hate speech

Mike Adams attacks Jimmy Kimmel for "hate speech"

oracknows — Tue, 03 Mar 2015 06:00:12 +0000

Mike Adams attacks Jimmy Kimmel for "hate speech"

The last couple of days have been unrelentingly serious and depressing, with posts on the (probably) preventable death of a young Australian woman named Jess Ainscough of a rare cancer because she made the mistake of choosing the quackery that is the Gerson protocol rather than conventional medicine. Unfortunately, the "natural health community" will almost certainly learn nothing from her story, in which Ainscough, facing the very unpleasant prospect of a radical amputation, instead chose Gerson therapy and became an evangelist for that particular form of cancer quackery and "natural healing." I felt sorry for her, even though I couldn't approve of how she potentially led people with cancer down the road of pseudoscience and quackery with her enthusiastic promotion of coffee enemas and the rest of the nonsense Charlotte Gerson sells based on her father's protocol.

I need to lighten up.

Who better to provide the comic relief from this thus far grim week than that buffoon of buffoons, Mike Adams? Even better, unlike Ainscough, who was herself a victim of whatever cancer quacks sold her on the Gerson protocol in the first place, Adams is no victim. He's also pissed off (his usual state of mind) Why is he so ticked off? Well, he's not happy with Jimmy Kimmel over this bit he did Friday night on his show:

Normally, I don't watch Jimmy Kimmel, even on the now rare times when I'm up that late. (My wife and I tend to be so beat on Friday nights that our typical ritual on most Fridays is to order pizza, maybe with a glass of wine—or not—and then fall asleep with the dog on the couch by 10 PM.) I saw it Saturday morning, as it was making the rounds on social media, and I thought it was hilarious.

Mike Adams was not so amused. doing that faux outrage schtick he does so well to fire up his minions against the evil depredations of big pharma and the government, he published a spittle-flecked rant (are there any other kinds from Mike Adams?) entitled OUTRAGE! Jimmy Kimmel makes fun of vaccine-damaged children, revives hate speech bigotry on national TV. I must admit, I was surprised it took him nearly four days to come up with this, but I did chuckle at the histrionic title of the post before I read a single word:

Throughout U.S. history, certain selected groups of citizens have been subjected to extreme verbal, judicial and even physical abuse at the hands of bigoted oppressors. The historical abuse of African-Americans -- subjected to generations of abusive language and racism that still lingers today -- was villainously summed up with a bigoted hate speech label I dare not utter here.

Gay Americans were similarly subjected to the label of "f-@@-t," a hate-based derogatory slur invoked to demean a human being because of their sexual orientation. It was this campaign of verbal abuse and derogatory hate speech that helped give rise to violence against gays in America.

Importantly, every effort to demean and denigrate a selectively targeted class of citizens -- whether for their skin color, their sexual orientation or their beliefs -- has been preceded by a campaign of verbal abuse intended to dehumanize that targeted group. The invocation and use of bigoted, derogatory labels lays the social and cultural groundwork for not only discrimination but even actual violence committed against the groups being targeted.

Racism and hate speech are wrong. It is morally, politically and socially incorrect to use hate speech labels in a derogatory manner in a civilized society. These terms are hate-based forms of speech meant to emotionally hurt and demean targeted groups of innocent people. Yet, astonishingly, it has now emerged in America that it is socially acceptable to use precisely the same bigoted hate-speech language against another group: children who are damaged by vaccines (and children who are unvaccinated). This group is now being widely and aggressively disparaged with the hate-based term "anti-vaxxers."

Did you watch the video? I did. Kimmel didn't make fun of any children, "vaccine-injured," autistic, or neurotypical, or otherwise. Not at all. Rather, he made fun of "antivaxers," basically mocking their sense of entitlement and, above all, their apparent belief that their Google University knowledge trumps the actual knowledge of doctors, using a rather hilarious fake public service announcement with doctors complaining about this and using slightly profanity-laced exhortations to parents to get their kids vaccinated. It was an excellent deconstruction of the Dunning-Kruger effect that makes antivaccinationists antivaccinationists.

Kimmel's five minute comedy bit is not "hate speech," although complaining about "hate speech" or "bullying" has become the go-to whine from antivaccinationists facing criticism for their choices, a whine that's become even more intense in light of the Disneyland measles outbreak since Christmas. Criticism of pseudoscience and quackery is not "hate speech." It's just not. For one thing, hate speech usually involves attacking groups who are the way they are through no choice of their own. Think attacking Jews or African-Americans on the basis of their religion or race. Think attacking homosexuals because of their sexual orientation. Yes, those are the examples Adams used, but how is one of these things (antivaccinationists) not like the others (blacks or homosexuals)? That's right. Antivaccinationists choose to be antivaccinationists. Also, blacks and gays do no harm to society by being black or gay. Antivaccinationists, through their choices not to vaccinate, are largely responsible for the resurgence of diseases once thought vanquished—like measles.

Not that that stops Adams when he's on a roll even more ridiculous than one of his typical rants:

In a stunning demonstration of demeaning hate speech targeting children who have suffered brain damage from vaccines, comedian Jimmy Kimmel unleashed a satire comedy hit piece that, fifty years ago, would have almost certainly seen Kimmel making fun of black people. Twenty years ago, he would have been making fun of gay people. But today, in 2015, Jimmy Kimmel directs his ignorance, bigotry and demeaning hate speech toward vaccine-damaged children who are now labeled "anti-vaxxers."

Given that Adams brought race into this, you know where this is going; that is, if you've been following this blog at least since August and recall the kerfuffle over the trumped up "CDC Whistleblower" manufactroversy:

Not only is Jimmy Kimmel using bigoted hate speech language to demean crippled children who were damaged by vaccines; he's also doing so in a manner that is utterly ignorant of the special risks posed to African-Americans by vaccines.

It was Dr. William Thompson, a top CDC scientist, who blew the whistle on the CDC's vaccine research fraud last year, going public with his confession that the CDC knowingly covered up data linking vaccines to an increased risk of autism in young African-American boys.

Except that the CDC study in question showed nothing of the sort, and there's no credible evidence of a "cover up," just the stress-induced claims of a single CDC psychologist whose claims have gained no traction and failed to be corroborated. This whole kerfuffle came to be known among antivaccinationists as the "CDC whistleblower"/#CDCWhistleblower saga. Let's just put it this way: Andrew Wakefield glommed onto this fake controversy. That ought to tell you all you need to know.

Adams even invokes a statement by Mahatma Gandhi, who, if the reference is accurate, was apparently amazingly ignorant about vaccination, leading me to wonder: Where did Gandhi get his medical degree? (For a more skeptical take on Gandhi's views on vaccines, check this out.) On a scientific basis, I care no more what Gandhi said about vaccines than what Mike Adams says, things like:

Vaccines, it turns out, are a form of medical violence against children for the simple reason that they provably cause extreme, permanent damage in many children year after year. But medical violence isn't the only violence that Jimmy Kimmel now seems to be promoting... he's also provoking individual acts of violence against so-called "anti-vaxxers" through his emotionally-charged, hate-filled rhetoric disguised as comedy.

Historically, it was the public tolerance of hate speech against African-Americans and gays that encouraged some people to engage in violent acts against them. After all, a group of people who are verbally belittled with derogatory and bigoted hate speech by public figures is an easy target for those with violent tendencies.

Oh, please, Mr. Adams. Pot. Kettle. Black. This nonsense is from a man who routinely refers to scientists as being the equivalent of "Nazis" (no, actually, he likened Monsanto and pro-GMO advocates explicitly to Nazis and strongly implied that it would be right to kill them for their "heinous crimes," starting up and later shutting down a site called "Monsanto Collaborators") and castigates science itself as evil, while ranting against big pharma. Hypocrisy, thy name is Mike Adams (among others). By Adams' own definition, he engages in hate speech himself far beyond any accusation he can come up with against Jimmy Kimmel in his fevered imagination. It's just another example of what a joke Mike Adams is. Unfortunately, he's an influential joke.

Over the last few years, antivaccinationists have tried to liken themselves to traditionally oppressed or discriminated against groups, such as blacks, gays, or others in a transparent ploy to deflect criticism and paint it as "oppression." Adams' little screed takes that technique and hilariously puts it on steroids and cranks it up to 11. (Yes, when it comes to Adams, I like to shamelessly mix metaphors.) It's over-the-top, even by Mike Adams' standards.

For Mike Adams, it's always, "Do as I say, not as I do."

ADDENDUM: Jimmy Kimmel now has a followup. It's hilarious, as Kimmel shows actual Tweets directed at him and lets antivaxers advocate for a "child's right to choose":

oracknows Tue, 03/03/2015 - 01:00

Categories

Social Sciences

At least Mike Adams is known to all by his real name.
Perhaps "orac" has something to hide.
From this infantile polemic, that is what I would choose to believe.

Silly Tim. The answer is right here on this very blog for any who figure it out, and it's not hard to figure out.

Yeah, it's just what they do. They hide behind the children. If you challenge the crooks, quacks and charlatans, or the lying parents who enter their kids in clinical research in order to launder their legal claims into scientific "evidence", they dodge behind the kids.

Even, as you point out in this case, no mention was even made of "vaccine damaged children".

Mike Adams is a moron regardless of the name he chooses. Orac has a real identity known to anyone with an iota of curiosity and a google iq above 20.

I don't think there are enough movie screens within 30 miles of me to match Mike Adams for projection.

I saw that clip over the weekend, on an economics/finance blog where I lurk. One thing the host of that blog and Orac have in common is a low tolerance for willful idiocy, which is what almost all of this anti-vax nonsense is. And no, it does not attack helpless children, only adults who are willfully endangering helpless children (who are too young to get the vaccine).

It would have been reasonable for a few years around the turn of the century (after Wakefield et al. published that infamous Lancet paper, but before the hypothesis was disproven and the paper shown to be fraudulent) for a layman to wonder if there was anything to the claims linking autism and the MMR vaccine. That window is now firmly shut. And people like Adams keep on running into that window like birds colliding with glass skyscrapers. Except that birds who survive that experience learn from it. Adams et al. proudly learn nothing.

Oh, I was so hoping Jimmy Kimmel's hilarious "public service announcement" would find its way into a RI post. Even if it had to come with a side order of Mike Adams, you just made my day :)

@Tim #1 - I am an occasional visitor and despite that I have learned Orac's "secret" identity long ago. But for the sake of an experiment I checked if there's any clue about it on this very site. And lo and behold - you're but one click from learning everything you need to know.

Hint - there's a certain pseudonym highlighted in blue on this site. It's a hypertext.

Oh, I was so hoping Jimmy Kimmel’s hilarious “public service announcement” would find its way into a RI post. Even if it had to come with a side order of Mike Adams, you just made my day :)

Then you should thank Mike Adams for his epically stupid rant about the Kimmel bit, because before that I hadn't planned on doing anything more than Tweeting the video and posting it on my Facebook wall (both of which I did over the weekend).

At least Mike Adams is known to all by his real name.

And how do we know that Mike Adams is not a fictional character?

Oh yes, that's right. Fictional characters have to be believable. Unlike Mike Adams.

P.S. Orac maintains another blog on which he uses his real name. He's also on Twitter, again using his real name.

Why is it that people such as Mike Adams equate an opinion different from theirs as "hate speech" and "bigotry"? The more I delve into this whole quagmire of "alternative", the more amazed I am at how intolerant, close-minded, and biased the advocates of alternative "medicine" are. And it's not just the rot they're expounding, it's the arguments they use to expound the rot. They take such fantastic leaps of "logic", that I'm left bemused by how the hell they got to B from A based on the data they've offered as "proof".

So, yes. When you put yourself out there like that with the drivel you're supporting; you can expect to get lampooned. But nowhere have I seen anyone critical of antivaxxers poke fun at the children they've put at risk.

Adams uses hyperbolic crap like this to protect his payment stream. He has a ready band of loons willing to believe pretty much anything he says, without evidence or even a modicum of critical thought. If he didn't poke them now and again, they might look elsewhere for lies and crazy. Where would Mikey be then?

A few things...

- I think the reason these people eternally harp on *the children* ((shudder)) is because no one would have any interest in what they have to say otherwise.

Would anyone- even their friends and cohorts- ever read their book or posts if they weren't about _ the children_?

They have very little to say.

- Yesterday, Null ranted about the same television spot as well ( tape is not yet up on PRN). Of course, he used his "science" to support his opposition to vaccines as he always does. Why didn't Kimmel have a person with an opposing view in the skit, he asked cluelessly.

- Mikey is trying to drum up interest in his latest project, Food Rising: for the uninitiated, he has 'invented' a hydroponic system that will revolutionise food production in the Third World and 3rd grade classrooms everywhere by printing his very own innovative 3D printed parts. He's getting people to donate money for the parts so he can send them to classrooms through his 'charity'
.
Unfortunately, for him, the only way he can get his audience interested in his writing is if he does what he did re Kimmel.

- AND with great trepidation, fear and trembling even, I cautiously approach, the great and benevolent, *hostus with mostus*, our fearless and peerless leader, Orac.... both Dr and Mr,
as a grammar n-zi, to say ( Draconis protect me!)
because, dear Orac, correct me if I am wrong, but you said "on a role" when you meant "on a ROLL"-
although that may be a pun because Mikey is such a role playing idiot and has us rolling in the isles.. I mean aisles and he is 'toast' after Orac gets done with him.

I'm not a n-zi, really, I'm a liberal
So I apologise but I HAD to say it.

Since the American Lung Association points out that African American men have a 34% higher incidence of lung cancer than white men, pointing out the dangers of smoking is obviously racist hate speech.

It's always educational and fun to read the comments on Mikey's particularly looney posts. Here's one:

"Was it really Kimmel's opinion, or is it some of ABC's sponsers? Big pharma controls the national news broadcasts on all networks."

Evidently Jimmy Kimmel had a followup, both reading tweets, and having this skit below:

Last week on the show we got a group of real doctors together to do a public service announcement urging parents to vaccinate their kids. While a lot of people enjoyed it - it also made a small group of people unbelievably angry. Jimmy believes strongly in vaccination - but in the interest of fairness, we gave our community activist team Jack and Becky some air time to express their anti-vaccination views.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=16&v=i2mdwmpLYLY&app=desktop

@SelenaWolf #10, I think that they *have* to be close minded. If they were open minded, then they would see that their ideas are mostly totally without basis. I have a good friend who is into 'natural' everything and constantly shuts me down if I even try to discuss vaccination (her youngest is 2, the same as mine). Sometimes she's rude about it too. She's lovely, but just will not entertain that she's wrong about her pro-disease stance. It's like any religion in that respect. I suppose that's why they feel 'persecuted', because their inaccurate and unfounded faith is consistently proved wrong, and us 'unbelievers' don't perceive that this is religious devotion rather than pseudoscientific anti-community quackery.

Jimmy has a new video up: Jimmy Kimmel's Update on the Anti-Vaccination Discussion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2mdwmpLYLY

Worth the watch for sure!

I'm bemused at the notion of entitled white people (like Mike Adams, or affluent anti-vax parents) claiming they are subject to discrimination of a piece with that experienced by people of colour and Jews over the centuries.

I mean, genuinely racist reactionary authoritarians (Limbaugh et al) often accuse people of "playing the race card" when they point out contemporary instances of racism or systematic discrimination, but I dare say Mike Adams really is "playing the race card".

(You might say that "playing the race card" is something entitled white people do, either ironically à la Mike Adams, or, er, projection...ally (?) à la Limbaugh.)

And of course, I learn that Mikey's latest charitable project is also a PRODUCT that you can buy at Natural News. He sells all of the 'mini-farm' parts, plant food and seeds.

Oh, that followup video by Kimmel is also hilarious; so much so that I tacked it on as an addendum.

Dehumanizing, violent hate speech anyone? A commenter right on Mike's post about hate speech suggests that bigPharma wants to depopulate the world through vaccines, and they would agree with that if it were people like the Rothschild cartel, et al. who were the victims:

"They're sentient beings, I wouldn't go so far as to say human, but they do seem to be alive and children of their parents. They're scum, for sure, but still deserving of our compassion. Maybe we say a prayer for them as we cut their throats."

And nobody at NN bats an eye.

Maybe Tim couldn't figure out Orac's ID because it is SUPER secret. I used the concern troll language of all caps to help him out. Maybe he'll be super serial about figuring it out now.

Calling autistic people damaged is HATE SPEECH DANG IT AUTISTIC PEOPLE ARE NOT DAMAGED! ARG! Hate natural nutwitlery.

Mike's ( and the others') continuous excoriation of vaccine advocates and SBM in general serves another less obvious purpose:
it DISTRACTS his loyal audience away from questioning his own motives as well as his yearly earnings.

SBM ( or governments, media et al) is populated by unbelievably corrupt, moey-hungry, devious, profiteering, psychopathic megalomaniacs who have absolutely no concern about the common person
whilst Mikey et al are humanitarians, spiritually enlightened sages free of prejudice and hate.

Since they have ALREADY called these tyrants out, how could they possibly be suspected of the same themselves?

That should be MONEY

These terms are hate-based forms of speech meant to emotionally hurt and demean targeted groups of innocent people.

"It's like Christmas in Harlem."

Right. And he included racist images in his videos- e.g. the vaccinating nurse in 'Vaccine Zombie' stereotypes black women.

Denice@24:

Tim: At least Mike Adams is known to all by his real name.

