One of the reasons I'm so passionate about pushing back against antivaccine pseudoscience is because I view it as an extreme threat to public health, particularly the health of children. I'm a history buff. I study history. I know what child mortality was like before vaccines. I'm also a scientist, which is why I know that antivaccine claims and arguments are either misinformation, pseudoscience, utter nonsense, or a combination of the three. Vaccines are safe and effective, and there's no scientific evidence that is even the least bit convincing that they cause autism, the main fear of the antivaccine movement. They don't cause autoimmune diseases, either.
One of the biggest questions of the last couple of decades is how to combat antivaccine misinformation. Although there has been great disagreement and many suggested strategies, one strategy has been to try to educate parents about the dangers of not vaccinating. It's a valid strategy, as vaccines have been a victim of their own success. Most parents have never seen a case of the various deadly vaccine-preventable diseases against which we vaccinate. As a result, very few parents have any idea how bad the childhood diseases commonly vaccinated against can be. Antivaxers take advantage of that by playing up (translation: lying about) the risks of vaccines. Given that it's easy to have the perception that these diseases aren't a danger because they are uncommon now (thanks to vaccination) it's a ploy that seems reasonable on the surface, particularly in light of the "backfire effect," in which providing disconfirming evidence to people with a strong belief often causes them to double down on that belief, making the belief stronger. Given that we are human beings, our lizard brains have a hard time taking a threat seriously that we don't see and that we haven't observed affecting us or those we know directly. On the other hand, our lizard brains are also easily activated by "threats" based on the unknown, such as "toxins" in vaccines.
Unfortunately, this strategy doesn't appear to work, either.
Indeed, if a recently published study is correct, practically nothing works. The study, out of the University of Edinburgh, tested three common pro-vaccination strategies: one contrasting myths vs. facts, one employing fact and icon boxes, and one showing images of non-vaccinated sick children. Basically, none of them worked; in fact, they often backfired, reinforcing preexisting beliefs. The authors note the barriers to overcome in the introduction:
Vaccines are the safest and most effective tools for preventing infectious diseases and their success in achieving relevant public health outcomes, such as the reduction or eradication of many life-threatening conditions, is well-established. However, many people appear hesitant about vaccines, doubting their benefits, worrying over their safety or questioning the need for them. Addressing vaccine hesitancy, defined as a “delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite availability of vaccination services” ([1], p575), is not a simple task for the following reasons. First, vaccine hesitancy is rooted in a set of cognitive mechanisms that conspire to render misinformation particularly “sticky” and pro-vaccination beliefs counter-intuitive [2], involving a multitude of emotional, social, cultural, and political factors [3]. Second, public information campaigns designed to dispel erroneous vaccination beliefs often overlook these factors and have limited or even unintended opposite effects [4, 5]. Furthermore, even when attempts to correct invalid information do not “backfire” by entrenching the original misinformation [6], they can frequently fail because people cannot successfully update their memories and still fall back on information they know is not correct in order to make inferences and explain events.
Another reason, of course, is that we are story telling apes. We find stories (i.e., anecdotes from people we know or have come to trust) far more compelling than scientific evidence or pictures of sick children with no connection to us. This has been the problem combatting pseudoscience from the very beginning. Even though anecdotes (which are often distorted versions of what really happened tarted up to strengthen the perceived association between, for example, vaccines and autism) are the weakest form of evidence, our primitive brains consider them the most powerful. Also, as mentioned above, our brains also latch on to information, particularly if it reinforces preexisting beliefs, and won't let go:
Classical laboratory research on memory for inferences [10, 6] demonstrates that the continued reliance on discredited information is very difficult to correct. Even when people clearly remember and understand a subsequent correction when asked about it immediately (suggesting that they have encoded it and can retrieve and potentially comply with it), they can still be influenced by the effect of the retracted misinformation. That is, people are susceptible to misinformation even though they had acknowledged that the information at hand is factually incorrect. As Rapp and Braasch stated ([11], p3), “the problem is not just that people rely on inaccurate information but that they rely on it when they seemingly should know better”. This seemingly irrational reliance on outright misinformation has been demonstrated with beliefs related to well-known material (e.g., biblical narratives [12, 13]), blatant hoaxes (e.g., paranormal claims [14]) or personally experienced events (e.g., distorted eyewitness testimonies [15]). It also occurs despite measures intended to make the presentation of information clearer and despite explicit warnings about the misleading nature of the information at hand [16, 17]. Therefore, simply retracting a piece of information does not stop its influence because outdated pieces of information linger in memory. In the case of vaccines, providing evidence about the safety of immunisation may not be enough as people may have heard or read somewhere that, for example, vaccines are not necessary, that they cause autism or contain dangerous chemicals. This false information persists in their minds.
The authors then present the three techniques. Presenting "myth vs. fact"-style information seems as though it would be effective, but it turns out that this strategy often backfires, with people remembering the myths more than the disconfirming information. While some studies suggest that this can be an effective strategy, others have observed a backfire effect. For instance, on study shows that some people can misremember myths as fact after as short as 30 minutes, although by three days many people often forget what is myth and what is fact.
The second strategy is to put the information in visual form, using well-designed graphs and graphics that can attract and hold people's attention. Examples of these graphics include the "fact box," which consists of a table for transparent risk communication, summarizing the scientific evidence for a drug, treatment, or screening method in an easily understandable manner. Fact boxes often "show benefits and harms for people with and without treatment in plain frequencies, avoiding misleading statistics or statements of risk that may be misunderstood by laypeople." Another example is an "icon box," which consists of a visual tool showing two groups of individuals, those who underwent a treatment and those who didn't, with each person represented by an icon indicating benefit and harms. (These are frequently used to describe the benefits and risks of cancer screening tests, for instance.) The authors note that there has been relatively little research on the use of fact boxes as a tool for informing the general public.
Finally, the authors note that a third strategy is to harness the power of fear and emotion, with messages and images that show the risks from the diseases and the consequences of not vaccinating. Although there is evidence that these appeals to fear can work, especially for positive action and as long as those seeing the message fear the outcomes and believe that the action being promoted will avert the threat, there's also evidence that this, too, can backfire. The authors cite studies on cigarette labeling with "resonant texts and vivid pictures" (often, in my experience, pictures of people tracheostomies and half their faces eaten away by smoking-caused head and neck cancer or photos of diseased lungs), which often don't motivate smokers to quit. They also cited a 2014 study by Nyhan et al, which showed that images of sick children with scary messages about the consequences of not vaccinating also do not work.
The authors of this study recruited participants from "diverse departments of the University of Edinburgh, the Suor Orsola Benincasa University of Naples, and the Second University of Naples, resulting in an initial sample of 134 individuals." The study was conducted in two "waves." The first wave included the preliminary survey and included 134 subjects. Roughly 10% dropped out and 120 completed the second wave. Among those, 47 (39.2%) were men and 73 (60.8%) women. Mean age was 25.35 years (SD 3.52, range 19–34). Most participants had a Bachelor’s (n. 46, 38.3%) or a Masters’ degree (n. 63, 52.5%), while 11 respondents (9.2%) were PhD students. Of course, I can see a couple of problems right here with the study. First, the numbers are relatively small. Second, it's hard to view this sample as representative. It's full of young people, and we have no idea how many of them have children, for example. They're also all from university settings; i.e., they are a "convenience" sample, rather than a sample that needs to be targeted.
All participants completed two questionnaires. The first one was a preliminary survey to assess baseline beliefs and attitudes towards vaccines that has been used in previous studies consisting of eight items that "covered common attitudes from both the pro- (e.g., 'Getting vaccines is a good way to protect my future child(ren) from disease') and the anti-vaccination side (e.g., 'Some vaccines cause autism in healthy children')." The second questionnaire was a post-manipulation survey that assessed whether and how participants' beliefs and attitudes towards vaccines changed compared to the baseline measure. This is also a survey that has been used in previous studies. This survey was administered twice, immediately after the interventions (Time 1) and then after a seven day delay to evaluate the longevity and robustness of the observed effects (Time 2). The authors looked for interactions between the intervention and changes in attitudes as determined in the followup surveys to produce what they called a change score. A positive score means more belief in the antivaccine myths being examined, while a negative change score means less.
