scientology

Ben Swann returns, and this time he's got the CDC whistleblower documents

oracknows — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 05:00:35 +0000

Ben Swann returns, and this time he's got the CDC whistleblower documents

When it comes to blogging, sometime's it's feast or famine. Some days there are more topics and stories that I'd like to blog about than I could ever get to, given that I generally only do one post per weekday, while other days I seriously think about skipping a day because there's just nothing out there that interests me. This is one of the former kinds of days.

Seriously, there was an embarrassment of riches last night, so much so that I had a hard time making up my mind what story to write about. The one that I ultimately chose only just edged out the second place choice, and then only at the last minute and then only because it is a followup to a post I did about about a month ago. I might well get to the runner up tomorrow, but for now it's time to revisit a story I've done a lot of blogging about because it's come up again.

How many of you remember Ben Swann? Well, he's back.

Regular readers might remember that Swann is the clueless, conspiracy-minded "investigative reporter" who anchors the evening news for WGCL-CBS46 in Atlanta. The location is important, because it' means he's the local news anchor for a major CBS affiliate who did a highly credulous story about the the "#CDCtruth" rally in October. As you recall, that rally involved the Nation of Islam, Barbara Loe Fisher of the antivaccine group the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) that she founded, and a whole gaggle of other antivaccine activists, the most prominent of whom was our old pal Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who's risen, Phoenix-like, since his disappearance from the antivaccine movement several years ago, to write a fear-mongering book about mercury in vaccines and, of course, to headline the #CDCTruth rally in Atlanta in October. Basically, this tag team of pseudoscience was the culmination of a partnership between antivaccine activists with Minister Tony Muhammad of the Nation of Islam (NOI) that began when antivaccinationists used the "CDC whistleblower" manufactroversy to persuade high ranking members of the NOI that vaccines can cause cause autism in African-American boys. Using that misinformation, they were able to persuade the NOI to join in the fight against SB 277, the new law in California that will eliminate nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates beginning in 2016.

The whole "CDC whistleblower" saga is a long and complicated story that began in August 2014 and has progressed and metastasized since then to become a major focus of many antivaccine activists and groups. The long version of the tale can be found here and here. As is my wont, before I tell you what Swann's up to now, I'll provide a CliffsNotes version for the casual reader and newbie because it's necessary to know a bit about who the "CDC whistleblower" is, what he claims, and what all this has to do with Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL), which is where Swann comes in. Regular readers who are familiar with the story might want to skip ahead. If you don't know the story, please read the next couple of paragraphs.

The "CDC whistleblower," as you might recall, is a psychologist who works for the CDC and was involved in planning and carrying out some pivotal studies that failed to find a correlation between vaccination and autism, including a 2004 study whose lead author was Frank DeStefano (henceforth referred to as DeStefano et al). Beginning in November 2013, for reasons known only to himself, Thompson somehow became chummy with Brian Hooker, someone whom I like to refer to as a biochemical engineer turned incompetent antivaccine epidemiologist because that's exactly what he is. Not realizing that his conversations were being recorded, Thompson spoke to Hooker in several telephone calls in which, apparently racked with guilt over his role in DeStefano et al examining MMR vaccine uptake as a risk factor for autism, he unburdened himself, kvetched about his CDC colleagues, and basically accused the CDC of covering up a finding that MMR vaccination correlated with autism in African American boys. Even if one were to take that finding at face value, it actually was a study that showed that Andrew Wakefield was basically wrong in that no such correlation was found in Caucasians, male or female, African American girls, or any other racial group. That right away should have suggested to Thompson that it's a spurious finding due to small numbers in the subgroup. It was, of course, a finding that disappeared when proper statistical correction was made for confounders.

As a result of these conversations and the data supplied to him by Thompson, Brian Hooker did an epically incompetent "reanalysis" of DeStefano et al. What this reanalysis claimed to find was that DeStefano et al had done some statistical prestidigitation to eliminate a statistically significant difference in African American males correlating with age of MMR vaccination. Of course, as I discussed at the time (as did many others), Hooker, in his love of "simplicity," had neglected to control for important confounders and imputed way too much significance to a spurious correlation that disappeared when proper correction for confounders was made. As I've put it many times, simplicity in statistical analyses of epidemiological data is not a virtue. In any case, so incredibly incompetent was Hooker's analysis that the journal actually retracted the paper. Because Thompson's allegations appeared to confirm the central conspiracy theory of the antivaccine movement (that the CDC knew vaccines cause autism but were hiding it from the public), the antivaccine movement has been beating this dead horse of a scandal for over 15 months now.

Nere's where Rep. Bill Posey comes in. Back in July, the week before the House of Representatives went on recess, Rep. Posey gave a five minute speech on the House floor in which he claimed that Thompson had told him that his co-investigators on DeStefano et al had destroyed primary evidence for the study, claiming that the "four co-authors all met and brought a big garbage can into the meeting room and reviewed and went through all the hard copy documents that we had thought we should discard and put them in a huge garbage can." Thompson, as you might recall, stated that he had saved a copy of these documents, and Rep. Posey told the House that he had them and demanded an investigation. Stories have appeared in the antivaccine crankosphere that Rep. Posey had 100,000 pages of documents.

Nothing much has happened since then, other than the tiny and ineffectual "#CDCtruth" rally in October. Certainly, Congress has not investigated the CDC whistleblower charges. So guess what happened? The antivaccine crank blog Age of Autism is more than happy to tell the tale:

Ben Swann began reporting on the problems in the vaccine program two years ago, and today on Age of Autism he discloses that Congressman Bill Posey has released to him the CDC documents turned over to Congress by Dr. William Thompson concerning the cover up of the links between the MMR and autism. Swann discusses Vaccine safety, vaccine choice, potential corruption at CDC and his plans for the #CDCwhistleblower documents in a video interview with Age of Autism Media Editor, Anne Dachel.

Oh, goody. Judging from his previous brain dead coverage of the #CDCtruth rally, we're in for some entertaining times here on the skeptic side. For one thing, this move on Posey's part, if he really has given Swann all of the CDC whistleblower documents, strikes me as sheer desperation. He obviously wasn't getting any traction in his attempts to get a Congressional committee to investigate Thompson's allegations; so he decided to dump the documents into the hands of a sympathetic journalist, who then gave an interview to the Internet's premier antivaccine website and blog:

Here we learn where Swann got interested in the topic of vaccines:

It was in 2014*, I was in Minneapolis for an event that I was asked to speak at. It was an event about liberty, and while I was there, I had a chance to meet really two people whose names I did not know: Jennifer Larson and Mark Blaxill. These were two people who came to this event that was in part sponsored by the Canary Party. And I didn't know what the Canary Party was either by the way, and while we were there, I had a chance to talk with them for a few minutes. They started explaining to me some of the issues with vaccines and concerns about vaccines. (*Correction: 2013)

And:

And then they were beginning to explain about the vaccine schedule, how much it's increased over the past thirty years vs the number of cases that actually make it into vaccine court. It was really interesting. And so we decided to create a Truth in Media episode with Jennifer and Mark, and to interview Mark about this because the issue of vaccine court was so interesting to me.

Here is the video:

Contained in that video is ten minutes worth of seriously burning stupid. It hits many of the common antivaccine tropes, including the claim that the government has "quietly awarded" families of autistic children damages for vaccine injury. Never mind that the compensation was not for autism and the study used to claim to show this was unethical and poorly designed. Meanwhile, as I listened to Swann's description of the Vaccine Court and its creation in 1986, I couldn't help but hear Rob Schneider's voice, because Swann was clearly cribbing the same talking points that Schneider does, full of the same misinformation and deceptive talking points. Of course, that's not surprising, given that Swann relies on Mark Blaxill of the antivaccine Canary Party for his information. Swann also engages in—shall we say?—a bit of revisionist history about the Autism Omnibus hearing.

No wonder Swann thinks like this. Get a load of an analogy he makes in his interview:

Because there is this assumption that if you cover a certain subject you're obviously taking a position on it, you're taking a side on it. And as a journalist, that should never be true. No matter what issue you cover as a journalist, it should not be based on your own preference or your own opinion.

"As a lot of journalists would look at this story, ...they're told, 'Well listen, those people are crazy. There's all these anti-vaxxers out there. And if you do anything that indicates that you're among them, or you're one of them, it discredits you.'

"Now what's completely nonsensical about that is, if we cover terrorism, if we cover ISIS, that doesn't make us a part of ISIS. If we say, 'Hey, let's take a look at how ISIS formed in the first place,' that doesn't make you a terrorist or a suicide bomber. And yet if you say, 'Let's take a look at what these people are talking about when it comes to vaccination,' they'll say, 'Oh wait, that makes you anti-vax.' It's a very bizarre thing.

No, it's not bizarre at all. Swann's analogy is ridiculous and deceptive. A better analogy would be if a reporter were to report on ISIS and credulously repeat its propaganda as news and as true. Any reporter that did that would rapidly become viewed as either sympathetic to ISIS or a dupe of ISIS, in just the same way that reporters like Ben Swann and Sharyl Attkisson are quite correctly viewed as either sympathetic to antivaccinationists or their dupes. Given the enthusiasm with which Swann regurgitates antivaccine talking points, I don't think he's a dupe. I think he's become sympathetic to antivaccine views. Sure, it's possible that he's just so clueless about science that he thinks he's really discovered an important story, but his conspiracy mongering about big pharma tends to lead me back to thinking he's been converted.

He's also proud of his previous coverage, which he really should not be. He gushes about how many people called him and sent him supportive e-mails and bragged about how "this is by far the largest news organization that's ever covered this issue, and done it in a very public way." Of course, given that CBS 46 is only a CBS affiliate, it should tell Swann something that it's the biggest media outlet that's covered the story.

He then attacks a straw man:

"One of the claims was that this whole thing was made up.

"As a journalist, that bothers me. It bothers me because, candidly, I haven't seen the documents either. Maybe they're right, maybe they don't exist.

"So the next step for me was to contact Congressman Posey and say I would like to have the documents. Please release to me all those documents. And I'll let your listeners know that Congressman Posey has complied with that request for the documents.

"So I now have copies of all of the information that Dr. Thompson handed over to Congress. We're going through that information right now. We're studying it and we'll be releasing that information at some point, to the public.

"Again, because it's not my information--it doesn't belong to me. It is my job, I believe, as a journalist, to share that information. I want to do it in a responsible way. But it will be shared with the public because I believe they have a right to know.

"And again, the CDC should have done this themselves a long time ago. They should have come clean with it. They didn't. Dr. Thompson could have come clean on his own, but he didn't. He's gone through the channels, based on what his attorneys have told him.

"But as a journalist, I have the ability to share that information. That's one of the reasons that we've established Truth in Media Project and TruthInMedia.com so that truth can reach the public.

"So stayed tuned for that because very soon...you're going to have access to those documents yourselves."

Oh, goody.

Here's the problem. First, no one say said that the "whole thing was made up." Rather, what we have argued is that the case is almost certainly a major misunderstanding or misinterpretation of what actually happened. Certainly, its key premise, that DeStefano et al showed that African American boys who receive the MMR earlier are at a much higher risk of autism than those who don't and that the CDC covered it up, is not supported by evidence and rests on the misinterpretation of the DeStefano et al dataset. More importantly, interpreting documents like the ones allegedly provided by William Thompson is not a simple matter. You need to know the science; you need to know a bit about how the CDC works; you need to know a bit of statistics.

Maybe that's why it looks as though Swann won't be reporting on these documents for CBS 46 but rather for his own YouTube channel. Indeed, he even uses the opportunity of the interview to pimp his IndieGoGo campaign Global Activist, an Internet series. There's also another issue. Even if you take Thompson at his word and these are documents "destroyed" by the CDC, how can Swann even be sure that theyse are the real documents? How can we verify the chain of custody? Inquiring minds want to know!

