the gravity of the situation, among other things.

Ridiculous. I bet he get's paid to do this. Two people who comment here have IP addresses within one mile of the CDC in Atlanta. I can verify this.

Uh, Luna, aren't there thousands of people with IP addresses within a mile of the CDC? You know, like, the rest of Atlanta?

I highly doubt the people who work at the Coke factory are some kind of magic shills for the CDC.

https://hub.ucsf.edu/sites/hub.ucsf.edu/files/6.%20Adverse%20Eventsd%20…

Not a bad description....and just ignore Travis. He wouldn't know sh*t from shinola.

Or, idiot, those parents had these diseases themselves & didn't want their kids to get it, or had relations die of or be harmed by these diseases before vaccines were available.

In my family tree, we had a great aunt who died of Diphtheria, a distant cousin who died of measles, and a few others who contracted & were paralyzed by Polio.

Sorry, but your "research" probably consists of sporadic visits to Whale.to

Uh, Luna, aren’t there thousands of people with IP addresses within a mile of the CDC? You know, like, the rest of Atlanta?

Of the ten IP addresses I have gotten from the website, two are in West Atlanta. What are the odds of that?

Suspicious to say the least...

So, you're attempting to steal IP addresses? Are you really that desperate to post your crap here?

(And not like West Atlanta is populous or anything....like a few hundred thousand people living there & all)

In my family tree, we had a great aunt who died of Diphtheria, a distant cousin who died of measles, and a few others who contracted & were paralyzed by Polio.

Anecdotes are not data (I don't even believe this guy for one second).

...and half your town was crippled before Jonas Salk rode in on a Stallion and personally administered 10,000 vaccines before even taking a nap, right?

This is the same guy as Mike Stevens on Disqus.

My great aunt died of polio and my great uncle wore braces for the rest of his life after polio. Please stop pretending that people's lived experiences don't matter, or that this is not a terrible disease.

It should be clear that B following A provides "some basis to believe" that A caused B--even if, as in the specific case of the Tripedia vaccine causing autism (or SIDS!) that "basis" is at odds with the scientific literature and common sense.

The Code of Federal Regulations; Title 21, Volume 7; Revised as of April 1, 2014; Sec. 600.80 (“Postmarketing reporting of adverse experiences”) requires the vaccine manufacturer to “report to FDA adverse experience information” and specifically defines adverse experience as “any adverse event associated with the use of a biological product in humans, whether or not considered product related.”

The Code continues:

“A report or information submitted by a licensed manufacturer under this section (and any release by FDA of that report or information) does not necessarily reflect a conclusion by the licensed manufacturer or FDA that the report or information constitutes an admission that the biological product caused or contributed to an adverse effect.”

F@ck off, Travis.

The dude must be unemployed and have nothing but time on his hands. He's impersonating a person who hasn't posted since 2009. He's gone again.

@Jan 101: Yes, I meant Merthiolate. And yes, we painted it all over ourselves. Hands, face, legs, arms - whatever was exposed.
Please excuse the missing right parenthesis. Here you go: )

I was typing in a hurry on my lunch hour.

@luna1580: I sure hope I'm not one of those West Atlanta IP addresses you found. Why, I thought my VPN logins would block all that.

Seriously...I live nowhere near Atlanta, except that I do live on the East Coast as opposed to the Midwest or the West Coast.

I always find it sad that people claim that "back then, people weren't afraid of measles.". Unfortunately, my MD grandfather is dead, or he would have told you how much he feared measles - so very much so that when the individual vaccines for measles and mumps were available, he gave them to everyone in the family - even though my mom's generation had pretty much all had measles and mumps, as had my brother and I. Then, when the MMR came out, he made sure we got THAT, too.

He wasn't charging us for the vaccines. Makes you wonder why he was so afraid of the diseases...maybe because he'd SEEN what they could do.

Oh, and by the way - even with having had mumps and measles, and several MMR's, I'm a non-converter. So I depend on herd immunity to protect ME from getting measles or mumps at my age. Fortunately, I don't have any anti-vax friends. Anti-doctor, yes...but even those friends will hit the local drug store for the flu vaccine every year (as do I).

""Two people who comment here have IP addresses within one mile of the CDC in Atlanta. I can verify this.

""He’s impersonating a person who hasn’t posted since 2009.