Well done, "Tim"! And thanks for your courage in fully identifying yourself. ;)

Kimmel wins the anti-antivax Blue Ribbon. Those bits speak to a wide audience by using 'regular guy' humor, hoist the loonies by their own petards, and push public perception of them toward the fringe where they belong. The references to Google, Facebook, and (especially) forwarded emails in contrast to the educations of the doctors, and the everyday examples of.doctors' competency and trustworthiness (smoking, ER stitches, etc.) are spot on, and the doctors cast for the PSA are pretty much perfect.

The reactions from Adams et al. just double-down on the wacko – whipping up the base, keeping them in line, seeking to supporting the cash flow by raising the buying activity of the already-committed customer base. But they're building an ever-higher wall between their little woo sub-culture and anyone with a whiff of "common sense".

Denice Walter@24:

Mike’s ( and the others’) continuous excoriation of vaccine advocates and SBM in general serves another less obvious purpose: it DISTRACTS his loyal audience away from questioning his own motives as well as his yearly earnings.

Oh, you Pharma Shills with your filthy $$$$$$$$ fixations. Unlike you, noble Mr Adams ONLY takes payment in kitten smiles and sunbeams!!!!!

Selena Wolf: "But nowhere have I seen anyone critical of antivaxxers poke fun at the children they’ve put at risk."

True. Even in the 'Slap,' (an American adaptation of the Australian show) the crunchy ultra-hippie parents are clearly portrayed as being the ones who turned their five-year-old into a spoiled monster. (The kid's about four or five, and he's still breastfeeding, so no way is he vaccinated.) The nice thing is that the parents are portrayed in an unrelentingly unsympathetic light- and this mirrors the way anti-vax parents are being treated by the press.

Jeliwobble: Get out while you still can. She may be a lovely person, but in short order, she'll turn into an awful person who snarls about learning disabled children and anyone with a disability, runs a gluten-free house and ruins get-togethers for everyone.

By the way – RationalWiki’s article on NaturalNews is our latest front-page featured article!

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/NaturalNews

Mike is so delighted that he redirects all hits with rationalwiki.org as a referrer to an advertising page. (So we had to run our reference links through something to remove that.)

RE: Second video. Never take a lollipop from an anti-vaxer. $10 says the lollipops had been pre-licked by a child with an active case of chicken pox. Natural immunity! FTW!

The most revolting thing is that anti-vaxers throw the terms "bullying" and "hate speech" around whenever someone expresses a viewpoint different than theirs. It's such a smarmy, entitled worldview.

"Given that Adams brought race into this, you know where this is going"

Godwin's law?

Nope too high profile to put that card on the table.

I was hoping that Kimmel would have brought up the Mike Adams article in his follow up. Either way, I have a new-found respect for Kimmel.
Also, the basis of Mike's article is that Jimmy Kimmel is popularizing the term "anti-vaxxer", but unless I heard wrong he never used that term. He said something like anti-vaccination people, which sounds way less like a pejorative and more like a stance anyways.
It was hard not to laugh at the part where Adams argued that Kimmel was advocating burning down the homes of anti vaccinationists, and suggesting the "parents of vaccine-injured children being beaten on the streets". I must have missed where Kimmel mentioned that.

Paul -- never underestimate the depths to which Adams will stoop. They have yet to be plumbed fully.

The Spudd is on the case, with a vaccine against stupidity.

“We are very excited about this, very hopeful,” says lead researcher Dr. James Kimmell. “The only thing we are concerned about is whether or not stupid people, i.e. anti-vaccers, will be willing to get the shot.”

The key difference between gay people or blacks and anti-vaxxers is that anti-vaxxers are harming society, including their own children. That would be equally true if it turned out that being anti-vax wasn't a choice, but the result of some weird infection. (Religious bigotry doesn't become acceptable when the people being slandered chose their religion as adults.)

Paul @38: We've seen Adams resort to argumentum ad Hitleram before. It's not a stretch to imagine him going there.

There is a reason why, in many statements of Godwin's law, the side that analogizes their opponents to Nazis is considered to have lost the debate. Mike Adams is a living embodiment of that reason.

Kimmel has been on a roll lately, pranking people with fake organic juice and asking people about gluten,

Is anyone aware of any updates regarding the fallout from Adams’ Monsanto Collaborators “call to violence” from last July? I searched RI, Neurologica, and GLP but can’t find anything new. There was some talk of FBI involvement. It would be unfortunate if that episode passed too quietly into the memory hole.

Being a (mostly) stay-at-home mom who is too busy planning her next affair to consider giving my children diseases instead of immunity, I almost missed this. TV never happens, Facebook is a rare event and Twitter is entirely off the table; in short, RI is the short interlude of personal enrichment most days. Today, thanks to Mike Adams, my day is completely made. Space Trout @ #36 was the cherry on top. Thanks guys!

@ has:

We like dollars in all of their multi-national variety altho' nothing is quite as weighty as the pound
but the euro, tho' exceedingly crappy, will be accepted
nevertheless.

@ Paul de Boer:

Adams has used quite n-zi-ish illustrations whenever he discussed Obama and Obama-care and often, when depicting doctors or SBM as well. These are sprinkled amongst his entire oeuvre so it's hard to isolate them.

His so-called 'cartoons' are on a site called 'Counterthink' which is apropos since it doesn't reflect anything that reasonably could be called 'thought'.

Then, there are the videos of his uh... music.

Oh and fancy that!
A black n-azi.

That follow up video is wonderful.

Just to clarify, if a baby cries, that's a no, right?

"A commenter right on Mike’s post about hate speech suggests that bigPharma wants to depopulate the world through vaccines"

Yeah, that is always a good one. Before vaccines you got plagues that would wipe out as much as 50%, or more, or a population. Since vaccines, the number of the people on the planet has doubled like what 23 years, more or less. Yeah, all those chemicals and vaccines are doing such a hugely effective job of "depopulating" the planet. lol

Seriously, these people's nonsense is why the phrase, "not even wrong", was invented. Being wrong requires you still, at minimum, deal with facts and evidence in **this** universe, then, come to the wrong conclusion via poor logic. When you make up evidence, don't have any, and fail to apply even the basics of logic to reaching a conclusion, you're not just not right, you are, "not even wrong", i.e., on the wrong bloody planet, in the wrong universe, and addressing a non-existent problem, etc.

@Dorit Reiss

Hard to say. The follow-up study is really only applicable to children who are capable of understanding English, so it's not generalizable to non-verbal infants or to non-English speaking tots.

Who knows. The wee babes could cry from joy at being protected.

@Todd W.: LOL.

Wow, just wow!
The first few times I clicked on the link to the Health Deranger above I just got his "puff piece" on the 10 wonderful things that he and his ICP-MS had done for the world. That was hilarious, but clearly not what I was supposed to be seeing.
But a minute or so ago - after I'd read the whole of Orac's column and most of the comments - the same link actually took me to the column by Mad Mike that our snarky blinking box of lights referred to. If Mad Mike hadn't gone straight to the argumentum ad Hitlerum, he was getting perilously close. And most of the commenters agree with him - even the mildest criticism gets dogpiled.
One did ask if the photos were real, i.e. of "vaccine damage". I believe it's possible to search for photos on the Internet - perhaps some suitably skilled person can look and see where they originally came from.

PS: Jerry Coyne, of "Why Evolution is True", has a post up this morning with the same pair of YouTube excerpts.

You know, I think I've made it in the world! Mike Adams is known for setting up redirects so that incoming traffic from certain sites goes straight to one of his ads or puff pieces. Maybe he's done that with this site. If that's the case, there's only one thing to do: Google Cache. Make a downloadable PDF of the offending post and put a link to it in mine. :-)

@ Derek Freyberg:

One of the 'vaccine injured' photos is of a young woman who died ( I'm not sure from what cause) whose mother wrote a book about her and is affiliated with AoA.

@ Denice:
It's the photos of children with various cutaneous conditions that I particularly suspect are "borrowed".

Narad@26 --

To say nothing of:

The very premise that black people are systematically oppressed in modern-day America is a myth.

Obama takes to the airwaves and claims racism remains so bad in America that Trayvon Martin could have been him, implying that even the President could have been shot by an angry Latino who the brain-damaged media continues to somehow call "white."

The plan, of course, is to foment so much contrived hatred that America collapses into a massive race war that distracts everybody from the monumental failures of bad government.

Detroit, a city largely run by Obama-supporting African-Americans, has collapsed into bankruptcy. The same kind of failed thinking that brought Detroit to its knees is now being unleashed by people like Al Sharpton -- the Don King of race-baiting hatred -- who is behind a new call for an economic boycott of Florida.

This idea, just like most of the racism industry's ideas, make absolutely no sense.

Moral: All forms of bigotry and hatred and oppression are, a priori, aimed exclusively at Mike Adams, apparently.

(All quotes from:

http://www.naturalnews.com/041283_racism_theater_Obama_mainstream_media…)

I have decided that every time anyone disagrees with me about anything I am going to call it hate speech.

@Denice (57):
I did a little mousing around, and there's a site called TinEye (www.tineye.com) that does image searches without needing a program on your computer. I put the one of the body of the African-American child in, and it found it on an old CDC webpage - it's eczema vaccinatum from smallpox (it also found the same photo on around ten other sites, including everyone's friend whale.to and a bunch of other cranks).
So Mad Mike is using a smallpox eczema vaccinatum photo as his horror story when he talks about Dr. Thompson's "confession" of vaccine-induced autism in black children.
I'm old enough to have had a couple of smallpox vaccinations - you had to have them for international travel. But according to the CDC, routine smallpox vaccination in the US ceased in 1972 and travel vaccination in 1982. So, unless that child came into contact with a recently-vaccinated individual - and I believe US military personnel are still vaccinated - this is an old photo.
So Mikey lies - but what's new there?

The plan, of course, is to foment so much contrived hatred that America collapses into a massive race war that distracts everybody from the monumental failures of bad government.

I.e., Obama is just recycling Charles Manson. Sharp thinking.

The same kind of failed thinking that brought Detroit to its knees is now being unleashed by people like Al Sharpton — the Don King of race-baiting hatred — who is behind a new call for an economic boycott of Florida.

I guess the AoA brain trust just thought that he'd be a useful stage nіgger.

For a more skeptical take on Gandhi’s views on vaccines, check this out.

Unfortunately, the quotes from the original at the Stack Exchange link leave out some of the best parts, e.g.,

"We are all terribly afraid of the small-pox, and have very crude notions about it. We in India even worship it as a deity. In fact it is caused, just like other diseases, by the blood getting impure owing to some disorder of the bowels; and the poison that accumulates in the system is expelled in the form of small-pox. If this view is correct, then there is absolutely no need to be afraid of small-pox. If it were really a contagious disease, everyone should catch it by merely touching the patient; but this is not always the case."

@Derek: You're correct, the military still does smallpox vaccinations prior to deployments into certain regions (I had mine in 2004). They do a pretty good job of educating individuals on how to take care of it so nothing spreads beyond the vaccination site...but now and then you do find those special ones who play with the scab and go on to stick a finger in their eye, etc. You can't fix stupid...

Ann, you wouldn't happen to have the text of that page in your cache, would you? Adams now has a server-side redirect from it to his "Top 10 Scientific Achievements" page. Now I'm really curious to read it, if it is something that embarrasses even him.

Of course, there's a certain irony in simultaneously invoking Gandhi and making allusions to racism (etc.).

Adams now has a server-side redirect from it to his “Top 10 Scientific Achievements” page.

Just delete the "#ixzz3TMiMAbnp" tracker.

@Derek Freyberg #55

You can do image searches as you described pretty easily through google. Google images has an option to copy or upload an image and return sites where that image exists. You should be able to save the images in question (right click -> save image) and upload them into a google image search.

Unfortunately, the quotes from the original at the Stack Exchange link leave out some of the best parts, e.g.,

Perhaps the Table of Contents of Gandhi's book best conveys a sense of his profound, self-imposed ignorance of all post-medieval medical knowledge.

Chap. I. The Meaning of Health 9
Chap. II. The Human Body 11
Chap. III. Air 14
Chap. IV. Water 25
Chap. V. Food 29
Chap. VI. How much and how many times should we eat?55
Chap. VII. Exercise 59
Chap. VIII. Dress 64
Chap. IX. Sexual Relations 69
Part II: Some Simple Treatments
Chap. I. Air Treatment 83
Chap. II. Water Cure 86
Chap. III. The Use of Earth 95
Chap. IV. Fever and its Cures 98
Chap. V. Constipation, Dysentery, etc. 101
Chap. VI. Contagious Diseases Smallpox 104
Chap. VII. Other Contagious Diseases 112
Chap. VIII. Maternity and Child-Birth 117
Chap. IX. Care of Child 121
Chap. X. Accidents —Drowning 127
Chap. XI. Do —Burns and Scalds 130
Chap. XII. Do —Snake Bite 132
Chap. XIII. Do —Scorpion-sting, etc.

You can do image searches as you described pretty easily through google.

Unless they're spurning your browser. I have change the user agent to IE9 to get the little camera icon to appear.

I'm not a dermatologist, so this is purely opinion - but I am suspicious that one of Mike Adam's 'vaccine-damaged' children pictured in his article is afflicted with itchyosis - which is a genetically-linked skin condition, not a vaccine injury. The fact that he posts disturbing pictures with no explanation of how vaccines caused the displayed injuries makes me think he has no reliable evidence at all.

Just delete the “#ixzz3TMiMAbnp” tracker.

In retrospect, ignore that (although deleting those strikes me as a good idea in general); the suggestion is the same as to copy and paste the link, which has nothing to do with a redirect based on referrer.

Daniel Welch @65: it's still in the WayBackMachine. I saved a PDF of it too just in case. I didn't read the whole thing but just reading his section headers it seems quite rank. Case in point "The myth of systematic oppression of blacks in America". Wow.

In his newest article on how some vaccine-related We the People petition reached its signature goal despite the White House "censoring" and "oppressing" its signing, Mike Adams mentions that it was signed by "...Natural News readers and health freedom advocates who also forced Jimmy Kimmel to publicly respond to accusations that he thinks handicapped children who were permanently brain damaged by vaccines are a laughing matter to be used as the butt of his jokes attacking 'anti-vaxxers.' "

I guess he was satisfied with the second Kimmel clip?

Pity the poor anti-vaxxers:
according to KIm ( AoA facebook today) they and their children " have become the new lepers".etc.

Thanks for the more better linkage to that piece, you guyses who provided it.

I don't know how I missed this one:

And thanks to Obama, race-based paranoia is now at an all-time high in America. Distrust between those of different races has reached a frightening peak, and there are race-based beatings and shootings happening all across the country right now because of all this. (It's mostly young black kids beating up whites and Hispanics.)

Even as more wise black cultural leaders like Bill Cosby are calling for peace and calm, it's people like Al Sharpton -- whose very power depends on continued racial hatred -- who are whipping up division and paranoia.

I guess I just reflexively averted my eyes.

(Look out! Helter Skelter.)

Consistency is really not his strong point, though.

I.e., Obama is just recycling Charles Manson. Sharp thinking.

That's one way to look at it.

But Manson thought that the black man was being programmed to arise and that race war was inevitable. He was just gaming it in order to speed it up because he thought he and other whiteys in the know would come out on top.

So I agree that someone is recycling him. I just wouldn't have said it was Obama.

I wonder what KIm @ AoA thinks of people who do, in fact, have leprosy, and whether she'd be upset to have one living near her.

Since this blog may be getting read by Mike Adams himself:

Dear Mr. Adams:

Were your ancestors dragged over here in chains? Were their children ripped out of their arms to be sold in markets? Or were your ancestors herded into gas chambers or gulags? Were you denied a seat at a restaurant, a seat on a bus, or a marriage license? I didn't think so.

Please take two coffee enemas and call me in the morning. Given what's wrong with you (starts with "full of...") they might actually cure it, or at least put it into temporary remission.

Sincerely, -GS.

-----

Re. Google University: In fact Google is probably contributing to anti-vaxism.

Look up the article "Filter Bubble" on Wikipedia. Google's "personalized search" system figures out what each person's preferences are, and then feeds them more of whatever they apparently "prefer." So if someone has been searching on a keyword that's also used by quacks and suchlike, chances are that when they search "vaccine" or similar, they'll get a load of anti-vax links. And then they'll be more likely to be convinced that the anti-vax crap is true since it came up first in their search.

It turns out that the filter bubble effect can also shift public opinion by 12 - 13% when it comes to voting preferences. If that's the case, then it can shift public opinion about other issues as well. It would not surprise me if this was aiding the spread of anti-vax garbage.

I'd suggest that all good skeptics & rationalists should stop using Google for the sake of objectivity, and boycott it as a matter of principle. Use Ixquick.com, Startpage.com, and/or DuckDuckGo.com, which don't track you and don't stick you in a filter bubble.

Orac, one reason the grifters are freaking out is because they're doomed.

Yes, doomed.

Their entire propagation method is based on gaming Google's search rankings system, and that's about to be taken away from them:

https://phoenixwoman.wordpress.com/2015/03/04/google-strikes-blow-for-t…

Once Google activates their new reality-based rankings system, the crapmeisters are screwed. No longer will their screeds outrank PubMed pieces. No longer will Jenny McCarthy sites be the first things you see when Googling for information on vaccines.

They're freaking out like vampires in a holy-water shower.

Grey Squirrel:

Google's getting sick of getting gamed by crapmeisters -- and here is the solution (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530102.600-google-wants-to-rank…) :

-- Instead of counting incoming links, the system – which is not yet live – counts the number of incorrect facts within a page. “A source that has few false facts is considered to be trustworthy,” says the team (arxiv.org/abs/1502.03519v1). The score they compute for each page is its Knowledge-Based Trust score.