Antivaccinationists have been flogging the CDC whistleblower manufactroversy for well over a year now. All they've managed to accomplish thus far are to ally themselves with the Nation of Islam, which has of late become so tightly associated with the Church of Scientology that it might as well be a wholly owned subsidiary, and to stage a small protest at the CDC and in Atlanta. Even if Swann does release all these documents, I highly doubt that he'll manage to to what antivaccinationists and Twitter were unable to do: Make it into a real story that hits the national news in a big way and triggers a major investigation of the CDC. After all, if a Congressman couldn't get that to happen after many months, either he wasn't trying very hard (which is quite possible) or there's just no there there.

I guess we'll see. My prediction? We'll see the same sort of thing we've seen with every prior announcement about the "CDC whistleblower": A lot of heat and buildup from the antivaccine movement and then nothing damning (or even that interesting) when the documents are finally released, even the cherry-picked examples like the ones that have been released before. Whatever happens, my guess is that Rep. Posey got tired of being the point man for the antivaccine lunatic fringe. Giving whatever documents he got from Thompson to Swann lets him wash his hands of the whole affair while appearing to be a hero to ~~his donors~~ the antivaccine movement.

The hot potato has been passed to Ben Swann. I predict that it will be amusing to see what he does with it.

oracknows Tue, 12/01/2015 - 00:00

Tags

Antivaccine nonsense

complementary and alternative medicine

medicine

#CDCtruth

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

scientology

vaccines

complementary and alternative medicine

medicine

So, the US Government can't keep some of its most secret and important security documents offline (i.e wikileaks), but somehow the anti-vaxers haven't released a single document from Thompson's "stash" in over a year?

Yeah, all of this sounds incredibly fishy, even at face value.....yet another example of anti-vax illogic.

Thompson is not a very adept whistle blower. Swann's dancing adds nothing.

The data has already been scrutinized and the results are in. Wakefield and Hooker have already had these documents for over a year. You will be seeing Wakefield front and center soon enough for a vindication jig. Maybe Jenny will join in. They are being too kind with revealing this information. I would unleash it in all its damning glory without discretion to public health implications. It is the truth after all. I can hear them now, We should have listened to Wakefield, we have to change the timing, single vaccines, if only we did this over a decade ago.

"Maybe that’s why it looks as though Swann won’t be reporting on these documents for CBS 46 but rather for his own YouTube channel."

I think we have just located the line which marks the boundary of 'sh!t too crazy for even CBS46* to put on the air.' Maybe the complaints to the management did a little good.

*Home of the 1% market share

Amusingly, CBS46 used to have the callsign WANX-TV. :-)

There's a load more info at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WGCL-TV

It's interesting that Posey claimed he couldn't release the documents when others inquired about them, but suddenly he's able to release them to a conspiracy-minded hack?

Selective document leak commencing in 3.....2.....1

Stupid stories you guys. Stupid stories.

Wasn't on time delivery of MMR found to be protective for Afro-American boys? I thought the increased odds ratio for autism appeared for boys who received the vaccine late, but not too late, just before an early intervention cutoff. Even Hooker, hard as he might try, could not cook up a correlation between early receipt of MMR and autism.

I hope Orac won't mind, but just a reminder that I have a FAQ-style guide for parents and the media on the whole CDC Whistleblower nonsense. Apparently, Swann hasn't read it.

We should start a pool for when Swann is going to release the documents. Smart money is on never.

@James Lind

Yes. Hooker's study showed that on-time MMR vaccination (i.e., at 12-15 months) had zero increased risk of being associated with an autism diagnosis. Even slightly late vaccination (18-24 months) had no association. It was only in the (very tiny) 24-36 month group that he found a statistical correlation, and that because, as Orac notes, he didn't account for confounding variables.

James Lind, don't you realize that is obviously because of bad study design on the part of the DeStefano et al, just like the fact they failed to show the undoubtedly existing link between the evil vaccine and every other group investigated. Hooker could only unearth so much truth from such flawed data.

Probably have to add the /sarcasm tag just in case some anti-vax troll wanders in.

Touché

Rep."I got the document, looks like it's all the original data"
Rep's chief of staff "Original medical documents? Let me check with legal"
CoS "This stuff is all covered by Hipaa, no way you can use it"
Rep "But it's juicy stuff, lets find a journalist to release it"
CoS "No way any station or editor lets that go out either"
Rep "Tell him it's getting suppressed by higher powers and to put it on you tube"

@Mu

Now that would be interesting. Wonder if the Office for Civil Rights would be interested in taking a look at the documents that have been released to ensure that no covered PHI has been disclosed.

Maybe that's what they're relying on, so that they can scream "cover-up! We're being repressed! We can't show you any of this! But take our word for it, it's dynamite!", when they realise there's nothing in there.

@ Rebecca Fisher

Maybe that’s what they’re relying on, so that they can scream “cover-up! [...]

The scammers in the lot, yes. But don"t overlook that a number of the involved people may actually genuinely believe it.

The concept of secrecy around medical information is very poorly understood by most people, especially those who like to complain and/or have a narcissist tendency.
They don't see why they should keep quiet about their medical issues, so why would other people object? After all, they are just revealing that these poor people have been harmed by some nefarious entity. They should be glad to have a champion. It's a self-sustaining circle: because they are right, they can not do any wrong.
It's the old "if you are innocent, you have nothing to fear".

@ Rebecca Fisher:

Wouldn't you know it but today Ann Dachel, reviewing which television comedians she likes and dislikes based upon inferred vaccine beliefs, mentions Kennedy's tale of how his 'Deadly Immunity' spot was at first welcomed by show producers but was then later cancelled because "higher ups" disapproved. Of course, his fans complained so it was aired but highly cut.
It's always the "higher ups", isn't it?

OT but hey, it's JP:

@ JP:

Come out, come out** wherever you are and talk to us beyond monosyllable, terse inter-spurts.

** I know you're already *OUT* but you know what I mean

I submitted Swann's original reporting on CBS 46 to a writer for an online news site who has done several critical articles on the anti-vaxxer movement. He ended up not writing an article, but he did give me a little insight into how an Alex Jones fanboy like Swann could have been hired by a major-market network affiliate:

Hahaha. WGCL. The station's new director is Larry Perret, one of the worst people in the business. I had the displeasure of working for him back in the 90s in LA.

@Denice Walter #18: How about Dachel treating Jon Stewart's comments in the Kennedy as if they weren't ten years old and might not have any bearing on his current opinions on the issue?

*Kennedy interview

@ Sebastian L. Jackson:

I know. A commenter even calls her on it.

Is anyone aware of some legal reason why Posey/Hooker couldn't release the documents but this reporter can? I mean they have to have been giving the anti-vaccine loons some kind of explanation as to why they've been holding on to these alleged "thousands of pages" of documents without releasing them right?

Isn't this just free press for the recent Whistleblower book?

JP,

I second Denice's comment to you.

Wishing you all the best.

NaT

I was in Minneapolis for an event that I was asked to speak at. It was an event about liberty

This made my antenna twitch. It's one thing for a journalist like Swann to be attending an event like this in his journalist capacity. It's quite another to be an invited speaker at such an event, especially since "liberty" has been turned into one of those words that means whatever the speaker wants it to mean, never mind the dictionary definition. If Swann had a competent boss (which as suggested upthread may not be the case), the only satisfactory reason for the latter not to bring Swann in for a long chat about this would be if Swann were being fired.

Oh, and I can make certain inferences about Swann's political leanings. He's not the only journalist to have such leanings so thinly disguised, but it's unseemly for a journalist to be a political crypto-anything. Don't play games, Mr. Swann; if you are going to drop hints about your political preferences, just come out and say it so that your viewers can take it into account.

Hear ye! Hear ye!

Damning evidence so damning that it had to be secretly recorded over phone conversations and then given to a Congressman as "destroyed data" that apparently now goes to a 3rd rate reporter who's gonna spill beans on youtube.

Geez, you'd think that BigPharma and the reptilian overlords would have bought off Posey for the mere pittance he sold his soul to Larson and Blaxhill.

Is anyone aware of some legal reason why Posey/Hooker couldn’t release the documents but this reporter can?

Two possibilities, which are not mutually exclusive: (1) Posey and Hooker have better lawyers than Swann, or (2) Posey and Hooker are listening to their lawyers, and Swann isn't.

Perhaps Posey and/or Hooker want these documents to become public, but know that they can't have their fingerprints on the doc dump, so they arranged for a patsy like Swann to do the job.

@ JP

I awkwardly second (third?) Not a Troll seconding Denice. Including the good wishes.

@Annie #24: I don't think the reason Posey said for not releasing the documents is legal - and it's unclear Hooker ever had them. Posey suggested in comments on his Facebook page that he promised not to release them - not a legal barrier - and apparently now he changed his mind and chose to release them to Ben Swann.

"Posey gave" - not "Posey said."

@Dorit

Interesting. Why on earth would he promise not to release them? And who did he make that promise to exactly? And why would that person not want them released if the information is so damning?*

*Not questions necessarily directed at you, Dorit (unless you know the answers, of course!) I'm just thinking out loud here at how nonsensical this whole thing is.

Hi Chaps and Chapesses,
I haven't been here for a while (my smart phone hates this site for some reason and keeps kicking me off).
Have any of you encountered this clown before? I have no idea how I began to receive his emails and to be honest, am quite surprised I'm still on his mailing list;
http://alanfreestone.com/dogma-not-science-how-doctors-have-turned-thei…

Stories have appeared in the antivaccine crankosphere that Rep. Posey had 100,000 pages of documents.

All traceable back to Swann as the only source of the claim.

Have any of you encountered this clown before?

He sounds nice like another Homeopathy scammer in search of a client base.

@Annie #33: Here is what Congressman Posey said at: https://www.facebook.com/101464786703/photos/a.10150925623976704.407033…

"I was given the documents with the understanding I could reveal them only before other members of congress and the Oversight Committee. The Committee Chairman has promised me he will hold a hearing after his staff completes its work on the Obamacare exchanges."

I can only guess at the more full answers to your questions.

@ Peebs
His knowledge of science seems to be homeopathic as well.

“I was given the documents with the understanding I could reveal them only before other members of congress and the Oversight Committee. The Committee Chairman has promised me he will hold a hearing after his staff completes its work on the Obamacare exchanges.”

Pure speculation of course but the lack of Congressional interest could be the reason for shuffling this nonsense off to a patsy like Ben Swann and his YouTube following. It really reeks of desperation to me.

@Science Mom

From what Posey wrote, lack of interest from Congress doesn't appear to be a reason to divulge the documents to anyone not a member of Congress (e.g., a yellow journalist). Or maybe there were other members of Congress in the room when he handed them over to Swann? Perhaps that's what he meant.

Really stupid fucking stories.

@Todd

"Yes. Hooker’s study showed that on-time MMR vaccination (i.e., at 12-15 months) had zero increased risk of being associated with an autism diagnosis. Even slightly late vaccination (18-24 months) had no association. It was only in the (very tiny) 24-36 month group that he found a statistical correlation, and that because, as Orac notes, he didn’t account for confounding variables."

Mind linking the numbers and source for that? Is that what Thompson said in his conversations with Hooker? Thanks! :)

@Annie

It's in Hooker's retracted paper (see table 2). And I remembered incorrectly. The males vaccinated at 18-24 months had a minor association, but the range was very close to 1. And that association disappears once he excluded low birth weight (table 4).

So, Posey released the documents to .... the Canary Party through its shill Ben Swann?
How surprising.

BTW - Ben Swann has appeared numerous times on Alex Jones' conspiracy empire. That answers the question of whether he's a conspiracy loon or just dumb. (Both)
Nice catch CBS46, you've hired AJ Jr.