Basically, the results of the study can be summed up in one graph, in Figure 3 (click to embiggen):
The first thing you notice is that none of the changes are negative. All of the bars show either no change or a positive change, which is bad because it means more acceptance of the specific negative attitudes towards vaccines tested, such as the beliefs that vaccines cause autism and produce horrible side effects and vaccine hesitancy. Particularly striking is how the fear correction produced the largest increase in fear of vaccine side effects compared to any other intervention. This is dramatically shown when the results are shown at the two different time point, with the fear correction producing a dramatic increase in the belief in serious vaccine side effects at one week (click to embiggen):
The authors summarize their observations thusly:
Our study provided further support to the growing literature showing how corrective information may have unexpected and even counter-productive results. Specifically, we found that the myths vs. facts format, at odds with its aims, induced stronger beliefs in the vaccine/autism link and in vaccines side effects over time, lending credit to the literature showing that countering false information in ways that repeat it may further contribute to its dissemination [25]. Also the exposure to fear appeals through images of sick children led to more increased misperceptions about vaccines causing autism. Moreover, this corrective strategy induced the strongest beliefs in vaccines side effects, highlighting the negative consequences of using loss-framed messages and fear appeals to promote preventive health behaviours [45, 38]. Our findings also suggest that no corrective strategy was useful in enhancing vaccination intention. Compared to the other techniques, the usage of fact/icon boxes resulted in less damage but did not bring any effective result.
The further suggest:
Presumably, a golden strategy capable of overcoming all the intricacies of setting people straight, regardless of their basic beliefs and/or temporal shifts, does not exist. Public information campaigns may instead benefit from tailoring different, simultaneous, and frequent interventions to increase the likelihood of corrective messages’ dissemination and acceptance [40]. Ideally, corrective strategies should be directed at the precise factors that may influence vaccination decision-making and impede vaccine uptake, which include, over and beyond strong attitudes against vaccines, social norms pushing individuals to conform to the majority’s behaviour, standards for vaccine uptake in a specific population, and structural barriers to vaccination such as potential financial costs of vaccines and their ease of access. Successful interventions should therefore be targeted to differently “driven” vaccine-hesitant individuals. For instance, when people do not vaccinate because they lack confidence in vaccines, corrective strategies should dispel vaccination myths, or when people do not vaccinate because perceived risks outweigh benefits, interventions should emphasize the social benefit deriving from vaccination and add incentives [41]. However, the inter-relationship of multi-level factors which contribute to vaccine hesitancy seems somewhat difficult to disentangle in order to make such targeted approach successful; indeed, the independent and relative impact of each determinant of vaccination choice is complex and context-specific, varying across time, place, and vaccines [3]. What is clear, though, is the urgent need for appropriately designed, well-executed, and rigorously evaluated interventions to address parental vaccine refusal and hesitancy [53].
The findings of this study aren't really anything new; they basically reinforce a growing body of evidence that it is much, much harder to change people's minds about beliefs in which they have an emotional investment. Unfortunately, this study was too small to look at something that would be really interesting to know. As we all know, antivaccine beliefs exist on a spectrum, from mildly vaccine-hesitant to full blown nutty antivaxers like Kent Heckenlively. It's incredibly unlikely that any strategy will change the mind of someone like Heckenlively, but it is quite possible that one or a combination of the strategies studied in this report could be potentially effective in persuading parents with much lower levels of fear and loathing of vaccines. We know that information can persuade some people; the problem is that it is a much smaller percentage than is desirable and the price is that the information will backfire in some.
I like to joke about how every study concludes that "more research is needed," but if ever there is an area where more research is needed it is on how to persuade the vaccine hesitant of the safety and efficacy of vaccines and, of course, how to counter the message of the hard core antivaxers that result in that vaccine hesitancy.
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I think the key here is "emotional investment". It is hard to reason somebody out of a position he didn't reason himself into. That's especially a problem with childhood vaccines, because there are few emotional impulses stronger than the parent-child relationship, for good evolutionary reasons.
I would prefer to avoid methods like the "therapy" Alex went through in A Clockwork Orange, but it looks as though less drastic methods won't work.
How about the storytelling angle in the other direction.
I didn't vaccinate my five year old because I read something on the Internet. Now here is a video of my two-month-old coughing. He has two broken ribs.
I took my child to Disneyland and now she has measles. Here she is in the hospital getting IV fluids. Her arms are strapped down so she can't pull out the IV and dig at the skin lesions.
My mother took me to a chicken pox party because her minster told her natural immunity was God's plan. Now I have shingles. In my eyeball. Here's a close up picture.
I do want to point out a limit of this body of literature. It's true that it casts doubt on much of the online efforts. But there's also a lot of literature showing the important role of providers in affecting vaccine decisions, and one of the things these studies don't examine is the effect of information provided within a relationship, for example, within a relationship with a provider. I don't think we can assume information will backfire or not work in that context (though I realize the pressure of medical practice these days gets in the way of relationships). Or a social relationship.
Still raises questions for online advocacy, of course.
I hate to sound a discordant note, but in my view this is bullshit research that only shows that waving questionnaires at people, or getting them to look at cards, only makes them apprehensive as to the purpose of the exercise.
Vaccine hesitancy in the UK grew in epidemic proportions in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and then that reversed and public confidence returned to slightly above baseline levels.
True, this wasn't the consequence of ludicrous show-card projects like the present instance, which seems to me more directed to completing a grant application and obtaining funding for generally useless public health hangers-on than dealing with parents' anxieties.
Honestly, when I comment on a news feed or other forum about anti vax, I'm not trying to convince the die hards. I know there's no convincing them.
I'm trying to convince the hesitant who haven't made up their minds.
Dorit: that is a good point. When I've encountered hesitance with patients, a little time invested in education has been helpful in overcoming that hesitation. So a formal study on providers as a relationship would be a good next step in this kind of research.
Of course, patients who see woo practitioners won't get that kind of education.
And that's an obvious limit: people may choose providers according to preexisting vaccine views. They don't even have to go woo, they can go to anti-vaccine MDs like Dr. Bob Sears.
Maybe I read too quickly, but I wonder if there is a cultural component to this. For instance, are people with a scientific background exempt? Having only read the blog post about the study, it does not seem to me that much mention is made of how a person's background may influence these generalized effects. Is it more possible to change some demographic's mind than it is others?
Dorit is correct. A provider who the parents/patients trust can have a great deal of influence over what they decide to do. This is apparent not just with vaccines, but in many other fields, including oncologic surgery, as I am sure Orac knows.
I suspect that a multipronged approach is best. Everyone is different, and each person will respond best to a different type of outreach. The hard core antivaxxers appear to be almost totally immune to evidence. I doubt there will ever be a way to reach most of them, but there are, fortunately, relatively few of them.
I'd hate to mandate vaccines the way some other governments do. That seems to be at odds with some core American principles, but if we have, say, a devastating measles outbreak, and I don't think that is impossible, things, including my opinion, may change.
You cannot fight beliefs with facts. Research on people who hold intransigent political beliefs--typically highly conservative ones--consistently shows that challenge by reason is useless. Such people just dig in their heels and reinforce their rigidity due to fear of cognitive dissonance or who knows what else. It has become common sense to presume that these people will never change. The only vulnerability they seem to have is to their own self-interest.
Michael@8: IANAL, but I think it could be argued that the ADA requires public schools to demand that their students be vaccinated unless there is a valid medical reason for them not to be. The argument would be that kids who cannot or should not be vaccinated for medical reasons depend on herd immunity and would be deprived of their right to public education otherwise. But I have no idea whether this legal theory has been tested in court.
It's one thing to put your own kids at risk by not vaccinating them. It's an entirely different thing to allow your unvaccinated kids to endanger other parent's kids who must depend on herd immunity. The principle is the same as the rule that your right to swing your fist in the air ends at my face.
There's an assumption here that the argument is actually about vaccines, but I don't think it is. Anti-vax attitudes are a symptom of the larger problem of people believing they are better informed than they are -- better informed, in fact, than those whose job is to be informed. And because they believe that, they distrust sources that tell them differently.
It doesn't matter how much data you throw at people if they don't believe the source of the data. For instance, Breitbart's constant barrage of anti-Muslim sentiment has not convinced me to distrust Muslims; I simply tune them out, because I don't trust the source. Anti-vaxers, and conspiracy theorists in general, don't trust the government, don't trust experts, and don't trust "mainstream" media. Why would they listen?
To fix the problem, you can't attack anti-vaxers' beliefs. You have to attack their lack of trust in reputable sources. Of course, I haven't the slightest idea how to actually do that. But trying to change their beliefs isn't going to work. You have to change the thought processes that led them to those beliefs.
Yes, exactly. You cannot change belief with facts (see my earlier comment about research on the intransigence of ideologues). This is the wrong approach. I have long held the belief through decades of political activism that the only way to reach people with a limited ability to change their beliefs is through self-interest. Self-absorbed ideologues understand very little beyond their own little self-defined and self-contained worlds. You hit them where it hurts: the pocketbook. The pocketbook is the only compelling thing to many of them. And self-interest when a contagious disease hits their own family and they finally have to face scientific reality.