I'm intrigued. Database pwned???

Two people who comment here have IP addresses within one mile of the CDC in Atlanta. I can verify this.

Go for it.

From the product insert for Pneumovax:

Five subjects reported serious adverse experiences that occurred outside the 14-day follow-up window: 3 who received PNEUMOVAX 23 and 2 who received placebo. Serious adverse experiences after PNEUMOVAX 23 included cerebrovascular accident, lumbar radiculopathy, and pancreatitis/myocardial infarction resulting in death. Serious adverse experiences after placebo included heart failure and motor vehicle accident resulting in death. (emphasis added)

Someone might try to argue that this doesn't count, because the motor vehicle accident occurred within the placebo group, not within the vaccine group. But the very point that was to be proved is "just because an occurrence is listed in the adverse events section of a vaccine insert does not mean it was caused by the vaccine." That has been done. Someone still trying to pick that particular nit would be advocating the double standard "We will admit that terrible events can happen that aren't connected to the vaccine, but only among people who didn't get the vaccine. Among any persons who received the vaccine, any terrible events that happen must have been caused by the vaccine."

A “piteously small amount”…multiplied by a yearly vaccine from age 6 months to 80 years.

I, for one, am looking forward to being diagnosed as autistic when I'm in my 90s.

So, you’re attempting to steal IP addresses?

Oh, it was, under the "Les Lane" entry, IIRC. The link in the quoted comment was to a WP blog (again, as I recall).

This, though, is even more hilarious if true:

Two people who comment here have IP addresses within one mile of the CDC in Atlanta. I can verify this.

One more time, with feeling:

Of the ten IP addresses I have gotten from the website, two are in West Atlanta. What are the odds of that?

Suspicious to say the least…

Yes, Travis J. Schwochert's mad forensic skillz have led him to discover where Verizon/T-Mobile IPs come from. In other news, all AT&T mobile customers live in Los Angeles or Denver.

@MI Dawn

I, too, was regularly slathered with Merthiolate--NOT mercurochrome (I have looked up both and can’t really see a difference), but my Mom insisted on Merthiolate and poured it over any and all cuts and scrapes. It burned like crazy! I never painted it on myself, but I certainly was exposed to a lot of it. Readers have to remember that my parents grew up in a pre-antibiotic world where a cut could kill you and they were absolutely terrified of infection.

Oh, it was, under the “Les Lane” entry, IIRC. The link in the quoted comment was to a WP blog (again, as I recall).

Ya, the little twit has been stalking me on months-old WP blog posts. For someone who claims to be looking for a job and finds the comments he makes damaging to that prospect, Travis Schwochert sure loves shooting himself in the foot.

Ya, the little twit has been stalking me on months-old WP blog posts.

My point as that it as one hat he pulled out his ass; G—le had never head of it. It's been a while since I toyed around with WP, but my inference was that he was trying to gather addresses from traffic that would have come only from here.

^ Oh, and the keyboard on the rescue machine is just as flaky as the one on the machine being rescued, only different keys: 'w' and 't' are dicey on this one.

Of the ten IP addresses I have gotten from the website, two are in West Atlanta.

Which proves that one or more commenters (it may in fact be the same one) uses an ISP with facilities in West Atlanta, not necessarily that any of our commentariat live there.

When I go online at home, my ISP assigns me an IP address, which can vary from session to session. When I have had occasion to check where the internet thinks I am, and I am not on a site that has prompted me at some point for a zip code, it has come up with at least four different towns, the closest of which is 35 miles away (and sometimes as much as 60 miles).

No, I am not in Georgia, and it has been well over a decade since I was last in Georgia (not counting airline connections at ATL).

Not that living in West Atlanta would prove any connection to the CDC. I live a few miles from a large office campus where a major insurance company does much of their work. Does that make me a shill for Big Insurance? No, it's just a coincidence. And I live in an area with a much lower population density than Atlanta inside/along 285.

I toyed around with WP, but my inference was that he was trying to gather addresses from traffic that would have come only from here.

Yup, that's what he's doing. He's still trying to troll me on old blog posts. Travis is so pathetically desperate for attention he'll tank his employment opportunities.