@ Peebs:

You know, I do recall his name but can't for the life of me remember where I read his crap. Possibly one of TMR's web seminars? Maybe.

I discovered that he is a CEASE therapist. CEASE is a form of homeopathy created/ dreamt up by a Dutch fellow and adopted by some of the faithful @ TMR as a treatment for autism.
I'm too lazy to scroll through dozens of TMR seminars but that seems like the likeliest place.

#34 Peebs -

He showed up as a quoted cite in the comments of a GreenMedcisInfo article where the anti-semitism from Jim Stone was on garish display for all to see:
greenmedinfo(dot)com/blog/why-china-having-measles-outbreaks-when-99-are-vaccinated-2#comment-1613582754
This post was followed by a post by "GreenMedInfo" (the admin) stating merely - "Approved" showing that GMdI is also an anti-semitic site as well as anti-vaccine. Oh, S. Ji is also a chemtrailer as well. k00k magnetism in action.

That entire post is a quote from from what was a current article at jimstonefreelance(dot)com/

So Jim Stone is an anti-vaccine crank and an anti-semite.
What else is new?

I remember CEASE therapy -- homeopathy plus vitamin-C megadoses. Don't cross the streams!
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/04/17/cease-and-desist-subjectin…

#34 Peebs
Sorry. I misidentified the k00k.
You inquired after alanfreestone(dot)com not jimstone(dot)com.
What can I say?
I was in the middle of making dinner and misread.
Sorry.

Anti-vax seems to be Swann's cygneture topic.

As much as anti-vaxxers (and promoters of pseudoscience in general) rely on and are enamored by conspiracy theories, they only seem to consider them shallowly. The majority of conspiracy claimants seem to latch onto the parts that support their claims on the surface, but fail provide such support with further reasoning. They apparently cherry pick the ramifications of their conspiracy theory, while ignoring parts of their conspiracy theory that contradict their claims. For example, many anti-vaxxers scream about a huge government and Big Phrama conspiracy, and use package inserts as purely factual references to support their claims.

I know this is OT, but I have to say thank you ORAC and all and sundry. I am not a scientist, I am not a physician, I make things.
I take materials and construct stuff. What I do is essentially an emperical process, I know that if I do this that will happen. I also know that often stuff goes wrong. Mostly that is dirty inputs. So I clean. If it still happens I have to go to, guess what, science, theory. Physics mostly, where I am a complete naive. But I muddle through.
The point of this burble is that I battle pseudoscience on the small zone I inhabit on the interwebs. Learning from you lot. I have been unfriended, abused, and ignored. But a few have been drawn into ongoing discussions and I think, learning to think. The things that most effect people are not logical fallacies but finding out that the sources they trust tell lies. Explaining look and link is so hard.

Graham @ #50 - Groan!

@52

The issues are largely caused by cognitive biases and just plain ignorance. Simple ignorance could be solved with education, but there is so much misinformation running around out there, making it a challenge to correct. And that's just assuming they are innocently ignorant. When people fall prey to cognitive biases, as we wall do to some degree, they can be essentially impossible to argue with. Many in the pseudoscience community encourage and rely on such biases, making it even more difficult.

As Science-Based Medicine's logo suggest, it is a Sisyphean fight despite its critical importance. Due to the immense difficulty involved in the task, every person who begins to think critically and challenge their ideas with skepticism is a victory.

I applaud you, and other skeptics, for each success.

@ James

Others have pointed out that yes, you're right. But also, this is typical woo logic. All apparent benefits of mainstream treatments are falsified, but all reported side effects are real.

Thompson has also whined about another study he was coauthor on that he claims shows vaccines cause ticks. The same dataset shows a (similarly insignificant) increase in intelligence...but nope, can't have that. Only the bad stuff is real.

Much the same as anything good that happens to you after an alt-med treatment was definitely caused by the treatment, but all side effects are not side effects, they would have happened anyway, or are somehow your fault for doing it wrong.

So Jim Stone is an anti-vaccine crank and an anti-semite.
What else is new?

It's certainly been a while since the drama of his commentariat's rescue of "Dr." Megan Heimer.

Do you ever notice that Orac can never simply provide the facts and let the reader draw their own conclusions? Why is that Orac? Do you have that little faith in your readership? (You should.) Every sentence is filled with ad hominem attacks and vitriol, and you always seem to leave out details which are not consistent with the conclusion you wish your readers to draw.

Its fascinating to watch how Orac and everyone else here is so willing to put the cart before the horse. Apparently the credibility of Dr. William Thompson, a senior epidemiologist and research scientist at the CDC, is dubious enough that these kinds of serious claims do not warrant any sort of investigation. We wouldn't want to learn that everything we've been spouting about for years might not be true, now would we?

Think about this seriously for a moment. Dr. Thompson is a senior CDC research scientist and one of the authors of the 2004 DeStefano paper, and he now claims that significant findings were withheld from that paper. If this were about any topic other than vaccines, this whistleblower would have already testified in front of Congress. Maybe he's right, maybe he's full of it...but at the very least the gravity of his claims warrant serious investigation, and Posey has now tried twice to convince his colleagues to hold hearings. Crickets.

All of you keep yammering on about how nothing has come of this, it's old news, this happened a year ago and there have been no new developments, and you use this as evidence that Dr. Thompson's claims must be false.

The continued silence from the media on this story and the inaction from Congress are just more examples of how difficult it is to get any vaccine safety issue adequately investigated, much less even taken seriously. Especially when there are so many pseudo-skeptics who can't seem to figure out exactly what they should be skeptical of.

Orac says:

"Certainly, its key premise, that DeStefano et al showed that African American boys who receive the MMR earlier are at a much higher risk of autism than those who don’t and that the CDC covered it up, is not supported by evidence and rests on the misinterpretation of the DeStefano et al dataset."

That is bull puckey. What evidence? The evidence here is the 2004 DeStefano study itself, and when a whistleblower claims that a study withheld significant findings, you can't use that same study as "evidence" that he is not correct. Right now the only real evidence is Dr. Thompson's statements, the videos that were made of him talking on the phone, and the documents that he gave to Congressman Posey (you know, the documents he claims the other researchers threw away).

You can make fun of Ben Swann all you like, but the simple fact is that no mainstream media outlet, or mainstream journalist for that matter, would be willing to take this on. It would mean the end of their career, and you all know it.

The fact that you do not see that as a problem tells us everything we need to know about your collective bias on this issue.

David Foster:

Do you ever notice that Orac can never simply provide the facts and let the reader draw their own conclusions?

Did you see those blue words in the text above? They're called "hyperlinks", and if you'd clicked on them, you'd have been taken to earlier blog posts on this "controversy" where there are ample data.

Apparently the credibility of Dr. William Thompson, a senior epidemiologist and research scientist at the CDC, is dubious enough that these kinds of serious claims do not warrant any sort of investigation.

There has been a lot said about what Dr. Thompson has supposedly said. Thompson himself appears to have gone to ground and is keeping very quiet.

All of you keep yammering on about how nothing has come of this, it’s old news, this happened a year ago and there have been no new developments, and you use this as evidence that Dr. Thompson’s claims must be false.

The continued silence from the media on this story and the inaction from Congress are just more examples of how difficult it is to get any vaccine safety issue adequately investigated, much less even taken seriously

Or maybe it's proof that everyone looked at it, realised that there was nothing to it, and moved on.

You can make fun of Ben Swann all you like, but the simple fact is that no mainstream media outlet, or mainstream journalist for that matter, would be willing to take this on. It would mean the end of their career, and you all know it.

See my response above.

The fact that you do not see that as a problem tells us everything we need to know about your collective bias on this issue.

Or maybe, just maybe, this entire palaver is "a tale of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Apparently the credibility of Dr. William Thompson, a senior epidemiologist and research scientist at the CDC

Funny how a professional's opinion is de facto credible when this opinion happens to reinforce your own.

I mean, Thompson's colleagues were also "senior epidemiologist and research scientist at the CDC", but their opinion that there is nothing amiss with the data is simply dismissed.

Why is it that so many whiners seem to have absolutely no clue about the nature of a blog?
Why didn't you explain everything that ever happened on the topic since the Big Bang? Why do you have an opinion? Why do you say things that I might find insulting or that hurt my feeling? Why don't you write about what I want you to? Why are you so mean!?!!

@David Foster

There hasn't been any convincing evidence of wrongdoing presented. Thompson says that findings were not included, so he pointed Brian Hooker to that data. Hooker published a (now retracted) paper showing that data, and it turns out it was, as everyone suspected after reading the original study, spurious and due (again, as stated in the original paper) to confounders.

As for everything else, we have a whole lotta claims, but no solid evidence to back up any of those claims. And given that the sources are not known to be particularly reliable, you can forgive us for taking those claims with a barrel of salt.

By the bye, take a look at the link I provided up at comment #9, as well as all of those links Orac provided. It may help clear up your confusion.

Does Dr Thompson have a degree in epidemiology? I thought he was a just a psychologist.

Julian -- you forgot the rest of the quote. It's a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, and signifying nothing.

True that, shay.

David Foster@57:

Do you ever notice that antivax assclowns can never simply provide the facts and let the reader draw their own conclusions? Why is that antivax assclowns? Do you have that little faith in your readership? (You should.) Every sentence is filled with ad hominem attacks and vitriol, and you always seem to leave out details which are not consistent with the conclusion you wish your readers to draw.

FTFY. As others have pointed out, our gracious host is nothing if not thorough in backing up his well-earned insolence with reliable evidence and critical analysis.

It's very simple really: Evidence or GTFO. If it's good enough for our cold hard science, it should be good enough for your warm and comfy conspiracist circle-jerk.

Maybe if you all stopped babbling about the vast quantities of absolutely damning evidence of massive govenment conspiracy you possess and actually posted it, it might show us you aren't just blowing farts out your ass purely so you can huff 'em up again because you enjoy the smell of your own BS so much.

Otherwise, don't blame us for your credibility being in the sewer. You earned it.

"Do you ever notice that Orac can never simply provide the facts and let the reader draw their own conclusions? Why is that Orac?"

I never before realized that this blog is the equivalent of the news section of the N.Y. Times*, and that posting informed opinion is verboten.

Thanks for cluing me in.

*not that the Times is immune to editorializing in the course of reporting the news.

David Foster:

Do you ever notice that Orac can never simply provide the facts and let the reader draw their own conclusions? Why is that Orac? Do you have that little faith in your readership? (You should.) Every sentence is filled with ad hominem attacks and vitriol, and you always seem to leave out details which are not consistent with the conclusion you wish your readers to draw.

I'm always impressed when someone is able to write a paragraph criticizing someone else's writing that demonstrates the same traits that they are complaining about. It's a very self-referential kind of hypocrisy.

Not that I ever expect any consistency from politicians, but even I am surprised at how quickly Posey went from having promised not to release any documents, except to members of Congress, to giving the documents to a journalist.

Does this mean that other members of Congress are completely and utterly disinterested in the documents? I guess so. Or is Posey (or more likely the person who gave Posey the documents) hoping a bit of good old-fashioned bashing in the press will make Congress sit upand take notice? If so, the release of these documents on a conspiracy-mongering internet channel is not going to help.

This all reads 'DESPERATION' to me.

P.S. I think all the lurkers here should carefully read David Foster's comment and ask themselves the question: "If you have any good evidence, why would you write something like this?"

1. The original study protocol was altered and there is no legitimate reason why race was not used as a co-variate for the entire sample.

2. Decreasing the sample size from 230 to only 137 autistic African American boys eliminated the statistically significant association between the age of MMR vaccination and autism in the 2004 CDC study.

