biology

#2: A Truly Extraordinary Octopus

dr. dolittle — Wed, 25 Oct 2017 20:13:14 +0000

#2: A Truly Extraordinary Octopus

Who could forget the second most popular blog post so far this year. Seeing an octopus walk never gets old!
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I came across this amazing video on YouTube showing a species of octopus found in Northern Australia that is adapted to walk on land:

dr. dolittle Wed, 10/25/2017 - 16:13

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Life Science

biology

locomotion

octopus

popular

Fish @ 2:05: "What the Fuuuu?" lol, Awesome video

Torturing more mice in the name of antivaccine pseudoscience: PubPeer versus antivaxers

oracknows — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 05:00:40 +0000

Torturing more mice in the name of antivaccine pseudoscience: PubPeer versus antivaxers

Last week, an antivaxer "challenged" me to look over a paper purporting to show that aluminum adjuvants in vaccines cause inflammation of the brain and therefore contribute to autism, a paper that she would be "citing frequently." Being someone who lives by the motto, "be careful what you wish for," I looked it over in detail. Not surprisingly, my conclusion was that the experiments were poorly done using obsolete and not very quantitative methodology and that the results do not support the conclusions made by the authors. I was not alone in this conclusion. Skeptical Raptor was, if anything, even harsher on the paper than I was.

The paper in question came out of the lab of Christopher Shaw and Lucija Tomljenovic in the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of British Columbia. As I note every time I examine a paper by these two warriors for antivaccine pseudoscience, both have a long history of publishing antivaccine “research,” mainly falsely blaming the aluminum adjuvants in vaccines for autism and, well, just about any health problem children have and blaming Gardasil for premature ovarian failure and all manner of woes up to and including death. Shaw was even prominently featured in the rabidly antivaccine movie The Greater Good. Not surprisingly, they’ve had a paper retracted, as well.

Given the authors' history and a paper that I and others found completely consistent with that history of publishing bad science in the service of antivaccine views, you might reasonably ask: Why am I writing about it again? It turns out that I was indeed far too kind the first time around. You see, I didn't look at all the DNA gels and Western blot films closely enough. I confess that sometimes I don't, particularly when the images provided by the journal online are relatively low resolution. Fortunately, however, there are others with a much sharper eye for photos of DNA gels and films of Western blots than I am, and, if what these people are saying is correct, I rather suspect that Shaw and Tomljenovic might well be cruising for their second retracted paper. Before I explain why, it's necessary for me to briefly explain two things for nonscientists not familiar with the methodology used.

In last week's post, I complained that the authors had basically ground up mouse brains and used semiquantitative PCR to measure the level of messenger RNA for each immune cytokine examined. There's no need for me to go into how this method is only roughly quantitative or how there are much better methods available now. I did that last time. What I do need to point out is that, after the PCR reaction is run, the PCR products (DNA fragments amplified by the PCR reaction) are separated by placing them in an agarose gel and running an electrical current through it. This gel electrophoresis works because DNA migrates towards the positive electrode and, once it solidifies, agarose forms a gel that separates the DNA fragments by size. The gel can then be stained with ethidium bromide, whose fluorescence allows visualization of the bands, which can be assessed for size and purity. Photos of the gel can be taken and subjected to densitometry to estimate how much DNA is in each band relative to the other bands.

To measure protein, Western blots work a little differently. Basically isolated cell extracts or protein mixtures are subjected to polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) with a denaturing agent (SDS). Again, like DNA, protein migrates towards the positive electrode, and the gel forms pores that impeded the process, allowing separation by size and charge. The proteins are then transferred to a membrane (the Western blot) and visualized by using primary antibodies to the desired protein, followed by a secondary antibody with some sort of label. In the old days, we often used radioactivity. These days, we mostly use chemiluminescence. Blots are then exposed to film or, more frequently today, to a phosphoimager plate, which provides a much larger linear range for detecting the chemiluminescence than old-fashioned film. Just like DNA gels, the bands can be quantified using densitometry. In both cases, it's very important not to "burn" (overexpose) the film, which pushes the band intensity out of the linear ranger) or to underexpose them (noise can cause problems). It's also important how the lines are drawn around the bands using the densitometry software and how the background is calculated. More modern software can do it fairly automatically, but there is almost always a need to tweak the outlines chosen, which is why I consider it important that whoever is doing the densitometry should be blinded to experimental group, as bias can be introduced in how the bands are traced.

So why did I go through all this? Hang on, I'll get to it. First, however, I like to point out to our antivaccine "friends" that peer review doesn't end when a paper is published. Moreover, social media and the web have made it easier than ever to see what other scientists think of published papers. In particular, there is a website called PubPeer, which represents itself as an "online journal club." More importantly, for our purposes, PubPeer is a site where a lot of geeky scientists with sharp eyes for anomalies in published figures discuss papers and figures that seem, well, not entirely kosher. It turns out that some scientists with sharp eyes have been going over Shaw and Tomljenovic's paper, and guess what? They've been finding stuff. In fact, they've been finding stuff that to me (and them) looks rather...suspicious.

One, for instance, took figure 1C of the paper and adjusted the background and contrast to accentuate differences in tones:

It was immediately noted:

A clear and deliberate removal of the Male 3 Control TNF result. This isn't an unacknowledged splice, as there is no background pattern from a gel contiguous with either band, left or right.

Removal of the left half of the Male 1 Control IFN-g. Dubious also about Male 3 Control IFN-g, as the contrast highlight shows boxing around the band.

What appears like an unacknowledged splice in ACHE blot, between AI Animal 2, Control Animal 3

Comparing this representative blot to the densitometry accompanying it, they score from 5 independent experiments IFN-g fold change from control to AI, relative to actin, as on average 4.5, with an SEM ranging from ~2.7 to 6.5. This seems too good to be true.

Look at the band. It's the second from last band. It looks as though the band has been digitally removed. There is an obvious square there. The edges are clear. Now, this could be a JPEG compression artifact. Indeed, one of the commenters is very insistent about reminding everyone that compression artifacts can look like a square and fool the unwary into thinking that some sort of Photoshopping had occurred.. However, I do agree with another of the PubPeer discussants this is enough of a problem that the journal should demand the original blot.

On this one, I'll give Shaw and Tomljenovic the benefit of the doubt. (Whether they deserve it or not, you can judge for yourself.) That might be a compression artifact. Other problems discovered in the gels are not so easily dismissed. For instance, there definitely appears to be the ol' duplicated and flipped gel bands trick going on in Figure 2A:

Spotting these takes a little bit of skill, but look for distinctive parts of bands and then look to see if they show up elsewhere. It's also necessary to realize that there could be multiple different exposures of the same band, such that the same band can appear more or less intense and mirror-imaged. You have to know what to look for, and I fear that some readers not familiar with looking at blots like these might not see the suspicious similarities, even when pointed out. Still, let's take a look. There are more examples, for instance, these two bands in Figure 4C:

And Figures 4B and 4D, where bubbles on the gels serve as markers:

You can look at the rest of the PubPeer images for yourself and decide if you agree that something fishy is going on here. I've seen enough that I think there is, as is pointed out near the end:

Great to see such rapid progress being made: Band duplications firmly established for gels in Figs. 2 and 4. Perhaps we can add some RT-PCR from Fig. 1 too? In Fig. 2, seek out the band marked above that looks like a sailing boat with mast and forestay. Now look for it in Fig. 1A. And then perhaps check for any other duplications?

Others note that Shaw and Tomljenovic have engaged in a bit of self-plagiarism, too. Figure 1 in the 2017 paper is identical (and I do mean identical, except that the bars in the older paper are blue) to a paper they published in 2014. Basically, they threw a little primary data into one of their crappy review articles trying to blame "environment" (i.e., vaccines) for autism, this one published in 2014 in OA Autism. Don't take my word for it. Both articles are open-access, and you can judge for yourself.

Some comments from PubPeer:

As far as I can see figure 1 is identical in the two papers? But in the 2014 paper hisograns are described as means +/- SEM from three independent experiments and in 2017 as means +/- SEM of five independent experiments? http://www.oapublishinglondon.com/article/1368

And:

Brazen self-plagiarism of the open access 2014 paper’s Fig. 1 is a key find by the human commentator. Especially since it is not in PubMed (though it is Ref. 166 here). This means that they have used certain elements of a single gel four times in three years: Nice work if you can get it.

Here is the direct link to 2014 Fig. 1

http://www.oapublishinglondon.com/images/html_figures/1368_346.png

The licence for the 2014 paper states “Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY)”. Unfortunately, the 2017 recycling of Fig. 1 is neither creative nor is it attributed.

What this means is that Elsevier were misled regarding the copyright situation and the originality of the work. So this finding surely gives the 2017 publisher a get out of jail card. If they choose to play it, they can now unilaterally withdraw this embarrassing Anti-vaxxer concoction on these grounds alone.

Don’t forget to archive the two papers for your records: They might disappear from the publishers’ web sites at some point.

And that's still not all. Let's take a visit to our scaly friend, Skeptical Raptor, where he notes that The Mad Virologist and the Blood-Brain Barrier Scientist jointly analyzed the paper and found:

But there are six other key points that limit what conclusions can be drawn from this paper:

They selected genes based on old literature and ignored newer publications.

The method for PCR quantification is imprecise and cannot be used as an absolute quantification of expression of the selected genes.

They used inappropriate statistical tests that are more prone to giving significant results which is possibly why they were selected.

Their dosing regime for the mice makes assumptions on the development of mice that are not correct.

They gave the mice far more aluminum sooner than the vaccine schedule exposes children to.

There are irregularities in both the semi-quantitative RT-PCR and Western blot data that strongly suggests that these images were fabricated. This is probably the most damning thing about the paper. If the data were manipulated and images fabricated, then the paper needs to be retracted and UBC needs to do an investigation into research misconduct by the Shaw lab.

Taken together, we cannot trust Shaw’s work here and if we were the people funding this work, we’d be incredibly ticked off because they just threw away money that could have done some good but was instead wasted frivolously. Maybe there’s a benign explanation for the irregularities that we’ve observed, but until these concerns are addressed this paper cannot be trusted.

I note that they go into even more detail about the problems with the images that have led me (and others) to be suspicious of image manipulation, concluding:

These are some serious concerns that raise the credibility of this study and can only be addressed by providing a full-resolution (300 dpi) of the original blots (X-ray films or the original picture file generated by the gel acquisition camera).

There has been a lot of chatter on PubPeer discussing this paper and many duplicated bands and other irregularities have been identified by the users there. If anyone is unsure of how accurate the results are, we strongly suggest looking at what has been identified on PubPeer as it suggests that the results are not entirely accurate and until the original gels and Western blots have been provided, it looks like the results were manufactured in Photoshop.

I agree. Oh, and I agree with their criticism of the use of statistics. I even brought up their failure to control for multiple comparisons, but Shaw and Tomljenovic also used a test that is appropriate for a normal distribution when their data obviously did not follow a normal distribution.

So, my dear readers, it turns out that Orac, as Insolent as he can be when slapping down bad science by antivaxers, was not nearly Insolent enough in this case. Mea culpa. I should have known better, given Shaw and Tomljenovic's history. Not only do we have poorly done and analyzed experiments, but we also have self-plagiarism and, quite possibly, scientific fraud. Only releasing the full resolution original images from the original experiments (which are now probably four years old) can put these questions to rest.

Science matters. I hate to see it abused like this, particularly when experimental animals are killed in the service of such awful science.

oracknows Wed, 09/27/2017 - 01:00

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Well, for all we know now, they may have never touched a mouse, but just copied their gels together from something they found on the web. This looks really bad.

Oh man. I used to check images like these for a journal, and this, uh, looks suspicious. I can't believe no one queried these images before publication.

So not only are the methods and statistical analysis flawed but there might be evidence for outright fraud (sounds like another retracted paper we all know). Yet places like the National Vaccine (Mis)Information Archive are spreading this as definitive evidence.

A. If there was manipulation of the images, the university should respond.

B. Shaw, Meehan - is there any link between ophthalmology and being anti vaccine? I expect that's unfair to most ophthalmologists, but wonder.

Orac writes,

Not only do we have poorly done and analyzed experiments, but we also have self-plagiarism and, quite possibly, scientific fraud.

MJD says,

This is, quite possibly, Orac's best re-review!

In summary, when discovered and placed in the public domain, circumstantial evidence (e.g., questionable DNA gels and Western blot films) of scientistic fraud can damage or end the careers of researchers who, without a doubt, have been shown to engage in it.

It's my understanding that Shaw is a tenured full professor at UBC. It's also my understanding that one of the grounds for revoking tenure is academic fraud.

Just sayin"...

It’s my understanding that Shaw is a tenured full professor at UBC. It’s also my understanding that one of the grounds for revoking tenure is academic fraud.

It tends to get pinned on the most junior researcher. (I note that Yongling Li seems to have departed Shaw's group, as well.)

Shaw, Meehan – is there any link between ophthalmology and being anti vaccine? I expect that’s unfair to most ophthalmologists, but wonder.

I don't know who Meehan is, but Shaw does not have an MD and is in no respects an ophthalmologist. Anyway, antivaccinosis can strike indiscriminately. For instance: pediatrics (Sears, Mendelsohn), Gastoenterology (Wakefield), Neurosurgery (Blaylock), Pathology (Sin Hang Lee).

It tends to get pinned on the most junior researcher.

One would think that a succession of junior researchers pinned with academic fraud after having collaborated with the same senior researcher would be a great big red flag for any junior researcher who actually wants to have a future in the field.

Given Shaw's research interests, I'm tempted to think that perhaps he was bestowed upon the Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences department by means of a lateral transfer from another department that didn't want to keep him.

When it comes to poor quality images, particularly when compression artifacts are quite apparent, I'm perfectly happy to wish a pox on both houses - the authors for submitting crap or failing to take the publisher to task for wrecking that which was good when submitted, and the publisher for doing the latter or failing to take the author to task for submitting crap. I'da thunk someone in a dep't with "Visual Sciences" in the name might be a little hyper-vigilant regarding such matters.

We seem to have made a transition from the days when "white space" was regarded as sacred and actual useful content profane to an age of just plain incompetence and/or indifference.

While poor images are set in stone (or a polymer coating a sheet of aluminum) for printed publications, there is simply no excuse for allowing them to persist in electronic publications. Decent digital images can make rather large files, but I doubt that many journal articles are delivered via dial-up.

Of course fabulous images don't make up for poor research.

"2.The method for PCR quantification is imprecise and cannot be used as an absolute quantification of expression of the selected genes."

That is the first thing I thought. 20 years ago, there might be a reason for doing gels (heck, 10 years ago I was doing syber green in an academic lab, because probes were too expensive but gels are too imprecise), but these days, qRT-PCR machines have been around for a long time, and probes are absurdly cheap ($1.20 a reaction for a basic Taqman). Most if not all of those genes are off-the-shelf assays.

Not that I'd trust these fooks to do qRT-PCR correctly.

Or run a negative control. If they did it in this paper, they didn't mention it.

Or use actin as a housekeeper, ffs.

And using a paired T-test for so dizam many comparisons.

Yeah, lousy paper even from just skimming it.

I should have said "when compression artifacts are detrimental" instead of "... apparent" - some a just ugly but don't mask important content.

Orac,

Thanks

Just plain thanks for all you do

(I note that Yongling Li seems to have departed Shaw’s group, as well.)

Yongling Li coauthored the 2013 paper with behavioural results for the same mice, but wasn't involved in the 2014 "OA Autism" paper. OTOH, Dan Li was coauthor in 2014 and 2017... also yet another review-shaped self-plagiarism:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25428645
"Are there negative CNS impacts of aluminum adjuvants used in vaccines and immunotherapy?"
[Contains Figure 1 again]

The Acknowledgements could be read as a CYA positioning of the lab staff to take any blame:

We are also grateful to Agripina Suarez and other laboratory members for their assistance.

It's on Researchgate if anyone wants to quantify the degree of self-plagiarism:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268880246_Are_there_negative_C…

That band removed is not a compression artefact. Compression artefacts don't quite look like that. That is a clear case of photoshop. Photoshopping gels bands should lead to immediate retraction. Let's see what the journal editor does.

But what gets me is why bother with all the copying and pasting of bands. If they were going to just make it up, they could go the Judy Mikovits approach and just rename the bands as they wished.

In response to T. Bruce: Dr. Meehan is an Oklahoma doc trained in ophthalmology whose antivax views got taken down here:

https://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/jim-meehan-anti…

Let's not forget the most prominent ophthalmologist who's encouraged antivax idiocy - Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.

I wondered the same thing, Chris. Maybe they did both?

The Photoshop is easy to see (once you start to look for it), but other that trying to replicate the study, how could you prove or disprove something like renaming (or, to call it what it is, flat out lying)?

I'm glad to know I wasn't imagining things when I looked at the bands and thought, "They look like the same sample to me."

Orac is too kind when he calls this science. This isn't science. It's science fiction.

Off topic, so you can delete this when you see it, but I know you will be most pleased with this news from Australia:

"Fake wellness blogger Belle Gibson has been ordered to pay a fine of $410,000 after being found guilty of misleading and deceptive conduct earlier this year.

The Federal Court in Melbourne found she misled her readers when she claimed her brain cancer was cured through alternative therapies and nutrition.

It was later revealed she never had the disease."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-28/disgraced-wellness-blogger-belle-…

I wondered the same thing, Chris. Maybe they did both?

The Photoshop is easy to see (once you start to look for it), but other that trying to replicate the study, how could you prove or disprove something like renaming (or, to call it what it is, flat out lying)?

Well it was all made up, but given how easy detecting photoshopping of gels has become, why risk that. I suppose if you are inventing stuff already, you don't think of these things.

The renaming of lanes is in fact really hard to work out unless you have expertise with those specific genes/proteins. Mikovits' paper didn't pass the smell test when I read it, but it was really hard to put your finger on where the fraud was. A clear indication of a problem was that numbers of individuals in the paper and the supplementary information didn't match, and didn't match with Judy's public statements, but what did that mean?

It was only when Judy decided to use the same photo in a conference presentation with different labels on the lanes that it became obvious the sort of chicanery in operation and that the photo in the paper wasn't what they claimed it was. In the end it turned out that the blot was something else again and had been repurposed twice.

Meehan is an anti-vaccine loon who deserves to lose his medical license for the voluminous amount of dangerous stupid he spews. On the bright side, he overstepped his big mouth last year attacking physicians who promote vaccines and Meehan now has a libel case pending against him brought by a physician he slandered.

Shaw et al made stuff up about their control mice, too. In Table 1 they state that control mice received their saline injections on Days 3, 5, 6, 10, 12, 17 -- same as the Al-exposed group. The trouble is that in Table 2 of the earlier 2013 report of the same experiment, the controls only received five injections, on 2, 4,, 9, 11, 16.

In Table 1 they state that control mice received their saline injections on Days 3, 5, 6, 10, 12, 17 — same as the Al-exposed group. The trouble is that in Table 2 of the earlier 2013 report of the same experiment, the controls only received five injections, on 2, 4,, 9, 11, 16.

What is a day between friends?

Oh and Dan of Vaccine Papers tells me Shaw is going to retract the paper.

Perhaps it has got too embarrassing.

Elsevier management were already talking to the journal editors about minimising damage to their reputation, so one way or the other, the paper will not be around for long,

Even without the fakery it was a crap paper.

It just doesn't stop. In the original 2013 description:

The general development of mice was monitored by systematic recording of their weights from week 1 till the time of sacrifice (week 34).

In the 2017 account:

At 16 weeks of age the mice were euthanized and the brain tissues were collected for gene expression profiling experiments.

If you don't know whether your mice were 16 weeks or 34 weeks old when you killed them, it could be time to change careers.

I'd like to think that maybe not as many mice were needlessly killed for Shaw's current paper, but more likely they killed at least as many as stated in the paper before deciding to fake it all up.

@ #28 Chris Preston

Oh and Dan of Vaccine Papers tells me Shaw is going to retract the paper.

One can only hope a withdrawn publication full of falsified data and even self-plagiarising still counts as fraud.

If you don’t know whether your mice were 16 weeks or 34 weeks old when you killed them, it could be time to change careers.

Well, maybe they went the whole hog fraud-wise, and they didn't even use let alone kill mice in the first place, but just made things up over a few beers kale smoothies or so...

Anyway, if this is a fraud (and so far, it sure smells like one), it once again emphasizes the sheer stupidity of antivaccine people, even the ones with a sort of higher education. Did they really think that they would get this kind of clumsy mess past the science crowd unnoticed? And about this particular subject? They may as well put on bullseye pants and hand out shotguns...

Once again a study shows that vaccines improve health:

Contact: CDC Media Relations
(404) 639-3286

New study shows Tdap vaccination during pregnancy can prevent whooping cough in babies Less than half of pregnant women in the United States take advantage of vaccination
A new CDC study published today in Clinical Infectious Diseases reported that vaccination with whooping cough vaccine, Tdap, during the third trimester of pregnancy prevented more than three out of four (78 percent) cases of whooping cough (also known as pertussis) in babies younger than two months. However, only 49 percent of pregnant women who delivered between fall 2015 and spring 2016 received the vaccine. CDC recommends women get Tdap during each pregnancy to provide critical short-term protection to babies when they are most at risk for this life-threatening illness.
The study used data from 2011 through 2014 on babies younger than two months from six states. It found that mothers whose babies had whooping cough were less likely to have received Tdap during pregnancy. The study reported that, in addition to being 78 percent effective at preventing whooping cough, Tdap vaccination during the third trimester was 90 percent effective at preventing serious cases of whooping cough that require hospitalization.
“Women have such a great opportunity to help protect their babies before they enter the world by getting Tdap vaccine while pregnant,” said Nancy Messonnier, M.D., director of CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “This study highlights how babies can benefit when their mothers get the vaccine and reinforces CDC’s recommendation for women to get Tdap vaccine in the third trimester of each pregnancy.”
Read More Here

Orac is correct. The paper was a fraud.

Of course, there should be an investigation ASAP.

I can't believe anyone actually takes anything written by Shaw and Tomljenovic seriously anymore.

VP@36, That is a laudable admission. Will you now scrutinise Shaw et al.'s other studies and consider the criticism leveled at those?

In April 2016 the 10th Int.Congress on Autoimmunity took place in Leipzig -Germany.

http://autoimmunity.kenes.com/2016#.Wc-yO9FpGM8

Within this event the 4th International Symposium on Vaccines took place- sponsored by the antii-vaccine Dwoskin-Family Foundation and their CMSRI -"research" Institute.

The programm of this symposium can be found here

http://autoimmunity.kenes.com/Documents/4th%20International%20Symposium…

Chaired by C Dwoskin and Chris Exley (The Aluminium "expert" ) they also had a panel discussion with Lucia Tomljenovic and C Exley with the following questions:

"1.Why do you think that the authorities are trying to hide the truth?
2.What is the objective evidence that HPV vaccination is not justified?
3.What do you think, are the mechanisms by which vaccine can induce autoimmunity?"

So all authorities on this globe are hiding the truth- such wording is typical for any conspiracy theory in this case it is the anti-vaccine movement including their fraudulent "publications"

Will you now scrutinise Shaw et al.’s other studies and consider the criticism leveled at those?

In particular, his two 2014 publications -- in OA Autism and Immunotherapy -- which used the same Figure 1 with all its problematic features (such as the statistical absurdity of adding standard-error bars and applying t-tests to samples involving only three measurements). Do you find them convincing? Would you include them in the Vaccine Papers archives? Would you advise Shaw to retract them?

In April 2016 the 10th Int.Congress on Autoimmunity took place in Leipzig -Germany.

And Mark Geier was there, having abandoned his mercury / chelation grift in order to climb aboard the aluminium scamwagon. I would have thought that the other panelists would have felt slightly abashed to be sharing the podium with such an out-and-out charlatan, but evidently one must abandon all sense of shame to batten onto Dwoskin money.

Just received an email:
"The paper by Shaw and co-workers is being retracted jointly by the authors and the editor.

John Dawson, JIB Editor"

Pleased it'll be retracted; frankly gutted it was ever published...
Cheers!

The Orbital Laser Cannon of Pubpeer Correction is firm but fair.

#42 Magdalen -
Thanks.
I 1st saw news of the retraction via RtAVM:
https://www.facebook.com/RtAVM/posts/1715728805163788
who cited a guest post by Smut Clyde at Leonid Schneider's blog:
https://forbetterscience.com/2017/09/29/the-rise-and-fall-of-an-antivax…
.
At the very bottom is this update:
Update 8.10.2017. The Editor-in-Chief John Dawson wrote me back, with this signed one-liner (no “Dear Dr Schneider”, or “Hi Leonid”):
- “The paper by Shaw and co-workers is being retracted jointly by the authors and the editor.
— John Dawson, JIB Editor”"
.
Now the question remains as to what is going to happen to the authors of this scam. I predict UBC will defend their right to publish alternative facts.

Good news on the retraction and here is hoping a certain anti vac tenured pseudoscientist at ubc gets sacked

I wonder how they will explain this particular retraction.

It is gratifying to see that Clare Dwoskin et al. are getting exactly what they paid for. Although it's a shame that benefactors would rather fund sloppy, fraudulent science than bestow their largesse on worthy autism causes.

Per RW: "We immediately did our own analysis. Indeed, some images have been altered. How that happened, we don’t know."

Don't worry, Christopher, you'll "figure it out" in short order. And republish in OMICS or something.

Someone here said the post-doc would be thrown under-the-bus:

Shaw said that first author Dan Li, a former postdoc who performed the molecular biology and gene expression analysis for the study, has agreed to the retraction but not yet offered an official explanation about the data. Shaw told us:

"She denied that anything had been manipulated, or that anything was amiss".

http://retractionwatch.com/2017/10/09/journal-retract-paper-called-anti…

Worth the read as Shaw's Pollyanna routine is maddening.

It would be xmas come early if it turned out Dan Li absconded with the original data (that wasn't fraudulent) to CYA for the two studies that were published with fraudulent data by Shaw and Tomljenovic.

I didn't know where to put this.
http://www.cracked.com/article_25057_6-conspiracy-theorists-who-got-own…

Torturing more mice in the name of antivaccine pseudoscience, 2017 aluminum edition

oracknows — Thu, 21 Sep 2017 05:00:11 +0000

Torturing more mice in the name of antivaccine pseudoscience, 2017 aluminum edition

"Why, oh, why do I have to die in the cause of such crappy science?"

For antivaxers, aluminum is the new mercury.

Let me explain, for the benefit of those not familiar with the antivaccine movement. For antivaxers, it is, first and foremost, always about the vaccines. Always. Whatever the chronic health issue in children, vaccines must have done it. Autism? It’s the vaccines. Sudden infant death syndrome? Vaccines, of course. Autoimmune diseases? Obviously it must be the vaccines causing it. Obesity, diabetes, ADHD? Come on, you know the answer!

Because antivaxers will never let go of their obsession with vaccines as The One True Cause Of All Childhood Health Problems, the explanation for how vaccines supposedly cause all this harm are ever morphing in response to disconfirming evidence. Here’s an example. Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, antivaxers in the US (as opposed to in the UK, where the MMR vaccine was the bogeyman) focused on mercury in vaccines as the cause of autism. That’s because many childhood vaccines contained thimerosal, a preservative that contains mercury. In an overly cautious bit of worshiping at the altar of the precautionary principle, in 1999 the CDC recommended removing the thimerosal from childhood vaccines, and as a result it was removed from most vaccines by the end of 2001. (Some flu vaccines continued to contain thimerosal for years after that, but no other childhood vaccine did, and these days it’s uncommon for thimerosal-containing vaccines of any kind.)

More importantly, the removal of thimerosal from childhood vaccines provided a natural experiment to test the hypothesis that mercury causes or predisposes to autism. After all, if mercury in vaccines caused autism, the near-complete removal of that mercury from childhood vaccines in a short period of time should have resulted in a decline in autism prevalence beginning a few years after the removal. Guess what happened? Autism prevalence didn’t decline. It continued to rise. To scientists, this observation was a highly convincing falsification of the hypothesis through a convenient natural experiment, although those who belong to the strain of antivaccine movement sometimes referred to as the mercury militia still flog mercury as a cause of autism even now. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is perhaps the most famous mercury militia member, although of late he’s been sounding more and more like a run-of-the-mill antivaxer.

Which brings us to aluminum.

With mercury in vaccines pretty definitively eliminated as The One True Cause Of Autism, antivaxers started looking for other ingredients to blame for autism because, as I said before, it’s first, foremost, and always all about the vaccines. So naturally they shifted their attention to the aluminum adjuvants in many vaccines. Adjuvants are compounds added to vaccine in order to boost the immune response to the antigen used, and aluminum salts have been used as effective adjuvants for many years now and have an excellent safety record. None of that has stopped antivaxers from trying to make aluminum the new mercury by blaming aluminum-containing vaccines for autism. I was reminded by this earlier this week when my e-mail was flooded with messages about new study being flogged by antivaxers in spectacularly ignorant ways, including three—yes, three—identical messages from a certain antivaxer with a severe case of Dunning-Kruger and delusions of grandeur basically challenging me to review this study and assuring me that antivaxers would be citing it for a long time. Well, whenever I receive messages like that, particularly annoying repetition, my answer is: Be very careful what you wish for.

Also: Challenge accepted.

Which brings us to the study itself. It’s by antivaccine “researchers” whose previous studies and review articles I’ve discussed before. Yes, I’m referring to Christopher Shaw and Lucija Tomljenovic in the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of British Columbia. Both have a long history of publishing antivaccine “research,” mainly falsely blaming the aluminum adjuvants in vaccines for autism and, well, just about any health problem children have and blaming Gardasil for premature ovarian failure and all manner of woes up to and including death. Shaw was even prominently featured in the rabidly antivaccine movie The Greater Good. Not surprisingly, they’ve had a paper retracted, as well..

This time around, they’ve gone back to their old stomping grounds, the Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, and, along with two other co-authors, published Subcutaneous injections of aluminum at vaccine adjuvant levels activate innate immune genes in mouse brain that are homologous with biomarkers of autism. It’s where they published review article in 2011 full of antivaccine misinformation and distortions. So, given Shaw and Tomljenovic’s history, it is not unreasonable to be suspicious of this study as well. But, hey, you never know. Maybe it’s a good study that sheds light on an important aspect of the pathogenesis of autism…Ah, who’m I kidding? It’s nothing of the sort. It’s yet another study designed to imply that aluminum adjuvants cause autism.

Before we look at the study itself, specifically the experiments included in it, let’s consider the hypothesis being tested, because experiments in any study should be directed at falsifying the hypothesis. Unfortunately, there is no clear statement of hypothesis where it belongs, namely in the introduction. Instead, what we get is this:

Given that infants worldwide are regularly exposed to Al adjuvants through routine pediatric vaccinations, it seemed warranted to reassess the neurotoxicity of Al in order to determine whether Al may be considered as one of the potential environmental triggers involved in ASD.

In order to unveil the possible causal relationship between behavioral abnormalities associated with autism and Al exposure, we initially injected the Al adjuvant in multiple doses (mimicking the routine pediatric vaccine schedule) to neonatal CD-1 mice of both sexes.

This is basically a fishing expedition in which the only real hypothesis is that “aluminum in vaccines is bad and causes bad immune system things to happen in the brain.” “Fishing expeditions” in science are studies in which the hypothesis is not clear and the investigators are looking for some sort of effect that they suspect they will find. In fairness, fishing expeditions are not a bad thing in and of themselves—indeed, they are often a necessary first step in many areas of research—but they are hypothesis-generating, not hypothesis confirming. After all, there isn’t a clear hypothesis to test; otherwise it wouldn’t be a fishing expedition. The point is that this study does not confirm or refute any hypothesis, much less provide any sort of slam-dunk evidence that aluminum adjuvants cause autism.

Moving along, I note that this is a mouse experiment, and somehow antivaxers are selling this as compelling evidence that vaccines cause autism through their aluminum adjuvants causing an inflammatory reaction in the brain. Now, seriously. Mouse models can be useful for a lot of things, but, viewed critcally, for the most part autism is not really one of them. After all, autism is a human neurodevelopmental disorder diagnosed entirely by behavioral changes, and correlating mouse behavior with human behavior is very problematic. Indeed, correlating the behavior of any animal, even a primate, with human behavior is fraught with problems. Basically, there is no well-accepted single animal model of autism, and autism research has been littered with mouse models of autism that were found to be very much wanting. (“Rain mouse,” anyone?) Basically, despite the existence of many mouse strains touted to be relevant to autism, almost none of them are truly relevant because:

A good animal model satisfies three fundamental criteria. The first, called face validity, requires sufficient similarities between the phenotype of the mice and symptoms of the human disorder. The second, called construct validity, is achieved if the biological cause of the human disease is replicated in the mouse — for example, when an autism-associated gene is mutated in mice. Finally, a mouse model has predictive validity if treatments improve both the human symptoms of the disorder and the mouse phenotype.

Diagnosis of autism is purely behavioral and requires clearly defined symptoms in each of three core categories: abnormal social interactions, impaired communication and repetitive behavior. One of the challenges in studying mouse models is determining which behaviors from the mouse repertoire could be considered analogous to these symptoms.

And:

So far, very few of these mouse models display behavioral phenotypes relevant to all three core domains of autism. What’s more, in some cases, physical problems such as poor general health following seizures, or low exploratory activity, produce false positives that prevent the interpretation of more complex, autism-relevant phenotypes.

Pay particular attention to the part about construct validity. The assumption behind this study is that immune changes in the brain of mice will be relevant to immune activation in the brains of autistic humans. That is an assumption that hasn’t yet been confirmed with sufficient rigor to view this study’s results as any sort of compelling evidence that aluminum adjuvants cause autism. Yes, the authors include this important-looking diagram describing how they think immune system activation causes autism (click to embiggen):

In the end, though, as impressive as it is, the relevance of this chart to autism is questionable at best, as is the relevance of this study. So let’s look at the mouse strain chosen by the investigators, CD-1 mice. Basically, there’s nothing particularly “autistic” (even in terms of existing mouse models purported to be relevant to autism) about these mice, which are described in most catalogues of companies selling them as “general purpose.” Basically, the authors used them because they had used them before in previous studies in which they reported that aluminum injections caused motor neuron degeneration (nope, no autism) and another crappy paper in the same journal from 2013 purporting to link aluminum with adverse neurological outcomes. That’s it.

As for the experiment itself, neonatal mice were divided into two groups, a control group that received saline injections and the experimental group received injections of aluminum hydroxide in doses timed such that they that purportedly mimicked the pediatric vaccine schedule. Looking over the schedule used, I can’t help but note that there’s a huge difference between human infant development and mouse development. Basically, the mice received aluminum doses claimed to be the same as what human babies get by weight six times in the first 17 days of life. By comparison, in human babies these doses are separated by months. In addition, in human babies, vaccines are injected intramuscularly (in a muscle). In this study, the mice were injected subcutaneously (under the skin). This difference immediately calls into question applicability and construct validity. The authors stated that they did it because they wanted to follow previously utilized protocols in their laboratory. In some cases, that can be a reasonable rationale for an experimental choice, but in this case the original choice was questionable in the first place. Blindly sticking with the same bad choice is just dumb.

So what were the endpoints examined in the mice injected with aluminum hydroxide compared to saline controls? After 16 weeks, the mice were euthanized and their brains harvested to measure gene expression and the levels of the proteins of interest. Five males and five females from each group were “randomly paired” for “gene expression profiling.” Now, when I think of gene expression profiling, I usually think of either cDNA microarray experiments, in which the levels of thousands of genes are measured at the same time, or next generation sequencing, in which the level of every RNA transcript in the cell can be measured simultaneously. That doesn’t appear to be what the authors did. Instead, they used a technique known as PCR to measure the messenger RNA levels of a series of cytokines. Basically, they examined the amount of RNA coding for various immune proteins in the brain chosen by the authors as relevant to inflammation. The authors also did Western blots for many of those proteins, which is a test in which proteins are separated on a gel, blotted to a filter, and then probed with specific antibodies, resulting in bands that can be measured by a number of techniques, including autoradiography or chemiluminescence, both of which can be recorded on film on which the relevant bands can be visualized. Basically, what the authors did wasn’t really gene expression profiling. It was measuring a bunch of genes and proteins and hoping to find a difference.

There’s an even weirder thing. The authors didn’t use quantitative real time reverse transcriptase PCR, which has been the state-of-the-art for measuring RNA message levels for quite some time. Rather, they used a very old, very clunky form of PCR that can only produce—at best—semiquantitative results. (That’s why we used to call it semiquantitative PCR.) Quite frankly, in this day and age, there is absolutely zero excuse for choosing this method for quantifying gene transcripts. If I were a reviewer for this article, I would have recommended not publishing it based on this deficiency alone. Real time PCR machines, once very expensive and uncommon, are widely available. (Hell, I managed to afford very simple one in my lab nearly 15 years ago.) Any basic or translational science department worth its salt has at least one available to its researchers.

The reason that this semiquantitative technique is considered inadequate is that the amount of PCR product grows exponentially, roughly doubling with every cycle of PCR, asymptotically approaching a maximum as the primers are used up.
It usually takes around 30-35 cycles before everything saturates and the differences observed in the intensity of the DNA bands when they are separated on a gel become indistinguishable. That’s why PCR was traditionally and originally primarily considered a “yes/no” test. Either the RNA being measured was there and produced a PCR band, or it didn’t. In this case, the authors used 30 cycles, which is more than enough to result in saturation. (Usually semiquantitative PCR stops around 20-25 cycles or even less.) And I didn’t even (yet) mention how the authors didn’t use DNAse to eliminate the small amounts of DNA that contaminate nearly all RNA isolations. Basically, the primers used for PCR pick up DNA as well as any any RNA, and DNA for the genes of interest will be guaranteed to contaminate the specimens without DNAse treatment. Yes, you molecular biologists out there, I know that’s simplistic, but my audience doesn’t consist of molecular biologists.

Now, take a look at Figures 1A and 1B as well as Figures 2A and 2B. (You can do it if you want. The article is open access.) Look at the raw bands in the A panels of the figures. Do you see much difference, except for IFNG (interferon gamma) in Figure 1A? I don’t. What I see are bands of roughly the same intensity, even the ones that are claimed to vary by three-fold. In other words, I basically am very skeptical that the investigators saw much of difference in gene expression between controls and the aluminum-treated mice. In fairness, for the most part, the protein levels as measured by Western blot did correlate with what was found on PCR, but there’s another odd thing. The investigators didn’t do Western blots for all the same proteins whose gene expression they measured by PCR. Of course, they present primers for 27 genes, but only show blots for 18 (17 inflammatory genes plus beta actin, which was used as a standard to normalize the values for the other 17 genes).

I also question the statistical tests chosen by the authors. Basically, they examined each gene separately and used Student’s t-test to assess statistical significance. However, in reality they did many comparisons, at least 17, and there’s no evidence that the authors controlled for multiple comparisons. If one chooses statistical significance to occur at p < 0.05 and compares 20 samples, by random chance alone at least one will be different. Add to that the fact that there is no mention of whether the people performing the assays were blinded to experimental group, and there's a big problem. Basic science researchers often think that blinding isn't necessary in their work, but there is a potential for unconscious bias that they all too often don't appreciate. For example, the authors used Image J, free image processing software developed by the NIH. I've used Image J before. It's a commonly used app used to quantify the density of bands on gels, even though it's old software and hasn't been updated in years. Basically, it involves manually drawing outlines of the bands, setting the background, and then letting the software calculate the density of the bands. The potential for bias shows up in how you draw the lines around the bands and set the backgrounds. As oblivious as they seem to be to this basic fact, basic scientists are just as prone to unconscious bias as the rest of us, and, absent blinding, in a study like this there is definitely the potential for unconscious bias to affect the results. In fairness, few basic science researchers bother to blind whoever is quantifying Western blots or ethidium bromide-stained DNA gels of PCR products, but that's just a systemic problem in biomedical research that I not infrequently invoke when I review papers. Shaw and Tomljenovic are merely making the same mistake that at least 90% of basic scientists make.

But let’s step back and take the authors’ results at face value for a moment. Let’s assume that what is reported is a real effect. In the rest of the paper, the authors present evidence of changes in gene expression that suggest the activation of a molecular signaling pathway controlled by a molecule called NF-κB and that male mice were more susceptible to this effect than females. (Just like autism!) Funny, but I know NF-κB. I’ve published on NF-κB. I had an NIH R01 grant to study how my favorite protein affected NF-κB. True, I ended up abandoning that line of research because I hit some dead ends. True, I’m not as familiar with NF-κB as I used to be. But I do know enough to know that NF-κB is easy to activate and very nonspecific. I used to joke that just looking at my cells funny would activate NF-κB signaling. Also, NF-κB activation is indeed associated with inflammation, but so what? What we have is an artificial model in which the mice are dosed much more frequently with aluminum than human infants. Does this have any relevance to the human brain or to human autism? who knows? Probably not. No, almost certainly not.

Also, the mouse immune system is different from the human immune system. None of this stops the authors from concluding:

Based on the data we have obtained to date, we propose a tentative working hypothesis of a molecular cascade that may serve to explain a causal link between Al and the innate immune response in the brain. In this proposed scheme, Al may be carried by the macrophages via a Trojan horse mechanism similar to that described for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C viruses, travelling across the blood-brain-barrier to invade the CNS. Once inside the CNS, Al activates various proinflammatory factors and inhibits NF-κB inhibitors, the latter leading to activation of the NF-κB signaling pathway and the release of additional immune factors. Alternatively, the activation of the brain’s immune system by Al may also occur without Al traversing the blood-brain barrier, via neuroimmuno-endocrine signaling. Either way, it appears evident that the innate immune response in the brain can be activated as a result of peripheral immune stimuli. The ultimate consequence of innate immune over-stimulation in the CNS is the disruption of normal neurodevelopmental pathways resulting in autistic behavior.

That’s what we call in the business conclusions not supported by the findings in a study. On a more “meta” level, it’s not even clear whether the markers of inflammation observed in autistic brains are causative or an epiphenomenon. As Skeptical Raptor noted. It could be that the inflammation reported is caused by whatever the primary changes in the brain that result in autism. Cause and effect are nowhere near clear. One can’t help but note that many of the infections vaccinated against cause way more activation of the immune system and cytokines than vaccination.

So what are we left with?

Basically, what we have is yet another mouse study of autism. The study purports to show that aluminum adjuvants cause some sort of “neuroinflammation,” which, it is assumed, equals autism. By even the most charitable interpretation, the best that can be said for this study is that it might show increased levels of proteins associated with inflammation in the brains of mice who had been injected with aluminum adjuvant way more frequently than human babies ever would be. Whether this has anything to do with autism is highly questionable. At best, what we have here are researchers with little or no expertise in very basic molecular biology techniques using old methodology that isn’t very accurate overinterpreting the differences in gene and protein levels that they found. At worst, what we have are antivaccine “researchers” who are not out for scientific accuracy but who actually want to promote the idea that vaccines cause autism. (I know, I know, it’s hard not to ask: Why not both?) If this were a first offense, I’d give Shaw and Tomljenovic the benefit of the doubt, but this is far from their first offense. Basically, this study adds little or nothing to our understanding of autism or even the potential effects of aluminum adjuvants. It was, as so many studies before, the torture of mice in the name of antivax pseudoscience. The mice used in this study died in vain in a study supported by the profoundly antivaccine Dwoskin Foundation.

Also, I’ll tell my antivax admirer the same thing I once told J.B. Handley when he taunted me to examine a study that he viewed as “slam dunk” evidence for a vaccine-autism link: You don’t tug on Superman’s cape. And, no, your name isn’t Slim. You’re not an exception.

ADDENDUM 9/27/2017: Apparently I wasn’t…Insolent…enough with this paper. On PubPeer there is a big discussion about whether the images in this paper were manipulated and whether the authors self-plagiarized Figure 1 from another paper. It looks bad.

oracknows Thu, 09/21/2017 - 01:00

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What is shameful is this "research" gets published at all. Lack of blinding is inexcusable. Reference 41 is cited to show that aluminum from vaccines is found in the brains of mice (https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-7015-11-99). Reading this reference 41, there is also no mention of blinding in looking at the brain slices of mice who received aluminum versus those who did not (and aluminum deposition was found in both control and aluminum-injected groups). Furthermore they explain away an anomalous finding in the aluminum found in rat brains over time as "was either due to interindividual variations in aluminum handling or to sampling problems related to variable proportions of grey and white matter in the randomly scanned areas (see below)". Say what?

Sadly, each one of these poorly done papers (almost always from the same anti-vaccine biased groups) is used to bootstrap the next poorly done paper and even though we know it's a pile of poop (rather than a staircase to understanding), some parents will be fooled by the growing number of these crappy papers into believing vaccines cause autism.

I'm slightly confused by this anyway, surely aluminum adjuvants are chosen because they stimulate the immune system at the same time that the antigens in the vaccine are given. Why wouldn't you see activation of immune system genes when they are supposed to trigger that?

As for the handwaving in the diagram of "innate immunity -> autism" *sigh*

"Because antivaxers will never let go of their obsession with vaccines as The One True Cause Of All Childhood Health Problems, the explanation for how vaccines supposedly cause all this harm are ever morphing in response to disconfirming evidence."

Indeed they are experts at committing the logical fallacy of "moving the goalposts."

Indeed they are "experts" at committing the logical fallacy of "moving the goal-posts."