When I go online at home, my ISP assigns me an IP address, which can vary from session to session. When I have had occasion to check where the internet thinks I am, and I am not on a site that has prompted me at some point for a zip code, it has come up with at least four different towns, the closest of which is 35 miles away (and sometimes as much as 60 miles).

Competent geolocation on a DSL line, at least, should cough up the "central office" (where the copper pairs originate), which is good too about 14,000 feet last I checked. Cable infrastructure is a bit more intricate, and I haven't really looked at what fiber to a remote terminal would yield.

For mobile, though, all bets are off. One of my phones is "in" Dallas, and the other is 800–1200 miles N/NE, depending on its mood.

... he’ll tank his employment opportunities.

I'm not so sure. Travis Schwochert of Endeavor, Wisconsin, isn't going to be in consideration for what we call a 'position of trust' anytime in his life. About the only thing he seems to be qualified for would be a job that just ask for a mostly clean criminal and driving record, and he'll just squeak by on that, maybe. Any company he applies to isn't likely to care if he's an anti-science idiot, as long as he shows up on time, accomplishes the simple task he's given without too many errors, and doesn't $#!+ on the floor. However, I may be wrong, so I'm all for giving Travis Schwochert of Endeavor, Wisconsin all the Google-juice he wants.

IRT the IP addresses Travis 'collected' and their locations - as Eric notes, depending on the lookup source you use, locations can be off by 10's or 100's of miles. I just checked 3, and the best I can say is that they all had the same state, but they thought I was in two different cities, one of which is the other end of the state, and the other is at least in the same county. At best, Travis might know where your ISP point-of-presence is.

But, if your worried, or just for the fun of it, cycle the power on your modem, and you are likely to pull a different IP from your ISP. I did.

It appears that players on several NHL teams have come down with the mumps. Teams are now providing MMR vaccine to players. Playing NHL hockey may need to be listed on package inserts if any of the newly vaccinated players get the mumps.

This may be a way of increasing the uptake of MMR vaccine. Wow, if I get the MMR vaccine I can play in the NHL

@ Johnny, the reason I said that was Travis left this on my blog:

Okay Science Mom, time to take down these comments. I need to apply for a job. Don't make me expose you. I know who you really are now.

Fendlesworth

Well, that makes my day just a little bit brighter. I can only hope it's true, and that his assholiness comes back to bite him.

This may be a way of increasing the uptake of MMR vaccine. Wow, if I get the MMR vaccine I can play in the NHL

I expect "loss of teeth" to appear as an adverse effect on the MMR package insert.

SM@185: Those last two sentences sound like a threat. Take him seriously, and take care of yourself.

Seriously. I have seen at least one such obsession turn deadly. I call it the Case of the Mild-Mannered Axe Murderer. I was introduced to him by one of his eventual victims.

That relationship was entirely in meatspace (it was back in the days when the Internet was mostly an academic/DOD plaything), but just because you and Fendlesworth only "know" each other online doesn't make it less real.

Thanks Eric but Travis is just an annoying troll with too much time on his hands and obviously no control over his life hence his weird obsessions. Even if he thinks he can expose me; it would be rather meaningless.

Richard, mention of "Once in a Lifetime" always makes me think of this:
http://sanest-days-are-mad.tumblr.com/post/27941111098/david-byrne-gets…

Hmm, interesting.

NWO Reporter comments 26 times on an article in the span of just two days.

Then someone actually answers a challenge he issued.

Three days later, he's nattering away on other posts, but still hasn't returned to this one.

It's almost as if he doesn't want to acknowledge he was proven wrong...

According to the FDA, the Adverse Reaction section on the vaccine insert includes events “for which there is some basis to believe there is a causal relationship between the drug and the occurrence of the adverse event.” But by all means, link us to an insert that lists “car accident” or “drowning.”

You asked for it; you got it. Now, will you do the honest thing and admit "Okay, my belief that anything mentioned in the "adverse events" section must be something almost certainly caused by the vaccine has been shown incorrect"?

If you did that, I have to admit, I'd have a tiny shred of respect for you. Somehow I doubt I need to hold my breath, though.

*nods* Yep, respect successfully averted.

Whine about phrasing all you like; what no reasonable person can deny is that in nearly every comment you've made on this post, you've been pushing the notion that the adverse events section of a vaccine insert is something that everyone should be reading to understand the "risks" of the vaccine - which is a terrible idea since it's neither written for that purpose nor suitable for that purpose.