3. The CDC has provided no statement contradicting the central claim of Brian Hooker's re-analysis of the data, that if the entire sample of African American boys was analyzed, it would show a 236% increased risk of autism in those receiving the MMR vaccine before age 3 versus those receiving it after age 3.

www.toxicshots.com

@Truth

Couple problems with your points. First off, reliable race data was not available for the entire study population. This is noted in the study. Furthermore, confounding variables, such as maternal education, etc., are not available for the full cohort, but only for the subset that had valid GA birth certificates. Hooker did not account for any confounding variables.

Oh, and there was no analysis of pre-age 3 vs. post-age 3. The groups were:

1) Those immunized before 15 months of age
2) Those immunized before 24 months of age (but after 15 mo.)
3) Those immunized before 36 months of age (but after 24 mo.)

You should make note that for those immunized on-time (i.e., 12mo.-15mo. of age), there was zero association, whether you look at DeStefano's results or Hooker's incompetent and retracted results. So if you're going to put any stock in Hooker's study, then you should be arguing for on-time MMR immunization.

I'll give you the same advice I gave David Foster: read the links in Orac's post, as well as the link in comment #9.

So in reality, Truth, Brian Hooker proved it was better to get the MMR vaccine on time instead of waiting.

Though the more logical reason for those who were vaccinated between their second and third birthday was that it was discovered during that year that the child had symptoms of autism, and needed the MMR vaccine to attend special ed. preschool at the local public school. They were often vaccinated after thirty months.

So, really, try reading the words in the article above.

In related news, the AoA brain trust still can't figure out that Hooker got his data directly from the CDC. You know, like it says right in the abstract and in the methods section:

Cohort data were obtained directly as a “restricted access data set” from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) via a Data Use Agreement. Data were deidentified by the CDC in accordance with Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) prior to receipt by the study authors. Use of the CDC specifically for the study described herein was approved by the Simpson University Institutional Review Board, in accordance with U.S. Federal regulations.

@Narad

Ah, but you see, Hooker only wrote that as a placating gesture to seem like he got the data through legitimate channels. That way, us nasty vaccine bullies couldn't dis his reanalysis for questionable data.

In related news, the AoA brain trust still can’t figure out that Hooker got his data directly from the CDC. You know, like it says right in the abstract and in the methods section

It is amazing how quickly this meme has spread through the anti-vaxxers. This despite the paper saying the opposite.

Clearly it has been a lie to make garbage can gate look like a real thing as opposed to some conspiracy theorising by William Thompson. Which brings me to an unanswered question in my mind about Thompson. How could he not know that the electronic data was all fine when they threw away the analyses? He can't be that incompetent, can he?

@Chris Preston - Keep in mind that Thompson himself hasn't said anything since that one official (and obviously lawyer-vetted) statement back when the fit first hit the shan. All the quotes we've seen since then were selected, edited, and possibly even made up out of whole cloth by the antivaxxers themselves (although I have to admit that I don't really think they're fabricating statements completely de noevo - if they were presumably they'd come up with something better.)

Then too, it must be obvious to Thompson by this time that his bolt is well and truly shot at the CDC - he may have decided to give the antivaxxers what they want in hopes of being accepted by them. If so, I think he's in for a bitter disappointment; judging the the commentariat over at AoA the more sincere antivaxxers regard him as a Nazi war criminal and would cheerfully hang him from the nearest tree if they ever get their hands on him.

^Judging by the commentariat over at AoA

"He can’t be that incompetent, can he?"

Nope. He's not. He was playing Hooker to pursue his own agenda of payback to some CDC colleagues. It appears though, that he might have become obsessed enough that he kind of 'gamed himself'. That is, he could have convinced himself that the shredding was a sign of a cover-up even though he knew the electronic records would be kept. That's not entirely psycho. There's something about concrete real-paper trails: the documents have a provenance. Computer data is easier to totally scrub, and in some forms easier to forge. It seems the "garbage can" business was routine procedure at CDC, though. You'd have had to been in the room, I guess, to know whether the folks tossing out the docs were acting like they were just doing a boring routine clean-up, or whether they expressed any cover-up-ish angst and/or relief. Of course, Thompson could have imputed that out of paranoid hostility, when it wasn't actually there...

Fair suck of the sauce bottle. They have posted David Foster's post above over at AoA with a big gold star next to it.

Jenny Allan is amazed that it was allowed to stay. Note to Jenny, RI is not moderated as an echo chamber, unlike AoA. The reason is that on this side of the discussion there is no fear of dissenting views.

Apologies for my silence once again. I now have a lovely risposte, courtesy of Renate.

Ben Swann's internet video is now up:

http://truthinmedia.com/cdc-vaccines-autism-coverup/

It's awesome! Ben Swann went to the Wakefield school of bollocks. He has a lot to say but doesn't back it up with any of the "thousands of pages" of documents he has. He just regurgitates Wakefield and Hooker and uses Hooker as his "expert".

Please correct me if I am incorrect but-
somebody PAYS Ben Swann to think, speak and write?
In public?

According to wikip--
Ben was homeschooled and received a liberal arts degree at the age of 15 and a master's degree in history at age 16.

I would be loath to paint with a broad brush but....seriously... I want to so much. I won't though as I want to be fair.

Swann fails to disclose that he was fundraising among anti-vax and "health choice" activists to raise the cash for this regurgitation of an investigation. Hardly an independent journalist, he was paid to produce a PR product for his benefactors. While the failures of reporting and analysis in his story are legion, his own basic lack of transparency is sadly hypocritical. He also non-transparently fails to identify his "independent" team of scientists, researchers, and experts. Also no mention that his go-to guy Hooker has a huge COI with his son's NVIC claim, or that Hooker's failed attempt at a reanalysis was retracted by the journal that first published it.

Independent, crusading, truth-telling journalist...not so much.

Hilarity. I clicked on the DropBox link for the CDC whistleblower documents on Ben Swann's site and it gave me the message:

"Error (429)
This account's links are generating too much traffic and have been temporarily disabled!"

I suggest pointing out that if you can't get the documents from Ben Swann's site you can always get them over at Matt's. :-)

I can't believe that anybody of any personal integrity and basic intelligence wouldn't spot that Swann produces nobody from his panel of journalists, scientists, and former CDC staff who, he says, reviewed the documents, who is concerned.

WHAT HAPPENED BEN! At least when I made my film on the Wakefield fraud I filmed the experts reading the documents and broadcast what they said.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Ben Swann whackyweedia entry was not self-penned.
It was started, then curated, by a libertarian blogger --
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/BruceMajors
-- who admires Swann for using 'journalism' to propagandise for libertarian causes. In particular, Swann put a lot of effort into whitewashing Ron Paul's racism and homophobia,* so his noble attempts at misinformation are emphasised in the Whackyweedia entry (or various editions of it).

* Ron Paul never wrote those articles, only signed his name to them! Anyway, they're only a small proportion of the total output of articles he signed his name to! They were taken out of context! Mainstream-media persecution!

It seems like every time you turn around, there's a new vaccination book on the market (or at least one you weren't aware of).

I just spotted the eloquently named "Just A Little Prick" by Hilary and Peter Butler:

http://www.amazon.com/Just-Little-Prick-Hilary-Butler/dp/0473108445/ref…

I am extremely disappointed though - from the title, I was led to expect that it would be a tell-all biography of Andrew Wakefield. :(

Its funny to see all of the attacks on Ben Swann. I have watched a lot of his content, and it is all based on fact. Ben is simply pointing out that the CDC changed protocols, and destroyed documents to meet a goal.

If Ben is not telling the truth or withholding fact, please let me know. Personally, I haven't seen any criticism of Ben's journalism that holds water. Its the same, tired attacks against someone who is trying to open your eyes.

"Swann fails to disclose that he was fundraising among anti-vax and “health choice” activists to raise the cash for this regurgitation of an investigation. "

He thanks Mark Blaxill at the end. I asked Mr. Swann on his facebook page if he could elaborate if this is for financial support from Mr. Blaxill and, if so, how much that financial support was.

Am I the only one who noticed how the former CDC staffers seemed to be discussing another topic entirely? It's almost as if someone went looking for "former CDC employee" + "vaccination" in a library of file footage.

Mr. Swann watermarked the documents. Sadly this makes it more difficult to see if he has anything I did not get from Representative Posey's office.

Also, there are folders duplicated and placed in different locations, which also makes the file size larger.

So far, I haven't found anything in there that was not provided to me by Posey's office.

On first pass, these seem to be the same documents that were provided to me.

I haven't found the document "bill thompson put on admin leave 2004.pdf" yet. Could be Swann's poor organization. I wonder if the documents that put Thompson is a less favorable light are all present.

The AoA brain trust is providing much amusement by making a mental slurry out of things. The ever-reliable Linda1 (LZ):

What is really chilling is the psychological games. Suspension for subordination after breaking rank and reporting straight to Gerberding, followed immediately by a glowing review and bonus to keep him locked in. One could only imagine what else.

Um, the Gerberding letter was in 2004, and the only mention of a bonus that I'm aware of is in the 2014 statement. I don't recall a suspension at all.

Then again, the Swann blurb includes this gem:

For over two years, Truth In Media has explored the allegations of Dr. William Thompson, a CDC scientist who came forward in 2014....

Once again, the 2014 statement: "I was not, however, aware that he was recording any of our conversations, nor was I given any choice regarding whether my name would be made public or my voice would be put on the Internet."

^ Ah, must've been the paid administrative leave in 2004.

@93
I'm very curious to see what Mr. Swann says in reply to your query. Either Blaxill and crew gave him money, or Blaxill was one of the crack team of scientific experts who assisted the investigation. Or both.

@I like the TRUTH, Thanks

Ben is simply pointing out that the CDC changed protocols, and destroyed documents to meet a goal.

If Ben is not telling the truth or withholding fact, please let me know.

Well, there's one thing that he is not telling the truth about. If you actually look at the Thompson documents, you will find that the protocol was not changed as anti-vaccine folks claim. You will also find that documents were not destroyed to meet a goal.

"Suspension for subordination after breaking rank and reporting straight to Gerberding, followed immediately by a glowing review and bonus to keep him locked in. "

Funny how Swann didn't mention the other issues that were raised in putting Thompson on administrative leave.

I think the angry altercation in the CDC parking lot between Thompson and his superior may have had something to do with it.

And, lest we forget, Thompson says he went delusional around that time as well. And the administrative leave document discusses a recommendation for counseling.

But, hey, cherry pick Swann. Pick a story then grab what you need to tell it. The other way around--get the info then tell the story--that would be journalism.

@ herr doktor bimler

Ron Paul never wrote those articles [...] Mainstream-media persecution!

Happens all the time. We have a French humorist* like this.
*well, he stopped making me laugh when it became difficult to distinguish the humorist and the would-be politician.

I haven’t found the document “bill thompson put on admin leave 2004.pdf” yet. Could be Swann’s poor organization.

The fact that there are zipped files within zipped files is pretty aggravating on top of the insane duplications.

^ Anyway, that document is definitely not present in the two-folder downloads that he's replaced the original Dropbox link with, unless it's been renamed. Un*x 'find' is your friend.