@ Daniel Welch:
Certain partisans don't trust the educated in general
The other day, MSNBC/ Todd featured a study that showed that 58% of GOP voters thought that colleges/ universities had a negative effect on the US.
Everyone,
This way off topic but I have to tell all the minions and Orac that today is the 0ne year anniversary of my heart attack. I'm told I had less than a 6 percent survival chance. I did even better than that because it appears that I have no heart muscle damage.
Reading this blog has been a real joy for past year, simply because I am here to read it. I am retiring in January and moving to Thailand and starting a whole new adventure. Part of the adventure is being the step-father to a 5 month old when I get there.
I will still read and make comments (some good, some bad) even after I retire and move.
Keep up the good work Orac and minions.
Rich Bly
Happy Anniversary, and good luck in Thailand. That's a really nice thing to read.
Congratulation Rich,
I do understand how it feel to become a step father and there's no better physical or mental therapy than the feeling of being there for a child.
Alain
I think the key here is “emotional investment”.
There have been a number of observations so far by the commentariat, but when reading the quoted excerpts in the post, the first thing that occurred to me was that the underlying psychological model could be whomped up in Yale T Scheme over the space of a few days. Hell, back in my day that could've been turned into a Ph.D with some more work. It's a weighted graph.
Is it prima facie too simple? Well, sure. But it's easily extensible, and "emotional investment" could be relegated to a tunable parameter to be built out later.
Exactly. The study that needs to be done is something like this, but with enough subjects that you can stratify by level of vaccine-averseness, or antivax views and do meaningful statistics correlating effectiveness or lack of effectiveness of each strategy with level of antivax.
Congratulations, Rich! I have heard kids keep you young!
I will be embarking on my own arguments against woo experiment, N=1. We received word today that Mr Woo has prostate cancer. I am trying to not panic - no staging or anything else yet, and I know many prostate cancers are indolent. But Mr Woo's strong attachment to woo is strongest with cancer treatments.
My heart hurts, and I am scared.
^ I screwed up the lede, BTW, which should have been blockquoted from Eric Lund's comment.
Sigh. More bad 'social science'. At least the authors' make some on-point remarks in their conclusion, which make me wonder why they used the method they did.
If this is your conclusion, you're doing something wrong. History shows that ideas and attitudes do change, and persuasion campaigns can have a powerful influence. But if you examine this history, and look at the existing research, you should realize that you need a different model of change than the one this research typically uses.
It's very hard to change entrenched beliefs about anything. If researchers want to claim that vax-hesitance is especially intractable, they need some baseline of comparison. This study, like Nyhan's, starts with a very dubious assumption – the expectation that a single 'dose' of some corrective messaging could produce a measurable degree of the desired correction immediately. Where is the warrant that this has ever worked for anything? If the researchers had bothered to ask a seasoned communication professional, or a sharp ideology theorist, they'd have been told that. "Public information campaigns may instead benefit from usually depend upon tailoring different, simultaneous, and frequent interventions to increase the likelihood of corrective messages’ dissemination and acceptance." Belief change is a process. It takes time. Effective persuasion campaigns, even for something of moderate investment/resistance like product advertising, involve lots of message-moments, lots of repetition...
So, to start, again, have the researchers established that a method of give 'em a survey, show 'em a message, repeat the survey has ever shown the kind of change on a similar set of beliefs, one that correlated with observed change in behavior later? Rough medical analogies here would be expecting no-infection after one tab or penicillin, or the elimination of severe depressive episodes after one tab of Zoloft.
But what of the "backfire effect"? That appears to be a change, in the 'wrong' direction. But that assumes the surveys actually measure belief accurately, so a change in responses = a change in belief. But ask yourself, how much do my beliefs change during a window of say a month? Then ask, how much can the way I express my beliefs change during a month, depending on the context, like my mood, or who I'm talking to, and so on? A problem with the surveys is that they're not neutral. They are themselves forms of messaging, and the subjects know they are being observed, and judged by academic authority figures. Under these conditions, I wouldn't expect beliefs to change, but I'd expect them to be expressed more vigorously the second time through the questions, after those beliefs been called out by the researchers.
Even if we bracket and discount all of this, what galls me about these studies is that the researchers pick one attempted execution of a 'message' or 'strategy' and then just assume the results produced are the inevitable product of the 'message' or 'strategy', as if the execution didn't matter. Anyone who has ever worked in advertising knows a great strategic concept can go down in flames if the copywriters and visual directors screw the pooch, and top creatives can wring a lot out of a weak premise. At least, unlike Nyhan, the authors of this study have made their research materials available in a .pdf on the page Orac linked above - the survey and the 'interventions'. I've only had time to take a quick peak, but my first impression is uhh... not good. I encourage anyone interested in this topic to examine these materials for yourself and report back here on your impressions of the surveys and especially how persuasive you would expect the 'interventions'
to be with any antivax or vax-hesitant folks you've encountered.
Which brings me to the final point I'll discuss here: There are real problems with how the researchers defined and categorized their participants. "Vaccine hesitancy" was "defined as a 'delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite availability of vaccination services'." Huh? Refusal=hesitance? I don't think so. It's not to me from the published article whether the change numbers reflect the volunteer subject group as a whole or just those who were found to be "vax-hesitant" in the initial survey, which makes a big difference. Given the sample size, the relative marginality of anti-vax views, and the academic status of the participants, the "vax-hesitant" segment may have been just a handful of people with committed anti-vax views, and no actual merely vax-hesitant folks at all – that is, prospective parents concerned enough about vaccines to be considering a delayed schedule or not-vaxing at all, but not yet having made a final decision on the matter.
The problem here, of course, is that the last group is your target audience, the one you have to assess. In any public persuasion campaign, you're trying to convince everyone, just move the collective sum of the needle in your direction by moving the folks in the middle. On any issue, there's a range of commitment as well as a range of positions. Only a tiny few of the committed partisans on either side will ever budge, so you're trying to reach the group near the fence, to pull the truly neutral toward your side, shore up the folks leaning your way, and pull the leaners in the other direction back towards the middle.
Unless you can restrict your sample to this terrain, present them with a coordinated campaign of multiple 'interventions' prepared by highly skilled professionals, executed over a long period of time, and find a method of measuring movement in fundamental belief, not just context-based intensity of expression, filtering out the effects of observation – all you've got is garbage. And if we're being honest, you just can't do all that within these quantitative, survey-based, 'social science' methods. You're far better off studying the history of public opinion on similar topics, including any persuasion campaigns that attempted to influence them, and drawing out some principles on what works and what doesn't over the long haul.
Another way of putting this: We know beliefs on vaccines changed after the Disneyland outbreak because two things happened: 1) Vax uptake rates went up, indicating that a significant number of vax-hesitant folks dropped off the fence onto the right side. 2) Hard core anti-vaxers began making more noise, demonstrating an increased expression of commitment in response to being threatened by the facts revealed in reality. This study maybe gets at the second thing a little, but is useless in analyzing and building on the first.
How would that be working out for one Travis J. Schwochert?
Don't know. The financial power of this woo world cannot be underestimated and truly scares me. There needs to be a coherent strategy for fighting it. That's far beyond the scope of this blog.
Orac writes,
...persuade the vaccine hesitant of the safety and efficacy of vaccines ...
MJD says,
I'd like to see a study that evaluates the vaccine rate of individuals who have had documented/verified vaccine induced injuries.
If a vaccine-injured individual continues immunizations without further issues, that's a great selling point for the safety and efficacy of vaccines.
Brian Deer expressed the problem with these studies much more succinctly than I just did, and with that eloquent disdain of his as well. Kudos, sir. Bravo!
It's not that facts and logic aren't persuasive. It's that they're not persuasive by themselves. But then even emotion isn't all that great by itself either. As Aristotle observed more than a couple millenia ago, effective persuasion involves fact and logic (Logos), emotion (Pathos), and source trust/credibility (Ethos) all working together in an integrated whole. But in modern communication, this doesn't have to happen in the same individual message. Say you're in the market for a new car. The ads are all Pathos, seeking to spark desire based on fundamental human drives. But when you get to the dealership, the salesperson adds in all sorts of facts about the car's features and benefits, and if you perceive them as more oily than credible, they'll still have trouble closing the sale. Anyway, as do-it-all attempts, the examples in the survey are all designed for failure. The "visual correction" graphs look like Edward Tufte's nightmares. The "facts" opposed to the "myths" and the "fear corrections" are dry little statements coming out of nowhere and from no one. E.g. "fact':
Well, sez who and with what evidence? How about "fear":
Sure, that will scare the AVs into changing their minds... NOT!
if you want to see an example of all three parts of persuasion combined in one document, assembled with great skill, including making excellent use of narrative form, check out the Texas Children's Hospital Vaccine Preventable Disease. http://tinyurl.com/oj7bhnl
And then consider, as Dorit notes, that for most vax-hesitant parents, a discussion with a pediatrician or GP could occur after they've been given that to read. The study materials? "Sad!"