In the case of Shaw and Tomljenovic's work, the term "fishing expedition" is better understood in the political rather than the scientific sense of the word. Like the sport fisherman who is looking for a trophy and doesn't much care whether it's salmon, swordfish, or sharks with fricking laser beams, Shaw and Tomljenovic are looking for something that they can blame on vaccines, and they don't much care what it is as long as they find something. That's like the investigations of President Clinton, which after many years and many millions of dollars came up with an instance where Clinton lied about a consensual extramarital affair.

I was aware that Shaw and Tomljenovic are affiliated with UBC but didn't know the detail that they are specifically in the ophthalmology department. I can't resist observing in this context that there are none so blind as those who will not see.

If you going to blame a metal, these eye docs should at least blame the most common metal in the universe and in our bodies.

Hydrogen is a metal and it makes up a good portion of what we are and is everywhere in the body.

I say we start a campaign to ban hydrogen from our bodies (I am being just a tad snarky).

I'd almost suggest a sort of "Three Strike" system for clowns like this: three bad papers, all trying to prove the same thing? One academic title stripped (or some other sanction).
I recall several people with a real academic background who apparently dedicate their entire career trying to prove the unprovable, e.g. Soffritti with his never-ending crusade against aspartame, and Séralini chasing his GMO/Roundup mirage - and they fail every time (which in fact should be enough of a sanction, but somehow that doesn't deter them to keep going at it again and again and again...).

. . . assuring me that antivaxers would be citing it for a long time. . . .

They got that part right. Don't antivaxers cite any "study that ever supported their views, no matter how twisted, forever?

. . . assuring me that antivaxers would be citing it for a long time. . . .

They got that right. Don't the antivaxers cite every "study" that supports their views, no matter how twisted, forever?

Orac writes,

Basically, this study adds little or nothing to our understanding of autism or even the potential effects of aluminum adjuvants.

MJD says,

"Little" or "nothing", which one is it?

If the answer is "little", then, this research could be considered an incremental step towards the etiology of ASD.

It appears you've intentionally given your antivax admirer a reason for hope by using the word "little", but, at the same time appeased your fan-base with the word "nothing".

Sorry for the double (and wrongly typed name) double post. Need more coffee and less cat in lap.

Rich@3: As I am sure you and other RI commenters are aware, vaccines contain significant amounts of dihydrogen monoxide. So do malignant tumors. That's some dangerous stuff!

"Little" = what happens when you overdose mice on Aluminum.....

Besides being a normal conversational gambit, there is actually some things to be learned from this so called study. One: People should perform research within there skill set; I wouldn't expect Orac to write a paper of positron spin positions, just as I don't expect eye doctors to do research on autism. This is also a good example of how not to perform and write a research paper.

Eric, isn't that a good reason to ban hydrogen to prevent hydrogen metal poisoning?

I read this paper and looked at the figures (in high resolution even) and I have so many questions. Looking at the IFNG mRNA in males (Fig1A) vs. females (Fig2A). Males show increased IFNG transcription in response to Al, but the control females have just as much IFNG mRNA as Al-treated females. So female control female mice just have IFNG expression in their brain vs male mice? In their western blots there is a band in the control mice for pair 2 and in the blots of individual brain regions (Fig 5). They only show 2 bands for the mRNA expression which is misleading if they have that much variation.

IL-4 and IL-5 aren't NF-KappaB targets to my knowledge. In fact some studies show that IL-4 suppresses NF-KappaB signaling.

That Figure 6, IFNG and TNFaren't chemokines. IL-4 is primarily involved in T and B responses.IL-4 actually makes macrophages/microglia become less inflammatory.

# 8 Rich Bly
isn’t that a good reason to ban hydrogen
We don't know' All the participants just keep floating off like a cloud.

@ 2 Eric Lund

Christopher Shaw, a professor in the department of ophthalmology and visual sciences at UBC. Prof. Shaw, who is chair of the CMSRI's scientific advisory board, frequently collaborates with Lucija Tomljenovic, a post-doctoral research fellow in the department.

. Organizations that promote messages about the dangers of vaccines, such as the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute (CMSRI), have used the results of University of British Columbia research as evidence that vaccines cause autism and other serious harm.

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/ubc-sta…;

Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute http://www.cmsri.org/

I would like to point out that the diagram from the paper looks like a mouse, except the brain is in its ass. That's quite the Freudian slip there.

Organizations that promote messages about the dangers of vaccines, such as the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute (CMSRI), have used the results of University of British Columbia research as evidence that vaccines cause autism and other serious harm.

The paper does cite the Dwoskin Foundation for funding. You can see it as the production wing of an integrated marketing operation.

“Little” = what happens when you overdose mice on Aluminum…..

Stuart Little was an autistic mouse? NOOOO!!

And
Dr. Mercola Interviews Dr. Tomljenovic About Vaccine Adjuvants
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVJkzWXG6CQ

Reference 41 is cited to show that aluminum from vaccines is found in the brains of mice (https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-7015-11-99).

Imagine my surprise to find that the peer reviewers of that earlier work were (a) Christopher Shaw, and (b) Carlo Perricone. The latter is another of the Circle of True Believers, who can be found regularly co-authoring with Shoenfeld & Tomljenovic, or favourably reviewing other papers from the group for Frontiers journals. The level of intellectual inbreeding is such that their brains are growing sixth fingers. Funded yet again by the Dwoskin Foundation.

It was not clear to me who nominates & selects reviewers in the BMC model.

I was aware that Shaw and Tomljenovic are affiliated with UBC but didn’t know the detail that they are specifically in the ophthalmology department.

He seems to have started to go off the rails around 2010 with a middling publication record beforehand (NB: not all the same Shaw). This item has his affiliation as "University of British Columbia, Departments of Ophthalmology and Medical Science, Experimental Medicine, and Graduate Program in Neuroscience, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada."

^ Dammit: "around 2010"

Indignation alert.

^ Jesus, I must need more coffee. This, I hope, is the indignant letter to Toxicology that's in press.

No, the SB monkeys have simply f*cked something up.

doi.org/10.1016/j.tox.2017.09.010

Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute

Readers will recall that CMSRI funded Mawson's internet survey on vaccination sequelae, paid for its abortinve publication in Frontiers, then paid again to have it squeezed out through a pukefunnel from a particularly skeezy mendacious publishing parasite, in order that they could proclaim its results at AutismOne.

https://lbrbblog.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/cnn-money.png

This, I hope, is the indignant letter to Toxicology that’s in press.

Goodness me, that is some serious whiny-arsed whinging there. The authors' amour propre has been dissed and needs a ride on the waahmbulance.

In related news, Exley is not antivaccine* and was trying to crowdsource £500,000+ to demonstrate that aluminum causes Alzheimer disease.** For CMSRI. And to sell silicon water, or something.

* hippocraticpost.com/infection-disease/aluminium-adjuvants-vaccines/
** futsci.com/project/the-aluminium-alzheimer-s-disease-hypothesis-what-is-the-role-of-aluminium-in-alzheimers-disease

^ The list of backers on that failed attempt contains some familiar names, as well. Gotta love Robert "I have to pay and wait for overbroad FOIA requests?" Krakow.

No, the SB monkeys have simply f*cked something up.

I don't know what happened, but a whole lot of legitimate comments got flagged not just for moderation, but as spam. They were dumped into the spam folder. It looks like it's been going on about a day and a half; i.e., since yesterday morning sometime. I've released and published all of the non-spam posts that got hung up. I have no idea what happened. All I can do is to try to keep an eye on the spam folder again to make sure no one whose comment gets flagged as spam has to wait too long for his or her comment to publish. That's all I can do.

Orac, you just need everyone to switch to Al free adjuvants in their posts, or is that mouse free?

The antivax movement has started making it's way into the veterinary profession. We had a client that we eventually turned away because she refused to get a rabies vaccine for her dog (her children weren't vaccinated either). We have many people that only get the rabies vaccine and none of the others. It's very unfortunate when a puppy (and I rare occasion adult dog) comes in with Parvo (an often times fatal disease) when there's a vaccine for that.

@ herr doktor bimler #22: AVers have figured out how to bootstrap their bullsh*t. It's a flimsy house of cards but all they have to do is scare a few percent of parents out of vaccinating and then they have the vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks they so badly crave as proofz that vaccines don't work.

Despicable.

People should perform research within there skill set; I wouldn’t expect Orac to write a paper of positron spin positions, just as I don’t expect eye doctors to do research on autism.

I am not going to demand strict demarcation of specialities. But if I wrote a paper on immune responses and autism, I probably wouldn't sent it to "Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry", unless I wanted to avoid referees with expertise in autism or immunology or neurology.

Does anyone know what Dr. Tomljenovic is doing these days? A google search places her at British Colombia, but she doesn't have tenure, unlike Prof. Shaw, does she?

@Dorit Reiss:
The UBC Faculty as of 2017-2018 still lists Tomljenovic as a postdoc. From what I can tell she started at UBC as a postdoc in 2011. Seems to me like a long time to be stuck there , however the Dwoskin and CMSRI money continues to flow.
As a UBC medical alumnus, I hang my head in shame.

Jessica @34
I was a vet tech for 6 years, the last 18 months of which I was in emergency medicine. Parvo is a horrific disease, capable of killing even the healthiest of pups. The idea of people not vaccinating their dogs infuriates me to no end. If not vaccinating your kids is abuse, not vaccinating your dogs is just as abusive. What is worse is that kids are covered by their parents insurance (if they have it). Pets less frequently are covered.

Vaccines are not just "The One True Cause Of All Childhood Health Problems" to antivaxers. They are the only cause of all health problems. Before vaccines, all humans needed was clean water and clean food. Not vaccines. Vaccines are the cause of all the world's evils, in the mind of the antivaxer. Even the unvaxed are doomed because one's mother's vaccines will affects one's health. Now, if you are misfortunate enough to have ill effects from vaccines sometime in your recent multigenerational past, all you need to do is take $987 worth of supplements daily and $1000 in organic food daily. Of course, you also need the water filtration system and the air purifier and the tanning bed. Also, David Avocado Wolfe has some pillow covers to sell you.

(tongue in cheek)

@ chris hickie "Bootstrap their bullsh*t" Is that one of yours? Hilarious. Here in Australia at least our Health Minister calls out antivaxers and antivax Doctors. One even got his licence suspended or revoked - i forget - aww poor anitvaxer. Orac and his SBM colleagues do a great job. Never stop.

@ jkrideau - good article in the Globe there, i particularly like the equating of anti-vaccine to an 'ethnic or racial slur' by our aggrieved professor of aluminum and eyeballs. As another prof in the interview says there is academic freedom but there is also academic responsibility. Not a lot of responsibility in these two but delusions are powerful things.

Kathy (#40) beat me to it. I was going to cite the "multigenerational effects" of vaccines, since only vaccines could possibly cause health problems, if your unvax'd kid has something, it must be due to your vaccine history (or your mom's, I don't know how far back it goes!)

On the subject of mouse studies, though. I frequently cite this one:
Neurotoxicology. 2008 Jan;29(1):160-9. Epub 2007 Nov 1. Links
Neonatal exposure to perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) causes neurobehavioural defects in adult mice.
Johansson N, Fredriksson A, Eriksson P.

Authors do not claim autism per se, but note behavioral changes. In my house we use cast iron. Never see the antivaxxers using it, though. Of course, it does not implicate vaccines, so can not possibly be relevant to their obsession.

The "one true cause"? LOL. Clever use of hyperbole. I sure hope people know better than to rely on blogs like this to tell them what the arguments against vaccines are and why they are wrong. It's as reliable as listening to only one side of a debate, and trusting them to tell you honestly why they won. :D

OK, I was not too offended by my comments vanishing into the aether, but NWO gets posted and mine don't? Now I am sad.

@ #43
From reading articles and comments posted by anti-vaxxers themselves, it's not that much of an exaggeration/hyperbole to summarize their arguments as such.

NWOR -

Here's a list of conditions that anti-vexers have claimed are caused by vaccines.

Is there anything on this list that you are willing to say 'No, vaccines do not cause that'.

Acute flaccid paralysis
ADD
ADEM
AIDS
Allergies
ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis)
Alzheimer's
Anaphylaxis
Antiphospholipid syndrome (APS)
Aplastic anemia
Apnea
Appetite, anorexia
Arthritis
Asthma
Autism
Autoimmune diseases
Bell's Palsy
Birth defects
Blood Reactions
Bowel disease
Brain damage
Brain Swelling
BSE risk
Bullous pemphigoid
Cancer
Cerebral Palsy
CFIDS/ME
Chronic inflammatory
CIC (Klinkers)
CJD risk
Coeliac Disease
Convulsions
Criminality
Crohn's Disease
Cysts
Death
Deep vein thrombosis (DVT)
Demyelination
Demylenating Polyneuropathy (CIDP).
Depression
Dermatomyositis
Development disability
Diabetes
Down's syndrome
Dravet Syndrome
Dyslexia
Dystonia
Ear infections (Otitis Media)
Eczema
Encephalitis, Encephalopathy
Encephalomyelitis
Epilepsy
Erysipelas
Erythema multiforme
Eye damage
Fanconi's anemia
Feline sarcomas
Fever
Fibromyalgia
Foetal damage & death
Foot and mouth disease
Gait disturbances
Gangrene
Gastroenteritis
Glomerulonephritis
Graves' disease
Guillain-Barre syndrome
Gulf War Syndrome
Hair loss
Headache
Hearing loss
Heart damage
Heller's syndrome
Hemolytic anemia
Henoch-Schoenlein Purpura
Hepatitis
Hughes syndrome and antiphospholipid syndrome (APS)
Hyperkinetic syndrome
Immune Suppression
Infections
Infertility
Inflammatory bowel disease
Intussusception
Kawasaki Syndrome
Kidney disorders
Lennox-gastaut syndrome
Leprosy
Leukemia & lymphoma
Lichen planus
Liver disorders
Lou Gehrig's disease
Lung, breathing issues
Lupus
Lycanthropy
Lyell's syndrome
Lyme disease
Lymphoma
Macrophagic myofasciitis (MMF)
Meningitis
Meningoencephalitis
Menopause
Miscarriage
Mitichondrial Disorder
MS
Mumps
Myasthenia gravis
Myocarditis
Narcolepsy
Nervous system damage
Neurological
Obesity
Optic Neuritis
Orchitis
Osteoporosis
Otitis Media
Pancreatitis
Pancytopenia
Panic Attacks
Panniculitis
Parkinsonism
Peanut Allergy
Pericarditis
Pneumonia
Polio
POTS
Premature ovarian failure (POF)/premature menopause
Psoriasis
Renal
Respiratory
RSV
Sarcomas (feline)
Scleroderma
Scoliosis
Seizures
Serum Sickness
Shaken Baby Syndrome
Shingles
SIDS
Sinusitis
Skin disorders
Smallpox
Spanish Flu
SSPE
Sterilization
Stevens-Johnson syndrome
Sudden death
Suicide
Syphilis
TB
Tetanus
Thrombocytopenia purpura
Tics
Tonsillitis
Tourette's Syndrome
Transverse myelitis
Typhoid
Uveitis
Vaccinia
Vasculitis
Vasculomyelinopathy
Violent Behaviour
Whooping cough

In other anti-vax news/ torturing...

I've been hearing about a new documentary about AJW which is advertised as though it were 'balanced' ( famous last word I know)- my initial reaction seems to be realistic:
it is most likely pure Andy worship again.

There's an article by GInger Taylor @ AoA as well as one at briandeer.com about Miranda Bailey, the film maker.

Guess which one makes sense.

From what I can tell she started at UBC as a postdoc in 2011. Seems to me like a long time to be stuck there , however the Dwoskin and CMSRI money continues to flow.

She did a stint midway with Shoenfeld, as I recall.

No, the SB monkeys have simply f*cked something up.

I don’t know what happened, but a whole lot of legitimate comments got flagged not just for moderation, but as spam.

I was referring to the prepending of the page URL that was breaking embedded links.

There's some interesting comments on FB about this study. In one comment thread, for instance, suspicions have been raised that one of the blots was altered. There is also discussion of how the authors didn't look at IκB, which is key to what is known as the canonical NFκB pathway. I'm kicking myself for not having noticed that, given that I had an R01 from 2005-2010 in which NFκB was a major part. https://www.facebook.com/dorit.reiss/posts/10214563162377668?comment_id…

Here’s a list of conditions that anti-vexers have claimed are caused by vaccines.

Seems to be missing drug addiction, which is touted by one Benedetta over a AoA, IIRC.

^ "over at"

Johnny -- interesting list. If nothing else, it's bound to prompt some curiosity in the "vaccine hesitant" that will get them looking around for more information. That is, assuming they don't consider your sneering contempt to be evidence of anything. ;)

There’s some interesting comments on FB about this study. In one comment thread, for instance, suspicions have been raised that one of the blots was altered.

That came up at Pubpeer as well, though the "evidence" for a spliced / deleted band on one of the blots looks like jpg-compression artefacts to me.
I can't see the motivation for the authors to delete a band. As it is, the Figure shows TNF levels varying wildly among the Control animals (all the way down to 0)... implying that it has no biological significance. It's hard to image what a band could show that would be worse than that, and make it worth deleting.

Hey, I'm trying to build bridges here. I struggle to find the "sneering contempt" you mentioned. My post was simple, and had a simple request - here's a list, what doesn't belong.

If we can agree that there are just some things vaccines don't cause, maybe, just maybe, we can put an end to the idea that vaccines cause all problems, and then work to come to an agreement on the problems that vaccines do cause.

Surly there are things on the list that make you say 'No, there is no evidence that vaccines cause XXXX, YYYY, and ZZZZ , and anyone who believes otherwise is a silly person'. But if you insist that everything on the list might because by vaccines, then I think we would have to agree that Kathy is right after all.

As far as Narad's suggestion that my list is incomplete, I freely admit that it's possible, and in fact I admit it's likely, but I'm not interested in moving the goal posts. But if you want to start with drug addiction, well, it would be a start.

Reference 41 is cited

Ref. 116 omits the minor detail of journal and year:

[116] E.B. Mukaetova-Ladinska, J. Westwood, E.K. Perry

Are there no copy-editors at Elsevier any more??? [/rhetorical question]

Another self-citation of interest is

[166] C.A. Shaw, S. Sheth, D. Li, L. Tomljenovic, OA Autism 2 (2014) 11

"OA Autism" being a predatory journal from the publisher "OA Publishing London". Neuroskeptic delved into the skeezy grifters behind it, a few years ago:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2014/08/25/strange-rise-…

The publisher subsequently went t-u:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2015/03/11/when-publishe…

So I am grateful to Shaw et al. for reminding me of the whole entertaining episode.

don’t know what happened, but a whole lot of legitimate comments got flagged not just for moderation, but as spam..
Could some person relate this fact of checking the spam filter to Greg Laden? He's not been receiving comments for a few days now -- http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/09/19/hurricane-maria/

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/09/19/hurricane-maria/#respond

I guess, they are all in the spam folder.... pass it on.

Johnny, why don't you start by telling us which of the conditions on the list you posted you believe CAN be caused by vaccines.

That wouldn't prove anything.

To recap -

Kathy said "Vaccines are not just “The One True Cause Of All Childhood Health Problems” to antivaxers. They are the only cause of all health problems."

You laughed out loud at the idea (or so you claimed).

I give you a list of conditions that anti-vaxxers have blamed on vaccines, and ask if there are any that you don't believe are caused by vaccines, and you refuse to name any.

I can only conclude that you think it's a reasonable list. I just don't understand why you're embarrassed to say so.

Johnny said: "Hey, I’m trying to build bridges here." So start building. The obvious place to start is to ascertain the extent to which you disagree with the list you posted. So tell us which of the items on your list you agree can be caused by vaccines.

BTW, Johnny, your list had nothing to do a "one true cause." It was a list of conditions that some people allege CAN be caused by vaccines. I accepted for the sake of discussion that some people do, in fact, allege it. But presumably no one has ever alleged that vaccines are the "one true cause" of death, for example, which was one condition on your list.

I know I had a comment here. I think the spam filters acting u again.

I accepted for the sake of discussion that some people do, in fact, allege it.

Like you, it seems. A fair interpretation of this thread is that you believe that vaccines can cause all the conditions on that list. They truly are the wonder drug that work wonders.

You've made Kathy's point quite nicely.

Wow, Johnny, you're really doing somersaults to avoid telling us which conditions on your list you agree can be caused by vaccines. It's no mystery why. You have two choices here: to claim vaccines have no risks, which would destroy whatever credibility you might have; or publish a list of vaccine injuries that actually do happen. Which will be? Or will you move on to back flips? :D

Vaccines do have side effects. Here's a good list, broken down by vaccine type.

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm

Now answer the question - is there any disease or condition that vaccines don't cause?

Johnny, go ahead and post a clean list of the vaccine injuries here, like you did for your first list. And if you want me to comment on your first list, post links to the sources you got them from (like you did for vaccine injuries acknowledged by the CDC) and I'll take a look. :)

Why should I do that? So you can move the bar again?

You've made your position, and intentions quite clear.

You even said "I accepted for the sake of discussion that some people do, in fact, allege it", and now I have to give citations that people have made the allegations.

Here, Johnny--I made a clean list of the vaccine injuries acknowledged by the CDC for you. Interestingly, they don't even include all the injuries that have been compensated in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. See how many bridges we've already built? Don't bother with the links if you don't want to--you'd only post the weakest links anyway.

Serious allergic reaction
Death
Permanent brain damage.
Long-term seizures
Coma
Lowered consciousness
Guillain-Barré Syndrome
Deafness
Pneumonia
Inflammation of the stomach or intestines
Intussusception (a type of bowel blockage)
Swelling, severe pain and/or bleeding in the arm
Severe long-lasting shoulder pain/difficulty moving the arm
Severe nervous system reaction
Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach ache
Seizure (jerking or staring)
Non-stop crying, for 3 hours or more
High fever, over 105°F
Fainting
Blood in the urine or stool

Johnny, we can add to our points of agreement the following acknowledged vaccine injuries listed on the Vaccine Injury Compensation Table that weren't already on the list of CDC acknowledged vaccine injuries I posted above. Interestingly, I'm getting a "page not found" error on this table now. Fortunately, I was able to find it on the WayBackMachine, dated 9-10-2017. :)

Anaphylaxis
Brachial Neuritis
Vasovagal syncope
Encephalopathy or encephalitis
Chronic arthritis
Thrombocytopenic purpura
Vaccine Strain Measles Viral Disease
Paralytic Polio
Vaccine Strain Polio Viral Infection
Shoulder Injury Related to Vaccine Administration
Disseminated varicella vaccine strain viral disease
Varicella vaccine strain viral reactivation

Of course, the injuries that have been compensated in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program are not limited to the injuries listed on the table. Maybe you can look up the rest of them for us, Johnny., so we can build more bridges. :)

Now NWOR, provide the PubMed indexed studies that show those vaccine side effects occur more often than they occur with the actual diseases.

Also, do provide at least the PubMed indexed case report of the paralytic polio happening with the IPV. Because the OPV has not been used in years.

Chris, are you saying you disagree with the CDC's list of acknowledged vaccine injuries, and/or the acknowledged vaccine injuries listed in the HRSA's Vaccine Injury Compensation Table? If so, it seems it is you who should have the burden of proving they're wrong. What vaccine injuries do you acknowledge occur? Let's help Johnny build bridges. :)

BTW, Chris, according to polioeradication dot org: "Oral poliovirus vaccines (OPV) are the predominant vaccine used in the fight to eradicate polio." Are you saying the OPV isn't used in the industrialized world, so the injuries don't matter?

I disagree because you did not link to the documents. Plus the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program is not part of the CDC, but with Health Resources and Services Administration.

Do you really thing the compensated claims are proof that the vaccines cause more harm than the diseases? You must have some kind of reading comprehension issue. So lets see how well you are at basic math word problems.

Check out their statistics:
https://www.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/hrsa/vaccinecompensation/data/…

Now go to the bottom of the first table to the row that says "Grand Total." The data first column is the total number of vaccines given in the stated time period (2,845,946,816 total vaccines). Now run your finger over to the number to the total compensated claims (2,976 claims). Now divide the first by the second number.

What is that number? What does it mean?

Also, go look at the compensated claims, tell us how many are under the "Settlement" column. What does that mean? Here is a hint: the second page of this pdf file has a section titled "Definitions." Learn how to use it.

Chris, did you get enough sleep last night? Johnny linked to the CDC's list of acknowledged vaccine injuries. And all you have to do to find the HRSA's Vaccine Injury Compensation Table is to search that term in any search engine, retrieve the link showing "page not found," and look it up on the WayBackMachine. It was just taken down, so the link still shows up on search engines.

I made a clean list of the vaccine injuries acknowledged by the CDC

Uh-huh.

Blood in the urine or stool

This, for example, is under adenovirus. Let's read:

"More serious problems have been reported by about 1 person in 100, within 6 months of vaccination. These problems included:

blood in the urine or stool
pneumonia
inflammation of the stomach or intestines

"It is not clear whether these mild or serious problems were caused by the vaccine or occurred after vaccination by chance."

I'm amazed that teh NWAD managed to squeeze out a comment without a fυcking brain-dead emoticon, though. Perhaps a case of wake 'n' bake.

And BTW, Chris, this discussion is not about the frequency of vaccine injuries--it's about reaching some agreement about which vaccine injuries actually occur. Johnny's trying to build bridges here, and all you're doing it interfering.

And all you have to do to find the HRSA’s Vaccine Injury Compensation Table is to search that term in any search engine, retrieve the link showing “page not found,” and look it up on the WayBackMachine.

Sweet Fυcking Christ, are you stupid. Did you ever try just searching for "vaccine injury table" and looking at one of the many fυcking links that work, such as this one? Do you remember how to read this sort of material, or has your lawyer brain-rot reached an advanced stage thanks to the expanding Earth?

So, NWOR, you really do not know how to do simple math word problems, even when the numbers are given to you.

And all I am trying to do is to get you to answer what is actually on that CDC link: the relative risk. So, tell us why you refuse to answer by just cut and pasting from the page that says for influenza (https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm#flu): "There may be a small increased risk of Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) after inactivated flu vaccine. This risk has been estimated at 1 or 2 additional cases per million people vaccinated. This is much lower than the risk of severe complications from flu, which can be prevented by flu vaccine."

You list GBS like it is common after the flu vaccine. But it is clearly not, and it actually more likely to happen from actually getting flu.

So you are either lying by omission, did not even read past the first page of that link give by Johnny, or just do not know how to read.

Narad, I really try to ignore you because I don't like picking on people who seem to be "special." But special or not, you are one of the rudest little twits to ever grace this page.

Chris, I guess we agree on one thing: the CDC is not a reliable source of information about vaccine risks. :)

So NWOR, where is the side effect of "paralytic polio" on the link provided by Johnny:
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm#polio

By the way, here is the injury compensation table at the actual HRSA site:
https://www.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/vaccinecompensation/pre0320201…

Note that the only polio vaccine that it lists paralytic polio is OPV... and that is why it is not used in the USA anymore!

Did you even notice on that page that you had so much difficulty finding... that there were specific time conditions? No, of course not. You can't seem to figure out how to read table.

NWO Troll: "Chris, I guess we agree on one thing: the CDC is not a reliable source of information about vaccine risks."

Wrong, wrong, wrongety wrong. You misrepresented the risks, and did not link directly to your sources. When you were shown what you got was wrong, wrong, wrongety wrong... you claim the CDC is not reliable.

Again, you make stuff up and get upset that your "brilliant" interpretation turns out to be regurgitated bovine manure. Gah! You can't even find a calculator to do my little math story problem, because you cannot honestly answer with the actual results.

Narad, I really try to ignore you because I don’t like picking on people who seem to be “special.”

I'd love to see you give it a try, Ginny.

But special or not, you are one of the rudest little twits to ever grace this page.

You don't even inspire me, Johnnycakes. Simply observing that you're completely brain-dead requires very little creativity. You should have tried to become a Dreamlander rather than going to law school.

NWO Troll: "But special or not, you are one of the rudest little twits to ever grace this page."

Obviously "rudeness" is asking you questions that expose you as a liar. Especially the bit about pointing out you were literally cherry picking the CDC vaccine side effect page and the NVICP injury table... or more likely, not reading/understanding them.

Chis, you are such a liar. I misrepresented NOTHING--I quoted the vaccine injuries listed on the CDC's list of acknowledge vaccine injuries, and on the HRSA's Vaccine Injury Table VERBATIM. Dance around it all you want, but stop lying.

I quoted the vaccine injuries listed on the CDC’s list of acknowledge vaccine injuries, and on the HRSA’s Vaccine Injury Table VERBATIM

“It is not clear whether these mild or serious problems were caused by the vaccine or occurred after vaccination by chance.”

Are you unclear on the basic concept, 00795670?

Um, sure. Whatever you say, NWO Troll. I actually posted the link and the verbiage that you ignored. You actually posted words without context, which is form of misrepresentation. News flash: no one under the age of of seventeen is going to file for paralytic polio at the NVICP since it was removed from the American schedule in 2000.

So how are you doing with that little math word problem I gave you? Have you figured out that almost every device that can access the internet has a calculator? Do you know how to do fourth grade division problems?

NWO: "I guess we agree on one thing: the CDC is not a reliable source of information about vaccine risks.”
NWO: "I quoted the vaccine injuries listed on the CDC’s list of acknowledge vaccine injuries"

Why do you quote sources that (according to you) are unreliable?

In the interest of Credit where credit is due -

The list I posted at #48 is from Craig Egan. He developed the list, and took it to the Vaxxed bus, and issued the same simple challange I issued to NWOR, with the same results.

Anti-vaxers will not admit that there is a disease or condition that vaccines cannot cause, including Lycanthropy.

Hey, "Let's build bridges" Johnny is back! Here's a list of possible vaccine injuries from the CDC link you provided, and from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Table. Other types of vaccine injuries have been compensated in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, but it's a start. Which of them do you agree can be caused by vaccines? Let's match them up to your list of vaccine injuries alleged by those crazy anti-vaxxers, and build some bridges. :)

Anaphylaxis
Blood in the urine or stool
Brachial Neuritis
Coma
Chronic arthritis
Death
Deafness
Disseminated varicella vaccine strain viral disease
Encephalopathy or encephalitis
Fainting
Guillain-Barré Syndrome
High fever, over 105°F
Inflammation of the stomach or intestines
Intussusception (a type of bowel blockage)
Long-term seizures
Lowered consciousness
Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach ache
Non-stop crying, for 3 hours or more
Paralytic Polio
Permanent brain damage.
Pneumonia
Seizure (jerking or staring)
Serious allergic reaction
Severe long-lasting shoulder pain/difficulty moving the arm
Severe nervous system reaction
Shoulder Injury Related to Vaccine Administration
Swelling, severe pain and/or bleeding in the arm where the shot was given
Thrombocytopenic purpura
Vasovagal syncope
Vaccine Strain Measles Viral Disease
Vaccine Strain Polio Viral Infection
Varicella vaccine strain viral reactivation

Only if you'd be willing to accept the rate by which those severe adverse reactions have been confirmed.

Give it up, Ginny. You lost.

Lawrence, Johnny did not list any rates by which those alleged vaccine injuries occurred on his list. I'm trying to create an equivalent list to help Johnny build bridges, so let's stick to the issue presented.

About 1 in 1 million or less.

Good news, Johnny! I've revised my list to include *some* of the non-table injuries that have been compensated in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. They sure don't make those easy to look up, so the list is still not complete. It includes: Possible vaccine injuries from the CDC link you provided; injuries listed on the Vaccine Injury Table; and some of the other vaccine injuries that have been compensated in the VICP. I can already see we're closer than ever to building those bridges you wanted to build. :)

Acute Inflammatory Neurological Injury
Acute Demyelinating Encephalomyelitis (ADEM)
Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis
Acute Hemorrhagic Leukoencephalomyelitis (AHLE)
Anaphylaxis
Bell's Palsy
Blood in the urine or stool
Brachial Neuritis
Brachial Plexopathy
Cardiac arrest
Cellulitis
Cerebral Palsy
Cognitive Delays
Coma
Connective Tissue Disease
Chronic arthritis
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome
Death
Deafness
Demyelinating Polyneuropathy
Disseminated varicella vaccine strain viral disease
Encephalopathy or encephalitis
Fainting
Frozen Shoulder Syndrome
Guillain-Barré Syndrome
Hearing Loss
High fever, over 105°F
Inflammation of the stomach or intestines
Inflammatory Tendinitis
Intussusception (a type of bowel blockage)
Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis
Kleine-Levin Syndrome
Leukocytoclastic Vasculitis
Long-term seizures
Lowered consciousness
Lumbosacral Raduculoplexus Neuropathy (LSRPN)
Lymphangitis
Miller Fisher Syndrome
Multiple Sclerosis
Multi-Organ Failure
Myelopathy
Myositis
Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach ache
Neuritis
Neuralgic Amyotrophy
Neurologic Injuries
Neuromyelitis Optica (NMO)
Non-stop crying, for 3 hours or more
Optic Neuritis
Overactive Immune Response
Paralytic Polio
Paresthesias/Small Fiber Neuropathy
Parsonage Turner Syndrome
Peripheral Neuropathy
Permanent brain damage.
Pneumonia
Polyneuropathy
Psoriasiform Dermatitis
Radial Nerve Injury
Seizure (jerking or staring)
Serious allergic reaction
Severe long-lasting shoulder pain/difficulty moving the arm
Severe nervous system reaction
Shoulder Injury Related to Vaccine Administration
Spinal Cord Myelitis
Strep A infection
Swelling, severe pain and/or bleeding in the arm where the shot was given
Systemic Inflammatory Response
Thrombocytopenic purpura
Tinnitus
Toxic Shock
Transverse Myelitis
Vasovagal syncope
Vaccine Strain Measles Viral Disease
Vaccine Strain Polio Viral Infection
Varicella vaccine strain viral reactivation
Ventricular Fibrillation
Vision Loss

The vaccine court has compensated BILLIONS of dollars for "vasovagal syncope" and "fainting" alone.

Stop the madness!

NWO Troll: "Paralytic Polio"

Lather, rinse, repeat. So what vaccine is that listed for, and is it on the present American pediatric schedule.

NWO Troll continues to whine: "ohnny did not list any rates by which those alleged vaccine injuries occurred on his list."

Except they were clearly noted on that CDC page he linked to. You just have to actually read the words with a modicum of comprehension.

So, how are you doing with that little math story problem I gave you about the NVICP compensated claims versus total number of vaccines given? Did you forget all math you learned since third grade?

The list I posted over 50 comments ago, 18 by Ginny, wasn't about rates. The question was 'is there anything on this list that vaccines don't cause?'.

So far, Ginny hasn't listed a single thing, even the really easy one on the list.

I believe our non-USAian friends call that an 'own goal'.

Johnny, I see you are moving on to back flips to avoid answering the question you raised yourself. That is, the extent to which you agree or disagree with the list of vaccine injuries you posted. Yet you demand I answer the question you will not, while claiming to be "trying to build bridges." It's clear that many of the items on your list are vaccine injuries that have actually been compensated in the Vaccine Injury Compensation System. Yet still, you refuse to answer your own question. You're quite a deceiver, although fortunately, not very good at it.

NWO Troll: "That is, the extent to which you agree or disagree with the list of vaccine injuries you posted."

Changing the question to what you want it to be, is not answering his question. It is a diversion, which is a form of lying. It is you being a deceiver.

Though quite an incompetent one, since the pertinent information has been given to you multiple times. But either you just choose to ignore the links and direct quotes, or you just do not understand how to read them.

"It’s clear that many of the items on your list are vaccine injuries that have actually been compensated in the Vaccine Injury Compensation System."

So what? You keep saying that like it holds some form of scientific weight, it does not. It is obvious that you do not understand the definition of the word "settlement" when it comes to the NVICP, nor do you understand the significance of the ratio between the compensated claims and total number of given vaccines.

So have you figured out how to use a calculator to get that ratio?

Chris, there's no need to reiterate your point over and over. I get it: the oral polio vaccine is given to children around the world, but it isn't given to children in the US anymore, and therefore, the injuries it can cause are irrelevant. Don't blame me if it's still on the Vaccine Injury Table--take it up with the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program if it outrages you so much.

Chris, if you're going to fight Johnny's battles for him, just answer the question Johnny raised but won't answer himself. Identify the injuries on the list that you agree vaccines can actually cause; or state that you believe vaccines can't cause any injuries. It's not complicated.

The sad part is that Teh NWAD isn't even a real antivaxxer; she's just some freakish hit-and-run, amateur crank who managed to get a nod from Mr. "CDC Whistleblower has been removed from the CDC premises by security" Rappoport.

Good news, Johnny! I’ve revised my list to include *some* of the non-table injuries that have been compensated in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. They sure don’t make those easy to look up, so the list is still not complete.

Oh, dear, Gindo, you looked something up from "them" but didn't bother with the simple issue of case names and numbers? Is this how you draft memoranda, too?

NWO: Do you agree that drug addiction, ADD and allergies are also vaccine injuries? Also, would you like to explain why most people who claim to have vaccine injured children seem to have issues with reality and generally dislike their children? At this point, anti-vax seems a lot like a coverup for actively hating one's children. Or maybe it's just kids in general that they dislike.

NWO Troll: " I get it: the oral polio vaccine is given to children around the world, but it isn’t given to children in the US anymore,"

And your evidence for this is? Or are you just making assumptions. Anyway, you are using an American program with only American cases. Don't change the subject.

So what if it is still on the table. Only an idiot would not evaluate that table as noted historical data to encompass all of the NVICP statistics.

Now where are those answers to my little math story subject.

PGPig, people who turn on their allies if they cease to be useful are a particular kind of creepy. Everyone with a vaccine injured child was once pro-vaccine--that's why their child was vaccinated. The kind of parents you would be fawning over in your online comments, praising them for being responsible and caring parents because they vaccinate their child. Then their child is injured by a vaccine and you turn on them, accusing them of disliking or even hating their own children. You really are repugnant.

Chris, according to the CDC's page entitled Polio Vaccination: "OPV has not been used in the United States since 2000 but is still used in many parts of the world." Is the CDC lying again, or are you lying again, or do you just not know what you're talking about again?

According to the Polio Global Eradication Initiative: "Oral poliovirus vaccines (OPV) are the predominant vaccine used in the fight to eradicate polio." Waddayaknow--sounds like the CDC wasn't lying.

How many "vaccine injured" children do you have again, Gindo? I'm just trying to calibrate some sort of creepiness scale here, now that you've thoughtlessly invoked one.

NWO: Nope, I just call them as I see them. Most anti-vax people have a shaky enough relationship with the truth that it is doubtful whether they had their kids vaccinated in the first place, and a number of them have turned around and blamed their PARENTs for their kid's problems. Which suggests that they have the problem. I got no time for the problems of queen bee meanies and their drones. They need to grow up and leave high school. (You too. Speaking of creepy, if you're a 'grandmother' why do you act like a high school sophomore on a sugar bender?)

As for the few parents that I know, including one of my sibs, my influence isn't that great, but I do try to be responsible for myself. I got my DTAP and will likely be getting my flu vaccine this year, because an adult should care about the kids in their life, even if they aren't the parents of those kids.

NWO Troll,

What parts of the world? And why do you care about them?
Perhaps you should do your pearl clutching at the World Health Organization, and not here.

Though here you should provide the answers to my simple math story problem based on that table of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. What is the ratio of total number of given vaccines versus compensated claims? What is the definition of the legal word "settlement"? What does it mean about the safely of vaccines?

These are questions you seem to not to be able to answer. Explain why.

Chris, in order for your simple math problem to yield any potentially useful information, we would need to know what percentage of vaccine injuries actually result in a claim being filed in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Given that the number of vaccine injuries even reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System is at most 10%, and at the least less than 1%, I assume the percentage of vaccine injury claims filed in the VICP is considerably less.

It's too bad that your legal skills are apparently so atrophied that you can't get in on those guaranteed fees and have to settle for being a low-rent nut, Gindo.

PGPig, your influence on friends and family isn't that great? Gee, what a shocker! I would have thought your charm and respect would win people over right and left. :D Of course, given your own shaky relationship with truth, it's doubtful you are actually getting your vaccines as you claim. However, if you are, I wish you luck with them. Fingers crossed!

VIrginia Stoner (and I hope you get Google juice from this), the only battle here is the battle against ignorance. I'd bet real dollars that you don't understand this, but anyone can scroll up and see what we have here is science, logic, honesty, along with a heapin' helpin' of what ever it is you bring to the party, you pile of $hit sculpted into a quasi-human form.

You could have declared victory by saying that you do not believe that vaccines can turn people into wolves, but you know that anti-vaxers arguments are so thin that the day may come that they have to say 'what about lycanthropy? where's the study about that?'

You're dead to me. If thinking you won gets you thru the night, you're welcome to it, I try to not deny children their simple comforts. But every time the words 'ethics' or 'honesty' cross your mind, you will know "That's not how Virginia Stoner rolls".

Of course, given your own shaky relationship with truth, it’s doubtful you are actually getting your vaccines as you claim.

Oh, yay, the Gerg routine. Speaking of shaky relationships, Ginny, it would really be a lot more interesting if you explain your issues with gravity. It's an ecumenical joint.

NWO: Oh, that's rich. A Trump fangirl calling ME a liar! Honey, you wouldn't know what the truth was if it sat on you. You think the Earth is flat!

And you're kinda proving my point about your age. Why don't you go outside for a while?

I mean, seriously, why would I lie about something as mundane as getting vaccines. When you grow up, you'll see that the world is not nearly as complicated and dangerous as you're believing it is.

I bet a mouse could pass the bar exam for Texas.

Johnny, you are a monumental hypocrite and coward, hiding behind your online anonymity because you know you are deceiving people. I'm dead to you because I ensnared you in your own web of deception. That you would try to defame me to hide your own corruption is not a surprise. I'm sure you'll be back under one of your other profiles to do more of the same.

Oh, kewl, Gindo is back on the Julian is Science Mom routine or whatever was in her Xtranormal effort. The "profiles" bit is a nice touch.

Poor PGPig. Resorting to condescending "honeys" and that pathetic "flat earth" psy-op to undermine my credibility. Sounds like it's you who belongs on the playground. :D

Psy-op? No, I was just stating your beliefs. It's kind of hard to undermine your credibility, as you don't have any.

Grow up and act your age and maybe I'll think about not insulting you. But for now, you make a fun chew toy, much like Mr. Dochniak. If you want respect, again, maybe stop acting stupid. And go outside once in a while, you aren't a vampire.

NWOR # 124:

psy-op to undermine my credibility.

Nobody can do nearly as much to undermine your credibility as you have already done on your own.

The discussion has moved on a bit, but keep checking PubPeer, the blots seem to have been significantly manipulated. In 4C there are mirror imaged bands and 4D is mostly 4B flipped and with slightly different exposure.

PGPig, I guess that means if don't think the earth is flat, which I don't, then it is you who have no credibility. Do you purport to be a psychic, or are you just a liar? Either way, whatever credibility you might have had just flew out the window. :D

NWO Troll: "Chris, in order for your simple math problem to yield any potentially useful information, we would need to know what percentage of vaccine injuries actually result in a claim being filed in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program."

Um, yeah. That is exactly what that simple math word problem shows! So just calculate the ratio from that database. I actually gave you the numbers, why are you refusing to to answer the question!?

What are you afraid of?

Chris, are you referring to this "simple math word problem"?

"The data first column is the total number of vaccines given in the stated time period. Now run your finger over to the number to the total compensated claims. Now divide the first by the second number."

Where, exactly, in this "simple math word problem" do you account for the fact that most vaccine injuries do not result in a claim being filed in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program at all?

Your "simple math word problem" assumes 100% of vaccine injuries result in a claim being filed in the VICP. That's not realistic. The percentage of vaccine injuries reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System is somewhere between less that 1% and 10%. Even the CDC acknowledges it is less than 10%. How could only 1%-10% of vaccine injuries be reported to VAERS, but 100% be filed as claims in the VICP? Makes no sense.

You can't just ignore relevant data because you don't have it. Unless you work for the CDC. ;)

NWO Troll: "Where, exactly, in this “simple math word problem” do you account for the fact that most vaccine injuries do not result in a claim being filed in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program at all?"

Except you are using its table as a point of reference, and all else. Your excused proves all. You don't like the answer...

... therefore you have nothing.

From now on, since you refuse to do my simple math word problem from the NVICP statistics, you are not allowed to bring it up again.

If you do try to bring up the NVICP table or statistics after that last comment without answering my simple math problem based on it... you will be considered a hypocrite.

Seriously, VAERS? That is your excuse? That is just is the most pathetic excuse for not being able to do a simple fourth grade division calculation ever.

LOL. I think you need to get some sleep, Chris. You're not making sense. This whole thread was about Johnny's list of injuries alleged to be caused by vaccines, and trying in vain to determine which ones he agreed with and which he disputed. His list contained nothing about incidence rates.

A lot of parents don't even know about the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Or they never associate their child's death or serious injury with vaccination because they have been trained to believe vaccines are safe, and their doctor never mentions the possibility. Or they find out about the VICP or the likelihood of vaccine injury too late, after the 3 year statute of limitations has run. Or they just don't have the heart to endure years of contentious litigation over it, especially if their child has died.

If you were honest, you would admit that the percentage of vaccine injury claims actually filed in the VICP is extremely low--likely far less than 1%. But I guess that's asking too much.