^^ I mean, check out this mess:

/Users/narad/Swann-downloads> ls Folder 1Folder 2 /Users/narad/Swann-downloads> find . -name '*2004*' -print ./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/MMR Autism 2004.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/CDC OD Presentation IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 29.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/Cochi Briefing IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 30.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 20.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 21.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 23 temp.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 23.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 25.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 27.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 28.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 29.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 31.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 02 01.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 02 03.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Tables/MMR_Autism_tables_2004_0128 IOM.xls ./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/MMR Autism 2004.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/Powerpoint/CDC OD Presentation IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 29.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/Powerpoint/Cochi Briefing IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 30.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 20.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 21.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 23 temp.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 23.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 25.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 27.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 28.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 29.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 31.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 02 01.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 02 03.ppt ./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/Tables/MMR_Autism_tables_2004_0128 IOM.xls ./Folder 1/CDC Files 003/Tables/MMR_Autism_tables_2004_0128 IOM.xls ./Folder 2/CDC Files 004/MMR Autism 2004.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 004/Powerpoint/CDC OD Presentation IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 29.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 004/Powerpoint/Cochi Briefing IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 30.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 004/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 20.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 004/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 21.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 004/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 23 temp.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 004/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 23.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 004/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 25.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 004/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 27.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 004/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 28.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 004/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 29.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 004/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 31.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 004/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 02 01.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 004/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 02 03.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 004/Tables/MMR_Autism_tables_2004_0128 IOM.xls ./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/MMR Autism 2004.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/Powerpoint/CDC OD Presentation IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 29.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/Powerpoint/Cochi Briefing IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 30.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 20.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 21.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 23 temp.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 23.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 25.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 27.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 28.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 29.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 31.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 02 01.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 02 03.ppt ./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/Tables/MMR_Autism_tables_2004_0128 IOM.xls

It's just the same crap over and over again.

Thanks Narad!

Once again what is simple in linux is hard in windows.

The document I'm looking for goes into the reasons for the administrative leave. Swann presents it as though Thompson was put on leave solely for sending a letter to Gerberding. He doesn't discuss the angry altercation with Orenstein in the parking lot of the follow up emails to Orenstein where Thompson accuses him of making a hostile environment and asks him to apologize.

He also emailed other people and accused Orenstein of harassment.

But that document appears to be missing in the files Swann uploaded? A document that goes against his own claim?

That's transparency for you.

The fact that there are zipped files within zipped files is pretty aggravating on top of the insane duplications.

This (and the watermarking) has the unfortunate and unintended side-effect that True Believers will be able convince themselves that the Swann documents are not the same as Matt's earlier document cache; also there are far more data in Swann's version.

@I like the truth

Criticisms of Swann's journalism? Sure thing...

No identified sources for his alleged team of scientists, researchers, and journalists who supposedly assisted in the analysis of the documents.

Failure to disclose Hooker's pending NVICP claim which presents a conflict of interest for Hooker.

Fails to disclose that Hooker's failed "reanalysis" of the dataset was retracted by the journal in which it was published, raising serious questions about Hookers expert credibility.

No interviews with Thompson, any of the co-authors, Gerberding, or anyone involved with the study or subsequent studies. If he attempted to get interviews he sure doesn't indicate that in his report.

Bringing in three former CDC staffers who have amazingly have "no comment" on the vey documents at issue in the story.

Insists that Thompson has been trying for 11 years to speak out but is suppressed by the CDC, which is absurd in its face as Thompson can speak whenever he wants--he's just elected not to, at least since his statement more than a year ago through his lawyer.

Then there's the long list of claims that Swann makes that are flatly contradicted by the documents.

Journalism? Not exactly...

But that document appears to be missing in the files Swann uploaded?

I found it – Swann has concatenated the PDFs, with the naming apparently tied to the directory name up, within "Documents for Mem and Comm." in the originals.

The administrative-leave memo is in Swann's "CDC Files - 001," under "PDF Files," in "CDC files - LETTERS - 001.pdf,"
using the nomenclature of the two-file downloads.

^ Directory "one level up," that is. This stunt does make it a pain in the ass to see whether it's the full inventory.

Oh, and lest anyone claim that Swann's version is the original, the relevant metadata for "CDC files – LETTERS – 001.pdf" is bill thompson put on admin leave 200 4.pdf. The creation dates, file creation software, etc., also differ widely.

^^ G-ddamit, you'd think freaking <code> would be literal. Second try:

<rdf:li xml:lang="x-default"> bill thompson put on admin leave 2004.pdf </rdf:li>

Is it really the case that all those files were released into the wild with no security, allowing them to be watermarked and otherwise fiddled? Is that customary for those sorts of government agency documents?
If they were nominally secured and the security has been defeated, is that legal?

If they were nominally secured and the security has been defeated, is that legal?

There's no security at all on the original of the particular file discussed above. It would take a lot of effort to convincingly alter a PDF of a scanned document without leaving giant footprints, though.

Matt:

Once again what is simple in linux is hard in windows.

One remedy for this is the free Cygwin shell. ;-) Can be slightly annoying to set up, and plays merry hell with some other tools, but just the fact that it includes common Unix utilities like "grep" honestly makes it worthwhile to me. "Beyond Compare" is another very useful tool for this sort of fun. There are also utilities that will let you compare the contents of zip files, but I'm not sure whether any can do so recursively or whether you'd have to write a little script or something to drill down into the file structure and recursively unpack all the zips, and then run your comparisons and searches on the result.

(I'm in software configuration management -- making sense of the messes given to me for formal release involves a lot of stuff along these lines.)

recursively unpack all the zips, and then run your comparisons and searches on the result

Just to be extra helpful, Swann incompetently ensured that this would produce file name collisions.

I wonder if Swann realizes that nested archives actually take up more space. It's like he's either an idiot or deliberately obfuscating the data (actually these are not mutually exclusive). I'd say the fact that he has altered the files and changed file names points to this being a deliberate act.

CalliArcale@116

One remedy for this is the free Cygwin shell. ?

Slightly annoying is a huge understatement. It's easier to just install VirtualBox and make a Linux VM. A lighter weight solution is GnuWin32 which are the GNU utilities compiled for Windows. They haven't been updated in years so I don't know how compatible they are with Windows 8.1 or 10 but I use them just fine on 7.

So I extracted all the files and compared md5's to de-dup them. Turns out the large majority are duplicates. Actually, every similarly named nested .zip is the same. This includes Tables.zip both inside about outside Results.zip.

Also both files inside the __MACOSX folder in Results.zip are the same despite having different names. There may be a handful of others but I can't remember them right now. I was planning on posting a list of unique files only but it is in a VM on my computer and my internet is down. I'll try to get around to digging it out tomorrow. Maybe even create a de-duped zip to save everyone else the trouble.

Note: this was all done with Folder-1.zip and Folder-2.zip not the original single file which I don't have. If anyone saved a couple I would be grateful to get my hands on it.

The take away from this is f*** Ben Swann. If it wasn't abudantly apparent already here's further evidence that he hasn't a shred of integrity. Nested archives and maybe a duplication or two I could believe as being the result of legitimate (albiet dumb) attempts to organize the data but I has trouble seeing this as anything but intentional misdirection.

"If anyone saved a couple it I would be grateful to get my hands on it."

Hmmm, can't figure out what I was going for that it ended up like that. Probably means it's time for bed.

If anyone saved a couple I would be grateful to get my hands on it.

The original* Dropbox link is no longer "429." I'm not looking at it tonight.

* Per the Wayback Machine.

I’d say the fact that he has altered the files and changed file names points to this being a deliberate act.

The concatenations probably simplified the mass watermarking. The stripping out of these is something else that I'm not going to experiment with tonight. Or anytime in the near future, on second thought.

Thanks for the link Narad, but like you I am rapidly losing interest.

As promised, here is a de-duped file list. I kind of wanted to play with the metadata and maybe deconcatenate the files so we can see a 1-1 comparison with Matt's files but I'm caring less and less by the second so that probably won't happen.

Note that this has only been de-duped by MD5 hash. The few remaining similarly named files that I bothered to check are the same documents with different MD5's. I don't whether this is because there were duplicates in the original and Swann's PDF editing software didn't perfectly reproduce files when he watermarked them, or because he's a dishonest sleazebag I do not know.

It's probably safe to assume that the remaining similarly named files are duplicates as well but I don't care enough to check all of them. I would say anyone still interested in this need only look at CDC Files - 001 (1).zip in Folder-1.zip as nothing else appears to contain unique documents.

./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Tables/describe_results_2002_0816.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Tables/MMR_Autism_tables_2002_1030.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Tables/MMR_Autism_tables_2002_0821.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Tables/describe_results_2002_0814.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Tables/describe_results_2002_0807.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Tables/Frank Graphs 2003 12 11.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Tables/describe_results_2002_0805.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Tables/MMR_Autism_tables_2002_1120.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Tables/describe_results_2002_0808.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Tables/describe_results_2002_0809.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Tables/MMR_Autism_tables_2002_1017.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Tables/MMR_Autism_tables_2002_0816.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Tables/MMR_Autism_tables_2002_1030_briefing.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Tables/MMR_Autism_tables_2004_0128 IOM.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 25.ppt
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/Cordero_MMR_102502.ppt
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 28.ppt
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 02 03.ppt
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 27.ppt
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/Orenstein Briefing on MMR Autism Study 2002 10 31.ppt
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 23.ppt
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/Cochi Briefing IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 30.ppt
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 20.ppt
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/MMR AUtism Study Slide.ppt
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/Flowchart.ppt
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/SPER_MMR_poster_052903_TK1.ppt
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 31.ppt
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/Cordero Briefing on MMR Autism Study 2002 10 30.ppt
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/CDC OD Presentation IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 29.ppt
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 23 temp.ppt
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 29.ppt
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 01 21.ppt
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint/IOM MMR Autism Study 2004 02 01.ppt
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/PDF Files/MEMO -Statement of Dr William Thompson re MMR Study 09092014.pdf
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/PDF Files/CDC files - DATA OUTPUT WITH NOTES - 001.PDF
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/PDF Files/CDC files - TABLES - 001.PDF
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/PDF Files/CDC files - LETTERS - 001.pdf
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/PDF Files/CDC files - MEETINGS - 001.PDF
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/PDF Files/MMR and Autism.PDF
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/PDF Files/CDC files - HAND WRITTEN NOTES - 001.PDF
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/PDF Files/CDC files - FINAL ANALYSIS PLAN - 001.pdf
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/PDF Files/Data Analysis Issues 8-2001.PDF
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/PDF Files/CDC files - Analysis Plans - 001.PDF
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/PDF Files/CDC files - AGENDA 001.pdf
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/PDF Files/Draft Article - DeStefano.PDF
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/race.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/describe_results_2002_0315.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/MMR-Autism Graphs for Walt.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/describe_results_2001_1219.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/race3.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/describe_results_2002_0403.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/describe_results_2002_0213.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/describe_results_2002_0801.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/Describe_missing_2001_1010.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/describe_results_2002_01.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/describe_results_2002_0805.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/OR_Descriptives.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/Describe_New_Variables_Tanya.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/describe_results_2002_0227.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/describe_results_2002_0702.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/describe_results_2002_0717.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/Vaccine_missing.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/sample_selection.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/describe_results_2002_0702 (2).xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/describe_results_2002_0801 (2).xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/describe_results_2002_0501.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/describe_results_2002_0220.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/Describe_gestational_age_2001.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/describe_results_2002_0320.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/describe_results_2002_0605.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/Describe_kappa_2001.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/missing_mmr_data.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/race2.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/describe_data_2001.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/describe_results_2002_0522.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/describe_results_2002_0417.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/Describe_Case_Control_Missing_2001.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/MMR1MISS_IMMFMISS.doc
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/describe_graph_2002_0501.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/Results/vaccine_describe.xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Results/__MACOSX/Results/._describe_results_2002_0801 (2).xls
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint with notes/A000346.PDF
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/Powerpoint with notes/A000382.PDF
./Folder 1/CDC Files - 001/MMR Autism 2004.ppt
./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/MEMO -Statement of Dr William Thompson re MMR Study 09092014.pdf
./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/CDC files - MEETINGS.PDF
./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/CDC files - HAND WRITTEN NOTES.PDF
./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/MMR and Autism.PDF
./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/Data Analysis Issues 8-2001.PDF
./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/CDC files - TABLES.PDF
./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/CDC files - LETTERS.pdf
./Folder 1/CDC Files 002/Draft Article - DeStefano.PDF
./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/CDC files - DATA OUTPUT WITH NOTES.PDF
./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/CDC files - AGENDA 002.pdf
./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/Article Preliminary Draft (1).PDF
./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/MEMO -Statement of Dr William Thompson re MMR Study 09092014.pdf
./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/CDC files - MEETINGS.PDF
./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/CDC files - HAND WRITTEN NOTES.PDF
./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/MMR and Autism.PDF
./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/Data Analysis Issues 8-2001.PDF
./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/CDC files - Analysis Plans.PDF
./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/CDC files - TABLES.PDF
./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/CDC files - LETTERS.pdf
./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/CDC files - FINAL ANALYSIS PLAN.pdf
./Folder 2/CDC Files 005/Draft Article - DeStefano.PDF
./Folder 2/CDC Files 004/MEMO -Statement of Dr William Thompson re MMR Study 09092014.pdf
./Folder 2/CDC Files 004/MMR and Autism.PDF
./Folder 2/CDC Files 004/Data Analysis Issues 8-2001.PDF
./Folder 2/CDC Files 004/Draft Article - DeStefano.PDF

Russell Simmons: The latest celebrity antivaccinationist?

oracknows — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 08:30:22 +0000

Russell Simmons: The latest celebrity antivaccinationist?

