Happy New Year! Vaccines do not cause autism in 2015, either

"so common is this finding now that I didn’t see a single news story about this study. That’s rather unfortunate, because I believe that it helps to publicize such studies, as yet another example of the depth and breadth of the evidence that has failed to find a link between vaccines and autism."

Well, they're still studying it, so they must not be sure. ;)

And whoa, Fukushima University? That'll give Mike Adams plenty of dots to connect...

Of course we won't read anything about this study at the usual sinkholes of anti-vax unreason because they have other earth-shattering news-
- John Stone didn't like a comment Brian Deer made recently at Huffington Post ( AoA)
- there will be a new e-conference about medical marijuana for autism which includes diverse experts. Heh. ( TMR)
- Jake Crosby has been quite silent after scrubbing critical comments and presenting his self-serving awards ( Autism Investigated/ also at Epic Times).

Vaccine realists like us need to take up a new hobby.

Denice, I can teach you to knit.

http://www.morganverkamp.com/august-27-2014-press-release-statement-of-…

Absolute proof ;) senior scientists at the cdc dont lie...or do they

@ shay:

Thanks but that's a little sedate for me - besides I already have enough scarves.
I was thinking more along the lines of falconry or orienteering ( I already can do the latter by car).

Don't worry, there's always something to scoff at on the internet....I'll find it.

@Andy - this is my favorite paragraph:

I want to be absolutely clear that I believe vaccines have saved and continue to save countless lives. I would never suggest that any parent avoid vaccinating children of any race. Vaccines prevent serious diseases, and the risks associated with their administration are vastly outweighed by their individual and societal benefits.

Yes, but you can knit and scoff at the same time. I imagine falconry and orienteering are two activities that require a certain degree of concentration.

Unless you're into scars.

@Rob

And what's your point?

That's the good news.

Here's the bad news: http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-aa2-snapshot-measles-whoo…

The outbreak includes 7 confirmed cases in CA, all under 21 mos old: 4 unvaccinated, 2 too young for it, and one vaccinated child. Plus two others who returned to Utah, and 3 more unconfirmed CA cases.

Comment #9 and the above link is about measles spread at Disneyland just as the holidays began.

Rob, this you miss this:
http://retractionwatch.com/2014/10/04/journal-makes-it-official-retract…

You seem to out of touch with more recent events.

I'll add this paper from Japan to my arsenal against the anti-vax crowd. The first thing I expect when I post it on one of their blogs is "FUNDED BY BIG PHARMA!" All the authors appear to be either university or medical center based and the abstract doesn't mention funding. Who has access to the entire text to ascertain the funding source?

There have been measles cases reported in half the United States in the last year. The common denominator in almost all the outbreaks?

I'll give you three guesses, but I'm sure you only need one.

Orac's right, we need to publicize the safety of vaccines and ensure that everyone that can be vaccinated is.

@RobRN

The funding source wasn't listed in the full text, as far as I could see, but I just took a quick look.

OT:
Jeffrey Beall alerts us to the fact that Seneff and Samsel have recycled their anti-Glyphosate material for re-publication in a second junk journal:
http://scholarlyoa.com/2015/01/08/anti-roundup-glyphosate-researchers-u…

Expect to see that propagating through the loonier realms of the Interlattice.

Seneff is also on-board with homeopathic magic water now, to explain how infinitesimal doses of chemicals can cause all diseases, though she disguises it behind a sepia cloud of bafflegab. I give you "Biological Water Dynamics and Entropy: A Biophysical Origin of Cancer and Other Diseases":

the unique physical properties of quantum coherent nanomolecular clusters of magnetized water

quantum coherent nanomolecular clusters of magnetized water

I give you Laser Water!

I'm trying to figure out if "nanomolecular" is meaningless or redundant. Wouldn't want water macromolecules I suppose.

OK, I can't help it.

magnetized water

Where are the half-filled orbitals coming from?

I am surprised that Seneff and co. published “Biological Water Dynamics and Entropy” in “Entropy”, when it would be more appropriate for “Water” — another journal from the MDPI, devoted to neo-homeopathy:

the special properties of the second phase of liquid water, resulting from its quantum-coherent behaviour at room temperatures plus an alternative value of the phase of the quantum vacuum

Another good choice would have been Water Journal.

I am surprised that Seneff and co. published “Biological Water Dynamics and Entropy” in “Entropy”, when it would be more appropriate for “Water”

Perhaps this (PDF) will be submitted there. (Pitkänen seems to have had to move from the arXiv to viXra; it's not there yet, though. He remains busy, though.)

Wouldn’t want water macromolecules I suppose.
Definitely don't want Ice-9.

Completely OT but wondered what you guys think about this? I know similar cases have been discussed on here before, but the children were generally much younger than 17.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2015/01/08/connecticut-supreme-court-upho…

"The Connecticut Supreme Court upheld a prior ruling Thursday that a 17-year-old cancer patient cannot refuse chemotherapy treatment for Hodgkin lymphoma.

The state argued that the teen lacked competency extended to maturity, as well, and that they did not believe she understood the severity of her prognosis."

"The state argued that the teen lacked competency extended to maturity, as well, and that they did not believe she understood the severity of her prognosis."

Apparently, she's not the only one:

"'This is not about death,' Fortin says. 'My daughter is not going to die.'"

Seneff is also on-board with homeopathic magic water now, to explain how infinitesimal doses of chemicals can cause all diseases, though she disguises it behind a sepia cloud of bafflegab. I give you “Biological Water Dynamics and Entropy: A Biophysical Origin of Cancer and Other Diseases“

This is one of the most entertaining things I have come across in a while. I sort of hope she keeps publishing this crap just for the lulz.

Hmm. My friend Vlad and I, on occasion, used to get some totally incomprehensible papers to grade that were written by students from mainland China. It turned out that if you added some creative line breaks, some of them actually yielded something approaching poetry. Here's an example:

like those pigeons
flying over the ruins
joy, close to the sky

the postwar Czechs
just smiling banter
and tears of sympathy

I wonder if I could do the same thing with Seneff's work...

chemomo - Heard about the measles outbreak in CA. That is going to be bad, the vaccination rate in CA is abysmal.

annie - I saw that article as well. I think that courts should allow doctors to treat minor children when the parent (and sometimes the child) is opting for woo. Problem with this one is that she is 18 and unless they can treat her successfully by I think September then she will be legally an adult to choose what she likes. I just really wish people wouldn't get taken in by quacks.

@ JP:

Why yes! Excellent!
Some of us have attempted similar edits of woo-drenched material.
Oh. In case you didn't know, I am occasionally visited late at night by the muse of Celtic poetry ( at least that's what he says he is).

Bonus Seneff:
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jt/2014/491316/

Wouldn’t want water macromolecules I suppose.

Anyone remember polywater? I had a book by Robert Charroux (?) when I was a kid, and he claimed that water that seeps through limestone spontaneously turns into polywater, which is the elixir of life, or something.

@hdb

Well, thanks for showing Seneff's links to Shaw and Tomljenovic to indicate the extent of her difficulties.

Orac finds the study redundant:

So why did they bother to do a new study? [author's cite genetic heterogeneity]...Given the multiple resoundingly negative studies done before, it’s highly unlikely that doing it again in the Japanese would provide a different result, and it didn’t.

I wouldn't take the author's word as the answer for "why?". It might be the scientific reason, but I'm wondering what non-science "why?"s might bring researchers from four different Japanese institutions together to address this topc at this time.

What are the vax rates in Japan? Are they facing VPD outbreaks? Is anti-vax hysteria A Thing there? Do they have their own versions of AoA etc., their own celebrity anti-vaxers? Is there a Japanese analog to Dr. Oz?

Perhaps I stereotype, but I wouldn't imagine Japanese culture would support 'warrior-mom-ism' in the same way American culture does. The 'epidemiology of woo' could be quite different there, or not. A cross-culture comparative study of vaccine-refusal could be quite revealing.

"I just detest how good scientists are forced to partially buy into anti-vaccine tropes."
IMHO, "buy into" is probably the wrong term. Isn't it more likely that good scientists are forced to deal with anti-vax tropes by social realities, to counter them yet again because of their prevalance even though they may think the science is settled?

I could certainly imagine that if anti-vax is A Thing in Japan, one of its mantras would be 'but none of those studies address the specificity of Japan!', and researchers might sigh, then go to work so they can say, "Here. Look! No."

"What are the vax rates in Japan? Are they facing VPD outbreaks? Is anti-vax hysteria A Thing there? Do they have their own versions of AoA etc., their own celebrity anti-vaxers? Is there a Japanese analog to Dr. Oz?"

Low. Yes. Yes. Perhaps. Perhaps. Maybe. And they are mostly explained in the paper, and in Orac's article.

The vaccine policies in Japan have unfortunately been made by politicians bending to the will of pressure groups. It happened in the 1970s with their pertussis vaccine. See:
Expert Rev Vaccines. 2005 Apr;4(2):173-84.
Acellular pertussis vaccines in Japan: past, present and future.

Which says:

An antivaccine movement developed in Japan as a consequence of increasing numbers of adverse reactions to whole-cell pertussis vaccines in the mid-1970s. After two infants died within 24 h of the vaccination from 1974 to 1975, the Japanese government temporarily suspended vaccinations. Subsequently, the public and the government witnessed the re-emergence of whooping cough, with 41 deaths in 1979. This series of unfortunate events revealed to the public that the vaccine had, in fact, been beneficial.

That series of events is one of the comparative narratives in Impact of anti-vaccine movements on pertussis control: the untold story.

Also, the issue with their version of the MMR caused a break in measles vaccination. This also had severe consequences, as noted in Measles vaccine coverage and factors related to uncompleted vaccination among 18-month-old and 36-month-old children in Kyoto, Japan, which says:

Since Measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine was introduced into Japan in 1989, a number of cases of post-vaccination aseptic meningitis have been reported and these have been attributed to the use of Urabe Am9 mumps vaccine [8]. In 1993, the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) withdrew the domestically produced MMR vaccine [9]. As of 1994, an amendment to the Immunization Law made vaccination voluntary and not mandatory. .... snip... Until January 2004, adminisiration of measles vaccine was recommended between 12 and 24 months of age, instead of between 12 and 15 months when children have the greatest risk of contracting measles [10]. In Japan, measles vaccine coverage has remained low, and either small or moderate outbreaks have occurred repeatedly in communities. According to an infectious disease surveillance (2000), total measles cases were estimated to be from 180,000 to 210,000, and total deaths were estimated to be 88 [11,12]. Measles cases are most frequently observed among non-immunized children, particularly between 12 to 24 months.

By the way, mumps vaccination is still very low. The PubMeds contain many papers from Japan about issues of low vaccination rates. Some medical practitioners there are not happy with their government bowing to anti-vaccine whims. One example:
Vaccine. 2014 Jul 23;32(34):4253-8. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2014.06.022. Epub 2014 Jun 18.
Recent progress and concerns regarding the Japanese immunization program: addressing the "vaccine gap".

There a few more from a decade or so ago with authors decrying the fact that Japan was major source of measles importation to the USA. An example:
J Travel Med. 2008 Mar-Apr;15(2):82-6. doi: 10.1111/j.1708-8305.2008.00183.x.
Measles exportation from Japan to the United States, 1994 to 2006.

The conclusion says, emphasis added: "Trend of exported measles cases from Japan to the United States has corresponded with the measles activity trend in Japan. Most of the cases were unvaccinated. This international health problem should be solved by strong leadership of Japanese public health professionals."

"Infinitesimal doses of chemicals can cause all diseases,"

Huh? I thought Infinitesimal doses of chemicals CURED all diseases. Has Seneff lauched a campaign of homopath-phobia?

So much for all the Perrier Shills trying to convince us hydrogen dioxide is nothing to worry about!

DB: Yes, I smell cover-up. Vaccines cause nuclear meltdowns. And of course, nukes cause gojira. Watch out Tokyo, your grid is going down, Better get that 3D printer now!

JP: I was going to make a Derrida joke about the poem, but then I thought, maybe it's not a joke at all. When I taught college in the SF Bay area, I was on the Academic Standing Committee, and most of our cases were Asian-American students flunking out of the STEM programs (pre-med especially) their parents were driving them into, unwilling to change majors despite making good grades in other areas (likely reflecting greater interest there as well as greater ability) lest they incur family disapproval. In my experience, most teachers working with similar student populations have similar tales.

A sort of Deconstruction for Beginners (i.e. as far as I ever got with it) would go: Language always contains a multiplicity of meanings. Any written linguistic expressions, therefore, always express more than one thing. Whether the actual various meanings in a text are the product of differing discourses within the 'self' of the author, or merely reflect different discourses within society and culture is more or less irrelevant. Social power always acts through culture some favor one set of meanings, and repress others. Our readings of texts are channeled toward the dominant meanings, and away from the suppressed meanings. Deconstruction is a form of analysis where the critic takes apart the semiotic process of this social narrowing (the "construction") and reveals the suppressed discourse hiding within it.

So maybe your Chinese students had poetic souls trying to get out, and you an Vlad were actually doing Deconstruction. Just a thought.

Chemommo: "measles spread at Disneyland"?

Disneyland exists in order to hide that it is the "real" country, all of "real" America that is Disneyland (a bit like prisons are there to hide that it is the social in its entirety, in its banal omnipresence, that is carceral). Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, whereas all of Los Angeles and the America that surrounds it are no longer real, but belong to the hyperreal order and to the order of simulation. -- Jean Baudrillard

I.e. Anti-vaxers have always been living in the real Disneyland, and the only question is why it took so long for the fake Disneyland to catch up.

And whilst we're on the topic of theme parks and other atrocities, I just learned that Jenny married an actor's brother and has a new reality show. Photos at Daily Mail, today.

@Denice (#26):

Oh. In case you didn’t know, I am occasionally visited late at night by the muse of Celtic poetry ( at least that’s what he says he is).

You mean Seamus Heaney? :-)

@Sadmar (#32):
Most of the Chinese students were, indeed, STEM majors, although I don't know how well they were doing in their main fields of study; probably well enough. The class we were GSI-ing for was on Central and Eastern European film - it fulfills a couple major humanities requirements, and tends
to have high enrollment. As far as we can tell, a lot of STEM majors take it because it seems like it'll easy - hey, it's just movies, right? (The reading load is not super heavy.) Unfortunately, for non-native English speakers, it's not at all an easy class, since the films are in about a half-dozen different languages with, naturally, English subtitles. (Which must be read, of course, and pretty quickly.)

To be fair, some of the EFL students wrote papers that one could at least follow, even if they were riddled with errors. We tended to go relatively easy when it came to simple errors, and the students also go to do a rewrite worth 2/3 of the grade for the paper.

When it came to the papers that were just incomprehensible, here's what we think was happening: the students were essentially writing, or at least, thinking, in Chinese, and then translating their thoughts into English. Chinese characters, however, often have many possible meanings. If you're translating basically word-for-word, and you choose English equivalents that aren't exactly what you had meant in Chinese, you can end up with some pretty interesting phrases, like "worm windows of war."