When we tried to explain why an adverse events section fails to provide a realistic picture of the risks -- among other things, because it includes things like "motor vehicle accident" and "drowning", you asserted that it didn't contain such events. You went so far as to say that those who asserted -- correctly -- that it did were "making a mockery" of themselves.

When you were proved wrong, you mysteriously disappeared.

When you learned your midnight flit hadn't escaped notice, you pretended not to know which challenge of yours had been met, as if you couldn't find out in five seconds with Ctrl-F.

When the evidence of your assertions being wrong was presented to you -- for a second time -- you didn't do the intellectually honest thing and say "I guess I was wrong". You just tried to redirect the conversation to baseless insinuations that the adverse event section is written according to a double standard biased in favor of the vaccine -- as if you hadn't already shown that you have no idea how the adverse event section is written.

Do me a favor. Look yourself in the mirror and say "I was utterly convinced of something. Someone proved to me I was wrong about that. However, I absolutely refuse to learn from my mistake." See how proud of yourself you feel.

Antaeus, I've noticed that NWO also didn't feel like answering my questions about what vaccines they'd had or would be willing to take in the future.

Some people are really unwilling to even notice their preconceived notions.

NWO in this portion of a sentence: for which there is some basis to believe there is a causal relationship, replaced the word may with is. This word replacement changes the whole meaning of the sentence.

Over time, I’ve come to conclude that no parent who has complete and accurate information about vaccines and the diseases they are designed to prevent would ever vaccinate themselves or their children.

Frankly, you would not know. If at any point you'd ever come into contact with a parent who has complete and accurate information about vaccines and the diseases they prevent, you'd do your very best to load them up with nonsense like "all these things must be risks of the vaccine because they're listed in the adverse events section of the package insert."

@#203

Ask the person to your left or to your right to help you to understand the comment @#197.

Oh, of course. Now it's so clear to me.

It is not, as the rest of us have been trying to explain, a section written for legal reasons which tries to cover eventualities even if those eventualities are far-fetched, the way the warning label on a consumer power drill warns you not to use it as a dental drill.

Instead, it is a section full of important considerations. There obviously must be tons of people out there going to Lowe's and buying Black and Decker drills on the assumption that they are now prepared for dentistry, as proven by the warning label warning them that they shouldn't. And likewise, a polyvalent pneumococcal vaccine must be quite likely to induce lumbar radiculopathy.

There is no other possibility. If it is mentioned in the adverse events section, it must be an Important Consideration. That is why adverse events section never include things like "motor vehicle accident resulting in death". That's why they never mention things that happened in the placebo group. Right?

I mean, it's not like you came right out and asserted that, and then got your bluff called, and got proven entirely wrong... right? I guess when you are self-proclaimed to have "sound ethics", that takes precedence over connection to reality.

"He just drank the CDC’s Kool-Aid."

Explain in detail. Who is "he" and what is the "Kool-Aid" you speak of? Support your answers with PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers, especially if you have evidence that any vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule causes more harm than the disease.

vaccine manufacturers have been immune from liability for harms caused by their products since the 1980s

False. That you repeat this P.R.A.T.T. tells me that you do not know what you're talking about.

Well, NWO is almost, but not quite, correct.

From http://www.harpocratesspeaks.com/2013/02/liar-liar-pants-on-fire.html

In a 6-2 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that NCVIA does preempt state design defect claims. What this means is that if a vaccine causes an injury despite the maker following all proper good manufacturing practices and including appropriate directions for its use, as well as reasonable warnings about the risks, then the claimant has to go through the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program first; they cannot just sue in state court from the get-go.

...

Judicial decisions tend to be rather narrow in their focus. For instance, when it comes to products liability, there is a good deal more than just "design defect" claims. There are also manufacturing defects and labeling defects. Bruesewitz only declared that design defects are preempted by NCVIA; the other two types of defect are still open avenues for tort actions in state court. If an injury resulted from negligent manufacturing practices or labeling defects, the company can still be sued under state law, rather than through the Vaccine Court. Therefore, the claim that vaccine manufacturers are shielded from all liability (or even just all products liability) is demonstrably false. Anyone who says otherwise is lying (either through misunderstanding or deliberate deceit).