NWO Reporter #110:

Everyone with a vaccine injured child they wrongly believe to be harmed by vaccines was once pro-vaccine

FTFY.

When asked what vaccine anti-vaxers do actually support, they won't even name one....including the Rabies vaccine.

They are hopeless.

Really, Lawrence? When asked what vaccine injuries actually occur, not a single pro-vaxxer on this blog would even name one...not even encephalitis.

Y'all are hopeless. :D

NWOR: if you tell us which of Lawrence's list of health issues are actually due to vaccines, we'll tell you which vaccine injuries actually occur. HINT: gunshot wounds, although found in VAERS and manufacturer inserts, are not vaccine injuries.

MI Dawn, you mean Johnny's list? ;) All of the health issues on his list that also appear on my list of injuries that are ether on the Vaccine Injury Table, or have been compensated in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, can actually be caused by vaccines. Your turn.

NWO: Honestly you believe every other conspiracy theory, so I'm surprised you don't believe that one. I'm pretty sure you think the moon landing is a hoax. And like I said, you have no credibility, and you never ever did. Have you ever told the truth about anything in your life?

Also, because I'm morbidly curious, how did you "pass" the bar exam and get your degree? Did you just buy the degree and the pass whole sale?

I’m pretty sure you think the moon landing is a hoax.

Gindo is quite reticent when it comes to the "content" of her Y—be "channel." I find this somewhat odd, because the whole trip, as well instantiated here, is merely off-topic attention whoring.

Maybe Rappoport has some sort of loyalty-points system in which one can redeem Pink Flamingos–esque "rewards."

MI Dawn, you haven't forgotten about our agreement, have you?

"NWOR: if you tell us which of Lawrence’s list of health issues are actually due to vaccines, we’ll tell you which vaccine injuries actually occur."

I answered your question. I'm not sure who "we" is, but since you made the agreement, I guess it is up to you to answer. Are there any health conditions in my list in #98 you contend cannot be caused by vaccines?

You're going to hurt yourself with those goalposts, Pruno.

I'd say Lycanthropy cannot be caused by a vaccine, wouldn't you agree?

Sorry, NWOR. I have a life, and didn't get on the computer last night. So...Johnny's list of things that antivaxxers claim are caused by vaccines - here's 4 items.
AIDS
Alzheimer’s
Cancer
Cerebral Palsy

Add to that homosexuality.

Now, give us some proof that vaccines actually cause any of those items.

Now, to take a few from YOUR list:

Lowered consciousness
Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach ache
Lumbosacral Raduculoplexus Neuropathy (LSRPN)

None of these are life threatening. Please give us the NVICP case numbers so we can see that the courts actually compensated someone for these items. Because you are known to just pull stuff out of your nether regions. And no, I don't have time to do the research - since you posted these things, you should easily be able to provide the case numbers. And that's your claim - that the court COMPENSATED people for these items.

Remember, simply reporting things to VAERS does not mean they were compensated for. After all, my sister (who faints every time she gets a shot of any kind) would be compensated if this were so. And I would have been compensated the last time I got the flu shot, if I'd bothered to report nausea as a problem.

Ball's in your court, Ginny. I have a busy day at work, but I'll try to check back later and see what actual data you give.

Sometimes I feel like Captain Kirk, trying to navigate through a fierce ion storm of crank magnetism.

Before this morning I'd never heard of Dr. Christian Bogner (an antivax ob-gyn up Orac's way). He has some....interesting theories.

"Why is not everyone getting vaccinated become autistic?"

"The short answer to this question: Glyphosate"

http://drbogner.com/vaccine-mechanisms-in-autism/

I would try and explain this, but I got dizzy navigating through Bogner's "Pac-Man" microglia cartoons.

He's a self-described Former Chief Surgeon, so he must know what he's talking about. Oh, and he's helped develop a cannabinoid spray, which surely is good for what ails you.

Stop trying to weasel out of your deal, MI Dawn. “NWOR: if you tell us which of Lawrence’s list of health issues are actually due to vaccines, we’ll tell you which vaccine injuries actually occur.” Post your list.

MI Dawn, I revised the list in #98 to include ONLY those health conditions that were either listed on the Vaccine Injury Table as of 9/10/2017, and/or have actually received compensation awards in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The list is not yet complete. Again, to the extent these items overlap with Johnny's list, I agree vaccines can cause them. Tell us whether you agree or disagree that these health conditions can be caused by vaccines.

Acute Inflammatory Neurological Injury
Acute Demyelinating Encephalomyelitis (ADEM)
Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis
Acute Hemorrhagic Leukoencephalomyelitis (AHLE)
Anaphylaxis
Bell's Palsy
Brachial Neuritis
Brachial Plexopathy
Cardiac arrest
Cellulitis
Cerebral Palsy
Cognitive Delays
Connective Tissue Disease
Chronic arthritis
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome
Death
Demyelinating Polyneuropathy
Disseminated varicella vaccine strain viral disease (Removed in 2017 from the Table)
Encephalopathy or encephalitis
Frozen Shoulder Syndrome
Guillain-Barré Syndrome
Hearing Loss
Inflammatory Tendinitis
Intussusception
Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis
Kleine-Levin Syndrome
Leukocytoclastic Vasculitis
Lumbosacral Raduculoplexus Neuropathy (LSRPN)
Lymphangitis
Miller Fisher Syndrome
Multiple Sclerosis
Multi-Organ Failure
Myelopathy
Myositis
Neuritis
Neuralgic Amyotrophy
Neurologic Injuries
Neuromyelitis Optica (NMO)
Optic Neuritis
Overactive Immune Response
Paralytic Polio
Paresthesias/Small Fiber Neuropathy
Parsonage Turner Syndrome
Peripheral Neuropathy
Polyneuropathy
Psoriasiform Dermatitis
Radial Nerve Injury
Shoulder Injury Related to Vaccine Administration (Removed in 2017 from the Table)
Spinal Cord Myelitis
Strep A infection
Systemic Inflammatory Response
Thrombocytopenic purpura
Tinnitus
Toxic Shock
Transverse Myelitis
Vasovagal syncope (Removed in 2017 from the Table)
Vaccine Strain Measles Viral Disease
Vaccine Strain Polio Viral Infection
Varicella vaccine strain viral reactivation (Removed in 2017 from the Table)
Ventricular Fibrillation
Vision Loss

Nope. You haven't answered my question. Table injuries are understood to *possibly* be caused by the vaccines, and the NVICP relies on less proof than a court of law that the vaccine *MAY* have caused the injury.

We don't deny vaccines can cause problems. What we ARE saying is that they don't cause all the problems that antivaxxers claim they do. Do you disagree with that?

At least your list doesn't include autism, which the antivaxxers claim is the major problem.

Oh, and let me say...compensation does not imply the vaccine caused the problem. It simply means that it is POSSIBLE/PROBABLE. NOT that it is CERTAIN.

MI Dawn writes (#149),

At least your list doesn’t include autism, which the antivaxxers claim is the major problem.

MJD says,

In fairness, the list will eventually include allergy-induced regressive autism.

MI Dawn, STOP WEASELING. You asked me to "tell us which of Lawrence’s list of health issues are actually due to vaccines." I told you my opinion on this issue as you asked. You said if I did so, "we’ll tell you which vaccine injuries actually occur." In your opinion too, of course. List the conditions that, in your opinion, vaccines can cause, like you said you would.

As for autism, many cases of vaccine injuries that include autism have been compensated in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The claimed injury, and the injury compensated, however, was encephalopathy or seizure disorder. So yes, IMO vaccines can cause autism. Unanwered Questions: A Review of Compensated Cases of Vaccine-Induced Brain Injury, Pace Environmental Law Review, vol. 28, no. 2, 2011.

@MJD #151:

In fairness, the list will eventually include allergy-induced regressive autism.

1) No it won't since it has been confirmed that vaccines do not cause autism.
2) Your perseverating on this has gone through boring and tedious, and is now utterly tiresome and banal.
Just go away.

The author of this paper is a moron.

Hi orac

Im glad you wrote about this study because aluminum adjuvant toxicity should be central to the debate about vaccine safety.

You wrote:"aluminum salts have been used as effective adjuvants for many years now and have an excellent safety record."

Can you please provide citations to support the safety of aluminum adjuvant? Particularly regarding neurological disorders and autism?

When i search the scientific literature, i dont find any studies supporting the neurological safety of aluminum adjuvant. Instead i find papers like Jefferson 2004 or mitkus 2011. These studies are not designed to test neuro safety of al adjuvant, and have flaws or design choices that render them irrelevant to the question of neuro safety.

In the scientific literature, aluminum adjuvant safety is often asserted with reference to its long history of use, but no citations are provided. Long history of use is not evidence for safety, especially for adverse outcomes that take months or years to manifest (like neuro disorders). Also, for most of its use history, al adjuvant dose was much smaller than today.

Finally, there are no epidemiological studies of aluminum asjuvant (except the ecological study by shaw).

So, please cite the studies that support the "excellent safety record" of aluminum adjuvant.

Heheh. One notes that VP was the one to whom I referred above, the antivaxer who emailed me not just one but TWO OR THREE times challenging me to write about this, telling me what a good study it is and how she would be cutting it a lot. What happened? Nothing to say about my deconstruction of this paper? All you have to say is this? After nearly nearly a week of silence, you appear, and when you finally appear, do you tell me how my analysis is fatally flawed and why? Of course not! Instead you zero on on a single sentence and ignore everything else.

I am amused. My analysis must be pretty damned good.

???

@NWO Reporter #152: LOL! An article with Mary Holland as one of the authors? Get real!

Julian Frost, ad hominem is the resort of children. If you have evidence that the vaccine injury awards examined in the paper authored by Holland and three other researchers did not, in fact, involve injuries including autism, then post it.

Hi orac

I just noticed your article today. No this is definitely not all i have to say on the matter. I will write more about it later. So dont draw conclusions just yet. And dont break your arm patting yourself on the back. There are several other reasoning errors and mistakes in your article and i will get to them.

I think your assertion-without citation-of an "excellent safety record" for aluminum adjuvant, especially in the context of autism and/or neurological disorders is particularly egregious. So, can you please respond to this?

The other issues will be addressed shortly.

You just noticed it today? Oh, please. After your emailing me at least two times (maybe three, I don't remember for sure) in one day about this study, I call bullshit. But I do look forward to your comments. It's been a rough, depressing last few days, for a variety of reasons unrelated to the blog. I could use a good laugh.

And is still strange that you didn't decide to lead with all those "flaws" you claim there are. Actually, no, it isn't.

Here, I'll remind you of what you wrote to me on Sept. 19:

Hi Orac:

Its me, VP from vaccinepapers.org!

There is a new paper from the Shaw lab at UBC. They measured cytokine levels in brains of animals that received vaccine-relevant dosage of Al adjuvant as neonates. The brain was inflamed, and it had a pattern of inflammation matching inflammation present in human autism.

Also, IL-6 levels were increased almost 5-fold. IL-6 causes autism-like behavioral abnormalities in animal models. Human studies also implicate IL-6 as a cause of autism.

Males had greater brain inflammation than females.

I hop3 you will write about this new study. We will be citing it a lot!

cheers

VP

Also, don't forget to address the charges of self-plagiarism and image manipulation. There's been some very suspicious stuff pointed out about the images in several of the figures:

https://pubpeer.com/publications/4AEB7C8F30015079E2611157CF8983

https://themadvirologist.blogspot.com/2017/09/does-recent-paper-by-shaw…

@NWO Reporter, I'm not going to pay $30 to some predatory publisher. Only the abstract was available, and I do not trust Mary Holland. Put her name into the search box up top to see why.
The question of whether or not vaccines cause autism has been investigated into the ground. I went to Google Scholar and searched. The very first result was
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X14006367?cc%3…
The money quote from the abstract:

Five cohort studies involving 1,256,407 children, and five case-control studies involving 9,920 children were included in this analysis. The cohort data revealed no relationship between vaccination and autism (OR: 0.99; 95% CI: 0.92 to 1.06) or ASD (OR: 0.91; 95% CI: 0.68 to 1.20), nor was there a relationship between autism and MMR (OR: 0.84; 95% CI: 0.70 to 1.01), or thimerosal (OR: 1.00; 95% CI: 0.77 to 1.31), or mercury (Hg) (OR: 1.00; 95% CI: 0.93 to 1.07). Similarly the case-control data found no evidence for increased risk of developing autism or ASD following MMR, Hg, or thimerosal exposure when grouped by condition (OR: 0.90, 95% CI: 0.83 to 0.98; p = 0.02) or grouped by exposure type (OR: 0.85, 95% CI: 0.76 to 0.95; p = 0.01). Findings of this meta-analysis suggest that vaccinations are not associated with the development of autism or autism spectrum disorder. Furthermore, the components of the vaccines (thimerosal or mercury) or multiple vaccines (MMR) are not associated with the development of autism or autism spectrum disorder.

Vaccines do NOT cause autism.

Julian Frost, you don't have to pay $30 to "some predatory publisher" to read the paper--it's available to the public for free. http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1681&context…

This investigation, published in a peer-reviewed law journal in 2011, found 83 cases of autism among those compensated for vaccine-induced brain damage in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

Once again, you show a complete lack of understanding of statistics and statistical analysis.

So i downloaded the paper and perused it. I had to give up. The authors did so much JAQing Off that it was clear they were not interested in researching the question honestly, but instead in insinuating that it is.

Julian Frost, the authors found 83 cases of autism among those compensated for vaccine-induced brain damage in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. You have ZERO evidence their findings are not accurate. But you don't like the findings so you insinuate the authors are dishonest. It's a deceptive cop out.

Because you haven't bothered to read any of the judgements for those 83 cases.....

Just like anti-vaxers don't bother to read the VAERS reports that they love to quote numbers on.

@NWO Reporter:

[T]he authors found 83 cases of autism among those compensated for vaccine-induced brain damage in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

And they tried to insinuate that the vaccines were responsible for causing those cases of autism, even though the six Test Cases in the Omnibus Autism Proceedings not only lost, but lost so badly that all five Appeals to higher courts saw the original verdicts upheld.

NWO Reporter wrote:

This investigation, published in a peer-reviewed law journal in 2011, found 83 cases of autism among those compensated for vaccine-induced brain damage in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

The law clearly lags many years behind the scientific evidence, and the overwhelming evidence that alleged cases of vaccine-induced encephalopathy and “residual seizure disorder” are caused by pre-existing mutations rather than by vaccination began to accumulate only a decade ago.

The 83 claims that you cited would likely not be compensated today, now that the scientific evidence is so clear. (Hint: these mutations can cause such syndromes in unvaccinated laboratory animals. So much for "A Shot in the Dark.") Accordingly, the US Court of Federal Claims has begun to deny such claims and even to require genotyping--at least insofar as checking for mutations in one particular gene (among many genes known to cause similar syndromes. See, for example:

http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions/SMGOLKIEWICZ…
https://ecf.cofc.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2010vv0704-144-0
https://ecf.cofc.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2010vv0394-136-0

See also:
--Berkovic SF et al. De-novo mutations of the sodium channel gene SCN1A in alleged vaccine encephalopathy: a retrospective study. Lancet Neurol. 2006 Jun;5(6):488-92.
--Catarino CB et al. Dravet syndrome as epileptic encephalopathy: evidence from long-term course and neuropathology. Brain. 2011 Oct;134(Pt 10):2982-3010.
--Garcia-Junco-Clemente P et al. Overexpression of calcium-activated potassium channels underlies cortical dysfunction in a model of PTEN-associated autism. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Nov 5;110(45):18297-302
--Guglielmi L et al. Update on the implication of potassium channels in autism: K(+) channel autism spectrum disorder. Front Cell Neurosci. 2015 Mar 2;9:34.
--Li BM et al. Autism in Dravet syndrome: prevalence, features, and relationship to the clinical characteristics of epilepsy and mental retardation. Epilepsy Behav. 2011 Jul;21(3):291-5
--Okumura A et al. Acute encephalopathy in children with Dravet syndrome. Epilepsia. 2011 Nov 16.
--Reyes IS et al. Alleged Cases of Vaccine Encephalopathy Rediagnosed Years Later as Dravet Syndrome. Pediatrics. 2011 Aug 15.
--Schmunk G, Gargus J. Channelopathy pathogenesis in autism spectrum disorders. Front Genet. 2013 Nov 5;4:222.
--Wiznitzer M. Dravet syndrome and vaccination: when science prevails over speculation. Lancet Neurol. 2010 Jun;9(6):559-61.
--Wolff M et al. Severe myoclonic epilepsy of infants (Dravet syndrome): natural history and neuropsychological findings. Epilepsia. 2006;47 Suppl 2:45-8.

Exactly - anti-vaxers ignore the Omnibus cases all the time....mostly because they don't understand them.

One would think that NWOR would, as a lawyer, understand the very clear writings of the Special Masters. After all *I* understand them.

Hey, NWOR: tell me why autism isn't on the list of table injuries, why EVERY case in the autism omnibus lost, and what Hannah Poling got compensated for.

And you want to know what illnesses vaccines can cause that I will admit to: OK. Here's a few.

Allergic reactions up to and including anaphylaxis, which may lead to death.
The flu vaccine may lead to Guillan-Barre syndrome, although at a much lesser rate than the actual flu disease.
Panderix (never given in the US) may have increased a tendency to narcolepsy in a specific population.

Happy?

Could we please stop feeding the very repetitive and obviously clueless troll?

Julian Frost, not really. Autism is a behavioral diagnosis, based on the observations of certain symptoms. There is no objective physical test to identify autism. The symptoms are a manifestation of some other kind of underlying damage.

@NWO Reporter:

The symptoms (of autism) are a manifestation of some other kind of underlying damage.

As someone with an official diagnosis of autism, find an erupting volcano and throw yourself into it. Autism is not brain damage, and is not caused by vaccination. Research shows a clear genetic cause of autism.

MI Dawn, so you are contending that out of the 61 injuries listed in #148 (injuries that are on the Vaccine Injury Table, and that have actually received awards in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program), all but the follow 4 CANNOT be caused by vaccines?

Allergic Reaction including anaphylaxis
Death
Guillain-Barré syndrome
Narcolepsy

Are you angling for a job at the vaccine court or something? :D

Julian Frost "Research shows a clear genetic cause of autism." Really? Are you one of those people who denies there is a recent epidemic of autism? Because it would be impossible for a genetic cause to suddenly explode within a few decades the way autism has.

Claiming that autism is "Brain Damage" allows anti-vaxers to treat those with autism as less than human....

@NWO Reporter:

Because it would be impossible for a genetic cause to suddenly explode within a few decades the way autism has.

But not for increased awareness, broadened diagnostic criteria, diagnostic substitution and previous underdiagnosis to make it look as if something had suddenly exploded instead of being previously under-recognised.

NWOR: No. I simply picked out the ones that I know can definitely be caused by vaccines.

On the other hand, you obviously have never heard of expanded DSM criteria and diagnostic substitution which mostly accounts for your "'explosion".

Anecdotally, I can personally name 5 people, 25 years and older, who would probably have autism spectrum diagnoses if they were born after 2000. They all fit the current DSM criteria. They definitely aren't brain damaged.

Clarification: brain damage and autism are 2 very different diagnoses. People with autism range from "able to function independently in society" to "will never be able to perform self-care". But low IQ is NOT a standard of autism any more than any other health issues are.

MI Dawn, are you denying that any of the other 61 health conditions in #148 (health conditions listed on the Vaccine Injury Table and which have actually received awards in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program) can be caused by vaccines?

Julian Frost, it sounds like you and MI Dawn are denying that the incidence of autism has exploded in the last few decades--saying it's just a perception prompted by more expansive and better diagnoses. I've never heard of any longtime teachers who agree with that. They all seem to say there has been a very real and dramatic increase in the number of special needs children over the last couple of decades.

Another anti-vaxer who knows nothing about the way that the mentally-ill used to be treated in this country.

Long-time teachers didn't see kids with autism in school, because they weren't sent to school....at least not normal ones.

Lawrence, you claim to have superior expertise because you know something from Psych 101? If you think children today do not have any more neurodevelopmental or mental health disabilities than children did in 1980, try persuading with facts instead of condescension.

You've obviously never heard of the American with Disabilities Act....

And it just so happens that I have an inherent advantage over individuals such as yourself.

I am a rational human being.

Because even my grandparents could describe individuals in their communities, going back decades, who today would be considered autistic.....they either ended up in the asylums or locked away by their families.

Right, Lawrence. I'm no match for your supercilious powers. :D

There is a new paper from the Shaw lab at UBC. They measured cytokine levels in brains of animals that received vaccine-relevant dosage of Al adjuvant as neonates. The brain was inflamed, and it had a pattern of inflammation matching inflammation present in human autism.

Does VaccinePapers read Pubpeer? The revelations emerging there about faked data in the paper are devastating.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/4AEB7C8F30015079E2611157CF8983

Lawrence, bragging that you're not nuts is ableist.

Correct.

Lawrence: "You’ve obviously never heard of the American with Disabilities Act…."

Nor the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Please stop feeding this clueless troll.

True

May I please quote from my reprint of the DSM-I (copyright: 1952):

000-x28 Schizophrenic reaction, childhood type

Here will be classified those schizophrenic reactions occuring before puberty. The clinical picture may differ from schizophrenic reactions occuring in other age periods because of the immaturity and plasticity of the patient at the time of onset of the reaction. Psychotic reaction in children, manifesting primarily autism, will be classified here. Special symptomatology may be added to the diagnosis as manifestations.

Need I say that the DSM-I was a statistical manual designed to help psychiatrists fill out code forms (the precursor of today's EHR) for compliance with the

Draft Act Governing Hospitalisation of the Mentally Ill, Federal Security Agency, Public Health Service, Publication No. 51

IMO, they can stick the word choice and language where the sun doesn't shine but we're dealing with the verbiage used in 1952 for compliance with an Act which is older so I digress a little bit.

That said, the DSM is now in its 5th edition from a line of work originally created by the US census bureau (yep, counting patient in asylum started the incentive of alienists among other to keep documentation about their patient; it snowballed from there).

Obviously, the methods and criteria for diagnosing autism changed in a very major way from that time (1952) and with it, the headcount.

That said, in my case, I have a metric ton of documentation from my 1st and 2nd primary grade in an hospital for which, if we apply current day diagnostic criteria would mean that I do have a diagnostic of autism (and it was made in 2004) but....and that is a giant but I didn't meet the criteria back in 1982-1984 when that metric ton of paperwork was done.

back in 1984, we moved, changed city and never mentionned to anyone (school or otherwise) my two years of schooling in that hospital.

Now Ginny, I wasn't mentioning all that for you but rather, the fence-sitters who read, comment or don't comment but may ask one question which ought to be asked:

1-: how many other current day adult autistic who lived a similar situation where they don't have any diagnostic or they never disclose it? (back in 1980+ and even before, a dx of autism carried a metric ton of stigma).

Alain

NWO Reporter said:

This investigation, published in a peer-reviewed law journal in 2011, found 83 cases of autism among those compensated for vaccine-induced brain damage in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

The “peers” who reviewed that article were apparently as scientifically illiterate as you and the authors, since they did not understand or even bother note that the evidence that was available before that article was published emphatically refuted the idea that such cases were caused by vaccination. But, since you’ve posted essentially the same nonsense before, you knew that, didn’t you? Why do you continue to lie?

Alain: "1-: how many other current day adult autistic who lived a similar situation where they don’t have any diagnostic or they never disclose it? (back in 1980+ and even before, a dx of autism carried a metric ton of stigma"

Um, yeah. In 1991 I was assured my then three year old nonverbal child was not autistic because he smiled and laughed (even when it was inappropriate). Then just five years later the same neurologist told me the child would grow out of the hand tics (something we now call stimming).

About three years ago the young man was finally diagnosed with autism level 2 under DSM V. He also qualified under DSM IV.

Yeah, same person.... different criteria. And according to the psychologist lots of research during the past decade. Some of that research has discovered about half of the genetic sequences that cause behaviors consistent with autism.

They are looking for more, so if the parents of a child autism want to give up some spit and answer questions, sign up here:
https://sparkforautism.org/

(I wanted to, but my son is over eighteen, so he has to sign up. It is not going to happen, le sigh)

Gallimaufry, you seem a bit confused about the difference between a legal review and science. Anyway, if you ever leave the playground and come up with something other than ad hominem, let me know.

NWO Reporter, I understand the difference between a legal review that ignores the scientific evidence and the scientific evidence that refutes that legal review at least as completely as you do.

I also understand that your repetitive citations of that legal review are a cynical and dishonest attempt to suggest that the cases discussed in that legal review were caused by vaccination, despite the clear evidence to the contrary that was discussed and cited earlier in this thread as well as in other threads on this site in which you have made the same nonsensical claim.

It's hilarious how many people think the DSM is based on science. It's not based on science at all. There are no "genetic markers" for an autism diagnosis. The criteria for each diagnosis is arrived at by vote. The more diagnoses that get voted in, and the broader they are, the better it is for every industry with a stake. There's something in the DSM for pretty much anyone who wants a diagnosis. That's to ensure that insurance companies have a reason to pay, and psychiatrists and psychologists have a reason to prescribe drugs.

And more and more, it's to ensure that children with a need for special accommodations have a way to get them. That is the problem that seems to be really increasing these days--the number of children who need special accommodations to learn, who are unable to function reasonably normally in life, and who, as they grow older, are not able to be self-sufficient.

NWO Reporter, you seem more than a bit confused about the difference between a legal review and science. You also don't seem to know what an ad hominem is. "the evidence that was available before that article was published emphatically refuted the idea that such cases were caused by vaccination." is not an ad hominem.

Julian, apparently you missed this part of Gallimaufry's comment: "...apparently as scientifically illiterate as you." That's called ad hominem.

And apparently you missed the point of the Holland paper as well--the one you didn't bother to read. The point was to see whether vaccine injuries that include autism were, in fact, receiving compensation awards in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The authors found they were. You can come up with all the industry papers you want saying vaccines don't cause autism, and it won't change that fact.

I'm sure it goes without saying that you're taking the CDC's 2003 autism study at face value. The one where that "crazy conspiracy theorist" and CDC researcher Dr. William Thompson blew the whistle on research fraud, the omission of data to get rid of an unwanted result, a result that indicated the MMR vaccine could cause autism.

*********"For antivaxers, aluminum is the new mercury."

15 years ago, vaccine activists advanced the mercury hypothesis and it was wrong. It was tested and while the evidence did suggest some harm, it was clear that mercury could not explain the persistent rise and high rates of autism. New evidence supports the hypothesis that autism is caused by aluminum adjuvant. Science advances by changing a working hypothesis in view of new evidence. Thats why focus is shifting to aluminum. Arguing that the aluminum hypothesis is precluded by the studies on mercury is nonsensical. Studies of mercury cannot be used as evidence for the safety of aluminum adjuvant.

The evidence support aluminum adjuvant causation of autism is far stronger than the mercury evidence ever was. A big reason why is the immune activation research, which started at about 2005. We now know the immune pathway that causes autism (IL-6 >> IL-17 expression).

*************"Adjuvants are compounds added to vaccine in order to boost the immune response to the antigen used, and aluminum salts have been used as effective adjuvants for many years now and have an excellent safety record"

There is no evidence for the neurological or autism safety of aluminum adjuvant. Jefferson 2004 and Mitkus 2011 provide no evidence for neuro safety. They have many flaws and design choices that preclude their application to neuro safety, such as :
--too short follow up (Jefferson)
--no investigation of neuro outcomes or autism (jefferson)
--comparing two forms of aluminum, instead of Al to saline (Jefferson)
--looking at only one or a couple vaccines at a time, not the entire schedule (Jefferson)
--subjects not infants, but rather older children or adults. (Jefferson)

--Not based on toxicity tests with Al adjuvant (Mitkus)
--Theoretical modeling study with no empirical work (Mitkus)
--Use of erroneous NOAEL, which is too high by a factor of 7.6 (mitkus)
--Ignores kinetics and toxicity of particles. Only considers dissolved Al3+(Mitkus)

*****************Unfortunately, there is no clear statement of hypothesis where it belongs, namely in the introduction

Hypothesis is stated. Obviously, the hypothesis is that aluminum adjuvant induces inflammation and elevated cytokine expression i the brain.

QUOTE: "To investigate Al′s immune and neurotoxic impact in vivo, we tested the expression of 17 genes which are implicated in both autism and innate immune response in brain samples of Al-injected mice in comparison to control mice."

***************The point is that this study does not confirm or refute any hypothesis, much less provide any sort of slam-dunk evidence that aluminum adjuvants cause autism.

It confirms the hypothesis that aluminum adjuvant induces inflammation in the brain, and that the inflammation is similar to brain inflammation observed in human autism. Also, IL-6 is proven to cause autistic behaviors in animals, and the aluminum adjuvant induced IL-6 in the brain (see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17913903 and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26822608

**************"After all, autism is a human neurodevelopmental disorder diagnosed entirely by behavioral changes, and correlating mouse behavior with human behavior is very problematic. Indeed, correlating the behavior of any animal, even a primate, with human behavior is fraught with problems. Basically, there is no well-accepted single animal model of autism, and autism research has been littered with mouse models of autism that were found to be very much wanting. (“Rain mouse,” anyone?) "

Autism has been shown to be associated with physiological dysfunctions such as immune system disorders, microbiome dysbiosis/GI disorders, chronic brain inflammation, and mitochondrial dysfunction for example. Immune activation has been shown to cause all these features of autism. These facts support the face validity of the immune activation model of autism.

*************" Looking over the schedule used, I can’t help but note that there’s a huge difference between human infant development and mouse development. Basically, the mice received aluminum doses claimed to be the same as what human babies get by weight six times in the first 17 days of life. By comparison, in human babies these doses are separated by months."

Mice develop faster than humans, so the schedule is compressed to match the development that occurs over the first 6 months in humans. It is reasonable to be concerned that this may increase the toxicity of al adjuvant. However, there are also reasons why the compressed dosing schedule should not make a different. Al adjuvant is mostly retained on the time scale of 6 months (see Flarend 1997). So, the doses in humans are cumulative, as they will be in mice dosed over 17 days. If the al adjuvant was eliminated on the time scale of 2 months (the gap between vaccination dates in humans), then this argument could be given some weight. But thats not the case.

If aluminum adjuvant was as extraordinarily safe as vaccine promoters claim, a compressed dosing schedule should not make a difference.

**************"But I do know enough to know that NF-κB is easy to activate and very nonspecific. I used to joke that just looking at my cells funny would activate NF-κB signaling. Also, NF-κB activation is indeed associated with inflammation, but so what? What we have is an artificial model in which the mice are dosed much more frequently with aluminum than human infants. Does this have any relevance to the human brain or to human autism? who knows? Probably not. No, almost certainly not."

NF-Kb is elevated in human autism. See
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3098713/
and
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0019488

Sure lots of everyday exposures induce NF-Kb. But the NF-Kb does not typically occur in the brain. Also, the effect of infections etc is transient. In contrast, the aluminum adjuvant induced NF-Kb in the brain, and the NF-Kb induction was persistent. Measurements were performed about 3.5 months after the final injection of adjuvant. The PERSISTENCE of the inflammation is a critical factor that differentiates al adjuvant exposure from natural infections and the everyday exposures that induce NF-Kb. Persistent inflammation injures the brain over time and disrupts development processes.

I recommend this recent paper on neuroinflammation in autism: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs12264-017-0103-8.pdf

*****************"This is basically a fishing expedition in which the only real hypothesis is that “aluminum in vaccines is bad and causes bad immune system things to happen in the brain.”

This is not a reasonable argument in view of the extensive research on immune activation and cytokine impacts on brain development. The immune activation research firmly establishes inflammation/cytokines as a cause of human autism.

******************"Indeed, correlating the behavior of any animal, even a primate, with human behavior is fraught with problems. Basically, there is no well-accepted single animal model of autism, and autism research has been littered with mouse models of autism that were found to be very much wanting."

There are challenges, but there are ways to measure autism-like behaviors in mice and monkeys. Eye tracking experiments with monkeys show the same social attention abnormalities as in human autism for example. Paper: http://vaccinepapers.org/wp-content/uploads/Maternal-Immune-Activation-…

The immune activation animal models meet all requirements for validity. Infection/inflammation is a well accepted risk factor for autism. Drugs effective for human autism are also effective in the animal models. The immune activatin models replicate all known features of autism. There is little evidence to suggest the immune activation models are not representative of human autism.

A 2016 review states: "
“These MIA (maternal immune activation) animal models meet all of the criteria required for validity for a disease model: They mimic a known disease-related risk factor (construct validity), they exhibit a wide range of disease-related symptoms (face validity), and they can be used to predict the efficacy of treatments (predictive validity).”
–Dr Kimberley McAllister, UC Davis MIND Institute, Science"

**************"The authors stated that they did it because they wanted to follow previously utilized protocols in their laboratory. In some cases, that can be a reasonable rationale for an experimental choice,"

You dont know the details of why this decision was made. it true that SC injection means the results in isolation cannot be assumed to apply to IM adjuvant. But Crepeaux 2016 used IM injection, and reported behavioral abnormalities and brain inflammation. So IM causes brain injury and inflammation also.

********************"(That’s why we used to call it semiquantitative PCR.) Quite frankly, in this day and age, there is absolutely zero excuse for choosing this method for quantifying gene transcripts."

Semiquantitative PCR is still in use today.

*******************""Now, take a look at Figures 1A and 1B as well as Figures 2A and 2B. Look at the raw bands in the A panels of the figures. Do you see much difference, except for IFNG (interferon gamma) in Figure 1A? I don’t.

Get your eyes checked. CCL2 and TNFA are obviously different in Fig 1A. A Fig 1B shows that CCL2, IFNG and TNFa expression have the largest increases compared to controls. Obviously, this indicates inflammation in the brain.

Fig 2 is FOR FEMALES, which are more tolerant of the toxic effects of al adjuvant. The milder inflammation in female mice (Fig 2) supports the connection to human autism because males are affected more often by about a 4:1 ratio.

**********************"Also, the mouse immune system is different from the human immune system."

On questions of fundamental biological developmental processes, animal models deserve a presumption of applicability to humans. There is no evidence that these models are not relevant to humans.

IL-6 function in humans and mice appear to be identical. There are no known differences. Your "Of Mice and Not Men" paper is a good paper (I have read it), and it does not mention any mouse-human differences in IL-6. My understanding is that human and mouse IL-6 are identical molecules.

Immune activation results have been replicated in monkeys.

Human epi studies, case reports and other human studies demonstrate that inflammation increases risk of brain injury, autism and mental illness in humans. Its clear that brain inflammation is important in human mental illnesses, including autism.

There is consensus among researchers that immune activation animal models are relevant to humans.

Aluminum is toxic to all life. There is no reason to believe that humans are uniquely resistant to aluminum, and much evidence that Al exposure causes brain injury (e.g. see the "Camelford incident"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

Fundamental biological processes like brain development are not the types of things that differ greatly between humans and other mammals. The types of things that are different are drug binding affinities and drug metabolism, because they can be strongly affected by small genetic differences. Thats not the case with brain development. Human and other mammal brains develop by the same processes.

Oh look. VP is ignoring the potential fraud in this paper.
Yeah, the paper is so bad that it deserved a follow-up about the monkey business going on with the figures.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2017/09/27/torturing-more-mice-in-the-name-of-antivaccine-pseudoscience-was-it-fraud-or-incompetence/

None of the studies cited in the text below are relevant to aluminum adjuvant safety. MMR does not contain aluminum. Studies of thimerosal are not relevant to aluminum adjuvant.

"Five cohort studies involving 1,256,407 children, and five case-control studies involving 9,920 children were included in this analysis. The cohort data revealed no relationship between vaccination and autism (OR: 0.99; 95% CI: 0.92 to 1.06) or ASD (OR: 0.91; 95% CI: 0.68 to 1.20), nor was there a relationship between autism and MMR (OR: 0.84; 95% CI: 0.70 to 1.01), or thimerosal (OR: 1.00; 95% CI: 0.77 to 1.31), or mercury (Hg) (OR: 1.00; 95% CI: 0.93 to 1.07). Similarly the case-control data found no evidence for increased risk of developing autism or ASD following MMR, Hg, or thimerosal exposure when grouped by condition (OR: 0.90, 95% CI: 0.83 to 0.98; p = 0.02) or grouped by exposure type (OR: 0.85, 95% CI: 0.76 to 0.95; p = 0.01). Findings of this meta-analysis suggest that vaccinations are not associated with the development of autism or autism spectrum disorder. Furthermore, the components of the vaccines (thimerosal or mercury) or multiple vaccines (MMR) are not associated with the development of autism or autism spectrum disorder."

The point [of the pitiful Holland paper] was to see whether vaccine injuries that include autism were, in fact, receiving compensation awards in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The authors found they were.

That's strong work, Ginny, except that such alleged “vaccine injuries” have been repeatedly shown to be to be genetically-determined and unrelated to vaccination.

BTW, did you miss “Whistleblower” Thompson’s recorded comment to the effect that the finding that his coauthors attributed to socioeconomic factors was, in fact, due to socioeconomic factors? Here's what Thompson said in a conversation that BS Hooker secretly recorded on June 12, 2014:

Thompson: "among the blacks . . . the ones getting vaccinated earlier are the ones from higher-income backgrounds. . . . You could argue that it's the educated black moms that are getting their kids vaccinated earlier and that's why you found that effect."

BS Hooker: "And they're getting that effect and the ones that are getting vaccinated later are underdiagnosed."

@NWO Reporter, nope. An ad hominem is "your argument is wrong because you're stupid". Gallimaufry was saying "you're scientifically illiterate because your argument is wrong and you don't know why". i.e. You're stupid because you're wrong.
Re your second paragraph: no, I didn't miss the point of Holland's paper. She was trying to insinuate that because people who had a diagnosis of autism had been compensated by the NVICP, that proved that vaccines can cause autism. They can't.
As for William Thompson, that whole palaver has been discussed on Respectful Insolence already. Put his name into the Search Box up top. You will find several posts pointing out that what you say he said was not what he actually said.

It’s hilarious how many people think the DSM is based on science.

Who?

Brian, if autism has been "repeatedly shown to be to be genetically-determined," then an autism diagnosis would be based on genetic markers. It isn't. There is not s single person anywhere whose autism diagnosis was based on genetic markers.

Creative cherry-picking there with Thompson's comment. But the data omitted from the study speaks for itself--as do the 99.99% of Thompson's comments you omitted.

if autism has been “repeatedly shown to be to be genetically-determined,” then an autism diagnosis would be based on genetic markers.

I see from this that you fail to understand autism, genetic markers, or both. I'd bet on both.

Basically, the authors used them because they had used them before in ... another crappy paper in the same journal from 2013 purporting to link aluminum with adverse neurological outcomes.

That 2013 paper in J. Inorg.Biochem. is actually the b>same study, with the mice being scored on behaviour before making their sacrifice for Science. It's not immediately obvious, because in the original description there are four litters of 14 pups each, with one control (saline injections), one for some other purpose, and one each on an high- and low-dose regime, whereas in the present paper there are only two groups to compare.

To get the full picture of what was going on with this mouse work, you have to look at a third study, from 2014, Ref. 166, published in 'OA Autism' (see earlier comment). It includes Figure 1: preliminary immunology results from the no-longer-functioning brains of 3 male mice each from control and treatment groups. The authors admit that such small samples cannot sustain definitive conclusions.

The criteria for selecting those three mice is not explained. Each measurement was repeated four times for accuracy, so the authors could have measured the entre group for the same expenditure of effort. It is as if they wanted to create the impression of multiple independent measurements, with correspondingly narrow confidence limits, without running the risk of sampling an entire diverse group.

Anyway, moving right along, Figure 1 reappears in the present 2017 paper. Unchanged. Same values, same RT-PCR blots, same error bars. This is peculiar, for the text explains that these are now mean results for five treated and control male mice (delivering on the promise to strengthen the conclusions). Quite how this happened has caused some speculation in Pubpeer.

But wait, it gets better! For there is now a Fig 2, with comparable results for female mice. By "comparable" I mean identical, for some of the male-mouse PCR blots from Fig 1 reappear as putatively sourced from female brains. In fact they appear twice in Figure 2, flipped horizontally so as to illustrate the expression of quite different proteins.

To sum up, the same kayak-shaped gels have been used four times, across two papers, nominally illustrating four different claims.

For further entertainment, other gels are flipped horizontally between Figures 4B and 4D, with different exposures, to illustrate the expression of cytokines and adhesion molecules respectively.

I can only suppose that someone on Shaw's team thought they were studying mirror neurons.

You'd think so, but Shaw and Tomljenovic insist that mercury has not been exonerated. Yes, thimerosal might have been removed from vaccines without producing the predicted drop in autism, but apparently fetal exposure to mercury (through maternal use of flu vaccines) makes up for it. I am not making this up:

Nonetheless, it should be noted that Thimerosal was subsequently re-introduced to vaccines administered to pregnant women as well infants of 6 months of age (and then yearly throughout childhood) in the form of multi-dose flu vaccines[83]. This recommendation to reintroduce Thimerosal at the same time when the U.S. medical authorities recommended its removal from routine childhood vaccines has created a false overall impression that the impact of Thimerosal has been reduced, when in actuality, the administration during the gestational period has increased the potential to damage the developing CNS.

Yes, this destroys their entire rationale for pursuing aluminium as the cause of autism, but they are more concerned with antivax purity than logical consistency.

@NWOR: this will be my last reply to you because, as Chris points out, I need to stop feeding the antivax troll. No. I'm not denying that vaccines can possibly cause any of the table injuries. I am saying that they don't *definitely* cause them. Because there is a high probability, that's why they are compensated as table injuries.

I AM also saying that vaccines don't cause autism, have never been shown to cause autism, and you are wrong.

Oh VP. Defending Shaw and Tomljenovic because they support your fixation about vaccines. Why don't you go onto PubPeer and talk to the people who are pointing out the errors? I'm sure they would be glad to let you "school" them as to where they are all wrong.

VP #155: "You wrote:”aluminum salts have been used as effective adjuvants for many years now and have an excellent safety record.”

Can you please provide citations to support the safety of aluminum adjuvant? Particularly regarding neurological disorders and autism?

Like VP, I would appreciate seeing some citations for this statement. Could you provide your sources on this bit of knowledge? Thanks.

"Moving along, I note that this is a mouse experiment, and somehow antivaxers are selling this as compelling evidence that vaccines cause autism through their aluminum adjuvants causing an inflammatory reaction in the brain"

Took 10 paragraphs to get here, but OP has made his first relevant comment. Must be hard to prove aluminum adjuvants are safe when there is 0 empirical evidence of their safety in humans or animals at vaccine relevant dosages. Might as well keep talking about Thimerosal and MMR.

"aluminum salts have been used as effective adjuvants for many years now and have an excellent safety record"
(citation needed for stupid comment)
^from 1920 to ~1980 only DTP contained aluminum. Now children receive 30+ dosages. Haven't you heard "dose makes the poison"? Cite some papers or shut up!

@Beth: just become buddies with VP. He's as wrong as you are. You get more aluminium in your body (actually into your bloodstream! Gasp!) if you get sand scrapes at the beach than in any injection - which goes into muscle, not the blood. And most people have functioning kidneys which can eliminate it just fine.

Regarding the 83 cases of alleged “vaccine injuries that included autism” that Holland et al discussed in anti-vaxxers’ favorite law review article, Ginny wrote:

if autism has been “repeatedly shown to be to be genetically-determined,” then an autism diagnosis would be based on genetic markers.

Well, no. Cases like the 83 that you cited from Holland’s article (i.e., “vaccine encephalopathy” and allegedly vaccine-related “residual seizure disorder”) have been studied by research groups on several continents and determined to be caused by mutations which most commonly occur in the SCN1A gene. Gallimaufry provided you with a curated list of references, but here’s a related paper (published this month) which describes nonverbal children that suffered regression or stasis after a period of normal development, seizures, severe GI issues, and profound intellectual disability; eight of the nine children had the identical SCN1A mutation while the ninth had a different mutation in that gene:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5589790/

MI Dawn, I appreciate your taking the time to respond, but I am looking for citations regarding the safety of Al adjuvants, not advice on choosing friends. VP claims there aren't any such studies. Can you provide a cite showing VP wrong?

I find it amusing how the antivaxers in this thread are doing everything they can to avoid discussing the major scientific flaws in the Shaw/Tomljenovic study in order to bring up their favorite tropes about aluminum. Maybe this will tweak them. It looks as though the authors of this study might have committed scientific fraud:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2017/09/27/torturing-more-mice-in-the…

Orac, hopefully you are correct about the scientific fraud in this paper, otherwise your response to VP's well cited comment will live in infamy. You were so excited to respond to VP's comments, but for many of us all we witnessed was a massive dodge. In particular we are still waiting to see just one paper that demonstrates empirical safety of aluminum adjuvant for children at vaccine relevant dosages. You said aluminum salts have an 'excellent safety record' and provided no empirical evidence in support of this statement.

Your paper can be experimental data (AlOH injection) in animals or even observational data comparing fully unvaccinated children with fully vaccinated children.

Just waiting for one single paper with empirical evidence of AlOH safety.

Even if al the blots were perfect, this would still be a crappy paper, and antivaxers in this thread would still be obviously doing contortions to avoid facing is many flaws. As for my reputation, well, certainly neither you nor VP will have any appreciable effect on it, certainly not from anything you've said here.