Speaking of "riddled with errors," my prose above has quite a few. Sheesh.

Chris #31: Thanks for the info and links.

-- "This international health problem should be solved by strong leadership of Japanese public health professionals.”
•• Good luck with that. Politicians do what politicians do, and that rarely includes 'leadership', eh?
-- "The vaccine policies in Japan have unfortunately been made by politicians bending to the will of pressure groups."

My bad on clarity. By, "a cross-culture comparative study of vaccine-refusal" I didn't mean comparing vax rates or anything, but what makes the anti-vax subcultures tick: What they think; why they think it, how it spreads, etc. That's what I mean by ‘epidemiology of woo’. Not just poor practice, but the mechanisms/pathways/etc. that allow woos to spread as ideologies. The med/science journals don't address that. C.f. what's "Low. Yes. Yes" vs. what's "Perhaps. Perhaps. Maybe."

"Explained in Orac’s article'? No. There's nothing in the OP about vax rates, VPD rates, pressure groups, or neglect by politicians. Those might have been useful things to mention, instead of implying the Japanese researchers were essentially wasting their time affirming the already known.

You talk nice to people about a serious problem. They don't listen. After awhile you start whacking their heads with a stick, Nothing changes. You're perplexed. You'd picked the best stick you could imagine. You double-check. You conclude, 'I do indeed have a perfectly good stick. I can't think of a better stick. I can't imagine how anyone could be whacked with my stick and not open their eyes!'. So you keep whacking away with your stick. It keeps not working.

At this point, I think most folks would be pragmatic enough to try a different stick. It seems to me skeptics are defined by such a thorough belief in the power, rectitude and righteousness of their stick*, they don't do that, and just keep whacking. Damn it. It has to work!

Are there scientific studies on the effects of scientific studies in affecting public opinion and public policy? If not, why not?

The ghost of Derrida mumbles something about the sonic similarity between "stick" and "schtick".

@ JP:

Neither he nor his spirit.
Another strange person.

Altho' , believe it or not, I am related ( through a cousin's marriage) to many people named Heaney.

Sadmar: " The med/science journals don’t address that. C.f. what’s “Low. Yes. Yes” vs. what’s “Perhaps. Perhaps. Maybe."

My bad. I thought I read it in the article above, but when in reality I have known about the issues with vaccination in Japan for a while. At least one of those exported measles outbreaks occurred in my country at a church gathering. One family had all eight kids get measles with three needing hospital care.

Also, I've been dealing with these issues since before the turn of the last century, so I a bit more familiar.

JP: "The class we were GSI-ing for was on Central and Eastern European film"

Filmies? Do tell! What kind of degree were you working on? What was on the screening list?

"It seems like it’ll easy – hey, it’s just movies, right?"
Tell me about it. They probably get that 'tude from their advisors, as that's how most STEM faculty imagine film courses. 'You've got a tough bio-chem class this term. Let's find a gut to fill out your schedule. Here we go! Film class! Watch movies, toss a little BS. No problemo!' (To be fair, it's not just STEM faculty with that stereotype.)

So I nipped that bs in the bud in my FLM 101 that counted for Gen Ed. The first three screenings were:
Even Dwarfs Started Small by Werner Herzog
Tout Va Bien by Godard
A program of experimental films concluding with (nostalgia) by Hollis Frampton

I also had them read Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" though I didn't expect them to get it until I decoded the Lacanian vocabulary in class (not that hard actually, and it's remarkably clear once 'translated'.)

By my second year, nobody enrolled looking for a gut, but the wait list for the class was just as long, it having developed a 'rep' for the 'right reasons: weird but engagingly challenging.

@ Chris #38 NP. Thanks again for the info and links. Didn't mean to suggest they weren't helpful. Good stuff!

Man, that church story... That had to be truly frightening...

sadmar, my apologies, I may have enough prior information to fill in the holes in this quoted part of the paper:

MMR vaccination in Japan was conducted under specific circumstances and for only a short period of time. A combined MMR vaccination program commenced from April 1989, and only one vaccination using MMR was included in the immunization schedule. The monovalent mumps, measles, and rubella vaccines remained the optimal choice of vaccine for those who did not participate in the MMR program. However, soon after the immunization program had started, there were several cases of aseptic meningitis, which may have been caused by the mumps vaccine [31]. As a result, in April 1993, the Government ceased extensive inoculation with MMR. Therefore, children who were born from April 1984 to April 1992 could receive MMR vaccination. However, children who were born between April 1984 and March 1986 were able to receive it after the age of three. Therefore, they were excluded from the samples, because autism features always appear before the age of three. As a result, children who were born from April 1986 to April 1992 were included in the present study.

There may have more information contained in Reference #31. Also, you will see some of the narrative is similar to the one I quoted about the uncompleted vaccination in a couple of areas in Japan.

sadmar: "Man, that church story… That had to be truly frightening…"

I am looking, but the three had pneumonia, plus it was a family with ten kids:
http://seattletimes.com/html/health/2004425637_measles20m.html
and:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5733a1.htm

@Sadmar:

I'm not a filmy in particular - I'm working on a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literature, just took my prelims this past spring. (I do Russian and Polish poetry, mainly 1970s and 80s, in a very small nutshell.) The film courses are the cash cows of the department, though, and provide a lot of GSI-ships. It was the one semester I got to teach something other than second year Russian. (Not to toot my own horn, but I'm a very good and well-loved Russian instructor. The language coordinator was always loathe to let me do anything else.)

There were three units in the course: one on the Holocaust / World War II, one on gender, and one on the Balkan conflict(s). We used a coursepack for the reading, with a lot of history (the students really needed context), a bit of sociology, and some film theory. I'd have to go back and look through it to remember all the authors.

Some of the films we watched:

First unit:
Agnieska Holland, In Darkness.
Zbyněk Brynych, Transport From Paradise.
Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos, The Shop on Main Street.
Jan Hřebejk, Divded We Fall.
Plus others.

Second unit:
Agniezka Holland, A Woman Alone.
Věra Chytilová, Daises.
Plus others.

Third Unit:
Srđan Dragojević, Pretty Village, Pretty Flame.
Danis Tanović, No Man's Land.
Milcho Manchevski, Before the Rain.
Plus others.

Bah, Slavic Languages and Literatures, plural.

Sadmar: "At this point, I think most folks would be pragmatic enough to try a different stick. It seems to me skeptics are defined by such a thorough belief in the power, rectitude and righteousness of their stick*, they don’t do that, and just keep whacking. Damn it. It has to work!"

Yeah, that's kind of my opinion too. It's especially frustrating, since so many are women and I thought that whole 'ruled by emotions' idea should have gone out with the sixties. These are people who presumably had careers, so they should know better than to think that emotions and feelings have any place in the real world.
My personal idea is that the per-child deduction should be correlated with medical records- no vaccines, no deduction. Or that vaccines should be vanished from areas with large swathes of anti-vax sentiment, and then peer pressure should be given time to work. Or the preschools in anti-vax areas should be shut down.

I didn’t mean comparing vax rates or anything, but what makes the anti-vax subcultures tick: What they think; why they think it, how it spreads, etc. That’s what I mean by ‘epidemiology of woo’. Not just poor practice, but the mechanisms/pathways/etc. that allow woos to spread as ideologies. The med/science journals don’t address that.

You really aren't very familiar with this topic, are you? I mean, wow, seriously. While it wasn't always thus, by now, in 2015, this is pretty basic information. Not only is there a considerable medical and sociological literature on what makes antivaxers tick, but I've blogged about various studies of this very topic on multiple occasions over the years and periodically continue to do so. It's late, and I have to go to bed because I have to get up quite early; so I don't have time right now to spoon feed you links to to the posts where I've discussed these things, but they exist and maybe I'll have time to look them up over the weekend. I've also written about what makes science denialists in general (of which antivaccinationists are just one subspecies) tick. These are applicable to antivaccinationists as well.

Are there scientific studies on the effects of scientific studies in affecting public opinion and public policy? If not, why not?

You're kidding, right? Same answer as above.

Goodnight, all.

My children have been vaccine-free since 2004. I started home schooling them and they haven't been sick since. No one has had the flu, chicken pox, measles whooping, cough, etc. EVER.
Personally, the only vaccine I can remember taking (I was born in 1957) was the oral polio sugar cube vaccine given to us at school when I was in kindergarten. Now I am finding out that it contained a cancer virus! The CDC even admits it: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/cdc-disappears’-page-linking-polio-vaccines-cancer-causing-viruses1
So far, I don't have it, and I NEVER GET SICK. We eat organic as much as possible, I drink lots of coffee, get moderate exercise, and stay away from crowds. Neurological and gut damage from vaccines is another story. Overall we are making good progress getting out of the hole.

As far as Japan goes, the radiation will get them before the vaccines will.

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Perelandra (Space Trilogy, #2)Perelandra by C.S. Lewis
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“Whatever you do, He will make good of it. But not the good He had prepared for you if you had obeyed him.”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
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“Be confident small immortals. You are not the only voice that all things utter, nor is there eternal silence in the places where you cannot come.”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
tags: inspirational 40 likes like
“The world is so much larger than I thought. I thought we went along paths--but it seems there are no paths. The going itself is the path.”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
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“I think He made one law of that kind in order that there might be obedience. In all these other matters what you call obeying Him is but doing what seems good in your own eyes also. Is love content with that?”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
tags: christian, love, obedience, perelandra, science-fiction 19 likes like
“you had nothing to say about it and yet made the nothing up into words.”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
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“It is not for nothing that you are named Ransom,” said the Voice...

The whole distinction between things accidental and things designed, like the distinction between fact and myth, was purely terrestrial. The pattern is so large that within the little frame of earthly experience there appear pieces of it between which we can see no connection, and other pieces between which we can. Hence we rightly, for our sue, distinguish the accidental from the essential. But step outside that frame and the distinction drops down into the void, fluttering useless wings. He had been forced out of the frame, caught up into the larger pattern… “My name also is Ransom,” said the Voice.”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
tags: christian-science-fiction, science-fiction 13 likes like
“Perhaps the experience had been so complete that repetition would be vulgarity - like asking to hear the same symphony twice in a day.”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
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“I thought ... that I was carried in the will of Him I love, but now I see that I walk with it. I thought that the good things He sent drew me into them as the waves lift the islands; but now I see that it is I who plunge into them with my own legs and arms, as when we go swimming. I feel as if I were living in that roofless world of [Earth] where men walk undefended beneath naked heaven. It is a delight with terror in it! One's own self to be walking from one good to another, walking beside Him as Himself may walk, not even holding hands. How has He made me so separate from Himself? How did it enter His mind to conceive such a thing? The world is so much larger than I thought. I thought we went along paths--but it seems there are no paths. The going itself is the path.”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
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“In the name of the Fathers, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, here goes-I mean Amen.”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
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“Every joy is beyond all others.”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
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“As long as what you are afraid of is something evil, you may still hope that the good may come to your rescue. But suppose you struggle through to the good and find that it is also dreadful? How if food itself turns out to be the very thing you can’t eat and home the very place you can’t live, and your very comforter the person who makes you uncomfortable. Then, indeed, there is no rescue possible: the last card has been played.”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
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“Well,' said Ransom, 'if it is a delusion, it's a pretty stubborn one.”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
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“But suppose you struggle through to the good and find that it also is dreadful? How if food itself turns out to be the very thing you can't eat, and home the very place you can't live, and your very comforter the person who makes you uncomfortable? Then, indeed, there is no rescue possible: the last card has been played.”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
7 likes like
“Where Maleldil is, there is the centre. He is in every place. Not some of Him in one place and some in another, but in each place the whole Maleldil, even in the smallness beyond though. There is no way out of the centre save into the Bent Will which casts itself into the Nowhere. Blessed be He! Each thing was made for Him. He is the centre. Because we are with Him, each of us is at the centre...In His city all things are made for each. When He died in the Wonded World He died not for men, but for each man. If each mad had been the only man made, He would have done no less. Each thing, from the single grain of Dust to the strongest eldil, is the end and the final cause of all creation and the mirror in which the beam of His brightness comes to rest and so returns to Him. Blessed be He!”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
7 likes like
“I think He made one law of that kind in order that there might be obedience. In all these other matters what you call obeying Him is but doing what seems good in your eyes also. Is love content with that? You do them, indeed, because they are His will, but not only because they are his will. Where can you taste the joy of obeying unless he bids you do something for which His bidding is the only reason?”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
tags: free-will 6 likes like
“Pure, spiritual, intellectual love shot from their faces like barbed lightning. It was so unlike the love we experience that its expression could easily be mistaken for ferocity.”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
tags: love 6 likes like
“a creature who has kept a planet in its orbit for several billions of years will be able to manage a packing case!”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
5 likes like
“If he now failed, this world also would hereafter be redeemed. If he were not the ransom, another would be. Yet nothing was ever repeated. Not a second crucifixion; perhaps-who knows-not even a second Incarnation... some act of even more appalling love, some glory of yet deeper humility.”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
5 likes like
“The whole struggle was over, and yet there seemed to have been no moment of victory. You might say, if you liked, that the power of choice had been simply set aside and an inflexible destiny substituted for it. On the other hand, you might say he had delivered from the rhetoric of his passions and had emerged in unassailable freedom. Ransom could not for the life of him, see any difference between these two statements. Predestination and freedom were apparently identical. He could no longer see any meaning in the many arguments he had heart on the subject.”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
tags: free-will, predestination 5 likes like
“The beasts would not think it hard if I told them to walk on their heads. It would become their delight to walk on their heads. I am His beast, and all His biddings are joys.”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
5 likes like
“The word 'human' refers to something more than the bodily form or even the rational mind. It refers also to that community of blood and experience which unites all men and women on the Earth.”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
5 likes like
“I am not sure whether I can make you understand it. It was something more than a prudent desire to avoid creatures alien in kind, very powerful, and very intelligent. The truth was that all I heard about them served to connect two things which one's mind tends to keep separate, and that connecting gave one sort of a shock. We tend to think about non-human intelligences in two distinct categories which we label "scientific" and "supernatural" respectively. We think, in one mood, of Mr. Wells' Martians (very unlike the real Malacandrians, by the bye), or his Selenites. In quite a different mood we let our minds loose on the possibility of angels, ghosts, fairies, and the like. But the very moment we are compelled to recognise a creature in either class as real, the distinction begins to get blurred: and when it is a creature like an eldil the distinction vanishes altogether. These things were not animals-to that extent one had to classify them with the second group; but they had some kind of material vehicle whose presence could (in principle) be scientifically verified. To that extent they belonged to the first group. The distinction between natural and supernatural, in fact, broke down; and when it had done so, one realised how great a comfort it had been-how it had eased the burden of intolerable strangeness which this universe imposes on us by dividing it into two halves and encouraging the mind never to think of both in the same context.”

