American Association of Physicians and Surgeons

Hillary Clinton is "medically unfit to serve" as President and Donald Trump has narcissistic personality disorder: Stop this uninformed medical speculation about the candidates!

oracknows — Fri, 19 Aug 2016 01:17:01 +0000

Hillary Clinton is "medically unfit to serve" as President and Donald Trump has narcissistic personality disorder: Stop this uninformed medical speculation about the candidates!

I’ve been debating whether to write about this for a while now, given that the first article that I noticed about it was first published a week and a half ago. Part of the reason for my reluctance is that it would be too easy for politics to be dragged into this more than I generally like. Of course, I don’t make a secret of my political leanings, but I usually don’t go out of my way to be an explicitly political blogger. I do, however, frequently write about areas where science and medicine intersect, and when I do I always come down on the side of science and rationality.

This brings us to a trope that has popped up in the media that Hillary Clinton is somehow “medically unfit” to be President. I first learned of this smear on August 10, when I found the latest e-mail release from the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), written by its executive director Dr. Jane Orient and entitled Is Hillary Clinton Medically Unfit to Serve? I thought about writing about it at the time, but unfortunately this Dug the Dog saw a squirrel. Next, I was made aware of an article by Martin Shkreli (yes, that Martin Shkreli) using his “expertise” as a pharmaceutical executive to claim that Hillary Clinton has Parkinson’s disease. Even though I was honored to appear as a guest rogue on The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe and the topic came up, with Steve Novella delivering a forceful denunciation of such speculation, featuring Shkreli’s speculation as the “dumbest thing of the week,” still I didn’t write about it. Then, three days ago, the AAPS dumped another e-mail into my in box, this time in the form of a post by Dr. Gerard J. Gianoli entitled Is Clinton’s Health Less Important than Trump’s? That was the last straw. I made up my mind that I had to address the issue of the armchair diagnosing of the health of Presidential candidates, particularly since my good blog bud and fellow “Walking Dead” fan, Skeptical Raptor, took on the issue just the other day.

It’s not as though I haven’t done this before, of course, although it’s been a long time. The last time I discussed speculations about the health of a Presidential candidate was in 2008, when the issue of John McCain’s history of melanoma came up. I basically said that it was unlikely that his melanoma would recur, and time has proven me correct, as McCain is running for another term as senator this year and doing fine—physically, that is; politically is another question—as he approaches 80.

Finally, I decided that all this idiotic and uninformed speculation about Hillary Clinton’s health was getting on my nerves, as the speculation about Donald Trump’s mental health had done before. As I told Steve Novella on SGU, few people despise Donald Trump or as alarmed at the prospect of a Donald Trump Presidency as I have been, but even so I was profoundly uncomfortable with all the psychological diagnoses being thrown around about him, seemingly without much care. At first, I even thought that it had been a lot of this speculation about Donald Trump’s mental health that had lead Trump supporters to fight fire with fire with even more ignorant speculation about Hillary Clinton’s health, but I soon learned that the “Hillary Clinton is medically unfit to serve” meme had been appearing on Breitbart.com at least as far back as January 6, when a story entitled Law Enforcement Officials, Medical Professionals: There’s Something Seriously Wrong With Hillary Clinton’s Health was published.

Let’s take a look at some of these claims. First, Dr. Orient laid down an op-ed clearly designed to be picked up by as many newspapers as she could get it picked up in (given that it’s only around 700 words long) that consists mainly of a whole lot of JAQing off. After praising Trump for his bluntness and noting that some liberals are throwing around psychiatric diagnoses about Trump, noting, “...keep in mind that a lot of them think conservatives, Christians, and pro-life advocates are crazy too,” Orient lets loose the JAQing off:

There’s the photograph of Secretary Clinton’s difficulty walking up some steps. Now inability to climb stairs does not necessarily disqualify a person for public office. However, neither she nor people with her apparently anticipated a problem. The people helping her seem to be preventing a fall. Did she simply trip? Or was it a seizure or a stroke?

Videos widely circulated on the internet are, if authentic, very concerning. One shows prolonged, inappropriate laughter; another, strange head movements. In a third, she appeared momentarily dazed and confused, and lost her train of thought. Reportedly, she has a volcanic temper. (This is probably not new.)

A man who stays close to her, who is reportedly not a Secret Service officer, was photographed carrying something in his hand that purportedly might have been an autoinjector of Valium.

While we don’t have Mrs. Clinton’s medical records, it is widely stated that she experienced a fall that caused a concussion. Since then, she is sometimes seen wearing eyeglasses with prisms, as are used to correct double vision.

Evidence for these speculations? Almost none. Just a photo and some videos claiming “strange head movements,” a moment of looking “dazed and confused” (Orient’s age may be showing, given the obvious Led Zeppelin reference), and “inappropriate laughter.” There are, of course, also second and third hand reports where the primary witness is never identified, several of which can be found in this Breitbart.com piece and one of which Orient was cited by Orient in the passage above.