Just for the record, which was mysteriously wiped out last night, this is the list of injuries MI Dawn will neither admit nor deny can be caused by vaccines. It is comprised of the injuries listed on the Vaccine Injury Table, and some of the injuries that have actually received compensation awards in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

Acute Inflammatory Neurological Injury
Acute Demyelinating Encephalomyelitis (ADEM)
Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis
Acute Hemorrhagic Leukoencephalomyelitis (AHLE)
Anaphylaxis
Bell's Palsy
Brachial Neuritis
Brachial Plexopathy
Cardiac arrest
Cellulitis
Cerebral Palsy
Cognitive Delays
Connective Tissue Disease
Chronic arthritis
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome
Death
Demyelinating Polyneuropathy
Disseminated varicella vaccine strain viral disease (Removed in 9/2017 from the Table)
Encephalopathy or encephalitis
Frozen Shoulder Syndrome
Guillain-Barré Syndrome
Hearing Loss
Inflammatory Tendinitis
Intussusception
Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis
Kleine-Levin Syndrome
Leukocytoclastic Vasculitis
Lumbosacral Raduculoplexus Neuropathy (LSRPN)
Lymphangitis
Miller Fisher Syndrome
Multiple Sclerosis
Multi-Organ Failure
Myelopathy
Myositis
Neuritis
Neuralgic Amyotrophy
Neurologic Injuries
Neuromyelitis Optica (NMO)
Optic Neuritis
Overactive Immune Response
Paralytic Polio
Paresthesias/Small Fiber Neuropathy
Parsonage Turner Syndrome
Peripheral Neuropathy
Polyneuropathy
Psoriasiform Dermatitis
Radial Nerve Injury
Shoulder Injury Related to Vaccine Administration (Removed in 9/2017 from the Table)
Spinal Cord Myelitis
Strep A infection
Systemic Inflammatory Response
Thrombocytopenic purpura
Tinnitus
Toxic Shock
Transverse Myelitis
Vasovagal syncope (Removed in 9/2017 from the Table)
Vaccine Strain Measles Viral Disease
Vaccine Strain Polio Viral Infection
Varicella vaccine strain viral reactivation (Removed in 9/2017 from the Table)
Ventricular Fibrillation
Vision Loss

Beth, who is Just Asking Questions: "...I am looking for citations regarding the safety of Al adjuvants, not advice on choosing friends. VP claims there aren’t any such studies. Can you provide a cite showing VP wrong?"

Some recent ones from the first search page on PubMed under the heading of aluminum adjuvant safety:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28591778
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28454674
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28027810

Even with these and other studies (and an approximately 80-year record of excellent safety with aluminum adjuvanted vaccines), antivaxers insist they are dangerous. If only they could demonstrate quality research to support their claim.

@Beth Clarkson,

Start with Taylor et al from June 2014 as referenced by Julian Frost (162) and the 10 studies it analyzed.

Those studies show that vaccinated children are just as healthy as unvaccinated children, in addition to which they are much less likely to get the diseases the vaccines protect against.

And none of them found any problems specific to vaccines using aluminum adjuvants.

In addition to all the safety and efficacy studies needed for approval of a new vaccine, we have years of post marketing surveillance on effects from billions of doses of vaccines. That surveillance has found a few problems occurring about 1 in 100,000 doses and the vaccines were withdrawn from use. But none of those problems were specific to and generic to all vaccines using aluminum adjuvants.

So if there is a problem caused by aluminum adjuvants, it appears to only occur in 1 in a million doses or less, which is so low that it is extremely difficult to differentiate from random events occurring independent of vaccinations.

And the calculation that NWO refused to do shows that vaccines are at least 1000 times safer than the diseases they protect against. If that is not an adequate ratio, what ratio do you consider adequate and what methodology would you propose to establish safety at that level?

And don't let your child go play in the park.

https://www.naturalplaygrounds.com/documents/Playground%20Injury%20Stat…

More children die each year from playground injuries than from vaccinations.

And really don't let them dig up the dirt in your back yard. They might ingest some of that horrible aluminum!

Orac is moderating the conversation, not allowing for a suitable discourse. This is a classic predicament when discussing controversial Science online.

One person appears to be winning an argument because the other person's comments are not approved.

So let's stay on topic here. I am still waiting to see just one paper that demonstrates empirical safety of aluminum adjuvant for children at vaccine relevant dosages. Orac stated aluminum salts have an ‘excellent safety record’ and provided no empirical evidence in support of this statement.

Please read the f*cking papers before you post them, as the papers posted have been on MMR and Thimerosal.

Silly antivaxer, pulling the "Help! Help! I'm being repressed!" gambit, then trying like hell to avoid the topic of this post.

So let’s stay on topic here.

Yes, let's stay on the topic of
"Torturing more mice in the name of antivaccine pseudoscience, 2017 aluminum edition", shall we.

I am still waiting to see just one paper that demonstrates empirical safety of aluminum adjuvant for children at vaccine relevant dosages.

You'll be waiting at least until there is some reason to suspect that Al adjuvants might not be as safe as history has shown them to be.

Orac stated aluminum salts have an ‘excellent safety record’ and provided no empirical evidence in support of this statement.

In fact, Orac has pointed the historical, empirical evidence of the safety of Al adjuvants. It's up to the anti-vax industry to provide credible (e.g., non-fraudulent) evidence that Al adjuvants might not be safe, despite all the available evidence, should they be able to ever do so.

The unfortunate reality is that no matter what research the industry and its beneficiaries produces to herald the safety and effectiveness of its products, it simply can't be trusted. That according to a longtime editor of a respected medical journal, who has reviewed more medical research in depth than all the 'science' bloggers on the web combined.

“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” Dr. Marcia Angell, Drug Companies and Doctors: A Story of Corruption, NY Review of Books, Jan. 15, 2009.

NWO Reporter cited cases discussed in a Pace Environmental Law Review article as the basis for her belief that vaccines cause autism:

As for autism, many cases of vaccine injuries that include autism have been compensated in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The claimed injury, and the injury compensated, however, was encephalopathy or seizure disorder. So yes, IMO vaccines can cause autism.

Now that it’s clear that numerous cases like those compensated for allegedly vaccine-related encephalopathy and seizure disorders are caused by mutations rather than by vaccination, NWO Reporter, it’s equally clear that there is no rational basis for your opinion.

Ginny bloviated thusly: "Just for the record, which was mysteriously wiped out last night, this is the list of injuries MI Dawn will neither admit nor deny can be caused by vaccines." (bold added)
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Ginny demonstrated, once again, why she is working as the Walmart greeter of the legal profession. She's so clueless that she hasn't figured out that when comments grow too large for one page a second page is added, and comments on page 1 aren't visible when you are on page 2!!

Really, Opie? I'm on page one of the comments now. Your comment is #27. Last night, there were about 150 comments on this story. Did you forget your juice box this morning?

Oh, okay, I see them. I didn't realize they renumber on later pages. Sorry, Opie. :)

BTW, Opie, what do you do for a living?

Just for the record, which was mysteriously wiped out last night

Do you see the link that says "« Previous 1 2," O paranoiac freak?

It is comprised of [sic] the injuries listed on the Vaccine Injury Table, and some of the injuries that have actually received compensation awards in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

You keep intoning that, Gindo, but without ponying up the evidence. Moreover, there's a certain inconsistency in your tediousness:

MI Dawn, so you are contending that out of the 61 injuries listed in #148 (injuries that are on the Vaccine Injury Table, and that have actually received awards in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program), all but the follow 4 CANNOT be caused by vaccines?

Allergic Reaction including anaphylaxis
Death
Guillain-Barré syndrome
Narcolepsy

Are you angling for a job at the vaccine court or something?

Where's the VICP award for narcolepsy, NWAD? Seems like an excellent place to start.

@Dangerous Bacon

Thank you for the cites. I have read the links you provided, two of which had links to the full paper.
These studies indicate that there was no statistically detectable difference with regard to adverse reactions immediately following administration of the HPV or IPV vaccines when formulate with or without the Al adjuvant.

Unfortunately, none of the three studies you listed address the concern regarding the relationship of autism with AL adjuvants and none are specifically looking at the safety of using AL as an adjuvant in multiple vaccines for children.

Out of the three studies you posted, 2 were on individuals old enough that they would have already been determined to be autistic. The third was on infants too young to determine if they were autistic and no followup in that regard was suggested. So, they don't provide any evidence regarding the safely of AL with respect to the hypothesis being discussed here.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28591778 discusses the 2-dose compared to the 3-dose approach for HPV vaccination given to girls aged 9-14 both of which contained AL adjuvants. Women aged 15–25 years who received the 3D_M0,1,6 schedule served as the control group.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28027810 had a total n = 240 and studied adolescents rather than infants. The title is "First-in-human safety and immunogenicity investigations of three adjuvanted reduced dose inactivated poliovirus vaccines (IPV-Al SSI) compared to full dose IPV Vaccine SSI when given as a booster vaccination to adolescents with a history of IPV vaccination at 3, 5, 12months and 5years of age.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28454674 at least has a control (n=206) without the Al adjuvant and looks at infants. But it is not a study reporting on the safety of the Al adjuvant. Indeed, there is no long-term followup of the infants (The mean age at inclusion was approximately 44 days. ) and they tested the infants after two vaccinations at 6 and 10 weeks.

@squirrelelite VP responded to the link in #162 - it isn't looking at AL adjuvants.

You asked: what ratio do you consider adequate and what methodology would you propose to establish safety at that level?

A good question. That ratio is not, by itself, sufficient to make a decision. It needs to be compared to the risk of acquiring the disease multiplied by the risk of similar or worse result from the disease itself. Since the risk of acquiring the disease varies tremendously based on the disease and one's physical location, not to mention that the risk of adverse reactions to either the disease or the vaccination will vary tremendously based on one's own personal and family health history, this isn't a one size fits all answer this question.

With regard to the inherent dangers of life vis-a-vis parks and vaccines, I took my kids to parks and vaccinated them. Some risks are worth taking.

The unfortunate reality is that no matter what research the industry and its beneficiaries produces to herald the safety and effectiveness of its products, it simply can’t be trusted.

"I want a list of studies showing the safety of X. Also, studies showing the safety of X are all faked and I intend to ignore them."

*********""Research shows a clear genetic cause of autism."

The claim that autism is largely genetic is based on twin studies. All the twin studies are flawed because they assume gene X environment interactions do not occur in autism. The twin studies assume that gene and environment risk contributions combine ADDITIVELY. This assumption is wrong and it causes the heritability to be greatly overestimated. All the twin studies have this problem.

This issue is explained here: http://vaccinepapers.org/autism-not-fate-twin-studies-overestimate-gene…

ORAC ignores everything I wrote, and is now trying to change the subject.

You lose Orac

How do anti-vaxxers explain the continued existence of humans, if aluminum is a) more toxic than nightshade, belladonna, lead and arsenic combined, and b) ridiculously common.

PGP @ 33:

Because they don't believe aluminum exists in the environment. They think it's something artificial that never existed before the 20th Century--just as gluten is an artificial chemical ingredient that bread makers could just as easily leave out, but don't as part of a worldwide conspiracy to reduce the population.

Reminder to Beth: You said "I am looking for citations regarding the safety of Al adjuvants".
Another antivaxer said: " I am still waiting to see just one paper that demonstrates empirical safety of aluminum adjuvant for children at vaccine relevant dosages".

I provided links to three papers validating safety of such adjuvants (just a small sampling of the recent work done in this area).

Now Beth is attempting to redefine safety as specifically showing no autism risk. We already have plenty of quality research showing no link between vaccines (with or without aluminum-based adjuvants) and autism. Are those studies invalid, and why? What studies can you cite that demonstrate an association between aluminum-based adjuvants and autism risk (aside from the Shaw/Tomljenovic dreck addressed in Orac's blog article)?
Shouldn't you acknowledge that your request for safety studies was granted and that you are now trying to shift goalposts? Don't you find it embarrassing that your antivax views are so inadequately concealed by a Just Asking Questions M.O.?

@Politicalguineapig so you're saying humans have always been injected with nanoparticulate AlOH? ..or humans have always been exposed to soluble aluminum?

@DangerousBacon
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28454674
This study does not even have a control group, and all participants had already been previously vaccinated. Lol.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28591778
This isn't a safety study.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28027810
This has no control group and all participants had already been vaccinated.

By the way, for you genius pro vaxxers out there: if autism occurs at 4% of the population and affects mainly boys, and also is diagnosed in 2 year olds...would a smart person trying to prove aluminum is safe for male infants cite 2 studies with no control group about a vaccine we aren't even debating and a population of 240 teenage women? I mean this is seriously as stupid as it gets, folks.

and the other study is not a safety study. I think you should let Orac do the talking, whenever he wants to cite a study.

Macrophages, PGP. Macrophages with a mission not dissimilar to that of the Starship Enterprise.

PGP, I suppose you have difficulty understanding why you can't just toss your eggs into a blender each morning and inject them for breakfast, too. After all, eggs aren't even toxic!

And I suppose The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge thinks it would be perfectly safe to inject air into an artery...seeing as how the environment has been filled with air for as long as humans have been around. :D

Posting this a second time.

*********ORAC:"15 years ago, vaccine activists advanced the mercury hypothesis and it was wrong. It was tested and while the evidence did suggest some harm, it was clear that mercury could not explain the persistent rise and high rates of autism. New evidence supports the hypothesis that autism is caused by aluminum adjuvant. Science advances by changing a working hypothesis in view of new evidence. Thats why focus is shifting to aluminum. Arguing that the aluminum hypothesis is precluded by the studies on mercury is nonsensical. Studies of mercury cannot be used as evidence for the safety of aluminum adjuvant.

*************"ORAC:Adjuvants are compounds added to vaccine in order to boost the immune response to the antigen used, and aluminum salts have been used as effective adjuvants for many years now and have an excellent safety record"

*****************ORAC:Unfortunately, there is no clear statement of hypothesis where it belongs, namely in the introduction

Hypothesis is stated. Obviously, the hypothesis is that aluminum adjuvant induces inflammation and elevated cytokine expression i the brain.

***************ORAC:The point is that this study does not confirm or refute any hypothesis, much less provide any sort of slam-dunk evidence that aluminum adjuvants cause autism.

**************"ORAC:After all, autism is a human neurodevelopmental disorder diagnosed entirely by behavioral changes, and correlating mouse behavior with human behavior is very problematic. Indeed, correlating the behavior of any animal, even a primate, with human behavior is fraught with problems. Basically, there is no well-accepted single animal model of autism, and autism research has been littered with mouse models of autism that were found to be very much wanting. (“Rain mouse,” anyone?) "

*************ORAC:" Looking over the schedule used, I can’t help but note that there’s a huge difference between human infant development and mouse development. Basically, the mice received aluminum doses claimed to be the same as what human babies get by weight six times in the first 17 days of life. By comparison, in human babies these doses are separated by months."

If aluminum adjuvant was as extraordinarily safe as vaccine promoters claim, a compressed dosing schedule should not make a difference.

**************ORAC:"But I do know enough to know that NF-κB is easy to activate and very nonspecific. I used to joke that just looking at my cells funny would activate NF-κB signaling. Also, NF-κB activation is indeed associated with inflammation, but so what? What we have is an artificial model in which the mice are dosed much more frequently with aluminum than human infants. Does this have any relevance to the human brain or to human autism? who knows? Probably not. No, almost certainly not."

NF-Kb is elevated in human autism. See
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3098713/
and
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0019488

I recommend this recent paper on neuroinflammation in autism: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs12264-017-0103-8.pdf

*****************"ORAC:This is basically a fishing expedition in which the only real hypothesis is that “aluminum in vaccines is bad and causes bad immune system things to happen in the brain.”

******************ORAC:"Indeed, correlating the behavior of any animal, even a primate, with human behavior is fraught with problems. Basically, there is no well-accepted single animal model of autism, and autism research has been littered with mouse models of autism that were found to be very much wanting."

**************ORAC:"The authors stated that they did it because they wanted to follow previously utilized protocols in their laboratory. In some cases, that can be a reasonable rationale for an experimental choice,"

********************ORAC:"(That’s why we used to call it semiquantitative PCR.) Quite frankly, in this day and age, there is absolutely zero excuse for choosing this method for quantifying gene transcripts."

Semiquantitative PCR is still in use today.

*******************ORAC:""Now, take a look at Figures 1A and 1B as well as Figures 2A and 2B. Look at the raw bands in the A panels of the figures. Do you see much difference, except for IFNG (interferon gamma) in Figure 1A? I don’t.

**********************ORAC:"Also, the mouse immune system is different from the human immune system."

On questions of fundamental biological developmental processes, animal models deserve a presumption of applicability to humans. There is no evidence that these models are not relevant to humans.

Immune activation results have been replicated in monkeys.

There is consensus among researchers that immune activation animal models are relevant to humans.

I see NWO Distorter still thinks vaccines are "injected into an artery"....

Hardly, "Reverend." But it does not surprise you failed to grasp the comparison. :D

Vaccine Papers:

All that inane blabber, and you still can't take the time to type <blockquote></blockquote> around quotations? Assuming you don't have an app to do it for you, like everybody else?

BTW, Reverend Battleaxe...I've noticed our environment has dirt--lots of dirt. And it's been around as long as humans have. So it should be okay to inject dirt into muscle tissue, right? Asking for a friend. She wants her little boy to get all the benefits of playing in mud, but without the mess. :D

Vaccine Papers seems to be shifting to the position that "It doesn't matter if the evidence in this latest paper was fake, it confirms previous claims by the same authors".

You mean like the buttload of aluminum he'll get, directly into the bloodstream at that, everytime he skins his knee? Or breathes? Or eats or drinks anything grown on an Earth-type planet?

Reverend Battelaxe, are all men of God that deceptive? Note I could make some smart alek remark about how you think vaccines are injected directly into the bloodstream, like you did to me, but I'll hold my keyboard finger. Seriously, though--you do know the difference between ingestion and injection, right? I have a disconcerting image of you lining up your congregation for an injection of the body and blood of Christ.

Vaccine Papers seems to be shifting to the position that “It doesn’t matter if the evidence in this latest paper was fake, it confirms previous claims by the same authors”.

Fake data confirms previous data from same group? What is the betting that was fake as well then.

For all those reading along at home, this is the clearest evidence you will ever need to understand that Vaccine Papers does not follow the scientific evidence, but instead looks for evidence, no matter how fake that evidence is, that supports his existing conclusion.

Vaccine Papers has a conclusion that has lost its data and he is furiously trying to find some.

Yes, yes, NWO, we know that ingested materials never get into your bloodstream. That's why drugs are never adnistered in pill form and why we nourish ourselves with hypodermic needles.

It’s hilarious how many people think the DSM is based on science.

Bravo, congratulation, I was the only one mentioning DSM in this thread and get labelled assuming the DSM is based on science. F*ck!ng way to miss the marks so I'll repeat:

Need I say that the DSM-I was a statistical manual designed to help psychiatrists fill out code forms (the precursor of today’s EHR) for compliance with the

Draft Act Governing Hospitalisation of the Mentally Ill, Federal Security Agency, Public Health Service, Publication No. 51

Where the f*ck does a coding manual to help physician become law compliant has any basis in science?!?!

Even to this current day, it doesn't, now, a valid question to ask is how does autism get diagnosed if DSM doesn't have any basis in science.

Ranty...

Eskimoboi: Basically that humans have always been exposed to soluble aluminum. It's in the ground everywhere, after all. There's this thing called groundwater, I don't know if you've heard of it, that humans dig wells to get into.. and then there's this thing called gardening. And then there's clay, which people use to store food sometimes and sometimes even eat. Oh, by the way, ever heard of this nifty thing called foil?

Nanoparticles by the way, is a nonsense word that anti-vaxxers use to cry about things they don't like.

NWO: Wouldn't want to, really. Sure, everything winds up in the bloodstream, but with food, it's about the journey, not the destination. But I suppose you subsist on nuts and smoothies and faint at the sight of bread.

And obviously, you don't get out much, or you'd recognize that the Very Rev's nym doesn't actually have anything to do with religion. Man, you're really dedicated to not having any fun ever.

Ginger asked, at #31, BTW, Opie, what do you do for a living?
.
I usually don't indulge trolls, but since there's a point to be made I will. I am a retired senior executive of a human service agency with over 5000 employees and a budget with lots of commas.
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In the course of my duties I've had to deal with the issues of private child collection agencies and have been exposed to the quality of their legal counsel. The business model is based on the lamprey, most of their 'customers' are as happy as gut-hooked fish and the majority of the attorneys involved in this endeavor have the ethics of Caligula and the legal skills of Chance the Gardener.
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It's not just supposition on my part that you are one the Walmart greeters of the legal profession, it's experience and exposure to your peers.

Here it is with blockquotes. Sorry about that.

ORAC:"15 years ago, vaccine activists advanced the mercury hypothesis and it was wrong. It was tested and while the evidence did suggest some harm, it was clear that mercury could not explain the persistent rise and high rates of autism. New evidence supports the hypothesis that autism is caused by aluminum adjuvant. Science advances by changing a working hypothesis in view of new evidence. Thats why focus is shifting to aluminum. Arguing that the aluminum hypothesis is precluded by the studies on mercury is nonsensical. Studies of mercury cannot be used as evidence for the safety of aluminum adjuvant.

"ORAC:Adjuvants are compounds added to vaccine in order to boost the immune response to the antigen used, and aluminum salts have been used as effective adjuvants for many years now and have an excellent safety record"

ORAC:Unfortunately, there is no clear statement of hypothesis where it belongs, namely in the introduction

Hypothesis is stated. Obviously, the hypothesis is that aluminum adjuvant induces inflammation and elevated cytokine expression i the brain.

ORAC:The point is that this study does not confirm or refute any hypothesis, much less provide any sort of slam-dunk evidence that aluminum adjuvants cause autism.

ORAC:After all, autism is a human neurodevelopmental disorder diagnosed entirely by behavioral changes, and correlating mouse behavior with human behavior is very problematic. Indeed, correlating the behavior of any animal, even a primate, with human behavior is fraught with problems. Basically, there is no well-accepted single animal model of autism, and autism research has been littered with mouse models of autism that were found to be very much wanting. (“Rain mouse,” anyone?) "

ORAC:" Looking over the schedule used, I can’t help but note that there’s a huge difference between human infant development and mouse development. Basically, the mice received aluminum doses claimed to be the same as what human babies get by weight six times in the first 17 days of life. By comparison, in human babies these doses are separated by months."

If aluminum adjuvant was as extraordinarily safe as vaccine promoters claim, a compressed dosing schedule should not make a difference.

ORAC:"But I do know enough to know that NF-κB is easy to activate and very nonspecific. I used to joke that just looking at my cells funny would activate NF-κB signaling. Also, NF-κB activation is indeed associated with inflammation, but so what? What we have is an artificial model in which the mice are dosed much more frequently with aluminum than human infants. Does this have any relevance to the human brain or to human autism? who knows? Probably not. No, almost certainly not."

NF-Kb is elevated in human autism. See
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3098713/
and
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0019488

I recommend this recent paper on neuroinflammation in autism: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs12264-017-0103-8.pdf

"ORAC:This is basically a fishing expedition in which the only real hypothesis is that “aluminum in vaccines is bad and causes bad immune system things to happen in the brain.”

ORAC:"Indeed, correlating the behavior of any animal, even a primate, with human behavior is fraught with problems. Basically, there is no well-accepted single animal model of autism, and autism research has been littered with mouse models of autism that were found to be very much wanting."

ORAC:"The authors stated that they did it because they wanted to follow previously utilized protocols in their laboratory. In some cases, that can be a reasonable rationale for an experimental choice,"

ORAC:"(That’s why we used to call it semiquantitative PCR.) Quite frankly, in this day and age, there is absolutely zero excuse for choosing this method for quantifying gene transcripts."

Semiquantitative PCR is still in use today.

ORAC:""Now, take a look at Figures 1A and 1B as well as Figures 2A and 2B. Look at the raw bands in the A panels of the figures. Do you see much difference, except for IFNG (interferon gamma) in Figure 1A? I don’t.

ORAC:"Also, the mouse immune system is different from the human immune system."

On questions of fundamental biological developmental processes, animal models deserve a presumption of applicability to humans. There is no evidence that these models are not relevant to humans.

Immune activation results have been replicated in monkeys.

There is consensus among researchers that immune activation animal models are relevant to humans.

How do anti-vaxxers explain the continued existence of humans, if aluminum is a) more toxic than nightshade, belladonna, lead and arsenic combined, and b) ridiculously common.

Oral absorption is 0.3% and has fast elimination kinetics. The BBB mostly keeps it out of the central nervous system. The body has adequate defenses to protect from natural levels of aluminum exposure.

Injected aluminum adjuvant persists in the body for years, and it it carried into the brain, through the BBB, by macrophages. Macrophages do this in response to MCP-1 in the brain, which is highly elevated in autism.

Humans are not adapted to tolerate injections of aluminum adjuvant particles.

it it carried into the brain, through the BBB, by macrophages. Macrophages do this in response to MCP-1 in the brain, which is highly elevated in autism.

So your claim is that elevated MCP-1 in autistic brains sucks up the macrophages and the imaginary nanoparticles which go back in time to cause the autism that elevates the MCP-1, right? Where did the thiotimoline come from in your scenario?

PGP

b) ridiculously common.

That statement doesn't exist (in the mind of antivaxxers).

Alain

We now know the immune pathway that causes autism (IL-6 >> IL-17 expression).

I don't know who "we" is in this sentence, but it doesn't include the majority of autism researchers.

Some recent ones from the first search page on PubMed under the heading of aluminum adjuvant safety:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28591778
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28454674
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28027810

Even with these and other studies (and an approximately 80-year record of excellent safety with aluminum adjuvanted vaccines), antivaxers insist they are dangerous. If only they could demonstrate quality research to support their claim.

@dangerous bacon.

The first study compared 2 and 3 doses of vaccine in teenage girls. Not relevant to autism in male infants.

The second study compared Al-adjuvanted and non-adjuvanted vaccine in 6 week infants. Follow-up period is SEVEN DAYS. Hence, the study cannot detect autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders.

QUOTE FROM SECOND STUDY: "Safety assessments
The infants were observed for 30 min after each vaccination and immediate adverse events were recorded. A diary, thermometer, and ruler were given to parents for daily recording and measuring of injection site reactions, temperature reactions, and other solicited adverse events during the first 3 days (72 h) after vaccination, and for recording of any adverse event during the 7 days after vaccination. The solicited events in the diary were injection site redness or swelling reactions, axillary temperatures, persistent crying for more than 3 h, irritability, drowsiness, loss of appetite, vomiting, and diarrhoea."

How could these safety assessments possible provide evidence it does not cause autism? They cannot.

Study 3 has the same problem. No autism or neurological assessment was made.

QUOTE FROM STUDY 3:"The subjects were observed for half an hour after the trial vaccination and immediate AE observations were recorded. A diary, thermometer and ruler were handed out to the subjects for daily recording and measuring of injection site reactions, temperature reactions and onset of other solicited AEs during the first three days (72 h) with follow-up and recording in the diary until resolved, and for recording of any AE, until the date of the follow-up at Visit 2 (28–35 days after Visit 1)."

Also, in study 3, 59/60 subjected were used per group. This is not enough to assess autism or neurological outcomes.

So, your studies do not provide evidence for the neurological safety of aluminum adjuvant.

Calm down, Alain. I didn't even mention your name in my comment about the DSM. No need to take it personally. :D

here's yer reference about aluminum absorbsion in the duodenum

If you have to ask any question about the duodenum absorbsion role for human, you're already out of the game.

Alain

Well, Opie, given your history, it's no surprise you are devoting your senior years to trying to damage the professional reputation of people you don't even know. I'm very familiar with the MO of people like you--more than willing to smear from a self-righteous distance, but unwilling to visit, discuss, or otherwise take the time to actually understand who or what you are smearing.

BTW, Opie--there is approximately $117 BILLION dollars in delinquent child support owed in the U.S. Seems the cracks in your government system leave ample demand for private alternatives. Perhaps your energies would have been better directed to tidying up your own backyard.

@VP #36 page 2 re: twin studies.

Twin studies are not making the assumption that there is no interaction between genes and environments. It's that they can, when the hull is rejected, definitely show that a genetic component exists in addition to any such interactions.

Ginger said: "BTW, Opie–there is approximately $117 BILLION dollars in delinquent child support owed in the U.S. Seems the cracks in your government system leave ample demand for private alternatives. Perhaps your energies would have been better directed to tidying up your own backyard.
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Here's a math quick for you: How much of that $117 Billion goes to the children if your fine organization collects every penny of it?
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Any how much to your organization?
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Smears? About 2000 years ago a wise man in the middle east said that one shouldn't consider paint spatters on others when one is wearing garments soaked with gallons of paint. Or something like that. . .

@DB #40 page 2 asked: We already have plenty of quality research showing no link between vaccines (with or without aluminum-based adjuvants) and autism. Are those studies invalid, and why?

No, they aren't invalid, although it turns out some of them were faked. (Poul Thorsen). The problem is that isn't what those studies show. They show no detectable difference for certain vaccines examined in isolation. There are no, as far as I can tell, such studies examining the cumulative effect of the many vaccines, boosters, etc. involved in the current recommended schedule. I think parents are right to be concerned about the increasing number of them. I think this is something that should be investigated and published, but the only studies along those lines tend to be, as ORAC is pointing out, of poor quality and dubious conclusions.

@DB #40 page 2 asked: What studies can you cite that demonstrate an association between aluminum-based adjuvants and autism risk (aside from the Shaw/Tomljenovic dreck addressed in Orac’s blog article)?

Only ones of that quality or worse. Can you recommend a high quality study on the cumulative effects of the total CDC recommended schedule? For Al, or any other substance parents might be concerned about injecting into their child?

@DB #40 page 2 asked: Shouldn’t you acknowledge that your request for safety studies was granted and that you are now trying to shift goalposts?

Okay, I'm happy to acknowledge that some citations were provided. I apologize for having to later clarify exactly what I was seeking. I hope my answer to your previous question was sufficiently specific.

@DB #40 page 2 asked: Don’t you find it embarrassing that your antivax views are so inadequately concealed by a Just Asking Questions M.O.?

No. Why should I be embarrassed about asking questions and request citations regarding things I don't know?

No, they aren’t invalid, although it turns out some of them were faked. (Poul Thorsen).

Do you have any evidence that Thrsen ever faked anything? Do you have any evidence that Thorsen was ever in a position to fake anything? Can you provide any evidence to back up that claims by the ant-vax industry, their claims that anything Thorsen was ever in the same room with is irretrievably tainted? I didn't think so.

Opie, what was your parting salary as senior executive? Did you work for free? Did your employees? I imagine you're sitting quite comfortably behind your keyboard, with a generous pension at taxpayer expense. I suppose it's easy not to think about the millions of parents who are owed billions, and will never see a dime of it. It's no wonder they elect to collect a percentage of something rather than 100% of nothing.

@#67 - That should be 'null' as in 'null hypothesis' not 'hull' . Oops.

@VP - Thanks for spelling out the relevance of this research. It's just one small step in the scientific quest for knowledge. I can't evaluate the study or the review of it with confidence because the technical details are too far outside my sphere of knowledge. Some of the data pictures in ORACs more recent post certainly appear to be duplicates, but your analysis of it's relevance to research on the causes of autism is still pertinent.

@OPUS - Nice reference to Being There you slipped into #57. I love that movie.

Where the f*ck does a coding manual to help physician become law compliant has any basis in science?!?!

My therapist uses it as a foot stool.

We already have plenty of quality research showing no link between vaccines (with or without aluminum-based adjuvants) and autism.

There are NO studies of Al adjuvant. There are NO studies that look at both
1) aluminum adjuvant exposure at age 0-1 or so, and
2) autism or neurodevelopmental outcomes.

NONE...except the 2011 paper by Shaw, which reported an association. This paper was ecological, however, and so has limited weight.

Dr Frank DeStefano of the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office is co-author of a paper (Glanz 2015) which states:

“To date, there have been no population-based studies specifically designed to evaluate associations between clinically meaningful outcomes and non-antigen ingredients, other than thimerosal.”

You guys are empty-handed on the subject of aluminum adjuvant safety. What you lack in evidence, you try to make for with insults, distraction and nonsense.

@70:

No, they aren’t invalid, although it turns out some of them were faked. (Poul Thorsen).

You idiots are literally still flogging that dead horse? There was nothing "faked" about that study, and the fact that some middle author on it was accused of some kind of financial malfeasance (in another country, years later) doesn't invalidate it in any way.

There are no, as far as I can tell, such studies examining the cumulative effect of the many vaccines, boosters, etc. involved in the current recommended schedule.

Much time and effort has been wasted doing study after study after study demonstrating that in the real world, with vaccine schedules as they are administered, there is absolutely no correlation between vaccine status and autism.

"Correlation does not equal causation". Well, actually it does, when both equal zero. If there's no correlation, causation doesn't enter the picture. There's nothing to cause! You can stop looking for "causes" of a phenomenon that doesn't happen.

Reverend, the "some kind of financial malfeasance" of Thorsen involved pocketing CDC grant money that was ostensibly used for vaccine safety research. Nice try at the spin, though.

NWO:

So the hell what? How does this invalidate a study of all the children in an entire country for 20 years, on which he just happened to be a middle-of the-pack author among dozens of others? Maybe you'd better investigate all the other authors for any misconduct of any sort. Brush up on your Danish--Harry Flashman tells us it's devilishly difficult.

“To date, there have been no population-based studies specifically designed to evaluate associations between clinically meaningful outcomes and non-antigen ingredients, other than thimerosal.” (DeStefano et. al., 2015)

That's what makes it possible to confidently say, "There's no evidence that (X) is harmful." In the world of vaccine propaganda, that's code for "We've never investigated whether (X) is harmful."

The same shenanigans is applied to Thorsen pocketing CDC grant money he was supposed to be using for vaccine safety research. There's "no evidence" his studies aren't reliable, because it's never been seriously investigated.

That’s what makes it possible to confidently say, “There’s no evidence that (X) is harmful.” In the world of vaccine propaganda, that’s code for “We’ve never investigated whether (X) is harmful.”

The anti-vax industry, as usual (always?), has things backwards. There is no study to identify which ingredient of vaccines is harmful because there's no indication that vaccines are harmful in any way that's included in the anti-vax conjectures. Specifically, it's known that vaccines do not cause autism. There can be no study when there's nothing to study.

The anti-vax industry claims that Aluminum adjuvants have not been studied for possible harm. There's no indication that the conjectured harm occurs. If there were, there would be no reason for the anti-vax industry to produce fraudulent reports asserting their conjectures.

Great liberties are taken with the "no evidence" propaganda code, though. It disguises the fact that there is often ample evidence it *could be* harmful.

Great liberties are taken with the “no evidence” propaganda code, though. It disguises the fact that there is often ample evidence it *could be* harmful.

I think the phrase you're looking for is "could have been" rather than "could be", since we know that the harm that "could be" doesn't show up, at least not in this reality.

Ginny: You poor dear - I guess reading comprehension isn't your strong suit. I didn't work for a IV-D agency, I worked with them.
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Yes, I get a pension. It allows me to spend time working with my local community service agency and a residential foster care facility that I respect. I feel no need to apologize. It beats the hell out of flogging conspiracy theories and lies like you do.
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Look, we all get it: you feel like a failure. You're an artist, but the only Google links are to your website. You are an attorney, but you're a bottom feeder. In short, you ARE a failure. We get it. You got a multiple degrees and you're stuck in a dead-end job that could be done by a robo-signer if the Bar Association would let it. You can choose to continue to inflict your misery on others or you can rejoin the real world.
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I don't care which you choose, because I have a life filled with friends, family, art, travel and service to the community. It's just a shame that the RI community members have to shovel the ordure that you drop off when you visit.

Was the lead author and all the other authors above Thorsen in the Danish study "pocketing CDC grant money"? In Denmark? Years earlier?

Reverend, what work specifically did Thorsen claim to have done with the grant money that wound up in his pocket? That information would provide a clue about the extent his fraud impacted the integrity of the papers that came out of it.

Te study of all the children in Denmark for 20 years was done YEARS BEFORE he moved to the U.S. and was accused of "pocketing" CDC grant money. That paper DID NOT "come out of it". He was a middle-of-the-pack author on that study anyway. Investigate all the authors ahead of him. In Denmark. We'll wait.

Reverend, you didn't answer the question. What work, specifically, did Thorsen claim to have done with the grant money that wound up in his pocket?

WHO THE HELL CARES?!!!!!!!

Address the fact that there was ABSOLUTELY NO CORELLATION between vaccine status and autism in ALL THE CHILDREN IN AN ENTIRE COUNTRY over 20 years!!!!!!!

WELL?

Opie, your facility for condescension and derision is matched only by your capacity for self-aggrandizement. Too bad you couldn't help your IV-d agency collect more of that $117 billion owed to parents--a number that keeps climbing every year.

You're right--I don't enjoy your high standard of living. I live a very simple and modest life, and I'm not the type who is inclined to publicly pat myself on the back for my good deeds. But don't let that stop you from belittling me and blindly impugning my integrity to elevate yourself.

Opus: " You’re an artist.."

That's being way too generous. Have you seen her site? All the 'art' is generic flash animations.

Reverend, are you listening to yourself? Thorsen received CDC grants to do vaccine research, but he pocketed the money instead. What person in his right mind wouldn't care what he lied about doing with that money?

VP: "Oral absorption is 0.3% and has fast elimination kinetics."

Sure. That's why people don't die when they accidentally ingest belladonna or nightshade, or somehow get a poison arrow frog in their mouths and why they keel over dead when they accidentally get a mouthful of dirt.

Obviously, I'm being sarcastic, but that's the way you think the world works. My point is that aluminum isn't a poison and that if it was, we wouldn't be here. Since we are here, I think you are very, very wrong about basically everything.

NWO:

What would you know about what a "person in his right mind" would do? You're trying to connect the validity of a study done in Denmark with a middle-of-the-pack author did in the U.S. YEARS LATER. Better check the publisher of the journal it appeared in. Maybe the janitor in the printing plant was accused of drunk driving years before.

The rest of us subscribe to a linear theory of time and causation. And again, if there's no correlation there's nothing to cause.

@Vaccine Papers:

Autism has been shown to be associated with physiological dysfunctions such as immune system disorders, microbiome dysbiosis/GI disorders, chronic brain inflammation, and mitochondrial dysfunction for example.

False.
@NWO Reporter:

Thorsen received CDC grants to do vaccine research, but he pocketed the money instead.

This dead horse again? From the looks of things, Thorsen did not embezzle. It was just a dispute about who should be paid what.

Brush up on your Danish–Harry Flashman tells us it’s devilishly difficult.

Written Danish is nothing special. Sadly, it bears little relationship to the spoken version.

Good morning JP,

My therapist uses it as a foot stool.

IMO, appropriate use :)

Now, if its job is to be used as door stopper or foot stool, then, what is the proper diagnostic procedure used to diagnose autism? caveat among the expert autism clinician (MD, MD/PhD).

Alain

Thorsen got money for doing vaccine research, but didn't use it for vaccine research....?
He bought a Harley Davidson with it.

And....?

Julian Frost said: "From the looks of things, Thorsen did not embezzle. It was just a dispute about who should be paid what."

Well, let's not quibble--let's just go straight to the horse's mouth. This is what the Inspector General says happened:

"From approximately February 2004 until February 2010, Poul Thorsen executed a scheme to steal grant money awarded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). CDC had awarded grant money to Denmark for research involving infant disabilities, autism, genetic disorders, and fetal alcohol syndrome. CDC awarded the grant to fund studies of the relationship between autism and the exposure to vaccines, the relationship between cerebral palsy and infection during pregnancy, and the relationship between developmental outcomes and fetal alcohol exposure.

"Thorsen worked as a visiting scientist at CDC, Division of Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, before the grant was awarded.

"The initial grant was awarded to the Danish Medical Research Council. In approximately 2007, a second grant was awarded to the Danish Agency for Science, Technology, and Innovation. Both agencies are governmental agencies in Denmark. The research was done by the Aarhaus University and Odense University Hospital in Denmark.

"Thorsen allegedly diverted over $1 million of the CDC grant money to his own personal bank account. Thorsen submitted fraudulent invoices on CDC letterhead to medical facilities assisting in the research for reimbursement of work allegedly covered by the grants. The invoices were addressed to Aarhaus University and Sahlgrenska University Hospital. The fact that the invoices were on CDC letterhead made it appear that CDC was requesting the money from Aarhaus University and Sahlgrenska University Hospital although the bank account listed on the invoices belonged to Thorsen.

"In April 2011, Thorsen was indicted on 22 counts of Wire Fraud and Money Laundering.

"According to bank account records, Thorsen purchased a home in Atlanta, a Harley Davidson motorcycle, an Audi automobile, and a Honda SUV with funds that he received from the CDC grants.

"Thorsen is currently in Denmark and is awaiting extradition to the United States."

No doubt Thorsen will continue to "await extradition" for many years to come, until sooner or later he dies comfortably in old age. There appears to absolutely no interest in bringing him to trial. After all, trials are open to the public, and who knows what unpleasant info might come out.

@NWO Reporter, I couldn't help noticing that the word "allegedly" appears several times in your quoted section.

Julian Frost--that's known as the presumption of innocence, because Thorsen hasn't yet been tried for the crimes he's accused of. He should turn himself into the OIG immediately so he can go to trial and clear this whole thing up. ;)

that’s known as the presumption of innocence, because Thorsen hasn’t yet been tried for the crimes he’s accused of.

But the anti-vax industry claims, at great length, that Thorsen is guilty, guilty, guilty of some unknown, unspecified research fraud that proves PROVES!!!! that vaccines are (somehow) evil. He must be the guy that invented Mercury, that most toxic!!!! of all possible substances!!!!, at least if you were so foolish as to pay attention "Natural" "News", Kennedy's Mercury Project, or any of the rest of propaganda engines of the anti-vax industry.

NWO, I can't help but notice your desperate attempts to switch the topic from the fakery and fraud of antivaccine pseudoresearchers to a different topic of some genuine researcher who may have embezzled some grant money.

You must really be scared shitless to resort to such obvious diversionary tactics.

NWO Troll: "Reverend, you didn’t answer the question."

Very funny coming from someone who refuses to do my little math story problem.

So what is the ratio between the number of vaccines give and the number of NVICP compensated claims? What does it mean?

What does the word "settlement" mean on that table of NVICP statistics? It is utterly bizarre that someone who went to law school does not understand about "settlements."

Beth Clarkson: "No, (the ample studies showing no link between vaccines and autism) aren’t invalid, although it turns out some of them were faked. (Poul Thorsen)."

On what basis (aside from wishful thinking) have you concluded that any/all studies Thorsen was a participant in were "faked"?

Apparently Just Asking Questions is no longer enough for Beth - now she's manufacturing the answers.

DB asked: On what basis (aside from wishful thinking) have you concluded that any/all studies Thorsen was a participant in were “faked”?

He's currently wanted for criminal charges of fraud in connection with his work. See NWO's posts above for more detail.

He’s currently wanted for criminal charges of fraud in connection with his work.

That would be financial fraud, not research fraud. But apparently the anti-vax industry, being the anti-vax industry, can't tell the different between money and science.

None of which has anything to do with his "work."

The studies he was a participant in have never been called into question because of the science.

Lawrence (#106) writes,

The studies he was a participant in have never been called into question because of the science.

MJD says,

I wish Orac would shelve his biases about vaccines and autism and provide an objective review, with a pinch of respectful insolence, of that science.

I believe Orac could find scientific garbage anywhere when he has the motivation to look.

@MJD:

I wish Orac would shelve his biases about vaccines and autism and provide an objective review, with a pinch of respectful insolence, of that science.

What, in your opinion, are Orac's "biases about vaccines and autism"?
Please give evidence that these "biases about vaccines and autism" are genuine, and not just something you want to believe because your ideas are regularly torn apart here.

Better yet, why don't you question the science of the studies, if you can?

He’s currently wanted for criminal charges of fraud in connection with his work.

No, he was charged with misappropriation of grant money. Stop dodging the question and tell us what research of Thorson's has been determined to be fraudulent.

Correct. His alleged crimes were financial, basically the misuse of federal grant money to benefit himself. There is no evidence of scientific fraud. None. http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/04/14/poul-thorsen-vaccines-frau…

Shay simmons, we'll need to see the invoices to answer that question. ("Thorsen submitted fraudulent invoices on CDC letterhead to medical facilities assisting in the research for reimbursement of work allegedly covered by the grants.") Since you seem to be so knowledgeable about this topic, can you tell us where we can find copies?

NWO Troll, perhaps you can tell the title of the papers Thorsen was the lead author on, and how it is fraudulent science.

And then you can answer my little math story problem, and explain what the word "settlement" means on the table NVICP statistics. As a lawyer I assume you understand the meaning of settlement, so you have no excuse for not answering.

Chris, do you ever stop trying to manipulate and deceive people? I explained long ago why and how your "little math story" was pure deception. Stop pretending it was never addressed.

Notice that anti-vaxers are completely unable to question the science behind the studies that they don't like....

There’s “no evidence” his studies aren’t reliable, because it’s never been seriously investigated.