“There was, no doubt, a confusion of persons in damnation: what Pantheists falsely hoped of Heaven bad men really received in Hell. They were melted down into their Master, as a lead soldier slips down and loses his shape in the ladle over the gas ring.”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra

Toto

Perelandra
January 9, 2015
Your comment is awaiting moderation.

My children have been vaccine-free since 2004. I started home schooling them and they haven’t been sick since. No one has had the flu, chicken pox, measles whooping, cough, etc. EVER.
Personally, the only vaccine I can remember taking (I was born in 1957) was the oral polio sugar cube vaccine given to us at school when I was in kindergarten. Now I am finding out that it contained a cancer virus! The CDC even admits it: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/cdc-disappears’-page-linking-polio-vaccines-cancer-causing-viruses1
So far, I don’t have it, and I NEVER GET SICK. We eat organic as much as possible, I drink lots of coffee, get moderate exercise, and stay away from crowds. Neurological and gut damage from vaccines is another story. Overall we are making good progress getting out of the hole.

As far as Japan goes, the radiation will get them before the vaccines will.

“There was, no doubt, a confusion of persons in damnation: what Pantheists falsely hoped of Heaven bad men really received in Hell. They were melted down into their Master, as a lead soldier slips down and loses his shape in the ladle over the gas ring.”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra

Orac: "I’ve also written about what makes science denialists in general (of which antivaccinationists are just one subspecies) tick. These are applicable to antivaccinationists as well."

And it does not matter where they live.

I live on the west coast, so I assumed that I would be familiar of the effects of measles being imported from Japan. Oh, and Korea... which caused a measles outbreak in a private school too close for comfort, so I had my two younger kids get their second MMR earlier than suggested by the ACIP. That was before 2002.

Except, in 2008 there was a measles outbreak that was caused by a young Japanese participant in the Little League World Series in Pennsylvania. How could a journalist like sadmar miss that?

I would support an Epstein Vaccine. Children 17 and under should have it. They need all the protection they can get!
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/07/20/jeffrey-epstein-billio…

BTW, Orac, did you receive any "scientific" research donations from him? He is a mathematician and loves to spend his billions on various scientific research. WHAT A GUY!

Early Disney vaccine trials for H1N1 influenza.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU1xe5ToIE0

Current research:
http://www.medicaldaily.com/how-flu-vaccine-caused-narcolepsy-children-…

Sadmar @32 Yes, measles spread at Disneyland. The cases are linked, including the two in Utah.
http://www.cdph.ca.gov/HealthInfo/discond/Pages/Measles.aspx
http://www.cdph.ca.gov/Pages/NR15-002.aspx
You may have the luxury of viewing “Disneyland “ as an abstraction. Some of us don’t.

Can you imagine being the parents who saved up vacation time and money to treat their children to meeting Mickey Mouse and wound up spending the rest of their kids’ winter break nursing measles? How about the parents of the two infants too young to receive the vaccine?

I spent last spring wondering how many measles cases would spread south from Orange County. This year they already have.

Ooops. "C" now in moderation is me. Don't know if it's the links or my accidentally failing to filling in my whole 'nym.

Or that vaccines should be vanished from areas with large swathes of anti-vax sentiment, and then peer pressure should be given time to work. Or the preschools in anti-vax areas should be shut down

Collective punishment is such a delightful concept.

And... over at AoA, JB Handley is shilling for big bleach, by promoting Kerri Rivera and Jim Humble.

JB - IT'S BLEACH!

@ Rebecca Fisher:

I saw that.
JB et al can't seem to get it through their thick skulls that children with ASDs sometimes improve ALL ON THEIR OWN during the course of development thus they attribute any changes occur to whatever cockamamie woo / bs they inflict upon the child.
AND -btw- they all despise psychologists. I wonder why?

any changes THAT occur

Oh, wow. It's a Toto.

My first quarter of college I took an English class based on science fiction, and I had to slog through Perelandra. Toto has just lost the argument from citing that silly book.

Toto has further offered up is lack of intellect with this idiot quote: "As far as Japan goes, the radiation will get them before the vaccines will."

Oh, and idiot: the SV40 virus was removed from the polio virus over fifty years ago. Was it done by activists like the brain dead Sayer Ji? No, it was actual scientists who wanted to make the vaccine safer.

Go back to paddling the waters of Perelandra.

LW: "Collective punishment is such a delightful concept."

Well, it's the last resort. These people are too thick to deal with any other way.

Toto: Since you started homeschooling (imprisoning) them, have your kids (if they exist) actually ever interacted with any other children? Do you take them to museums? Libraries? Playgrounds? Obviously you won't have to worry about college, since you apparently never left middle school, and your kids won't be taught beyond seventh grade.

@Politicalguineapig:

Since you started homeschooling (imprisoning) them

Isn't being legally required to stay in a certain building for a certain amount of time where there are lots of rules and you can get a few privileges for good behavior but the one thing that the people there care about the most is whether you show up or not more like prison than having your parents teach you things? Glass houses, you know.

"Disneyland measles" now in Colorado Springs, Colorado:

Visitors and patients present in the following areas at Penrose Hospital may have been exposed on January 3, 2015:

· Emergency Department and CAT scan suite from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

· Fourth floor from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Penrose Hospital is notifying potentially exposed patients. Penrose Hospital and El Paso County Public Health are contacting people directly exposed to the individual but the measles virus is highly contagious and other exposures may exist.

http://www.kktv.com/home/headlines/Measles-Case-Reported-In-Colorado-Sp…

Marcella Piper-Terry has a long screed up on how measles isn't dangerous; the MMR vaccine is the real danger.

http://vaxtruth.org/2015/01/measles/

My first quarter of college I took an English class based on science fiction, and I had to slog through Perelandra. Toto has just lost the argument from citing that silly book.

OTOH, he provides an excuse to link to Haldane's essay for anyone who hasn't read it:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/haldane/works/1940s/oncslewis.htm

justthestats: At least schoolchildren get to socialize. Also, most homeschooling parents don't teach new fangled things like algebra, theory of evolution, heliocentrism, plate tectonics...etc. School teachers teach almost all of these, and schoolchildren learn how to play politics, the fine art of backstabbing, alliances, gossiping and other skills needed to deal with the real world.

@PGP

Also, most homeschooling parents don’t teach new fangled things like algebra, theory of evolution, heliocentrism, plate tectonics…etc.

Citation needed.

At least schoolchildren get to socialize. . . schoolchildren learn how to play politics, the fine art of backstabbing, alliances, gossiping and other skills needed to deal with the real world.

You do realize that school-aged children get together a lot outside of school hours, right? Also, a lot of homeschooled children get together with each other during the hours that the other kids are stuck in school.

I do wonder what kind of life you're living if you're having to deal with lots of alliances and backstabbing. I find getting along with everyone has worked out pretty well for me.

Justhestats: I was describing MY school days. Luckily by middle school, I was the 'iron lady' and therefore exempt from schoolyard politics.

Todd W: I don't know where you are, but around my state, homeschooling tends to be mostly fundamentalists, with a few hippies.

@PGP

So argument by assertion...again. Except now you're making matters even worse for yourself, since before, all you needed to do was provide a citation that "most homeschooling parents don't teach algebra, etc.".

Now you need to provide evidence not only of that, but that most of the homeschoolers around you tend to be fundamentalists and hippies (two things that do not necessarily preclude adhering to state mandated standards of education).

Now all of the anti-vax parents are going to Disneyland.

I was describing MY school days. Luckily by middle school, I was the ‘iron lady’ and therefore exempt from schoolyard politics.

Sounds like my elementary school days too, but other than as a vivid example of what not to do, schoolyard politics haven't influenced or resembled my adult life at all.

PGP, at the risk of sounding bitchy, I have to point out that there's no evidence your school-days prepared you to deal with the real world at all.

@ PGP:

First, I am being serious.

Perhaps your feeling of being an outsider/ un-accepted has a basis in reality and it may have influenced other children around you growing up... they saw you are different and acted on it. You learned this early on.

You have described yourself as being darker than average for a person of your ethnic background ( -btw- my mother was like this also and she used it to her advantage in her career in fashion. She lived in more diverse areas though.).

You live in a place which has many people with northern European ancestry. Take a look at maps of Europe and America that illustrate percentage of light hair/ light eyes. Maps like these DO exist. You live in Central Whiteyville.

My late father always said that we ( he and I) were rewarded for looking and sounding ' a certain way'- not just because we were smart and had diverse abilities. Because we are stereotypically white. He thought that we should use this to our benefit altho' it might be somewhat unfair and unmerited.

Do you feel that kids ( who can be amazingly superficial- as can many adults) set you apart and it made you feel apart and alone? I wonder what factors like this can do for self-esteem in both positive and negative instances.

I remember reading about popstar Prince/ the Artist FKAP who grew up in Whiteyville and ran with his oddness and even made a bit of a career out of it. In other words, stuff like this can shape personalities and lives.

they saw you AS BEING different

hdb: "OTOH, he provides an excuse to link to Haldane’s essay for anyone who hasn’t read it:"

Oh, wow, that was brilliant. I read that horrible allegoric novel when I was seventeen years old and still religious, and I really really really hated it. I do not remember the details, mostly a memory of loathing. That essay did remind me of how Lewis totally botched anything to do with science.

Some prime quotes of that review: "It is interesting to see how Mr. Lewis's ideology has affected his writing. He must obviously be compared with Wells and Stapledon, rather than with the American school of "scientifiction," which is a somewhat lower form of literature than the detective story."

... and: "But my main quarrel with Mr. Lewis is not for his attack on my profession, but for his attack on my species. I believe that, without any supernatural promptings, men can be extremely good or extremely bad."

...and: "Mr. Lewis's characters are confronted with moral choices like slugs in an experimental cage who get a cabbaage if they turn right and an electric shock if they turn left. This is no doubt one step nearer to the truth than a completely mechanistic view, but only one step."

Thanks.

PGP, as others have said, please don't generalize. It's quite offensive. Do you know anybody who was homeschooled?
Like schooled kids (and the adults they become)- homeschoolers have a wide range of interests, abilities and goals. No system is perfect, but to condemn something without understanding it is shortsighted.

As one of those hippies whose homeschool curriculum was heavy on math and science, allow me to offer both stats and stories.

Stats first .(this site uses federal stats which seem less biased than those put out by the homeschooling community) See, they can read, they can cipher. Maybe they're test taking skills aren't quite up to snuff, but they have other ways of proving their abilities.

On the story side, one of my children finished his master's in mechanical engineering from a top tier engineering school just after he turned 22. He now works for an internationally known bioengineering company. He also knits, bakes and brews his own beer. His sister is a nurse working for a rural health clinic and working towards a double NP/MPH degree. The younger ones are still in school, one will finish next year - age 16 with enough college credits to start as a second semester sophomore. He's also a birder with several sightings in the official state record, winner of a 90 mile canoe race and a volunteer ski patroller. The youngest just built his first computer and regularly hacks things and sews his own anime costumes. Homeschooling allowed all of them the flexibility to travel, to think and to take responsibility for their choices from a young age.
I'm sorry, for whatever reasons, that you aren't able to see beyond your own prejudices. I know you are young, I hope age will bring maturity.

No sure how I made the link disappear http://www.statisticbrain.com/home-school-statistics/

Chemmomo:

The reference about Disneyland wasn't clear. It basically means exactly what your saying:

You may have the luxury of viewing “Disneyland“ as an abstraction. Some of us don’t. Can you imagine being the parents who saved up vacation time and money to treat their children to meeting Mickey Mouse and wound up spending the rest of their kids’ winter break nursing measles? How about the parents of the two infants too young to receive the vaccine?

_I_ know Disneyland isn't an abstraction. I know it's a businessplace where hundreds of employees show up every morning, put on costumes, fire up ride machinery, man ticket booths, work adminstrative jobs in offices and what not to pay the rent and put food on the table. Disneyland markets itself as an abstraction, an escape into magic and fantasy. When JB says all of America is Disneyland, he means we're living in fantasies we mistake for the real. The anti-vaxers in Orange County are taking some kid of ride on their own Magic Mountain of "measles is trivial, the autism scare is real, Obama can't tell me what to do!" yadda yadda yadda.

You said it yourself, basically. What do you have to imagine about Mickey Mouse to think a 20-something in a Mickey Suit designates a VPD-free zone?

Sorry for the confusion.

Chemmomo:

The reference about Disneyland wasn’t clear. It basically means exactly what your saying:

You may have the luxury of viewing “Disneyland“ as an abstraction. Some of us don’t. Can you imagine being the parents who saved up vacation time and money to treat their children to meeting Mickey Mouse and wound up spending the rest of their kids’ winter break nursing measles? How about the parents of the two infants too young to receive the vaccine?

_I_ know Disneyland isn’t an abstraction. I know it’s a businessplace where hundreds of employees show up every morning, put on costumes, fire up ride machinery, man ticket booths, work adminstrative jobs in offices and what not to pay the rent and put food on the table. Disneyland markets itself as an abstraction, an escape into magic and fantasy. When JB says all of America is Disneyland, he means we’re living in fantasies we mistake for the real. The anti-vaxers in Orange County are taking some kid of ride on their own Magic Mountain of “measles is trivial, the autism scare is real, Obama can’t tell me what to do!” yadda yadda yadda.

You said it yourself, basically. What do you have to imagine about Mickey Mouse to think a 20-something in a Mickey Suit designates a VPD-free zone?

Sorry for the confusion.
___________
OCCUPY SCIENCE BLOGS
Q: What do we want!
A: An edit function!
Q: When do we want it!
A: Now!
[repeat indefinitely]

When do we want it?
It doesn't matter!
Time travel!
What do we want?

brook: "Homeschooling allowed all of them the flexibility to travel, to think and to take responsibility for their choices from a young age"

My kids knew quite a few other kids that were homeschooled. They met them at playgroups, soccer practices, the swimming pool, art camps and music recitals. At least one pair of brothers would take band at the middle school, so one of them was in my younger son's band class (along with soccer team).

Oh, and that school band went to music competitions. One band that blew others away was a homeschooling group. These were talented musicians who as children decided they liked practicing four or more hours per day. They were homeschooled as a way to become what they wanted to be, professional musicians with an education.

@ Orac #46
No, I'm not kidding. I've been reading here and on SBM for awhile if I'd seen any references to anything I considered remotely adequate to the question I wouldn't have asked.

That said, I wasn't asking YOU. Just, you know, asking in a reply addressed to Chris, not that I expected an answer from Chris either. As I have observed in numerous threads here, I utterly appreciate that this blog is you hobby, consider that a person's hobby need not answer to any demands but their own pleasure, and you don't owe me or any other commenter here a single damn thing.

I have no idea how you keep up your professional work, manage all your other responsibilities, and squeeze in time for blogging. That any of us have this place to express ourselves or engage each other is a gift. That said, it's an open forum, and I'll ask my questions and make my comments as I see fit — not expecting that obligates anyone else in any way, and certainly not the hobbyist host.