@sadmar:
I don't know about anyone else, but your stories have me convinced!
Researchers at the North Carolina Children's Hospital surveyed 170 mothers and fathers in the postpartum ward who had given birth between February and April 2015. A significant majority (72 percent) reported starting to develop vaccine preferences for their newborn before conception.
Perhaps not surprisingly, 77 percent of parents of previous children had already thought about vaccines for their new baby before pregnancy, said lead investigator James N. Yarnall, MPH, a fourth-year medical student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But even among first-time parents, 66 percent of respondents said they were already focused on vaccines before becoming pregnant.
Parents who had previously talked with their partner about vaccines for their child and parents who were more highly educated were more likely to begin deciding on vaccines before pregnancy. The most common influences for vaccine decision-making were the advice of family and friends, medical staff, and organizations such as the AAP and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. from: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151023083719.htm
As a pediatrician, I rarely sway any parents in the exam room to vaccinate. I've basically given up trying to. And what galls me is that quacks like Bob Sears, Jay Gordon, and all the quack members of Physicians for Informed Consent--as well as anti-vaccine groups like the NVIC, Vaxxed, etc--have free run of this land with the exception of criticism from folks like Orac, Dorit and Dr. Offit. Where the h*ll are the medical groups in America when it comes to what's happening in the US? In Australia (where AVers Pauley Tommey and Suzanne Humphries where just banned from returning for 3 years (because they violated their visit visas) to promote Vaxxed)), they have physicians and physician groups (the Australian Medical Association and the Stop the AVN Facebook group) and politicians roundly and outright calling out anti-vax docs and groups for the disease-spreading menace they are. It's almost a national pasttime there--and it works. I don't believe there's a single "vaccine-friendly" (a faux name for an anti-vax doctor) in Australia, but if you go online you can find hundreds of such quacks in the US--none of them feeling any pain or shame for their anti-vax beliefs they have put into practice. Nobody who is a big player in healthcare in the US is telling well-meaning parents that anti-vax docs and anti-vax groups are total nutters and scum, which is what needs to be said. Is anyone at the American Medical Association or the American Academy of Pediatrics or the American Association of Family Physicians even feeling the slightest outrage at seeing the likes of Tenpenny, Humphries and Wolfson damaging public health while making a mockery of modern medicine? If they are, they're being damn quiet about it.
We in healthcare have ourselves to blame for this. We haven't told parents in no uncertain terms how important vaccines are and how damned looney dangerous anti-vaxxers be.
I don't know, but my wife (who is a pediatric NP) has a pretty good track record persuading vaccine-averse parents to vaccinate, even with the flu vaccine. It could be a different population here (inner city mostly), or it could be something else, she has a talent. She's probably successful perhaps half the time. However, I feel ya. She's told me there have been times when she just didn't have the mental energy to try to persuade vaccine-averse parents.
Although I can't go into great detail as I have loads of work...
perhaps it's something about the subjects themselves - personality wise- who refuse to accept information and display such rigidity- there's been a bit about personality/ cognition and anti-vax-
Seriously. therapists and counsellors have to deal with arguing aGAINST unrealistic beliefs everyday
Don't get me started.
I imagine that you will before too long.
After watching rabbit holes so long (crank magnetism, etc.), I see so much overlap in various parts. It isn't really addressed in what I read here. People prone to believe vaccines are harmful are unlikely to trust regular medical organizations, the CDC, etc. In their world doctors are either well-meaning but brainwashed by med school, or on the take (that $40k/patient for every completed schedule), and the CDC and other agencies part of a nebulous cabal to medically damage all patients to create long-term pharma customers.
It makes the arguing a little more challenging, and gives vaccine averse a mental mantra to avoid being influenced.
Congratulations Rich, and enjoy your new life in Thailand.
Congratulations, Richard. That's really exciting news! Remember, they have internet in Thailand ;) Don't be a stranger.
Eric: regarding the ADA. I've never heard of a test case for vaccinating based on the ADA, but maybe Dorit has. It seems to me this kind of tactic works best after someone else gets hurt and sues :(
Anyone who ventures into the pig sty of pro-vax propaganda discovers a filthy world of lies, payoffs, fraud, hidden dangers and deceptive fear mongering.
Pro-vax spooks infesting media, academia and government are their own worst enemies. Their usual SOP is to play the role of thoughtful intellectual guided by scientific evidence, and to characterize anyone who challenges vaccine dogma as foolish, irrational or corrupt. It's a tired and transparent strategy that's become little more effective than putting lipstick on a pig.
"Orac is a spook."
-Max Stirner, I think
Wow, the projection with NWOR has reached epic proportions.....
What has the NWO Troll been imbibing?
Was that Travis again? That post seems stupidly over the top even by NWO Reporter's standards.
As opposed to, say, making brain-dead Xtranormal Nawmal videos and whoring around with Jon Rappoport? Is that a tactic rather than a strategy? I never have gotten that straight, Ginny.
P.S. Do you own lipstick?
Heh.
The reason nothing works is because modern medicine cannot explain exactly why this new generation of children have so many chronic illnesses. You cant keep blaming genes bad germs bad luck and better diagnosis. We call bullshit. Its clearly something in the environment and until so called authorities have a concrete answer vaccines will continue to be suspect. I have heard all the arguments and they are "weak sauce". yeah they are so safe they need govt protection? and a vaccine court? Cmon! its laughable and you people excuse the obvious gaping holes in your argument. The fact is they have increased allergies across the board in 10's of thousands of kids globally, hyper sensitizing their immune systems. injecting foreign proteins into the body what could possibly go wrong? You cant keep adding and adding more and more vaccines without studies. Its COMMON SENSE. As people see how limp the Pro vaccine argument is and how strong the innate natural immune system is They start connecting the dots. All they have to do is listen to Dr Larry Palevsky for a few hours and here the flip side of the argument and its over. There is no recovering from his take down. Unless of course your a Pharma trained Dr or Nurse or a liberal who bows down to authority and Pharmaceutical Mysticism. hehe
"They don’t cause autoimmune diseases, either."
Orac finally admits that he is a pseudoscientist who will ignore the evidence.
Even Dr. Offit admits that the Pandemrix vaccine induced narcolepsy, an autoimmune disease.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/855558?pa=T2UGBV%2FSsXrwiWmWV%2FO7D…
Rabies vaccines contaminated with rabbit or duck embryo CNS tissue resulted in "neuroparalytic accidents".
http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/75/suppl_1/i22.full.pdf
That's another set of autoimmunity examples.
There are at least 3 autoimmune mechanisms that cause autism.
Folate receptor alpha autoantibodies:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3578948/
Maternal autism related autoantibodies:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4776649/
GAD65 autoantibodies:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22323074
Vaccines can cause all three autoimmune mechanisms above:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313524429_Autism_Spectrum_Diso…
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316785758_Strong_protein_seque…
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318305895_Role_of_MMR_II_vacci…
And the reason vaccines induce autoimmune disease is here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318045518_Flawed_assumptions_f…
So Orac is wrong about vaccines not causing autism as well.
Theo: " this new generation of children have so many chronic illnesses."
Citation needed.
vinu: "Even Dr. Offit admits that the Pandemrix vaccine induced narcolepsy, an autoimmune disease"
When did that get ever get approved for use in the USA?
Hi orac. This is unrelated to the current post and I'm sorry to hijack it like this. My mum has an anaplastic astrocytoma which is inoperable. She's had radiotherapy and chemotherapy four years ago, but it's grown again. My sister wants to try something called cronaxal. It has been marketed as a medical food for gliomas. Do you know anything about it? It comprises oxaloacetate and vitamin c. It is horrendously expensive. My sister says we have nothing to lose because allopathy has nothing to offer.
THEO #41,
You hit the nail on the head. A safe, effective and necessary vaccine will sell itself.
Chris #44,
"When did that get ever get approved for use in the USA?"
What difference does that make? It's the same vaccine maker GSK, that makes our vaccines.
@vinu arumugham #47:
Wait, are you seriously implying that even though pandremix wasn't approved for use in the U.S. that GSK made it under a different name and sold it in the U.S.? Is that what you're saying?