If only there was a facility where someone who wanted to investigate a study could report any flaws they found in it. We could call it "Pubpeer".
Alas, we will have to go on demanding that other people do our work for us.

I take it that the odds of Ginny's ponying up that VICP narcolepsy case, much less documenting any of the others that she claims, are exactly nil.

Herr Doktor, peer review generally CANNOT detect fraud. In this case Thorsen claimed to have done work related to the research that he never did. If he totally fabricated data, for example, that would require a deeper investigation to detect. No investigation has been done, as far as I know. If is was, I assume there would be a write-up somewhere. Post it if you have it.

Herr Doktor, peer review generally CANNOT detect fraud.

Peer review seems to have no problem finding fraud in the anti-vax papers, leading to the suspicion that the anti-vax industry is as incompetent at evaluating science as they are at doing it.

In this case Thorsen claimed to have done work related to the research that he never did.

Your claim; your burden of proof, counselor.

If he totally fabricated data, for example, that would require a deeper investigation to detect.

Since, IIRC, the data was previously published by agencies independent of Thorsen, it should be as easy to prove fraud as it has been for the anti-vax Aluminum papers.

No investigation has been done, as far as I know. If is was, I assume there would be a write-up somewhere.

Why should negative investigative reports be published, especially since there's no evidence of any mechanism for Thorsen to have invented data, and thus nothing for any investigator to dig into? The anti-vax industry's accusations of research fraud are all without substance.

peer review generally CANNOT detect fraud

Seems to be working pretty well for image manipulation in this case.

And why would you suspect that he didn't do the work, given that he wasn't working on his own?

Shay wrote: Stop dodging the question and tell us what research of Thorson’s has been determined to be fraudulent.

I answered the question asked, which was: On what basis (aside from wishful thinking) have you concluded that any/all studies Thorsen was a participant in were “faked”?

If you want to know what research I know of that was definitely determined to be fraudulent, I can't say that any has. It's being investigated. 'Faked' was not the best word choice, 'suspect' or 'untrustworthy' would have been better.

‘Faked’ was not the best word choice, ‘suspect’ or ‘untrustworthy’ would have been better.

Of course, the anti-vax industry must accuse the Danish report of being suspect and untrustworthy, since it demolishes the religion that forms the basis of their income and power (what little they have). It's never been necessary for the anti-vax industry to have any basis for their accusations, so why should they start with Thorsen?

NWO Troll, are you now denying the importance of the NVICP statistics? Well, I guess you won't be bringing them up again.

So what paper was Thorsen the primary author of, and why is it a bad paper? If you can't answer this question, then you should not bring up his name again either.

Narad, MI Dawn is the one who said vaccines can cause narcolepsy, so ask her for the reference if you don't believe her. I haven't come across any narcolepsy compensation cases yet, and it wasn't on my list.

You're the only one who has questioned the list of compensated injuries I posted. I can back it up if I need to, but satisfying someone who is just trying to waste my time isn't a "have to" situation.

Lawrence, Thorsen is accused of billing for work he didn't do. I don't know what work he falsely claimed to have done. I'd like to know. If you know, share the info.

I don’t know what work he falsely claimed to have done.

The lack of allegations about Thorsen's earlier papers are all the proof we need that they must be fraudulent.

Perhaps you should ask his fellow researchers - he was never working by himself - he was also never the primary.

Narad, MI Dawn is the one who said vaccines can cause narcolepsy, so ask her for the reference if you don’t believe her. I haven’t come across any narcolepsy compensation cases yet, and it wasn’t on my list.

Memory problems, Gindo>

MI Dawn, so you are contending that out of the 61 injuries listed in #148 (injuries that are on the Vaccine Injury Table, and that have actually received awards in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program), all but the follow [sic] 4 CANNOT be caused by vaccines?

Allergic Reaction including anaphylaxis
Death
Guillain-Barré syndrome
Narcolepsy

Are you angling for a job at the vaccine court or something?

It doesn't matter that you added it later. On the off chance that you'll actually cop to the error, feel free to get cracking on the citations for the rest of the list, which you have not documented in any way, shape, or form.

I don’t know what work he falsely claimed to have done.

That's an interesting admission, counselor, since the work Thorsen did or did not do is the whole foundation of the anti-vax accusations of the Danish paper.

Oral absorption is 0.3% and has fast elimination kinetics.

Except for infants, according to Shaw (PDF):

"Much of the aluminum that enters the human body comes through food. A smaller amount enters through the skin, such as in antiperspirants. Both of these routes would put aluminum into the circulatory system relatively quickly, and most of this aluminum is typically rapidly removed by the kidneys [9]. The exceptions for such excretion are those who lack patent kidney function, infants until age one [17–19] and the elderly [18,19]."

Injected aluminum adjuvant persists in the body for years, and it it carried into the brain, through the BBB, by macrophages. Macrophages do this in response to MCP-1 in the brain . . . .

You've already been informed that monocytes aren't macrophages, Dan.

Se Habla Espol, I fear that dear NWO Ginny lost the plot ages ago. She is now reduced to parroting the common anti-vax tropes without even understanding what they are supposed to mean.

As long as those fraudulent invoices Thorsen submitted aren't available to the public, there will continue to be "no evidence of scientific fraud." No wonder no one wants to bring him to trial.

As we know, in a conspiracy religion, lack of evidence is undeniable, proof positive of whatever conspiracy du jour the conspiracy religioso is peddling.

So, there are no Thorsen papers you can list that he was the primary author on, nor have any bad science.

Now, for those who have been waiting for NWO Ginny to answer my little story problem, well here it is:

2,845,946,816 total vaccines divided by 2,976 compensated claims is 956299 (and a third).... essentially 956300 vaccines per compensated claims. So about one in a million. Essentially, vaccines are fairly safe.

Now of those 2976 compensated claims, 2,326 were in the "Settlement" column. Yep, most of them. So when you scroll down there is a section called "Definition", and the one for "Settlement" says:

The petition is resolved via a negotiated settlement between the parties. This settlement is not an admission by the United States or the Secretary of Health and Human Services that the vaccine caused the petitioner’s alleged injuries, and, in settled cases, the Court does not determine that the vaccine caused the injury. A settlement therefore cannot be characterized as a decision by HHS or by the Court that the vaccine caused an injury. Petitions may be resolved by settlement for many reasons, including consideration of prior court decisions; a recognition by both parties that there is a risk of loss in proceeding to a decision by the Court making the certainty of settlement more desirable; a desire by both parties to minimize the time and expense associated with litigating a case to conclusion; and a desire by both parties to resolve a case quickly and efficiently.

You see, NWO Ginny did not want to actually answer the truth that the NVICP is not proof of vaccine harm to the extent she likes. It in fact shows that vaccines are safe, and that the Vaccine Court is more generous than what its detractors claim.

Chris @ 136: Do you mean to tell me that Virginia Stoner, JD, has been using cheap legal tricks to avoid answering a direct question??
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The horror! My faith in the legal profession is permanently impacted. Reduced to near nil, I tell you, nil!
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I need a break on my fainting couch. Perhaps someone would fetch my pearls, if you please. Please?

If you want to know what research I know of that was definitely determined to be fraudulent, I can’t say that any has

Bingo.

This comment section has morphed into Bizarro World. Where else could someone rip off a million dollars in research money, and get everyone else to defend the integrity of his research?

"There's no proof it's not excellent research!" they cry, outraged at the very suggestion. Never mind that proof is impossible, given Thorsen has been on the lamb for the last 6 years, and no one can examine the evidence until he's gone to trial.

Not only that, but it never occurs to anyone in Bizarro World that such a person might possibly have committed other research fraud, and just not been caught.

"Our hero, Poul Thorsen--the man who proved injecting mercury is perfectly safe! He deserved that million dollar bonus!" :D

Where else could someone rip off a million dollars in research money, and get everyone else to defend the integrity of his research?

In the world where the two accusations are separate accusations, and where there is no evidence of research fraud.

“There’s no proof reason to conjecture it’s not excellent research!”

The evidence has been published. The evidence was reviewed before submittal, by all the other members of the group. The evidence has been reviewed by peers and by the anti-vax industry: no hint of actual research fraud has ever been spotted. All we have are unsupported conclusions and misrepresentations by those whose income depends on people gullible enough to fall for those misrepresentations.

Now, for those of you who didn't catch my previous exposure of the deception of Chris's "little story problem", which Chris apparently prefers to forget: Only a tiny fraction of vaccine injuries actually result in a petition being filed in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

It's even a tinier percentage than the vaccine injuries ever reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System--which even our resident vaccine pushers at the CDC acknowledge is less than 10%. Most people with a realistic grasp of vaccine propaganda place that estimate at far less, often less than 1%.

NWO Ginny: " Only a tiny fraction of vaccine injuries actually result in a petition being filed in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program."

And your evidence of that is....?

“Our hero, Poul Thorsen–the man who proved injecting mercury is perfectly safe! He deserved that million dollar bonus!”

And your evidence for that is...?

Don't worry, Gindo, the "record" of "Bizarro World" is sure to be "mysteriously wiped out" in short order. Just like last time.

Oh, I see Opie is back to libel me again based on his bigotry, while defending the integrity of Poul Thorsen''s vaccine research, even though he's been indicted for stealing a million dollars in research money. It makes perfect sense in Bizarro World. Fortunately, it's a place where laws against libel still exist.

Chris, you are the one who claimed for purposes of your "little story problem" that 100% of vaccine injuries result in a claim being filed in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The burden is on you to prove it. The circumstantial evidence I provided via the percentage of claims reported to VAERS was a freebee.

Ginny, dear. Your comment at #145 is
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mind boggling.
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Libel is a legal term. It seems that you haven't run across it while divesting suckers of 34% of their child support. Perhaps you'd like to dig out the ol' textbooks and take another stab at it.
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Bigotry is also a fairly well defined term, although not to the extent that libel is, at least in the world of lawyers in which you'd like us to believe you work. May I suggest that a brief acquaintance with a dictionary would help you support your feeble case? The fact that I have determined that you are a purblind fool, based on your comments, is not bigotry; it's a rational assessment based on your public persona.
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You really jumped the shark when you tried to link my derogatory comments to Poul Thorsen. My comment had nothing to do with Thorsen, just your amusingly ineffective efforts to deflect attention from your prior comments.
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However, speaking of libel, your statement that Mr Thorsen is 'on the lamb' is deemed to be an accusation of bestiality in most Scandinavian countries. Mayhaply you'd want to apologize to him now, lest he divest you of the pitiful few possessions you've accumulated during your years of service in skimming 34% off the top of child support collections?

NWO Ginny: "that 100% of vaccine injuries result in a claim being filed in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program."

Please provide the link and direct quote where this !00% claim occurred. Include in the comment where you provide the PubMed Index Number of the paper that Thorsen was the primary author in that is in question.

Geez, Chris, there is no way you can be that dense. You are trying to make a point that vaccines are extremely safe based on the number of successful compensation awards compared to the number of vaccines given. It's not rocket science. Come back when you finish Basic Math 101.

Just answer my questions, Ginny. Don't lecture me on math when you cannot even figure out how to use a calculator.

Your evidence for your claims are...?

Ginny, what particular paper of interest was Thorsen the primary author? Just post the PMID.

In what comment did I ever make a 100% claim on? Just post the link.

By the way, Ginny, over a hundred kids died from flu during the last flu season:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/news/reported-flu-deaths-children.htm

Just post the PubMed index paper by a reputable qualified researcher that any of the flu vaccines approved for children did as much harm during that year.

Take note that no American flu vaccine contains an adjuvant... so nothing to see here Dan from Vaccine Papers!

Chris, here's a little story problem for you. If 2,845,946,816 vaccines were given; and there were 2,976 awards in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program for serious vaccine injuries; and .01% of legitimate serious vaccine injury claims were filed in the VICP; then how many serious vaccine injuries occurred?

For the purposes of this problem, you can assume that the VICP, which is run by people dedicated to maximizing vaccination, decided the awards properly--however improbable that may be.

Opie, I can assure I understand what libel is. Your file of screen shots is growing, and could potentially be of interest to others as well.

If... .01% of legitimate serious vaccine injury claims were filed in the VICP

"And that's a new Olympic and World Record in the Goalpost Shift! Virginia Stone once again confirming her dominance in this event!"
Where is your evidence that 9,999 out of every 10,000 serious adverse events aren't reported and never go to the VICP? I find it extremely difficult to believe that most serious adverse events are not reported. In fact, I believe that the overwhelming majority of such events ARE taken to the VICP.

Thorsen has been on the lamb for the last 6 years, and no one can examine the evidence until he’s gone to trial.

Wait, what, I leave this thread for a few hours and suddenly it's all accusations of bestiality?
Unless NWOR means "on the lam", but that is unpossible, for Thorsen's location and place of employment are available to anyone who cares to look it up, and NWOR shirley is not that stupid.

NWOR shirley is not that stupid.

Fact not in evidence.

Opie, I can assure I understand what libel is. Your file of screen shots is growing, and could potentially be of interest to others as well.

Pro se! Pro se! You could finally produce a genuine work of art.

Geez, Chris, there is no way you can be that dense. You are trying to make a point that vaccines are extremely safe based on the number of successful compensation awards compared to the number of vaccines given. It’s not rocket science. Come back when you finish Basic Math 101.

Chris,

Mind teaching me how to solve a PDE? :D

Alain

Alain, what is a "PDE"?

Though I can tell you how to start to solve a second order differential equation. You start by making the variable, like "x", be equal to the natural logarithm "e" raised to a lamda. Since differentiating the number 2.1718.... is fairly easy. Then you solve the resulting binomial equation to get at least two results for lamda.

And as for "rocket science"... NWO Ginny, you are in luck. I used to be an aerospace engineer. I sincerely doubt you can cogently lecture me in math, since I probably took lots more than you. Though the ratio of what I took and what you understand would be indeterminable, because we simply cannot divide by zero. Though that number would approach infinity as the limit approached zero.

Now what paper of note was Thorsen the primary author of?

Ginny @ #156: "Opie, I can assure I understand what libel is. Your file of screen shots is growing, and could potentially be of interest to others as well."
.
It appears that you were out sick when they covered Sullivan v the New York Times in law school.
.
Sad!!
.
Why don't you take a break from your blustering and answer a few of the questions that have been posed to you?

What's most egregious - being on the lamb, jumping the shark or abusing mice in the name of science?

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

Duly noted and recorded, Opie. Neither discretion nor law appear to be your strong suit. :)

Your file of screen shots is growing, and could potentially be of interest to others as well.

Oh noes, NWOR is Keeping Dossiers on everyone. She's one of those. I am reminded of Hitmouse from the 'Uncle' series, and his Hating Books full of accumulated and itemised grievances.
Once you're maintaining dossiers, and menacing people with dark insinuations of defamation suits once you Trace their Identity, it's only a short step to filling the basement with Mason jars full of saved-up urine.

Nah, Herr Doktor. I only keep dossiers on potentially libelous comments. That's just common sense. There seem to be a shockingly frequent number of them here compared to other places online. Most people with common sense tend to avoid them simply by exercising ordinary online discretion, like referring to people by their designated screen name, limiting the discussion to the issues at hand, and refraining from fabricated allegations that could clearly damage the reputation of another.

NWO: You seem to have overlooked the fact that you don't have a reputation to damage.

@Opus #147: the simpler explanation for Ginny's comment about Thorsen being "on the lamb" is that she ignorantly is using the wrong word.

Cops talk about fugitives being "on the lam," not "on the lamb."

@NWO Troll #155: Wow. Such open contempt of court. Tsk, tsk.

Maybe I should forward it to the Special Masters?

Odd but interesting fact: Ginny's threats to sue for libel may well be prima facie evidence of incompetence in her chosen profession.
.
Who'dathunkit??

I would have said something, but "on the lamb" isn't common enough to really get under my skin, like "free reign" or "tow the line"....

It appears that you were out sick ...

IBM Watson: Not living up to hype as a tool to fight cancer?

oracknows — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 01:24:17 +0000

IBM Watson: Not living up to hype as a tool to fight cancer?

For nearly as long as I can remember, I've been a fan of Jeopardy! Indeed, if I'm at home at 7:30 PM on a weeknight, Jeopardy! will usually be on the television. Given that, I remember what was basically a bit of stunt programming in 2011, when Jeopardy! producers had IBM's artificial intelligence supercomputer Watson face off against two of the most winning champions in the history of the show, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Watson won, leading Jenning's to add to his Final Jeopardy answer, "I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords."

Watson's next challenge was similarly highly hyped: cancer. Since 2012, IBM has been collaborating with several cancer institutes to apply Watson's talents to cancer treatment. For instance, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center describes its Watson Oncology initiative thusly:

Watson Oncology is a cognitive computing system designed to support the broader oncology community of physicians as they consider treatment options with their patients. Memorial Sloan Kettering clinicians and analysts are partnering with IBM to train Watson Oncology to interpret cancer patients’ clinical information and identify individualized, evidence-based treatment options that leverage our specialists’ decades of experience and research.

As Watson Oncology’s teacher, we are advancing our mission by creating a powerful resource that will help inform treatment decisions for those who may not have access to a specialty center like MSK. With Watson Oncology, we believe we can decrease the amount of time it takes for the latest research and evidence to influence clinical practice across the broader oncology community, help physicians synthesize available information, and improve patient care.

Not surprisingly, Watson's entry into cancer care and interpretation of cancer genomics was, just like its appearance on Jeopardy!, highly hyped, with overwhelmingly positive press coverage and little in the way of skeptical examination of what, exactly, Watson could potentially do and whether it could actually improve patient outcomes. Overall, as Watson moved into the clinical realm, you'd be hard-pressed not to think that this was a momentous development that would change cancer care forever for the better. There were plenty of headlines like "IBM to team up with UNC, Duke hospitals to fight cancer with big data" and "The future of health care could be elementary with Watson." The future looked bright.

An article in STAT News published a couple of weeks ago week by Casey Ross and Ike Swetlitz suggests otherwise, at least so far: "IBM pitched its Watson supercomputer as a revolution in cancer care. It’s nowhere close."

Watson: Hype versus reality

In the story, STAT looked at Watson for Oncology's use, marketing, and actual performance in hospitals around the world, interviewing dozens of doctors, IBM executives, and artificial intelligence experts and concluded that IBM released a product without having fully assessed or understood the challenges in deploying it and without having published any papers demonstrating that the technology works as advertised, noting that, as a result, "its flaws are getting exposed on the front lines of care by doctors and researchers who say that the system, while promising in some respects, remains undeveloped." From my perspective, that's an understatement. Indeed, STAT observes:

Perhaps the most stunning overreach is in the company’s claim that Watson for Oncology, through artificial intelligence, can sift through reams of data to generate new insights and identify, as an IBM sales rep put it, “even new approaches” to cancer care. STAT found that the system doesn’t create new knowledge and is artificially intelligent only in the most rudimentary sense of the term.

While Watson became a household name by winning the TV game show “Jeopardy!”, its programming is akin to a different game-playing machine: the Mechanical Turk, a chess-playing robot of the 1700s, which dazzled audiences but hid a secret — a human operator shielded inside.

In the case of Watson for Oncology, those human operators are a couple dozen physicians at a single, though highly respected, U.S. hospital: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Doctors there are empowered to input their own recommendations into Watson, even when the evidence supporting those recommendations is thin.

Another way of saying this is that Watson isn't really an artificial intelligence when it comes to cancer, but rather a very powerful computer that is very good at coming up with treatment plans based on human-inputted algorithms that it's taught. An example from a hospital in Florida is presented as an example:

On a recent morning, the results for a 73-year-old lung cancer patient were underwhelming: Watson recommended a chemotherapy regimen the oncologists had already flagged.

“It’s fine,” Dr. Sujal Shah, a medical oncologist, said of Watson’s treatment suggestion while discussing the case with colleagues.

He said later that the background information Watson provided, including medical journal articles, was helpful, giving him more confidence that using a specific chemotherapy was a sound idea. But the system did not directly help him make that decision, nor did it tell him anything he didn’t already know.

But it's more than that. You might have noted in the MSKCC blurb I quoted above that MSKCC is described as "Watson's teacher." That is very literally true. Indeed, the STAT story refers to Watson as "essentially Memorial Sloan Kettering in a portable box," noting that its treatment recommendations are "based entirely on the training provided by doctors, who determine what information Watson needs to devise its guidance as well as what those recommendations should be." This reliance on a single institution introduces an incredible bias. MSKCC is, of course, one of the premiere cancer centers in the world, but it's a tertiary care center. The patients seen there are not like the patients seen at most places—or, to some extent, even at my cancer center. They're different, both in the mix of race and socioeconomic status. (MSKCC tends to attract more affluent patients.) Also, the usual differences between the patient mix in a tertiary care center and a typical hospital are more pronounced, because not only is MSKCC a tertiary care center, but it's one of the premier cancer tertiary care centers in the world. There are more advanced and unusual cases, patients who have failed multiple lines of treatment and are looking for one last chance. The mix of patients, cancers, and other factors that doctors at MSKCC see might not be relevant to hospitals elsewhere in the world—or even in different parts of the US. As Pilar Ossorio, a professor of law and bioethics at University of Wisconsin Law School, points out in the article, from the cases used to train Watson, what Watson will learn is "race, gender, and class bias," basically "baking those social stratifications in" and "making the biases even less apparent and even less easy for people to recognize."

Bias is inevitable, particularly when it is only one institution's physicians who are doing the teaching.

It's also widely known in the oncology community that there is a "MSKCC way" of doing things that might not always agree with other centers. Yet IBM denies that reliance on a single institution to "teach" Watson injects bias, to the point where I literally laughed out loud (and was half tempted to insert an emoji indicating that) when I read a quote by Watson Health general manager Deborah DiSanzo, saying, "The bias is taken out by the sheer amount of data we have." (She is referring to patient cases and millions of articles and studies fed into Watson.) I can't help but also note that it isn't just treatment guidelines that MSKCC is providing. It's basically choosing all the medical literature whose results are inputted into Watson to help craft its recommendations. As I read the STAT article, as a clinician and scientist myself, I couldn't help but marvel that IBM is either blissfully unaware that this is a self-reinforcing system, in which one institution's doctors would tend to recommend the very literature that would support the treatment recommendations that they prefer.

And, MSKCC being MSKCC (i.e., a bit arrogant), the doctors "training" Watson don't see the bias as a problem:

Doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering acknowledged their influence on Watson. “We are not at all hesitant about inserting our bias, because I think our bias is based on the next best thing to prospective randomized trials, which is having a vast amount of experience,” said Dr. Andrew Seidman, one of the hospital’s lead trainers of Watson. “So it’s a very unapologetic bias.”

I laughed out loud at that quote, too. Having a "vast amount of experience" without having clinical trials upon which to base treatments can just as easily lead to continuing treatments that don't work or hanging on to beliefs that are never challenged by evidence. I'm not saying that having experience is a bad thing. Far from it! However, if that experience is not tempered by humility, bad things can happen. It's the lack of humility that I perceive here that troubles me. There are awesome cancer doctors elsewhere in the world, too, you know:

In Denmark, oncologists at one hospital said they have dropped the project altogether after finding that local doctors agreed with Watson in only about 33 percent of cases.

“We had a discussion with [IBM] that they had a very limited view on the international literature, basically, putting too much stress on American studies, and too little stress on big, international, European, and other-part-of-the-world studies,” said Dr. Leif Jensen, who directs the center at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen that contains the oncology department.

And:

Sometimes, the recommendations Watson gives diverge sharply from what doctors would say for reasons that have nothing to do with science, such as medical insurance. In a poster presented at the Global Breast Cancer Conference 2017 in South Korea, researchers reported that the treatment Watson most often recommended for breast cancer patients simply wasn’t covered by the national insurance system.

None of this is surprising, given that Watson is trained by American doctors at one very prestigious American cancer center.

Then there's a rather basic but fundamental problem with Watson, and that's getting patient data entered into it. Hospitals wishing to use Watson must find a way either to interface their electronic health records with Watson or hire people to manually enter patient data into the system. Indeed, IBM representatives admitted that teaching a machine to read medical records is "a lot harder than anyone thought." (Actually, this rather reminds me of Donald Trump saying, "Who knew health care could be so complicated?" in response to the difficulty Republicans had coming up with a replacement for the Affordable Care Act.) The answer: Basically anyone who knows anything about it. Anyone who's ever tried to wrestle health care information out of a medical record, electronic or paper, into a form in a database that can be used to do retrospective or prospective studies knows how hard it is. Heck, just from my five year experience working on a statewide collaborative quality initiative in breast cancer, I know how hard it is, and what we were doing in our CQI was nowhere near as complex as what IBM is trying to do with Watson. For instance, we were looking at only one cancer (breast) and a subset of one state (25 institutions in Michigan), and we were not trying to derive new knowledge, but rather to look at aspects of care where the science and recommendations are clear and we could compare what our member institutions were doing to the best existing evidence-based guidelines.

What can Watson actually do?

IBM represents Watson as being able to look for patterns and derive treatment recommendations that human doctors might otherwise not be able to come up with because of our human shortcomings in reading and assessing the voluminous medical literature, but what Watson can actually do is really rather modest. That's not to say it's not valuable and won't get better with time, but the problem is that it doesn't come anywhere near the hype. I mentioned that there haven't been any peer-reviewed studies on Watson in the medical literature yet, but that doesn't mean there are no data yet. At the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting this year, there were three abstracts presented reporting the results of studies using Watson in cancer care:

The first study carried out at the Manipal Comprehensive Cancer Centre in Bangalore, India, looked at Watson’s concordance with a multi-disciplinary tumour board used for lung, colon and rectal cancer cases. The AI achieved a concordance rate of 96% for lung, 81% for colon and 93% for rectal cancer.

The second study compared Watson’s recommendations to those made by oncologists at Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand – this time across multiple cancer types. Its concordance rate was 83%.

The third concordance study compared Watson’s decisions for high-risk colon cancer to a tumour board from Gachon University Gil Medical Centre in Incheon, South Korea. Its concordance rate in terms of colon cancer decisions was 73%, however, it was only 43% in gastric cancer.

The company explained this was due to differences in treatment guidelines for the disease in South Korea, compared to where it was trained at Memorial Sloan Kettering.

This is mighty thin gruel after such grandiose claims for the technology. Sure, it's a very good thing that Watson agrees with evidence-based guidelines a high percentage of the time. It's not so great that its concordance with recommendations was so low for gastric cancer, but it is that lack of concordance that shows the weakness of a system so dominated by American oncologists and cancer surgeons. The reason that treatment recommendations in Asia differ so markedly from those in the US is because of differences in prevalence (which is much higher in Asia) and even biology.

Of course, it's important that Watson be able to replicate evidence-based treatment recommendations for common cancers, but you don't need a computer to do that, much less an AI. Where Watson was hyped by IBM was for its supposed ability to "think outside the box" (if you'll excuse the term) and come up with recommendations that humans would not have thought of that would result in better outcomes for cancer patients. Even these modest results are being hyped in the form of embarrassing headlines. For instance, ASCO, touting the results of the three studies presented at its annual meeting and other results, wrote "How Watson for Oncology Is Advancing Personalized Patient Care." It read like a press release from IBM. Another article proclaimed that "IBM’s Watson is really good at creating cancer treatment plans." That's nice. So are nearly all oncologists, and it's even arguable that Watson is as good as a typical oncologist.

The M.D. Anderson experience

The M.D. Anderson Cancer Center was, along with MSKCC, one of the early adopters of Watson. Its experience with the project is another cautionary note that shows what can happen when not enough skepticism is applied to a project and how a project like Watson can turn into a massive boondoggle. This was revealed when the partnership between M.D. Anderson and IBM basically fell apart earlier this year:

According to a blistering audit by the University of Texas System, the cancer center grossly mismanaged its splashy program with IBM, which started back in 2012. The program aimed to teach Watson how to treat cancer patients and match them to clinical trials. Watson initially met goals and impressed center doctors, but the project hit the rocks as MD Anderson officials snubbed their own IT experts, mishandled about $62 million in funding, and failed to follow basic procedures for overseeing contracts and invoices, the audit concludes.

IBM pulled support for the project back in September of last year. Watson is currently prohibited from being used on patients there, and the fate of MD Anderson’s partnership with IBM is in question. MD Anderson is now seeking bids from other contractors who might take IBM’s place.

As Matt Herper noted over at Forbes:

Usually, companies pay research centers to do research on their products; in this case, MD Anderson paid for the privilege, although it would have apparently also owned the product. This was a “very unusual business arrangement,” says Vinay Prasad, an oncologist at Oregon Health & Science University.

According to the audit report, Chin went around normal procedures to pay for the expensive undertaking. The report notes "a consistent pattern of PwC fees set just below MD Anderson’s Board approval threshold," and its appendix seems to indicate this may have occurred with payments to IBM, too.* She also didn’t get approval from the information technology department.

Yes, it was that bad.

Hype and hubris in AI: Beyond IBM

It's very clear that AI will play an increasingly large role in medicine. The massive amount of genomic data being applied to "personalized medicine," or, as it's now more commonly called, "precision medicine," basically demands it because no human can sift through the terabytes and petabytes of genomic data without assistance to find patterns that can be exploited in treatment. What I do have a problem with is hype, and IBM is clearly incredibly guilty of massively hyping its Watson product before it was ready for prime time, apparently not recognizing just how difficult it would be to train Watson to align company hype with scientific reality.

One way to think about it is to consider how machine learning works, how AI is trained to recognize patterns, come to conclusions, and make recommendations. In other words, how can a machine go beyond human-curated data and recommendations? It's incredibly difficult:

To understand what’s slowing the progress, you have to understand how machine-learning systems like Watson are trained. Watson “learns” by continually rejiggering its internal processing routines in order to produce the highest possible percentage of correct answers on some set of problems, such as which radiological images reveal cancer. The correct answers have to be already known, so that the system can be told when it gets something right and when it gets something wrong. The more training problems the system can chew through, the better its hit rate gets.

That’s relatively simple when it comes to training the system to identify malignancies in x-rays. But for potentially groundbreaking puzzles that go well beyond what humans already do, like detecting the relationships between gene variations and disease, Watson has a chicken-and-egg problem: how does it train on data that no experts have already sifted through and properly organized? “If you’re teaching a self-driving car, anyone can label a tree or a sign so the system can learn to recognize it,” says Thomas Fuchs, a computational pathologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, a cancer center in New York. “But in a specialized domain in medicine, you might need experts trained for decades to properly label the information you feed to the computer.”

That's the bias introduced by relying on MSKCC physicians. It's a bias that's much worse than it needs to be because of how IBM relies on one institution and one relatively small group of physicians to train Watson, but, in fairness, it is an unavoidable bias at this stage in the development of an AI. The problem, as it all too often is, is arrogance. IBM appears to have vastly underestimated the challenge in moving beyond the training dataset (as it's often called in studies like this), for which the answers are known in advance to the computer's analysis, to the validation dataset (for which the answer is not known in advance).

None of this is to say that AI won't eventually make a major contribution to the treatment of cancer and other diseases. Rather, it's just to say that we're nowhere near there yet. Moreover, IBM is no longer the only player in this game, as has been noted:

Since Watson’s “Jeopardy!” demonstration in 2011, hundreds of companies have begun developing health care products using artificial intelligence. These include countless startups, but IBM also faces stiff competition from industry titans such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and the Optum division of UnitedHealth Group.

Google’s DeepMind, for example, recently displayed its own game-playing prowess, using its AlphaGo program to defeat a world champion in Go, a 3,000-year-old Chinese board game.

DeepMind is working with hospitals in London, where it is learning to detect eye disease and speed up the process of targeting treatments for head and neck cancers, although it has run into privacy concerns.

Meanwhile, Amazon has launched a health care lab, where it is exploring opportunities to mine data from electronic health records and potentially build a virtual doctor’s assistant.

A recent report by the financial firm Jefferies said IBM is quickly losing ground to competitors. “IBM appears outgunned in the war for AI talent and will likely see increasing competition,” the firm concluded.

And:

But the “cognitive computing” technologies under the Watson umbrella aren’t as unique as they once were. “In the data-science community the sense is that whatever Watson can do, you can probably get as freeware somewhere, or possibly build yourself with your own knowledge,” Claudia Perlich told Gizmodo, a professor and data scientist who worked at IBM Watson Research Center from 2004 to 2010 (at the same time Watson was being built), before becoming the chief scientist at Dstillery, a data-driven marketing firm (a field that IBM is also involved with). She believes a good data-science expert can create Watson-like platforms “with notably less financial commitment.”

None of this is also to say that IBM is alone in its hubris. It's not. This hubris is shared by many tech companies, particularly those working on computing and AI. For instance, last year Microsoft was roundly (and properly) mocked for its claim that it was going to "solve cancer" in a decade based on this idea:

The company is working at treating the disease like a computer virus, that invades and corrupts the body’s cells. Once it is able to do so, it will be able to monitor for them and even potentially reprogramme them to be healthy again, experts working for Microsoft have said.

The company has built a “biological computation” unit that says its ultimate aim is to make cells into living computers. As such, they could be programmed and reprogrammed to treat any diseases, such as cancer.

And:

“The field of biology and the field of computation might seem like chalk and cheese,” Chris Bishop, head of Microsoft Research’s Cambridge-based lab, told Fast Company. “But the complex processes that happen in cells have some similarity to those that happen in a standard desktop computer.”

As such, those complex processes can potentially be understood by a desktop computer, too. And those same computers could be used to understand how cells behave and to treat them.

Yes, there is a resemblance between cancer and computing in much the same way that counting on your fingers resembles a supercomputer. The hubris on display was unbelievable. My reaction was virtually identical to Derek Lowe’s, only more so. Indeed, he perfectly characterized the attitude of many in tech companies working on cancer as a “Gosh darn it fellows, do I have to do everything myself?” attitude. Yes, those of us in cancer research and who take care of cancer patients do tend to get a bit…testy…when someone waltzes onto the scene and proclaims to breathless headlines that he’s going to solve cancer in a decade because he has an insight that you stupid cancer biologists never thought of before: The cell is just a computer, and cancer is like a computer virus.

But I digress. I only mention Microsoft to demonstrate that IBM is not alone when it comes to tech companies and hubris about cancer. In any event, I made an analogy to Donald Trump earlier in this post. I was not surprised to find this article making a similar analogy:

“IBM Watson is the Donald Trump of the AI industry—outlandish claims that aren’t backed by credible data,” said Oren Etzioni, CEO of the Allen Institute for AI and former computer science professor. “Everyone—journalists included—know[s] that the emperor has no clothes, but most are reluctant to say so.”

Etzioni, who helps research and develop new AI that is similar to some Watson APIs, said he respects the technology and people who work at Watson, “But their marketing and PR has run amok—to everyone’s detriment.”

Former employees who worked on Watson Health agree and think the way that IBM overhypes Watson for Oncology is especially detrimental. One former IBM Watson Health researcher and UX designer told Gizmodo of a time they shadowed an oncologist at a cancer center that has partnered with IBM to train Watson for Oncology. The designer claims they spoke with patients who had heard of Watson and asked when it could be used to help them with their disease. “That was actually pretty heartbreaking for me as a designer because I had seen what Watson for Oncology really is and I was very painfully aware of its limitations,” the designer said. “It felt very bad and it felt like there was real hope that had been served by IBM marketing that could not be supported by the product I know.”

That's part of the problem. Patients see the hype and believe it. They then want what IBM is offering, even if it is not ready for prime time. Watson Health general manager Deborah DiSanzo even said, "We’re seeing stories come in where patients are saying, 'It gave me peace of mind,'" and concluded, "That makes us feel extraordinarily good that what we’re doing is going to make a difference for patients and their physicians." Patient peace of mind is important, but not as important as actually producing a product that demonstrably improves patient outcomes.

Again, don't get me wrong. AI is very likely to be quite important in years (more likely decades) to come in health care. Maybe one day it will lead to a real Tricorder, just like in the original Star Trek series. It's just not there yet. I suspect that Watson will not be the last medical AI effort to fail to live up to its early grandiose claims.

oracknows Sun, 09/17/2017 - 21:24

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Orac writes,

This reliance on a single institution introduces an incredible bias.

MJD says,

A quote from Robert Hart (A London-based researcher and writer with interests in emerging technology, security, and medicine):

"If we don’t closely monitor AI’s use in healthcare, there’s a risk it will perpetuate existing biases and inequalities by building systems with data that systematically fails to account for anyone who is not white and male".

@ Orac's minions,

Are they both right?

In continuation, it could be said that if we don't closely monitor AI's use in healthcare, there's a possibility that it will perpetuate science-based medicine by building systems with data that systematically fails to account for the placebo effect.

Q. Could the use of AI in healthcare adversely affect holistic medicine.

Watson is still much closer to your laptop than it is to a real AI. It will be many years (maybe not as many I think) before the first real AI comes into being. Watson has a long way to go yet before it becomes Mycroft Holmes (Sherlock's younger bother).

I think that for all its promise, AI is saddled with a human problem. The people who know how to build it don't really know anything about the problems that they're building it to tackle, but, they are swimming in money from other successes and can't really be told that they aren't competent to build the machine they believe they're building. So, they've got a ton of arrogance and only a tiny bit of actual prowess outside their industry of interest... they see the problem they've tackled as the biggest problem tackle-able and just don't know what they don't know.

For these game playing AIs that have popped up recently, I'm not convinced that they're a good model of real intelligence. The way that these machines are being trained leads them to be very good at a task in the way an autistic savant can become good at a task... that isn't necessarily the same as being capable of a true leap of genius. AI suffers from the fact that we really still don't know what intelligence is.

The third concordance study compared Watson’s decisions for high-risk colon cancer to a tumour board from Gachon University Gil Medical Centre in Incheon, South Korea. Its concordance rate in terms of colon cancer decisions was 73%, however, it was only 43% in gastric cancer.
The company explained this was due to differences in treatment guidelines for the disease in South Korea, compared to where it was trained at Memorial Sloan Kettering.

So for the gastric cancer run the training set was from a different population than the test set? I'm not too surprised at the poor performance if that's the reality. Were there any predictors for the SK data that couldn't be used in the model developed from the US data?

Watson has a long way to go yet before it becomes Mycroft Holmes (Sherlock’s younger bother).

IBM's Watson has a long way to go before it matches Conan Doyle's Watson, let alone Sherlock or Mycroft. Once in a while the fictional Watson spots something relevant to one of Holmes' cases while the latter's attention is focused elsewhere, e.g., noticing in "Silver Blaze" that the footprints going in the other direction are the same footprints that he and Holmes have been following.

AIs are getting better. Modern AI chess players, for instance, will not fall for the poison pawn trap, as a computer opponent I faced back in the 1980s did. But they still have a long way to go, and cancer is a hard problem.

@Rich Bly - Mycroft was Sherlock's *older* brother in the canon, IIRC. Never having watched the shows, I don't know about them.

MI Dawn,

In the Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Heinlein refers to Mycroft as Sherlock's younger brother. Having never read the actual Sherlock Holmes books, I don't know which is right.

Also, I have heard the Watson refers to this guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Watson

Obviously, Heinlein never read much Conan Doyle. Who did write some sci-fi with his Professor Challenger stories (only one is worthwhile, The Lost World.

I don't recall the relative ages of Sherlock and Mycroft in Conan Doyle's stories (I have not seen the TV or movie spinoffs thereof), but Conan Doyle specifically states that Mycroft is the smarter of the two. However, Mycroft is also even more socially awkward than Sherlock, regarding these puzzles as mental exercises and preferring to spend all of his time at his club, rather than using his intellect to make a living as Sherlock does.

Heinlein's computer character gets the name Mycroft because it has the contrived acronym HOLMES (which I would have to look in the novel to see what that stands for). It's possible that Manny, the protagonist and first-person narrator of TMIAHM, is the one who gets Mycroft's role in the Conan Doyle canon wrong, and that Heinlein knew the correct relationship, but Heinlein was usually not that subtle.

@Rich Bly: my goodness! That's a book I haven't thought about in many years. Not that I was ever a huge Heinlein fan, but I did read that one. I think that went totally over my head at the time.

@Eric Lund: I really don't remember all that detail! I (metaphorically) doff my hat to you, sir.

“The bias is taken out by the sheer amount of data we have.”

Proving, yet again, that doctors are not automatically scientists.

Eric Lund: "However, Mycroft is also even more socially awkward than Sherlock, regarding these puzzles as mental exercises and preferring to spend all of his time at his club, rather than using his intellect to make a living as Sherlock does."

Mostly due to his girth. I have recently bought a series of radio plays of all of the Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes stories, before the production company shut down (no longer available, until they strike a deal with a new company). So I have been listening to them in chronological order by original published date. Mycroft is mentioned in the 23rd tale, "The Greek Interpreter." Which I recently listened to.

Also, it helps to use Wikipedia to refresh my memory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycroft_Holmes

Mycroft seems to show up more in the Holmes "expanded universe" (essentially fan fiction).

It seems to me that the only way to get this to work is to let Watson make suggestions and follow them to the letter and feedback that info to Watson. i.e., we have to let Watson kill people to teach it what *not* to do.

having a vast amount of experience

I suspect Dr. Seidman is overstating things by a factor of two here.

Chris, Archive.org has at least 125 old radio broadcasts of Sherlock Holmes for streaming or download on there old time radio link along with many more radio broadcasts. All are free but they do support their site with donations.

their, not there.

Bionic Dr. Watson is pretty good with treating stab wounds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR3s8VUYT9g

Having a literal ton of experience in the industry, Watson is still mostly smoke and mirrors.....as much as IBM likes to tout a bunch of logos, you'll be hard pressed to find a successful implementation anywhere.

None of this is also to say that IBM is alone in its hubris.
gigo vs Big Ego and Big Medicine

Charles: "Chris, Archive.org has at least 125 old radio broadcasts of Sherlock Holmes for streaming or download"

Thanks. I have had it bookmarked for a while. The ones I am listening to are not "old radio", but done during the last fifteen years or so, I have attended a couple of recordings:
http://jimfrenchproductions.com/

Mr. French is not 90 years old, so the actors who worked with him are exploring some licensing options. They did all sixty classic stories, plus 129 "further adventures" of original stories (and they are going to do a few more).

Plus not all radio adaptations are equal. There is a daily download of CBS Mystery Theater, which ran from the early 1970s to about 1982. Several included are the classic Sherlock Holmes stories, but I am put off in that they portray Watson as a buffoon, a depiction Nigel Bruce used even though it was not how the character was written.

It's deja vu all over again. For those interested look on Wikipedia for "expert system". Same old, and back to the 70s no less. I remember it well. At the time Feigenbaum published his book on 5th generation computing I was a newly minted Master of Science and worked in a company where for a brief time his book and the subject caused a sensation. I read the book and dismissed it. I also recall a television documentary around the same time that showed some fellow with a note book (no laptops back then!) following a doctor with a reputation as a master diagnostician as he met patients. The notes were translated into a rules engine that tried to replicate that physician's successful diagnoses. I don't know the specifics, only that other doctors that tried these rules based expert systems were unimpressed and the entire field went into a deep sleep soon after.

As Orac and other commenters noted, there is no artificial intelligence in any of these, not in those ancient expert systems or, now, Watson. On a cursory look Watson's difference from those earlier expert systems is one of degree not of kind, utilizing the staggering improvements in software and hardware and real time access to academic material.

I know nothing about medicine so I won't venture to say why such systems do a poor job of patient diagnosis. But I can see how it must be a terribly difficult problem.

gigo vs Big Ego and Big Medicine

vs the worlds greatest Internet researcher, with more medical knowledge than any actual medical professional, living or dead, right?

AIs are getting better.

I'm not sure that growing a plural represents much of an advance from back in my day.

Take it from a longtime Holmesian. Mycroft Holmes was senior by seven years.

Maybe the reason that Watson is less than advertised is the absence of tarial cells.
Perhaps Ensor could be persuaded to work on it, if he's in a less irritable mood.

For all that we don't see it now, true AI will come upon us a lot sooner than we think, or than we want.
In the meantime I will just have to muddle through with natural stupidity.

That's funny...I always thought you were a tool that "fought" cancer.

Well, a tool, anyway.

For all that we don’t see it now, true AI will come upon us a lot sooner than we think, or than we want.

Here is the brief Schank item on retiring the term that I was thinking of earlier.

I read the Schank item.
People who declare that a given technological advance will forever be impossible have the bad habit of being wrong in the long run.
Some of the nevers include heavier than air flight, landing men on the moon, curing cancer, nuclear fission...

I read the Schank piece.
But remember that the history ofscience is littered with predictions of what would forever remain impossible that were sooner or later proven wrong.
I don't know how long it will take, but I am sure it will happen, probably in ways which either we haven't conceived or have only the dimmest glimpse.

Shame! Another front in the libertarian war on the FDA: Rational Vaccines' unethical offshore herpes vaccine clinical trial

oracknows — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 07:00:15 +0000

Shame! Another front in the libertarian war on the FDA: Rational Vaccines' unethical offshore herpes vaccine clinical trial

I've caught a fair amount of flak over my opposition to so-called "right-to-try" laws. Right-to-try laws have proliferated throughout the US like so much kudzu over the last three and a half years, to the point where 37 states now have some version of these profoundly anti-patient laws on the books. At the federal level, three weeks ago the Senate passed a federal version of right-to-try, with the House scheduled to take up the bill when Congress returns from recess next week. Granted, it's watered down and therefore less horrible than the original version, which Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI_ has been trying to pass for two years, but it's still plenty bad. In this post and a post later this week, I'm going to show you more circumstantial evidence that I was right all along. The first example you've almost certainly heard of, namely the offshore testing of a new herpes vaccine funded in part by über-Libertarian Peter Thiel. The second you probably haven't heard of, and I'll save it for later, given how long this post is.