I hadn't planned on writing about this again today. (How many times have I started a post with that phrase? I forget, but a lot. Sadly, developments frequently make me change my plans about blogging.) Here's what made me change my plans It was a pair of Facebook posts on hip-hop and fashion mogul Russell Simmons' Facebook page.

Here's post #1:

And here's post #2:

This, of course, is the news report regurgitating antivaccine talking points broadcast in Atlanta late last week by Ben Swann, an all-purpose conspiracy theorist and, apparently, now antivaccinationist, who is anchor for the CBS46 news. Apparently Russell Simmons is the latest celebrity to throw his hat into the antivaccine ring, fresh on the heels of the anchor of the early evening newscast for a major market CBS affiliate going full on conspiracy theorist and antivaccine just the other day. Indeed, he's credulously posting this video from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.:

It's a video that RFK, Jr. made in the run-up to the antivaccine rally held in Atlanta a week ago. It's full of the same talking points I've extensively rebutted over the course of a year, ever since RFK, Jr., risibly declaring himself "fiercely pro-vaccine" published a book full of fear mongering about thimerosal in vaccines. (How quaint. How 2005.)

What antivaccine rally? On October 23 and 24, the antivaccine movement joined with what is now basically a wholly owned subsidiary of the Church of Scientology, namely the Nation of Islam, to hold a protest in front of the CDC's Atlanta headquarters and then the next day a rally at Grant Park. It was the culmination of a relationship cultivated by the antivaccine movement in the wake of Brian Hooker's incompetent "reanalysis" of a 2004 study that failed to find a link between age at MMR vaccination and autism, a reanalysis that used a statistically naive and simplistic approach to torture the data and ignore relevant confounders in order to show that earlier age of MMR vaccination increased the risk of autism among African American boys (but in no other group). Basically, Brian Hooker's "reanalysis" was so incompetent that even the editor of a brand new journal realized his mistake and and retracted the study article.

This whole thing came about thanks to William Thompson, a CDC scientist who was co-author with Frank DeStefano and others on the relevant 2004 MMR study. Basically, somehow he became buddies with biochemist turned antivaccine activist Brian Hooker and had several phone conversations with him in which he complained about his CDC colleagues and accused them of scientific fraud and "covering up" the result allegedly showing that MMR vaccines increase the risk of autism in African-American boys. Too bad Hooker was recording these conversations. In any case, thus was born the "CDC Whistleblower" saga around 15 months ago, the fruits of which include the Atlanta antivaccine rally a little more than a week ago.

I do know who Russell Simmons is, although I'm not that familiar with him. I know, for instance, that he's been very successful in the music business, having founded the hip-hop music label Def Jam. I know that he's also been very successful in the fashion industry, having founded successful clothing lines. I know that he's incredibly rich and very influential in the hip-hop world. So why would he be susceptible to the siren call of the antivaccine movement? Why would he find RFK, Jr.'s misinformation- and pseudoscience-filled video convincing? The answer, I believe, lies in the involvement of the Nation of Islam in the "CDC whistleblower" controversy.

You might recall that in my post on the rally, I mentioned that Tony Muhammad, the Nation of Islam minister who gave speeches comparing the vaccine program to Pharoah's slaughter of Israelite babies, to Herod's slaughter of the innocents, and to the dragon in Revelations waiting to devour the savior as soon as he is born, also said that he was going to be meeting with hip hop artists and high profile African Americans to try to warn the about the "danger" of vaccines for African American boys. One wonders whether Tony Muhammad has been in contact with Simmons. Yes, I think that's exactly what happened, judging from this article written by Simmons in 2009 praising Minister Louis Farrakhan:

This past week, it was my honor to host the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan at my apartment in NYC. He was joined by his sons Louis Jr., Mustapha and Joshua Farrakhan, along with their personal chef and at least 75 security personnel. It was quite a scene to see how they set up shop at my apartment. This was a week where I didn't miss my 6 am prayer because I could hear them already awake and ready to start the day off right. This was a week where the word “Allah” was on the tip of everyone's tongue. And was a very special time when I got to hang with my “second dad” and my other brothers. We reminisced about the three marches where more than three million people marched on Washington. We talked about how we brought Snoop, Ice Cube and other LA rappers together with members of the east coast rap community and how he helped mediate the beef between 50 Cent and Ja Rule and countless other instances where he was there to help hip hop. And of course we talked about his keynote address at the hip hop summit that created the Hip Hop Summit Action network. We even mentioned a subject that the Minister doesn't care to discuss, his legacy. He has talked about the oneness of god for years, about the sameness of all religion and all people. He has given his followers spiritual roadmaps to happiness on Earth his whole life. I want future generations to know him as I do, so I am working to have his thoughts on this subject made into a book. I believe that his memoirs are going to be one of the most interesting and inspiring autobiographies ever written.

So that is my goal.

So Simmons admired the leader of the Nation of Islam. Russell's Wikipedia page states that in January 2011 he stated that he is a non-religious practitioner of Yoga and practices Jivamukti Yoga and is a vegan. He is also a friend and admirer of Deepak Chopra and practices Transcendental Meditation. So he's into woo now, too.

Even if he isn't a member of the Nation of Islam, it's not too much of a stretch to speculate that he probably still admires Minister Farrakhan. Indeed, just last month, heavy hitters in the world of hip-hop music gathered in Washington, DC for the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March, including Russell Simmons, Snoop Dog, J. Cole, Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs, Young Jeezy, “Empire” star Bryshere “Yazz” Gray, Chuck D, Jay Electronica, “Love & Hip-Hop New York” star Yandy Smith, her husband, Mendeecees, Jasiri X, “Real Houswives of Atlanta stars Porsha Williams, Phaedra Parks and Sheree Whitfield, Kam, Ty Dolla $, as well as the godfather of Hip-Hop Africa Bambaataa. Not surprisingly, Tony Muhammad was there. Indeed, Simmons has supported Nation of Islam initiatives led by Muhammad dating at least back to 2002. At the very least, he proudly posts images from the event on his Instagram account:

@iamdiddy @snoopdogg @chuckd. Were in attendance as were hundreds of thousands of others.

A photo posted by Russell Simmons (@unclerush) on Oct 10, 2015 at 3:16pm PDT

The most likely explanation for Simmons' posting antivaccine propaganda on his Facebook account is the influence of Tony Muhammad and the Nation of Islam, particularly given what he chose to post, antivaccine pseudoscience from RFK, Jr. and a credulous news report of the Atlanta rally by Ben Swann. I did some Google searches to see if I could find any evidence of past antivaccine statements from Simmons. I couldn't find any, but I was running out of time and it's possible looking harder might yield something. More likely, before this Simmons didn't think much about vaccines one way or the other, and then Tony Muhammad contacted him and tried to persuade him to support the cause.

Thus far, Simmons has only posted two bits of antivaccine propaganda that I can find on his Facebook page. It might be possible at this stage to convince him with evidence and reason that he's made a big mistake. However, given his long and apparently friendly relationship with Minister Farrakhan, Minister Muhammad, and the Nation of Islam, succeeding in persuading Simmons to admit his error is likely to be an uphill battle. That's the real danger of the involvement of the Nation of Islam in promoting the "CDC whistleblower" manufactroversy and promoting the false message that the CDC somehow "covered up" data showing that vaccines are harmful to African American boys. As fringe as the Nation of Islam is, it has a lot of contacts in the world of hip-hop and rap who might be swayed by the pseudoscientific pronouncements about vaccines and autism being made by Minister Muhammad. If, as Russell Simmons has started to do, these hip-hop and rap artists start spreading the message themselves, then real damage to public health could result, particularly given the understandable suspicion many African Americans have about the medical community based on incidents like the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. Worse, this damage would likely take the form of the resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases in one of the populations in this country with the most difficult access to adequate health care resources. Unlike the children of the almost entirely white and affluent leaders of the antivaccine movement, many more African American children stricken with vaccine-preventable diseases will not have access to the level of care that the children of affluent parents do.

oracknows Tue, 11/03/2015 - 03:30

"I could't believe what Bobby Kennedy has laid out..."

And if he'd only stopped there.

I have some questions.

How do the vaccines determine the gender of the child? How do the vaccines determine the race of the child? What happens if it's a mixed race child - say black/Caucasian? Does only the black half get autism, while the white half is spared? Is it only skin color? Does that mean children in India with darker skin are going to be afflicted? How about those native Australians? What happens to them? Or, is it only those of pure sub-Saharan ancestry that are so afflicted?

I have a few more questions, but those will do to begin with.

Sadly, Skeptico, he did not stop there. Damn.

What a shame. He's always been dedicated to uplifting-the-race type causes. I guess I can see how watching decade after decade roll by without progress on that score could take a toll on one's judgment.

FWIW, his brother (Run from Run-DMC) is now a Pentecostal minister, and I doubt he's fully NOI. Maybe he's not completely immune to reason.

Simmons's politics are described as 'progressive" so I hope he would follow the lead of most of his fellows/ sisters who appear to support vaccines.

Actually, frequently and recently woos and anti-vaxxers are heaping scorn upon the democrats/ liberal press because of their position on vaccines
( esp the Californians). So I hope.

Ellie writes (#2),

What happens to them?

MJD says,

With respect to causation, a preponderance-of-evidence clearly indicates that vaccine-injuries are attributed to atypical immunity.

For example, vaccine-induced food allergies may adversely affect a child's neurological development and quality-of-life based on ethnicity.

Food allergies have nearly doubled among black children:

http://www.webmd.com/allergies/news/20140303/food-allergies-have-nearly…

It's time for the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) to recognize vaccine-induced food allergies as a severe adverse-event and place it on the vaccine injury table.

@ Ellie

I have some questions.

To play devil's advocate, a few diseases with a genetic component are male-specific (most usually, something due to a recessive trait on the X chromosome).
And similarly, some conditions, like thalassemia, lactose intolerance, or alcohol sensitivity are more common among some ethnicities - again, genetics.
Funny, how I have to use the word "genetics" to make some sense of this hypothesis.

That being said...

Well, I have a question of my own. If, for whatever reason, little African boys are more susceptible than anyone else, how comes the demographic of autistic people doesn't reflect it?

I have this funny feeling that this Swann bozo and his pals at Reality Check are perfectly aware of this inconsistency, in the way they are phrasing the Thompson controversy.
"Statistical findings among African-American boys" has suddenly become "link between some vaccines and autism and tics, particularly among African-American boys".

They make it sound like it's about Black people, but no, it's about the vaccines, as always.