-- The software works by tapping into the Knowledge Vault, the vast store of facts that Google has pulled off the internet. Facts the web unanimously agrees on are considered a reasonable proxy for truth. Web pages that contain contradictory information are bumped down the rankings.

@ Denice #75

according to KIm ( AoA facebook today) they and their children ” have become the new lepers”.

So in essence, Klm sees itself and its kin as being treated like they are potential disease vectors.
A little more effort, Klm. You are about to get it.

They’re freaking out like vampires in a holy-water shower.

Yah. It's mildly amusing, in the same way as people who are all excited based on somebody's picking up on an arXiv entry with G—le authors and weaving some fantasy as a result.

It would help if journalists were to at least try to understand (1) the paper (hint: how expressive are those triples?) and (2) how search results are already prioritized (hint: it hasn't been mainly PageRank in a long time, and that's not why it comes up in the paper anyway).

^ I'm criticizing the underlying news report(s), BTW.

^^ Actually, on second reading, it didn't come off that way at all. I apologize.

Adams appears to have retitled "legitimate criticism" as "hate speech" in the same way I've renamed "household chores" as "quests" in order to make them sound a bit more exciting to my ten-year old daughter.

Since nobody else was posting it:
http://www.xkcd.com/1357/

I noticed that Ed Yazbak has been writing articles and comments on that AoA blog. Seems entirely fitting.

Re. Phoenix Woman @ 80 and 81:

Fact-checking sounds like an improvement, but the first comment on your blog spotted an obvious problem:

"When this takes hold, a lot of those penny a word online writing and editing outfits will suddenly have decent paying jobs for writers able to use established facts while undermining them in some way that tricks Google."

In the end it's just another algorithm, and humans excel at beating algorithms when they make the effort. Gaming with facts and "facts" is a high art in advertising, PR, and political propaganda. For example: Use emotional narratives (including photos and videos) that don't have any factual claims to check. Load up a statement with plenty of checkable facts and a honking hooter: the lie brings down the rating a little, but not enough to get it off the first page of results.

There's also the issue of who holds the "facts" and how the "facts" themselves are ranked. Google's chief of engineering is Ray Kurzweil, who believes in all manner of "life extension" quackery, and takes over 100 supplement pills a day on orders from an alt-med doctor by the name of Terry Grossman, who also believes in using "alkaline water" and green tea to reverse aging. See also Robert O. Young, who believes cancer is caused by "excess acid." Or find both on the same page, for example: http://kangenwellmalaysia.com/drink-restructured-alkaline-water/

So even if Google's "Knowledge Vault" dumps anti-vaxers, I wouldn't trust it as far as I could throw it when it comes to other kinds of alt-med.

The general public shouldn't be at the mercy of de-facto search monopolies and opaque algorithms. At minimum, search-ranking and fact-rating algorithms should be published and transparent so they can be subjected to peer review and public critique. As well, universities should launch their own search engines and fact databases, open to the general public, using algorithms that are published.

In the end there's still no substitute for critical thinking.

Ever notice how Mike Adams' bio never mentions any medical degrees or training he has? He might be easier to take seriously if he was an MD who actually studied the stuff on which he pontificates. He should be prosecuted as a fraud.

Haha.
Thanks to Jimmy Kimmel.
Now we can laugh at US antivaccinationists here on the other side of globe, too.
:D

Kim Stagliano appears to be unhappy about Jimmy Kimmel's little skits:

I love naughty, irreverent, in your face humor. Harpooning families dealing with the aftermath of vaccine injury is about as funny as calling Child Services on parents of kids emaciated by chemo.

Yes, antivaccinationists really do think that way.

Re. Scott at 90:

No he wouldn't (be taken more seriously). "Mike Adams MD" would be right up there with a bunch of other quack MDs: right about where arch-quack Jack Wolfson MD is (he of numerous screechy rants against parents who vaccinate their kids).

OTOH he might be taken more seriously by alt-med adherents. OTTH (On The Third Hand) they don't much seem to care about degrees. Hmm, I guess it's a toss-up.

In a sane world, Mike Adams would be a Poe or a character in a satire. As it is, he's laughing his way to the bank, until such point as we can sic the FDA on him and get him shut down. Someone needs to go undercover and record him saying something incriminating.

Or at least get Adams on TV along with Wolfson and see how they interact. That would be a riot. (Will they tear each other to shreds, or become best buddies? Stay tuned!) Do likewise for Grossman and Young. Hey, this could become a series!

God Bless Mike Adams for standing up for the truth. I feel sorry for the poor souls that are still asleep. I used to be a fool just like 99% of the ignorant people on this page. Thank you GOD for waking me up! Most people have no idea of the mass mind control that is happening on a global scale. Learn to detoxify your body and mind, and I guarantee you will think differently. Start with eliminating fluoride in every way possible, eat real food, like fruits and vegetables, avoid all processed foods, detox your mind & body from heavy metals with "zeolite" and drink only natural spring water. Eliminate EMF radiation from your home as much as possible, examples include wifi, smart meters, florescent lights, microwaves etc. Pray to God for enlightenment.

@ Gray Squirrel:

Mike obfuscates about his actual education: in his bio ( health ranger.com) he goes on and on about his studies in science and mathematics as well as the humanities. He had fabulous grades on standardised testing, offers of graduate schools at esteemed universities ad nauseum. But he never said *what* university he attended and *what* degree he received.

But then, he wrote about how he was 'impoverished' -
long story short- he married a woman from Taiwan and they moved there, thinking they'd get great jobs - HOWEVER, they found that married women aren't considered the best candidates and he was a foreigner who couldn't speak Chinese.
Thus, he confesses that his degree was in *technical writing* and how he went to trade shows and courted tech companies via brochures to hire him as a writer for selling their products.
( This was an article at Natural News last July IIRC)

His bio mentions his 'self-studies' in nutrition and alt med after his brilliant career led to health issues.

If you look closely at Mike and other merchants of woo, you'll find that indeed, most of their so-called education is self-directed and shattershot. Which is probably why they hate elitists like Orac and his minions- if there are a string of letters after their names, they're most likely not purchased through the mail.

Denice Walter@75:

Pity the poor anti-vaxxers: according to KIm ( AoA facebook today) they and their children ” have become the new lepers”.etc.

Chance'd be a fine thing. Leprosy's one of those horrible, vicious diseases that could be wiped from the world if only rich, spoiled first-worlders like them gave a shit for anything but themselves. :(

Julian Frost @87:
Man I love xkcd. The title text:

I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express.

However, they did get one thing wrong. When it affects public safety the governnent CAN arrest you for what you say. The classic example is yelling fire in a crowded theater. I don't think the government ever would (nor do I think they should) but I think there's definitely a legal argument that silencing antivaxxers is protecting public health and therefore within their power to do.

Phoenix Woman@80:

Orac, one reason the grifters are freaking out is because they’re doomed. Their entire propagation method is based on gaming Google’s search rankings system, and that’s about to be taken away from them

Eh, let the lying liars build their own search engine then. If there's one thing alt med &co. have proven, it's that there's no lack of people in the world who want to be lied to and will hand them good hard money for the privilege too. Then they can all go be special flowers over there, and leave the rest of us in peace. /optimist

Ani Bani:

I used to be a fool just like 99% of the ignorant people on this page.

This is an impressive estimate for comment number 94 on a thread.

Start with eliminating fluoride in every way possible, eat real food, like fruits and vegetables, avoid all processed foods, detox your mind & body from heavy metals with “zeolite” and drink only natural spring water. Eliminate EMF radiation from your home as much as possible, examples include wifi, smart meters, florescent lights, microwaves etc. Pray to God for enlightenment.

Praying to God for enlightenment sounds like a great idea. You should probably try it, Ani; you might benefit.

Eliminating EMF radiation? Pff. You've barely scratched the surface. Remove your WiFi router, remove smart meters (no matter how many fines you get from the power company), remove your fluorscent lights, remove your microwave, and then now you must remove the *really big* sources. Do you have any idea how many radio waves are passing right through you from broadcast television and radio, not to mention cell phone towers? You might want to consider moving to the National Radio Quiet Zone. Staunton, Virginia would be a suitable town. Radio transmissions are strictly limited there.

Mind you, you'll still be subject to the beams of geosynchronous commsats. It takes a *lot* to get a signal to cross 22,000 miles and still be clear and crisp on a puny DirectTV dish antenna. And they absolutely cannot avoid hitting the NRQZ. The beams pretty much hit most of the continent. And there is *some* radio coverage in the NRQZ as well. Folks aren't completely cut off there. So maybe Antarctica would be a better choice. Very few commsats are able to operate there, since it's got terrible to nonexistant line of sight to the geosynchronous ring. They have to make do with short-term access to old weather satellites that occasionally loop over them. But then you'll have a new problem -- cosmic radiation.

Cosmic radiation is everwhere on Earth, but it's strongest at the poles where the protection of our magnetosphere becomes more of a funnel directing the particles down. You will get measurably higher exposure to ionizing radiation there, as well as more exposure to UV radiation from the Sun, thanks to the ozone hole. Plus it's insanely cold and you won't see the sun for several months out of the year, without the great night-life you can expect in Arctic Circle locations. On the plus side, you get to see aurora australis, as that radiation pumps energy into the atmosphere, making it glow like a neon sign.

Mind you, the radio radiation from the cosmos is pretty much universal. 1% of the static between stations is actually the Big Bang itself, and you cannot escape that. Not anywhere. Much of the rest is other natural sources, like the Sun and Jupiter and the center of the Milky Way -- that's right, you can actually listen to that monster of a supermassive black hole if you tune your antenna right.

Maybe that's why we're not immortal? Alas.

And don't forget -- you'll have to be careful of those real foods. Fruits and vegetables are great, but if you want to avoid radiation, dang . . . bananas will register on geiger counters. So will broccoli and potatoes. It's the potassium. Heck, that zeolite can be too, if it's natural zeolite and not synthetic, depending on its composition and origin.

BTW, on a totally random note, I am fond of a particular type of zeolite. The mineral thomsonite is surprisingly abundant on the north shore of Lake Superior, and I spent many a happy childhood vacation searching for it on the rocky beaches.

Pray to God for enlightenment.

In this arena, God helps those who help themselves. I'd suggest you get started on that, Ani.

Learn to detoxify your body and mind, and I guarantee you will think differently.

Sure thing--right after you provide credible evidence demonstrating I need to do so.

Got any?

Ani Bani, I assume that back in 1999 you bought your $1000 worth of storable food for only $479 so as to be prepared for the world wide crisis that happened when all the software failed?

I have never figured out the demonization of fluoride. It is after all a natural element found in the earth's crust, and abundant in certain water sources. Some areas have naturally occurring levels of fluoride in their water significantly higher than what is added to water systems for the benefit of the teeth. I thought everything natural was good? Good on Calli Arcale for pointing out the ubiquitous nature of cosmic radiation as well as other sources. My husband (the physicist) would weep a tear of joy as the drive to ban sources of EMF leave him in a rage.

It's funny, because... I didn't know Orac's real name. When Tim at the top here accused him of hiding, I decided to type "real name of Orac" into Google.

You know what I got? His Wikipedia page. First hit.

Oh, Orac is trying SO hard to hide...

Of course, when Orac does it, he's being a coward, but when the people at, say, ThinkingMoms or AutismSpeaks use screen names, they're protecting themselves from hate and so forth.

I hate hypocrisy.

Fluoride is bad, it saps our precious vital fluids. Green tea, which is full of fluoride, is recommended by Mike Adams. It's terribly confusing.

"Learn to detoxify your body and mind, and I guarantee you will think differently."

My liver and kidneys work just fine, thanks.

Krebiozen - yeah it makes no sense. They demonize aluminum too and apparently are oblivious to the fact that aluminum is literally everywhere and we consume a large amount of it daily. In fact its impossible to eliminate. Yet they obsess over the tiny amounts in a vaccine. Obviously these people have some difficulty processing actual facts.

Kiiri,

Krebiozen – yeah it makes no sense. They demonize aluminum too and apparently are oblivious to the fact that aluminum is literally everywhere and we consume a large amount of it daily.

You know what contains vast amounts of aluminum? Zeolite, of the sort Ani Bani says will detox us. I believe at least some of the aluminosilicates in zeolite will dissolve in stomach acids and be absorbed. Luckily this is a special kind of aluminum that is rapidly excreted by the kidneys, unlike the tiny amounts of regular aluminum in some vaccines which hitches a ride on white blood cells straight to the brain (/sarcasm).

@ Krebiozen / Kiiri

They demonize aluminum

Oi. Ready yourself for a new round.
I just saw that a scientific meeting dedicated to all forms of studies on aluminium have recently ended in Lille.

In a alarmist French news article I just read, aluminium ingestion is mentioned, but almost immediately all the old tropes are invoked (i.e. antiperspirant and vaccines).
It's a bit difficult to parse the info. The article is not exactly replete with references, quite the contrary.

I guess that Kim Stagliano has never actually seen Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

You'd think that publicity still she posted of Bette Davis looking all dissolute and delusional would have raised a red flag or two, though.

Aluminum is good for you. I feel much better after I started riding my aluminum-frame bike daily.

Thank you David G. I like your style of writing. Silly Tim. How did I find that soo quickly? It was right here in the blog the whole time ;)

@ Helianthus, An aluminium hysteria extravaganza and no Chris Shaw or Tomlawhatshername? I see that aluminium loons Claire Dwoskin and Gherardi presented though.

@Science Mom

An aluminium hysteria extravaganza

It reads a bit like hysteria, indeed.
On one hand, the journalist talks about aluminium ingested from food or environmental sources. It needs some more numbers to be rolled in, but that seems worth a look.
On the other hand, the meeting organizer and the French scientist quoted in the French article are both very sure of aluminium toxicity coming from vaccines and cosmetics. But they lost me, the first when talking about daily exposure and vaccines in the same sentence, the second when asserting the link is proven and then that the results about antiperspirants and breast cancer will come this year.
Call it nitpicking, but I hunger for more substantial data.

An aluminium hysteria extravaganza and no Chris Shaw or Tomlawhatshername?

There are a couple of students from UBC presenting results on autistic mice; I imagine they're representing Prof Shaw.
The meeting -- and its yearly predecessors) -- seems to have been organised by Chris Exley, who has spent the last 25 years looking for evidence that Aluminium Causes Diseases (with the specific disease changing every few years).
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2014/10/13/antiperspirants-not-a-caus…

His press releases are always happily received at the Daily Mail and the Torygraph.

Has: Leprosy’s one of those horrible, vicious diseases that could be wiped from the world if only rich, spoiled first-worlders like them gave a shit for anything but themselves. :(

I get what you're saying, but I think you picked the wrong disease. The reason we haven't managed to beat leprosy yet is that the bacteria responsible is quite hardy. It can live in soil for years and occasionally is picked up by animals who then give it to humans. There's quite a few cases of armadillo to human transmission. Luckily, it hasn't evolved an anti-biotic resistant strain.

Oh, Ani,
If you didn't exist, I'd have to make you up. You hit every clichéd point in the Crank Conspiracy Manifesto. Okay, you left out chemtrails, but I'm sure that was just an oversight on your part. You were once like us, eh? Well, I was once like a considerably milder version of you. Evidently change can go both ways.

To add to what PGP said: It's Mycobacterium leprae, which is the same genus as the tuberculosis bacterium. We don't have a really good vaccine against TB, which infects a lot more people than leprosy.

Also, yes there's armadillo-to-human transmission, but the bacterium got into the armadillo population from humans in the first place.

Vicki: Also, yes there’s armadillo-to-human transmission, but the bacterium got into the armadillo population from humans in the first place.

Thanks for correcting me. I genuinely didn't know that the transmission went both ways.

Ffor some reason, the link to mike adams article regales us with the great things natural news has discovered. (insert sarchastic tone here)
This is the link I think you all want. It is just unbearable, and helps me understand better why a rebuttal was needed.
https://www.intellihub.com/outrage-jimmy-kimmel-makes-fun-of-vaccine-da…

Mike Adams has been known to set up filters so that incoming traffic from certain sites gets redirected to one of his fluffy advertorial pages. Keep clicking. Usually the correct link pops up eventually.

Oddly enough, when I click on it, I get the right link. So I don't know what's happening.

Vicki, I'm going to have to disagree with your claim that "We don’t have a really good vaccine against TB, which infects a lot more people than leprosy"
From the Wikipedia page on BCG:

a systematic review and meta analysis conducted in 2014 demonstrated that the BCG vaccine reduced infection by 19-27% and reduced progression to active TB by 71%.

Those look like pretty good numbers to me, and I remember getting the BCG.

Great video although I must have missed the 'hate speech' part. Seeing as anti vaccinators are unnecessarily exposing everyone to disease I think they should be able to take a few hard words, particularly as they have a charming tendency to refer to the rest of us as 'sheep'.

Recently got into a pissing match with generational elders, our beloved seasoned-citizens, so to speak. Confirmational bias is rampant when it comes to infectious disease. "Nobody who got sick died" in their day, when in fact I try to explain the reporting and how dangerous this infectious can be. They don't believe it's anything more than an over-blown and made up crisis with medical institutions "brainwashing everyone" including myself. Unfortunately, I lost my professionalism in the heat of the moment, which sucks; granted, not as much as the disease process does.

It's healthy to question the basis of evidence, but you leave wondering, similar (unanswered) question posed to Dr Jay, does evidence-based medicine really matter, or should we just wing it on gut feeling even knowing the hazard and move with the risk taking of the popular herd?

I had thought similar to the Kimmel video point that this should have been settled in the 1950s. But, here we still are.

One day, maybe I'll have a handle on the science of infectious disease. Maybe one day.

M*ke *d*ms is a former technical writer?