But first, you need to understand what I mean about right-to-try. Basically, right-to-try laws rest on the false premise that the FDA is so slow and so bureaucratic that cures are being kept from terminally ill patients, or at least drugs that might hugely extend their life expectancies. The situation is presented as so dire that "right-to-try" is necessary, which basically allows terminally ill patients to bypass the FDA and receive experimental therapeutics from companies developing them without having to go through the FDA's Expanded Access program (which basically does the same thing, providing access to experimental therapeutics before they are FDA-approved). It's an idea promoted by a Libertarian think tank, the Goldwater Institute, and the branding has been very successful, to the point where, politically, opposing right-to-try is viewed as the equivalent of taking the terminally ill's last chance away from them, wanting them to die horribly, all while pissing on an apple pie and burning an American flag. (I exaggerate, but not by much.) The Goldwater Institute and right-to-try advocates achieved this effect by cynically parading families of patients with terminal illnesses who were convinced that right-to-try would give their loved ones a shot at life in front of legislators, making it very difficult for them to vote no. Meanwhile, industry and medical groups that might have been able to persuade lawmakers that right-to-try is a terrible idea that is bad for patients, despite the optics created by the Goldwater Institute were cowed and remained silent until very late. For example, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), an society to which I belong, spent the last three and a half years saying basically nothing. It was only four months ago that ASCO finally issued a statement opposing right-to-try, when it was basically far, far too late.

I've also caught flak for characterizing right-to-try as being part of a broader war against the FDA (indeed, as part of a broader war against regulation in general) by libertarian-leaning free market fundamentalists, some of whom claim (literally) that the FDA is killing people. Lots of people. How can you say that? proponents of right-to-try would ask, drawing themselves up in their best self righteous fury. This is about helping terminally ill patients! Maybe. But, as I've said before, the FDA already has a Compassionate Use program that achieves the same purpose and rarely turns requests down, a program that's been improved over the last couple of years to be speedier and more responsive, with much less application time. Consistent with its libertarian origins, right-to-try tries to cut the FDA out of decisions between a drug seller and patients, but at the cost of eliminating many protections for patients. For instance, unlike the case in "expanded access" or "compassionate use," the institutional review board (IRB), an ethics panel that oversees clinical trials does not oversee patients in right-to-try. There is no financial help; so only patients whose families are rich or can raise a lot of money fast are likely to be able to benefit. Even worse, as I've described, most right-to-try bills not only do not require insurance companies cover experimental therapeutics (and why should they?), but allow insurance companies not to cover charges for complications from using experimental therapeutics. However, perhaps the most egregiously false argument made by right-to-try advocates is that the laws' allow use of experimental therapeutics after they've been "proven safe" through phase I testing. Yes, you read that right. As I’ve discussed multiple times, there is the requirement that the drug or device has only passed phase 1 trials, which, given how few drugs that have passed phase 1 actually make it through to approval, is a really low bar, especially since most phase 1 trials involve fewer than around 25 patients.

Although not commonly seen as such, right-to-try laws are of a piece with libertarian and radical fundamentalist free market views, some of which claim that the FDA is basically unnecessary or that its role should be vastly constrained. You can see it all there: Minimal requirements for safety testing (phase I), no ethical oversight, the decision entirely up to the company and patient, and, of course, the patient is totally on his or her own. People with such views were even in consideration for the post of FDA Commissioner, for example, two cronies of the aforementioned Peter Thiel, both of whom believe that the FDA stifles their holy grail of "innovation." The first was Jim O'Neill, who has advocated that the FDA test new drugs only for safety, not efficacy, thus returning the FDA to its pre-1962, pre-thalidomide role. The second was Balaji Srinivasan, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who advocated basically doing away with the current system of FDA regulation and replacing it with online reviews, basically a Yelp or Über for drugs and medical devices. When asked "How do you prevent quacks?" Srinivasan replied, "Scaled Internet reputation systems. Works at massive scale in other areas." So clueless were both of these men that it was a relief when a relatively normal Republican pharma shill named Scott Gottlieb was ultimately appointed. He was the "least bad," most conventional choice, someone any conservative Republican administration might have appointed. Yes, he wants to "streamline" the process by which, for example, vaccines are approved, but he's actually pretty conventional. He's even decided to http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/08/28/546719842/fda-crack….

Stymied at the FDA, apparently Peter Thiel is now waging his war on the FDA by other means:

Defying U.S. safety protections for human trials, an American university and a group of wealthy libertarians, including a prominent Donald Trump supporter, are backing the offshore testing of an experimental herpes vaccine.

The American businessmen, including Trump adviser Peter Thiel, invested $7 million in the ongoing vaccine research, according to the U.S. company behind it. Southern Illinois University also trumpeted the research and the study’s lead researcher, even though he did not rely on traditional U.S. safety oversight in the first trial, held on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts.

Neither the Food and Drug Administration nor a safety panel known as an institutional review board, or an “IRB,” monitored the testing of a vaccine its creators say prevents herpes outbreaks. Most of the 20 participants were Americans with herpes who were flown to the island several times to be vaccinated, according to Rational Vaccines, the company that oversaw the trial.

“What they’re doing is patently unethical,” said Jonathan Zenilman, chief of Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center’s Infectious Diseases Division. “There’s a reason why researchers rely on these protections. People can die.”

Indeed it is. What Peter Thiel and Rational Vaccines, a company founded by Agustín Fernández III and William Halford (formerly of Southern Illinois University who died recently of cancer) did and are doing is patently unethical—shockingly, horrifyingly so. The very function of the IRB is to protect human subjects in clinical trials. Usually, when a clinical trial is proposed, it goes through two committees, first the scientific review board, or SRB, which determines whether the trial is scientifically justified and soundly designed. The second is the IRB, which is charged with protecting the human subjects. Its function is to examine the clinical trial design and to determine whether it is ethical and whether the risks to human subjects do not outweigh the potential benefits; e.g., that there is clinical equipoise. Once it approves the trial, the IRB continues to monitor the trial, examining reports of adverse events, both serious and minor, and sometimes demanding changes in the trial or even canceling it if it judges that there are too many adverse events or that one group is doing so much better than the other group that it would be unethical to continue the trial. These protections for human subjects flow from the Belmont Report and the Common Rule, both of which were designed to prevent the abuse of human research subjects like what the Nazis did and underlie all the federal regulation regarding human research protection. Unfortunately, these protections are not universal, as they only apply to organizations with federal funding (such as universities) or entities applying for FDA approval for one of its investigational drugs or devices.

Like right-to-try, Peter Thiel's and Rational Vaccines' offshore clinical trial of a new herpes vaccine is an attack on the FDA. Libertarians and free market fundamentalists even admit as much:

The push behind the vaccine is as much political as medical. President Trump has vowed to speed up the FDA’s approval of some medicines. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who had deep financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry, slammed the FDA before his confirmation for over-prioritizing consumer protection to the detriment of medical innovations.

“This is a test case,” said Bartley Madden, a retired Credit Suisse banker and policy adviser to the conservative Heartland Institute, who is another investor in the vaccine. “The FDA is standing in the way, and Americans are going to hear about this and demand action.”

These are exactly the sort of arguments made by right-to-try advocates. Indeed, as I've often pointed out, state-level right-to-try laws are completely toothless because federal law supersedes state law and the FDA regulates drug approval. The real reason for their existence is to put pressure on the FDA and to pressure federal legislators to pass a federal law. Sadly, it appears to have worked, as I doubt that the House will block the right-to-try bill passed by the Senate earlier this month. It will very likely become law next month.

There's also the same sort of snake oil being used to push this approach to Rational Vaccines' approach, which before this trial had resulted in a previous small preliminary trial:

For the initial trial, Halford and Rational Vaccines co-founder Fernández were unable to get federal funding or IRB approval, which oversees human safety. After testing out the vaccine on themselves for safety, they moved the trial to the Caribbean island. They flew 17 patients with pre-existing genital herpes cases there to get three shots of the vaccine. Halford reported that they experienced on average a three-fold reduction in days with symptoms on followup at four to six months after vaccination. Overall, the pair claimed that the trial and self-tests proved the safety and promise of the vaccine.

But when Halford attempted to publish the results, scientific reviewers were ruthlessly critical of the data and lack of safety precautions. One reviewer concluded: “This manuscript is partly a vision, partly science, and partly wishful thinking.”

I read the reviews of the manuscript, and I've rarely seen such critical comments from reviewers, ever. Interestingly, the authors apparently tried to slip their clinical trial data into a Perspectives article, rather than as a scientific or clinical report, and they inserted all sorts of extraneous rants and proselytizing into the manuscript, such that Reviewer 2 proclaimed it "part autobiography, part criticism of the herpes vaccine field, part description of autoinoculation studies with the author’s herpes vaccine candidate vaccine, part advertisement for the author’s vaccine company, and part description of preliminary results of a phase I trial." One reviewer explicitly wondered if this was "an end run around the FDA."

Why, yes. Yes it was and is. Very obviously so. So is the current trial. Even so, it's hard to see how this works. Both Both Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) and FDA regulations explicitly require that clinical trials used in support for an application to approve an investigational new drug (IND) be approved and monitored by an IRB. Even Dr. Gottleib can't change that without changing the regulations (a long and onerous process), and I doubt that even he would want to try, his prior advocacy of "streamlining" the drug approval process notwithstanding. Thus, like state-level right-to-try laws, this stunt by Thiel and Fernández is designed to put pressure on the FDA and lawmakers.

If you don't believe me, listen to Fernández, a former Hollywood filmmaker, himself:

Even so, Fernández, a former Hollywood filmmaker, said he and his investors plan to submit the trial data to the FDA in hopes of getting the vaccine approved for treatment. If the FDA does not respond favorably, he said, the company will continue its trials in Mexico and Australia. Fernández said he hopes to set up an IRB for these next trials. No matter what, he plans to manufacture the vaccine offshore. However, without U.S. approval, the challenges to market such a vaccine in the United States remain significant.

Manufacture and sell the vaccine offshore no matter what the FDA says? This is what quacks do.

Perhaps the worst thing about this is the involvement of the Southern Illinois University. Not only does SIU make excuses, it basically tries to wash its hands of the whole thing, even after having published a glowing press release about the research, promoting it despite how utterly unethical the research was. Now, here's what SIU says:

Nonetheless, Southern Illinois University officials said they had no legal responsibility to ensure safety measures were in place because the university has an arms-length relationship with Rational Vaccines. Fernández said the company licensed two patents related to the vaccine from the university.

“SIU School of Medicine did not have any involvement in Rational Vaccines’ clinical trial,” said Karen Carlson, the university’s spokeswoman. “But we are confident that as the chief scientific officer of Rational Vaccines, Dr. Halford followed safety protocols appropriate to the clinical trial.”

But other researchers said they were appalled by what they described as the university’s complicity in ignoring more than 70 years of safety protocols.

As am I. For shame, SIU:

Hey @SIUC there's only one thing to say... https://t.co/u0si3ALnzn #bioethics #research #vaccine pic.twitter.com/sk2xZ2OXJo

— Alison Bateman-House (@ABatemanHouse) August 28, 2017

One can only wonder whether the feds can do something about SIU's involvement in this, given that the university receives federal funding. Of course, in the anti-regulation governmental era that President Donald Trump has ushered in, I doubt that the FDA or the OHRP will do anything at all, even though SIU richly deserves it for its lack of ethics and disingenuousness. For example:

However, after questions about the lack of IRB approval (a federal requirement), the spokesperson said that the university would “take this opportunity to review our internal processes to ensure we are following best practices.”

Yeah, I hope so. Because clearly SIU wasn't following "best practices" before. Remember OHRP and FDA regulations apply to any faculty of any university receiving federal funds, regardless if the faculty member used federal funds to carry out a clinical trial. SIU dropped the ball here, big time.

There is a multi-pronged war being waged on the FDA by ideological and business interests whose belief in the free market (and profit) as the adjudicator of the value of all things has deluded them into believing that all federal regulation is harmful and represents an undue brake on "innovation," which basically seems to mean whatever people like Peter Thiel want to do to make money, regardless of scientific plausibility and ethics. (The passage of the 21st Century Cures Act is a less egregious example of another front in this war.) If Thiel and Fernández get away with not just taking their clinical trials offshore (which many drug companies do) but of so blatantly flouting FDA and OHRP regulations by not forming an IRB for these trials (which basically no drug company seeking to market a drug in the US does) and manage to win FDA approval for their vaccine, it will be a stake in the heart of the FDA, which is exactly what Thiel wants.

[Next time, to conclude this two-part series: If a federal right-to-try law passes, here's what's likely to be next.]

oracknows Tue, 08/29/2017 - 03:00

Categories

Education

This is so dangerous in so many ways. First to the participants, of course. But more broadly to the feeding of anti-vax drama as well. Cranks can claim that this stuff is poorly tested, on vulnerable people, and they'll be right.

And if it doesn't work or causes later problems? It will only be more reason to inflame anti-vax sentiment. Which will harm the perception of the whole field too.

I understand that people who are desperate want hope. But we created a lot of ring-fences around these things for real and legit reasons.

I agree that this is extremely bad. A herpes vaccine would be good to have, but the way this is done is so bad, long and short term.

If an IRB didn't approve it, there was likely a good reason.

I hope the FDA stands firm on this.

And can anyone explain why it's being tested on patients that already have herpes? Aren't vaccines preventive?

Both Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) and FDA regulations explicitly require that clinical trials used in support for an application to approve an investigational new drug (IND) be approved and monitored by an IRB. Even Dr. Gottleib can’t change that without changing the regulations (a long and onerous process), and I doubt that even he would want to try, his prior advocacy of “streamlining” the drug approval process notwithstanding.

Unfortunately, Congress can change the rules, and I don't see anything preventing them from doing that. There are too many on Capitol Hill who have drunk the libertarian Kool-Aid.

Since the guy I infer was PI of this misbegotten study is dead, there is no way to punish him directly. But as long as the regulations allow them, the FDA should indeed stand firm, and mete out the maximum institutional penalty on SIU that the regulations allow. Cutting off the flow of facilities and administrative costs should get the attention of the SIU administration.

Halford's manuscript and cover letter are also posted on that site.

Um, "Patient CE‐27 shows a '60 cm2 area of inflamed epithelium'"? Yikes.

@Dorit: from the reviewer's comments, it appears this vaccine is to prevent future outbreaks of herpes, and also "cure" the person of having the virus, therefore eliminating the risk of outbreaks.

Thank you, Dawn.

A stray thought crossed my mind as I read that the “trial” was carried out by ferrying 17 Americans to St. Kitts and shooting them up. Did the Government of St. Kitts have any idea that a “clinical trial” was being carried out?

Would any of the medical team be licensed to practice there?

Did the St. Kitts Gov't just think it was another US vacation tour group?

OT a bit but have you seen this controversy? It does not speak directly to the “right to try “ issue but it seems strange. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2017/08/25/eteplirsen-cu…

Dorit: yes, vaccines are supposed to be preventative, but sometimes they're given when someone has been exposed with the hope of beating the disease to the punch. Immunoglobulins also serve this purpose. It's why people who get the flu after getting a flu vaccine don't typically get as sick as someone who wasn't vaccinated for it.

I find it hard to believe they got data showing a decrease in symptoms since herpes comes and goes out of remission. They'd have to vaccinate someone at the start of an outbreak to get that data. I call BS.

I also call BS that the PI's vaccinated themselves with an unproven herpes vaccine. I want to see the titer before I'll believe it. They could just as easily have injected themselves with saline, and anyone so unethical to run a trial like this is not above lying about something like this.

@ Dorit

And can anyone explain why it’s being tested on patients that already have herpes? Aren’t vaccines preventive?

My guess would be a rationale similar to the one for the treatment for rabies - the vaccine is providing antigens which the immune system may have trouble to find otherwise, because it's confronted to an aggressive virus (rabies) and time is of the essence.
In the case of herpes, it would be more because it is an elusive virus. The vaccine may be supposed to strengthen/re-awaken the existing immune response and help keep the dormant virus in check.
That's would be my theory, anyway. But I'm not sure it's even proven that a vaccine injection is helping a patient with rabies (it's not like there have been many successful stories).
There may be other illness where a curative treatment is tried by using a vaccine. There were some trials in Canada a few years ago with a vaccine for people with cat's allergy. But again, I'm not up-to-date on this.

tl;dr: there may be some legit theory behind the use of a vaccine as curative treatment, but I don't feel that confident...

@ jrkrideau

I suspect the government of St. Kiss could care less about unethical medical trials. St. Kitts is one of those islands that boasts at least 2 non-accredited "medical schools" (I use this term very loosely) for US students which are basically money making honey potts for crooks who try and convince people who couldn't get into a US-accredited medical school to spend a lot of money on a shady medical degree with long odds of getting into a US residency.

It’s why people who get the flu after getting a flu vaccine don’t typically get as sick as someone who wasn’t vaccinated for it.

That assertion may be bolder than is warranted:

"Flu vaccination also may make your illness milder if you do get sick."

I think I've seen Vincent Racaniello completely dismiss the proposition, but I have to pack this machine up and head to an airport, so I can't go digging.

Did the Government of St. Kitts have any idea that a “clinical trial” was being carried out?

Was there any reason for them to have suspected? If the participants looked like ordinary tourists from the US--especially if they arrived separately, which sounds perfectly plausible to me, the government need not have suspected anything was up until the manuscript became public. US citizens can visit for up to 90 days without a visa.

There is also the example of herpes zoster or shingles. The vaccine is given to people who have already been infected with the chickenpox virus to prevent an outbreak of shingles later in life when their immunity is waning.

Yes, the herpes viruses love to hide out in nervous system reservoirs and reactivate, and a vaccine can be useful in reducing those reactivations - as in shingles.

Given the variability, I don't know how a trial that small, with no control arm, can say anything about the vaccine's effect...

Here's a thing I've noticed about these libertarian approaches to business: so far they don't seem to go after aerospace, and I have to wonder if that is because aerospace and airlines are at least as heavily regulated as pharma.

These libertarians genuinely don't seem to understand that there is a *reason* why Pharma and biomedical research are highly regulated. And I think it's because they're coming from very lightly regulated industries.

If you mess up your code for eBay or PayPal? Somebody doesn't get their 1978 Matchbox car, or doesn't get paid. If you mess up the manufacture of your drug? People could die. You mess up the design of your airplane? People could die. Often a regulation is also a tombstone.

Either they don't know or they don't care, but either way they have to be stopped before they kill a whole bunch of people.

These libertarians genuinely don’t seem to understand that there is a *reason* why Pharma and biomedical research are highly regulated.

They understand perfectly well that the FDA is there to protect consumers. They just see that as a problem.

Meanwhile:

Federal authorities raided a California stem cell clinic and seized a smallpox vaccine that is reserved only for the military and high-risk populations, as the Food and Drug Administration expressed “serious concerns” about how the clinic obtained access to the vaccine at all.

The U.S. Marshals Service seized five vials of the smallpox vaccine, which is not commercially available, the FDA announced Monday. Four of the vials — which each hold 100 vaccine doses — were unused, but a portion of the fifth vial had been used.

The treatment mixed some of the vaccine with stem cells taken from a patient to create an injectable — and unproven and unregulated — cancer treatment that was targeted directly at the patient’s tumors, the FDA said. The FDA, which learned of the treatment after inspections, said the injection could have caused inflammation and swelling of the heart.

The treatment belonged to San Diego-based company StemImmune Inc., and was given at California Stem Cell Treatment Centers in Rancho Mirage and Beverly Hills. U.S. marshals seized the product on Friday.

The process you are describing in that 'clinical trial' are quite literally the ones that Quacks have been using for decades in the Third World to foist homeopathy, acupuncture, Miracle Mineral Solution and other nostrums to people who are desperate for effective healthcare. Why, because the bogus trial results make great advertising in the West.

At least this time it's happening in the US's backyard and it seems that the people behind it made the mistake of sending their paper to a real journal.

# 11 Chris Hickie

Does that mean that my degree from the Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine may not be a valuable as I thought? Oh dear.

On the other hand, a rogue medical trial pays no taxes and , if anything goes wrong probably leaves the St Kitts' Gov't to clean up the mess.

# 13 Eric Lund

Was there any reason for them to have suspected?

Exactly, if I was the St Kitts' Gov't I'd be a bit annoyed for several reasons— including American arrogance, and see above re tax, etc.

I am going to put this date on my calendar, as I believe this is the first time I have agreed with any post from this blogger on the subject of vaccines. I commend the thoughtful criticisms of this so-called "clinical trial" and all of its ethical failings.

What amazes me though is the completely myopic perspective demonstrated here. If what is being done with this herpes vaccine is wrong, then you also need to appreciate that this type of thing has been happening all the time throughout the history of vaccines. Are you open-minded enough, and brave enough, to direct the same criticisms to very similar episodes which occurred during the development of many of the vaccines which are in use today?

There are new stories about unethical clinical trials throughout the developing world, many of them sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, coming almost weekly.

Many vaccines have been fast-tracked, much of the so-called "safety studies" are completely bogus, and the notion of informed consent has been completely dispensed with for many of these trials.

Look up the history of the anthrax vaccine. The development of the polio vaccine was the beginning of everything that was to become totally wrong about vaccine development, vaccine policy and vaccine politics (we call it Political Immunology). Look at the history of the MMR vaccine, where earlier versions caused meningitis outbreaks but the vaccine was still licensed for use, and in some countries like the UK it became licensed even *after* the meningitis risk was known. Even after it was pulled from use in the UK it was then sent to developing countries...no reason to waste perfectly good product! Even our current MMR vaccine is under scrutiny as Merck is fighting a lawsuit from two whistleblowers who are claiming that they were asked to falsify clinical trials data in order to make the mumps portion of the vaccine appear to be more effective.

The story of the development and licensing of Gardasil is a perfect example of fraudulent testing which left us with a vaccine which is killing and injuring children all over the world:

http://www.ageofautism.com/2012/10/spotlight-on-gardasil.html

I know that the majority of you will simply see Age of Autism and dismiss this, but if you actually take the time to read it, you will see that Mark and Dan uncovered many of the same ethical problems that Orac discusses here.

Mr. Foster: "Look at the history of the MMR vaccine, where earlier versions caused meningitis outbreaks but the vaccine was still licensed for use, ...."

The Urabe mumps strain has never ever been used in the USA. The Jeryl Lynn mumps strain was in the original American version licensed in 1971. The new improved version was introduced in 1978 with a better rubella strain.

Your version of history is very flawed. In fact, the UK removed both Urabe mumps strain MMR versions in 1992. In fact the effect of Wakefield's stupid evidence free video press recommendation in 1998 to use separate caused this issue:
MEDICINES CONTROL AGENCY TO OBJECT TO IMPORTATION OF UNLICENSED SINGLE URABE STRAIN MUMPS VACCINE

This alone is enough to ignore anything by you and the other idiots at AoA.

we call it Political Immunology

"We"?

I didn't realize that it was possible to have "outbreaks" of aseptic meningitis.

David Foster,

Please provide creditable citations for some these unethical trials being sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Age of Autism is not a creditable source. Remember you are making the claims of unethical trials, so must provide the creditable references.

I have my doubts that you can actually provide the source material but as they say the horse may be able to sing.

Well, at least in one respect, he's right. Clinical trials do take place all over the world - because many countries require their own approvals and oversight of vaccines used within their borders.

Not to mention (though I will), that countries like India have their own domestic vaccine manufacturers, who are required to perform clinical trials and receive approval from the relevant government regulatory agencies as well.

@David Foster:

Mark and Dan uncovered many of the same ethical problems that Orac discusses here.

Ha.
Ha, ha!
Ha, ha, ha, ha!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Dan Olmsted once claimed that there were no autistic Amish. His "research" and "journalism" skills were so weak he failed to learn about the "Clinic for Special Children", which catered to the Amish, and which had autistic residents.
That you view him as reliable tells me all I need to know.

David Foster is AWAK3 and thinks we are SHEEPL3.

(yawn)

Dr. Hickie, he is just a clueless fool.

Being a Brit he does not realize there was an MMR in use for seventeen years before the UK licensed three versions in 1988.. and then removed two in 1992.

It is like his view of medical history does not extend west or east of the UK.

@Chris:
Are you denying that a version of MMR which was already known to cause meningitis was in fact licensed in the UK before being pulled? That was my only point, that they knew there were issues with the vaccine yet still licensed it and used it for years before pulling it.

@Narad:
We.
An "outbreak" does not necessarily need to be an infectious disease, though my use of the word was not very precise. I should have used "epidemic".

@Rich Bly
I am not going to write an entire essay on this just to convince those of you who will likely never decide to investigate this for yourselves...it would be a waste of my time. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has found itself in trouble many times due to its clinical trials, in fact it is currently involved in lawsuits in India. I bring this all up in the hopes that perhaps some of you will look into this for yourselves. I already have.

@Chris Hickie
My point was that while I agree with Orac's post regarding this particular vaccine trial, the very same problems he brings up occur quite often with regard to previous and current clinical trials, especially those conducted in other countries. The history of vaccines is replete with ethical failures like this.

@Julian Frost
You seem to be one big walking talking logical failure. Dan Olmsted's investigation into the Amish was preliminary, he did not fool himself into believing he was doing an epidemiological study. But what he found was very interesting, though not absolute. Your assumption that what he found is meaningless simply because there are some autistic Amish children is silly, but it is amusing to see how easily the pseudo-skeptics can convince themselves of a fallacy.

Mr. Foster: "Are you denying that a version of MMR which was already known to cause meningitis was in fact licensed in the UK before being pulled?"

Do you have reading comprehension problems? Please directly quote where the denial occurred. Especially since I actually explained to you the entire history and included this little issue caused by Wakefield:
MEDICINES CONTROL AGENCY TO OBJECT TO IMPORTATION OF UNLICENSED SINGLE URABE STRAIN MUMPS VACCINE

By the way, the above article has to do with laws in the United States of American, not the United Kingdom. So I will repeat again that the only mumps vaccine strain used in any American MMR is the Jeryl Lynn strain going back to 1971.

Okay, deer Davey, some simple arithmetic: 1988 - 1971 = 17 ...

Which is the number of years the MMR vaccine was used in the USA before the UK. And since you have trouble retaining information: The USA has only used the Jeryl Lynn vaccine strain.

Some more simple arithmetic: 1998 - 1992 = 6 ....

Which is the number of years between the UK pulling the two MMR vaccines with Urabe and Wakefield's fraudulent lying Lancet paper.

Since an epidemic is

a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time.

and aseptic meningitis
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1169489-overview

Aseptic meningitis syndrome ... has a number of other etiologies as well, both infectious and noninfectious.

I suggest you stick to the term outbreak.

The WHO has a good list of references on Mumps and vaccines.
http://www.who.int/immunization/Refs_Mumps_25_Jan_2007.pdf

If you scroll down and read Nokes et all from 1991, you'll find that

In communitybased
programmes, the greater apparent safety of the Jeryl Lynn vaccine (fewer vaccineinduced
complications) is offset by the greater apparent efficacy of the Urabe Am 9 vaccine
(fewer complications due to natural infection). The findings suggest that it may not always be
in the interests of the community to use the vaccine with the lowest complication rate.

so there was a tradeoff made and the UK chose the vaccine with greater efficacy against the primary cause of aseptic meningitis, mumps itself.

As I recall, there was also an availability issue as well, but perhaps Chris can clarify that. As the side effect concerns became clearer and the Jeryl Lynn strain became available in the quantities needed, the UK switched vaccines.

Perhaps, David, you could clarify for us.

An unethical trial that only had 20 participants and probably couldn't have demonstrated much of anything was snuck overseas to avoid the restrictions and requirements that have been put in place in the US and many other countries to protect patients because of mistakes that were made 30 to 50 years ago, therefore what?

@David Foster, responding to me:

Your assumption that what he found is meaningless simply because there are some autistic Amish children is silly

Way to miss the point. Dan Olmsted loudly proclaimed that the Amish did not vaccinate, and did not have autistic children. He was wrong with both arms of his claim.
My point was, if he made such an easily provably wrong claim, then he can't be trusted to get things right.

@Narad:
We.

Who would yall be?

An “outbreak” does not necessarily need to be an infectious disease, though my use of the word was not very precise. I should have used “epidemic”.

No, you should have used "cluster in Nottingham."

squirrelelite: "As I recall, there was also an availability issue as well, but perhaps Chris can clarify that. As the side effect concerns became clearer and the Jeryl Lynn strain became available in the quantities needed, the UK switched vaccine"

Some of has to do with costs. Though from my reading after Japan developed the Urabe mumps vaccine, it was about the time mumps vaccination was coming to Europe, in the 1980s. Especially since the Rubini mumps strain was deemed ineffective.

I think it may have been more of a cost issue than an availability issue: Mumps Outbreaks in Canada and the United States: Time for New Thinking on Mumps Vaccines

Which says:

Money should not be the only decisive factor, but it allows one to rank vaccines in certain order: a single-dose vial (according to the price for the US-manufactured vaccine) costs $.90, $1.20, and $2.50 for MMR vaccine containing L-Zagreb, Urabe, and Jeryl Lynn strains, respectively [96, 97].

You can see that the Jeryl Lynn strain costs slightly more than double of the Urabe strain.

Okay, another one of my comments has gone into the ether. I had just put in this quote: "Money should not be the only decisive factor, but it allows one to rank vaccines in certain order: a single-dose vial (according to the price for the US-manufactured vaccine) costs $.90, $1.20, and $2.50 for MMR vaccine containing L-Zagreb, Urabe, and Jeryl Lynn strains, respectively [96, 97]."

From a paper titled: "Mumps Outbreaks in Canada and the United States: Time for New Thinking on Mumps Vaccines"

Published on 15 August, 2007 in Clinical Infectious Diseases

Okay, try for the reason why I used that quote... Europe started to vaccinate for mumps in the 1980s, after the Urabe mumps vaccine strain was developed in Japan. Especially since the Rubini mumps vaccine strain was not terribly effective.

As you can see from the quote, the Jeryl Lynn strain costs slightly more than twice that of the Urabe strain.

@Rich Bly
I am not going to write an entire essay on this just to convince those of you who will likely never decide to investigate this for yourselves…it would be a waste of my time. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has found itself in trouble many times due to its clinical trials, in fact it is currently involved in lawsuits in India. I bring this all up in the hopes that perhaps some of you will look into this for yourselves. I already have.

If proof of the Gates Foundation naughtiness existed, It would have been easy to link to it. Instead you spent time writing an entire essay on why you were not writing an entire essay, and instead Leaving it as an Exercise For the Reader.

The last couple of hours have been crazy making. At least four of my comments to this blog have been sucked into void, we lost power for over an hour, and now I am gritting my teeth listening to Michael Marshall interview a crackpot on Be Reasonable (very similar to the NWO Troll). At this point of the podcast she is promoting MMS.

"Go look yourself." The constant idiotic refrain from the typical anti-vaxer.

It just so happens that I have looked - and you're full of crap.

Forgot about this:

Even after it was pulled from use in the UK it was then sent to developing countries…no reason to waste perfectly good product!

Viral meningitis "occurs in about one in seven cases of mumps." Compare this with "1 in 10,000–15,000 doses," from the American Journal of Epidemiology paper linked above.

Of course, this assertion is once again quite vague, so there's no telling which countries it was "sent to" (the assertion may be that UNICEF had Urabe availability until 2014 [PDF], for all I know).

Dan Olmsted’s investigation into the Amish was preliminary, he did not fool himself into believing he was doing an epidemiological study.

*blink*

HDB,

Thanks, I wrote a short rebuttal but it got sucked into the void. All I can say is at best Foster is just an over inflated hot air bag and will not lower myself to call him what most probably he is.

@Narad,

There was also the 1997 cluster in Salvador, Brazil with an estimated risk of 1 in 14,000 for Urabe MMR.

Just for the hell of it, I looked up the Gates Foundation being sued in India. The article was from Vaccine This (appears to be an anti-vax site). The law suit was really against Merck over guardasil. The Gates Foundation was involved because they provided grant monies. Of course this article was fro 2014, so is way out of date.

There was also the 1997 cluster in Salvador, Brazil with an estimated risk of 1 in 14,000 for Urabe MMR.

Yes, I saw that (PDF), but the question of comparative risk hinges on incidence, and I just wasn't up to trying to calculate something.

Just for the heck of it I looked up the law suit against the Gates foundation in India. It actually was Merck being sued about Guardasil and the Gates Foundation was involved because they provided grant monies. The article was from a group called Vaccine This, which appears to be an anti-vax group. The article was dated 2014.

There is a legit therapeutic herpes vaccine in the clinical trial pipeline, about to enter P3 at the end of this year. Check out geneocea biosciences...

Afraid of aliens? The science doesn't back you up (Synopsis)

esiegel — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 12:42:54 +0000

Afraid of aliens? The science doesn't back you up (Synopsis)

“Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.” -Stanisław Lem

One of the questions that’s fascinated humanity since we first began looking up at the night sky is whether or not we’re alone in the Universe. Although we now know of other stars, other planets, and potentially inhabited worlds, we have yet to make contact with another intelligent species. Despite our curiosity, a great many people live in fear that if we did begin communicating with extraterrestrials, it would serve only to announce our presence to a potentially hostile (and more advanced) civilization.

Our fear of aliens, and their potential hostility towards humanity, has driven much of our public sentiment and presentation of extraterrestrial life. Image credit: plaits / flickr.

No one wants humanity wiped out, of course, but no one wants to bury our heads in the sand and to cease the search for one of the ultimate truths about our Universe. If you take a detailed, logical look at the problem, three possibilities for aliens emerge: they’re uninterested in us, they’re interested and benign, or they’re interested and malevolent. But even if they’re malevolent, they likely pose no danger to us, which you only learn if you put your fears aside and view the situation rationally.

The southern Milky Way as viewed above ALMA is illustrative of one way we search for signals of intelligent aliens: through the radio band. If we found a signal, or if we transmitted a signal that was then found and responded to, it would be one of the greatest achievements in our planet's history. Image credit: ESO/B. Tafreshi/TWAN (twanight.org).

There’s so much to potentially gain and so little to use, yet some of our greatest minds succumb to fear on this topic. Come take a look for yourself and see what you think!

esiegel Thu, 08/24/2017 - 08:42

Tags

I've always felt that way. But, our SF entertainment thrives off stories of hostile aliens. And that has preconditioned our minds,
so your position has to overcome hurricane headwinds.

Most amusing is aliens coming here to satisfy their palettes "How to Serve Man". Of course if you think about the logistics problem, versus any possible food value, the proposition is absurd.

So many mineral resources to be found on uninhabited space rocks, no need to strip the few inhabitable worlds.... And again logistics....

The first possibility [no interest] seems the most unlikely.

I disagree, in fact I think it's the most likely. Consider the species on Earth with reasonably sized brains. most of them can communicate (albeit not like we do). All of them are more closely related to humans in brain structure, instinct, and emotional desires than any alien we will ever meet - hands down, no contest. And yet practically none of them show any interest in wanting to communicate with humans. The only ones who really do so are the ones we've domesticated or raised/forced to be around us. IOW, the only ones with interest in humans are the ones humans have spent a great amount of time and effort with to get them interested in us.

Look, if chimps in the wild aren't setting out to explore and communicate with humans, neither are aliens. Because the chimps are going to be much more similar to us in motivation than any alien.

What other reason is there to actually be a spacefaring species, if you're not interested in contacting whatever other species might be out there?

Survival. Propagation of their descendants. Impress potential mates (if the last one seems farfetched, consider the bower bird). None of these things require a desire to communicate with other species. None of them even require a species to have any instinct or emotion like 'curiosity.'

"Yet there's no evidence at all that there's any malevolence to aliens."

There is also no evidence at all that they are benevolent. Going with caution in sight of unknown is IMO prudent, not paranoid. This isn't to say that I'm voting for not trying to search for intelligent life, even contact. But I see no logical reason or evidence that they "ought" be kind, loving teachers of "lesser" evolved species. It is a noble though. But isn't that just personal wishes?

On the other hand, you neglected one IMO important thing from your list of what they might be looking for. A place to colonize. Isn't that what we are looking for?

Let's put benevolence and malevolence aside for a moment, since, I would argue, aliens who teach us new tech and how to be better humans, is just as much a sci-fi fairy tale as the other side. How about more or less indifferent. Not bad tempered, slave owning. Just indifferent. And let's say they are looking for a place to colonize. They received a signal and realized that the gap between them and us is as much as between us and neanderthals. We are a curiosity to them. They come, without any intention to conquer and see a planet of monkeys. They need a place for their own species. The best case scenario is they go "oh, this place is way overcrowded, let's try somewhere else", a slightly less good is we become a zoo for some other species to admire. This view has some comedy to it, i admit. But what I'm trying to convey is that IMO, going with "they will be kind teachers from above" relies on one very specific line of evolution (both biological and social) for those aliens to have. In physics terms, this would be a case of very fine tuning. Like you wrote in the beginning, there is no evidence for it. In fact, looking at the life on earth (not only human), all the evidence points against it. All species on earth are governed by several basic instincts: feed, reproduce, thrive. Altruism towards other species or even giving any consideration to them is almost non-existent. And not talking about predators and prey. Does a zebra care if it stomps a rabbits burrow? Nope. Is zebra hostile towards rabbits? Nope. Does zebra care about educating rabbits not to make burrows in a place where it might get stomped? Nope.

Ethan fails to learn from human history, or the cautionary lessons of his own Star Trek canon. In Star Trek the incredibly logical Vulcans were by no means in agreement that contacting humanity was such a good idea (many thought it was outright stupid/illogical, and still hold this opinion), and shortly thereafter the Vulcans acknowledged that they had barely survived their own violent warring periods of history and actually been responsible for the extinction of a few sentient species when they had played 'benevolent alien Santa Claus' with helpful technology...without even intending a drop of harm, 'ooops' happened in significant quantities. Said species then used this technology to thoroughly annihilate themselves with it. Ethan's very position on alien contact was outlawed by the Federation on pain of death, They called it the Prime Directive.
.
The Federation's Prime Directive was specifically created to prevent ego tripping scientists from traipsing about while handing out technology gifts to lesser developed species, and disrupting their natural development or causing their outright extinction. Despite this noble plot device, Kirk and company broke this directive whenever dramatically convenient, sometimes with the hilarious results of unintended consequences "A Piece of the Action", or very tragically and painfully as in one of the finest ST stories ever told "The City on the Edge of Forever".
.

While positioning itself as reasonable, Ethan's position on alien contact favors uninformed speculation about alien motives and ignores the side of the equation we know anything at all about:
Us. Humanity.
What would we do?
This is an oversight so large I have a hard time believing it to be unintentional.
What would WE do to the aliens if they weren't prepared for our aggressiveness?
Realistically, as opposed to wistfully, What would WE do with newly acquired technology thousands of years beyond our own, just moments after we acquired it? Use it responsibly or attempt world peace through dimensional disintegration? Knowing something about human nature, I'd sooner take my chances and hand a three year old a flamethrower to play with before gifting a present day human with advanced alien technology.

How to serve humans? Saute the liver, steam some fava beans, and drink it all down with a nice bottle of Chianti.

Will Scientists Ever Discover Life Without A Home Planet? (Synopsis)

esiegel — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 03:45:38 +0000

Will Scientists Ever Discover Life Without A Home Planet? (Synopsis)

"An extrapolation of the genetic complexity of organisms to earlier times suggests that life began before the Earth was formed. Life may have started from systems with single heritable elements that are functionally equivalent to a nucleotide." -Alexei A. Sharov & Richard Gordon

We talk about the origin of life on Earth with bated breath, wondering all the time how things occurred to make our planet unique. But within that big question lies an assumption that may not be true: that life on Earth originated on Earth itself. It’s entirely possible, based on what we’ve seen out there in the Universe, that life didn’t originate here at all. Rather, it could have come from a primitive, pre-existing world, or even from the depths of interstellar space itself.

A rich nebula of gas, pushed out into the interstellar medium by the hot, new stars formed in the central region. Earth may have formed in a region like this, and this region may already be teeming with primitive forms of life, under some set of rules and definitions. Image credit: Gemini Observatory / AURA.

If it’s the latter case -- interstellar space -- then perhaps we don’t even require a planet at all to create the more primitive forms of life itself. Perhaps all you need is a molecule that encodes information, reproduces itself, and converts external energy for use in biological processes. And if that’s the case, the origin of life may bear very little resemblance to what life has evolved into today.

On this semilog plot, the complexity of organisms, as measured by the length of functional non-redundant DNA per genome counted by nucleotide base pairs (bp), increases linearly with time. Time is counted backwards in billions of years before the present (time 0). Image credit: Shirov & Gordon (2013), via https://arxiv.org/abs/1304.3381.

Could pretty much all places in the Universe, by the present time, have these ingredients that qualify as life? Let’s look at the evidence!

esiegel Mon, 08/14/2017 - 23:45

Tags

Astronomy

biology

This is incredible.

Why is it logarithmic and not some other function? Lots of things in nature grow (or decay) exponentially but why the number of base pairs?
(the caption says 'increases linearly with time' - not quite right?)

Genome size vs total number of cells in each species could be also an interesting graph (which does not seem to exist anywhere on the internet).

I got another question.
The meteorite has 80 other amino acids left and right in it that are not in life here - only 20 (well, maybe 22) and all left.
Are these 80 amino acids present in rocks on earth that are older than when life began on earth, and equal left and right?

Drs. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe were serious proponents of Panspermia.

Frank:

Genome size vs total number of cells in each species could be also an interesting graph (which does not seem to exist anywhere on the internet).

It would probably be a lot more scattershot than most people expect. Consider for example the Onion test. Summary: human genomes are about 3.5pg. The allium genus (i.e. varieties of onions) contains species with genome sizes ranging from 7pg to 31.5pg. And that, as the author points out, is just one example of the mismatch between organism complexity and genome size.

Just a thought - What would have happen to the number of Genomes at the source that may have introduced it on Earth? Probably that source should be in Solar System and with time may have multiplied with the same log scale. Of course organisms at that source would have grown differently based on the environment they are living in..

PS: seems we are going back to God introduced life on earth theory :)

This is total nonsense. Genome size is related to the size of the organism and the requirement of genes for survival. Todays' prokaryotes for instance have evolved for as long as mammals, but they have smaller genomes. We don't know what was the size of the genome of the ancestral prokaryotes, which could be much smaller. Higher organisms evolve by horizontal gene transfer, mutation and selection, whereas the role of lateral transfer, directed mutation and hypermutation could be much higher in unicellular organisms. Therefore, there is no reason to postulate linearity, nor to put the dots as they are in the curve.

Does chemotherapy work? Chemotherapy vs. "spreading" cancer.

oracknows — Mon, 24 Jul 2017 02:59:13 +0000

Does chemotherapy work? Chemotherapy vs. "spreading" cancer.

Over the last two or three weeks, you might have noticed a disturbance in the alternative medicine force. Unlike disturbances in the Force in Star Wars movies (which usually result from horrors like the obliteration of millions of lives on Alderaan), this was a joyous, celebratory disturbance in the mystical nonexistent energy fields in which promoters of alternative medicine cancer cures and haters of chemotherapy and "conventional" cancer treatment (the two almost always go together) thought that a major study in a reputable journal had put yet another "final nail in the coffin of chemotherapy." Or at least they could spin the study as an indication that chemotherapy is nothing more than an expensive toxic brew foisted on an unsuspecting public by the nefarious shadowy forces of Big Pharma in order to extract maximal resources from third party payers, which, to them, is almost as good. Of course, they do this with any study that suggests chemotherapy isn't as effective as people would like, but this study seemed on the surface like powerful ammunition. It's not. It's actually an interesting preclinical study showing a mechanism by which chemotherapy given before surgery (neoadjuvant chemotherapy) might promote the spread of some cancers. Whether the findings are clinically important remains to be seen.

"Alternative cancer cure" advocates and salesmen rejoice

Although it's an interesting study delivering somewhat of a cautionary note, The study being gloated over is far less of a "black eye" to chemotherapy (as Jeffrey Jaxen put it over at that repository of science misinterpreted to promote alternative or "natural" medicine, Sayer Ji's GreenMedInfo), than advertised. (Besides, Ji likes me. He really, really likes me.) Meanwhile, Chris Wark of "Chris Beat Cancer" (hint: surgery, not the quackery he pursued, took care of his colon cancer) practically exults that "chemo may spread breast cancer and trigger more aggressive tumors." Of course, the real gloating comes from—who else?—Mike Adams, who proclaims the study a "Medical BOMBSHELL" showing that chemotherapy has been found to spread cancer. He also can't help but throw in the lies he's been peddling about me as well.

Yawn. I guess I can expect attacks like this inserted into pretty much any rant against chemotherapy that Adams writes from now on. It's my badge of honor. Oh, well. Word to Mikey: I used to be upset by your smear campaign against me—about a year ago. These days, however, I'm laughing at you, not with you, because your lies are so transparently over the top that no one but your hardcore followers would even have a chance of believing them. I was never a "colleague" of Dr. Fata, who never worked at my cancer center, and that "nipple ripper" name came from Patrick "Tim" Bolen, a man who used to be cancer quack Hulda Clark's most vigorous defender. I also note that it was Adams himself who claimed to have reported me to the FBI (something conveniently not mentioned). That was well over a year ago. Neither I nor anyone I know has been contacted by the FBI or my state attorney general (where Adams also claims to have filed a complaint). I suspect his "criminal complaints," if they were ever filed at all, ended up in the "crank file," where they belong.