Alan Miller: "They are fond of showing graphs with logarithmic scales zoomed in on the decade when the vaccine was introduced (when it was already declining)"

What was declining? From http://www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/99statab/sec31.pdf :

Year.... Rate per 100000 of polio
1912 . . . . 5.5
1920 . . . . 2.2
1925 . . . . 5.3
1930 . . . . 7.5
1935 . . . . 8.5
1940 . . . . 7.4
1945 . . . 10.3
1950 . . . 22.1
1955 . . . 17.6
1960 . . . . 1.8
1965 . . Less than .05
1970 . . Less than .05
1975 . . Less than .05
1980 . . Less than .05

So what was declining before Salk introduced his polio vaccine in 1953? Especially since there was a polio epidemic in 1952:
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/polio.html

@211

Curiously, the very next section of the code describes how to establish liability and seek general and punitive remedies in "a civil action against a vaccine manufacturer for damages for a vaccine-related injury or death associated with the administration of a vaccine."

NWO Reporter: "So not only do you choose to post INCIDENCE rates instead of rates of mortality or serious lasting morbidity, but you choose POLIO"

Is your name "Alan Miller"? His now deleted comment was about polio, and he was not clear on what was declining.

Also, "NWO Reporter" if you were also "Alan Miller", you may also be deleted.

Let's have a closer look at what you quoted.

if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings.

"side effects that were unavoidable".
So if the vaccine was made in a way that caused side effects that were avoidable but could be made in a different way that didn't cause said side effects and was equally as effective, the manufacturer could still be sued.
" the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings."
So if the vaccine wasn't properly prepared, and/or wasn't accompanied by proper directions and warnings, the manufacturer could be sued.
The very words you quote show that manufacturers are not immune from liability.

Again, you are encouraging people to view adverse events observed following vaccination as irrelevant, and only mentioned for “legal reasons.” Interesting theory, considering vaccine manufacturers have been immune from liability for harms caused by their products since the 1980s.

Exception that your own quotation of the law points directly to where your summation of it is incorrect. To wit:

42 U.S. Code § 300aa–22:
(b) (1) No vaccine manufacturer shall be liable in a civil action for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death associated with the administration of a vaccine after October 1, 1988, if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings.

In other words, of the three classes of product liability lawsuits (design defect, manufacturing defect, and warning defect) the law holds that manufacturers are not liable for design defects but does not immunize them against manufacturing defects (i.e., they did not prepare the vaccine properly) or warning defects (i.e., they did not give proper directions and warnings.)

I mean, do I have to explain this further? Because, see, you looked right at it and you even copy-pasted it but very clearly you didn't try to understand it. 42 U.S. Code § 300aa–22 (b) (1) says that if a vaccine manufacturer wants to be immune from product liability claims, they have to ensure that the product is prepared properly and that the proper directions and warnings are given.

In other words, their immunity clearly depends upon their meeting certain requirements. And here you are, citing the very section of the law which spells out the requirements that they have to meet, yet denying that the manner in which the adverse effects section is written could be driven by a desire to meet those requirements? Are you seriously trying to claim that you cannot comprehend what's right there in front of you?

I really find that hard to believe -- but guess what? To show that it's not the pro-vaccine side that refuses to think things through, I'll bend over backwards and walk you through it. Suppose there are two individuals, A and B, who take two different vaccines (Alphavax and Betavax) and then, within a certain time period, experience seriously harmful gunshot wounds.*

Now, the makers of Alphavax noted in the trials of the vaccine that there were deaths by gunshot wounds in both the vaccine and control groups. They included that information in their product insert. The makers of Betavax noted the same thing in the trials of their vaccine, but they said (contrary to common practice) "We don't need to include that, it's silly! Who would ever believe that receiving a vaccination would be a contributor to a gunshot wound? We'll just leave that out of the adverse events section."

Well, guess what? A and B both want to take their cases to court.

The makers of Alphavax noted, accurately, that there were gunshot wounds among the members of the study population. A's case goes nowhere because the makers put that information on the insert; there's no grounds to claim they didn't give sufficient warning, so a claim against the manufacturer is pre-empted.