MJD:

It’s time for the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) to recognize vaccine-induced food allergies as a severe adverse-event and place it on the vaccine injury table.

The subheading of the article says:

Unclear if it's due to better detection or environmental triggers, researchers say

Secondly, even assuming that the increase is genuine and not just the result f better detection, where is your evidence that vaccines are the cause of the increase?

Julian Frost asks (#8),

... where is your evidence that vaccines are the cause of the increase?

MJD says,

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) committee has concluded that food proteins, including egg (ovalbumin), that are present in vaccines cause healthy non-allergic people to develop allergies to those food items upon receiving the vaccine.

https://iom.nationalacademies.org/Reports/2011/Adverse-Effects-of-Vacci…

@MJD --

I second Julian Frost's question and add this one:

If vaccinations cause food allergies, why are food allergies twice as common among African-American children, when vaccination rates are not twice as high?

ann wrote: "I guess I can see how watching decade after decade roll by without progress on [racial justice and equality] could take a toll on one’s judgment."

Yup, but I think it's more than that. When you feel that ignored in your real injuries, you're likely to grab the bumper of any vehicle that gets your general case some attention, even if you have a good idea it's a bad car.

All we have from Simmons is two Tweets in which he expresses shock and concern over the accusations against the CDC. Put yourself in his position, and you might say a lot more than "whoa." At this point, he's just saying "check this out!", not that he buys it. He probably thinks the CDC might suppress data on harm to African-Americans, but that doesn't mean he thinks they did.

I'd guess for now he's actually what the AVers claim to be, suspicious enough to ask questions about vaccine safety. For various reasons, I can't see him ever advocating against immunization for poor kids – he's nowhere near that stupid/crazy/opportunistic. My guess is that 'mainstream' African-American activists like Simmons see the accusations as a metaphor for the very real situation of Black male youth in American society: mass incarceration, joblessness, police shootings. I'd guess further that they'll ride the wave of suspicion for all the pub they can get for the larger issues, without ever really going anti-vax (regardless of where the NOI lands).

I'd say the guy to watch here is Al Sharpton. A quick Google suggests the Rev. isn't giving the 'whistleblower' thing any play at all, and lately he's been having Neil de grasse Tyson do guest appearances on science in Star Wars and Star Trek. Simmons might or might not listen to NdgT, but he'd listen to Rev. Al...

MJD:

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) committee has concluded that food proteins, including egg (ovalbumin), that are present in vaccines cause healthy non-allergic people to develop allergies to those food items upon receiving the vaccine.

You are at best misinterpreting and at worst lying. I used "search". The only reference to allergies is "anaphylaxis". That is not proof that the vaccines induced the allergies, erely that something in the vaccine caused an already allergic individual to experience a reaction to a component of the vaccine.

All we have from Simmons is two Tweets

And two posts to his Facebook page, with hundreds of comments.

@Julian (#12),

MJD says,

Immunity 101 - Nobel Laureate Charles Richet demonstrated over a hundred years ago that injecting proteins into humans or animals causes immune system sensitization to that protein.. Subsequent exposure to the same protein can cause anaphylaxis.

Thus, when the VICP recognizes food allergies as a vaccine-injury "adverse event" they should also extend the statute of limitations for filing a petition to greater that 36 months based on such a historical precedence.

@Julian Frost: please don't start with MJD. He will insist to his dying day that vaccines cause allergies...latex, food, skin...you name it, the vaccines cause it!

Modified Julian Date?

Oh.

Vaccines do not cause food allergies no matter how much you want to believe they do.

Vaccines cause allergies? Ohhh. That's a good one. Should be able to sell a lot books and get paid for speaking engagements on that one. To quote Bill Mayer, "Americans are stupid", which means you can sell them on almost anything. If it worked for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, it could work for disinformation of mass distraction in any state of the union. I mean, people don't call the country the Excited States of America for nuttin.

@Liz Ditz --

True. But he's also on Twitter urging people to sign up for health care and being a booster for Cory Booker, Obama, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if it was Kennedy's imprimatur rather than NOI's that caused him to take it seriously.

He hasn't historically been a silly person. And...You know, When you live in a country where it's an age-old national tradition for agents of the state to shoot people like you dead with impunity, I can see how a lot of stuff might start to seem pretty plausible.

A lot of civil rights activists have done limited business with the NOI. That's how the Million Man March happened.

I'm hoping he just made a mistake.

That all may be. The reason I speculated that it was the NOI is because Simmons has in the past expressed admiration for Louis Farrakhan and has a least a 13 year history of working on various projects with Tony Muhammad, at least as far as I could glean from the almighty Google. Also, NOI is tight with a lot of hip-hop artists, as evidenced by their showing up in droves for the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March. But you have a point. It could have been RFK, Jr.'s appeal, coupled with Simmons' past activism for environmental issues, that had an impact as well.

Orac, have you seen this?

http://likemindedmamas.com/natural-remedies-whooping-cough/

I was NOT aware of Simmon's environmental advocacy, thanks Ann.

Here's how Kennedy and the Nation of Islam got together. A white woman who believes her child is vaccine-injured, Michelle Ford (the one who organized the Atlanta micro-rally) reached out to Tony Muhammad. RFKjr agreed to meet with Muhammad, and from there, RFKjr met with Farrakhan. This happened in the spring of 2015, I believe.

And off to the races.

http://haroldmichaelharvey.com/2015/10/25/michelle-ford-farrakhan-kenne…

Background on Michelle Ford:

Michelle Ford of Culver City said she founded the Vaccine Injury Awareness League after vaccines caused her eldest daughter to suffer from years of chronic diarrhea as well as digestive problems, mood swings and insomnia that persist to this day. Ahead of the first hearing for the vaccination measure, Senate Bill 277, she was in Sacramento, rallying bill opponents by railing against “medical tyranny.” She considers her 22-year-old daughter fortunate to have endured relatively minor injuries.

“I have interviewed mothers whose children are my daughter’s age and they have (protective) helmets, and diapers, have gut and intestinal issues, have brain damage, dare I say the word autism,” Ford said.

So..

@Delphine #21

Oh. My. God. Those poor kids...but all she talks about is how their coughing (until they puked! For 120 - 150 days!) kept her from sleeping, stressed her marriage, was the hardest thing she'd ever faced as a mother. She writes as if putting her poor kids through all of that unnecessary pain and suffering was some sort of personal achievement. And now she's patting herself on the back because now her kids have "natural" immunity - guess she didn't realize that natural immunity to pertussis wanes just like vaccination-induced immunity does and over a similar period of time.

Delphine @21: I couldn't even read that whole article, it made me so mad. At what point would she actually take those children to a real doctor? Or is she so delusional that they would have to be dead or missing a limb before she could admit she couldn't fix it?

And why didn't the dad actually do anything? The tone of the whole thing is pretty sexist "Mom or Gramma is all the doctor you need". So what's Dad, chopped liver?

The only reason she got away with not treating these kids properly is because they're home schooled, so no other adult could see them and say "hey, that's not right". I'm sure most home schoolers aren't like that, but there seems to be a subset...

@24
I can't imagine anyone watching little children suffer through that without doing everything in their power to help them. At that point, who cares whether what you're doing builds immunity or not. Just get those kids some relief!

The Dads in these families are mostly sperm donors/wallets. They either choose this dynamic because it's easy, or they allow it because they're spineless.

And yeah, she has no idea that naturally acquired active immunity lasts about as long as artificially acquired active immunity. But that doesn't matter, it really wasn't about that anyway. Just the chance to show the world how awesome a martyr I mean mother she is.

Medical neglect at its finest.

https://sujato.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/why-buddhists-should-be-vegetar…

I do remember watching an episode of The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore where the topic of vaccines was discussed. (Wilmore took the pro-vax position; there was also an anti-vaxxer there, and some assorted other people.) There was one black gentleman, IIRC, who wasn't anti-vax, really, but expressed his slight skepticism and general mistrust of big pharma/the medical profession/etc. in one word: "Tuskegee." I mean, I can kind of see where he's coming from.

^ That link is irrelevant; I think I was meaning to blockquote something somebody said, but I had the link in my clipboard and managed not to notice what I'd done.

^ Also "skepticism" (wrt vaccines) should probably have been in scare quotes. Although I suppose the usage does fit the actual definition of the word, or one of them.

You are at best misinterpreting and at worst lying.

Lying seems about right.

Both Ren & Amy Tutuer have blog posts on the child-harming naturopath mommy.

Ren's post:

http://epidemiological.net/2015/10/30/this-mother-purposefully-not-havi…

After reading all this, including her lies and misrepresentations about antibiotics and vaccines, I can only hope and pray that this is all a spoof. I hope that no person can be so delusional and cruel so as to willingly put children through whooping cough (or a disease as she describes it) for months. And I hope that even naturopaths whom she consulted were not as deluded as to say that this is a normal thing.

If it’s real, and I have no indication at this point that it is not, it is very, very, very close to child abuse.

I hope this is a sick joke.

Amy Tutuer's post

But the suffering that angers me the most is that visited on small children by the selfishness of their parents. Such suffering comes in many different forms but can ultimately be traced back to the narcissism of mothers and fathers who think that fulfilling their own needs — whether that is a need to vent their anger, exercise their fists or bolster their fragile self esteem — is more important than meeting the needs of the children who depend on them for everything.

http://www.skepticalob.com/2015/11/suffer-the-unvaccinated-little-child…

"I just want you to ask yourself… How did people make it through for thousands of years? How did they get through the Spanish Influenza, the Black Plague, fevers and other ailments?"

Um, lady, do you not realize LOTS OF THEM DIED? She has no idea how lucky she was. I feel so bad for her kids.

Just the chance to show the world how awesome a martyr I mean mother she is.

You say "martyr", I say "Munchausen-by-Proxy". Certainly your version is shorter.

@Orac --

I think that's a reasonable surmise on your part. And it could well be the case.

The thing is that this...

When I grew up in Hollis, Queens there was a rehab, a mosque and a “Steak n' Take” on my corner, all of which where run by the Nation of Islam. There was also a heroin epidemic on that corner that was killing off our teenagers and young adults. Our parents would tell us that when we grow up we should make a choice to either join the army or “be a Muslim or something.” The Nation of Islam secured our housing projects, promoted dignity and transformed men with criminal pasts. Those men would then, in turn, raise refined, educated black children. Hard to dispute this. It took guys off the street and created a powerful, non-violent movement. The Nation of Islam has never been associated with any form of violence and always been about uplifting our communities and making a better future for black people. If you ask anyone from my generation, from any ghetto in this country, I promise you they have roughly the same experiences regarding the Nation's presence in their communities.

...is sad but true. They pretty much had the field to themselves when it came to offering a route to autonomy/pride and so on. (Or appearing to do so.) And to some extent they still do.

The Million Man March was a real achievement, although of course it went nowhere because NOI has no follow-through or real political game, in a large-scale sense.

But even still, he's right. There are a lot of people, including reputable people, who only know them for their community activism and are happy to express solidarity with them on it. That march was endorsed by for-real civil-rights orgs across the land. And it was not a bad thing.

I note that he minimizes but does implicitly disown the zaniness:

Certainly some of their preachers were fiery, especially in their pointing out the evils of white supremacy. They said some things in a way that was hard for most whites and some blacks to digest. For example, “THE WHITE MAN IS THE DEVIL.” We have to remember the climate of the country during this time. It was an all out war and the Nation was not about to back-down. The Nation of Islam, which was started by Elijah Muhammad and a white man named, Master Fard Muhammad, always pointed out that one day we would all live in harmony. Although this still isn't quite true, their message under the leadership of Minister Louis Farrakhan has evolved to fit the time.

So who knows? I'm just rooting for my preferred outcome, really. I can't pretend I actually have a case to make in favor of it.