Let's get back to what less insane-sounding (but equally mistaken) alternative cancer cure advocates are saying, after which then I'll delve into the study itself and show you why, although it is a reason for some concern, it's not evidence that chemotherapy doesn't work, and, in fact, if validated by further studies, points the way to overcoming what might be a significant problem in cancer chemotherapy. In discussing this study, Jaxen, for instance, lists all the usual suspects of studies trotted out by the anti-chemotherapy brigade every time they feel a rant coming on. For example, he invokes what I like to call the "2% gambit," citing, as all who use this gambit do, a single Australian study from around 16 years ago that left out a lot of chemotherapy-sensitive tumors and willfully confused adjuvant chemotherapy with chemotherapy delivered as primary treatment for curative intent. Basically, he sees the study as "more evidence" of this:

By now, many are beginning to understand that one of the problems with chemotherapy is that it doesn’t address the underlying cause(s) of cancer. Chemotherapy originated from an idea and consciousness that was far from idealistic. The whole generation of chemotherapeutic drugs that are being used today, and there are over one hundred of them, developed from poisonous nerve gas created for warfare. As reported in 2012 by Green Med Info, cancer is the second leading cause of death in the developed world, and yet much of the medical and research communities are still in the dark ages when it comes to treating and understanding it. However, in the age of information, great strides are being made by doctors and researchers who are going against the grain of the failed convention ‘wisdom’ in cancer treatment. In addition, individuals are beginning to take responsibility by educating themselves.

Of course, for all their claims of "addressing the underlying cause" of cancer, alternative medicine cancer cure mavens always fail to show how their favored nostrums do any better on that score, much less that they are actually more effective than conventional treatments—or even that they're effective at all.

Chris Wark chimes in with the same propaganda:

As I’ve said many times, chemotherapy is often only a short-term solution to a long-term problem.

The new study presents evidence that chemotherapy can switch on a repair mechanism in the body which ultimately allows tumours to grow back stronger. It also increases the number of ‘doorways’ on blood vessels which allow cancer to spread throughout the body.

At least Wark admits that chemotherapy can sometimes be at least a "short term solution" to cancer. Again, nothing Wark discusses shows how his preferred methods do anything to "address the underlying cause" of the long term problem of cancer. We know that diet and certain environmental exposures can modulate cancer risk for certain cancers, but once the cancer is already established it's too late for that.

So now that we've seen ideology in action, let's look at science in action.

How chemotherapy is used to treat cancer

Before I get to the study, in order to help readers not familiar with how chemotherapy is used to treat cancer, I feel obligated to provide a brief primer. There are four main ways that chemotherapy is used to treat cancer:

Curative: Chemotherapy can be the primary (and sometimes only) treatment for cancer. This is common in hematological malignancies, like leukemia and lymphomas, where it's usually some combination of chemotherapy ± radiation therapy that is curative. Surgery is rarely indicated. The intent here is to use chemotherapy to eliminate cancer from the body.

Adjuvant chemotherapy: After definitive surgical treatment of the primary cancer, chemotherapy is administered to decrease the chance of recurrence. This is a very common use of chemotherapy, particularly in breast cancer and colorectal cancer. Indeed, the use of adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer since the 1980s, among other factors, has contributed to a decline in breast cancer mortality of around 30% since 1990.

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is administered before surgery. In general, there are two main reasons to administer neoadjuvant chemotherapy: (1) to shrink a tumor to make a non-operable tumor (e.g., one stuck to major structures) operable for cure; and (2) to make organ-sparing surgery possible. This latter use is common in breast cancer in order to shrink a tumor so that a mastectomy is not required to remove it and breast-conserving surgery is possible. Moreover, in breast cancer, it is known from numerous studies that neoadjuvant chemotherapy results in equivalent results as adjuvant chemotherapy. Overall survival and disease-free survival and time to locoreginal recurrence are the same, whether chemotherapy is administered before or after surgery. The same idea is used in the surgical treatment of low rectal cancer requiring an abdominoperineal resection (APR) to remove. An APR involves removing the anal sphincter and leaving the patient with a permanent colostomy. With neoadjuvant chemotherapy, it is often possible to shrink the tumor enough to make sphincter-sparing surgery possible, something very desirable to patients, the vast majority of whom understandably recoil at the idea of requiring a permanent colostomy.

Palliative chemotherapy: In stage IV disease, chemotherapy is often used to palliate symptoms from growing tumors and can prolong life, although not result in long term survival. This is also a common use of chemotherapy.

The study that the likes of Mike Adams and Chris Wark are crowing over examines neoadjuvant chemotherapy. That's an important point. It does not apply to other uses of chemotherapy. Think of it this way. Adjuvant chemotherapy is quite different from neoadjuvant chemotherapy in at least one way. The primary tumor is not present when adjuvant chemotherapy is administered. All that's left are microscopic tumor deposits that could turn into metastases. Those are what adjuvant chemotherapy targets, because chemotherapy is much better at wiping out microscopic tumor deposits than macroscopic tumors. Contrast that to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, which targets both those same microscopic tumor deposits and also targets the main tumor, which is usually large. (Remember the reasons why neoadjuvant chemotherapy is administered.)

Comparatively speaking, there are many orders of magnitude more cancer cells in the neoadjuvant setting than in the adjuvant setting. If spread of tumor due to neoadjuvant chemotherapy were a major factor clinically, we'd expect survival using neoadjuvant chemotherapy before surgery to be worse than using it after surgery. That we don't observe worse outcomes with neoadjuvant therapy is a good reason to be at least a little skeptical of how clinically relevant the results of this study will turn out to be. Indeed, I've never ceased to be amazed that, in breast cancer and most cancers for which neoadjuvant chemotherapy is used, the survival benefit provided by chemotherapy (adjusted for tumor stage and other relevant characteristics, of course) is the same regardless of whether the chemotherapy is administered before or after surgery. Even better, neoadjuvant chemotherapy can give an indication of how "nasty" (i.e., resistant to chemotherapy) a tumor is, based on how much (or how little) it shrinks in response to chemotherapy. Moreover, pathologic complete response (that is, a response so dramatic that the tumor not only disappears clinically but the pathologist can't find any viable tumor cells in the resected specimen) is an excellent prognostic factor predicting favorable outcomes.

Keep these things in mind as I discuss the study.

Does neoadjuvant chemotherapy "spread" cancer?

So let's take a look at the study itself (Karagiannis et al, "Neoadjuvant chemotherapy induces breast cancer metastasis through a TMEM-mediated mechanism"), which was published in a Science journal, Science Translational Medicine by a group at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Reading the abstract, I quickly realized—surprise! surprise!—that the findings were considerably more nuanced and interesting than Adams, Wark, and Jaxen presented. I also quickly realized that the purpose of the study was to identify potential problems with how neoadjuvant works in order to find strategies to make it work better. Of course, doing research to make existing therapies better is complex, and the authors noted that increasing tumor cell dissemination could "diminish the clinical benefit" of neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Note the distinction. It is known—sorry, couldn't resist a Game of Thrones reference given that as I write this the season seven premiere is only a few hours away—from numerous studies that neoadjuvant chemotherapy produces a survival advantage for breast cancer patients in addition to the advantages it produces in making inoperable tumors operable or making it possible for women who would otherwise lose their breast to preserve it. Tumor cell dissemination as a result of chemotherapy reduces, not eliminates, that benefit, and it certainly does not "make cancer spread" in such a way that neoadjuvant chemotherapy is worse than no chemotherapy. Yet that's what the cancer quacks strongly imply.

So what is the mechanism being examined here? Previous work has demonstrated one mechanism by which breast cancer cells can gain access to blood vessels and spread. In this mechanism, breast cancer tumor cell spread occurs at microscopic structures dubbed tumor microenvironment of metastasis (TMEM). Each TMEM is composed of three cell types, all in direct physical contact with each other: a tumor cell making a protein that regulates a structural protein (actin) known as Mammalian-enabled (MENA), a perivascular macrophage (an immune cell near the blood vessel), and an endothelial cell (the cell type that lines blood vessels). Vascular permeability due to TMEM has been shown to be localized and mediated by vascular endothelial growth factor–A (VEGF-A) release from the TMEM-bound macrophages, which express the angiopoietin receptor TIE2. Now, I used to do a lot of work with VEGF-A back in the 1990s, when I studied tumor angiogenesis, the process by which tumors interact with their environment to stimulate the ingrowth of new blood vessels. Basically, the macrophages associated with TMEM secrete this factor, which increases vascular permeability, making "holes" through which tumor cells can gain entry to the blood vessel and spread via blood. However, only tumor cells expressing high levels of MENA can take advantage of this. (Note that there are different isoforms—variants—of Mena that are pro-invasion and anti-invasion; when we refer to MENA here, we're mostly referring to the MENA^INV.) Tumors with a high TMEM “score” in animal models have a higher likelihood of metastasis compared to tumors with low TMEM scores.

The authors hypothesized that preoperative chemotherapy could increase the density and activity of TMEM sites in breast cancer, as well as an increase in invasion-promoting MENA isoforms, and thereby increase the number of tumor cells spreading. They based their hypothesis on the observation that one chemotherapy agent, paclitaxel (a.k.a. Taxol), induces an influx of macrophages into the primary tumor and that macrophages are required for TMEM assembly. The hypothesis was tested using a transgenic mammary tumor model in which mouse mammary tumor virus–polyoma middle T antigen was introduced to produce a mouse strain that spontaneously develops mammary tumors at a high rate, patient-derived xenografts (PDXs, which are tumors derived from patients that can grow in mice with defective immune systems), and pre- and post-neoadjuvant breast cancer tissue samples from human patients. There are also all sorts of pretty images from intravital imaging (IVI, which allows imaging of living animals at a cellular level) that a researcher needs if he wants to publish in a journal like Cell, Science, or Science Translational Medicine. I don't mean that so much as a knock on the authors given that the paper is actually good, but rather as a sarcastic aside at what it takes these days to be published in top-tier journals. Besides, several of the authors have an extensive background in imaging research; so I can't really fault them for using it. It is, after all, so much cooler to look at these complexes in living mice than to do what they had to do in humans and test fixed tissue from biopsies and surgical specimens.

The authors addressed their hypothesis using multiple tumor models, including the MMTV-PyMT mice, another mouse strain bearing tumors transplanted from the MMTV-PyMT mice, and two PDX models, (HT17 and HT33, for anyone who's interested). Animals were treated with various chemotherapeutics and compared to controls, with the tumors imaged, levels of various RNAs and proteins compared, and tumors assessed. Key findings were as follows:

Paclitaxel at the dose used delayed tumor growth (as expected) but increased TMEM assembly by as much as three-fold.
Paclitaxel increased the infiltration of perivascular macrophages in the primary breast cancer microenvironment.
Paclitaxel induced TMEM-dependent vascular permeability in breast tumors.
Paclitaxel increased metastatic dissemination of breast tumors (roughly a two-fold difference, although the result wasn't statistically significant for one tumor model—Figure 3I). This was confirmed by examining the lungs of the mice, where investigators found an increase in both microscopic metastases in the paclitaxel-treated mice and single-cell metastases (two-fold increase).
Paclitaxel promotes the expression of invasive isoforms of Mena in breast tumors, and dissemination required Mena.
Levels of circulating tumor cells in the bloodstream increased in response to chemotherapy.
Treating mice with doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide (two other drugs commonly used in standard-of-care breast cancer treatment) produced similar changes in the primary tumors and their surrounding microenvironment.

Finally, when the investigators tested human breast cancer tissue before and after neoadjuvant chemotherapy with paclitaxel followed by combined doxorubicin/cyclophosphamide, they found this:

Areas staining positive for MENA also increased. Pretty striking, I'll agree. However, remember what I said above. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is still quite effective.

More importantly, consider this final result. In the same mouse models, blocking the TIE2 receptor with rebastinib decreased the number of perivascular macrophages and blocked the increase in circulating tumor cells to the level of controls without affecting TMEM assembly. This means that TIE2 inhibition blocks the function of TMEM sites but not their assembly. Fortunately, in these mouse models, that was enough. More importantly, it also suggests a strategy for making neoadjuvant chemotherapy work better in patients, as illustrated here:

How cancer spreads via the bloodstream.

Note that there are multiple points that can be attacked to overcome the stimulation of more invasiveness by chemotherapy.

Putting it all together

If there's one thing that distinguishes science-based medicine (SBM) from the sort of medicine advocated by those promoting alternative cancer cures, it's that SBM is always trying to make things better. When it is observed that, for instance, neoadjuvant chemotherapy might not be having as strong an effect on tumors as it could, scientists look for the reason why. If that reason why happens to be that some forms of chemotherapy might increase the ability of cells from the primary tumor to spread, decreasing the benefit of neoadjuvant chemotherapy, they look for the molecular and cellular mechanisms responsible for that problem and then try to find ways to exploit those mechanisms to overcome the problem. That's exactly what Karagiannis et al did. So when quack-loving entrepreneurs like Mike Adams, Chris Wark, and Jeffrey Jaxen tell you this study "proves" that chemotherapy does more harm than good, they're either ignorant or intentionally misrepresenting the results, because the study doesn't show that at all.

It's not just the quacks, though. Articles in mainstream news sources reported this study with headlines like "Chemotherapy could cause cancer to SPREAD and grow back even more aggressive, new study claims." OK, that's The Daily Mail, which is to science as The Weekly World News is to, well, news. But other stories had headlines like "Chemotherapy could spread cancer cells and lead to more advanced tumours, says study" and "Chemotherapy before breast cancer surgery might fuel metastasis." Far better is a headline like "Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Treatment May Increase Risk Of Breast Cancer Spreading In Some Patients", which more accurately assesses the results of the study. In fairness, I know that editors, not reporters, determine headlines and most of the mainstream articles I mentioned did point out some of the caveats that I discussed, but the impression most people take away comes from the headline, and that impression was only marginally less scary than the headlines coming from Sayer Ji's and Mike Adams' websites.

More importantly, if you're a woman considering neoadjuvant chemotherapy to treat breast cancer, don't let the spin on this study frighten you out of it. The benefits of neoadjuvant chemotherapy include not only improved survival but the possibility of breast conserving surgery, and, as I mentioned before, there is no detectable difference in overall survival whether chemotherapy is administered before or after surgery.

As for the future, research like this could lead the way to better neoadjuvant chemotherapy. For example, a woman undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy might some day have biopsies done part way through the chemotherapy. If her tumor's TMEM score has increased markedly, then I could envision the addition of a TIE2 inhibitor or other inhibitor of TMEM function being added to her chemotherapy to block the increased level of circulating tumor cells and reverse whatever increased risk of metastasis that might be attributable to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in order to produce better outcomes. That's how SBM improves, in contrast to alternative medicine, in which no therapies are abandoned when demonstrated to be ineffective and/or dangerous and no therapies are ever improved upon.

oracknows Sun, 07/23/2017 - 22:59

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biology

cancer

medicine

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"developed from poisonous nerve gas created for warfare"

Nice scare dogwhistling. Also a bit of a research failure isn't it? Relatives of Mustard Gas were (probably still are) used in chemotherapy - but Mustard Gas is not a nerve agent.

OK, so quite a bit of this is way over my head. But let me see if I understand what's going on here.

What we're really talking about with neoadjuvant chemotherapy is a side effect, yes? An unanticipated adverse reaction where the improvements (smaller tumor) come with a cost that can be adjusted for with other therapies.

Someone ought to tell Mikey, "and in other news, water is wet."

@Orac,

You are smarter than the above-average bear when it comes to convincing the masses that the biological mechanism-of-action is always the desired goal of science-based medicine.

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it." Yogi Berra

"Relatives of Mustard Gas were (probably still are) used in chemotherapy"
Spot on - L-phenylalanine mustard, AKA melphalan and a couple of trade names, is still useful in chemotherapy. Unlike many other chemotherapeutic drugs, it can be given in tablet form as well as by intravenous infusion.

Daily Mail
"We are no longer accepting comments on this article."

Bah, too late :'(

But not even "mustard gas" is actually a gas. It has a boiling point of 423 °F.

Nor does not come from mustard; it smells like mustard (allyl isothiocyanate). It is totally synthetic.

And the "nitrogen mustards"—named by analogy to "mustard gas" by substituting N for S—don't even smell like mustard at all. The most structurally analogous N-mustard (chlormethine) has a "faint odor of herring". It should be called "herring gas".

https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/mechlorethamine#section=Exper…

And it has a boiling point of 189° F, making it also not a gas. ("herring liquid"?)

Phenylalanine "mustard" is even further removed from chlormethine (which isn't even a gas and doesn't even smell like mustard.)

It becomes clear that the term "mustard gas" is a highly-enriched, nuclear-grade misnomer. What all of these chemicals have in common is their ability to alkylate tissues through an "epoxide"-type intermediate* as the molecule loses Cl⁻ in water. They can do this twice (once on each end of the molecule) and can crosslink proteins and DNA similar to malondialdehyde (watch out lysine!).

We have found that reaction of bi-helical DNA with nitrogen mustard concentrations as low as 5 X 10⁻⁷ M, which correspond to an alkylation of approximately 0.005% of the bases, caused a discrete change in the denaturation behavior of a fraction of the DNA.

It crosslinks DNA, as shown by changes in viscosity and increased dehybridization temperature.

Inter-strand Crosslinking of DNA by Nitrogen Mustard (Kohn 1966)

Personally, I think we should all call them "epoxide-like alykylation agents" from now on. This "mustard gas" name should be reserved for bischloroethyl sulfide only.

*MJD is going to take this thought straight to the Glue Department at 3M. (I predict we will see "Mustard Glue™" on the shelves in ~7 years.)

You mean* "mustard" isn't already one of the three "M"s?

* ...mister...

aairfccha: "Nice scare dogwhistling. Also a bit of a research failure isn’t it?"

What else should you expect from Green Med Info?

*MJD is going to take this thought straight to the Glue Department at 3M. (I predict we will see “Mustard Glue™” on the shelves in ~7 years.)

That duck will never fly, even with latex wings.

but Mustard Gas is not a nerve agent.

Ah well. "Poisonous nerve gas created for warfare” -- as opposed to all those poisonous nerve gasses created for civilian applications -- is just a string of Worship Words for GreenMedInfo readership.

You mean* “mustard” isn’t already one of the three “M”s?

Abbey Road isn't my favourite Beatles album (Rubber Soul is), but I am quite attached to that song (it's almost as catchy as Maxwell's Silver Hammer).

You could almost say that it has bonded with me.

I think it was Paul, since it adheres very well to McCartney's prior songs. [It couldn't have been Ringo.]

This last Sunday on CBS "Sunday Morning" the whole episode was focused on cancer. I cringed at the start because, in reviewing the history of cancer, it was noted how in the mid-1900's doctors started using "toxic" chemicals to treat cancer. At least I didn't hear "toxins".

Ugh, your blog posts read like trash celibrity stories, throwing the "quack" word around and making tacky insinuations, I cannot stomach it. Can't you just keep it to the point and factual? If your facts stand, they should do the job of exposing quacks just fine (or even: much better).

Here is a suggestion, Maarten: don't read it.

Chris, I will avoid reading it, but at the same time I'm interested in finding a website that critiques the alties in a constructive manner. I don't know if you have some good suggestions, but if you do, I would appreciate it.

"Alties"? That sure sounds derogatory. That doesn't sound very constructive at all to me! After all "alties" is a term I used to use but rarely do any more because it makes fun of the quacks' marks. Perhaps you should be a little less self-righteous.

Maarten: if you think it would work, why don't YOU start one? Instead of b****ing at Orac?

It's OK. He's just a typical self-righteous guy who's more concerned with tone than with the actual harm quacks do. Having personally seen the harms done by quacks on my own practice and heard countless stories over the years of the harm done by cancer quacks, not to mention having had quacks like this try to get me fired from my job, I make no apologies for taking a—shall we say?—insolent tone when refuting them. I really don't care if people like Maarten clutch their pearls when they encounter it.

Also, Maarten is clearly a newbie here. I use a variety of levels of insolence depending on the topic (and my mood). This blog would become mighty boring (both to readers reading it and me writing it) if I were to start writing the way Maarten seems to prefer. I decline.

Maarten: I like Panacea's suggestion @#17. I believe I can provide some 'constructive' advice.
.
First, we need a respectful term. May I suggest 'Medical Charlatans'?
.
Next we need to agree upon some basic facts.
1. Most MC's are spreading their 'knowledge' in pursuit of fame and/or fortune.
2. In general, their 'knowledge' can, and has, harmed people. This harm includes death as an identifiable risk
3. We can conclude from #1 and #2 that they are, in general, potential killers and their victims include people we know.*
.
Sounds like you've got a killer blog on your hands! There's no telling how many clicks you'd get with a blog named
LET'S ALL BE NICE TO THE PEOPLE TRYING TO KILL US
.
* This isn't abstract knowledge. My wife died of cancer last year, and I got used to telling people that I'd check with the oncologist and nephrologist about their suggested 'treatments.' If they inquired again I'd tell them that the 'treatment' hadn't been tested with Multiple Myeloma patients who had kidney failure. Most people dropped it, but those who pushed the issue were sent to check and see if the Medical Charlantry Miranda warning (formerly known as the Quack Miranda warning,) was invoked. That shut them up..

Maarten: "I don’t know if you have some good suggestions, but if you do, I would appreciate it."

Why should I do that for you? Do you own homework. There are plenty of good doctors/scientist blogs that discuss these subjects. Many have been linked to from this blog. Though if you don't like the tone of this blog, you are going to hate SciBabe.

@ Opus:

re:
LET'S ALL BE NICE TO THE PEOPLE TRYING TO KILL US

You're right.

I spend a great deal of time listening to and reading material that endangers health and simultaneously is extremely vicious 'reporting' on SBM and actual health care providers.

I don't think that we should be nice at all.

We should expose charlatans, quacks and cranks as a service to those who are potentially their victims.

Since they eternally harp upon how much money pharma and SBM make, we can easily show that they are not exactly living on Poverty Row
- plus, unlike real meds, BS meds cost little. If you manufacture vitamins for a small sum and then, market them as cure alls at a high price, that's easy to illustrate.

And it's all over the met.

@Orac#16 I think that if I would be searching for an alternative cancer cure, then I would not mind being called an "altie", but you may be right that this word could be derogatory. Still, it's much better than "quack" in my opinion.

Also, I must say that this blog post is much better than the "Pharma hit squads one", which I read first and I found really distasteful (so when this post started with a dubious reference to The Force, I stopped reading because I had enough, where I should have continued to read).

And I know I am self-righteous, but my impression so far is that you are too.

I have a question about your statement, maybe you would be willing to explain:

"We know that diet and certain environmental exposures can modulate cancer risk for certain cancers, but once the cancer is already established it’s too late for that."

How do you know that its not possible through diet to give the body a significantly increased change to beat an established cancer? Saying it's not possible (or that there is no reason to assume that it could be possible) seems quite a claim.

Maarten: "How do you know that its not possible through diet to give the body a significantly increased change to beat an established cancer? Saying it’s not possible (or that there is no reason to assume that it could be possible) seems quite a claim."

How would that work? What specific biochemical processes coming through the gastrointestinal track would affect the abnormal growth of cancer cells?

Very good question Chris - and one that I ask often.

If a person makes that claim that doing "something" to the body will help fight Cancer, I ask - okay, so exactly by what biological mechanism would this "something" help?

It is something that keeps coming up. During one discussion half a dozen years ago I even downloaded a book by a (literally) die-hard fan of food curing cancer, and read it. I found it lacking:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/08/02/rip-david-servan-schreiber…

If Maarten could go over there and find the missing cites that I kept asking for, that would be very nice.

Chris, it's interesting that you use the word "lacking", and not "nonsense" or "hogwash". I will try to make the list of cites you asked for and post it here hopefully soon. I can already say that it's strange to ask for an *exact* biological mechanism just to support my claim that it could be possible that a change in diet significantly increases the bodies ability to heal itself from cancer (if someone is eating poorly and has - for example - chronic headaches that have no direct explanation, wouldn't you advise them to start eating healthier because *maybe* there is a relation between their diet and their headaches?)

it’s strange to ask for an *exact* biological mechanism just to support my claim that it could be possible that a change in diet significantly increases the bodies ability to heal itself from cancer

Postulating a biological mechanism gives a head start on deciding which (of the hundreds) of kinds of cancer you could address with your postulated change of diet. It also gives a clue as to what stage of that cancer it could help with. It would also help predict interactions (and interferences with standard-of-care therapies that will be used with your diet changes.

A claim that it could be possible is useful for only two purposes: (a) preparing for planning of clinical testing or (b) inventing a pseudo-science claim to support (e. g.) advertising for yet another Cancer Cure!!!!! book. "Could be possible" isn't useful by itself in science or in real life; it's plenty for a woo-grifter, though.

Maarten -

As an example: You can dramatically reduce your risk of getting lung cancer by not smoking. However, once you have lung cancer, stopping smoking will not cause it to regress.

Or as an analogy.. I can reduce the risk of fire in my house by insisting on only the bast and safest electrical appliances. However, if my house is on fire, upgrading all my electrics will do nothing to stop it.

It's possible that there is some change in diet that can affect the course of cancer, but it would be a horrendously difficult study to do; you'd be looking at a minor effect (probably) and have to persuade a great many cancer patients to change their diets and stick with the new diet for a considerable period of time. Hard work.

Any food that helps treat an already established cancer will probably also have these side effects.
https://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatments-and-side-effects/treatment-…

Any effect a healthy diet would have on cancer would probably be to help the cancer grow. It would give the tumor cells the resources they need for replication and to build new circulatory networks to keep those resources flowing.

The converse doesn't mean it would hurt the cancer, since tumor cells are very good at appropriating resources for their own growth, which is why cancer patients lose so much weight.

Honestly all diet will do for you is let the cancer kill you more slowly.

Chris, to answer your question: diet may impact cancer growth through its relation to the IGF-1 levels in the body. The reasons to consider this possibility are:

- IGF-1 is directly involved in (tumor and normal) cell growth
- Congenital IGF-1 deficiency is associated with dramatically lower cancer rates
- vegans have significantly lower IGF-1 levels and higher IGF-1 binding capacity (suggesting that the IGF-1 level can be directly influenced by diet)

References to scientific papers are given in these short videos from which I learned these findings:
- https://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-plant-based-to-lower-igf-1/
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/cancer-proofing-mutation/
- https://nutritionfacts.org/video/igf-1-as-one-stop-cancer-shop/

Based on this information, I would not exclude the possibility that adopting a vegan diet might significantly improve the bodies ability to fight cancer.

Videos? Anyway, as I've mentioned before, my best friend, a 20-year vegan, died of metastatic colorectal cancer at age 40 and never even got to see his second child. This brand of idiocy pisses me right the f*ck off.

ps I just learned that the ketogenic diet is another example of how diet *might* play a significant role in fighting cancer. Perhaps a ketogenic vegan diet would combine the benefits of both?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3826507/

Maarten: maybe you shouldn't exclude it but you certainly shouldn't include it.

This website is a prime example of the kind of thing I teach nursing students to avoid when citing sources, or educating patients. The website has an agenda, and that agenda is to sell products, specifically his books and podcasts. Dr. Gerger even has the gall to promote his site as a non profit 501(c)(3). Bascially, he's asking to be paid to promote an unproven point of view as science.

Panacea: if what he says is unbalanced, then which results and papers should he also have mentioned to present a balanced point of view regarding the relation between cancer and diet?

How about this one for starters?

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-gonzalez-trial-for-pancreatic-canc…

Or PubMed links to studies that show a real benefit to nutrition in treating cancer.

As my phone won't display that PMC link, I must simply say that I can't wait to find out what the typical menu would look like on a "ketogenic began diet."

^ Freaking autocorrect: vegan, not "began."

"I would not exclude the possibility that adopting a vegan diet might significantly improve the bodies ability to fight cancer."

Remember to include the reality that adopting a vegan diet has never been shown to improve outcomes for cancer patients. Of course, you can speculate to your heart's content, connecting as many vague and disparate dots as you like.

squirrelelite, the research in that link doesn't involve a vegan diet. Vegetarians and meat eaters have comparable levels of IGF-1, as shown in the graph in the video that I mentioned (https://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-plant-based-to-lower-igf-1/)

Also, how would giving *more* evidence on the benefits of the vegan diet correct the supposed inbalance in his view? Isn't this balancing supposed to happen by giving evidence to the contrary?

But in any case, he mentions nutrition research regularly, such as in this video: https://nutritionfacts.org/video/best-supplements-for-prostate-cancer/

@Narad, I'm very sorry about your friend. I strongly oppose any claim or suggestion that vegans will never get cancer. The videos I posted contain clear references to scientific publications (the title and authors can be easily read off the screen).

Video pimp.

Maarten,

The "just look at the video" method of proof offered by your favorite website, and its selective reporting & poor objectivity, has been addressed by Harriett Hall.

Take a look at her critique of Greger's vegan claims.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/death-as-a-foodborne-illness-curable-b…

Elliot, how is "just look at the video" a method of proof? Why is a list of publications written in ascii characters worth more than the same list written as pixels in a series of video frames? If you really care, then I am willing to translate from pixels to ascii, but it seems like a silly exercise to me.

I thank you for the link to the critique of dr Gregors presentation, I will read it with interest and post back here later.

As my great grandfather, an editor at the Washington Post, said: never believe it until you read it in the cold light of print.

What that means is that speech and the spoken word (and video also) use tricks of rhetoric to specifically and deliberately to induce emotions, to cloud rational thought, to baffle and beguile. It forces the listener to move at the speaker's pace, not their own.

If you send me a video I know you've got something to hide.

rs, I object to the word pimp (especially because of connotation with sexual exploitation, yuck!)

Zucchini's can help fight against prostate cancer.

Never use the word "zucchini" and "prostate" in the same sentence...

You might give Maarten the wrong idea.

Oooh, look it is videos! Woot, the type of "evidence" one resorts to when they have no clue how science works. And he even keeps posting to Greger's site even after being told not to! Seriously, Greger is not a reliable source of information:
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/death-as-a-foodborne-illness-curable-b…

I only want to see PubMed indexed studies that prove that something passing through the gastrointestinal track causes the abnormal cancer cells to stop reproducing in vivo. So no petri dish studies!

Rats, I skimmed to fast and repeated Elliot's link.

"Why is a list of publications written in ascii characters worth more than the same list written as pixels in a series of video frames?"

Because they are usually peer reviewed for some semblance of accuracy and include references. Of course, instead of making us waste our time watching silly videos, then you watch them and transcribe the PubMed indexed studies that are mentioned. Come back and list those studies. Posting their identification numbers (PMID) is sufficient.

JustaTech, all claims in the video are backed by references (giving the titles and authors of the corresponding papers). I thought that was good enough. If instead of the video, I would give you the list of references cited in the video, without any narrative about why the information in these papers suggests a significant relation between diet and cancer, would you go through them and find out for yourself if such a relation exists?

Also, is a scripted presentation that different from a written blog post? I think it's not. Just as you can critique anything written in a blog post, so you can critique anything said in a video (I assume we're able here to pause the video if necessary and think critically about anything that's claimed). I think it's helpful that people go to conferences, hear inspiring talks, and then ask themselves: is this really true? If nobody tried to create compelling narratives, I think science would progress more slowly.

Chris, the videos contain the references (lots of them). You can just read the titles and authors of the papers right off the screen. I even mentioned this to you in my previous message: "References to scientific papers are given in these short videos from which I learned these findings"

But since everyone is making such a big deal out of it, I will extract the titles of the papers from these videos, tomorrow.

Maarten, have you read any of the papers referenced in the videos you want us to look at? If so, you really only need to point out, say, the top 2 or 3 that most support the idea "that adopting a vegan diet might significantly improve the bodies ability to fight cancer".

If you haven't actually looked at the papers, well, I expect a Gish Gallop.

But since everyone is making such a big deal out of it, I will extract the titles of the papers from these videos, tomorrow.

Why not today? Do you have a zucchini to carve?

Be sure to get the journal reference, including the issue date, while you're at it; although any standard reference will do, like PMID# or NIH link.

Sorry, Sara, I clicked on the wrong "Reply" button.

Maarten: "But since everyone is making such a big deal out of it, I will extract the titles of the papers from these videos, tomorrow."

Good. That will give us a basis to judge Greger's data. Be warned, he is not considered a reliable source of evidence.

You could make the argument that a vegan diet with reduce the chance of getting prostate cancer by lowering IGF-1. Cancers of the breast and prostate are known to responsive to three things: steroid hormones, IFG-1, and eicosanoids.

But a vegan diet could increase eicosanoid production through linoleic acid.

linoleic acid ⟹ arachidonic acid ⟹ eicosanoids

A litany of rat studies from the late 70s and early 80s will confirm than linoleic acid consumption is proportional both to spontaneous cancer incidence and tumor size in chemical carcinogen models.

Eicosanoids work mainly through the PPAR receptors (I know that's a redundant acronym but bear with me). These are nuclear receptors—which interact with DNA directly—that can influence the entire transcriptome, making linoleic acid (through eicosanoid production) on the same level of cellular control as retinoic acid and thyroxine.

Although a dairy-free diet (not necessarily vegan) is bound to lower serum levels of both IGF-1 and steroid hormones (prostate and breast growth factors), it could potentially raise the production of prostaglandins and other eicosanoids. Care must be taken with a vegan diet to limit linoleic acid.

Through this mechanism is how the anti-cancer effect of fish oil (ω−3) is usually explained (free radical explanations fail, since fish oil has a higher iodine value). Omega minus three fatty acids positively interfere with eicosanoid production, likely by acting as enzymatic competitive inhibitors (ligands).

A study from Chapel Hill in the 90s took fat biopsies of confirmed cases of prostate cancer and found enough elevated linoleic acid* levels to calculate risk ratios of about five.

*Care must be taken to distinguish ω−6 linoleic acid with α-linoleic acid (ω−3).

How's the job search going, Travis J. Schwochert?

^ Oh, wait:

Through this mechanism is how the anti-cancer effect of fish oil (ω−3) is usually explained (free radical explanations fail, since fish oil has a higher iodine value). Omega minus three fatty acids....

That's a keeper.

I feel like a vegan ketogenic diet should be called "Kaleo."

“Kaleo.”

;-)

It turns out that the links I posted are supplied with a transcript and list of citations! Just visit the link, and click on "sources cited" in the footer. Looking forward to leaving the discussion about "video as a format" behind now and hearing your reactions on the content.

That’s a keeper.

You're exposing your ignorance Narad. Did you think it was a hyphen like most people?

The only reason I spelled it out was because I didn't want to begin a sentence with a lowercase Greek letter, and "Ω−3" would probably just confuse you further. Besides, most editors would prefer seeing sentences that didn't start with things like numbers or abbreviations. Some style guides even recommend avoiding sentences which begin with acronyms (although this is rife in the literature.)

I'll give you a break since you are obviously foreign.

Maarten, I'm not going to waste my time watching self serving advertisements.

Either YOU, using appropriate citations, explain your point, or you don't.

If you don't then you're admitting it's all BS.

Panacea, if you are unwilling to read dr Gregers transcripts and list of citations, then fine, don't. I won't pretend that I can make the case for a vegan diet better than he can. Maybe someone else here is open minded enough to take a look.

Maybe someone else here is open minded has enough time to waste to take a look.

FTFY.

"open minded enough"

I knew someone like that. His brains had to be mopped up. It didn't take long.

Maarten, then cut and paste the citations here. You are making the claims, therefore you need to provide the PubMed indexed studies of those claims. We are not going watch videos nor wade through transcripts.

Chris, here you go:

Papers cited in https://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-plant-based-to-lower-igf-1/:

Allen NE, Appleby PN, Davey GK, Key TJ. Hormones and diet: low insulin-like growth factor-I but normal bioavailable androgens in vegan men. Br J Cancer. 2000 Jul;83(1):95-7.

Ngo TH, Barnard RJ, Tymchuk CN, Cohen P, Aronson. Effect of diet and exercise on serum insulin, IGF-I, and IGFBP-1 levels and growth of LNCaP cells in vitro (United States). Cancer Causes Control. 2002 Dec;13(10):929-35.

Allen NE, Appleby PN, Davey GK, Kaaks R, Rinaldi S, Key TJ. The Associations of Diet with Serum Insulin-like Growth Factor I and Its Main Binding Proteins in 292 Women Meat-Eaters, Vegetarians, and Vegans. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2002 Nov;11(11):1441-8.

Ornish D, Weidner G, Fair WR, Marlin R, Pettengill EB, Raisin CJ, Dunn-Emke S, Crutchfield L, Jacobs FN, Barnard RJ, Aronson WJ, McCormac P, McKnight DJ, Fein JD, Dnistrian AM, Weinstein J, Ngo TH, Mendell NR, Carroll PR. Intensive lifestyle changes may affect the progression of prostate cancer. J Urol. 2005 Sep;174(3):1065-9; discussion 1069-70.

Papers cited in https://nutritionfacts.org/video/cancer-proofing-mutation/:

Guevara-Aguirre J, Balasubramanian P, Guevara-Aguirre M, Wei M, Madia F, Cheng CW, Hwang D, Martin-Montalvo A, Saavedra J, Ingles S, de Cabo R, Cohen P, Longo VD. Growth hormone receptor deficiency is associated with a major reduction in pro-aging signaling, cancer, and diabetes in humans. Sci Transl Med. 2011 Feb 16;3(70):70ra13.

Papers cited in https://nutritionfacts.org/video/igf-1-as-one-stop-cancer-shop/:

Yang SY, Miah A, Pabari A, Winslet M. Growth Factors and their receptors in cancer metastases. Front Biosci. 2011 Jan 1;16:531-8.

Zhang Y, Ma B, Fan Q. Mechanisms of breast cancer bone metastasis. Cancer Lett. 2010 Jun 1;292(1):1-7.

Kleinberg DL, Wood TL, Furth PA, Lee AV. Growth Hormone and Insulin-Like Growth Factor-I in the Transition from Normal Mammary Development to Preneoplastic Mammary Lesions. Endocr Rev. 2009 Feb;30(1):51-74.

Salvioli S, Capri M, Bucci L, Lanni C, Racchi M, Uberti D, Memo M, Mari D, Govoni S, Franceschi C. Why do centenarians escape or postpone cancer? The role of IGF-1, inflammation and p53. Cancer Immunol Immunother. 2009 Dec;58(12):1909-17.

Endogenous Hormones and Breast Cancer Collaborative Group, Key TJ, Appleby PN, Reeves GK, Roddam AW. Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1), IGF binding protein 3 (IGFBP3), and breast cancer risk: pooled individual data analysis of 17 prospective studies. Lancet Oncol. 2010 Jun;11(6):530-42

Rowlands MA, Gunnell D, Harris R, Vatten LJ, Holly JM, Martin RM. Circulating insulin-like growth factor peptides and prostate cancer risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Int J Cancer. 2009 May 15;124(10):2416-29.

Gronek, Piotr ; Rychlewski, Tadeusz ; Słomski, Ryszard ; Stankiewicz, Krystyna ; Lehmann, Joanna. Insulin-like growth factor 1. Studies in Physical Culture and Tourism. 2005;12(1).

Piantanelli L. Cancer and aging: from the kinetics of biological parameters to the kinetics of cancer incidence and mortality. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 1988;521:99-109.
CDC Growth Charts. CDC. 2000.

Papers cited in https://nutritionfacts.org/video/best-supplements-for-prostate-cancer/:

Jacobs DR Jr, Tapsell LC. Food, not nutrients, is the fundamental unit in nutrition. Nutr Rev. 2007 Oct;65(10):439-50.

Thompson HJ, Heimendinger J, Diker A, O'Neill C, Haegele A, Meinecke B, Wolfe P, Sedlacek S, Zhu Z, Jiang W. Dietary botanical diversity affects the reduction of oxidative biomarkers in women due to high vegetable and fruit intake. J Nutr. 2006 Aug;136(8):2207-12.

Lansky EP. Beware of pomegranates bearing 40% ellagic Acid. J Med Food. 2006 Spring;9(1):119-22.

Bhupathiraju SN, Tucker KL. Greater variety in fruit and vegetable intake is associated with lower inflammation in Puerto Rican adults. Am J Clin Nutr. 2011 Jan;93(1):37-46.

Ye X, Bhupathiraju SN, Tucker KL. Variety in fruit and vegetable intake and cognitive function in middle-aged and older Puerto Rican adults. Br J Nutr. 2013 Feb 14;109(3):503-10.

Lansky EP, Jiang W, Mo H, Bravo L, Froom P, Yu W, Harris NM, Neeman I, Campbell MJ. Possible synergistic prostate cancer suppression by anatomically discrete pomegranate fractions. Invest New Drugs. 2005 Jan;23(1):11-20.

Freedland SJ, Carducci M, Kroeger N, Partin A, Rao JY, Jin Y, Kerkoutian S, Wu H, Li Y, Creel P, Mundy K, Gurganus R, Fedor H, King SA, Zhang Y, Heber D, Pantuck AJ. A double-blind, randomized, neoadjuvant study of the tissue effects of POMx pills in men with prostate cancer before radical prostatectomy. Cancer Prev Res (Phila). 2013 Oct;6(10):1120-7.

Chrubasik-Hausmann S, Vlachojannis C, Zimmermann B. Pomegranate juice and prostate cancer: importance of the characterisation of the active principle. Phytother Res. 2014 Nov;28(11):1676-8.

Thomas R, Williams M, Sharma H, Chaudry A, Bellamy P. A double-blind, placebo-controlled randomised trial evaluating the effect of a polyphenol-rich whole food supplement on PSA progression in men with prostate cancer--the U.K. NCRN Pomi-T study. Prostate Cancer Prostatic Dis. 2014 Jun;17(2):180-6.

Stenner-Liewen F, Liewen H, Cathomas R, Renner C, Petrausch U, Sulser T, Spanaus K, Seifert HH, Strebel RT, Knuth A, Samaras P, Müntener M. Daily Pomegranate Intake Has No Impact on PSA Levels in Patients with Advanced Prostate Cancer - Results of a Phase IIb Randomized Controlled Trial. J Cancer. 2013 Aug 29;4(7):597-605.

You’re exposing your ignorance Narad. Did you think it was a hyphen like most people?

Because if you count from the carboxyl end, it's a plus sign, amirite? No, Fucklesworth, only you and some Wikipediot thinks that that's a minus sign, viz., that working backward of the last letter in the Greek alphabet is an arithmetic operation.

It's a wonder you can even breathe.

It turns out that the links I posted are supplied with a transcript and list of citations! Just visit the link, and click on “sources cited” in the footer.

Great. Do it yourself. I, for one, simply don't bother with such* videos, whether presented by Orac or the commentariat. I read.

* Yes, I'll cop to the occasional musical interlude, but I don't expect anyone to look at those, either.

I can't believe that you people are doubting Maarten. Obviously, lower levels of IGF-1 and steroid hormones would be expected to lower the incidence of prostate cancer.

There are dozens of studies proving how androgens stimulate the prostate. It's even common to refer to some prostate cancers as either "androgen-refractory" or "androgen-resistant".

Milk contains 5α-androstenedione and 5α-pregnanedione, and the concentration of total androgens is significant.

And the rBHG used in modern dairy production has been shown to raise IGF-1 levels fourfold in the amounts commonly employed.

More likely he doesn't have the links because he's never typed them into a browser and read those pages either. Otherwise it'd be a trivial matter to pull them out of the browser's history by typing a few characters of the domain name.

Well, Maarten, I can already see a problem with one of the studies you listed as a citation from the videos you're pimping.

I decided to grab one of the articles at random, and pull it for review. The one I chose was:

So here's my issue with this article. It doesn't actually measure the progression of prostate cancer. It measures changes in PSA, which we know isn't the most reliable marker (it's why the USPSTF no longer recommends routine PSA screening). That's the problem with citing a source that's as old as this one (12 years old). Science can change quite rapidly in that kind of time frame.

The time frame of the study was too short; only one year. It included other lifestyle interventions besides diet which were not controlled for in determining what really affected the PSA. Was it the diet or the yoga? They also dismissed a similar study with negative results because the diets in that study were not "as low in fat" and did not include exercise or stress management.

If the rest of your citations are this bad, then I am very glad I did not watch these videos. That would have been time from my life I never would have gotten back.

Elliot, Chris, I read the critique by Hall, it was interesting. This is my opinion on her points:

CVD:

The author (Hall) critices Greger for quoting an article by Caldwell Esselstyn. Indeed Greger is quoting a conclusion from that paper in the conclusion of his own talk. However, he has not used that paper in his argumentation (he came to this conclusion through other means), so weaknesses in that paper cannot invalidate his argument.

Cancer:

Hall criticises Greger for the same quote from Esselstyn. For the reason already stated, her point is moot.