♫ Said the spammer to the thief
The rest is left as an exercise for the reader.
There's two side (at least) to a friggen story, no one is interested into knowing all their cognitive fault even though there's some real research which is mandated for that. Have you looked in a mirror lately Theo? How much would you love to bring vaccine manufacturers to court?
Alain
Sorry to hear about d's mother.
Cronaxal promotions sound distinctly scammy.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/CRONaxal
What's left for patients and their family to lose in such instances is their money.
d: Sorry to hear about your mother. Clearly you are all going through a difficult time.
Cronaxal is a scam. There is no medical evidence to support it, and one of the people who sell it, "Dr. Mitch" has been disciplined by the North Carolina Board of Medicine.
You have everything to lose and nothing to gain by giving it to your mother. It will not help her. It is, as you noted, very expensive. So you will lose large sums of money that could be better spent keeping your mother comfortable at home.
You also lose time. If your mother has exhausted all real medical options for her cancer, then "alternative medicine" is not the way to go, for the reasons above. It is time to refer your mother for hospice and palliative care. I am a former hospice nurse: my experience, and the data supports this, is patients who choose hospice live LONGER and are happier at end of life than patients who choose to "fight" by taking treatments that do them no good, and in fact do a lot of harm.
Hospice care requires a determination she has six months or less to live. If her doctor thinks she has longer than that, then she can still get palliative care that will focus on her symptoms. She can still get chemo or radiation to shrink tumors if the goal is symptom management. Then she can enter hospice when her life expectancy shortens
Hospice works best when the patient is admitted as soon as they are eligible. Under Medicare rules you have to be re-certified every 90 days, but I've had hospice patients who qualified for those and yet lived several years in hospice care. Even if that's not likely for your mother, she'll be better managed on her symptoms and she'll be happier.
Best wishes
---------------
Vinu: whether or not narcolepsy is an autoimmune disease is not conclusively proven. Orac and Dr. Offit have the training and standing to debate the issue. You do not.
And autism is not an autoimmune disorder, despite what Theo claimed.
Theo: It's not so much that we have more children with chronic conditions, it's that we manage them better. Some of the chronic conditions led to early deaths 40 or 50 years ago, asthma for example, or cystic fibrosis, because we couldn't manage them very well.
Now kids with CF live functionally normal lives. I've known CF kids who are very active physically, and you wouldn't even know they have it except when they take a break for a breathing treatment.
Vaccines needed government protection because of a very badly prepared news report that caused a national panic in the 1980's. Congress had to step in to get the panic under control, and protect the public health. Relentless attacks by anti vaxxers make this protection a continued necessity. People can be very irrational, but that's not an excuse for letting children get preventable diseases.
Larry Palevsky is American Loon #1010: http://americanloons.blogspot.com/2014/04/1010-larry-palevsky.html. He's long been debunked:
http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2013/04/05/vaccines-viruses-and-the-an…
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2015/05/19/autism-one-as-quacky-as-it…
Mrs. Woo @19
I'm not quite 7 years post surgery for Stage IIb prostate cancer, Gleason score 7 (3+4) There's a support-group out there called "What Next?" operated by cancer survivors for cancer survivors: whatnextDOTcom
I'd recommend that both you and Mr. Woo sign up, since caregivers also needs lots of support. There might be a very few wooish posters, but the great majority of us are science based.
Be sure he knows that we are all in this together.
fusilier
James 2:24
Basic rule of propaganda and opinion manipulation: repetition! Get the message out there, over and over again. Do I repeat myself? Attitudes towards smoking, drinking and driving, all affected by messaging campaigns. Activists and advocacy groups all know this and can be relentless about it, why not regulatory and scientific associations? Obviously they have done some but more consistent efforts to counter TRUTHS would be useful in the long run.
In my field, we commissioned a survey that found that most respondents got their information from advocacy/NGO sites and only 3% from governmental science sites. Granted that our site is very technical and about as exciting as weak tea, it is the source for the unvarnished facts. Presentation and profile counts alot in the battle for hearts and minds.
@ Panacea Congress had to step in to get the panic under control, and protect the public health. Relentless attacks by anti vaxxers make this protection a continued necessity.
The attacks are effective because YOUR argument is weak. Plain and simple. You cannot have a public debate on this topic because the country would see just how thin and sketchy vaccine science really is. They already are seeing it. Big Pharma is directly responsible for the opioid crisis killing millions of people. And we are supposed to trust our children with vaccines injecting metals. calf serum and Polysorbate 80 into our infants? BAHAHA Your a special kind of stupid if you can actually reconcile that argument.....
Here is just 1 citation on chronic illness in children Chris. Go ask any school teacher who has been in the classroom for more than 20 years and its OBVIOUS. Yet to this day they still don't have a concrete answer for any of this. its ELEPHANT in the room Duh
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/717030
Everyone thank you for the kind comments.
I don't believe there is any method(s) that will change the minds of many people. Once they believe something, that is all. I have a brother that believes many things that are easily proven wrong but because they fit his world view, his view is always right.
It is interesting that in much of the developing world; vaccinations are highly desired but cost prevents many from receiving there vaccinations.
Jerry, thank you for being a prime example of the kind of nut case this study is talking about.
No amount of real science will ever change your opinion, which happens to be wrong. However, it can change the views of the people you're trying to scare.
There's nothing in the article you cite that has anything to do with vaccines. The examples cited have more to do with evironmental pollution and unhealthy eating habits; both easily correctable if we had the political will to do it.
Rich Bly: vaccinations are highly desired but cost prevents many from receiving there vaccinations.
Simple solution: ship all the vaccines from places like Orange County or some other place known for disliking vaccines, and then go 'oops, sorry, they're out of stock.'
This will accomplish two things: it'll drive down the price in the developing areas and get more people vaccinated, and it'll make rich snots in Orange County and other anti-vax burbs rethink vaccination. Things that are scarce are always more valuable.
I like how the anti-vax troll thinks he's the smartest, but doesn't understand grammar.
Vaccine Injured people will never accept vaccines as safe after their first hand experience with these products. Say you go to the Doctor because you are constipated and he tells you to drink some Draino as it's perfectly safe and will clear you out in no time. The next day you are in the ER with a hole in your stomach. Still want more Draino ? The pro vaccine argument being pushed forward in this country is little more than a marketing campaign to make money. Every editorial and op ed I read is the same copy and pasted slogans over and over again. With information coming out that Monsanto has planted such writings in favor of themselves and their cancerous products and stamp some skeptic journalists name on the articles it's clear what is really going on here. I can see through it from a million miles away. I also believe the intention of vaccine safety advocates is misunderstood and warped by the press till it no longer resembles what it really is. People with minds of their own want the right to make the choice for themselves. It's very simple and not asking very much of anyone else. You should be fine with your vaccines right ? Interestingly enough my friends kids just got the chicken pox vaccine and guess what ? They still got the chicken pox. Another neighbor down the block had his kids get it too and guess what he got ? A really bad case of shingles.
Jerry is correct. If the gold standard of testing is the double blind placebo then why has this not been done ? Where is the safety study and being given a flu shot every year of life from cradle to grave ? Where is the study on multiple vaccines administered in one visit ? Where is the scientific proof that the Mercury and aluminum injected from vaccines does not end up in your brains and organs ? Why is lumber liquidators in hot water for having Formaldehyde in their flooring yet no one bats an eye when it's a vaccine ingredient ? Do vaccines cause cancer ? The effects on injecting pregnant women ? The questions keep piling up and they will continue to pile up.
@Mrs Woo
Wishing you all the best! I hope Mr. Woo will listen to you and his (real) doctors when it comes to his treatment.
I have to say, my experience as a practicing pediatrician is that in patients with whom I have a good relationship, I have sufficient trust to get even most of my most resistant parents to get some vaccines. I confess I do emphasize the DTaP and HIB vaccines over others, and consider it a win if I can convince them to take those two in infants. In older kids, I add the Hep B and MMR to my list of "clear and present danger" vaccines. Would I love to get 100% uptake on all vaccines? Of course. I choose to not go all or none, and have had pretty good success at least with these ones.
Lucian, if you starting talking about aluminum, I would think that you are Travis. But as it is, I just think your education in the areas needed are lacking. Any epi, toxicology, stats work in your background.
As to why lumber liquidators got in trouble for formaldehyde in some of their products: the levels of formaldehyde far exceeded OSHA standards. The amount of formaldehyde in vaccines is at the very extreme limits of detection. Your or a child's normal body burden of formaldehyde is many times greater than will ever be found in a vaccine. Another clue is that formaldehyde is a class of chemicals and not one single chemical.