Should you care to offer some links at some point, that would be nice, but it's strictly your choice, and if the whole thing annoys you, skip it. Get some rest (mercy knows I need to, and I'm not doing a fraction of what you do) and have fun with your hobby.

The hobby frame aside, I'm observant enough of sociological stuff to understand RI as a virtual social group, with different members of the community filling different roles. The prevailing social conventions include that the host does not respond to comments with arguments and citations, that being the role of the Minions. If I was 'Greg Young' the threads would be filled with responses to my comments supported by a host of citations. I'm not, and the threads aren't. But it's not your job, Orac, to fill in the gaps, at least not as I understand how things work here.

But if you are going to take the time to respond, your overall hobby enjoyment might be enhanced by filtering posts so you don't come off as a condescending jerk to people who are trying to be on you side in getting vax rates up and preventing VPDs. IMHO. YMMV. Rest well.

@Politicalguineapig:
Politicalguineapig

LW: “Collective punishment is such a delightful concept.”

Well, it’s the last resort. These people are too thick to deal with any other way.

Well, sure.

I mean, I was agreeing with you. If 10% of the population deprives their children of vaccines, the other 90% who are responsible parents should obviously be condemned and punished along with the irresponsible 10%. If they choose to live with people that thick, they should suffer the consequences.

Especially their children. Babies choking to death from pertussis because their parents are forbidden to vaccinate no matter how much they wish to are an excellent object lesson in the consequences of living in the wrong part of the country.

DW: It wasn't racism, I know that. I was just wired weirdly, and too smart, for a start, and small for my age, and then I compounded all my mistakes by making a friend of the opposite sex. Which is a big no-no in primary school. Also, I'm not as quick to pick up on social cues as other women are.

justthestats: Are you a guy? Because men don't tend to do back-stabbing or pretend to be friends with people they dislike.

Brook: Homeschooling allowed all of them the flexibility to travel, to think and to take responsibility for their choices from a young age.

Well, that doesn't sound too much different from my experience. I went to private school from third grade on. I spent two weeks out of junior year in the Galapagos, spent a lot of time on my own projects, and of course, had time to think and read. Although I'd happily have skipped music class. My main problem is that there's not enough people like you and too many like Toto.

Was Epstein's KRASS gene activated?
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/08/alan-dershowitz-girl-jef…

More on this Jeffrey Epstein VI (Virgin Islands) Foundation funded research:
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/07/transforming-cancer-treat…

Looks like the U.S. taxpayer is left holding the bag (as usual):

"Tax Break Bringing Businesses, and Fraud, to the Virgin Islands

By STEPHANIE STROM
and LYNNLEY BROWNING

Published: September 18, 2004
"Among the newer arrivals who are beneficiaries of the program are Richard Driehaus, the Chicago money manager whose new house in St. Thomas is the talk of the town; Jeffrey Epstein, the elusive money manager who reportedly handles only clients with $1 billion or more in assets..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/18/national/18taxes.html?pagewanted=all&…;
"

The U.S. Virgin Islands seems to be a scientific research epicenter.....

"A picture of Professor Hawking, purportedly taken during the conference, is featured on the ‘Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation’ blog in a posting topped with the dateline March 21, 2012.
But it is not yet clear when the conference - called 'The Energy of Empty Space That Isn't Zero' - took place or how long it lasted.
The blog states that guests ‘could meet, discuss, relax on the beach, and take a trip to the nearby private island retreat of the science philanthropist Jeffrey Epstein, who funded the event.’"

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2901091/Paedophile-billionaire-…

Orac,

You are the Mark Twain of the ScienceBlog "Respectful Insolence" but vaccine-induced regressive autism is a serious subject.

Let's not avoid the understanding that natural rubber latex (NRL) contamination in vaccines, and repeated NRL exposure thereafter, can cause allergy-induced regressive autism.

Most important, if a parent is concerned about the natural rubber latex in vaccines the following information from the CDC can be used as a guide:

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/B/latex-…

Go away MjD:

http://americanloons.blogspot.com/2013/07/628-michael-j-dochniak-denise…

@Dachniak:

[V]accine-induced regressive autism is a serious subject load of rubbish made up by lying antivaccinationists.

The Disneyland outbreak is now at 19 cases in 4 states (California, Utah, Colorado, and Washington).

Washington state health officials confirmed late Friday that the Grays Harbor girl, who had not been vaccinated, was infected. She visited Disneylandduring the same time as the others with confirmed cases, officials said. She also was treated at the Summit Pacific Medical Center in Elma, Grays Harbor County, while contagious.

At the same time, state health officials say, an unvaccinated woman in her 20s contracted measles after visiting Disneyland, then traveled by plane from Orange County to Seattle. She flew into Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Dec. 29 and flew out last Saturday.

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2025426551_measlesdisneylandxml…

Forgot to add the last line.

Either 17 or 18* cases are in unvaccinated individuals, including two infants too young to be vaccinated.

*accounts vary.

Typically health departments don't issue reports over the weekend, so I expect that the count will be higher on Monday.

Jeffrey "conned" Harvard science elite......without a bachelor’s degree!

Understatement of the year, LOL! :
"Epstein’s beneficiaries say they are particularly appreciative of the no-strings-attached approach Epstein takes with his donations.

“He is one of the most pleasant philanthropists,” Nowak says. “Unlike many people who support science, he supports science without any conditions. There are not any disadvantages to associating with him.”
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/6/5/people-in-the-news-jeffrey-e/
People in the News: Jeffrey E. Epstein
By JAQUELYN M. SCHARNICK, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER June 5, 2003

@ Liz Ditz: Noted epidemiologist Dr. Bob Sears provides advice to those who might have been exposed at Disneyland and at all those other locations:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-Bob-Sears/116317855073374

Dr. Bob Sears
January 8 at 9:44am ·

DR. BOB'S DAILY:

MEASLES MAKES A STOP AT DISNEYLAND

NPR and two other news agencies reported today that nine cases of measles have been linked to visiting Disneyland or California Adventure between December 15 and 20. Seven of the cases are California residents, and two are from Utah. The nine cases all reportedly visited the theme park between these dates. It is thought that a contagious person must have been at the park at that time.

Here's the good news - measles has a 21 day incubation period at the longest, so that means that everyone who is going to get sick from that exposure will become sick by the next two days at the latest. So, we all only have two days to panic, board up our houses, wear masks, shun visitors, and peer suspiciously at everyone we see.

The bad news - although I make light of people's tendency to panic unnecessarily, measles is no laughing matter for those who are exposed to one of these nine cases. Although most cases pass harmlessly in the long run, it is a miserable week. Severe complications are very rare, thankfully. But moderate complications, like pneumonia, can occur. It can also be more severe for infants and for pregnant moms and for immunocompromised people. Our hearts go out to any of these high-risk people who are exposed. But most complications are manageable. So, it is a worry for exposed people, I know. But for the public at large, we should just go about life as usual. For anyone exposed to those nine, you are being managed by your doctor and the health department.

As with all previous measles outbreaks, there's no reason to panic. Here is some info to know:

If vaccinated with one dose of MMR, you have a 95% chance of being immune. If two doses of MMR, 99% chance. But this isn't perfect. As you will read in the link, one of the cases was fully vaccinated.

Average incubation period for your child to begin feeling sick is 10 to 12 days, but can be as early as 7 days and as late as 21 days.

Symptoms to watch for are:

Fever
Sore throat
Runny nose
Cough
Red eyes

So you won't know it's measles at first. 2 to 5 days after these symptoms, the rash appears. The best way to view the rash is on www.CDC.gov and search for Measles under M in the Diseases section. It is red spots that start on the face around the hairline, then move down onto the body then arms and legs.

High dose Vitamin A may help prevent measles, and may help treat it if your child catches it. The World Health Organization has published dosing guidelines you can find online. The dose is once daily for two days.

Bottom line is that it's a tough time for those involved, but we don't need to panic.

Dr. Bob

Didn't the Harvard science elite read Pinocchio, or at least watch the Disney version? They are without excuse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY9rK1YXAIk

Respected epidemiologist/lactation specialist Dr. Jay Gordon weighs in on his Twitter account:

https://twitter.com/jaygordonmdfaap

Jay Gordon, MD, FAAP @JayGordonMDFAAP · Jan 8

Yes, there have been cases of Disney spread from Measlesland. I will give MMRs to kids 3 yrs+ if parents are worried. http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/01/08/375832981/measles-makes-an-u… …

Huh? How about ages one (or two) when the first of the 2-dose MMR series is supposed to be given according to the CDC and the AAP? (Dr. Jay doesn't recommend MMR vaccine for his patients. If the parents don't want to go for the easy California Philosophical Exemption, he will provide it just before school entry).

Is Dr. Gordon saying he will refuse to follow the standard of care and vaccinate children younger than 3 even if the parents ask?

Toto, do your posts about Epstein have an actual point? Epstein fooled a lot of people. He is evidently a charismatic individual, and a surprising number of people who should have know better believed him. What relevance does this have to vaccine safety?

For what it's worth, there is an interesting article in the January/February MIT Technology Review titled "Solving the Autism Puzzle". This article discusses the role of various genetic mutations linked to autism sprectrum disorders.

http://www.technologyreview.com/photoessay/533501/solving-the-autism-pu…

Thank you, Liz Ditz.
This ABC news link has a count of 19, with 2 fully vaccinated, the two infants, and the rest as un- or incompletely vaccinated.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/measles-cases-reported-ties-disn…

How many of those incompletely vaccinated are following Dr Sears' and Dr Gordon's advice?

@Elilady
"Kathleen Harriman, chief of vaccine preventable diseases for the state, said that "it's our SPECULATION that there was an [infected] international visitor at one of the parks, and that person or persons was able to infect a lot of people.' "

Well, Toto can "speculate" just as well.
I say the "one" vaccinated kid did it! Vaccine induced measles is more severe. Here is some scientific evidence to back this up:

"The first "live measles vaccine" caused one-third of the recipients to develop a high fever and half of the recipients to develop a rash.[more] There can be no stronger exposure to measles than a direct injection of decaying material, toxic chemicals and "live virus." The proof that vaccine induced measles is more severe than natural measles is shown by the higher percentage of children suffering from vaccine injury than occurred as side effects of natural measles. Thus the number of measles cases following direct injection of vaccine ingredients can easily be higher than would occur following multiple natural measles exposures. The number (50%) of vaccine recipients with rash following the first "live virus" vaccine suggests that natural immunity to measles must have been a minimum of 50% of the children at that time and given the force of disease when toxic ingredients are directly injected, natural immunity was likely to have been considerably higher than only 50%. The 200,000 to 600,000 reported cases of measles each year may be reasonably accurate in the pre-vaccine era as simply cases and require no further adjustment for accuracy. Denying that measles incidence declined prior to vaccine introduction is thus contrary to data obtained from the first "live virus" experiments and ignores the fact that reported cases (or "adjusted" reported cases) remained nearly the same in spite of increasing childhood population and is not sustainable due to uncertainties in the reporting system which we discuss below.
Conclusion: Measles incidence in the pre-vaccine era had declined from the pre-sanitation era by at least 50% (as a percentage of children over age one) and as much as 90% before measles vaccination began."
http://www.vaclib.org/intro/measles-intro.htm

"How did less than 68% of children develop "immunity" if 100% of the children had the measles?

It is not only death rates that decline with advancing sanitation and nutrition but also the incidence of disease. An example of natural immunity to measles can be seen in a medical article that revealed that the unvaccinated Amish in Lebanon County, PA had no measles cases from 1970 though December 1987. This group was large and yet had no cases for 17 years while mainstream medicine was crediting low measles rates to vaccination. Measles among the Amish: A comparative Study of Measles Severity in Primary and Secondary Cases in Households Published by The Journal of Infectious Diseases 1991:163:12-16, page 12.
Another source, Adverse Events Associated with Childhood Vaccines: Evidence Bearing on Causality http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=2138&page=118, OCR for page 119:

Development of a live attenuated measles vaccine
... The initial vaccine was derived from the Edmonston strain, which was attenuated by serial passage in various tissue cultures and ultimately grown in chicken embryo cells. The resulting variant was named the Edmonston B strain. It was quite immunogenic, but it was not free of side effects. One-third of the recipients developed high fever, and half of the recipients had a rash. Nevertheless, none of the recipients acted ill.
If a "live virus" plus toxic vaccine ingredients directly injected into a child can cause only 50% of the children to become ill, then natural immunity must have been at a minimum of 50% and could easily have been higher because there is no stronger "exposure" to a disease's cause than direct injection of toxic compounds. We will prove later in this web page that vaccine caused cases are severe not "mild".

As we mentioned earlier, reporting systems can under-report as well as over-report. In the 1920's approximately 19 percent of cases were reported. By the time the measles vaccine was introduced, it is possible that "reports" were adjusted before relaying to the CDC and thus could have possibly represented an over reporting of the true number of cases. This problem is illustrated by Dispelling Vaccination Myths by Alan Phillips, part 3,
"In 1974, the CDC determined that there were 36 cases of measles in Georgia, while the Georgia State Surveillance System reported 660 cases."
http://www.vaclib.org/intro/measles-intro.htm#edmonston

Wow. I just re-read Dr Gordon's tweet, with comprehension.

cases of Disney spread from Measlesland

Could he be more callous and disrespectful?

According to an abstract from a paper co-authored by "age of autism (1986-2000)" Dr. Orenstein:

"An outbreak of measles occurred in a high school with a documented vaccination level of 98 per cent. Nineteen (70 per cent) of the cases were students who had histories of measles vaccination at 12 months of age or older and are therefore considered vaccine failures. Persons who were unimmunized or immunized at less than 12 months of age had substantially higher attack rates compared to those immunized on or after 12 months of age. Vaccine failures among apparently adequately vaccinated individuals were sources of infection for at least 48 per cent of the cases in the outbreak. There was no evidence to suggest that waning immunity was a contributing factor among the vaccine failures..."
Am J Public Health. 1987 April; 77(4): 434–438.
PMCID: PMC1646939
"Measles outbreak in a vaccinated school population: epidemiology, chains of transmission and the role of vaccine failures."
B M Nkowane, S W Bart, W A Orenstein, and M Baltier
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646939/

Dorit, Dr. Jay has a long history of trusting "mommy intuition" and his "own" vaccine schedule (only if parents request vaccines)

His website has been scrubbed clean of his recommendations for specific vaccines...because I confronted him about his deviating from the CDC and the AAP Recommended Childhood Vaccine Schedule. At one time he refused to recommend Prevnar Vaccine (It was "too new for me to recommend"), didn't recommended MMR vaccine until 4 years old and stated that he provides varicella vaccine at 10-11 years old, if "the child hasn't already contracted chicken pox").

Dr. Gordon pulled down those recommendation and then put up some scary vaccine stuff from whaleDOTto and I posted at him on Respectful Insolence, questioning him why he didn't provided links to the California Department of Public Health or the CDC Child Vaccine Schedule; he didn't reply.