On behalf of all sane technical writers everywhere, we are really and truly sorry that our profession has inflicted that particular waste of skin on the world. Would that there were some way to remediate the stain on our profession.

Criticism of pseudoscience and quackery is not "hate speech"

oracknows — Wed, 23 Apr 2014 01:52:58 +0000

Criticism of pseudoscience and quackery is not "hate speech"

I sense a new disturbance in the antivaccine force.

I hadn't planned on blogging about the antivaccine movement again, but I felt that I needed to do a follow up to yesterday's (hopefully) amusing little takedown of the antivaccine stylings of new member of that group personification of the Dunning-Kruger effect and arrogance of ignorance, namely The Thinking Moms' Revolution (TMR). There was a point in there that I had noticed (and even briefly commented on) that requires more of an expansion, particularly since it would allow me to comment on a post that I saw last week and never got around to, a post every bit as full of self-righteous ignorance as anything on TMR but not on TMR. You'll see what I mean in a minute.

But, first, let's go back and look at what I noticed yesterday by quoting a sentence from "Karma," the "Thinking Mom" who doesn't, about pro-science articles and those who discuss the science with respect to vaccines, coming to the natural conclusion from the evidence that the antivaccine movement is promoting dangerous pseudoscience and misinformation that are threats to public health. Her characterization of such articles and blog posts? That they're "hate speech":

Time and Newsweek, are the grandparents who want an in with the cool kids and their money by upping the ante in regards to outright inflammatory hate speech as evidenced in posts during April 2014.

Yes, to Karma, the pushback against antivaccine pseudoscience couldn't possibly be because antivaccine pseudoscience has contributed to declining vaccine uptake in pockets of the country where vaccination rates have fallen low enough to degrade herd immunity sufficiently to lead to outbreaks of vaccine-preventable infectious diseases like the measles. It has to be a "fad" among media outlets, something the "cool kids" are doing, so to speak. More telling, however, is Karma's characterization of criticism of antivaccine pseudoscience as "hate speech." It's a new trend that I've noticed among antivaccinationists, to label criticism as "hate speech." It also seems to be a natural progression from another recently proliferating trend among antivaccinationists that I noted last year of antivaccinationists referring to the same sorts of articles as "bullying." It was such an obvious attempt to glom onto a societal trend, namely the increasing appreciation of how much of a problem bullying is, and to co-opt it in such a way as to paint antivaccinationists as victims of a campaign of intimidation. The same word, "bullying," has been appearing frequently in antivaccine rhetoric. Naturally, I found the whole tactic disingenuous and hilarious—or should I say disingenuously hilarious?—at the same time.

The same is true of this latest amping up of the rhetoric and victimhood gambit, which comes from a woman of whom I had never heard before. Aha! I thought. A new antivaccinationist throws down the gauntlet. And what a gauntlet filled with hot showers of burning stupid. The woman, who only goes by the name of Megan, appears to run a website called LivingWhole.org. You can tell by the title what the subject matter likely is just by the name of the website, and you wouldn't be wrong. Megan, it turns out, is a naturopath, Certified Natural Health Educator, Registered Power Yoga Instructor, writer, and stay-at-home mama and brags that:

We eat a gluten, dairy, meat, sugar, and genetically modified free diet; yet, our food still tastes good!
We potty-train our babies as infants.
We breastfeed exclusively for at least ten months.
We practice attachment parenting.
We do not vaccinate.
We do not medicate.
We do not use any chemical products in our home or on our bodies.
We believe in natural childbirth and had our last baby un-assisted at home.
We home school.
We greatly limit the use of technology in our home.
We don’t own a microwave.
We advocate natural medicine in most situations.
We recycle.
We support sustainable agriculture and sustainable living.
We are barefoot…most of the time.
We are old-fashioned.
We believe in Jesus.
And we’re definitely crunchy (in case you hadn’t figured that out).

I first learned about Megan because a post of hers was making the rounds on the usual antivaccine social media and blogs. I forgot about it, but then was reminded of it by another antivaccinationist, Sherri Tenpenny, who was very upset on her Facebook page, citing the producer of a new antivaccine movie entitled Bought (who, by the way, has been appealing for money to complete the antivaccine project):

She wrote a post answering all of the “myths” answered by another bloggers post that had gone viral about 21 myths spread by the “anti-vaccination” people. It was smart, referenced, in short - terrific.

She took a lot of heat for it and wrote a second post about the “hate” debate, talking about how much hate had been generated by her post. The post was amazing. She cut to the heart of the debate and argued for kindness in dealing with one another.

Then suddenly yesterday night, the post was gone.

Her site was gone. All of it.

Had she been hacked? Had the pro vaccination groups taken her site down? Had she just forgotten to renew her domain. Nope, none of these.

We were able to reach her today. She took her site down on her own.

She’d been threatened, harassed, and terrified. They had her address, threatened to come to her home, contact her family, her friends. They threatened lawsuits and all kind of harassment. They had all of her data. Then someone did show up to her house.

Let me just say that, unequivocally, I condemn such tactics. I've been on the receiving end of them before, both from antivaccinationists, who tried to get me fired from my job, and from supporters of Stanislaw Burzynski, who tried to get me fired from my job and complained to my state medical board. We on the pro-science side should never engage in such tactics. Moreover, I note that, in all the years I've been at this, I have yet to see an antivaccine loon state that she opposes such tactics when aimed at people on the pro-science side. I have yet to see a single antivaccinationist unequivocally condemn such tactics when they are turned against, for example, Dorit Reiss, Emily Willingham, or Paul Offit. Being the cantankerous blinky box of multicolored lights that I am I don't necessarily expect anyone who might have been on the receiving end of one of my bits of Insolence to be quite as willing to speak out for me, but there's no excuse not to do so for these people, other than schadenfreude, approval of the intimidation, tribalism, or cowardice—or perhaps a combination of two or more of these.

Even so, I must confess that I find something fishy about the whole story.

Be that as it may, what she wrote in The Hate Debate is a perfect example of what I'm talking about, the appropriation of the term "hate speech" to paint antivaccinationists as victims, something she proceeds to do with gusto right at the very beginning:

I am sick of it – this vaccination debate. My convictions not to vaccinate have been firm for six years now and I was comfortable living a low-profile life and letting other more notable activists carry the torch; and then I started seeing misleading t.v. interviews, news stories, and backlash against parents and unvaccinated children. I saw reputable medical professionals get crucified and reputations destroyed for questioning the mainstream norm. I saw laws passed in other states removing freedoms that rightfully belong to parents and individuals as a whole. I saw fear, blame, finger-pointing, lies, and flat out hate being propagated and encouraged by people, physicians, and popular media avenues towards parents who don’t vaccinate, and their children.

This isn’t a vaccination debate, it’s a hate debate, so let’s call it what it is. And when it got personal, I got involved. Most importantly, I felt the need to clear a few things up.

Poor babies. Antivaccinationists spew nonsense, pseudoscience, misinformation, and quackery about vaccines, and they clutch their pearls at the criticism being directed their way through the mainstream media. As I've argued before, this criticism is a long overdue correction to the previous tendency to provide a forum for such pseudoscience either through the publication of unfiltered antivaccine viewpoints or credulous "tell both sides" journalism that gives the antivaccine viewpoint similar weight to real science. It's a classic case of what Dara O’Briain said about giving equal weight to homeopaths in the media.

Then, after setting the stage and complaining about being attacked as quacks, Megan proceeds to spew pseudoscience and quackery hither, thither, and yon across her blog. It's the same nonsense that she spewed in the post that "made her famous" by going viral on social media, Dear Parents, are you being lied to? Both posts are logorrheic wonders that appear almost like something Bizarro Orac would post, except that in Bizarro World I'm assuming that Orac's posts would be incredibly brief. In any case, both posts are mixtures of antivaccine pseudoscience, easily debunked antivaccine talking points that sound clever if you don't know a bit about vaccine science, epidemiology, and, of course, logical fallacies.

Megan proclaims that she is "not an 'anti-vaxxer' or a 'disinformation activist'" but then immediately proceeds to spew antivaccine disinformation with enthusiasm, if not aplomb. Then she proceeds to attack a straw man that somehow critics of antivaccine pseudoscience are arguing that "parents can’t make an educated decision on this issue, that you should check all of your questions and reservations about vaccinating at the door." No, pediatricians understand that parents will always have questions about vaccines, and no one—no, not even Orac!—is arguing that parents should "check all their questions and reservations" at the door. What those of us who have taken an interest in antivaccine pseudoscience are doing is to try to counter the pseudoscience and misinformation that women like Megan are spreading about vaccines.

There's a term I coined (at least, I think I coined it; I can't be 100% sure that someone else didn't think of it first) called "misinformed consent." It's what antivaccinationists promote by exaggerating the risks of vaccines and downplaying the benefits (something Megan does in both of her posts). In misinformed consent, if you accept the misinformation, then not vaccinating seems reasonable. If vaccines don't work, cause autism, and have a high propensity for making children ill with chronic diseases, as the antivaccine movement claims, then it's seemingly reasonable not to vaccinate. The problem is not with the consent itself, it's with the misinformation and manipulation of facts to persuade parents to "consent" not to vaccinate that underlie the parents' decision, misinformation of the sort that Megan perpetuates. Countering that misinformation is not "hate speech" or bullying. Nor are laws designed to try to make sure that parents who claim philosophical exemptions at least hear reliable medical information with respect to vaccines at least once before being allowed an exemption creeping fascism or the intolerable affront to freedom—or should I say "FREEDOM!!!"—as Megan seems to think it is.

Misinformation from Megan then continues to flow, misinformation such as:

Claiming the whooping cough vaccine doesn't work, misinterpreting this study. It does. It's imperfect, but it works.
Deceptively comparing the low level of mumps cases thus far this year to a year in which large mumps outbreaks occurred, in essence, asking, what's the big deal about mumps outbreaks this year and claiming that it's not a serious disease. Just don't mind that pancreatitis, orchitis, meningitis, or encephalitis that can complicate mumps.
Downplaying the seriousness of chickenpox, which can result in death.
Downplaying the seriousness of the measles by quote mining the CDC website, ignoring that the CDC also points out that measles can kill 1-3 per 1,000 of its victims, that 1 in 20 children who get measles will develop pneumonia, and that 1 in 1,000 children with measles will develop encephalitis.

Megan's understanding of immunology is also—shall we say?—lacking. For instance, she denies the concept of herd immunity, utilizing multiple specious arguments riddled with straw men and massive misunderstandings of basic and clinical science. Sorry, Megan. Herd immunity works, and when vaccine uptake falls we have a number of "natural experiments" that indicate that vaccine-preventable diseases return, and, even in the herd, being unvaccinated puts children at much higher risk of contracting infectious diseases protected against by vaccines. She also tries to do a bit of woo prestidigitation with respect to the vaccination of the immunocompromised by cherry picking CDC recommendations from 21 years ago. The CDC has more updated guidelines (summarized here in a nice table form). Also, if you read, for example, the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) recommendations from 2013, for instance, provide some fairly clear-cut guidelines for patients undergoing chemotherapy or other immunosuppression:

Vaccines should be administered prior to planned immunosuppression if feasible (strong, moderate).
Live vaccines should be administered ≥4 weeks prior to immunosuppression (strong, low) and should be avoided within 2 weeks of initiation of immunosuppression (strong, low).*
Inactivated vaccines should be administered ≥2 weeks prior to immunosuppression (strong, moderate).

Plus a whole lot of recommendations that depend on the type of immunosuppression, whether it's from chemotherapy or other immunosuppressive treatment or is a primary immunodeficiency condition.

Megan's post is a veritable cornucopia of hilarity, if you're a connoisseur of antivaccine nonsense, although some of it insults the intelligence so much that it's hard to be amused. I'll finish by doing a bit of "cherry picking" myself, because if I tried to fisk Megan's Hate Debate and her other, equally hilarious Dear parents, are you being lied to? posts line by line, I'd have to write a book (or at least a very large pamphlet). Even for Orac, that's too much, particularly for a weeknight, when I have to go to bed at a reasonable hour. Feel free to use the comment section to address Megan's other misinformation and failures of science, medicine, and logic that I didn't have time to deal with.

In the mean time, let's take a look:

Those of us who believe there are safer and more effective ways to prevent disease are not conspiracy theorists, we just incorporated that little addendum to the germ theory that said “germs only live in environments conducive to growth.”
A conspiracy theory is the belief in little green men who walk on Mars and are secretly controlling our every move via invisible puppet strings. What we’re all tired of, is people pretending the American Medical Association has been around since the beginning of time and that everything else is “new age, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theory.” I hate to point out the obvious but the AMA has only been around since 1847. Before that, there were homeopathic physicians/doctors (1789) homeopathic hospitals (1825), and the establishment of the American Institute of Homeopathy in (1841).

Do you know what was around before all of that? Natural medicine – circa day 1 if you believe in God and circa day “the first time the ape-like human got a cut and put a leaf with spit on it instead of a band-aid and antibiotic” if you don’t. Hippocrates, the credited father of allopathic medicine practiced and advocated natural medicine – his motto was “do no harm.” So if you take beliefs from his ideology it’s “medicine” and if we take beliefs from his ideology it’s “quack-worthy?” If anything sounds like a “conspiracy theory” it’s the belief that the immune system requires the administration of a germ to protect itself from a germ.

Now that's a bunch of impressive straw men, going up in flames as Megan launches flamethrowers of logical fallacies, pseudoscience, incorrect science, and just plain burning stupid at it. Maybe Megan's not a conspiracy theorist (although that is quite debatable, given her seeming belief that the mainstream media is marching in lockstep under the influence of big pharma to crush "natural health" crusaders like her who don't like vaccines belies that denial), but she sure is a germ theory denialist. She's a naturopath, for one thing, and naturopathy explicitly "tweaks" or denies germ theory in many ways. She also makes incoherent arguments expressing incredulity that effective immunity can be developed by injecting a small amounts of a dead organism that causes disease when alive can prevent disease. I also can't hep but point out that the AMA is not the be-all and end-all of medicine; indeed, if I recall correctly, less than 20% of American physicians belong to the AMA.

I also can't help but point out that, back in the 1800s, 1700s, and before, that "natural medicine" that Megan touts didn't do such a good job. Life expectancy sucked, and cemeteries from that time are filled with young children who died, the reason being that infectious disease took a heavy toll. Vaccination and sanitation took care of that. Moreover, if an adult of that time period developed an illness, if it wasn't something that was self-limited that person was highly likely to suffer severe morbidity or even to die.

She ends up concluding, oh-so-self-righteously:

If you want to encourage people to vaccinate than by all means, utilize your freedoms to do so, but bullying, lying, misrepresenting facts, name-calling, downplaying, overlooking, and scoffing at vaccine injured children, finger-pointing, discriminating, crucifying physicians who speak out, and threatening individuals who wish not to vaccinate will not further your cause; it will only encourage people like me to speak out on behalf of those of us who have educated ourselves and are calling for more accountability and higher standards for our children.

I'm sorry, but countering posts like Megan's, which is so chock full of antivaccine talking points that I'm hard pressed to think of one that didn't make an appearance is not "hate speech." It might not always be temperate speech, particularly when it's Orac doing the speaking, but it's not hate speech, and it's not bullying. Antivaccine cranks like Megan—oh, dear, is that name calling, or is it simply telling it like it is?—frequently confuse freedom of speech for freedom from criticism. All it means is that, with only a very few narrow exceptions, the government can't censor your speech. It doesn't mean that you can't be criticized for what you say, that private entities such as newspapers or news websites are obligated to give you a platform or equal time, or that your speech doesn't have consequences. None of the speech directed at antivaccinationists that I've seen thus far constitutes real "hate speech." Their calling it that is nothing more than a strategy for antivaccinationists to claim the high ground of victim status. Think of it this way:

Antivaccinationists can't tell the difference between being "shown the door" and being victims of "hate speech," which is an insult to the real victims of hate everywhere.

ADDENDUM: Commenter Colin reveals an amazing twist to this story:

There’s a lot more background about this particular anti-vaxer here. The story gets particularly bizarre recently.

An ultra-fringe conspiracy group (they complain that viruses are nanomachines designed by Jews–you can tell because the baseplate looks like a star of David–to eat out the emotion centers of the brain) picked up on the original Dear Parents piece at Violent Metaphors, and Megan’s rebuttal. But they got the chronological order reversed, and thought that the NSA had taken down Megan’s piece and replaced it with the Violent Metaphors piece as some kind of disinformation “ghost” campaign.

But once they figured out they were wrong–which involved the guy making the correction trying to prove his identity with secret codes in case he was a disinformation hacker–they decided Big Pharma or someone must have shut down Megan’s site and probably killed her. She had her stuff down for a couple of days, and what other explanation could there be?

So to make sure the feds hadn’t whacked her, they doxed her. They posted personal information about her, her family–even her kids. They threw up phone numbers for her husband’s work, and various posters indicated they’d be calling to make sure she’s still alive. If you go to the Living Whole facebook page, you can see some fallout from this circus–one of the conspiracy theorists dropped a note informing everyone, “THIS IS NOW A GHOST PAGE THE OWNER DOES NOT CONTROL.” I think the idea is that the NSA is still running her blog for her? It’s very bizarre.

And:

While a longer comment is in moderation, let me add to it that if anyone did visit Megan, it was apparently someone from an ultra-extreme conspiracy theory board checking to make sure the NSA hadn’t offed her.