Remember dose makes the poison.
“Orac is a spook.”
I'm surprised I never met him back when I was following the family trade.
The only reason a person wouldn't have formaldehyde circulating in their body would be because they are dead....it is a natural byproduct of cellular metabolism.
Polysorbate 80 is permissible due to what amounts to a clerical error. It should have been excluded, but there was severe drought in the region where polysorbate grapes are grown in 1980 and confusion in the bill granting subsidies to the growers for that year. In consequence, P-80 (that's a hyphen) was inadvertently made legal, and all production reserved for use in vaccines. The supplies are expected to run out by about 2019.
My beer glass is nearly empty.
Lucian: I've HAD a vaccine reaction. I'm allergic to tetanus. But I got my TDaP booster when my job required it, and I could have gotten out of it because of the allergy. However, I happen to think being protected from tetanus, diptheria, and pertussis is pretty darned important. So my doctor put me on a course of steroids and Benadryl and life went on.
Only a few hundred people have had a serious vaccine injury, and they generally don't get vaccinated because of that fact, which is fine. Herd immunity protects them. But autism is not a vaccine injury, and while I still don't what WTF your so called vaccine injury is other than a vague claim of neurological injury, you're and adult and you don't have to get any more vaccines if you don't want them. But we need to vaccinate everyone else.
Literally BILLIONS of doses given and a few hundred serious reactions. There is NO other medication that can beat that.
Ethically we can't do the kind of study you demand (and I'm sure someone else has told you this) because it is unethical to withhold a treatment that works from a population to control a study of a treatment we already know works and is safe. And we've done epidemiological studies that have already confirmed what we already know: vaccines are safe and effective.
Kids who get the chickenpox vaccine do sometimes get a rash, and they are contagious. But the illness is much shorter, more limited than if they don't get it.
This neighbor you're talking about didn't get shingles from his kids getting vaccinated. That's impossible. Yes, it's the same virus. But shingles is a reactivation of the varicella virus. It continues to live in your nerve cells after the initial chicken pox is done with, and flares back up later in life in SOME people, not everyone. But we have a vaccine for that, too. I'll get mine, as soon as I'm old enough. I want nothing to do with shingles. But you're welcome to suffer if you like, you zealot.
No vaccines don't cause cancer. In fact, the HPV vaccine so greatly is reducing the transmission of the HPV virus, which causes 90% of cervical cancers, 90% of penile cancers, and is a large risk factor for oral cancer, that those forms of cancer will either be completely eliminated or become very rare.
Flu vaccine in pregnant women prevents fetal loss by preventing flu in the mother.
Thank you for playing.
THEO @41: Which generation? GenX? Millennials? iGen?
Please be specific and give a range of birth years of the "generation of children with chronic illnesses".
Wow, we really got everyone out of the woodwork on this one. I'm just about to fill my bingo card!
Mrs Woo: That sounds very scary. I'm hoping for the best for you and Mr Woo.
A tiny sliver lining is that one of the standard treatments for advanced prostate cancer is immunotherapy, which is not chemo, surgery or radiation (or woo). Hopefully Mr Woo will never need it but if he does maybe he'll be willing to take it, as it's "your own body fighting your cancer".
Good luck! *hugs*
@Doug a rounding error? Its an emulsifier used in many pharmaceutical preparations. It allows the ingredients in vaccines to cross the blood brain barrier. Perhaps causing an increase in learning disorders. Sounds like a winner. Shoot me up with the good shit doc.
The church of Pharmacutical Mysticism is in Full Control at this blog.
Where health and wellness comes from the end of a syringe.
hehe
Jerry: clerical error, not rounding error.
P-80 is an emulsifer, yes. That's the only correct thing you said. You need to cite a source proving it allows anything to penetrate the blood brain barrier (notoriously hard to do).
Then explain why vaccine manufacturers would want to "poison" us with it, given that it is in so many foods we eat.
C'mon Jerry. Refute what I claimed. AND cite a reliable source (cetaceans not accepted) for your claim with regard to blood-brain barrier.
I noticed that sarcasm went right over Jerry's head.
I am sure at no point will it dawn on him why a food grade emulsifier is used in a pharmaceutical fluid. It is not to cross any barrier. It must be so difficult to find a definition of a word:
http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-definition/emulsifier
Obviously, Jerry has never ever made salad dressing. Or at least bothered to put prepared mustard in one (which is also an emulsifier).
Think Jerry. What happens to the oil and vinegar of a salad dressing if you don't shake it?
I thought the family trade involved shoveling manure.
Farm-boy on my father's side, JP.
Wait, so you were a spy? Cool.
Please stop hijacking the thread on this important post.
I helped build a network for them, but I never ran into him there, either. I did see our host outside of D.C. once.
Also, piss off, Travis.
I certainly hope that there was a high-class interval signature.
Fuck off already, Travis. You made your own bed, so it's your parents' job to suffocate you with a pillow, not anybody's here.
What can a body say? The Lumber Cartel (tinlc) isn't what it used to be.
Re: studies on vaccines vs placebo, and other Gish gallop.
Chiming in to point out that a search on PubMed (at the NCBI website) for Vaccine and Placebo reveals 3841 studies in which some vaccine has been tested vs a placebo (well, maybe not all of them, search engines being subject to spills).
All the way back to the roaring 60's.
I found in the past studies in which new flu vaccines were tested in one school and not in the another one. A new vaccine being made each year, the ethical considerations are more lax - the study is to prove that this new vaccine is somewhat efficient.
Not interested in digging that one study out, because the AVers are just going to deny its existence. Or move the goalposts. Again.
Interested people may search PubMed for "flu vaccine placebo", if they like. The top result is a 2017 tox study in human on avian flu shots with or without some adjuvant.
@Lucian #59 and #60:
And say the moon turned out to be made of blue cheese when the Lunar Module Eagle landed on it. Your hypothetical question is just as ludicrous.
Tell that to the parents of Dana McCaffrey, Kaliah Jordan and Kailis Smith. All were too young to be vaccinated, all caught diseases from intentionally unvaccinated people and all died. The simple matter is, not getting vaccinated impacts others.
Assuming your story is true, it is possible to get the infection before getting the shot. It's a known issue in flu vaccination. As for the neighbour who got shingles, I'm guessing he got chicken pox as a child, which is why he got shingles.
It has. I searched "double blind vaccine studies" on Google Scholar and got multiple hits back. Here's one.
https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00004800
https://academic.oup.com/jid/article-abstract/140/1/48/885691
The rest of your questions are just JAQing Off: asking leading and loaded questions to get a desired answer.
"Where health and wellness comes from the end of a syringe."
Much better than alt med coming from the back end of a horse's ass.
"Polysorbate-80 is used in pharmacology to assist in the delivery of certain drugs or chemotherapeutic agents across the blood-brain-barrier. What viral, bacterial, yeast, heavy metal or other vaccine containing ingredient need to pass into the brains of our children? Do they belong in the brain? Is that part of the needed immune response to protect our children from disease? Do vaccine materials pass across the blood-brain barrier with the help of Polysorbate-80? If so, are there complications from being in the brains of our children? Is this another connection to help us get an understanding of why 1 in 68 children have autism, or 1 in 6 children has developmental/learning disabilities?" Dr Palevsky Way too many unanswered questions about the ingredients in vaccines...... I am sure its not the intention of pharma to purposely have PS 80 have this effect. I am also sure since they don't have any liability they didn't do the the biological studies, and if they did they figured it was for the greater good and swept it under the rug. Its just like everything Pharma does. Trial, error, lawsuits, Pay fines. Rinse and repeat but in the case of vaccines They have no liability and thus no incentive to clean them up.
You people here in this comment section never question a damn thing...You take it all in as Gospel from the Church of Pharmaceutical Mysticism. Its really shocking that you folks justify pumping children with this stuff. Your programed to be so scared of natural infections and over look the dangers of TOXICITY and the true cellar damage it does to the human body.
It also amazes me how little respect you give the immune system as if its incomplete when a baby arrives? Were all born with an inadequate immune stem everyone must jabbed with chemicals or you will DIE or infect others with your filth.
thats some crazy extreme thinking.....
I have an unvaccinated child and he is free from the clutches of vaccines and doing phenomenal! I have no fear whatsoever. Bring on measles. polio,whooping cough his immune system will be ready. Thats the holistic viewpoint you folks just cant grasp. I trust his body and immune system you don't. because everything you have been told is based out of fear and the body needs to be externally controlled by vaccines and drugs. BAHAHAHAHAHA Holy shit your so fucked if you are ever fortunate to come to this understanding. Its what Dr Hyman, Dr Perlmutter, Dr weil, and so many other dissenting Drs understand. Its your future whether you like it or not.