I also confronted Dr. Jay on Dr. G's SBM blog about his bizarre vaccine schedule and his "mistruths" about the availability of the varicella vaccine...and I provided him with the recommendations from the Israeli Health Ministry and the CDC about OPV vaccine, starting here:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/antivaccine-use-the-law-when-scienc…

*Dr. Jay, who had put me "on probation" on Respectful Insolence, removed my "probation" and banned me.

*Probation and banning by Dr. Jay are my badge of honor.

Thanks for that background, Lilady.

Dr. Gordon said on twitter that he is reluctant to give MMR before 3 but will give it if the parent want. His reluctance seems based on the DeStefano 2004 study, which found that age of MMR is not related to rates of autism. I think he may have mistaken its meaning.

@Krebiozen
"Toto, do your posts about Epstein have an actual point? Epstein fooled a lot of people. He is evidently a charismatic individual, and a surprising number of people who should have know better believed him. What relevance does this have to vaccine safety?"

You have to ask? REALLY?
The fact that this MAJOR funder of scientific research and influencer of the top U.S. school, Harvard, isn't the NUMBER ONE TOPIC of this blog says it all.
Have you had any trips to "Pleasure Island" lately?
All business, of course.

At least schoolchildren get to socialize

PgP, I had to endure two years of 'kindergarden' because they felt I had not developed social skills. Never mind learning how to count to 100 day one, that was the routine every single day; Count to 100, do the hokey pokey, drink some coolaid, learn some bible stories about leprosy, and being told that I had better enjoy my time there because, when I got out, I was going to Viet Nam to be killed.

Socializing. I just always seem to get a 'U' in that:
Now that I was the year older and my 'peers' that little bit younger and a whole lot dumber, My entire *schooling* experience has been that of beaten into submission by abject stupid, drugged into conformity, stigmatised my whole life for pointing out falsehoods and the derpitude of conformance -- Teachers and parents not excepted but the greatest of offenders.

I do feel robbed by others' imposition of *social* and I am bitter now for sure.

Looks like Toto got his internet privileges back at the asylum....

@101

The paper that you cited demonstrates that

(1) the attack rate among unvaccinated students was about 20 times that among vaccinated students, so vaccines worked pretty well--as expected

(2) since the number of vaccinated students who were actually infected is lower than the number of students who would have been expected to be susceptible due to just primary vaccine failure, herd immunity due to the high vaccine uptake seems to have substantially limited the spread of the disease--as expected

@BA
"Not in Disneyland
January 9, 2015
Now all of the anti-vax parents are going to Disneyland."

You've inspired me! If we ever go to Disney World, I'll print up matching family t-shirts proudly stating "UNVACCINATED" in large letters. NO MORE HOUR LONG WAITS FOR MAGIC MOUNTAIN, ETC! The low information pro-vaxxers will clear out in no time, TAKING THEIR VACCINE INDUCED MEASLES with them! Our family will be safe and ride-line free.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646939/

Brian, I would recommend that you ignore the troll's link to a 28 year old (1987) paper. The children received their one vaccine before their first birthday, which is now known to yield lower immunity levels. Children can receive a MMR vaccine if they have been exposed to a measles case or if they are traveling to a measles-endemic area of the world. That early dose of MMR "doesn't count" toward the primary 2-dose series to be administered at 12-15 months of age and at 4-6 years old.

This outbreak occurred years before the first MMR shot was recommended to be given between 12-15 months of age and before the recommendation for the implementation of a second MMR vaccine to be given at age 4-6 years:

http://www.cdc.gov/MMWR/preview/mmwrhtml/00053391.htm

I just ran across a very promising cure - not only for infectious diseases, but for anything that might ail you during this dark part of a cold winter. It's the Panacea cocktail. Recipe:

"Make honey-lemon-ginger syrup: In a small pot over medium heat, simmer 1 cup honey, 1 cup water and ½ cup minced ginger until mixture cooks down to a thick syrup, 10 minutes. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve, pressing on solids to extract liquid. Discard solids. Add¾ cup fresh lemon juice to syrup and stir. Cover and chill."
In a tumbler half-filled with ice, stir together 2 ounces honey-lemon-ginger syrup and 2 ounces blended Scotch. Pour ¼ ounce Islay single-malt Scotch over the back of a spoon so it floats on top of drink. Garnish with a slice of ginger and candied lemon peel (optional)."

http://www.wsj.com/articles/cold-comfort-the-panacea-cocktail-recipe-14…

This is a derivative of a drink known as the Penicillin. Apparently the single-malt scotch is essential (possibly due to a mechanism where the peaty layer on top blocks pathogens from getting through to your mucous membranes).

I've already stocked up on packaged Lipton chicken noodle soup. Now I need to add Panacea cocktail mix to the larder and I'm all set for whatever my ailing cow-orkers might spew into the ambient surroundings.*

*ever notice how people tend to violently cough or sneeze just when they're passing you in a corridor or walking by your office door? It's not paranoia - I postulate that it's an essential viral strategy to self-propagate, over which the sufferer has little control. Look for my paper in an upcoming edition of Medical Hypotheses.

Jeff'll Fix It!.....V.I. youth STEM education.

"Harvard Mogul, Jeffrey Epstein, Boosts Science Education In the US Virgin Islands
Renowned science and Harvard investor funds a huge STEM Science Fair in the US Virgin Islands.

PR Newswire
NEW YORK, Sept. 11, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The largest science fair in the US Virgin Islands received a huge boost from the Southern Trust Company, Inc. which is owned by renowned science and Harvard investor and local resident, Jeffrey Epstein. The fair, called the St. Thomas-St. John STEM Fair, was organized by the Virgin Islands Department of Education and brought together hundreds of grade school students from across the islands, to showcase their science work for awards at the University of the Virgin Islands Sports and Fitness Center....and the Southern Trust Company under the umbrella of the Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation, which supports youth organizations throughout the USVI, played a key role in sponsoring the event. Specifically, the foundation supplied more than a hundred Microsoft Surface 2 computers, Touch keyboards and Nylon Sleeves for Microsoft Surface. The foundation also provided funds to host the STEM Fair, and travel and accommodations funds for the winners and chaperones to attend the STEM summer camps."
http://www.bizjournals.com/albany/prnewswire/press_releases/New_York/20…

Why is the Department of Education taking gifts and money from a known REGISTERED SEX OFFENDER? Where will these "summer camps" be held? Do the winners' parents know of Mr. Epstein's past conviction?
THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!

You know they are low-life when their mug shot appears on "The Smoking Gun".....
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/jeffrey-epstein-brief-hist…

At least he is vaccine aware. All of his 17 and under crowd came from the local public high school.......

lilady isn't.....

She deliberately mischaracterized the Orenstein report. Here are the facts as recorded in the report:

"Twenty-four of the 27 cases occurred in students attending the senior high school (enrollment 2,098, attack rate 1.1 per cent). Of the remaining three cases, two were siblings of the source case (one elementary school attendee and the other a junior high school attendee). The third patient, who also attended the junior high school,had onset of illness while on spring break in Florida. No other cases were reported from the schools these three cases attended or from any other schools in the city.
Thirteen of the cases were male, and 14 female. Except for the non-senior high school cases,all the cases were aged 14 to18 years of age.The immunization status for all the cases in the outbreak and the pattern of transmission are shown in Figure1.Overall, eight cases (30percent) were preventable, THREE WITH NO HISTORY OF VACCINATION and FIVE who had been vaccinated AT LESS THAN 12 months of age. THE REMAINING 19 cases were non-preventable and had all received AT LEAST one dose of vaccine AT 12 MONTHS OF AGE OR OLDER....
....The outbreak was introduced into the senior high school by a female 16 year-old 11th grade student who rode on the same school bus as the junior high sibling of the source case.This ADEQUATELY IMMUNIZED (received vaccine at 12 mos. or later) patient transmitted disease to at least five other students in the senior high school." p.435
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646939/pdf/amjph00255-0032…

My summary:
The measles outbreak occurred in March of 1984. The report was published in 1987.
Dr. Orenstein and the CDC rolled out the new vaccine schedule in 1986. MMR's were recommended after 12 months.
Only 3 out of the 27 cases had no record of immunization. (7.1% of unvaccinated students got the measles)
Five cases received a measles vaccine BEFORE 12 months of age. 19 cases had records of ADEQUATE immunization, receiving their shots ON or AFTER 12 months of age. Of these 19 cases, it was not specified how many received more than one shot, but all 19 received "at least" one shot.
The high school cases were initially propagated by a student with ADEQUATE IMMUNIZATION.
"This outbreak of measles occurred in a highly vaccinated population and 70 per cent of the cases were vaccine failures." "Vaccine failures in this setting also played some role in the spread of disease." p. 437

The OUTRAGE is that even though vaccines were part of the measles transmission, other students, who did not have the measles, yet refused to be vaccinated, were forced to stay out of school until May 10, 1984, 21 days after the LAST case was reported.

I hope this clears up the confusion brought on by "nolady".

DB: Thanks for the link to the recipe. I'll have to try it- y'know, for science.

The more I read this stuff, the more I think that if Americans don't like science, vaccines or public education, maybe Americans shouldn't have them. Stuff is valued more when it's scarce or non-existent.

Politicalguineapig, the fact that some Americans don't appreciate these items doesn't mean that all Americans don't. Nor does it justify your suggestion to deny these very useful things.
I'm going to quote LW's earlier remark to you. Collective punishment is such a delightful concept.

Politcalguineapig @83 "My main problem is that there’s not enough people like you and too many like Toto."

This is exactly why some of us keep recommending to you that you step outside of your boxes and experience more of the real world.

As for comment your #115 - it's about as useful as one of Toto's. And more repugnant.

It’s the Panacea cocktail. Recipe:

In a splendid coincidence, the latest Oglaf cartoon is also called 'Panacea'.

I remember as a child reading arguments against women's liberation and against equal rights for women. They always ran along the lines that women really want to stay home and take care of husbands and babies, so the law should force them to do so. 

I thought this argument ridiculous. If women actually want to stay home and take care of husbands and babies, then it is quite unnecessary to have laws to force them to do so. We do not have laws forcing people to est their favorite foods.

Since I was, even as a child, a classical liberal, I also thought that if even one woman in all the country wanted to do something else, then it was manifestly unjust for the law to force her to do what other women wanted to do. 

But politicalguineapig has shown me the error of my ways. If most or even some of the people like you want to do something, then it is just and right and proper for the law to force you to do that same thing.

Thank you politicalguineapig! The scales have fallen from my eyes!

Speaking of science, I think this will be our next home school science lab project.....
https://whenisapartynotaparty.wordpress.com/category/rochester-cloak/

I just love this clip with Hilleman telling the "Jeryl Lynn" story.
He sounds like such a compassionate dad! Who else would think of turning a buck from his daughter's mumps strain?
What is fascinating is that Hilleman, as an adult, had never had the mumps (this is before he created the vaccine). He has obviously been directly exposed to the virus by his daughter. He even swabbed it from her throat! But what did this savvy scientist do, so he could still go on his trip the next day? Why he got an injection of GAMMA GLOBULIN, and never got the mumps!
Later, he injected the UNLICENSED vaccine into his NOT QUITE one year old daughter. I don't know if she ever got the mumps. He didn't say. I wonder if her injection had mercury in it. Did she also have separate injections of measles and rubella vaccines at the same time? Nice anecdote. NOT SCIENTIFIC!
http://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/mumps-jeryl-lynn-story

https://books.google.com/books?id=q5MrAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41&dq=gamm…
pKv1gSmqI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tTmzVMiAKYHqgwTntILADg&ved=0CEgQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=gamma%20globulin%20%20mumps&f=false

Maurice Hilleman reminisces about the days of live polio vaccines. For Baby Boomers, it isn't pretty. A little SV40, anyone?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13QiSV_lrDQ

Death by coincidence.....
"5 Seniors Die after Flu Shot at Assisted Care Center in Georgia"
http://www.thelibertybeacon.com/2014/11/18/5-seniors-die-after-flu-shot…

I have family in the Dacula area. I plan to look into this personally.

None of the seniors who died at the assisted care center in Georgia had received the flu shot prior to their death, according to a statement released by the center (text bolded for emphasis):

All residents of Hope Assisted Living & Memorial Care did not receive flu shots on November 7, 2015. The only residents receiving the flu shots were done with the consent of the resident and his or her family. None of the residents receiving shots developed fevers or died. The only residents at Hope Assisted Living & Memorial Care who died during the period from November 7, 2014 to November 17, 2014, were hospice patients who did not receive flu shots.

Toto,

Well, Toto can “speculate” just as well.
I say the “one” vaccinated kid did it! Vaccine induced measles is more severe. Here is some scientific evidence to back this up:

Why are you posting information about the first live measles vaccine that hasn't been in use for 40 years? What relevance has this to a recent measles outbreak?

There can be no stronger exposure to measles than a direct injection of decaying material, toxic chemicals and “live virus.”

Since measles infection leads to each infected cell producing hundreds of thousands of viruses, leading to viremia of millions of viruses per mL of blood, that clearly isn't true. What "decaying material"? That would require bacterial contamination of measles vaccines, which I have never heard of. The "toxic chemicals" are present in tiny amounts, as has been discussed here a hundred times before, and "live virus" is what you get with a wild viral infection, except more virulent and more likely to kill or cause serious illness.

The proof that vaccine induced measles is more severe than natural measles is shown by the higher percentage of children suffering from vaccine injury than occurred as side effects of natural measles.

That wasn't true even of early measles vaccines, and certainly isn't true of the current MMR. There were 30,000 cases of measles in Europe in 2011 with 8 deaths, 27 cases of measles encephalitis, and 1,482 cases of pneumonia. If the 10 million doses of MMR distributed every year in the US led to this incidence of adverse events, we would see 2,600 deaths, 9,000 cases of encephalitis and 494,000 cases of pneumonia, and up to 800,000 hospitalizations. We don't, obviously. I think we would notice.

The number (50%) of vaccine recipients with rash following the first “live virus” vaccine suggests that natural immunity to measles must have been a minimum of 50% of the children at that time and given the force of disease when toxic ingredients are directly injected, natural immunity was likely to have been considerably higher than only 50%.

What a very ignorant statement. Why do they think that the development of a rash is evidence of natural immunity? It's the defining symptom of a measles infection, not a sign of immunity, otherwise everyone immune to measles would develop a rash when exposed to it, wouldn't they? This doesn't even make sense according to its own erroneous premises. Whoever wrote this is clueless.

Conclusion: Measles incidence in the pre-vaccine era had declined from the pre-sanitation era by at least 50% (as a percentage of children over age one) and as much as 90% before measles vaccination began.”

Absolute BS. Sanitation has no effect at all on measles incidence, which was not in decline before the vaccine was introduced. Almost everyone got measles in the pre-vaccine era. Those children that developed a rash after vaccination would doubtless have developed full-blown measles had they been exposed to the wild virus instead.