Not being hip to that ultra-lunatic antivaccine conspiracy site (hey, even Orac can’t monitor them all, at least not continuously), I was unaware that in reality Megan was apparently doxed and contacted by people on “her side” (albeit the lunatic fringe of the lunatic fringe that is “her side”) because they were concerned that she had been whacked by an NSA-pharma conspiracy to silence her criticism of vaccines. Then she interpreted that as coming from pro-vaccine bloggers and big pharma trying to intimidate her into silence. The only thing I can't figure out is why she took her blog down in the first place, because if she hadn't the anti-Semitic ultra-fringe antivaccine loons wouldn't have had a "reason" (if you can call it that) to become concerned that she had been whacked. Never mind that she blogged this stuff under her real name over at that one-stop-shop for quackery and New World Order conspiracy theories, NaturalNews.com, where we learn that she is an attorney as well. Liz Ditz also wrote about her, and it turns out that she was blogging under her real name up until recently.

Holy hell, you can’t make stuff like this up. (At least, even I can’t.)

ADDENDUM #2: Skeptical Raptor joins in the fun by picking apart some of the same sort of idiocy that's been appearing on Facebook.

ADDENDUM #3: There's an even more thorough takedown of Megan's misinformation and antivaccine talking points over at A Million Gods.

oracknows Tue, 04/22/2014 - 21:52

Categories

Social Sciences

Sometimes it's more the way people say things then the way it is meant by a person. But do you think it's the way a person carries him or herself that also gives an impact on the way a person criticizes someone?

—oh, dear, is that name calling, or is it simply telling it like it is?

As I have stated before: It's not an insult, it's a description.

The woman, who only goes by the name of Megan....

This is a recent development.

[W]e just incorporated that little addendum to the germ theory that said “germs only live in environments conducive to growth.”

Like the body of an immunologically naive individual.
The stupid, it is so strong, it has shut my brain down.

A recent xkcd cartoon which is very à-propos.
Very concise, too :-)

Hippocrates, the credited father of allopathic medicine practiced and advocated natural medicine

Err, ancient "natural medicine" relied heavily on religious rituals, sympathetic magic ("let's use this tubercle because it' s kidney-shaped") and suchlike.
Example: Egyptian medical papyri
Are you sure, Megan, that you want to endorse this?
Not to mention that "butterflies in the belly" is a bit vague a symptom to be sure of what the proposed treatment is supposed to cure. I fear that a good part of the Wisdom of the Ancients (tm) got lost in translation.

On the other hand, the parts which were close to working, notably surgery and herbal medicine, are the basis of modern "allopathic" medicine. So I'm not convinced that today's "natural medicine" is really representative of that was working in ancient medicine. Looks more like the rejected parts, or brand new bulls!t.

If anything sounds like a “conspiracy theory” it’s the belief that the immune system requires the administration of a germ to protect itself from a germ.

If only we had some way to check the validity of our belief... I don't know,like exploring how the immune system really works.
Also, irony meter melted because she mentioned homeopathy just before. What, like cures like is not good enough for Megan suddenly? I guess she would prefer to use a tubercle which is bacteria-shaped.

The Internet offers a soapbox for every Hydeparkian, but it also offers critics a chance to criticise. This woman gives me the impression she's lived most of her life in a tight little group of the like-minded, where disagreement is the Unforgiveable Sin. Now that she's gone public she's maybe suffering from culture shock, when she finds out that her critics also have access to her beloved beliefs and no inhibitions about saying what they think of them.

Here's some real hate speech against Dr Offit, by that nice NVIC organisation:
http://reasonablehank.com/2014/03/31/death-threats-against-dr-paul-offi…

And here's some more vilification by the nice anti-vaccinationists from the AVN, directed at a family who've lost a baby to Pertussis:
http://reasonablehank.com/2014/04/13/why-our-deep-seated-commitment-to-…

No one does hate like anti-vaccinationists.

She’d been threatened, harassed, and terrified. They had her address, threatened to come to her home, contact her family, her friends. They threatened lawsuits and all kind of harassment. They had all of her data. Then someone did show up to her house.

Sorry Ms Tenpenny, but I don't believe you. Evidence?

There is only one part i find plausible: that she was threatened with lawsuits. Knowing what anti-vaxxers are like, it wouldn't surprise me if someone threatened to sue her.
Actually, maybe that is in fact what happened. She posted something libelous and was told to take it down or face a suit.

Someone showed up to my house over the weekend and shoved hate speech and death threats* through the letterbox.

Despite that I won't be intimidated into going to church on Sunday.

*That's how I interpreted "meet Jesus" anyway, although the offer of a cup of tea was quite a nice idea.

Given how anti-vaccine loons (this is redundant, btw) love to cite even the smallest shred of "evidence" for support of their lunacy, it is all but certain that this Megan person is lying and making up what happened. Tenpenny probably hasn't uttered a shred of truth in years, either.

There's no point in trying to be nice to the buffoons at AoA, TMR, Livingwhole, etc. You're a big bad meanie-bully-head simply for disagreeing with them. Makes me feel bad for anyone who has to share living space with them.

It's well worth reading Samuel Pepys' diary to see what life was like back before sanitation or vaccinations. People dropped like flies from the plague, smallpox, typhoid, childbirth and even simple surgical procedures.

just reading through the comments on that and they are bringing poor Hannah Polling into it again. They have no shame :(

Just noticed a commenter on the ArseWhole blogpost quoting the late Dr Mark "Cybertiger" Struthers as an authority. That's pretty much the definition of barrel scraping.

"She’d been threatened, harassed, and terrified. They had her address, threatened to come to her home, contact her family, her friends. They threatened lawsuits and all kind of harassment. They had all of her data. Then someone did show up to her house."

If this actually happened it's a police matter and there (at the very least) should be a police report to document it. I won't be holding my breath waiting for the documentation.
I also won't be holding my breath waiting for prominent antivaxers to condemn attacks on pro-vaccine activists as pharma shills, renouncing attempts to get them fired from their jobs etc.

Playing the civility card is much more impressive when you practice civility yourself.

If this actually happened it’s a police matter and there (at the very least) should be a police report to document it.

The Men in Black said "Don't report this".

The Men in Black also broke my italics tags.

I'm a sometimes author at Violent Metaphors, where the original Dear Parents piece prompted Megan to write her rebuttal.

When she wrote her piece, I focused on some particular problems with it and wrote a critique. I can't be sure, obviously, but I think that's what prompted her doleful complaint about hate speech--she didn't like being called a liar. But rather than correct the lies, which are still up, she just gnashed her teeth about being called on it.

There's a lot more background about this particular anti-vaxer here. The story gets particularly bizarre recently.

An ultra-fringe conspiracy group (they complain that viruses are nanomachines designed by Jews--you can tell because the baseplate looks like a star of David--to eat out the emotion centers of the brain) picked up on the original Dear Parents piece at Violent Metaphors, and Megan's rebuttal. But they got the chronological order reversed, and thought that the NSA had taken down Megan's piece and replaced it with the Violent Metaphors piece as some kind of disinformation "ghost" campaign.

But once they figured out they were wrong--which involved the guy making the correction trying to prove his identity with secret codes in case he was a disinformation hacker--they decided Big Pharma or someone must have shut down Megan's site and probably killed her. She had her stuff down for a couple of days, and what other explanation could there be?

So to make sure the feds hadn't whacked her, they doxed her. They posted personal information about her, her family--even her kids. They threw up phone numbers for her husband's work, and various posters indicated they'd be calling to make sure she's still alive. If you go to the Living Whole facebook page, you can see some fallout from this circus--one of the conspiracy theorists dropped a note informing everyone, "THIS IS NOW A GHOST PAGE THE OWNER DOES NOT CONTROL." I think the idea is that the NSA is still running her blog for her? It's very bizarre.

It's quite interesting how in recent days anti-vaxxers have been calling for courtesy and peace...

- Jake decries Orac's use of the word "detest".
- Karma says to 'disengage'
- Null, in this weekend's lecture, calls for an end to strife between 'good vs evil' ( it's really 'good vs less good')**-
- Kent Heckenlively ( AoA) believes that it's time for scientists to surrender and end the war.

Yes. He does. It's not a war between parents and scientists because a third group - Big Money- has lied to scientists and forced them to follow its programme if they wish to be funded. Scientists are afraid to speak up but a few work 'beneath the radar' to do fine research about vaccines' danger to humanity.

HOWEVER 20% of people now believe that vaccines cause autism and this is the age of revolution and Edward Snowden. He tells scientists, "You cannot keep hurting children", Stop being part of the machine. Make a choice. Surrender.

** soon to be posted on the net ( as "Regaining Your Lost Spirituality" or another crappy title)- perhaps next to his dance party videos.

While a longer comment is in moderation, let me add to it that if anyone did visit Megan, it was apparently someone from an ultra-extreme conspiracy theory board checking to make sure the NSA hadn't offed her.

As for "hate speech," while Megan is mostly objecting to being called a liar (and the fact that other people called her on inappropriately representing herself as a doctor and lawyer), I recently had a Natural News radio host threaten me by name on his show with a beating. He also attended the Give Autism a Chance Summit (the one Orac blogged about) and was very unhappy that I wrote a critical summary of the Wakefield/Krigsman/Stewart sales pitch.

@Denise - and I believe over 30% of people believe in UFOs....so they are in good company, if a little behind the curve.

Kathy @6 --

This woman gives me the impression she’s lived most of her life in a tight little group of the like-minded, where disagreement is the Unforgiveable Sin.

You're onto something here.

Her last two bullet points are "We are old-fashioned" and "We believe in Jesus".

Many Evangelical Christians -- especially the most stringent Biblical literalists -- live their lives in a constant struggle against modernity in all forms. If they think too hard, they risk losing their faith, which is unthinkable to them. They cluster into "Christian" enclaves and attempt to wall off the modern world -- note the home schooling, also.

She appears to be a perfect example of this kind of thinking. I would bet something valuable that she's a young-earth creationist, too.

Colin, so it was a bunch of lunatic anti-vaxxers who doxed her?
o.O O.o o.O O.o

Can someone enlighten me as to the meaning of the verb "dox"? I'm not one of them intertube hepcats, it seems.

It's ironic that some of those calling for civility have a history of expressing extremely hateful remarks about people who support vaccination.

Characterising this globally, as someone who surveys altie pre-literacy on a daily basis, I hear vitriolic statements about doctors, psychologists, researchers, governmental officials and reporters as a matter of course. Everyone who disagrees with them is accused of lying, being on the take, being compromised, immoral and endangering the lives and health of innocents. AND all of this without any evidence of malfeasance and conspiracy between the maligned groups or concerning specific individuals.

Personally, I've been attacked by proselytisers who know absolutely nothing about me except my educational background which obviously illustrates how they compile their information: 'DW is a member of a particular group THEREFORE she is responsible for all of the harm done by professionals since time immemorial".

But this is how woo spreads its demon seed amongst its followers: list hideous instances of medical ( or other) atrocities even if you have to go back a century or two- then without missing a beat, associate by contiguity present day people or activities as though the two sets of information were intrinsically linked .
Sounds like magic by contagion to me.

Oddly, we're also being called 'bots' not people. It's quite interesting because both being a pawn of the powerful ( see above) or a machine imply little or no freedom of choice. Why blame someone/ something who/ which has no power whatsoever?

@Colin:

Not being hip to that particular ultra-lunatic antivaccine conspiracy site (hey, even Orac can't monitor them all, at least not all the time), I was unaware that in reality Megan was apparently doxed and contacted by people on "her side" (albeit the lunatic fringe of the lunatic fringe that is "her side") because they were concerned that she had been whacked by a pharma conspiracy to silence her criticism of vaccines. Then she interpreted that as coming from pro-vaccine bloggers and big pharma trying to intimidate her into silence?

Holy hell, you can't make stuff like this up. (At least, even I can't.) That's totally hilarious.

Regarding the "we don't eat chemicals" bit, I'll just leave this here: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3324#comic

@palindrom

Doxing means to out an anonymous or pseudonymous blogger or commenter on social media; i.e., reveal the blogger's true identity, either by just revealing his true identity or by posting information that could easily lead others to figuring out the blogger's true identity.

@Palindrom, to "dox" means to release personal and/or identifying information about someone. It's regarded as bad form, because the action contains an implicit threat. "I know where you live, so watch it".

Further to palindrom @22, Megan also lists among her bullet points, "We home school." (It's about halfway down the list.) There are some parents who home school their children for good reasons. But there are others who do so at least partly to control their children's exposure to Unapproved Viewpoints, and many of the parents who home school for this reason self-identify, as Megan does, as old-fashioned believers in Jesus. Some states exercise little or no oversight when it comes to making sure that home schooled children are actually educated.

Picking out stupidity in the rest of Megan's writings is like shooting fish in a barrel. I'm tempted to ask, regarding her claim to be a "Certified Natural Health Educator", just who certified her (IYKWIMAITYD). And I do not think "conspiracy theory" means what she thinks it means.

Pallindrom, what Julian said. I think the term is derived from ".docx" used in a word-processing software that I won't name here in case someone like Jake uses it to connect Orac with Bill Gates.

While watching from the sidelines recently on a couple of local controversies, namely concealed carry and marriage equality, I've noticed that the words "hate speech" and "censorship" are used against anyone who disagrees with the poster. That and the 10th amendment, which a lot of the tinfoil hat brigade draw like a .45 at the slightest hint of criticism.

(For the non-USians among us, the 10th amendment simply says that states are allowed to make up their own laws in situations where there's no Federal regulation. It gets invoked a lot by the anti-same sex marriage crowd who want all those icky gay people to move to Massachusetts or California and leave decent Murkins in Georgia and Oklahoma alone). Evidently pointing out that someone is anti-gay is hate speech.

What is it about Georgia and Oklahoma that attracts pubic wigs?

Or is that mirkin? Oh...hang on....murkin as in American? Sorry, slow today. Blame it on nightshift.

That's "merkin" IIRC.

Oddly, we’re also being called ‘bots’ not people.

Nothing odd about it. Many people fear technology, for reasons both rational and otherwise. There is a particular tendency to associate robots with evil, sometimes known as the Frankenstein complex. Much of Isaac Asimov's fiction explores this idea, and the measures taken by designers of robots to allay such fears--thus the Three Laws of Robotics. Despite these measures, many Earthlings in the Lije Bailey novels still fear robots--some for the rational reason that robots are competitors for jobs that humans do, others for irrational reasons. There are some parallels to vaccines: e.g., some parents deviate from the vaccination schedule because they can't afford the time/copayments to bring their children to the doctor's office as frequently as the nominal schedule calls for. And of course many on the anti-vax side have irrational fears of vaccines, and play into similar fears of other parents. But the analogy is not perfect: I don't see the rational economic argument for avoiding vaccines entirely instead of adjusting the schedule to the parents' economic reality.

@Colin

I'm terrified to venture onto any conspiracy theorist website, but if this is true, it's one of the best arguments against doxing period. I tried visiting her other blog, but I'm getting a 401 error.

@NumberWang and Rebecca. You are clearly furriners and probably commies as well. So there.

Did any of the biomeders talk about mitochondrial disease before Hannah Poling?

And this is off topic, but does anyone know a good place to share a fundraiser link? I have one month to raise some money for badly needed dental work and I'm sure most of my facebook friends are tired of seeing it.

Eric Lund: But there are others who do so at least partly to control their children’s exposure to Unapproved Viewpoints, and many of the parents who home school for this reason self-identify, as Megan does, as old-fashioned believers in Jesus.

That's most of the homeschool groups now. The demographics shifted in the 80s- now the hippies send the kids to private or charter schools, and the Christian kids stay at home.

Colin's excellent post on the "Give Autism A Chance" meeting, managed to attract Curt Linderman. Linderman's radio broadcast ("Rabid Talk Radio") on Colin, was put up yesterday afternoon.

(The things I do for the sake of science)

So, I listened to the radio program and Linderman is frothing at the mouth about Colin and the pro-vaccine, pro-science movement.

He open his show by telling us he is "sitting in his basement, in his underwear, in the wee hours of Easter morning". He plans to go to church with his family and then states he wants to start his own church for his group which has to deal with pro-vaccinationists; he'll call it "The Church of The Immaculate Bitch-Slap"....it goes downward from there.

Toward the end of the broadcast, he launches into a warning about the coming battle (Armageddon?), between the pro-science group who are coming to "get" him and his groupies.

"Be prepared, by arming yourselves. I'll be armed and I am 6' 2", 205 pound guy with five black belts!" (Have any of you ever seen Linderman's rants on YouTube?)

BTW, Linderman's wife is the Advertising Director of the Autism File magazine...part of the Wakefield-Tommey media empire.

I’ll be armed and I am 6′ 2″, 205 pound guy with five black belts!

I have no reason to doubt the claim that this Chuck Norris wannabe owns five (or more) black belts, but wouldn't he look ridiculous if he tried to wear them all at the same time?

We do have to take this kind of thing seriously, because a few of these bozos actually are capable of acting on their threats. But couple the quoted sentence with the bit about "sitting in his basement, in his underwear", and I get the impression that his fighting experience was in the 82nd Chairborne Division.

Shay,
Actually, the tenth amendment says

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

It's somewhat different from "states are allowed to make up their own laws in situations where there’s no Federal regulation."

Orac, I know you hate nitpicks, but I believe you misspelled FREEDUMB!

There’s a lot more background about this particular anti-vaxer here.

The funny thing is that she basically brought that attention on herself. (That's probably going to expire from the G—gl cache in short order.)

She had her stuff down for a couple of days, and what other explanation could there be?

I'm going with not knowing how to use grep, much less sed. I pulled all three of her sites last week, and there was only one reference to herself as "Dr." left.