I feel so bad for her kids.

It's despicable.

let’s rewind to one short year ago to what could be considered the most traumatic period of my life

At this point, Madilyn’s cough was beginning to scare me. She would wake in the middle of the night, multiple times a night, coughing so hard that she would puke over the side of her loft bed. Her normally rosy cheeks would drain pale until she was able to gasp for air. Madilyn was 6.

During the night, Lucien would cough until he barfed up mucus, proceeded by crying and screaming fits. He was genuinely terrified each and every time he woke from sleep without breath. Lucien was 3.

Emilia’s breathing had now reached the scary point. She was now coughing until she puked, making her normally rosy cheeks drain to pale. This was followed by crying, which would cause the process to repeat itself until often times she would just fall asleep due to pure exhaustion. Emilia was 9 months old.

Words can't convey how much I hate these parents.

I think that’s a reasonable surmise on your part. And it could well be the case.

^^Meaning "that he comes to it via his association with NOI." That could totally be true.

MJD @9

So your argument is that food allergies have increased over time.....therefore.....vaccines!

I guess you missed this:
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1414850

"We randomly assigned 640 infants with severe eczema, egg allergy, or both to consume or avoid peanuts until 60 months of age."

.... the prevalence of peanut allergy at 60 months of age was 13.7% in the avoidance group and 1.9% in the consumption group (P<0.001)."

So it turns out that the reason that food allergies are on the rise is that parents have been delaying the introduction of allergenic foods. Kind of lets vaccines off the hook, dont ya think?

And it is customary when you cite a reference to support your argument that
#1) you include a page number when the reference is several hundred pages long
#2) the reference actually supports what you are arguing.

Vaccines do not increase he risk of food allergies. I would be happy to discuss any evidence you believe says otherwise.

The Nation of Islam, which was started by Elijah Muhammad and a white man named, Master Fard Muhammad

Don't tell that to NOI; it's not how the Yakub story works.

Oh dang. I knew about the "white devils" bit (which I can kind of understand, to be honest), but I had no idea just how far the absurdity went. I guess I do remember now some bits in Malcolm X's biography about it, but I read that back in middle school I think.

^autobiography.

I knew about the “white devils” bit (which I can kind of understand, to be honest), but I had no idea just how far the absurdity went.

One thing that I've noticed when looking at random rah-rah things about NOI's relationship Co$ is the emphasis on Dianetics (the "spiritual healing technology") per se. One might wonder whether the issue of the completely incompatible cosmogonies has ever come up.

A Yakub/Xenu mashup could be highly entertaining.

BTW, the Dachelbot's latest is fantastic. After recounting a news story that plainly states that the child has ADEM, she emits this:

They're talking about Guillain-Barré Syndrome.

Um, err, well... the family seems pretty damn sure that it's not GBS, Anne.

Only in an ignorant society anybody would take a medical advice from a so-called celebrity (or from internet), if you need to change a tire you go to a mechanician, you don't go to the baker!!!

How often to you get out of your basement? Multi-syllable words don't truly make you sound like an intelligent person. Try harder.

The Nation of Islam has never been associated with any form of violence

Malcom X would beg to differ

Narad @46

Thanks. I left a comment, not that it has any chance of getting past moderation.

My comment:

"Ms. Dachel,

There is an inaccuracy in your article. Acute disseminated encephalitis (ADEM) and Guillain-Barre are not the same thing, although both are believed to have an autoimmune etiology.

It may be of interest to your readers that the incidence of severe ADEM decreased sharply after the introduction of the Measles vaccine. Turns out that Measles can lead to a particularly severe case of ADEM in about 1 out of every 800 cases."

I often wonder what vaccines were causing Guillain-Barré Syndrome back in 1916 when Georges Guillain and Jean Alexandre Barré identified it.

@ ann

Guys like Simmons respect the NOI for what they do in the community, but they don't follow the Nation. It's a little dance: friends at arms length; allies when purposes coincide, mouths shut when they don't. The biggest thing is "The Nation of Islam secured our housing projects." This was also true in Chicago when i lived there in the mid-90s. You don't dis the only guys willing to take on the dealers and keep grandmas and little kids out of a free fire zone, no matter what weird talk they may spout.

Thus, I'd guess it was the combination of Tony Muhammed and RFKJ that got Simmons' attention. I don't think it would be correct to say it was just the Kennedy name and RFKJ's environmental work, any more than it would be correct to say that fact Simmons listens to Rev. Tony means he's persuaded by any given thing Rev. Tony says.

@ Militant Agnostic
Simmons certainly knows about Malcolm's assassination. When he says, "the Nation of Islam has never been associated with any form of violence" he's not referring to individual violence, internecine power struggles, or even showing 'muscle' in the projects. He's talking about the organization's policies, and it's broad means to its ends, contrasting the NOI with the Panthers, fringe groups like MOVE in Philly: the folks who take up arms against 'the man'.

@sadmar --

Honestly, I have no idea what goes on in the mind of Russell Simmons, or why he does what he does. After all, I don't know him. I do know some people who have worked with him. And if I were to judge him by those associations, I'd judge him well.

When it comes the NOI, I take him on his word (ie -- what he says in that article.) When it comes to what Kennedy means to him, as I said, I wouldn't be surprised if the name "Bobby Kennedy" signified "right on" to him. It's not all that unreasonable a presumption, ftm. It just happens to be wrong.

But the truth is I'm mostly reluctant to think ill of him because I've liked a lot of what he does. Nevertheless. I have no very solid reason to think he's not capable of true anti-vaxitude. I just hope that he merely made a mistake.

Captain-a (#40) says,

Kind of lets vaccines off the hook, dont ya think?
Vaccines do not increase the risk of food allergies.

MJD says,

What do you get when you take a peanut protein (i.e., antigenic protein), adsorb it onto an immunologic adjuvant (e.g., Aluminum hydroxide), and inject it into the body?

A peanut allergy, anaphylaxis, or nothing depending on the individual's immune profile.

The good news is some vaccines will not increase the risk of a food allergy or anaphylaxis (e.g., egg allergy) if the food protein is not present in the vaccine. (See Flublok)

http://www.flublok.com/about-flublok/the-pure-choice/

Eliminating a vaccine contraindication(s) one technology at a time.

Michael, you're beginning to sound like APV, another antivaxer here who was fixated on the idea that vaccines cause allergies.
Peanut oil has NEVER been used in vaccines, so your question above is obvious JAQing off.

Continuing cracks and eroding confidence in the vaccine construct. It's just a matter of time. Simmons is no dummy either, When anyone outside the medical establishment researches all sides of this issue they find themselves stunned by what they uncover.

Indeed, Theodore. They are shocked by the lies, distortions and wooden-headedness of the antivaccine side.
At least, I was.

I really don't understand. Do they think there's some sort of subversive experiment going on where there is one vial of a vaccine labeled for African-Americans and another viallabeled for white people? I wonder if there is any correlation with the recent police shootings of unarmed black youths. Maybe they are just trying to add fuel to the fire and promote a false narrative.

Theodore: "Continuing cracks and eroding confidence in the vaccine construct. It’s just a matter of time."

Yes, in the coming days a tsunami of truth will sweep the vaccine apologists to their doom, sparing only those who have climbed the mountain of concealed facts, avoiding eruptions of pharma shills and dodging the reeking piles of false medical justifications, at last attaining the summit of complete and total vindication.

Theodore says (#56),

Continuing cracks and eroding confidence in the vaccine construct.

MJD says,

A quick search in the United Stated Patent and Trademark data-based shows that there are 286 patents granted in 2015 with the word vaccine in a claim(s).

Fortunately, scientists are working very hard to fix the vaccine problem(s).

Julian Frost@55
I had the same thought back when he pulled the IOM into Richet combo at the beginning of the thread. It's sad too because MJD has always been mildly entertaining by virtue of being so incredibly whacko. APV is just an unamusing liar through and through.

About Simmons, it doesn't seem like he was actually initiated into the movement. I think it was just a passing "hey look at this" kind of thing. The AVers have been twatting at him on Twitter for the past three days with nary twit in response.

capnkrunch says (#61),

It’s sad too because MJD has always been mildly entertaining by virtue of being so incredibly whacko.

MJD says,

Filing fees:

$400 Vaccine-injury filing fee (VICP)
$306 Chapter-7 bankruptcy filing fee (California)
$165 Immigrant-VISA filing fee (USA)
$100 Political-Office filing fee (Michigan)
$35 Marriage-License filing fee (Iowa)

@capncrunch,

Why is the VICP filing fee so costly?

Since MJD provides no context for the fee in relation to those others he mentioned, it is pretty expensive for me to register my car in my state.....and I only get a piece of paper.

If someone files for NVICP, they get all of their legal fees paid, plus if they qualify, they get an award....seems to be a fair trade for only a $400 filing fee.

Lawrence writes (#63),

If someone files for NVICP, they get all of their legal fees paid, plus if they qualify, they get an award….seems to be a fair trade for only a $400 filing fee.

MJD says,

Since 1988 there have been 16,318 petitions filed according to the NVICP statistics report.

A total of 9,912 cases were dismissed since 1988.

That's about 4 million dollars in filing fees collected from dismissed petitions.

Americans already pay an extra 0.75 cents per dose of vaccine to fund the VICP and billions of doses have been distributed in the U.S. according to the CDC.

Furthermore, a $400 filing fee is a financial barrier for lower income individual's and families that continue to support vaccine public safety (i.e., herd immunity).

In my opinion, the VICP should discontinue the $400 filing fee in an effort to make the process less expensive and increase public trust in vaccines.

Furthermore, a $400 filing fee is a financial barrier for lower income individual’s and families that continue to support vaccine public safety (i.e., herd immunity).

So, that's about what it costs to file for bankruptcy. Anyway, newsflash (PDF):

"If you are unable to pay this fee, call (202) 357-6400 [i.e., the Clerk's office] for assistance."

Filing fees:

$400 Vaccine-injury filing fee (VICP)
$306 Chapter-7 bankruptcy filing fee (California [sic])
$165 Immigrant-VISA filing fee (USA)
$100 Political-Office filing fee (Michigan)
$35 Marriage-License filing fee (Iowa)

What the f*ck do you imagine that the last three have to do with the first two? (C.D. Cal. is also $335, G—le-boy.)

Why is the VICP filing fee so costly?

Because it's a federal civil court. Guess what the filing fee is in the Northern District of Illinois. Look familiar?

Narad (#65),

“If you are unable to pay this fee, call (202) 357-6400 [i.e., the Clerk’s office] for assistance.

MJD says,

Thanks Narad!

I just called the number (202) 357-6400 and a recording said they were closed.

I'll call again Monday 11/9/15 to see if I can actually talk to a person and determine what the "If you are unable to pay this fee" means and then give an update here at RI.

@ Orac's (happy vaccine) minions,

I'm in the process of filing a vaccine-related injury petition for my 25 year old autistic-son who has a diagnosed egg allergy that is severe enough to adversely affect his quailty of life (e.g., egg-allergy symptoms with a restricted egg-free diet)

He's had all his flu shots that unfortunately contain egg proteins.

What are the chances of a negotiated settlement with the VICP?

Anyone seen Dan's (AoA) post today? It's about whether Holocaust is an appropriate word for the autism "epidemic". Starts off:

Bob Krakow -- I have a strong view that the choice of the word “Holocaust” is not appropriate and does not serve the interests of our children.

For a second I thought maybe some of them have some sense after all.

Nope.

Holocaust is not the correct word because having a child with autism is actually worse than attempted genocide.

umm....and your issue is what exactly?

@MJD:

What are the chances of a negotiated settlement with the VICP?

Given the data you've given us, snowball in hell.

Gold_Star #71, who exactly are you addressing?