“How did less than 68% of children develop “immunity” if 100% of the children had the measles?

I'm amazed that anyone has to ask this. New children are constantly being born, and when the percentage of children who had never had measles increased to over 32% the population was ripe for an outbreak as soon as the virus was introduced. Those that survived were mostly immune, and herd immunity prevented further outbreaks until enough children had been born to reduce immunity levels enough to allow another outbreak, and so the cycle continued. That's why outbreaks were periodic, every two years on average.

It is not only death rates that decline with advancing sanitation and nutrition but also the incidence of disease.

In diseases spread through poor sanitation, yes, but measles is spread through droplets and aerosols from coughing and sneezing, and the best sewerage systems in the world won't stop that.

An example of natural immunity to measles can be seen in a medical article that revealed that the unvaccinated Amish in Lebanon County, PA had no measles cases from 1970 though December 1987. This group was large and yet had no cases for 17 years while mainstream medicine was crediting low measles rates to vaccination.

If measles was never introduced to that Amish population, because the surrounding population was highly vaccinated, even if none of them were immune they wouldn't get measles, would they? So what happened, according to the study cited when the virus was introduced to that supposedly 'naturally immune' Amish population?

Of 130 measles cases reported between April and June 1988, 119 (92%) constituted a study of disease severity.

So much for their "natural immunity to measles".

The resulting variant was named the Edmonston B strain. It was quite immunogenic, but it was not free of side effects. One-third of the recipients developed high fever, and half of the recipients had a rash. Nevertheless, none of the recipients acted ill.

The Edmonston B strain vaccine was withdrawn in 1975 because of these side effects. The vaccine in current use has far fewer adverse events associated with it.

We will prove later in this web page that vaccine caused cases are severe not “mild”.

Good luck with that.

As we mentioned earlier, reporting systems can under-report as well as over-report. In the 1920’s approximately 19 percent of cases were reported. By the time the measles vaccine was introduced, it is possible that “reports” were adjusted before relaying to the CDC and thus could have possibly represented an over reporting of the true number of cases.

I find this attempt to explain away the greater than 99% reduction in the incidence of measles since the vaccine was introduced hilarious. How desperate and closed-minded do you have to be to go through these bizarre mental contortions?

“In 1974, the CDC determined that there were 36 cases of measles in Georgia, while the Georgia State Surveillance System reported 660 cases.”

Active surveillance picks up more cases than active surveillance, not surprisingly. Until last year fewer than 200 cases were reported most years in the entire US despite active surveillance. The fact that more than 600 cases were reported last year is due to falling vaccine uptake, partly thanks to people like you spreading this sort of misinformation.

Toto, why do you post this absolute nonsense? Surely you can see it isn't true, so why do you do it? Seriously, I'm interested.

The latest on the Disneyland related measles outbreak, from science writer Tara Haelle
http://www.forbes.com/…/disneyland-measles-outbreak-it-is-…/

"That level of infectiousness is particularly concerning considering how many children visit Disneyland who are too young to be vaccinated, such as this child, whose family may lose a month’s worth of wages even if their child never ends up developing measles. Two of the Disneyland cases were too young to be vaccinated – the first dose is recommended at 12 months – so those parents never had the choice to protect their children from measles. Other parents’ decisions not to vaccinate their children made that choice for them."

Real families suffering real hardship, because of vaccine refusal.

I have family in the Dacula area. I plan to look into this personally.

I guess that takes care of that, then.

@gayest
“We’ll eagerly wait for your published results.”
I plan to drive over to the CDC and ask Dr. Thompson myself.
I certainly won’t post the results for free on this blog.

Absolute BS. Sanitation has no effect at all on measles incidence, which was not in decline before the vaccine was introduced

It must be true; I caught the measles in the early 60's in the northern Detroit suburbs and everyone knows we were still living in mud huts and hauling our water from a communal well back then.

@JGC
That is merely the business' statement through their lawyers. It has yet to be proven in a court of law.

"All residents of Hope Assisted Living & Memorial Care did not receive flu shots on November 7, 2015. The only residents receiving the flu shots were done with the consent of the resident and his or her family."
How can someone with alzheimer's give their consent? Does the facility have a blanket requirement that all residents must have flu shots unless they have a written notification from their doctor? Did residents receive flu shots on November 6th or 8th?

"None of the residents receiving shots developed fevers or died."
They are still referring only to the date "November 7, 2015". Did any develop fevers and die after that date? What was the cause of death listed on the death certificate?

"The only residents at Hope Assisted Living & Memorial Care who died during the period from November 7, 2014 to November 17, 2014, were hospice patients who did not receive flu shots."
This remains to be proven in a court of law. Alleged employees who contacted the news site give a contradicting account.

"As you can read in the original story below, Hope did originally issue a public reply via their Facebook Page, which we published immediately. Multiple attempts to ask for more clarification regarding their statement via their Facebook Page were deleted, and they eventually took down their Facebook Page. We now have their full statement, as quoted above.

Health Impact News has also been contacted on behalf of alleged family members who died at Hope Assisted Living & Memory Care during the period in question. One alleged family member who contacted us via email, stated that a family member did receive the flu shot on the date reported, and died shortly thereafter. However, the family does not wish to take their story public, stating:

'We fear being sued for defamation and libel. Several prominent Atlanta attorneys and doctors have their loved ones at the community we certainly don’t have the means or ability to defend ourselves against them.'

Health Impact News does not have the ability nor the legal authority to investigate claims made by anyone, whether employees, family members, or the assisted living center itself. We are simply reporting what we have been told, and have reported everyone’s side of the story."

- See more at: http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/6-seniors-die-after-flu-shot-at-assist…

Here's another angle. It is well documented that one of the side affects of the vaccine, is to get the flu. It is plausible that those who did receive flu shots could have transmitted the flu virus to the "unvaccinated" patients in hospice care. Their health is already greatly compromised, and this exposure might have led to their death.

@shay: obviously. I mean, I lived in the Detroit suburbs in a REAL HOUSE with running water, even, in the early 60's and *I* didn't catch the measles. OTOH, my brother, (who did, actually, live in the same house) and several of the neighborhood kids were all infected....But my mom was a "immediately in bed and isolation" person with any illness so I was just very lucky (and possibly, still immune from maternal antibodies).

@Toto

This is probably pointless, but I thought I'd address one of the questions you asked:

How can someone with alzheimer’s give their consent?

First off, Alzheimer's patients do have lucid moments where they are entirely aware of what is going on around them and are capable of making decisions for themselves. Second, you missed this part from the bit your quoted (emphasis added):

with the consent of the resident and his or her family

It's not only the resident giving consent, but the resident's family, as well.

It is well documented that one of the side affects of the vaccine, is to get the flu.

I've got to remember to install the killfile script on this box.

Julian: I don't mean that these things should go away forever. Just for a generation and only in certain areas. For instance, are Louisiana, Texas and everywhere in Pennsylvania that isn't Pittsburgh going to notice if no one teaches their kids science? Is Marin, California going to care that vaccines aren't available in the area anymore? Are the red states going to notice if the HCA doesn't apply anymore and the schools don't get funded? And it's not 'collective punishment,' it's austerity.

@Kreb #125

Active surveillance picks up more cases than active surveillance, not surprisingly.

Typo, I presume. You surely meant "Active surveillance picks up more cases than passive reporting".

I note how Toto completely ignored all your posts refuting his ignorant comments.
He might pretend he hasn't seen them, but everyone else has. Well played.

dingo199,

Typo, I presume. You surely meant “Active surveillance picks up more cases than passive reporting”.

You're quite right, it's a typo. I know I'm wasting my time with Toto but I do wonder why anyone posts such obvious nonsense. Even a few seconds thought reveals how clueless it is. If s/he had any credibility left, posting this garbage would have eliminated it at a stroke. I sometimes suspect Toto is an agent provocateur.

Politicalguineapig:

I don’t mean that these things should go away forever. Just for a generation and only in certain areas.

How is that not collective punishment?

are Louisiana, Texas and everywhere in Pennsylvania that isn’t Pittsburgh going to notice if no one teaches their kids science?

Once again PGP, you generalise. There are many people in those areas who would be most displeased. Just as fools are everywhere, so are people who understand the value of the things you wish to ban.

And it’s not ‘collective punishment,’ it’s austerity.

Hogwash. The US has the funds to implement these things throughout. What you are proposing is enforced discrimination, not austerity. And because it's enforced discrimination against a specific population, it is by definition collective punishment. You want to unlearn the lessons of the Civil Rights Movements of the 1960's.

That is merely the business’ statement through their lawyers. It has yet to be proven in a court of law.

What does proof in a court of law have to do with anything, toto?

How can someone with alzheimer’s give their consent?

I haven't seen any evidence that anyone with Alzheimer's was vaccinated at the center, but if that were the case i would expect they gave consent the same way they give consent for any other medical intervention, via health care proxy or legal guardianship.

Alleged employees who contacted the news site give a contradicting account.

Citations needed. I haven't seen any evidence this occurred. Certainly the Libertybeacon article you linked to makes no such claim: it only refers nonspecificly to "our sources" when attributing an entirely different claim to those sources(that seeing 5 deaths in a week is unusual).

It is well documented that one of the side affects of the vaccine, is to get the flu.

Citation needed: where is it docuented that influenza infection is a side effect of vaccination against influenza?

Toto, why do you post this absolute nonsense? Surely you can see it isn’t true, so why do you do it? Seriously, I’m interested.

Perhaps because copy-pasting spam is EASY.

@JGC
"* Effective date: November 10, 2008. The Reportable Events Table (RET) reflects what is reportable by law (42 USC 300aa-25) to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) INCLUDING conditions found in the manufacturers PACKAGE INSERT. In addition, healthcare professionals are ENCOURAGED to report ANY clinically significant or unexpected events (even if you are NOT CERTAIN the vaccine caused the event) for ANY vaccine, whether OR NOT it is listed on the RET. Manufacturers are also required by regulation (21CFR 600.80) to report to the VAERS program all adverse events made known to them for any vaccine."
http://vaers.hhs.gov/resources/VAERS_Table_of_Reportable_Events_Followi…

It seems that the healthcare workers were trying to follow CDC VAERS protocol.

According to their current literature, "Services", Hope Center Memory Care (Dacula campus) it states, "Support services available to residents and their families through our relationships with hospice and home health."
This seems to be an add-on service. This place is not a devoted hospice.
The literature states:
"Hope Center for Memory Care is a community dedicated and designed to care for residents with Alzheimer's and other Dementias."
Residents can live there (private suites), but they also provide "options for Adult Day Programming or Overnight stays." They have accommodations for around 62 full-time residents. The Dacula location's newsletter dated "January 2015" has a "With Sympathy" column that lists four individuals who recently passed away, although it does not give specific dates nor cause of death.

Real families suffering real hardship, because of vaccine ACCEPTANCE.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsLuR3X6cpg&list=PLJpPObXpZncOfT0bG2ghg…

And it’s not ‘collective punishment,’ it’s austerity.

Well, of course. And when politicalguineapig's intellectual forebears decided that black schools should have less funding than white schools, that was just austerity too.

Health Impact News does not have the ability nor the legal authority [what?] to investigate claims made by anyone

Well, at least it's an honest self-assessment from Shilhavy et al.

Hey, Toto why don't you go and tell these families their kids were better off with the diseases.

LW and JF: No, this wouldn't affect majority-black schools at all. The white population has largely been the ones against science, so they're the ones who don't get science ed, and can get whatever they need from their churches.

@politicalguineapig, I don't believe you're that thick, but I'll spell it out for you.

Your intellectual forebears, the people who instituted Jim Crow laws, despised blacks and wanted to oppress and degrade them just because blacks were different from them.

You, following in the footsteps of your intellectual forebears who instituted Jim Crow laws, want to oppress and degrade Texans, Louisianans, and others just because they're different from you.

Your intellectual forebears who instituted Jim Crow had excuses like "blacks are too stupid to benefit from good education so they shouldn't have it."

You, following in the footsteps of your intellectual forebears who instituted Jim Crow laws, say that Texans, Louisianans, and others are too ignorant and stupid to benefit from science education so they should be forcibly prevented from obtaining a science education.

This is not a question of race. This is a question of naked bigotry in which you appear to revel. Your attitude is vile.

Do you understand this now?

@politicalguineapig, apparently my anecdote about women's lib was also too subtle for you, so I'll spell that out too. 

When women were arguing for their right to have careers and become doctors or lawyers, scientists or engineers, their opponents countered that women didn't really want careers; they wanted to stay home and raise babies. 

I doubt the opponents had any more evidence for their claims than you have for your claim that Texans oppose science. 

But, on the basis of that claim, the opponents argued that it was perfectly okay to have laws prohibiting women from having careers, exactly the same way that you argue that it's okay to prohibit Texans from studying science.

My position when I read about this as a child was that the opponents' position made no sense. If any woman did not want a career, laws forbidding her to have one were unnecessary, and if any woman did want a career, then laws forbidding her to have one were manifestly unjust. 

This is exactly the way I feel, and I daresay others feel, about your arguing that Texans and others should be forbidden to study science. If a given Texan doesn't want to study science, s/he won't and a law forbidding such study is unnecessary. If a given Texan does want to study science, a law forbidding such study is manifestly unjust. 

But of course you don't agree with me. You think it's just fine to forbid people to follow their dreams based solely on charcteristics of other people who accidentally resemble them. 

So, politicalguineapig, you agree with the opponents of women's lib. Isn't that a great feeling?

Politicalguineapig:

You have called for denying all the residents of Mississippi and Louisiana science education and vaccines.

It may have escaped your notice, but approximately 37% of the people of Mississippi are African American: that's more than a million Black Americans who you are condemning to ignorance and disease because of the presumed failings of their white neighbors. And another 1.4 million in Louisiana.

White northerners are distressingly prone to criticize the South for racism, and then ignore the fact that racism affects actual Black people who live in the South.

*deep breath* I don't have the energy to explain the other flaws in those very questionable policy proposals to someone who I suspect is trolling. SIWOTI, but I have a dinner to cook.

@Vicki, politicalguineapig also wants to prohibit vaccination in the benighted Southern States, the idea being that an epidemic of deadly vaccine-preventable diseases would teach us all a lesson about -- uh, I'm not sure what about. About why we as a population should rise up and forcibly (and illegally) vaccinate any antivaxxers in our midst, I suppose. That's what collective punishment is usually intended to accomplish: to cause so much pain to the collective that they take an action which the authorities cannot take.

Real science versus bushmeat speculation:
The true origin of HIV in humans:
http://www.aidsorigins.com/more-supportive-opvaids-bushmeat-hypothesis-…

http://www.aidsorigins.com/view-origins-aids-documentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13QiSV_lrDQ

And Toto continues down the rabbit hole......I wonder when he's due back at the asylum?

Toto, is there a reason you're posting links to youtube videos and the website of an HIV conspiracy theorist whose speculation has already been proven false (see PMID:15103367) instead of offering anything resembling actual evidence in support of your claims? That is, some reason other than the fact you can't find any actual evidence in support of your claims...