Some of the comments are amazing. Danchi "Distribution and administration of the Polio vaccine in the US caused Polio cases to rise 700%."
Not really math inclined I see.

I’m tempted to ask, regarding her claim to be a “Certified Natural Health Educator”, just who certified her

The Naturopathic Institute of Therapies and Education. She says she was there for three years, although the "NHE" is the first year of the Not a Doctor program. It's possible that the switch to the Trinity correspondence course went along with the move from Michigan to Illinois.

Trinity is not "accredited" by the usual people who do that sort of thing, BTW.

It appears, however, that she could only have transferred three credits.

M. O'B -- I knew I should have Googled it.

Had she been hacked? Had the pro vaccination groups taken her site down? Had she just forgotten to renew her domain.

This is some serious cluepenia on Hayes's part.

Such an educational blog! Now I know the meaning of "dox", the meaning of the suffix "-penia" (very useful), and the correct spelling of "FREEDUMB"!

While a longer comment is in moderation, let me add to it that if anyone did visit Megan, it was apparently someone from an ultra-extreme conspiracy theory board checking to make sure the NSA hadn’t offed her.

My reading is that "then someone did show up to her house" refers to Tenpenny, not Megan.

Shay - The Googles and Wikipedia are my friends.

Megan should go see a movie.

http://www.metatech.org/mind_control_movie.html

Colin @#18:

"An ultra-fringe conspiracy group (they complain that viruses are nanomachines designed by Jews–you can tell because the baseplate looks like a star of David–to eat out the emotion centers of the brain)...."

Pleaseohpleaseohplease, for the love of Arceus, tell me that that group is making that up. Nobody could possibly be that Crobat-guano insane.

well well well....I don't know how I compare to you guys and gals with my pair of degrees in common sense and in manure handling from the university of hard knock but can I apply to med school with these?

Alain

@Eric Lund #40

If he is 205lbs and wore 5 belts at once, I am guessing he would look like a string of sausages.

Lucario -my sister and I invented a fake conspiracy theory once, that the Cold War was a hoax perpetuated by historians. We were trying to come up with one so absurd no one would believe it. It is presented on whale.to, with the exception that it is conspiring politicians, not historians, as absolute fact. So I believe people do sincerely believe that.

Hate speech, you say?

Truly, I have often read calls for 'justice' for vaccine advocates, developers and Andy's bane- that they wind up before a court, behind bars, punished for their lies and crimes.
AoA commenters often wish for retribution. Sure sounds like hate to me, as does their fixation on pharma payoffs based on damaging children.

@ Heckenlively's piece today:
'he who was banished from Orac's realm', comments that the 20% is joined by 36% who aren't sure, overruling the vaccine supporters ( 44%).

( Alright let's suppose that these figures do reflect some species of reality: why oh why then do most of them vaccinate if they oppose or question vaccination? Vaccination rates, even in the deepest, darkest depths of Marin County**, are not at 44%.
OK, OK maybe they are at 44% but only in very posh schools in towns where rock stars live).

Over the past year or so, rhetoric by a few of the TMs ( MacNeil, Goes, Jameson esp) seethes with anger and hatred for doctors, government officials and others who support vaccination. Similarly, @ AoA I've heard more than enough of hate speech, much of it aimed at accomplished,well-meaning people like Dorit. Certainly it is quite frequent that the hate is expressed for our own charming host Orac and his many talented and diverse minions.

** take it easy, it's a metaphor, I know that it is by turns sunny and foggy there.

"what’s the big deal about mumps outbreaks this year and claiming that it’s not a serious disease"

Mumps is serious? LOL.

Mumps is serious? LOL.

Well, we all know you don't have to worry about orchitis, Bob.

@Bob - you know, perhaps we should challenge you to a series of infections....have you exposed to all of the various VPDs & see if they are serious or not.

Willing to take the chance?

Pleaseohpleaseohplease, for the love of Arceus, tell me that that group is making that up. Nobody could possibly be that Crobat-guano insane.

This is a dandy comment from the GBCN folks:

"I find it amazing that all that crazy shıt lives on a camera review site."

lurker @#58:

Better be careful making up hoaxes - who knows what the conspiracy loons will swallow.

This leads me to wonder if, say, the "Moon Landing Hoax" was somebody's attempt at a joke conspiracy that took on a life of its own. Stranger things have happened.

@Shay- there really is a problem with defining "hate speech" in respect to homosexuality- namely, that there are religions that are millennia old that condemn homosexuality. So homosexuals argue that condemning them is hate speech and the adherents of those religions argue that attacking their religions are hate speech. There's no way to square the circle.

Mumps is serious? LOL.

Well, the mumps seriously fried my nuts. It was a bit of a blessing back in the day, when all you had to worry about was an unplanned pregnancy or a disease that could be cured with a shot.

Last I remember hearing, Dr.Mark Crislip (because the world needs more Mark Crislip) said he had seen 2 cases of mumps, and he's an Infectious Disease doctor. My mom had treated 3 cases, and she was 'just a housewife'. She did have to call in help for me (remember house calls?).

Of course, most of the time mumps isn't too bad. Fever, look like a chipmunk, and miss a week or two of school. Poor kids these days have to go to school a whole lot more than we did.

Dedicated Lurker: Details, please? I've always wanted to make up an urban legend and have it go viral.

@Lawrence

@Bob – you know, perhaps we should challenge you to a series of infections….have you exposed to all of the various VPDs & see if they are serious or not.

Willing to take the chance?

----

Depends on what I'd get to expose myself. And I'm an adult so not getting certain illnesses when most do would alter the dynamic.

Since this is all theoretical, I'd go back in time and expose myself to the usual childhood illness and, if my outcomes were inconsequential, and if you had the power, would you grant my wish and get rid of compulsory vaccination. Are you in? I'm guessing not.

So since there's no other end of the bargain, it's pointless to discuss it - which makes me wonder why an intelligent person like you would even raise the issue. Perhaps you could enlighten me.

In a scenario closer to the real world, if I was still playing baseball and a key player had the flu, but could play through it, I'd certainly be OK with interacting with him.

if I was still playing baseball and a key player had the flu, but could play through it, I’d certainly be OK with interacting with him

Apparently you should have realized long ago that, since you are clearly not a "key player," you don't matter.

I haven't actually found it on whale.to, but several others have assured me it is there. My sister and I invented it pre-internet (access for us, our mother had access for work), though.

The crazy knows few bounds. By the way, Megan or whatever your name is, you don't get to snipe at people from behind the cover of being an advocate and then claim victimhood when people push back.

Mr. Schecter: "Depends on what I’d get to expose myself. And I’m an adult so not getting certain illnesses when most do would alter the dynamic"

I vote you be exposed the diseases I remember getting. These include:

Mumps

Chicken pox

An influenza that had me unconscious for two weeks when I was eight years old

A bacterial pneumonia that kept me out of school for over a month

And dengue fever, just because you think it only happens to brown people

dedicated lurker:

Lucario -my sister and I invented a fake conspiracy theory once, that the Cold War was a hoax perpetuated by historians.

Nice try, but I have come to the realization that nobody can beat the creativity of genuine conspiracy whackos. I learned this when I encountered the Moon Hoax Claim To Beat All Moon Hoax Claims -- the Apollo missions were faked to avoid revealing the truth that supersonic flight is impossible for anything larger than a rifle bullet. Satellites are an elaborate scheme conducted using airliners and possibly balloons. Supersonic fighters and the Concorde -- all faked, everybody paid off. ICBMs? Not possible. And he knows this because one day he got to thinking and realized that as things got heavier, it took more energy to speed them up. A few back-of-the-envelope calculations based on god-knows-what later, and he'd concluded that a rifle bullet is the largest object that can be accelerated to supersonic speeds. His explanation for planetary motion? None, really. He seemed to live in a little bubble where he'd had this one revelation, and his entire world view was then built upon it.

My reading is that “then someone did show up to her house” refers to Tenpenny, not Megan.

Ah, now I see that I got this mixed up with the disappearance of Tenpenny's FB page.

My sister has complained there's no really good conspiracy theories anymore - they're all dominiated by "false flag" allegations. She says that at least the "the government is making clones in vats under Texas" is creative.

My sister has complained there’s no really good conspiracy theories anymore

The "race warfare ethno-bomb" guy referenced above is at least colorfully clueless (emphasis in original):

"My comment Cool name for it - 'Anti-NMDA Receptor Encephalitis' and let me quickly explain what that means. NMDA receptor encephalytis means swelling of NMDA receiving axons in the brain. Anti is spurious. It gives absolutely no indication of AUTOIMMUNE, that is B.S. The bottom line, from that terminology, is that something caused swelling of the nmda receptor sites.

"And now I got my weapon, to clear the BS with

"Those doctors know exactly what caused this. Wanna know why? Because they said the NMDA receptors swelled up, and there is NO WAY YOU CAN KNOW THAT, UNLESS YOU DO BRAIN SURGERY AND REMOVE SOME OF THOSE RECEPTORS TO PUT THEM ON A MICROSCOPE SLIDE AND CONFIRM THEY ARE INDEED SWOLLEN. Those doctors KNEW this was a test, and that it would CAUSE those receptors to swell up. They KNEW THERE WAS A BIOLOGICAL EXPERIMENT GOING ON, AND THEY WERE THE OBSERVERS, ABSENT A BRAIN BIOPSY THERE IS NO OTHER WAY FOR THEM TO SAY WHAT THEY DID, OTHER THAN FOREKNOWLEDGE OF WHAT WAS REALLY GOING ON. No biopsies were ever spoken of. Conveniently, the probable death part of those receptors was left out."

if you had the power, would you grant my wish and get rid of compulsory vaccination. Are you in? I’m guessing not.

Bob, why are you guessing not?

Alain

@Narad,

If I have taken 4 beers (still 2 remaining in the fridge) which killed 20 000 neurons tonight, do I need a biopsy to attest that these neurons were killed out? according to that guy, yes but according to ethical principle, is it right to open the brain to look for killed cell in the absence of any harm?

Alain (user of an NMDA based ADD medication to improve focusing ability).

according to that guy, yes but according to ethical principle, is it right to open the brain to look for killed cell in the absence of any harm?

I think the broader issue is that he doesn't understand what encephalitis is, much less the difference between presynaptic and postsynaptic. Or the size of an NMDA receptor. Or the diffraction limit of optical microscopy.

@Narad

Yeah I tend to be literal about his quote but I entirely agree with you, I know that the brain growing a quarter inch to half of one is bound to create massive trouble with lot more than 20K neurons are doing.

Alain

@Dedicated Lurker - is this (or one of the links at the top of this page) what you're looking for?

www.whale.to/b/cold_war_hoax_h.html

Lucario,

This leads me to wonder if, say, the “Moon Landing Hoax” was somebody’s attempt at a joke conspiracy that took on a life of its own. Stranger things have happened.

That idea has been around for a very long time. I remember my older brother (aged 20) joking that the whole thing was a fake, "filmed in the Nevada Desert", when Apollo 11 had just landed on the moon and the world was waiting for the astronauts to finally emerge from the Lunar Module. My mother scolded him for spoiling the experience for me (much younger and awestruck).

Ingo Swann, yet another alleged NASA consultant later turned remote-viewing moon hoax conspiracy theorist, claimed that someone circulated leaflets alleging the same at the Kennedy Space Center at the same time (in his book 'Penetration' as I recall, should any conspiracy theory historians be in the slightest bit interested).

if you had the power, would you grant my wish and get rid of compulsory vaccination. Are you in? I’m guessing not.

Prepare yourself for a pleasant surprise. Your wish is fully pre-granted! Why, you ask?

Because vaccination is not presently compulsory! That's just your paranoid fantasy!

(Hint: The decline in uptake rates might have been your first clue.)

One of the worst conspiracy theories that I've run across is that governments around the world conspired to keep alien visits secret and then used the technology they pilfered to refine weapon systems and aviation- esp stealth.

Like they'd all work together in order to battle each other.

In other news :
@ AoA today: KS notes that there is " a nationally coordinated campaign to BULLY Jenny MacCarthy" and autism parents find themselves "as if we and our children are Christians in The Coliseum [sic] "- it's "a bloodsport".

This leads me to wonder if, say, the “Moon Landing Hoax” was somebody’s attempt at a joke conspiracy that took on a life of its own.

Said to have been filmed by Stanley Kubrick. I've always thought that was a nice touch.

And to add to Chris' list:

Measles
altho' I don't really remember too much except being confined to a dark room and NOT being able to do normal activities- reading, writing, drawing, exercising, watching television.
My older cousins assure me that I missed "3 or 4 weeks of school" and relatives in various locales were "worried".
I also started wearing sunglasses outdoors after the episode and not just as a fashion statement. I still do -unless it's raining or entirely clouded over.

I was supposed to get the new vaccine but I couldn't get to the apppointment because I got the measles first.

AoA the gift that keeps on giving, on hate speech and bullying...Anne Dachel blogging and Kim Stagliano commenting:

Anne Dachel
Fox News Promotes Women Bullying Women

Mean girlsManaging Editor's Note: You'd think that during autism awareness month media mean girls would at least try to acknowledge that Jenny is an autism Mom - and give her credit for helping her son into recovery. Not so for these two shrews - who delight in joining in the nationally cooridinated campaign to BULLY Jenny McCarthy at every turn. It's unseemly - and I can think of NO other diagnosis except for autism - in that it is connected to vaccination - that would garner such vitrolic venom as if we and our children were Christians in The Coliseum of ancient Rome. Attacking us is now a bloodsport - more popular than boxing. KS

Schecter: “Depends on what I’d get to expose myself"

A combination of laughter and nausea, most likely. A few jurisdictions might insist on jail time..

This leads me to wonder if, say, the “Moon Landing Hoax” was somebody’s attempt at a joke conspiracy that took on a life of its own.

I assume that "Capricorn One" was filmed as an attempt by movie insiders to get the story out to the public. Either that, or it was filmed as part of the conspiracy to discredit the idea of a conspiracy and make it seem like, well, a movie plot.

Rebecca - yes, there it is!

Nice try, but I have come to the realization that nobody can beat the creativity of genuine conspiracy whackos.

It's a variant of Poe's Law. Some people really are that gullible.

You should probably include a link to the original source of the comic: http://xkcd.com/1357/

Narad @ #61--I wasn't here to see it, but you won the Interwebz yesterday. I needed the laugh, thanks!! :)

Janet:

Followed closely by DB @ #88.

Shay....agreed! (But that was today)

"Toward the end of the broadcast, he launches into a warning about the coming battle (Armageddon?), between the pro-science group who are coming to “get” him and his groupies.
“Be prepared, by arming yourselves. I’ll be armed and I am 6′ 2″, 205 pound guy with five black belts!” (Have any of you ever seen Linderman’s rants on YouTube?)"

Cheese 'n rice! I mean, I know they think vaccines (and the government's semi-mandate of) are the Worst Thing Ever, but FFS - they're just vaccines! Products that are actually beneficial to you. I think his ravings rate as "first world problems", for sure.

Jennifer @92

You should probably include a link to the original source of the comic

You should probably click on the words "Think of it this way" in little blue letters above the comic.

AoA the gift that keeps on giving, on hate speech and bullying…Anne Dachel blogging and Kim Stagliano commenting

"I really can't watch anything myself because my free time is spent looking at autism stories on Google News."

Um, she only disgorges a handful of articles each day, someless less frequently. This is all of her free time? It's not as though cutting and pasting takes much effort.

Dachel, is she retired?

For goodness sakes, I have Mike the mad biologist in my blogroll and he post twice as many links and pictures while doing full-time research....

Alain

Re. Shay @ 31, etymology of 'dox."

Comes from the word 'documents' plural, which is commonly shortened to 'docs.' The spelling 'dox' is merely a further abbreviation using 'hacker spelling standards.'

So now one True Believer in conspiracy theories gets doxed and otherwise pestered by an even Truer Believer in even wilder conspiracy theories. You couldn't make this up.

I suppose the wackier CTers are being chased by an even-wackier bunch of CTers who think the NSA is controlled by space aliens, who in turn are controlled by reptilian overlords, who in turn are controlled by invisible evil spirits.

'Bigger fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em
Little fleas have smaller fleas, and on ad-infinitum.'

'We do not use any chemical products in our home or on our bodies.' (What are your homes and bodies made of, dear?)

'We greatly limit the use of technology in our home.' (What's that thing you're typing on, and do you keep it in a tree?)

'We recycle.' (That's nice, so does everyone else nowadays.)

@ Narad:

No, she is inordinately pre-occupied working on her karate ( or tae kwon do - I forget which), writing columns for various on-line magazine ( like "Aunts are Super") and (perhaps) writing a follow-up to her chick-lit, mystery-romance/ autism-related novel ( Sky Horse Press).

Oh. I DO sound like a mean girl. So does lilady: Ann also and Rebecca, of course ( altho' she's supposed to REALLY be a man).

The best conspiracy theory is that there are no more conspiracy theories--it's like an all-encompassing manifold that keeps folding back on itself.

FYI, Sid was once exposed to prions, but they didn't take--no substrate upon which to bind.

I'm betting that Jenny McCarthy is so pleased, now that the harpies are writing letters to media outlets in support of her//sarcasm.

Denice, now I"m confused. Which one of you is really Bonnie Offit?

"Denice, now I”m confused. Which one of you is really Bonnie Offit?"

We all are Bonnie Offit. It's just you and me here. I do this to confuse people

I need you all to get serious and spend some time on The Poxes blog...to see (and hear) what a really "mean girl" is capable of.

http://thepoxesblog.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/what-kinds-of-threats-are-…

I lay the blame for these vile threatening telephone calls at the feet of the blogging *journalists* and their guest bloggers at Age of Autism, who first published information about Dorit Reiss, her employer, her husband and her young child.