Some citations regarding poly sorbate -80
Sorry for my poor grammar I am a terrible writer
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21348312
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10886334
"I have an unvaccinated child and he is free from the clutches of vaccines and doing phenomenal! I have no fear whatsoever. Bring on measles. polio,whooping cough his immune system will be ready."
I really urge you to question this and not take it as gospel from the church of Holistic Mysticism.
Seriously, this is very serious sheet. Let me just share a story.
My mother is of the last generation of Americans to get polio. You would have approved of her lifestyle--fresh air, hard work, plenty of exercise, natural food, no drink or drugs. And she got polio.
There's something called post polio syndrome. It's when the not-quite-as-good nerves regrown after polio start to break down. Mom has broken her back. Twice. She's wears a brace and can't really do much.
Seriously. Quit believing what you hear, just because it sounds right to you. Do some actual research, not just flipping around in echo chambers. This is not something you want to gamble on with a child. No snark here. You are taking a terrible risk, and the odds--as determined by actual science--are very much not on your side.
@JERRY #86, Dr. Palevsky has been discussed on Respectful Insolence. Just put "Palevsky" into the Search Box at the top. If you are relying on him, you are being rather foolish.
As for your two studies, both were "in vitro". That means, the "researchers" took cells, placed them in a petri dish or test tube, then put the substance with them.
Very weak tea.
Jerry: "I have an unvaccinated child and he is free from the clutches of vaccines and doing phenomenal! I have no fear whatsoever."
Please thank your responsible neighbors who are protecting that child by vaccinating their families. They are maintaining your community's immunity to some rather nasty diseases. You, on the other hand, are a being a parasite on that immunity.
"Sorry for my poor grammar I am a terrible writer"
And you still don't what what an emulsifier does, even though I tried to tell you. You should work on your reading comprehension.
Jerry pretty clearly is yet another person who does not understand how vaccines work and seems to think they are somehow supposed to confer immunity independent of the immune system.
I also note that the citations for polysorbate 80 are:
- abstract only, article in Chinese, no link to full article
- abstract only, full article behind a paywall
Why is it I don't think Jerry has read either article, and probably doesn't even begin to comprehend the abstracts?
And Jerry, if you are going to quote something, it is customary to attribute it. Admittedly the quoted drivel is spattered all over the web, so attribution to the original source might take a few minutes of work. Without attribution (which should lead to original sources for the ideas therein) it can simply be considered as on par with my explanation for how polysorbate 80 became "legal."
Spare me the polio stories from decades ago.
I was vaccinated in the 70's DTP polio and MMR And that would make sense but when I saw the schedule with the Fiu shot and Hep C shot and all thes other ones I knew couldn't trust that.
The FLU? really? I had that 10 times over my life big fucking deal and you want to inject me with Mercury to protect myself from it? hahaha no fucking way
I get how vaccines work we just don't know all the other effects they also have.
Let me ask you a question? do you think pharma studied the effects of these ingredients? Other than measuring titers? What else happens? Are there any other biological tests they do besides titers? They say right on the package they are not tested to see if they are carcinogenic or mutagenic. They really don't know all the effects vaccines have especially in the long term. Thats all I am saying. And when you look at the dismal health of children today its pretty obvious these injections are contributing to the toxic body burden and over whelming some genetically susceptible kids. And nobody seems to want to dig in and if you ask questions your labeled a loon or kook or crank. Thats a red flag that something is being purposely hidden from you. so you are attacked. Its also a red flag when your pediatrician never tells you the other side of the story. its always one side FEAR FEAR FEAR. Even though some parents know instinctively it was the vaccine. Mothers know their kids. But pediatricians cant tell moms about all the adverse reactions because parents would hesitate. It should be a choice not mandatory like California. The land of loony liberal atheists etc who trust govt and not God. No surprise
"Let me ask you a question?"
Why should we waste our time with your JAQing off? Especially since you have no clue what the word "emulsify" means.
"The land of loony liberal atheists etc who trust govt and not God."
By the hammer of Thor, which one? The one that allows us to use our intellect to prevent suffering. Or the on that thinks it is okay to let women bleed to death from an ectopic pregnancy, and has decided children should suffer with diseases.
Jerry, you are a leech on society. And now you are just trolling.
@ Jeryy,
Did you really have the flu, or just something, people are unjustified calling the flu? Not everything people think is the flu, is really the flu.
@JERRY #91:
The FLU? really? I had that 10 times over my life big deal and you want to inject me with Mercury to protect myself from it? hahaha no way
1)I had a severe bout of flu over 15 years ago. I was: in bed for two days; sick for three weeks in total; and lost 9-10kg. Just because you had mild bouts doesn't mean the flu isn't dangerous.
2) Thiomersal is not mercury, just as table salt isn't sodium or chlorine.
Chances are that Jerry didn't actually have the flu, but rather a flu-like illness. The flu kicks your ass. My experience when I actually got the flu was that it knocked me on my ass for a week.
I do remember the last time I had the Flu - once you've had it, you can definitely tell the difference.
Are you sure, JERRY? Really, really sure?
My Mother said it was the flu and yes it knocked me on my ass for days.
Obviously we can all agree to disagree. This is the land of the free not the land of forced vaccines. We are not Communist China.
And the Drs who have dissented and spoken out do not seem uneducated on this subject rather VERY educated and experienced and when they speak about their concerns they come off extremely credible. Especially Palevsky. He is the #1 guy IMO who can communicate this information with ZERO emotion just the facts. He is very compelling and articulate. Its no wonder the establishment calls him a loon to try and discredit him. If he is considered a quack by you people that means he is speaking the truth.
Why cant we have both viewpoints on health? Merged together with freedom of choice instead of this non stop attacking? answer? Because Pharma is protecting its Multi billion dollar empire. They will do whatever it takes using ridiculous examples of kids with immune system disorders to guilt people into it. or citing global deaths from measles as evidence even though India and africa are 3rd world countries with poor sanitation and running water etc. Its so obvious SMH but not to you for some reason. all that medical training has taken toll. hehe
You want to vaccinate great go for it! leave the rest of us alone and STFU already about it Its None your G damn business. and if your child has some immune system disorder don't ask the world to get vaccinated to save him.Thats an extreme position to ask. Again this is not fucking China! its Murica. We died for our freedom and were not about to let a flawed Pharma model of care dictate what we inject into our Children.
These are just some of the cogent arguments why people cannot be influenced to vaccinate. Once you go down this path there is no return.
Jerry, where did your mother get her medical degree?
Please tell us where armed men come to your door to force you to get vaccinated. The only laws in the USA are for public school attendance and there are ways around that. So if you don't like them, just home school. Though I fear for your child, since you have no idea how to use a dictionary.
Now you have used the "Pharma dollar" idiocy. Oh, please do tell us letting diseases come back, which will cause more hospitalizations, disabilities and death so much cheaper than preventing diseases. Essentially disprove this paper: Economic Evaluation of the Routine Childhood Immunization Program in the United States, 2009 . Provide actual factual documentation to support your answer.
"These are just some of the cogent arguments why people cannot be influenced to vaccinate. Once you go down this path there is no return."
My irony meter just exploded.
"Again this is not fucking China! its Murica."
Funny coming from someone who used a petri dish study from China.
THEO
August 9, 2017
JERRY
August 11, 2017
I've had it with these motherfecking supplement-pimp sock-puppets on this motherfecking blog!
Wait, JERRY's mom diagnosed all 10 cases "over the course of his life"?
The CAPS LOCK actually gave it away for me.
The CAPS LOCk and the "hehe". There is nothing quite as convincing as a little giggle at the end of each comment.
Srsly, JERRY / THEO, what is the end-game here? Precisely what is achieved by funnelling your opinionation through multiple nyms, apart from making yourself look like a child staging a dollies' tea-party?
@JERRY #99:
Conmen usually are.
Why can't we have both viewpoints on the shape of the Earth (round vs. flat)? Why can't we have both viewpoints on whether or not men have walked on the moon? Because there is evidence to support one side and not the other, and it is the same with vaccinations.
Leaving aside the racism in your comment and the fact that Africa is a continent, Measles is airborne, and not affected by sanitation.