@JGC - his name provides all the information I've ever needed...He's Toto & he's definitely not in Kansas anymore...

Thing is, science education and vaccines would be available in other areas. So all people would have to do to take advantage of them would be to move. Oddly, Southern states, except for Texas, are mostly okay with vaccines. So Mississippi wouldn't lose those. It'd only be for a short period of time, anyway.

@politicalguineapig, so you would be perfectly happy with Jim Crow laws because the people discriminated against could always leave their homes, their jobs, and everyone they know and move to a new place. Good to know.

@PGP:

It's obviously really easy for poor people to pick up and move, what with all that money they have saved up, that house they can certainly sell for more money, and the certainty that they can get a job in a different part of the country.

Oh, wait.

"Risks of Paralytic Disease Due to Wild or Vaccine-Derived Poliovirus After Eradication"
Risk Analysis, Vol. 26, No. 6, 2006
DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2006.00827.x
"‘After the global eradication of wild polioviruses, the risk of paralytic poliomyelitis from polioviruses will still exist and require active management. Possible reintroductions of poliovirus that can spread rapidly in unprotected populations present challenges to policymakers. For example, at least one outbreak will likely occur due to circulation of a neurovirulent vaccine-derived poliovirus after discontinuation of oral poliovirus vaccine and also could possibly result from the escape of poliovirus from a laboratory or vaccine production facility or from an intentional act."
http://kidrisk.org/images/riskanal26.6.1471.pdf

VACCINES CAN CAUSE POLIO.
"What Is VACCINE-Derived Poliovirus?
A vaccine-derived poliovirus is a strain of poliovirus, initially contained in the LIVE ORAL POLIO VACCINE, that has changed over time; it behaves more like a WILD or naturally occurring virus. This means that it can be more easily spread to others who are unvaccinated against polio and who come in contact with the stool or oral secretions, such as saliva, of an infected person. These viruses may cause illness, including PARALYTIC POLIOMYELITIS.

Occurrence of Vaccine-Derived Poliovirus
In 2005, a vaccine-derived poliovirus was found in the stool of an unvaccinated child in the state of Minnesota. The child most likely caught the virus through contact in the community with someone WHO RECEIVED LIVE ORAL VACCINE IN ANOTHER COUNTRY.

Because oral poliovirus vaccine has not been used in the United States since 2000, it is likely that ANY vaccine-derived poliovirus seen in the United States would have come from a person who received ORAL poliovirus vaccine in ANOTHER COUNTRY. Oral poliovirus vaccine is used in many countries of the world, including Central and South America, Africa, and Asia."

WHAT IS WALTER ORENSTEIN UP TO? THIS IS HELPING THE U.S?

"There's concern that the virus circulating in ISRAEL may spill out of the country, says EMORY University's Dr. Walt Orenstein, who has worked extensively on POLIO. ( He originally worked for the CDC and oversaw the 1986 roll out of the now controversial U.S. infant vaccine schedule) "There's enough virus circulating [in Israel] that it could get out of that area in to other countries," Orenstein says.

To ensure the entire community is protected against polio, ISRAEL HAS STARTED USING THE ORAL VACCINE, instead of the injectable one. The oral vaccine contains a weakened, live form of the poliovirus, which can spread through the environment and help immunize kids that don't get vaccinated." (HOW DOES THAT WORK? THE ABOVE DOCUMENT SAYS THE OPPOSITE!)
To Keep Polio At Bay, Israel Revaccinates A Million Kids
SEPTEMBER 02, 2013
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/09/02/217194998/to-keep-polio-at-b…

Perhaps Israelis were visiting Disneyland?

More links.
http://vaccineresistancemovement.org/?p=10727

Politicalguineapig,
Could you please explain how any rational and reasonable human being can justify withholding education from any group of people based on some arbitrary guideline?

If you cannot come up with a reasonable explanation, please just stop trolling.

The statements you have posted on this thread (e.g., #115, 133, 144, 153; I may have missed some) are way beyond offensive.

CDC: Twelve Deaths Linked to Polio-Like EV-D68
"The U.S. death toll from the mysterious Enterovirus D-68, which primarily strikes young children, has reached twelve. But as the number of livest lost increases, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that most states over the last five weeks have indicated “reduced EV-D68-like illness activity.”
http://sharylattkisson.com/cdc-twelve-deaths-linked-to-polio-like-ev-d6…

"Summary of Findings: Investigation of Acute Flaccid Myelitis in U.S. Children, 2014"

"Since September 2014, CDC and partners have been investigating reports of children across the United States who developed a sudden onset of weakness in one or more arms or legs with MRI scans that showed inflammation of the gray matter—nerve cells—in the spinal cord. This illness is now being referred to as acute flaccid myelitis."

"From August 2, 2014 to January 5, 2015, CDC has verified reports of 103 children in 34 states who developed acute flaccid myelitis that meets CDC’s case definition. CDC continues to collaborate with partners nationally to investigate reported cases, risk factors, and possible causes of this condition.

"The median age of the children was about 7 years.
Almost all of them were hospitalized; some were put on breathing machines.
Most patients had fever and/or respiratory illness before onset of neurologic symptoms.
About two thirds of the children who have been observed (median 19 days) after their illness reported some improvement in symptoms, while about one third showed no improvement. Only one of the children has fully recovered.
Testing of several types of specimens for various pathogens that can result in this syndrome is ongoing."

"The specific causes of this illness are still under investigation. However, these cases are most similar to illnesses caused by viruses, including

*enteroviruses (POLIO and non-polio),
*adenovirus,..."
http://www.cdc.gov/ncird/investigation/viral/sep2014/investigation.html

OOPS!

Here's the link to this source posted at #156:
VACCINES CAN CAUSE POLIO.
“What Is VACCINE-Derived Poliovirus?
A vaccine-derived poliovirus is a strain of poliovirus, initially contained in the LIVE ORAL POLIO VACCINE, that has changed over time; it behaves more like a WILD or naturally occurring virus. This means that it can be more easily spread to others who are unvaccinated against polio and who come in contact with the stool or oral secretions, such as saliva, of an infected person. These viruses may cause illness, including PARALYTIC POLIOMYELITIS.

Occurrence of Vaccine-Derived Poliovirus
In 2005, a vaccine-derived poliovirus was found in the stool of an unvaccinated child in the state of Minnesota. The child most likely caught the virus through contact in the community with someone WHO RECEIVED LIVE ORAL VACCINE IN ANOTHER COUNTRY.

Because oral poliovirus vaccine has not been used in the United States since 2000, it is likely that ANY vaccine-derived poliovirus seen in the United States would have come from a person who received ORAL poliovirus vaccine in ANOTHER COUNTRY. Oral poliovirus vaccine is used in many countries of the world, including Central and South America, Africa, and Asia.”
http://polio.emedtv.com/poliovirus/vaccine-derived-poliovirus.html

Politicalguineapig,
Could you please explain how any rational and reasonable human being can justify withholding education from any group of people based on some arbitrary guideline?

Or vaccines. How can anyone justify withholding vaccines just because they don't like the people who would receive them? That strikes me as murderously vindictive.

Another interesting coincidence.....
"January 08, 2015 03:00 ET

Senior Solutions Management Group Employee Named a Finalist for 2014 Healthcare Excellence Awards
Community Relations Director for Hope Center for Memory Care at Dacula, Georgia, Honored for Her Dedication to Senior Care
ATLANTA, GA--(Marketwired - January 08, 2015) - Senior Solutions Management Group (SSMG), a leading provider of superior-quality senior care across the Southeast, announced that Rachel Spain, community relations director for Hope Center for Memory Care at Dacula, Georgia, was named a finalist for the 2014 Healthcare Excellence Awards sponsored by the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce.
The Healthcare Excellence Awards recognizes and honors the efforts and innovation of individuals and organizations making a significant impact on the quality of healthcare in Gwinnett County. Spain was selected as a finalist in the Healthcare Professional category and was honored at a ceremony in December 2014."
http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/senior-solutions-management-gr…

Addendum:
Since 2010, she's averaged a little over 1 year at each job.
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/rachel-spain/54/151/268

From Toto:

(HOW DOES THAT WORK? THE ABOVE DOCUMENT SAYS THE OPPOSITE!)

No it doesn't.

But do go on.

Chemommo: Could you please explain how any rational and reasonable human being can justify withholding education from any group of people based on some arbitrary guideline?

Simple. They've proven they don't want it, they keep trying to sabotage science ed by introducing intelligent design, and then there are ugly lawsuits during which the kids don't get educated anyway. Taking out science entirely from a few areas would calm everyone down and unclog the appeals courts.
As for vaccines, take Marin County- no one vaccinates there anyway, so no one would care. And again, means testing should be a part of this- I think taking vaccines away from poor people- who want them and appreciate them- would be cruel and awful. But in a suburb, it'd be acceptable because people there can move or straightup buy vaccines.

Politicalguineapig @162
I’m going to repeat my question, as you did not understand it. Defend your desire to withhold education from any group of people based on an arbitrary guideline.

It’s a general question, not subject to your fantasies about folks you’ve never met in southern states or northern California.

Or just stop trolling.

@PGP:

Could you please explain how any rational and reasonable human being can justify withholding education from any group of people based on some arbitrary guideline?

Simple. They’ve proven they don’t want it, they keep trying to sabotage science ed by introducing intelligent design, and then there are ugly lawsuits during which the kids don’t get educated anyway.

Wait, what? Are you seriously saying that every last person in the areas where you want to withhold science education and vaccines is anti science education and anti vaccines? If so, I call horse faeces.
I'm a South African. Let me give you a brief history lesson about a shameful period in my country's past.
From 1948 to 1994, South Africa experienced enforced legal discrimination, known as apartheid. The best jobs, education and facilities were reserved for whites. Coloured (mixed race) and Indian South Africans had it worse and black South Africans had it worst. In Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd's phrasing, they were "hewers of wood and bearers of water". Apartheid has been officially declared a crime against humanity.
The only difference between what you are suggesting and apartheid is that apartheid was based on race, and your proposal is based on geographic location.

PGP, I'm amazed that someone who purports to be as smart and ethically advanced as you would propose such bigotry -- and that precisely is what you're doing, whether concerning the homeschooled or Texans. Or homeschooled Texans. People, just aren't that simply categorized, and the demographics you're responding to are only that: a product of statistical analysis which may or may not apply to a member of a given group.

Chemommo: Could you please explain how any rational and reasonable human being can justify withholding education from any group of people based on some arbitrary guideline?

Simple. They’ve proven they don’t want it,

Every single human being in the State of Texas has proven that they don't want science education. Right.
  

they keep trying to sabotage science ed by introducing intelligent design,

Uh huh. And you know why "they" have to "introduce" intelligent design? Because that's not what's being taught. And did you know that there are huge areas of science that aren't affected by that dispute? The things students would need in order to understand medicine or even pursue medical careers? The things students would need to participate in a complex technological society? But you would deliberately and with malice aforethought deny them that education. And all just because you're a bigot who hates people she's never met and wants to hurt them any way she can.   

and then there are ugly lawsuits during which the kids don’t get educated anyway.

And who do you think brings those suits? If every single human being in the State of Texas opposed science education, they'd just sit back and let intelligent design be taught and no one could do anything about it. Those lawsuits are brought by people in the State of Texas who care about education, the very people that you would deliberately rob of any chance to see their children educated. 

Taking out science entirely from a few areas would calm everyone down

Oh, sure, that would work. I don't even have children or live in Texas and I'd be helping fund the lawsuits against any bigoted fascist who tried to enforce this law. You think the occasional sparks of intelligent design are a problem, just wait until you see the bonfire that your attack on the people of Texas would produce. 
 

and unclog the appeals courts.

Add appellate practice to the numerous topics of which you are ignorant. The number of intelligent design lawsuits at any given time is trivial. They make the news because they are rare.

I respect the intelligent design creationists a lot more than I respect you, politicalguineapig. They don't actually want to hurt people just for the sake of hurting them, and they aren't coming up with feeble excuses to try to cover up the fact that they just want to hurt people just for the sake of hurting them. 

As for vaccines, take Marin County- no one vaccinates there anyway, so no one would care.

So there's no need to deny them vaccines, is there?

And again, means testing should be a part of this- I think taking vaccines away from poor people- who want them and appreciate them- would be cruel and awful.

Oh wait, so it's not true that "no one vaccinates there anyway, so no one would care". It might help if you kept your claims straight through two consecutive sentences. 

But in a suburb, it’d be acceptable because people there can move

Oh dear, the hated people in a suburb. They can move because, of course, it's no trouble to give up your home and your job, pull the children out of school, leave your friends and family, and move somewhere else just because a bigot who despises you wants to injury you as much as she can just because of where you live. 

It's too bad you weren't born in the Jim Crow South, politicalguineapig, you'd have fit in nicely with the people "encouraging" blacks to move elsewhere where they would be less hated. 

 or straightup buy vaccines

You've suddenly changed your position. You were going to forbid vaccines in this area but now you only expect people in the suburbs to pay for them which is what they do now.

By the way, speaking of straight-up buying things, when you get your fascist wish and start denying education and health care to people based on where they live, you know who's going to be hurt least? That's right, the rich people who can travel to less oppressed areas or buy the goods on the black market. 

JGC
"Toto, is there a reason you’re posting links to youtube videos and the website of an HIV conspiracy theorist whose speculation has already been proven false (see PMID:15103367) instead of offering anything resembling actual evidence in support of your claims? That is, some reason other than the fact you can’t find any actual evidence in support of your claims…"

You are right. It is even WORSE than proposed in THE RIVER.
The rest of the puzzle....with govt. documents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bPDBND2jL4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyrxEGIxVyw

Well, well. Another interesting coincidence from 2010.
(See posts #156, #158, #159)

"The Vaccine dinner Club"
"Suffer the Little Children:
Circulating Vaccine Derived Polio Viruses (cVDPV)
-- Risks, Response, and Results
Introduction:
The impact of cVDPVs on our effort to achieve and sustain global polio eradication
Walt ORENSTEIN, MD
Deptuy Director, Vaccine-Preventable Diseases
Global Health Program
Bill & Melinda GATES FOUNDATION"

"Response: Surveillance for cVDPVs
Testing procedures, risk factors for emergence, and response to control measures
Mark A. Pallansch, PhD
Chief, Polio and Picornavirus Laboratory Branch
Center for Disease Control and Prevention
SUFFER THE CHILDREN...
Have you ever imagined what could happen if a strain of the LIVE attenuated virus used in the ORAL polio vaccine (OPV) were to MUTATE inside a population in which a substantial number of children are either unvaccinated or insufficiently vaccinated against polio? Specifically, if it were to mutate into something capable of causing paralysis?
Exactly .... Nightmare City. Even as over 3.5 million cases of polio have been prevented in the last decade alone, unvaccinated and undervaccinated children could be EXTREMELY vulnerable to the sort of health outcome NO ONE wants for their children.
But this nightmare is happening in NIGERIA, right now. A MUTATED polio virus is wandering around loose in a population whose children are insufficiently vaccinated.
What went wrong? How large is the problem? What do we do now? What CAN we do now?
Come to the January meeting of the Vaccine Dinner Club and find out!!
Hope to see you for Dinner at the Club in January,
-Kimberley"
http://www.cfar.emory.edu/vdc/calendar/archive/2010.php

We all know , of course, Nigeria is a big hub for BIG OIL. I have relatives in the business. They lived there.