Yikes, those calls.

And again with the package inserts.

What kind of person says to him- or herself: "Pharma is lying to me about vaccine safety, and this I know because the truth is printed in the package inserts"?

It doesn't even survive non-scrutiny. It's just senseless.

@ ann: It doesn't have to "make sense"...if the anti-vaccine comments that I have read, are any indication.

About thirty years ago, I testified on behalf of the establishment of a group home for young adult autistic people. After my testimony and before I arrived home, a vile individual had telephoned my home and frightened my young daughter with similar threats. There truly are people who derive pleasure by stalking other people, on their jobs, and at their home. The problem, IMO, is that we know a certain proportion of these people will "up the ante". How do we know which individual that will be?

God only knows who I'm supposed to be this week. It's usually Brian Deer.

Correction:
@ 101 the person I described is Kim Stagliano not Ann Dachel who made the comment.
Altho' I could add that while the latter isn't a student of karate, she has been engaged in "researching" and writing her own tome also published by Sky Horse.

Oddly, we’re also being called ‘bots’ not people.

Nothing odd about it. Many people fear technology, for reasons both rational and otherwise. There is a particular tendency to associate robots with evil, sometimes known as the Frankenstein complex.

Actually, it has to do with another conspiracy theory. (Dull surprise!)

There has been (in reality) some discussion of using automated methods to monitor social media for expression of antivax propaganda, to better indicate where there is need to get the pro-vax word out.

The AV camp (with their usual disdain for sticking to facts when unrealistic speculation fits what they want to believe so much better) mutated this into "Big Pharma has somehow achieved the Holy Grail of computer science, computer intelligences which can pass the Turing test by understanding natural language conversations and replying to them so intelligently that they are not distinguishable from humans, and is already employing these computer intelligences to disseminate provax propaganda."

In short, when the antivaxers are calling us 'bots, they're not saying that we're *like* robots, they are claiming that we actually *are* computer programs that can carry on conversations with them but are unable to deviate from our programming of "defend vaccines".

re Reuben's post:

Alright, so who would do something like this?

I would guess that it's someone who spends a great deal of time on the internet and has become so involved that she perceives anyone who gives information they disagree with as a personal threat- thus, she is justified in making a pre-emptive strike. I agree with Reuben- this is not a sign of normal adjustment.

AoA and TMR ( as well as PRN and NN) *deliberately* present material that incites anger and hatred on a daily basis ( as I've often stated, group therapy gone wrong). They label the opposiition ( SBM) as evil people who harm children. Some followers have difficult lives because they have a disabled child and some of them, who have psychological problems, in their distress may take it upon themselves to rebel against the powers-that-be whom they blame for their current situation.

A while back, AoA printed someone's home address as it was presented on legal papers without redaction.

As a matter of course, AoA editors allow inflammatory language- both in posts and comments- about vaccine defenders and applaud those who pester them. Prof Reiss is often a topic of conversation and speculation.

Of course, they feel free to say anything they like because if someone with psychological problems DID strike out and harm a vaccine supporter, there is little to connect them to the action. They merely write their own opinion and the actor is an adult who has free choice. Yes, they were 'bullied' into action.

Because I subject myself daily to vitriol readily available at the aforementioned outlets, I often feel as though I've been washed over by a tsunamic wave of angry self-righteousness- it's hate spewn without regard to consequences for other people: messages like these are also not a sign of psychologcal health.

In short, when the antivaxers are calling us ‘bots, they’re not saying that we’re *like* robots, they are claiming that we actually *are* computer programs....

The locus for the current popularity of this is Jeff Hays, who coincidentally is pimping a movie. It has already mutated into random halfwits such as one Neil Vadekar babbling about everybody being "Perl scripts."

Right, your 'enemy' isn't even human- it's a machine or it's a person 'programmed' by evil faction, nearly a machine:
so what's wrong with harming THAT?

Alright, so who would do something like this?

I'm aware of exactly one person who has taken to publicly obsessing over Dorit's husband, although the kids in the background don't fit her profile and the voice isn't quite right. The time stamps on the first two calls are early in the morning, suggesting (aside from not being willing to risk actually having the phone answered) a time zone to the east.

I'd still lay better-than-even odds on this being the proximate source, though.

Right. Someone with kids, a distressed parent who sees the Reisses as adversaries because they have a better life than she has.
Who do we know like that?

Denice @115: Right, and it's a dangerous development. Portraying one's enemies as not quite human has historically led to some really nasty stuff, and there are plenty of examples other than you-know-who.

Portraying one’s enemies as not quite human

You mean like referring to people as "humanoid"?

Just had to quote this gem from the comment Narad links to above:

...they [pharma shills] have up until now not been able to crash conversations where they have been, with good reason, excluded by moderation and by the protection of free speech.

Anti-vaxers exclude people who disagree with them in the name of free speech. Wow. Just ... wow.

A long time ago, there was a symposium on agression and conflict and one of the most salient points I recall from a detailed reading** was that seeing others as UNlike yourself - as the Other, non-human, evil or being unable to see them at all ( because of long-range modern weaponry, for example)- makes the idea of slamming them so much easier. There's nothing ( or nothing worthwhile) with which to relate emotionally- they become a nuisance and a hindrance to your own well-being. A problem.

Interestingly, there was a UK focus group on communicating about vaccines ( reported by Jon Brock) that found that parents preferred information from fellow/ sister parents rather than from experts.

Oddly enough, anti-vaxxers will listen to anti-vax parents but not pro-vaccine parents- who are referred to as not being real in some manner or merely a tool of the Other. Perhaps they view people like Dorit as a turncoat - her child isn't her first priority in their wretched distorted view.
-btw- shame on them,

** oh and also research on cultures which like football ( both kinds) and aggression.

AS TURNCOATS

When Reuben at The Poxes blog first put up those audiotapes, I spent a good deal of time viewing videotapes that have been placed on YouTube, by woman who post on Age of Autism. I cannot connect the voice to any one person.

I do know the identities of the *journalists* and posters on Age of Autism, who first posted the location of Dorit's employer, Dorit's husband's name and his employer and the identity of Dorit's child...because they bring these nuggets back to AoA, by posting that information.

They've got the colossal chutzpah to label some of us as "mean girls" and bullies?

@lilady
I suppose those people need a good look in the mirror.

The following is now running on many of Mr Wakefield's pages. Priceless.

'Mainstream Media claim the anti-vaccine (pro-holistic health) movement is unscientific. They have vastly under-estimated the intelligence & inherent wisdom of this fast-growing community.

'The holistic health movement is SO way ahead of the curve. We recognize that there is clear distinction between the verifiable science of the body, and the detritus of propaganda supporting vaccine theory.

'There is no disputing the science of a newborn baby’s brain & central nervous system, the SCIENCE of the electro-chemical synergistic nature of vaccine-derived neurotoxins (Aluminum & Thimerosal) injected into the bloodstream; that, in point of scientific fact, all heavy metals are magnetically drawn to areas of fatty tissue, primarily the brain & central nervous system…where they systematically erode the primary core circuits necessary in supporting early childhood development.

'This is where ALL vaccine related neurological damage begins.

'Through the annals of history, outbreaks of disease, plague & life-threatening epidemics were primarily the result of over-crowding, marked by insufficient hygiene, sanitation & nutrition. In this day & age, given proper access to clean drinking water, modern sanitation methods & a steady organic diet, there is simply no excuse, here in the West, for the exponential surge in cases of early childhood diseases & disorders now gripping our communities.

'The Vaccine Industry is literally at war with natural immunity, having unleashed a plethora of rogue (hybrid/rarified) early childhood cancers, virulent “chimera” (weaponized/mutagenic) viruses, antibiotic resistant bacterium (ie. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus/MRSA) & insidious fungal pathogens (ie. Gut Flora, Candida) upon our youngest & most vulnerable; including a cat’s cradle of neurodevelopmental disorders such as of Autism, ADD, ADHD – marked by chronic illness & compromised immunity, a rash of auto-immune breakdown related issues (ie. prolonged food/environmental allergies) & debilitating behavioral difficulties.

'The overwhelming body of scientific evidence points to one critical determining factor in the rise of mutagenic viruses & systemic erosion of natural immunity: multi-generational community-wide exposure to the Standard Immunization regime, in particular, those viral vaccines fixed on the schedule which combine multiple live attenuated viruses – ie. the MMR Vaccine.

'The science of vaccines is imminently flawed. Vaccines no NOT confer immunity. All vaccines straightjacket the immune system, by stripping the body of its ability to harness vital trace minerals & antioxidants; the essential arsenal that any child requires to successfully overcome the symptoms of any incoming infection such as Measles.

'And they claim we don’t know anything about science. VRM'

Holy. Jumping. Sh!tb@lls. Andrew Wakefield (oops, I mean, millionaire autism biomed industrialist, Andrew Wakefield) wrote that? I had no idea he was that far gone.

I think that pearl is from Mr. Joel Lord, from the "Vaccine Resistance Movement."

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10201972793534877&id=103637…

That's some pretty concentrated woo there.

We have, on videotape, some of the remarks made by the "expert panelists" who appeared on stage with Aidan Quinn and Andrew Wakefield, at the Give Autism a Chance Summit. Take a look at the second videotape starting at 4 minutes in...to see amateur attorney/immunologist Aidan Quinn's rant about reading the studies which are not funded by *big pharma*. (Quinn first met Andrew Wakefield twenty years ago...after his daughter was diagnosed with autism):

http://www.ageofautism.com/2014/04/vaccine-panel-with-rob-schneider-aid…

@ Dorit Reiss

Ahh... I thought it was strange that Wakefield would be talking about neurological damage when his personal hobby horse is supposed to be gut issues. Also, even an incompetent ex-doctor should know that vaccines aren't injected "directly into the bloodstream," to say nothing of the rest of that cray-cray. Thanks, and sorry to hear about all the trouble you've been having recently.

Denice @121 - quite right. Dehumanizing people as "the others" is an effective tool of any agenda and those running it, be it special interests, governments (dehumanizing the citizens of another country, or of a different culture makes it much easier to sell military excursions, sanctions, etc.), religious organizations and so on. It's depressing. There's a children's book written by Mem Fox, Whoever You Are, that I love reading to my three year old (he likes it too), and it's all about how different people from all over the world may have different traditions, but our emotions, feelings, etc are all the same. I hope it's a message that I can instill in him, somehow. I figure it's at least one thing I can do to help humanity. :)

@ Sarah A: Thanks. Seems to be part of this deal, as our host has pointed out in more than one post, from his extensive experience dealing with this, and several others told from their own experience.

I'm very lucky to have met some amazing people while doing this, to be learning a lot, and to be part of an effort to protect children. I guess there has to be a less positive underbelly.

I think that pearl is from Mr. Joel Lord, from the “Vaccine Resistance Movement."
Needs more QUANTUM.

@ herr doktor bimler:

It could have been worse: if he had talked about *epigenetics*.

@ Jessica S:

Right.
Some define intelligence as 'recognising conceptual identity despite superficial diversity'- it doesn't hurt to encourage that early when it comes to social understanding.

...electro-chemical synergistic nature of vaccine-derived neurotoxins (Aluminum & Thimerosal) injected into the bloodstream; that, in point of scientific fact, all heavy metals are magnetically drawn to areas of fatty tissue, primarily the brain & central nervous system…where they systematically erode the primary core circuits necessary in supporting early childhood development.

Can I just say as a physicist turned neuroscientist turned pediatrician that the above is the biggest pile of horseshit I have read, even for Wakefield.

1. Vaccines are NOT injected into the bloodstream (with the only exception being the very new malaria vaccine which is given IV and not for children)
2. "electrochemical synergistic nature of vaccine-derived neurotoxins. Geez. First, we don't derive mercury or alumimum from vaccines--they are mined. Second, synergy has nothing to do with the electrochemical nature of how things interact.
3. Heavy metals "magnetically drawn" to fatty tissues. There is no net magnetic force exerted fatty (or any other ) tissues in the body--which is why (unless you have implanted metal in you), you can go into a multi-tesla MRI scanner.
4. "systematically erode"? Huh? They've seen this "erosion" in the brains of children with autism? It almost sounds like skin-eating acid the way it's put here.

I don't know which is worse--that Wakefield spews this crap or that others are dumb enough to believe him.

I don't know if many of you pay much attention to the anthropogenic global warming deniers, but there's great deal of overlap between them and anti-vaxxers, with the common denominator being conspiracist ideation. Indignant at not being taken seriously, AGW conspiracists recently managed to intimidate the publishers of a journal into "retracting" a paper by they'd agreed to publish, one that documented the tendency of AGW deniers to subscribe to multiple conspiracy theories. Gratifyingly, the scientific community has reacted with disgust to the journal's capitulation to the deniers. For more, see

https://www.skepticalscience.com/contrarian-backlash-difficult-lesson-f…

@ Jeff1971

Holy molly, what a burning exemple of technobabble.
The pain, the pain...

@ Mal Adapted

On the confluence of antiwaxers and other, weirder ideas, there was this recent article from the Genetic Literacy Project website.

The comment section has some interesting posts. I like the one showing which planet of our solar system is the more deadly.

I hope this doesn't come across as Hate Speech - but the Amish in Ohio are getting religion when it comes to measles vaccine.

Seems that unvaccinated people on a religious mission to the Philippines brought back a little something extra, and there's now a measles outbreak in Knox County, Ohio:

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/amish-seek-measles-shots-afte…

As a sidebar, it looks like the Columbus Dispatch's coverage of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks has improved a bit - their reporter assigned to such stories is no longer seeking out "balance" by quoting Barbara Loe Fisher (something I complained about earlier). Maybe my "bullying" had a positive effect. :)

the Amish in Ohio are getting religion when it comes to measles vaccine

Pun intended?

Gratifyingly, the scientific community has reacted with disgust to the journal’s capitulation to the deniers.

There are strong reasons to question the human-subjects research ethics in "Recursive Fury": It did not undergo full review, the work was started before the approval was simply tacked onto a preexisting one, and most damningly, it appears that the interacted with the subjects. Note also that it's not the Common Rule in play, but Australia's interpretation of the Declaration of Helsinki.

^ "that they"

There is no net magnetic force exerted fatty (or any other ) tissues in the body–which is why (unless you have implanted metal in you), you can go into a multi-tesla MRI scanner.

He also seems to have failed to note that Al and Hg have magnetic susceptibilities of opposite signs.

Narad @1 41 -- On the other hand, these were not your usual research subjects who rightfully expect confidentiality -- they were blog commenters, and I don't think they had been anonymous, though I could be mistaken. Human subjects guidelines in Australia could be less stringent than in the US, but his university didn't seem to think he did anything wrong.

Lewandowsky's point, if I understand it right, is that crank magnetism is a real and measurable phenomenon.

A question for the Internet law experts on the forum - is there a law (on the order of Poe's Law, Scopie's Law etc.) to describe posters who enter a debate solely to chide the regulars for spending so much time posting ?

Aside from "troll", of course.

@ Chris Hickie

Vaccines are NOT injected into the bloodstream

Oh, come on, there are blood vessels not far from the injection site, and eventually, vaccine components will slowly find their way inside the bloodstream. It's the same thing, isn't it?

Sorry, having a flashback of Bizarro-world assertions from an ancient visitor on RI. It has left mental scars.

On the other hand, I'm learning stuff on magnetism thanks to you guys.

Narad,

There are strong reasons to question the human-subjects research ethics in “Recursive Fury”: It did not undergo full review, the work was started before the approval was simply tacked onto a preexisting one, and most damningly, it appears that the interacted with the subjects.

May I ask where you got that information? Recursive Fury is available at the UWA's website, so you can judge for yourself. I'm by no means an expert on the ethical issues around this sort of research, but one of the journal's reviewers strongly objected to the retraction, and three topic editors, Ugo Bardi, Bjorn Brembs and Colin Davis, have resigned from the journal in protest. According to lead author Stephan Lewandowsky,

When Frontiers retracted our paper “Recursive Fury” (available at uwa.edu.au/recursivefury) they were very clear that the journal “…did not identify any issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study.”

The journal has since issued several conflicting positions, and their latest statement raised a concern about identification of ‘human subjects’ that can only be considered an ethical issue.

Not only does this latest statement depart from journal’s previous public stance and signed agreements, but it also deviates from the opinions of Frontiers’ own expert panel that they appointed last year to examine the issues surrounding Recursive Fury.
...
The consensus among experts is further reflected in the fact that the research was conducted with ethics approval by the University of Western Australia.
...

I apologize if this is off-topic for RI, but the Recursive Fury flap illustrates that anti-vaxxers and CAM supporters are only a part of a larger anti-science movement, and it's not always so obvious who has the facts on their side. I presume you're all aware that AGW deniers are supported by the vast financial resources of the people who will lose the most if fossil fuel use is curtailed, and who have invested in propaganda far more sophisticated than what anti-vaxxers can afford. That's authoritatively documented, after all: see for example Jane Mayer's reporting in the New Yorker, or sociologist Robert Brulle's study of "dark money" donations by conservative foundations, recently discussed in Scientific American. Brulle, BTW, was so offended by the Recursive Fury retraction that he has declined to write an article that Frontiers requested, and will no longer write or review for any Frontiers publications.

I'm not trying to turn RI into a global warming blog, so I'll say no more about it here, but will remain ever vigilant against pseudo-skeptical infiltration 8^(!