Jerry, let me ask you a question. If smallpox was to rear its ugly again (luckily its been stop by vaccinations), would you get vaccinated? The mortality (death) rate for smallpox was over 20%, the morbidity left a large percentage of infected blind, scared and/or disabled. To use a metaphor, you don't throw away tool just because it may have a little rust on it. No one here has ever argued that vaccines are perfect but until a better tool comes along (not some idiots pipe dream) you don't throw away the one you have. In my opinion all alt-med people would be more productive if they were having pipe dreams (if you even know what that references).
If you ask, you can get vaccine that is free of Mercury - also free of Neptune, Mars and Saturn
Oh Jerry Jerry Jerry. A blessed life you live if you know nothing of flu.
Ever heard of the 1918 influenza?
I had a little birdy
and it's name was Enza
I opened up the window and
In Flew Enza!
"Again this is not fucking China! its Murica"
Hmm. I don't know anyone on the alt right who says "Murica." They say "America."
"Murica" is a left leaning slur used to mock the alt right.
Travis, is that you? Fuck off.
"We died for our freedom"
You're a zombie? Ewwwwwww.
Please stop these malicious slurs against ignorant people. I come here for good information, not to read cute and clever insults. There are many other venues through which you can vent your need to show how cleverly insulting you can be. This has become very tiresome. Take your need for being cleverly insulting somewhere else. Some of us look to this site for genuinely useful information.
OT
Hey fam: a lot of people thought I was just crazy when I was freaking out about Donald Trump (over two years ago), but it turns out I was right.
I saw horses, horses, horses...
Also we have dry lightning here and the fire just up the road has started up again.
Smoke'em while ya got 'em, friends.
Also Nazis. Who slept? I feel like I should try to get a few hours in before I go to a funeral.
FTFY.
No, Iliya. "Sara," on the other hand, I'll bet my bottom dollar is Travis; the only other option is that a new Sara mysteriously appeared immediately after the one that preceded "Dr. Aust," or whatever that one was.
I'm not so sure Narad. I think Jerry is Travis.
But "Sara" definitely is.
@ Jerry who ever the ___ you are: Pavelsky uses homeopathy so he's as smart as someone from the medieval ages when it comes to medicine. He's also a greedy git who doesn't take insurance and clearly doesn't remotely comprehend the germ theory of medicine since he claims on his website (full of some of the dumbest shiite I've every seen) that he only write 1 rx for an antibiotic a year. .
JERRY is THEO is Iliya Torbica, blustering Advocare MLM grifter.
Or whatever.
I had forgotten about the THEO / Phildo two-dick circlejerk of 2015.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2015/03/16/suppressing-antivaccine-vi…
I have no time to respond to the rest of the nonsense but I will tackle Chris's point
Essentially disprove this paper: Economic Evaluation of the Routine Childhood Immunization Program in the United States, 2009 . Provide actual factual documentation to support your answer.
First of all I never said they didnt work. Sure less infections but more chronic illnesses. Second of all their is an assumption that vaccines are as safe as drinking water for the population so everyone should get vaccinated.
1 size all fits medicine. Do you actually subscribe to such idiocy?Is that the kind of medicine we want?
Use your noodle Chris.
We are all different & can have different genetic susceptibility and the medical establishment could care less. Show me the study where the vaccine schedule is safe? got one?
We finally got a pilot study showing incredible vaccine damage being done. Massive spike in allergies in the vaccine group vs non.
What if Vaccines are the root cause of most of the allergies we are seeing in children? What if Its the vector that sets it all in motion from infancy. I firmly believe vaccines are causing all the food allergies. There is data to support this as well. Thats fine for Chris and everyone here as long as people don't get measles? life long inhalers or epi pens perfectly fine with you. 7-10 benign natural infection not so much?
Do you people honestly believe that you can make vaccines work and fight all these terrible diseases, rewire the immune system in that direction with out a fucking Cost?
Nothing is fucking free!!
You cant redirect the immune system with an arsenal of antigens metals and nana particles and expect no cost. You are a special kind of stupid if you believe that. Every single pharmaceutical product comes with side effects. They are not natural or nutritive meaning they dont belong in the body and can displace mineral metabolism and disrupt biochemistry.
That pilot study proved it. You all know it too. Pediatricians cannot keep telling parents we don't know what the cause is for all your child's chronic illnesses.
its environmental and vaccines contaminate the environment of the body with all various junk they put in them. You know the list.
So Chris when you can show dozens of biological studies not epidemiological studies proving vaccines are safe and prove to parents what the exact cause of their childs chronic illness is you will get peoples attention. Sadly you dont have the science. and have to name call the refusers.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28730271
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25699008
Why are we trying to refute this paper?
"Analyses showed that routine childhood immunization among members of the 2009 US birth cohort will prevent ∼42 000 early deaths and 20 million cases of disease, with net savings of $13.5 billion in direct costs and $68.8 billion in total societal costs, respectively. The direct and societal benefit-cost ratios for routine childhood vaccination with these 9 vaccines were 3.0 and 10.1.
CONCLUSIONS: From both direct cost and societal perspectives, vaccinating children as recommended with these vaccines results in substantial cost savings."
Nice JAQing off there JERRY.
1) Citation needed that there are indeed more chronic illnesses in children.
2) Supporting evidence needed that vaccines cause chronic conditions.
Special snowflake argument. Amazing that people say we're all different, but then argue that because of it we should stop vaccinating/modify the schedule, without asking if diseases would be similarly changed.
A number of studies are listed under https://www.healthychildren.org/English/safety-prevention/immunizations….
Pilot studies are done to see if there may be something and if further investigation may be required. They don't prove anything. In addition, your two links just showed the abstracts. We need more than just those.
What if Vaccines are the root cause of most of the allergies we are seeing in children? What if Its the vector that sets it all in motion from infancy.
What if witches are cursing and killing children? "What if" is not evidence.
Food allergies predate vaccination. We already had this argument with vinu over a year ago. Let's just say he was unconvincing.
Pilot studies don't prove anything other than there may be something worthy of further investigation.
Sure thing, JERRY/THEO/Iliya, a known supplement seller.
A wee bit of advice: papers written by anyone the following should be ignored:
http://vaccinesafetyconference.com/speakers.html
Gherardi is listed on that page.
And who is the idiot who added the video ad at the top of the page that will not let me scroll down. I had to refresh this page twice to post this comment!
Hey Jerry,
1 size all fits medicine. Do you actually subscribe to such idiocy?Is that the kind of medicine we want?
How about we customize that special kind of medicine just for you when you grow a third arm on your forehead?
Al ;)
Also, I presume the "pilot study showing incredible vaccine damage being done" refers to the Mawson survey which only showed that parents whose first child had a neurodevelopmental problem and then decided not to vaccinate their later children thought those later children were healthier. In other words, confirmation bias.
Since the "study" deliberately avoided checking the actual health records of any of the children, it didn't prove anything.
And, Alain, I thought the third arm for the gripping hand was supposed to grow out of the middle of the torso.,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gripping_Hand
Squirrelelite,
The forehead arm (and hand) is more convenient for such occasion mandating the phrase: Hold my beer and watch this....
Al :) (always helpful)
p.s. Needless to say, Torso arm would be fine too in that case and medicine will readily adapt to both.
A wee bit of advice: papers written by anyone the following should be ignored:
http://vaccinesafetyconference.com/speakers.html
BAHAHAHA any scientist who finds vaccines do damage must be black listed! WOW just fucking WOW shut them up call them cranks anti vaxxers etc. If the science is so iron clad lets have a public debate on CNN to put the controversy to rest. What is pharma afraid of? Its like the catholic church keeping the bible from the flock. Finally Luther said fuck off and discovered for himself what was in the book and started the reformation. Same revolution going on Today. Why do you think Trump got elected? Because people don't trust the institutions any more and that includes mainstream medicine. Everything is being questioned.
All of you please do me a favor keep doping up with your syringes and make sure you get the flu shot WITH xtra mercury.
Im out
I keep trying to. The batteries in the nano-bots that the CIA injected into me are running down, and need more mercury to recharge. But my HMO never has mercury laden flu shots, even if I ask for them. They insist on using the single dose, pre-filled, mercury free variety.
If you know where I can find flu shots with mercury, please let me know. I've grown fond of the wee little 'bots, and would hate for them to run completely down.
If you will kindly use the exit on the right, I will demonstrate my 300 horsepower ultrahigh velocity door closer & ass impinger.
Don't let the electronic door hit you on the way out, THEO.
Jerry doth protest too much.
Warning people about the veracity of an author is not blacklisting them.
It seems Consumer Reports has decided to add their voice in the effort.
https://www.consumerreports.org/vaccines/myths-and-facts-about-vaccines…
It's short, straight-forward and doesn't waffle around.
It may not change many minds, but it should reassure a few of the hesitant.
And the nana particles.