Your CDC dollars at work:
The Sinners for Disease Control perform "Pandemic Blues"
(No, I did not make this up)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHYHJcSVj0g

"It was named Second place winner in the
2007 American Public Health Assocation (APHA) "Get Ready" songwriting contest (to prepare the public for Pandemic Flu)."
http://www.cfar.emory.edu/vdc/song.php
http://www.cfar.emory.edu/vdc/song.php

Don't forget about the 2009 "Pandemic Blues" :
"AS03 Adjuvanted AH1N1 Vaccine Associated with an Abrupt Increase in the Incidence of Childhood Narcolepsy in Finland"
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0033536

"Swine flu vaccine can trigger narcolepsy, UK government concedes"
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/19/swine-flu-vaccine-narcol…

"they keep trying to sabotage science ed by introducing intelligent design,"

corollary:
Science education is based on unintelligent design.

For the majority of posters here, this rings true. LOL!

@PGP
Would you be surprised to learn that I once lived in Marin County? Or that I met a lot of good people there? Or that despite its reputation as the home of the super-rich, there are a lot of people there that are just barely making ends meet in tiny one-room apartments that would probably be against zoning laws pretty much anywhere in the country outside of the Bay Area.

DEATH BY CHICKENPOX VS DEATH BY CAR CRASH:

"This study found that from 1990 through 2001, 1,465 death records listed chickenpox as the cause or a CONTRIBUTING cause of death. Chickenpox-related deaths averaged 145 per year from 1990 through 1994 (before the vaccine was licensed)"
http://www.immunizationinfo.org/science/decline-chickenpox-deaths

IN 2001 ALONE, THERE WERE A REPORTED 37,862 DEATHS FROM MOTOER VEHICLE CRASHES.
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

My advice to fearful pro-vaxxers:
STAY OUT OF CARS AT ALL COSTS!
The only truly safe people to be around are the UNVACCINATED AMISH!

“There’s concern that the virus circulating in ISRAEL may spill out of the country, says EMORY University’s Dr. Walt Orenstein, who has worked extensively on POLIO. ( He originally worked for the CDC and oversaw the 1986 roll out of the now controversial U.S. infant vaccine schedule) “There’s enough virus circulating [in Israel] that it could get out of that area in to other countries,” Orenstein says.

Note that the parenthetical bullsh1t about a a "now-controversial vaccine schedule" is not part of the original passage which Toto purports to be citing, and was presumably inserted out of a principled opposition to honesty.

VACCINES CAN CAUSE POLIO

To stick with the all-caps emphasis, NO. THEY CAN"T.

Vaccine derived polioviruses (strains of poliovirus initially contained in the live oral polio vaccine which have changed over time such that they behave more like wild or naturally occurring viruses) can, but that's not at the same thing as the polio vaccine causing infection.

Words mean something, toto.

Bold html fail!

As for vaccines, take Marin County- no one vaccinates there anyway, so no one would care.

Every single resident of Marin County has failed to be vaccinated according to the recommended schedule?

b>Not one single resident of Marin County wants access to recieve the recommended childhood vaccines on schedule?

Citations desparately needed, if your argument is founded in anything other than some non-racist version of "We all know what they're like".

@JGC

I believe that PGP's favorite pet fallacy is the hasty generalization fallacy.

Toto,

Chickenpox-related deaths averaged 145 per year from 1990 through 1994 (before the vaccine was licensed)”

That's 145 deaths too many, but thanks to the vaccine:

Varicella deaths declined by 98.5% in children and adolescents less than 20 years of age during 2008 to 2009 compared with 1990 to 1994.

I wish we had the chicken pox vaccine in the UK to prevent the 30 or so deaths we still see from the disease every year.

But what about road traffic deaths?

IN 2001 ALONE, THERE WERE A REPORTED 37,862 DEATHS FROM MOTOER VEHICLE CRASHES.

That's 37,862 deaths too many, and it there was a way of preventing these deaths that was as safe, cheap and simple as a varicella vaccine, it would be in use, of course.

JGC et al,
Here’s the school summary report for the state of California 2014-2015 on kindergartners:
http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/immunize/Documents/2014-15%20CA%20Kinde…

If you scroll down to p10 of 17, one finds that 84% of Marin County kindergarten students (with 100% of schools reporting, as noted in a table on an earlier page) have all required immunizations.

This information is publicly available, and easy to find on the California Department of Public Health website. Unless of course you don’t want to look because it contradicts your own prejudices.

"In their propaganda today’s dictators rely for the most part on repetition, suppression and rationalization – the repetition of catchwords which they wish to be accepted as true, the suppression of facts which they wish to be ignored, the arousal and rationalization of passions which may be used in the interests of the Party or the State. As the art and science of manipulation come to be better understood, the dictators of the future will doubtless learn to combine these techniques with the non-stop distractions which, in the West, are now threatening to drown in a sea of irrelevance the rational propaganda essential to the maintenance of individual liberty and the survival of democratic institutions."

Aldous Huxley, “Propaganda in a Democratic Society”
Brave New World Revisited

NOW, REPEAT AFTER ME:
Vaccines are ALWAYS safe and effective.
Vaccine-preventable diseases
Anyone that does not agree with us, regardless of reasons/evidence or proof, shall be labeled ANTI-
Vaccines do not cause autism.
Anyone that works for Merck is perfect.....unless they try to sue them.
The phrase, "health preventable disease" is never to be used.
Conspiracies have never existed, and never will.
Anyone who refuses vaccination wears a tin foil hat.
Just get your dam* vaccine!
Paul Offit is a vaccine Saint. He has no PROffit motive, whatsoever.
Big Pharma operates SOLELY for the good of mankind.
Experimental vaccines: when in doubt, always go to Africa.
Africans are always better off after a visit from Bill and Melinda Gates.
Margaret Sanger is a great resource for new vaccine product ideas.
I don't know what you are talking about.
Jeffrey Epstein is a respected giant among scientific research funders.
Some of you don't hear this well.

"Words mean something, toto.'
That's right JGC:
"And although the impressive polio push has crushed wild type cases to only six cases this year, there’s a larger, under-recognized problem: 26 additional cases of polio caused by the oral polio vaccine itself. Oral polio vaccine contains live but attenuated virus which can mutate back into virulent form.

Transmission of vaccine-derived polio in Nigeria is spreading, with five additional cases recently popping up in five new places. "
http://www.humanosphere.org/global-health/2014/11/how-the-focus-on-poli…

#175
"Note that the parenthetical bullsh1t about a a “now-controversial vaccine schedule” is not part of the original passage which Toto purports to be citing, and was presumably inserted out of a principled opposition to honesty."

Your presumption was wrong. I took a short-cut and just used parentheses because it seemed obvious that it was my comment. Technically, you are correct and I apologize for your confusion. However, this is why I always post a link to my source. Of course, my comment is correct. It is controversial. Otherwise this blog would not exist, and you would be out of a job as Big Pharma propagandist, keeping the controversy at bay.

It is remarkable that you had no comment regarding the explosive content in my post.

Keeping up with Julie: Life after CDC

"For 7 years, Dr. Julie Gerberding served as director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where she led public health initiatives in response to crises such as avian flu, natural disasters and anthrax bioterrorism. While her focus was national, she also advised countries around the world on combating public health problems such as AIDS and other diseases.

But when she learned that Merck ($MRK), a vaccine leader, had been unable to globalize access to some of its "really incredible vaccines" outside of other highly developed countries, she knew it was time to expand her global efforts even further.

"The opportunity to really open access to some life-saving vaccine products was incredibly motivating to me," Gerberding told FierceBiotech.

So in late 2009, Gerberding took up the post of president of Merck's vaccines division, where she's worked to expand the reach of the company's products and bring them to those in need. "Being able to take these products, manufacture them and commercialize them in a more cost-effective way so they can reach the girls and boys who need them most is a wonderful opportunity," she said.

That job takes on many different forms, she says. One week she could be flying to India for a meeting of Hilleman Laboratories, a joint venture between Merck and Wellcome Trust that works to repurpose vaccines for developing countries so that they're cheaper or easier to use. The next, she could be attending a global health policy meeting in Morocco or helping bring a vaccine to market. Each day involves facing challenges from both a business perspective and a science and technology perspective."
http://www.fiercebiotech.com/special-reports/julie-gerberding-top-women…

Memory Hole:
Let's not forget CDC whistleblower Dr. Thompson's letter to then CDC boss, Dr. Julie Gerberding, regarding a 2004 case-study he co-authored which involved Merck's MMR vaccine and autism. At the time, and still today, Merck enjoys a U.S. sales monopoly for the product. Five years after this incident, Gerberding was hired by Merck.
Letter:
http://www.naturalnews.com/images/CDC-Gerberding-Warning-Vaccines-Autis…
Article source:
http://www.naturalnews.com/046597_CDC_whistleblower_secret_letter_Julie…

Another "controversial issue":
Organic food- bad; KFC chicken and alcoholic beverage- good...."for the cure".
http://www.naturalnews.com/048300_Susan_G_Komen_fried_chicken_organic_f…

Give Komen the pink slip.......

Keeping up with Julie: Part 2

"People who are pre-disposed to have a mitochondrial dysfunction can develop autistic conditions following vaccination. The current President of Merck’s Vaccines Division, Julie Gerberding confirmed to CBS News when she was Director of the US Centres for Disease Control that:
Now, we all know that vaccines can occasionally cause fevers in kids. So if a child was immunized, got a fever, had other complications from the vaccines. And if you’re predisposed with the mitochondrial disorder, it can certainly set off some damage. Some of the symptoms can be symptoms that have characteristics of autism.“
HOUSE CALL WITH DR. SANJAY GUPTA – Unraveling the Mystery of Autism; Talking With the CDC Director; Stories of Children with Autism; Aging with Autism – Aired March 29, 2008 – 08:30 ET"
https://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/vaccination-causes-a…-–-say-us-government-merck’s-director-of%C2%A0vaccines/

“There’s concern that the virus circulating in ISRAEL may spill out of the country, says EMORY University’s Dr. Walt Orenstein, who has worked extensively on POLIO.

So, that would be none?

Not that this isn't idiotic in other ways, such as "spilling out" when... wait, you don't know what "circulating" meant there, do you?

Oh, and Tutu? Don't bother. I only see people's handing back of your specimens.

I just wish we could get Andrew Wakefield to move out of Austin, TX and back to the UK. Then perhaps they could imprison him for crimes against humanity. With his fraudulent anti-vaccination 'research', he's become the Typhoid Mary of our time.

http://unfacts.freeforums.net/

Cynical and angry right out of the gate. This article is trash. The vaccine court proved they cause autism and the CDC has been busted red handed lying about studies. It would be a disaster if people stopped vaccinating but that does not change the cold hard facts that they have caused autism in some children. Children who get autism from having the MMR vaccine before 36 months of age should be swiftly compensated by the vaccine court that was set up to protect BIG PHARMA from liability by instead using taxpayers dollars to payout. The CDC lies by people like Julie Gerberding who is now a multi-million earner at Merck Pharmaceuticals has now put us 10 years behind on research.

I am working on updating my list of papers commonly cited by people who believe that vaccines cause autism. I realized I had blended 3 publications (by the same authors, on the same subject) into one paper. I need a bit of help on analysis and finding blog posts on the papers.

There were is three publications from Gallagher and Goodman on the same subject (neonatal Hep B vaccine raising the risk of autism and other developmental disabilities). (Gallagher was a PhD candidatewhen the papers were published; Goodman was a professor with whom Gallagher published, but was not Gallagher's thesis supervisor.)

The first is a 2008 paper:

Gallagher C, Goodman M 2008. Hepatitis B triple series vaccine and developmental disability in US children aged 1-9 years, Toxicol Environ Chem 2008 90(5):997-1008. DOI:10.1080/02772240701806501

The second is an abstract of a poster presentation at a 2009 conference:

Gallagher CM, Goodman MS, Hepatitis B Vaccination of Male Neonates and Autism, Annals of Epidemiology Volume 19, Issue 9 , Page 659, September 2009 annalsofepidemiology DOT org/article/S1047-2797(09)00207-5/fulltext

The third is another paper:

Gallagher CM, Goodman MS. Hepatitis B vaccination of male neonates and autism diagnosis, NHIS 1997-2002. J Toxicol Environ Health A. 2010;73(24):1665-77. doi: 10.1080/15287394.2010.519317.

Publication #1 (2008) was discussed at:

http://leftbrainrightbrain DOT co.uk/2010/09/16/autism-causation-and-the-hepatitis-b-vaccine-no-link/

Publication #2 (2009) was discussed at:

http://leftbrainrightbrain DOT co.uk/2009/09/17/another-weak-study-proves-vaccines-cause-autism/

[in response to:
http://www.ageofautism DOT com/2009/09/david-kirby-new-study-hepatitis-b-vaccine-triples-the-risk-of-autism-in-infant-boys.html]

Publication #3 (2010) was discussed at:

[haven't been able to find an analysis of the paper. I have a vague memory that Prometheus did so at his now-shuttered blog]

So these papers were written when Gallager was a PhD candidate at Stony Brook. She earned her PhD in 2001. Here's her thesis: (Note Advisor: Jayme R Meliker, NOT Goodman.

Mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls, and immune response indicators in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)

Gallagher is now a project manager at IPRO, which offers "healthcare assessment and improvement services", and is affiliated faculty with Stony Brook.

Goodman is no longer at Stony Brook. She is now an Assistant Professor at Washington University School of Medicine, Division of Public Health Sciences, Department of Surgery.

Was the third paper every discussed in the scientific blogosphere? I cannot find anything

Jeff: "The vaccine court proved they cause autism and the CDC has been busted red handed lying about studies"

Science is not determined by lawyers.

"Children who get autism from having the MMR vaccine before 36 months of age should be swiftly compensated by the vaccine court that was set up to protect BIG PHARMA from liability by instead using taxpayers dollars to payout."

There is not evidence that the MMR causes autism. Because if it did we would have seen it happening in the 1970s and 1980s after the vaccine was introduced in 1971 in the USA. If you have the documentation dated before 1990 that autism increased due to the MMR use in the USA, then please present it.

Todd W: Citations desparately needed, if your argument is founded in anything other than some non-racist version of “We all know what they’re like”.

How in the world is it racist, though? I'm white. If you've ever looked at a photograph of most anti-vax gatherings, flour mills have more color. And how many people who are of color and aren't affluent live in Orange County?