"I presume you’re all aware that AGW deniers are supported by the vast financial resources of the people who will lose the most if fossil fuel use is curtailed"

I have little patience with climate change deniers and their enablers as a whole, but suggesting that they're all funded by big industry money is repellent - and about as accurate as claiming that antivax proponents are shills for autism biomed practitioners and supplement dealers.

Sometimes people are just cranks or stoopid.

Oh, come on, there are blood vessels not far from the injection site, and eventually, vaccine components will slowly find their way inside the bloodstream. It’s the same thing, isn’t it?

I'd forgotten that particular gem from that person.

Dangerous Bacon:

I have little patience with climate change deniers and their enablers as a whole, but suggesting that they’re all funded by big industry money is repellent – and about as accurate as claiming that antivax proponents are shills for autism biomed practitioners and supplement dealers.

I know I promised to say no more about AGW here, but if our host doesn't moderate me out...

Of course not all AGW deniers are paid shills for big industry; sadly, many are eager volunteers. But the repeatedly-debunked memes circulating in the AGW-denialosphere can in many cases be traced to professionals, who are very good at covering their tracks. Their tactics were developed to aid the tobacco industry in its fight against anti-smoking regulations, and are now employed against action on AGW. Really, this is a matter of public record. It's exhaustively documented in books like Merchants of Doubt, by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway; see this review in Science magazine.

I'm not making the argument from authority here, but when the AAAS (publisher of Science) offers a symposium at their 2010 annual meeting examining "the roles of the fossil fuel industry, conservative think tanks, and contrarian scientists (and their interconnections) in challenging the reality and significance of [AGW], as well as the complex set of forces that appear to motivate their respective efforts", do you not find that credible?

May I ask where you got that information?

By coming to my own conclusions (and reversing my previous position), based on the series of comment threads at Retraction Watch, e.g., here – where I also take pains to crap all over the notion that anything in the paper would constitute actionable defamation in the U.S. – and here.

I’m by no means an expert on the ethical issues around this sort of research, but one of the journal’s reviewers strongly objected to the retraction,

One might ask oneself what McKewon was doing reviewing the paper in the first place, as her only credentials are being a graduate student in journalism.

and three topic editors, Ugo Bardi, Bjorn Brembs and Colin Davis, have resigned from

the journal

in protest.

Um, no, other Frontiers titles. I'm not going to bother going into the criteria for becoming a Frontiers editor of one sort or another, as these resignations are irrelevant to my own conclusion.

Recursive Fury is available at the UWA’s website, so you can judge for yourself.

Without the Supplementary Information, mind you.

I'm under no obligation to turn a blind eye to the ethical issue just because I consider AGW denialists to be intellectually bankrupt and Frontiers to have handled the retraction(s) atrociously.

^ The weird line breaks in the third blockquote are because I meant to boldface "the journal."

About magnetism -- ordinary flesh is slightly diamagnetic, a fact which inspired Andre Geim to suspend a frog in a huge magnetic field -- there's a video! For this you need both a gigantic field and a gigantic field gradient.

Geim won the Ig Nobel prize for his efforts. He later went on to win the Nobel for finding a way to make graphene, and is the only person ever to win both awards, at least in physics.

“I presume you’re all aware that AGW deniers are supported by the vast financial resources of the people who will lose the most if fossil fuel use is curtailed”

I have little patience with climate change deniers and their enablers as a whole, but suggesting that they’re all funded by big industry money is repellent – and about as accurate as claiming that antivax proponents are shills for autism biomed practitioners and supplement dealers.

Maybe.

But it would be accurate to say that the AGW-denial movement -- ie, the bloggers, columnists, and/or contrarian scientists in a field other than climatology who are out there manufacturing dispute on the question -- was funded by big industry money. It's been very thoroughly documented. And there's nothing grass-roots about it.

I'm sure it's true that it's not astroturf all the way down. But what is? Besides non-figurative astroturf?

I guess I took that to be Mal A's intended point.

The XKCD cartoon could be used as an excuse by quacks trying to get critics fired.

I've spent far more time on the climate front than the quackery beat, and I believe Ann @154 has it exactly right.

funded by big industry money. It’s been very thoroughly documented.

Got a source? Besides a book, I mean. Thanks.

Narad:

By coming to my own conclusions (and reversing my previous position), based on the series of comment threads at Retraction Watch

Oh, OK. I consider myself qualified to judge the epistemic value of attacks on climate science and it's practitioners. Outside of those fields it's not always clear who has the facts on their side. I stopped following the discussion on RetractionWatch when I saw that the most persistent critics of RF have previously identified themselves as AGW-deniers. You're the first person I've reason to regard as honest who has supported any of their criticisms.

The most persistent complaint is that the paper "diagnoses" conspiracists with "psychopathological characteristics", i.e. a mental health condition. That's definitely false, as I can find no such language in the paper or the supplemental information; merely labelling people who publicly assert that the scientific consensus on AGW involves a conspiracy as "conspiracist", and their expressed ideas as "conspiracist ideation" with similarities to those of other conspiracists, does not constitute a diagnosis.

BTW: the "supplemental information" appears to be here. I confess I've only gone over it perfunctorily so far, but that link refutes accusations that Lewandowsky et al. are refusing to make it available.

More problematic criticisms are based on the status of the blog commenters who are quoted in RF as "subjects". Australian rules may be different, but from my reading of U.S. Federal guidelines they initially didn't appear to meet the criteria. However, if the "interaction" criterion is met, they may or may not be subjects; that would depend, for example, on whether "subject" includes someone who makes a comment on a publicly-accessible blog. I get the idea you've had some legal training, Narad? Is it your opinion that the people quoted in RF definitely meet the criteria for subjects?

I’m under no obligation to turn a blind eye to the ethical issue just because I consider AGW denialists to be intellectually bankrupt and Frontiers to have handled the retraction(s) atrociously.

I absolutely agree. Nevertheless, the mendacious ethical charges of RF that some professional deniers are still making, after those charges have been definitively shown to be false, demonstrates the ethical bankruptcy that also underpins the AGW-denial movement.

Mephistopheles O'Brien:

funded by big industry money. It’s been very thoroughly documented.

Got a source? Besides a book, I mean. Thanks.

Merchants of Doubt includes 65 pages of Notes, mostly cites to primary documents; the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library created by the tobacco litigation of the 1990s is a particularly rich trove. What other sources would you consider more reliable?

How about the peer-reviewed article by Robert Brulle that I mentioned earlier, Institutionalizing delay: foundation funding and the creation of U.S. climate change counter-movement organizations?

The Investigative Reporting Workshop of the American University School of Communication links to a searchable database of 430 sources for their report The Koch Club:

From 2007 through 2011, five Koch family foundations gave $41.2 million to 89 nonprofit organizations with public policy-related missions broadly synchronous to the financial interests of the behemoth corporation — deregulation, limited government and free markets.

Jane Kramer's 2010 New Yorker piece on the Koch Brothers' political influence doesn't include formal references, but the magazine's fact-checking is highly regarded among journalists; I'll let you verify that for yourself.

Given those starting points, I'm confident y'all can satisfy yourselves as to their veracity.

Mal - thanks for the links. You stated "the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library created by the tobacco litigation of the 1990s is a particularly rich trove." Was that just an example to show the overall reliability of the links, or does the tobacco industry fund anti-AGW astroturfing?

My issue here is that there are very vague allegations about people being funded to deny AGW science, and that therefore these people are not reliable (and may be evil). That's a fine accusation when true on both counts - that they were funded by some industry with a vested interest in, say, fossil fuels and that they can't be trusted on this topic because of that. On the other hand, one could reasonably argue that some research, articles, and blogs that present evidence for AGW have a financial or philosophical interest in actions that reduce the use fossil fuels.

Argue the facts, not the funding.

On the other hand, one could reasonably argue that some research, articles, and blogs that present evidence for AGW have a financial or philosophical interest in actions that reduce the use fossil fuels.

I'm sure one could reasonably argue this, but it doesn't change the fact that the professional earth-science literature offers essentially no support to the denialist position, any more than the medical literature supports the wacko theories of the anti-vaxers.

Mephistopheles O'Brien:

one could reasonably argue that some research, articles, and blogs that present evidence for AGW have a financial or philosophical interest in actions that reduce the use fossil fuels.

That has in fact been argued. When argued about peer-reviewed science that supports the consensus for AGW, it's not reasonable, and is convincing only to those who have no understanding of the culture and practice of professional climate science. When argued about other pro-consensus sources, it's only reasonable if there is credible evidence to support it. In the absence of credible evidence, it's nothing more than tu quoque calumny.

Argue the facts, not the funding.

The scientific facts supporting AGW have been decisively argued by working scientists, who have reached an overwhelming consensus on the basis of multiple converging lines of evidence. I'm not going to laboriously recapitulate the argument here; if you are really interested, you might start with Climate Change: Evidence and Causes, a freely-downloadable 36-page booklet published jointly by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of the U.K.

It is only those with non-scientific motives who still reject the consensus. A financial motive has been documented for some of the most determined, high-profile deniers, who may have certain scientific credentials but no scientific arguments that haven't already been rejected by climate science community. In some cases it's documented that fossil-fuel industry interests are paying them. You can satisfy yourself of that if you take the trouble.

Meanwhile, in spite of the overwhelming scientific consensus, all but one of the contenders for the 2012 Republican Presidential primary elections, and 163 members of the 113th U.S. Congress, have made public statements questioning or rejecting either that climate change is happening or that it is caused by human consumption of fossil fuels, and the Keeling curve ascends. Why?

Correct. AGW denialism uses arguments that, at their core, are very similar to the arguments antivaccine activists and Burzynski supporters use.

Thank you, Orac. I've been a lurker and infrequent commenter at RI for years, and I regard many of its regulars as genuine skeptics, with well-developed critical thinking skills. Of course some of you are wary of claims that AGW denial is financially supported by fossil-fuel interests, because they superficially resemble less well-founded conspiracist ideation. All I can say is, these happen to be true. I can link to the evidence, but I can't make anyone care enough to pursue it. That's up to each individual skeptic, as it should be. Thank you all for at least entertaining my arguments.

Argue the facts, not the funding.

When they stop selling carbon credits and the people with the most money stop leaving the biggest carbon footprint whilst beating me over the head with it, perhaps I'll pay more attention. I have no opinion on AGW at this point, but when travesties that will only crush the poor are promoted and things like in article I link to below come out, I think I would rather have the earth win at this point.

Top climate expert's sensational claim of government meddling in crucial UN report .

AnnB:

would it embarrass you to know that your link doesn't work? Would it embarrass you if I asked you why you think whoever your link is supposed to be about is a "Top climate expert"?

Would it embarrass you If I point out that just because Al Gore has a larger carbon footprint than you doesn't mean that climate scientists are lying?

Would it embarrass you if I point out that accepting the scientific evidence for AGW doesn't require anyone to promote travesties that will only crush the poor? Would it embarrass you if I said you've fallen for the argument from consequences?

It should.

Well, I ended up with extra italic tags that I didn't intend to be there either, so I guess I could be embarrassed about that too.

You could have Googled the headline, so, no, I am not embarrassed about that. I will try again:

Top climate expert's sensational claim of government meddling in crucial UN report.

My discussion has nothing to do with the science at this point; it has to do with how it is used. Useful idiots can be found everywhere.

My discussion has nothing to do with the science at this point; it has to do with how it is used. Useful idiots can be found everywhere.

Calling people "useful idiots" suggests that the cause for which they're advocating.is a cover for something else.

AFAIK, that's only true for one side of the AGW debate.

The most persistent complaint is that the paper “diagnoses” conspiracists with “psychopathological characteristics”, i.e. a mental health condition. That’s definitely false, as I can find no such language in the paper or the supplemental information

It's not just false, it's meaningless.

BTW: the “supplemental information” appears to be here. I confess I’ve only gone over it perfunctorily so far, but that link refutes accusations that Lewandowsky et al. are refusing to make it available.

Not exactly; it's just weird that Frontiers pulled the article but left a live link to this stuff.

More problematic criticisms are based on the status of the blog commenters who are quoted in RF as “subjects”. Australian rules may be different,

They're further linked in one of the comments I provided above. It required review.

but from my reading of U.S. Federal guidelines

That's the institutional policy of American University. Subpart A here is the Common Rule.

they initially didn’t appear to meet the criteria. However, if the “interaction” criterion is met, they may or may not be subjects; that would depend, for example, on whether “subject” includes someone who makes a comment on a publicly-accessible blog.

No. If there's interaction, it's all over, as the AU determination tool would have demonstrated for you. Review is required.

I get the idea you’ve had some legal training, Narad?

Nope.

Is it your opinion that the people quoted in RF definitely meet the criteria for subjects?

See § 46.102.

As I suspected, there's also an Excel version of the supplementary info.

Anyway, I've been meaning to make fun of another Frontiers-related item for a while now, and this seems like as good a place as any:

Our first stunning breakthrough research paper of 2014 was made available to the public on 2nd January 2014.
Published in the prestigious scientific journal Frontiers in Neuroscience, we have found the point in the brain which defines whether a child has autism or not. In non autistic children that point is 1ml thick. In autistic children it measures 3.4ml.

A quick comparison with the actual paper just makes this summary all the more bizarre.

You could have Googled the headline, so, no, I am not embarrassed about that.

I suspect that anyone who *did* google the headline, and found that the link was to the DailyFail -- four times winner of the hotly-contested title of "England's most dishonest tabloid" -- would have thought "No, that can't be right, AnnB must have meant some more creditable source.

Anyway, I’ve been meaning to make fun of another Frontiers-related item for a while now, and this seems like as good a place as any:

Those authors also have one of their collaborators / business partners contributing a TOTALLY INDEPENDENT COMMENTARY to Frontiers, marvelling at the novelty and usefulness of their research.

@Helanthius #146: There is a difference between intravenous/intra-arterial injections and intramuscular/subcutaneous. Things designed to be given IV/IA will be very quickly distributed throughout the body (example: a medicine called adenosine must be given as a rapid IV push to stop a certain rapid heart rate arrythmia. If you give it IM/SQ, it is broken down in the tissues long before it can reach the heart. Vaccines, on the other hand, are designed to stay local in tissues where immune cells will be drawn to the injection site (which is enhanced through the use of vaccine adjuvants). In order for things given IM/SQ to find their way back into the bloodstream, they would have to do so via the lymphatic system, which is a good thing, because the lymphatics contain lymph nodes which are part of the immune system. It is a big difference and the misrepresentation of how/where vaccines are given contributes to vaccine fear. FYI, it's also a favorite misrepresentation of dr bob sears, who love to cite data for aluminum toxicity in neonate from back when aluminum wasn't carefully checked in their TPN solutions (basically all the nutrients they needs given intravenously to very premature babies who can't yet eat food orally) , Sears completely ignores that the aluminum in vaccines is not given IV and thus will not reach the same high all-at-once levels in the bloodstream as aluminum given IV.

@ Chris Hickie

Oh, I was aware of this. I was parroting a particularly annoying visitor from a few years ago on RI.
Oddly enough, now that I know to associate this person with Dr Bob Sears in term of opinions, the last vestiges of respect I could have had for the good doctor just vanished.

Adenosine, as the nucleoside? This, I didn't know.

Yeah, this person said that there was no difference between IV and IM because both of them reach the bloodstream at some point. This led many of us to say we apparently eat intraveneously, since food nutrients get into the blood stream too.

AnnB:

Top climate expert’s sensational claim of government meddling in crucial UN report.

I took a look at the linked article. It's by David Rose, who's been misleading his readers about AGW for years. The article says:

IPCC reports are supposed to be scrupulously independent as they give scientific advice to governments around the world to help them shape energy policies – which in turn affect subsidies and domestic power bills.

Prof Stavins said the government officials in Berlin fought to make big changes to the full report’s ‘summary for policymakers’.

Rose's assertion that IPCC reports are supposed to be scrupulously independent is false. Quoting from the IPCC website [my bold]:

The IPCC is an intergovernmental body. It is open to all member countries of the United Nations (UN) and WMO. Currently 195 countries are members of the IPCC. Governments participate in the review process and the plenary Sessions, where main decisions about the IPCC work programme are taken and reports are accepted, adopted and approved. The IPCC Bureau Members, including the Chair, are also elected during the plenary Sessions.

In other words, the involvement of member nations' governments in the IPCC's reports is required by its charter. There's nothing sensational about it.

Savin is a coordinating lead author of Part 3 of AR5 (the IPCC's 5th Assessment Report since its formation in 1988). His complaint that "the intervention amounted to a serious ‘conflict of interest’ between scientists and governments" would be more sensational if he was talking about AR5 Part 1, which deals with the physical science basis of AGW. Some climate scientists feel that the requirement for the Assessment Reports to be approved by all member governments ensures that Part 1 downplays the severity of the threat; for the most part however, scientists agree that AR5 Part 1 is sufficiently strong.

Part 3 of AR5, OTOH, is a discussion of strategies to mitigate climate change: that is, it's the part that's concerned with policy. It's widely acknowledged that there's much less agreement about mitigation policy than about whether AGW is happening and why; as was pointed out to AnnB earlier, "accepting the scientific evidence for AGW doesn’t require anyone to promote travesties that will only crush the poor". It's hardly surprising that governments pursue the interests of their own nations when wrangling about policy with other nations. I sympathize with Professor Savin, but he's not the first AR author to complain about the process, and he won't be the last.

Anyone still unclear about the funding of climate denialism, here's a good place to start:

http://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-institute

Megan Heimer took down her website so that she could scrub it of references to herself as a doctor and lawyer. She is neither a doctor nor lawyer, and many people began pointing that out when her post went viral. She of course deleted posts that pointed this out.

However, she is still referenced as a doctor and lawyer on other sites. This is NOT the case.