Inflammation:

Hall criticizes Greger for citing a study (Vogel RA1, Corretti MC, Plotnick GD) that does not use a control group. However, a criticism of a study does not necessary make a criticism of an argument (Greger draws on various studies, and is therefore not necessarily constrained by a limitation in one of those studies). To summarize Greger's full argument: eating meat causes an inflammation reaction that puts arteries in a crippled state (not "cripple" them as Hall misquotes, because that term suggests that they remain in the crippled state, which they don't). This crippled state is caused by endotoxins unique to meat, whose access to the arteries is faciliated by properties unique to animal fat.
If Greger's claim holds that the inflammation is caused by factors present in meat but not plants (and obviously, Hall is free to attack him on this point, but she didn't), then Greger's argument is not invalidated by the absence of a control group in the study by Vogel et al.

COPD:

Greger only makes one reference to COPD in his talk: "Thankfully, COPD can be prevented with the help of a plant-based diet, and even treated with plants if you want to check that out." So he encourages the audience to check it out for themselves, but does not try to make an argument for the benefit of a vegan diet on COPD. So it's beyond me why Hall suggests that Greger's argument "relies on a study that measured exhaled NO", as he is not making any argument! In fact, while he briefly mentions COPD, Greger shows a slide from a different paper called "Impact of dietary shift to higher-antioxidant foods in COPD: a randomised trial". If you want to guess about Greger's reason for believing that a plant-based diet can prevent COPD, that paper would have been a better candidate.

Alzheimers:

Hall misquotes Greger by asserting that he said: “We’ve known for 20 years that those who eat meat are 2-3 times as likely to become demented as vegetarians.” He actually used the words "appear between 2 to 3 times more likely". This result is based on a matched study. A different non-matched study found no statistically significant difference. So does the absence of a result in the unmatched study invalidate the claim that "that those who eat meat—red or white—appear between 2 to 3 times more likely to become demented, compared to vegetarians"? I would say it depends on how you interpret the word "appear".

Other claims:

Hall again critizes Greger for flaws in a cited paper, without attacking his full argument. She writes: 'He cites a study concluding “Our results suggest that a decrease in meat consumption may improve weight management.” Suggest, may, decrease. Not veganism.' Attacking the paper only works if the validity of the argumentation hinges on it.

Hall writes: "He compares raw meat to hand grenades, because of bacterial contamination. If you don’t handle them safely, it’s like pulling the pin. Are we selling hand grenades in grocery stores?". It escapes me why the vending place of these items would preclude a comparison, maybe someone can explain. Then she writes: "This is a ridiculous comparison, and it ignores the fact that plant-based foods can be a source of contamination too." I agree there, it's quite ridiculous (I even take this comparison as a kind of joke, not intended very seriously).

What do other studies show about the Benefits and Risks of veganism:

Hall writes: "This study showed mortality from ischemic heart disease was 26% lower in vegans and 34% lower in lacto-ovo-vegetarians (in other words, it’s better not to eliminate milk and eggs)." That's interesting, but I would like to know if the difference of 8 percent points between vegans and vegetarians is statistically significant. The paper itself says:

- The number of vegans was small (n = 753 subjects, 68 deaths), so the analyses in Table 7⇑ were repeated with the inclusion of data from the Health Food Shoppers Study, making the assumptions that all nonvegetarians were regular meat eaters and that vegetarians who reported that they did not consume dairy products were vegans. This increased the number of vegans to 1146, of whom 165 died before age 90 y. However, the numbers of deaths from individual cancers among vegans remained small (range: 3–8). The death rate ratios for the vegans compared with the regular meat eaters from the other causes of death were: for ischemic heart disease, 0.89 (95% CI: 0.65, 1.24; NS); for cerebrovascular disease, 0.51 (95% CI: 0.26, 1.00; NS); for other causes, 1.39 (95% CI: 1.12, 1.72; P < 0.01); and for all causes, 1.06 (95% CI: 0.81, 1.38). However, these death rate ratios should be interpreted with caution because of the uncertainty of the dietary classification of subjects in the Health Food Shoppers Study.

- Mortality from ischemic heart disease among the vegans was slightly higher than among the fish eaters and the vegetarians, but the number of vegans was small.

Hall writes: "Another study showed that the healthiest people in Europe, the inhabitants of Iceland, Switzerland, and Scandinavia, consume large amounts of animal foods." This paper does not study the plant-based diet, so I fail to see the point (if these people are healthier than vegans, then I would be very interested).

Hall writes: "This study found no significant differences in mortality between vegetarians and nonvegetarians.". This paper also not study the plant-based diet. What is does say about vegans is: "In this article, the vegans are included with the vegetarians because there were too few deaths among the vegans to report separately." For some unexplained reason the "death rates of participants are much lower than average for the United Kingdom. The standardized mortality ratio for all causes of death was 52%". So it seems the sample was biased towards healthy people.

"There are risks". Yes, all vegans should take a B-12 supplement.

Confounders:

Hall writes: "The elephant in the room is weight loss. Vegans weigh less than meat eaters, and many of the benefts claimed could be consequences of weight loss, particularly in diabetes. And they could be a consequence of eating more fruits and vegetables, rather than avoiding meat and milk.". I agree, let's find out!

She also writes: "The data he finds most convincing are from the 7th Day Adventist study." Why is that the data that he finds most convincing? Personally, I think he is more excited about the IGF-1 findings.

She writes: "Until we have confirmatory data from other studies in a general population, I don’t think it is wise to hang our hat on these decades-old Adventist studies.". I agree that we shouldn't, and I don't think we hang our hat on this study.

Can diabetes be cured?

Hall writes: "He says it can be cured by a plant-based diet, but the general consensus of medical experts is that diabetes can’t be “cured.”" The general consensus has changed in the past, often.

Other diet beliefs

Hall writes: "If the evidence were really so clear-cut in favor of veganism, we wouldn’t have all these differing approaches." Well, maybe people simply haven't heard the evidence. Many people don't even know what a vegan diet is.

What about the Eskimos?

"Blubber is a staple of the Inuit diet, and it contains large amounts of antioxidants. Atherosclerosis is practically unknown in Greenland. In Uummannaq, Greenland, a population of 3000 residents had no deaths due to CVD in the 1970s."

By all means, let's find out why the people eating blubber have much lower CVD than regular meat eaters. These foods are usually not included when comparing a plant-based diet to a standard diet. Maybe, instead of switching from regular meat to plants, some of us can switch to seal and whale.

Panacea, I'm sorry I made you loose time. You might be right, perhaps the drop in PSA was not indicating a change in the cancer growth, and if it did, maybe it was of some of the other lifestyle changes, not the vegan diet. I won't ask you any further to consider that maybe diet has something to do with it.

The only reason I spelled it out was because I didn’t want to begin a sentence with a lowercase Greek letter, and “Ω−3” would probably just confuse you further.

No, as a remarkably stupid choice versus, say, "Omega-3," like the rest of the known universe writes, it would have been a slight improvement over your usual attempts, Travis.

Besides, most editors would prefer seeing sentences that didn’t start with things like numbers or abbreviations. Some style guides even recommend avoiding sentences which [sic] begin with acronyms (although this is rife in the literature.)

Do tell, Mr. Schwochert, do tell. I suspect that my library access is a tad superior to that in Endeavor, Wisconsin.

Oh, and Travoid? You and the Wikipudlians lose on IUPAC rule Lip-1.16, too. HTH. HAND. FOADIAF.

Because if you count from the carboxyl end, it’s a plus sign, amirite? No, Fucklesworth, only you and some Wikipediot thinks that that’s a minus sign, viz., that working backward of the last letter in the Greek alphabet is an arithmetic operation.

The carboxyl carbon is big delta (Δ), and omega (ω) is the aliphatic terminus. The reason why alpha isn't used for the carboxyl carbon is because little alpha (α) is generally reserved for naming carbons directly adjacent to carbonyl carbons (see any organic chemistry textbook). No amount of subcontinental apoplectic fury is going to make you right.

So go crawl back in your sari.

The proposed mechanism produces 'signature' succinate metabolites, usually by addition to the
benzylic position in alkylaromatics with C 1-3 alkyl groups, or by addition to the omega minus
two or omega minus three positions in aromatics with longer side chains...

Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography-mass spectrometry of complex mixtures of anaerobic bacterial metabolites of petroleum hydrocarbons
Journal of Chromatography A
C. Aitken

Because if you count from the carboxyl end, it’s a plus sign, amirite? No, Fucklesworth, only you and some Wikipediot thinks that that’s a minus sign, viz., that working backward of the last letter in the Greek alphabet is an arithmetic operation.

You're wrong Narad. The carboxyl carbon is big delta (Δ), and omega (ω) is the aliphatic terminus. The reason why alpha isn't used for the carboxyl carbon is because little alpha (α) is generally reserved for naming carbons directly adjacent to carbonyl carbons (see any organic chemistry textbook). No amount of subcontinental apoplectic fury is going to make you right.

So go crawl back in your sari.

The proposed mechanism produces 'signature' succinate metabolites, usually by addition to the
benzylic position in alkylaromatics with C 1-3 alkyl groups, or by addition to the omega minus
two or omega minus three positions in aromatics with longer side chains...

Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography-mass spectrometry of complex mixtures of anaerobic bacterial metabolites of petroleum hydrocarbons
Journal of Chromatography A
C. Aitken

Because if you count from the carboxyl end, it’s a plus sign, amirite? No, Fucklesworth, only you and some Wikipediot thinks that that’s a minus sign, viz., that working backward of the last letter in the Greek alphabet is an arithmetic operation.

Wrong. The carboxyl carbon is big delta (Δ), and omega (ω) is the aliphatic terminus. The reason why alpha isn't used for the carboxyl carbon is because little alpha (α) is generally reserved for naming carbons directly adjacent to carbonyl carbons (see any organic chemistry textbook). No amount of subcontinental apoplectic fury is going to make you right.

So go crawl back in your sari.

The proposed mechanism produces 'signature' succinate metabolites, usually by addition to the
benzylic position in alkylaromatics with C 1-3 alkyl groups, or by addition to the omega minus
two or omega minus three positions in aromatics with longer side chains...

Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography-mass spectrometry of complex mixtures of anaerobic bacterial metabolites of petroleum hydrocarbons
Journal of Chromatography A
C. Aitken

Because if you count from the carboxyl end, it’s a plus sign, amirite? No, Fucklesworth, only you and some Wikipediot thinks that that’s a minus sign, viz., that working backward of the last letter in the Greek alphabet is an arithmetic operation.

You're mind-numbingly stupid Narad. The carboxyl carbon is big delta (Δ), and omega (ω) is the aliphatic terminus. The reason why alpha isn't used for the carboxyl carbon is because little alpha (α) is generally reserved for naming carbons directly adjacent to carbonyl carbons (see any organic chemistry textbook). No amount of subcontinental apoplectic fury is going to make you right.

So go crawl back in your sari.

The proposed mechanism produces 'signature' succinate metabolites, usually by addition to the
benzylic position in alkylaromatics with C 1-3 alkyl groups, or by addition to the omega minus
two or omega minus three positions in aromatics with longer side chains...

Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography-mass spectrometry of complex mixtures of anaerobic bacterial metabolites of petroleum hydrocarbons
Journal of Chromatography A
C. Aitken

Is this publication any good? It seems to support my earlier claim that IGF-1 levels are a potential mechanism through which diet can affect cancer growth.

"Dietary and pharmacological modification of the insulin/IGF-1 system: exploiting the full repertoire against cancer"

http://www.nature.com/oncsis/journal/v5/n2/full/oncsis20162a.html?foxtr…

(don't worry Panacea, not asking you)

Unbelievable.

Because if you count from the carboxyl end, it’s a plus sign, amirite? No, Fucklesworth, only you and some Wikipediot thinks that that’s a minus sign, viz., that working backward of the last letter in the Greek alphabet is an arithmetic operation.

Wrong. The carboxyl carbon is big delta (Δ), and omega (ω) is the aliphatic terminus. The reason why alpha isn’t used for the carboxyl carbon is because little alpha (α) is generally reserved for naming carbons directly adjacent to carbonyl carbons (see any organic chemistry textbook). No amount of subcontinental apoplectic fury is going to make you right.
Review the nomenclature.

The proposed mechanism produces ‘signature’ succinate metabolites, usually by addition to the
benzylic position in alkylaromatics with C 1-3 alkyl groups, or by addition to the omega minus
two or omega minus three positions in aromatics with longer side chains…

Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography-mass spectrometry of complex mixtures of anaerobic bacterial metabolites of petroleum hydrocarbons
Journal of Chromatography A
C. Aitken

Because if you count from the carboxyl end, it’s a plus sign, amirite? No, Fμcklesworth, only you and some Wikipediot thinks that that’s a minus sign, viz., that working backward of the last letter in the Greek alphabet is an arithmetic operation.

It is an operation. The carboxyl carbon is big delta (Δ), and omega (ω) is the aliphatic terminus. The reason why alpha isn’t used for the carboxyl carbon is because little alpha (α) is generally reserved for naming carbons directly adjacent to carbonyl carbons (see any organic chemistry textbook). No amount of subcontinental apoplectic fury is going to make you right.

Review the nomenclature.

The proposed mechanism produces ‘signature’ succinate metabolites, usually by addition to the
benzylic position in alkylaromatics with C 1-3 alkyl groups, or by addition to the omega minus
two or omega minus three positions in aromatics with longer side chains…

Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography-mass spectrometry of complex mixtures of anaerobic bacterial metabolites of petroleum hydrocarbons
Journal of Chromatography A
C. Aitken

No, as a remarkably stupid choice versus, say, “Omega-3,” like the rest of the known universe writes, it would have been a slight improvement...

No. That would have been wrong; a hyphen is not a minus sign. The minus sign sits on the same level as the plus sign and it's longer: (- − +)

Some style guides even recommend avoiding sentences which [sic] begin with acronyms (although this is rife in the literature.)

Do tell

Do you really need an example?

Abstract

15-Deoxy-Δ12,14-prostaglandin J2 (15d-PGJ2) is a bioactive prostanoid produced by dehydration and isomerization of PGD2, a cyclooxygenase product. It was recently shown to activate the nuclear peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ), a critical transcription factor involved in adipocyte and monocyte differentiation. In this report, we show that 15d-PGJ2 is a potent inducer of caspase-mediated endothelial cell apoptosis. PPARα, -δ, and -γ were expressed by endothelial cells, which, when treated with 15d-PGJ2...

Endothelial Cell Apoptosis Induced by the Peroxisome Proliferator-activated Receptor (PPAR) Ligand 15-Deoxy-Δ12,14-prostaglandin J2
Journal of Biological Chemistry
David Bishop-Bailey

You and the Wikipudlians lose on IUPAC rule Lip-1.16, too.

Weird how the rule you cite is in direct opposition to what you are saying, and confirms exactly what I've been trying to tell you:

Lip-1.16. It is sometimes desirable (for example, in discussing the biosynthesis of lipids) to indicate the position of each double bond with reference not to the carboxyl group (always C-1), but to the end of the chain remote from the carboxyl. If n is the number of carbon atoms in the chain (i.e. the locant of the terminal methyl group) and x is the (lower) locant of the double bond, the position of the double bond may be defined as (n minus x). Thus, the common position of the double bond in oleic and nervonic acids may be given as 18-9 and 24-9, respectively. This structural regularity should not be expressed as ω9.

That's not a style guide, Fuckleswoth, and apparently, your reading skills are abysmal.

Sigh. Another day when I was too busy and beat to provide new material and look what happened. I'm definitely going to have to make sure to step up tomorrow.

Wow, not since the days of Sheri Lewis have I seen that level of sock puppetry.

Maarten, oh, showing you how wrong you are is fun. That's easy to do when you provide the actual citations.

It's watching dumb advertising in the form of "educational video" that's the waste of time.

So with your latest link let me ask you this: just what does tinkering with how insulin works have to do with a vegan diet? How does this support your contention that a vegan diet somehow prevents or is useful in treating cancer?

Panacea, my claim is that diet (in general) may somehow prevent or be useful in treating cancer.

I gave the vegan diet as an example, based on the argumentation by Greger, which you rejected a priori (because you already know that analyzing his arguments would be a waste of time).

I offered the publication on the ketogenic diet and the publication in nature as support for my general claim.

ps I would be still interested why you object to his video. To me it's no different from attending a lecture in real life: it's just slides showing highlights from peer reviewed papers, with a voice over. Do you avoid any such presentations in general?

Orac,

Can you do me a kindness? The post #88 is not by me. Some crank has decided to start posting in my identity, as has happened elsewhere.

You can check the IP and email address to see that it isn't me.

What his or her game is, god only knows.

It's gone. It looks like our resident impersonating troll is back. I will try to be more vigilant. It sure was nice the three months or so during which he gave up.

It's probably Travis, Brian.

Good news is, I think the regulars here knew it wasn't you instantly. But yeah the fake post needs to go.

Maarten: what I rejected categorically was watching videos that were clearly advertisements. I went to Dr. Greger's website. Once I realized it is a commercial website (and it is, he's abusing his 501(c)(3) status, I realized the videos would have nothing of substance to offer any discussion.

You provided the citations for the videos as asked, and I looked at one . . . and it doesn't say what it purports to say in its own title. If Greger is using such poorly sourced material to support his claims then it merely strengthens my decision not to watch them.

Hence my "waste of time" comment.

I actually MAKE similar presentations (though likely with lower production values) as I use the flipped classroom model to teach nursing. But videos take far longer to watch than an article takes to read, and my time is valuable. Greger's videos may rely on peer reviewed research (some of which isn't very good), but that doesn't make his VIDEOS THEMSELVES peer reviewed and that's what we demand here in terms of evidence.

Certainly the hypothesis that diet may play a role in cancer prevention or treatment is interesting enough that plenty of people are doing research on it. But the results aren't conclusive, and your original claim acts as if they are.

Let me remind you that the first two things you posted on this thread were complaints about Orac's article. You didn't address the core arguments Orac made. You simply dismissed him out of hand.

So of course some of us (including me) took issue with that. Only when Orac returned the dismissal in kind did you feel stung enough to write this:

Orac (in the article): “We know that diet and certain environmental exposures can modulate cancer risk for certain cancers, but once the cancer is already established it’s too late for that.”

This is a true statement by the way, consistent with what you'll find in any medical (and nursing) textbook on the subject of cancer.

Maarten: How do you know that its not possible through diet to give the body a significantly increased change to beat an established cancer? Saying it’s not possible (or that there is no reason to assume that it could be possible) seems quite a claim.

Answer: because so far no one has ever been able to show an ability to do that. There are lots of folks who have claimed diet was the key they used to beat their cancer. But they all either had convention treatment along with the dietary changes long enough to go into remission (meaning they can't prove it was the diet, and thus it's much more likely the conventional treatment), or they're dead. Orac has written extensively on prominent examples.

Certainly there is continued interest in the impact of diet on successful cancer treatment. We may indeed find such a link. Dr. Greger acts as if we have the answer NOW, and we don't.

Pananea, my general claim was that "it could be possible that a change in diet significantly increases the bodies ability to heal itself from cancer".
In answer to Chris' question about a possible mechanism, I claimed that "diet may impact cancer growth through its relation to the IGF-1 levels in the body", and I gave some reasons (that apply in the context of the vegan diet) to back that up. I also gave reasons why I believe that Harriet Hall's critique of Greger is weak.

So how is my original claim acting [sic] as if the results are conclusive?

And why do you consider his website a commercial activity? Most succesful charities have paid staff, are they also commercial?

Isn't scientific blogging also a form of literature overview that is not peer reviewed? Is that a reason for you to avoid scientific blog posts in general? Or do you give it a chance and decide for yourself if the blogger knows what they are talking about?

Which core arguments did Orac make about my complaints about his blog? He only addressed a few words to me to tell me that I should be a little less self-righteous (he's right about that). Then he complained to you about me (I don't feel obliged to respond to comments about me but not addressed to me).

"Answer: because so far no one has ever been able to show an ability to do that." I think it would have been more accurate to say: because so far no one has ever been able to show ME an ability to do that. But if that answer (I mean the original one, that you gave) satisfies you, then indeed there is not much point for me to discuss about diet with you. OTOH if you want to discuss about other topics, such as charities, or presentation formats, then we could :-).

my general claim was that “it could be possible that a change in diet significantly increases the bodies ability to heal itself from cancer”.

Yes, and the proper response to such a fantasy is can be either "so what" or "ho hum". Such a claim is indistinguishable from a claim that there's an invisible pink unicorn living in my garage, unless and until some actual, credible, empirical evidence is presented for one claim or the other. The diet fantasy is further complicated by lack of any specifics about the kind of diet or the kind of cancer.

(A strict breatharian diet would, of course, demonstrably kill a tumor, since tumors don't survive the death of the host for very long. We'll omit diets of this class.)

I'm going to skip rebutting Travis's seemingly drunken passel of repeat-posted non sequiturs, G—le scrounging, failure to check original sources, and typographic inanity unless anybody else is actually interested.

No need. I'm going to have to go back to doing what I did before and blocking each sock puppet as soon as it's identified and, even better when I can manage it, preventing him from getting new sock puppets in. Methinks a moratorium on approving new commenters might well be in order, as sad as the thought makes me. Travis sometimes sneaks by with a reasonable sounding comment before unleashing the crazy.

What kind of diseased-minded crank goes into my website, gets my anti-spam email address and uses it to pose as me in order to post at this site?

Step forward our friend from Wisconsin Dells, IP 66.206.61.192

I won't give the name now, but this is an individual with a significant personality disorder

Yeah, that's one of his IP addresses. One of many, from VPNs from varying countries all over the world. IP addresses are recorded when someone leaves a comment, and I came to recognize the most common ones used by Travis. Unfortunately, he used a lot of VPNs; so you just can't count on recognizing his IP addresses to identify him.

No need.

I'd still like a plebiscite, if anyone cares to weigh in. I could have sworn there were some chemists in this joint.

Maarten: It's possible it might rain beer some day, too? So what?

Unless you have actual evidence to back up your claims, you're just p***ing in the wind. It's not for me to produce that evidence. That's on YOU. And you haven't been able to come up with more than a "well it's possible."

Well, that's not enough.

And no, blogging is not a form of peer review. Even Orac's blog would not be considered peer reviewed because he does not submit what he writes to experts in the field before he posts.

And Orac isn't trying to create new knowledge here, which is what science does: it creates new knowledge about the natural world. What Orac does is debunk unscientific claims, or express skepticism about borderline claims using knowledge we already have. He cites sources, and he uses the scientific method and logical thinking to explain his point of view to his readers.

That makes what he has to say reliable. He doesn't pretend to always be correct, and he is open to changing his point of view when presented with new evidence . . . as are most of the regular commentors here. The key is, the evidence must be reliable itself.

It took a lot of arm twisting to get you to produce a bibliography to support your contention a bunch of videos were reliable evidence . . . and when those sources were checked, they were found to be wanting.

You haven't proved your claim, not even close. So what you say here is suspect because of that.

Because if you count from the carboxyl end, it’s a plus sign, amirite?

Ya, sure, youbetcha. Omega is always carbon 1 when omega notation is used and the carboxyl is always carbon 1 when "c" notation is used, therefore the symbol sometimes known as a hyphen effectively represents a plus sign for both those notations. Interpreting it as a minus sign would be absurd. If and only if the more meaningful n - x notation is used can it be interpreted as a minus sign, since n actually takes on a specific numeric value. But it is still the value of x, not the solution of n minus x, that is usually of interest. You can consider the symbol to be a minus sign, but that really isn't helpful if you what you want to know is how long the last dangly bit is.

Speculation:
Travis got a job and had a new group of unfortunates to try to dazzle with this all-knowing brilliance.
Travis finally annoyed the unfortunates so badly he was given the boot.
Travis returned to disgrace himself here.

Travis needs a job as a ball gag tester. Every unit subjected to stringent quality control testing!

This structural regularity should not be expressed as ω9.

Notably there is nothing between the omega and the nine. Might that be some sort of hint?

You can consider the symbol to be a minus sign

Of course, then you'd have to set it as one, viz., as "ω − x," like, y'know, in the original IUPAC document (PDF), where n is a number. The archived W—dia comment page puts the discombobulation in stark relief, Travis J. Schwochert's desperate G—ling for "omega minus three" notwithstanding (the lone occurrence of this in Aitken et al. also carries a conveniently omitted cite to Jarling et al.,* where it happily appears as "exclusively omega-2 and to a lesser extent omega-3 activation products are formed," with hyphens; never underestimate what bad copyediting can do).

* ht[]ps://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2015.00880

^ Both links work, despite my failure to properly terminate the first one.

Panacea, if you read the comment history, you will see that from the very start, I said that all claims that Greger puts forward are clearly backed by scientific references that can be easily read right off the screen of his videos. In other words, I gave you the references right off the bat, but you chose not to look at them (because that would entail watching a total of 10 minutes of video, gasp!).

Then I pointed out (on the same day) that these references are also listed directly under the video. When this was still not good enough I copy-pasted them here, all on the same day or the next day. I'm doing what I can to accomodate you, but it's never good enough.

The evidence for my more specific claim (about IGF-1) is compiled and summarized by someone you don't like, in a form that you don't like, namely: a transcript that has not been peer reviewed. In other words: it's not enough for me to present you with peer reviewed evidence, also the overview that summarizes the evidence and draws conclusions from it has to be peer reviewed to be accepted by you.

If you want to believe that you have been willing to look at the evidence, then I will leave you be in that illusion. Maybe for someone else here, the transcripts and citations lists that I posted are good enough to be the basis for a discussion, and I can discuss it with them.

ps with "to be accepted by you" I mean: to be willing to even read it.

ps 2: "He cites sources, and he uses the scientific method and logical thinking to explain his point of view to his readers."

How is that different from what Greger is doing?

ps 3: maybe if you answered my previous question, it would make your position on what presentation formats are acceptable (and which are not) more clear to me:

"I would be still interested why you object to his video. To me it’s no different from attending a lecture in real life: it’s just slides showing highlights from peer reviewed papers, with a voice over. Do you avoid any such presentations in general?"

I can't recall where it is, but something like "this paper is in the Nature family of journals is that good?"

If you had gone to the paper you would realize that
1) It is a speculative review article, not breakthrough clinical trial data
2) Almost all data about IGF-1 is in rodents that are known to be different in humans and rodents.

We never change all of human medicine because something happened in a rat.

also doesn't change that all pseudo-science appears to be well-referenced. Virtually all of the references either do not really back up the assertions (title might even sound somewhat relevant but it really is not or says the exact opposite of what the psuedoscience sales person says it does) of the person promoting the revolution to end all revolutions. Or the data is of questionable value as almost everything in all of scientific history that looks good in the test tube and the rat doesn't pan out, so no one other than the person selling the latest greatest scientific revolution to cure all things and end all death and suffering for all of time and be glorified above all others (which he or she will modestly accept even though they really want the glory more than anything) with any understanding of how science translates from the lab bench to human implementation would act upon it.

Especially because usually there is some in actual human being information that indicates it doesn't work that way.

Part of the problem with the videos is we know of the 100,000,000 just like it 100,000,009 have references that are totally meaningless.

Just because there is a reference it doesn't mean the reference in any way backs up the claim or even when it might back it up some tiny part of the claim, it is the first baby step that probably will never lead where the video dude says it can only go.

Part of peer review is you check the references to ensure it actually backs up the point being made. Sometimes they still over-sell the data, or tie together points that go beyond where you can rationally extrapolate, or cherry pick some but not all so it looks like there is no evidence that says it can't work that way, but at least if the article is peer-reviewed you might trust the long list of references a little bit. Still before making any dietary or medical changes you would want to see that it has been replicated, tested against other things, actually works in humans, etc. Ideally to the point of having systematic reviews or well-powered meta-analysis.

A few references noted in a video is just not the same, it never will be. Even if you copy them here. At least next time look up the PMID or other identifier. It helps the person reading the list find out if the are even real references (and sometimes there are errors that creep in even with the careful..there are some notable cases in the literature, especially for obscure works) and pull them up much easier if it even seems worth the time to figure out if the references really back up what they are supposed to be backing up.

Marteen, the references have to be good. They have to be right. Not all papers published in the peer reviewed literature are quality, that's why the peer review process continues after publication. Sometimes further research corrects previous research which is why the references can't be more than 5 years old (most of yours were way older than that).

You can't points to something and say "See! It has references, so it must be good."

The difference between Dr. Greger and Orac is that when Orac claims something, he's using up to date research, he doesn't cherry pick, and he actually understands what he is referencing. He isn't trying to sell the gullible a bill of goods.

Your boy picks only the references that seem to make his BS look better, which is easy when your viewers are people who don't understand science, but they hear "sciency" words coming from someone with an MD after his name so it must be "good."

And since what Greger says is what they want to hear, it's easy to believe. Real medicine and science aren't like that; it's slow, methodical and doesn't always give you the answers you expect, but it does conform to how the real world actually words.

The problem for you is, since you don't seem to understand the scientific method at all, it is very difficult for you to present any kind of an argument that will convince me, because you don't know biology, you don't know chemistry, you don't know medicine, and you don't even understand the basics of how research works or is presented.

But worse, you're not willing to learn.

Awhile back Chris asked you "I only want to see PubMed indexed studies that prove that something passing through the gastrointestinal track causes the abnormal cancer cells to stop reproducing in vivo. So no petri dish studies!"

Start there, and actually produce this, and we can start a real discussion.

KayMarie, I will ask you the same question as I have asked other people:

To me his video presentations are no different from attending a lecture in real life: it’s just slides showing highlights from peer reviewed papers, with a voice over. Do you avoid any such presentations in general?

In my opinion, a scientific talk (by an MD who devotes his career to nutrition, in this case) is a good starting point for a discussion. The talk can outline the existing evidence and make connections. It's a narrative that draws on evidence. It's not proof, but it doesn't have to be, because I am not here to proof something, but to discuss something.

Since you seem to be asking everyone, I'll give you my answer:

To me his video presentations are no different from attending a lecture in real life: it’s just slides showing highlights from peer reviewed papers, with a voice over. Do you avoid any such presentations in general?

I avoid lectures unless:
1) They're given by someone intimately familiar with the work, like an author;
2) The lecture is a presentation of one or more related papers;
3) I've read the papers being presented;
4) The lecture includes a question-and-answer component that I can participate in;
5) Having read the papers, there still are questions in my mind that the lecturer can address.
Otherwise, the lecture is almost invariably a waste of time.
The video format necessarily misses out on one or more of these criteria, particularly when it's nothing more than a sales pitch, interpreting someone else's work.

Panacea, you refuse to attack Greger on any part of the argumentation that he puts forward (with the weak excuse that you already know it would be a waste of time to analyze it), you only attack his character and his supposed commercial intentions.

It's fine to use an older reference, as long as there is good reason to believe that the reference is still relevant for the claim that one is trying to support.

Your replies have been typical hand-waving ones, so I'm not going to spend any more effort in replying to you.

Sara, sorry, I missed your reply in the stream of other replies. Thanks for responding. I'll make sure to mind my linoleic acid intake (I used to eat a lot of pasta mixed with sunflower seed oil, and already started to substitute for rice since a few months, so I may have incidentically made the right choice).

To the other people here, sorry to have wasted your time, this blog is probably not for me. Best of luck.

ps I said I missed it but actually I failed to give it proper attention (since it was focusing more on linoleic acid than IGF-1), sorry about that. Anyway, goodbye everyone.

Maarten: "To me his video presentations are no different from attending a lecture in real life.."

In real life there is also a text book with references. Plus there is also research reports and sometime lab time to understand the material.

"In my opinion, a scientific talk (by an MD who devotes his career to nutrition, in this case) is a good starting point for a discussion."

Except during this discussion it has become clear that you do not understand the basic science. So we really are not interested in your opinion, but only the actual PubMed indexed studies to support you assertions. If you are going to assert that diet has an effect on cancer then you must produce:

"... PubMed indexed studies that prove that something passing through the gastrointestinal track causes the abnormal cancer cells to stop reproducing in vivo. So no petri dish studies!”

So where is it?

If the foundation is bad, the whole house is in bad shape.

Greger's foundation is very rocky indeed.

So if you can't defend the underlying facts, the videos are worthless. You're the one claiming they're so great. It's not up to me to take up my valuable time watching them. You need to convince me it's worth the time and effort, and you haven't.

If you're not willing to do that, then you're right. This blog might not be the place for you.

Se Habla Espol: "Since you seem to be asking everyone, I’ll give you my answer:"

There is a ScienceBasedMedicine blog entry by Dr. Harriet Hall that was posted twice. Of course Maarten did not like it. Possibly because it has this paragraph:

“If only you would watch this video”
I hear that all the time from people who have been overwhelmed by the information presented in a video that supports their beliefs. They assume that the evidence presented is incontrovertible, and that anyone who agreed to watch it would necessarily be converted to their beliefs. These videos tend to fall into an easily recognizable pattern. They feature a charismatic scientist with an agenda who makes sweeping statements that go beyond the evidence, makes unwarranted assumptions about the meaning of studies, and omits any reference to contradictory evidence. I recognized this pattern by briefly sampling the video, and my initial opinion was only confirmed by watching it in toto.

But, it seems Maarten does not want to be told he is being gullible.

Sometimes further research corrects previous research which is why the references can’t be more than 5 years old

Well, not in real papers; I haven't seen you establish this window as a criterion for the now-flounced Maarten, so I'm wondering whether that's what you meant.

It is what I meant. I alluded it to it with the discussion of the article I reviewed for him; that article was 12 years old.

I don't change my entire scientific world view or lifestyle from a single scientific lecture .

I don't know anyone that asks the audience to do that, either.

I do the same follow up for lectures I would do for any other source of scientific information.

Are the references to preliminary data in rats or test tubes or for systematic reviews of human clinical data?

Are the references selected by cherry picking for the few that seem to go that way even if there are many better and more recent papers that show that line of inquiry did not pan out.

Yes it can be a starting point, but it seems you feel that one lecture is done, deal. Since there are references it must be real, not that maybe you should actually review the references and see if they actually back up the assertions being made. And it is terrible that we question it in anyway. If no one can question it, that isn't a starting point for a conversation that leads to investigation and discovery.

If I make this into a youtube and flash references on the screen would you believe me?

Second time today I'm reading of "attacks" on people.

If I'm getting ready to take out a car from the motor pool and someone points out that I picked the one with the bad brakes, that isn't an attack.

Hitting me over the head and taking the keys away from me, that's an attack.

(the lone occurrence of this in Aitken et al. ...

You're still trying to pretend that you're correct, Narad Rampersad, by writing this off as an exception?

That's so gradeschool.

You had the word "fμcklesworth" in the comment that I was quoting, so my posts were held-up in moderation. It took me a while to figure-out why.

(Orac usually clips those redundancies, but this time had decided to post them to make me look drunk.)

...with hyphens...

Hyphens are wrong. This person does it right: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/79/6/935.full

(And it's⇑ not a bad article. Not a bad way to familiarize yourself with eicosanoids and the carcinogenic potential of linoleic acid.)

Go away Travis Schwochert from Endeavor, Wisconsin.

Fucklesworth, you and your imaginary credentials in both chemistry and typesetting simply aren't worth the effort.

It took me a while to figure-out why.
.nbsp;.nbsp;. .
Hyphens are wrong.

Sometimes.

^ Rats.

In one of your recent blogs about cancer treatments you referenced a web site that you used to enter details of a person's cancer diagnosis and it then output statistics to do with efficacy of surgery, surgery + chemo [ type specific ] and surgery + chemo [ type specific ] + radiation. I thought it was this blog post but can't seem to find that web site reference here. Anyone remember what recent post that was and what the web site url is?

Eight other worlds in our solar system might have life beyond Earth (Synopsis)

esiegel — Fri, 21 Jul 2017 05:13:57 +0000

Eight other worlds in our solar system might have life beyond Earth (Synopsis)

“If I had to describe myself to an alien I’d say I was bigger than the average human, enjoy a drink or two with a good meal and have a bigger head than most. I’d also say I’m really handsome — especially if they were a female alien.” -Dwayne Johnson

The Earth, to the best of our knowledge, is the only inhabited world we have. The ingredients for life may be everywhere, from asteroids to nebulae to exoplanets and more, but so far, only Earth is confirmed to have life. While Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars at the right distance for liquid water on their surface might seem like the best place to look for life, we don’t necessarily need to go that far.

The flow of a dried-up riverbed is an unmistakable signature of a water-rich past on Mars. Image credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum).

Right here in our own cosmic backyard, our own solar system boasts eight potential candidates for worlds with life on them today. Some of them are planets, like Mars and Venus; others are moons, like Europa and Titan; even asteroids like Ceres or Kuiper belt objects like Pluto get in on the action. The life that might be present might not look like most of life on Earth, but unless we look at the likely locations of biological activity in situ, we simply won’t know for certain.

The Voyager 2 spacecraft took this color photo of Neptune's moon Triton on Aug. 24 1989, at a range of 330,000 miles. The image was made from pictures taken through the green, violet and ultraviolet filters. Image credit: NASA / JPL.

Come find out all eight possible locations, and see if you can come up with a better possibility than any of these!

esiegel Fri, 07/21/2017 - 01:13

Tags

biology

Solar System

@Ethan wrote:

5.) Venus.

You've posited this idea before. Yes the temperature in the upper atmosphere isn't bad but that in and of itself just isn't enough. I just don't see it as possible.

Rather than Venus, I'd go with Jupiter. The possibility of life on Jupiter is one I take from the late great Carl Sagan. Jellyfish-like creatures kilometers across may be far fetched but they're infinitely more believable than anything living on Venus.

https://youtu.be/uakLB7Eni2E

I take it as a challenge, after we've looked thoroughly for life, to ensure there IS life on every body you've discussed.

No more sterilized probes. Instead, pollute them with every extremophile, bacteria, single & multi-cellular critter and infect 'em all. We don't have the patience to terraform, and we might not last 100,000 years, but we can try to give life a foothold.

Who knows? A billion years from now, there may be a sentience wondering how all our planets developed life. And fulfilling some of our wild sci-fi scenarios...

Just like the universe is unimaginably huge, time is unimaginably long. There could be thousands of eruptions of space-faring beings in the future for Sol and its planets. Fun times!

(18M years in the future, giant armed Tardigrades storm the cavern-fortresses of Titan... Damn! I gotta break out my old classic sci-fi and re-read some Heinlein, or even Doc Smith!)

never will alien life be discovered in the universe the universe was all made by God for man

Jimbob, I don't grasp why microbes on Mars would contradict the idea that the Universe was made for Man.
Microbes exist on Earth too after all.

I cannot find any information on "black smokers" volcanoes on Triton. Sure, there is volcanic activity there, but what makes them similar to black smokers?

To date no proof has been found of past or present life on Mars. However, cumulative evidence is now building that the ancient surface environment of Mars had liquid water and may have been habitable for microorganisms. The existence of habitable conditions does not necessarily indicate the presence of life.

God Created everything in 6 days its was all made to sustain life on earth alien life will never be discovered

jimbob,

"The existence of habitable conditions does not necessarily indicate the presence of life"

That might very well be the first thing you've posted on here that wasn't complete nonsense. That is a true statement, but it also does not mean that there is no life anywhere but earth. The existence of habitable conditions is certainly a necessary condition for life, but not a sufficient one.

Of course we need to be careful when discussing "habitable conditions" so that we don't limit it to life as we know it on earth. It is quite possible (and the article certainly recognizes this), that life could arise in an entirely different fashion in conditions that would be anything but habitable for earth-bound life.

BTW jimbob, even granting for the sake of argument the literal truth of the Bible, that in no way implies that there cannot be alien life elsewhere. The Bible discusses the creation of life on earth, but nowhere does it actually say that the earth is in any way unique. Could not your God have created another life-bearing planet somewhere far enough away from earth that we have not yet detected its presence?

If earth was the be-all end-all, why did your God create the rest of the universe anyway? Why even bother to create the other planets in the solar system? Why even bother with the sun? Surely an omnipotent creator could figure out a way to keep the earth warm without putting a fusion reactor nearby? Why not just create laws of physics that did not require increasing entropy so that the earth would never lose its heat to outer space? That would certainly cut down on various melanomas anyway.

What I cannot comprehend is that if you are going to believe in an omniscient and omnipotent God, why you feel the need to insist that this God is concerned only with a single relatively insignificant planet when there is all the vast universe out there for Him to deal with.

Extraterrestrial life is an evolutionary concept; it does not comport with the biblical teachings of the uniqueness of the earth and the distinct spiritual position of human beings. Of all the worlds in the universe, it was the earth that God Himself visited, taking on the additional nature of a human being, dying on a cross, and rising from the dead in order to redeem all who would trust in Him. The biblical worldview sharply contrasts with the secular worldview when it comes to alien life. do modern observations support the secular notion that the universe is teeming with life, or the biblical notion that earth is unique?

So far, no one has discovered life on other planets or detected any radio signals from intelligent aliens. This is certainly what a biblical creationist would expect. Secular astronomers continue to search for life on other worlds, but they have found only rocks and inanimate matter. Their radio searches are met with silence. The real world is the biblical world—a universe designed by God with the earth at the spiritual focal point, not an evolutionary universe teeming with life.

jimbob,

What makes you think a universe without life except on earth is in any way inconsistent with a secular worldview? The conditions under which life on earth arose might well be unique or the probability of some event that is needed for life to form might well be very small.

Further, while the Bible is merely a collection of mythology from a sheep-herding Bronze Age tribe in the Middle East, let's pretend that there's actual truth to the stories. The Bible does say that God created the earth. It also says that God created "the heavens", whatever that means. Let's assume it means that God created all the other galaxies, stars, planets, etc. that are out there. It says that God created humans and all other life on earth.

So far, I am sure (except for that first sentence) that you can agree with me. But is the Bible complete? Of course not. Show me in the Bible where there is a discussion of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter, for example. Show me the discussion of the expansion of the universe and the red shift of distant galaxies. Show me where it discusses the creation of viruses and bacteria. Are you doubting any of these things exist because the Bible does not mention them?

The Bible says that God created man and sent Jesus to die for man's sins. It does NOT say that God ONLY created man and that Jesus ONLY went to earth to die for man's sins. What if someday intelligent life IS discovered on another planet? Are you then going to give up your beliefs and admit that the Bible is false? I highly doubt it; you will do as has been done with just about every other scientific advance that has seemingly contradicted the Bible. You will simply reinterpret what it is that you think the Bible says. You are welcomed; I have already given you that reinterpretation that you'll need if intelligent life is discovered elsewhere.

Those who believe life evolved on the earth usually see it as virtual ‘fact’ that life has evolved on countless other planets. Discovering life on other planets would in turn be seen as confirming their evolutionary belief.

Firstly, since God is the one who made the universe, it can scarcely be ‘big’ to Him. Humans struggle with its vastness because our comprehension is limited to the created time/space dimensions within which we exist, and it is mind-bending to try and comprehend anything beyond our dimensional existence. Size is only relative to us as inhabitants of this universe. And size and time are related somewhat. Because the universe is big to us we consider how long it would take us to travel across it, for example. But, time itself began with the creation of the physical universe, so how can we comprehend what eternity is, or might be? What was ‘before’ the universe? Similarly, how do we imagine how ‘big’ God is? We cannot use a tape measure that is made of the very atoms He made to measure Him. One example of this might be if you were asked to build a small house and you did. Now you are asked to build a large house. In our dimensions, for you to build the larger house it would require more effort and take more time. So, is it harder, or does it take longer for God to build a big universe compared to a smaller one (according to our perspective on what constitutes large or small of course)? Of course not, because He isn’t bound by time and space (which He created). Isaiah 40:28 says; ‘… the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not grow weak nor weary …’.

Psalm 19:1 tells us a major reason that the universe is so vast: ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.’ There are many similar passages in Scripture. They help us understand who God is and how powerful He is.

It reminds us that the more we discover about this incredible universe, the more we should be in awe of the One who made it all. In short rather than looking up and wondering ‘I wonder what else is out there?’ and imaginary aliens we’ve never seen. We should instead be considering the very One that made it all.

So no answer jimbob? Where does it say God ONLY created man? Where does it say that Jesus ONLY came to earth and not somewhere else? That may be what you want to believe and it certainly seems to be what you do believe, but where does it actually say this in the Bible?

Paleobotany Of Four Medieval Strongholds

aardvarchaeology — Sat, 03 Jun 2017 12:20:38 +0000

Paleobotany Of Four Medieval Strongholds

Palaeobotanist Jennie Andersson has analysed four soil samples for me, all from floor layers inside buildings at Medieval strongholds that me and my team have excavated in recent years. There's one each from Stensö, Landsjö, Skällvik and Birgittas udde. Results were sadly not very informative.

Comments Jennie:

"Overall the fossil and carbonised botanical material in the samples, as well as the recent unburnt material, is meagre … No carbonised cereals were found. Three of the four samples did however contain rather large amounts of unburnt bones and scales from fish plus jurpa, a blanket term för amorphous burnt organic material which may represent bread, burnt food, cooking waste or animal fat. Both the fish bones and the cooking waste probably originate in household cooking and waste management … The presence of burnt weeds such as goosefoot, bedstraw, smartweed and clover (Chenopodium album, Galium spp., Persicaria lapathifolia, Trifolium spp.), all of which thrive on nutrient-rich, sometimes slightly damp and open ground and around farms, tally well with what we may imagine would have been common in a castle bailey or around a farm yard where livestock and people tread about every day and share space."

Report in Swedish here.

aardvarchaeology Sat, 06/03/2017 - 08:20

Tags

Jurpa!
It doesn't seem to be an acronym - is it a portmanteau? Despite being a native Swede I can't begin to decipher it.

Is there a paleobotanyetymologist in the house?