The manufacturer of Betavax knew that some individuals who took their vaccine (and also some who got a placebo) suffered gunshot wounds. They made a decision not to disclose that information. Their logic was "Well, isn't it obvious that the cause of a gunshot wound isn't a vaccine, it's someone firing a gun?" But just because B's case is preposterous ("The vaccine affected my judgment; I never would have gotten into a fight with a biker in a bar with a concealed weapon if I hadn't been vaccinated the week before!") doesn't mean he won't find a lawyer willing to argue it in court, in hopes of a big payday.

Will the makers of Betavax win or lose in court? Who knows? What's certain is that the makers of Betavax would probably have avoided court altogether if, like the makers of Alphavax, they had simply said "Look, if there's any 'basis to believe there is a causal relationship between the drug and the occurrence of the adverse event', we'll put the event in the section, period. We're not going to endanger ourselves by trying to pass a judgment on whether there's a truly plausible basis for belief, on which we might get second-guessed later."

So, again -- anyone arguing that adverse event sections of vaccine package inserts are written to exclude all events which aren't plausibly caused by the vaccine -- is just plain wrong. That's proven by the fact that they even include events which happened in the placebo group. Anyone who is arguing that vaccine manufacturers have an all-encompassing and unconditional protection from lawsuits -- again, is just plain wrong. The conditions are there, being quoted by the very people trying to claim the unconditionality of the protection.

* Anyone who'd like to claim "Oh, now you're making a mockery of yourself; it's preposterous to think any vaccine insert would list gunshot wounds" -- again. Wrong. And such a person should really start wondering why they're wrong so often, if the ten years they spent "investigating" vaccines was really time well-spent.

@NWO Reporter:
Here's a chart:
Year Incidence of smallpox
1517 100s of millions
2017 0

Any questions?

NWO Reporter: "What–shocked that two different people would be on this blog exposing vaccine fraud?"

Uh, huh. The fact that the person I was responding to is someone who insists on creating several sock puppets because he wants to look like a crown does is totally lost on you.

Also mortality rates only measure improvements in medical care. The invention of artificial ventilation prevented the death from suffocation due to paralysis or fluid in the lungs because of actual diseases. The invention of antibiotics prevented death from secondary infections from immune suppression by the actual disease.

It has nothing to do with the effectiveness of vaccines. Though you thinking it does, along with thinking I was addressing you in a comment startin with 'Alan Miller: "..."' pretty much shows your low level of reading comprehension. Which is precisely why I have been actively ignoring you.

Don't bother... I will continue to ignore you.

Ugh... typo: " crowd" does is totally lost on you. "

Though in short Fendlesworth is a clown trying to pretend to be a crowd. While NWO Reporter is trying desperately to be taken seriously, but failing spectacularly.

Chris, Miller was a Schwochert sock.
===

Someone (HDB? Dangerous B?) recently linked to a graph disliked by some bozo because it was a semi log plot. I want to look at it again, but can't find the right thread. Can someone point me at it, SVP?

^too late, I see

doug, I know. I did not at first, but his disappearance was not a surprise.

I was just amused that NWO Reporter thought I was engaging with him in a comment that quoted the alleged "Alan Miller." I shall now continue my policy of ignoring the illiterate ignoramus.

Go away Travis.

Travis Schwochert of Endeavor, Wisconsin,, just remember that there are no stupid questions, just stupid people, like you.

The best argument for the effectiveness of vaccines is that we've made smallpox extinct in the wild, and polio is seriously endangered and about to be extinct.

Yes, the flu vaccine is not very effective in the years that the predicted strain is poorly matched to the strain that does circulate that year. In years that there is a good match, the flu vaccine is very effective. It's not a difficult concept, but it probably is more than your pea-brain can understand. Seriously, Travis, how do you manage to walk and breath at the same time?

Animal studies of vaccines? Spend 20 minuets with the great Google, and you can find lots of examples. But given your idiocy, it may be too difficult for you. If it is, let us know, m'kay?

doug, I looked in recent threads for that semilog measles death graph that I posted and can't find it either. It was featured in an article by Roman Bystrianyk (Suzanne Humphries' co-author) wherein he attempted to explain why it was inferior to his preferred graphs.

Thanks, Dangerous. I'm pretty sure Humphries came up in the old thread that was resurrected by dim Chris. I forgot the association with Humphries & was looking in recent threads.

I thought this was interesting. No. 3 on the list.
http://www.cracked.com/article_24844_5-reasons-why-good-actors-make-bad…