Meanwhile, another “brave maverick” doctor of AAPS, Dr. Gerard Gianoli, tries to provide Dr. Orient with tactical air support but only embarrasses himself spectacularly with some really stupid JAQing off:

What are the symptoms of increased intracranial pressure? The most common are headaches, visual problems, and dizziness/balance problems. We know that Ms. Clinton has had all three of these. Less commonly known are “brain fog,” problems with concentration, and short-term memory problems. Sounds familiar?

Asking:

Why has the media not been inquiring about Mrs. Clinton’s health records as aggressively as they did when GOP candidate John McCain had skin cancer? What do her visits to ophthalmologists and neurologists show? Has she had any neuropsychological testing, as is routinely done in traumatic brain injury cases?

Actually, the media didn’t really inquire that aggressively about John McCain’s skin cancer. Rather, it was a couple of really far out left-wingers who gained notoriety for using McCain's history of successfully treated melanoma to drive a narrative that McCain was a “dead man walking” (which, obviously, he wasn’t, given that he’s alive and well eight years later), much the same way that it has been Martin Shkreli and Jane Orient who have been driving the false narrative that somehow Hillary Clinton is “medically unfit to serve.”

This is all incredibly thin gruel that leads Orient to wildly speculate further:

Concussions often cause traumatic brain injury, which might not be visualized on standard CT or MRI. Many of our veterans who experienced blast injury from improvised explosive devices suffer from it. These are some symptoms: difficulty thinking, attention deficits, confusion, memory problems, frustration, mood swings, emotional outbursts, agitation, headaches, difficulties with balance and coordination, and seizures. Many veterans with such an injury cannot hold a job or interact normally with their families.

Obviously, it would be very dangerous for a person subject to symptoms like this to be dealing with foreign leaders or making critical decisions. The President of the United States may have to make world-changing decisions on a moment’s notice. For example, should we launch nuclear-armed missiles? And if the Commander in Chief is confused, who will make the call?

To be honest, I’d be much more worried about a perfectly healthy Donald Trump having access to the nuclear missile codes than even a Hillary Clinton with post-concussive syndrome. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist interjecting a little of my own politics there.) I’d also point out that when the President is incapacitated, the Vice President assumes the powers of the Presidency. Be that as it may, what do we have here? Again, nothing other than speculation.

Here’s some of what we do know about what happened. In December 2012 while she was still Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, ill with a gastrointestinal virus and dehydrated, fainted and hit her head, suffering a mild concussion. After Christmas, she underwent an MRI for unclear reasons (there was a quote about this possibly being “follow-up MRI, that probably would not have happened for regular people” and the routine for a concussion in a patient who recovered rapidly after a few days and hadn’t suffered a skull fracture doesn’t generally include followup imaging). This found a blood clot known as a cerebral venous thrombosis. She was treated with anticoagulation and recovered. Neurosurgeons interviewed for the story agreed that this sort of clot was uncommon after a concussion with no associated skull fracture and was a potentially life-threatening condition for which treatment was indicated. Clinton was treated, and, by all accounts, made a complete recovery.

At this point it’s not inappropriate to note that Dr. Orient’s organization, the AAPS, is a an embarrassingly quacky physician organization that I first discussed ten years ago. (Has it really been that long?) Over the years, I’ve documented how the AAPS, through its house organ the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (commonly abbreveated JPANDS), has abused science with hilariously bad studies purporting to demonstrate that abortion causes breast cancer (it doesn’t); that administering multiple vaccines at one visit is not safe (it is) that with respect to DDT and the Zika virus the best strategy is to spray, baby, spray (it isn’t); that shaken baby syndrome is a “misdiagnosis” for vaccine injury (it isn’t); and that President Obama uses neurolinguistic programming to get Americans to do his bidding (he doesn’t). The AAPS is also all-in for a large number of antivaccine tropes.

It’s not too surprising that Jane Orient would like Donald Trump. After all the AAPS is explicitly opposed to any form of government regulation of health care; considers the FDA and Health Care Financing Administration to be unconstitutional; is utterly opposed to Medicare, viewing it as immoral; urges physicians not to participate in Medicare; describes public health programs as "tyranny"; and liberally quotes Ayn Rand. Basically, the AAPS believes that the free market will fix everything that’s wrong with health care. Well, not exactly. Rather, the AAPS believes that the free market, coupled with removing pretty much any restrictions on how doctors practice medicine, be it evidence-based guidelines, board certification, maintenance of certification, peer review, or even state licensure will return medicine to a golden age in which doctor knows best and can do whatever he thinks best for his patient. Of course, it doesn’t matter to the AAPS that such a golden age of medicine never existed.

The leadership of the AAPS, including Orient, and apparently many who publish in JPANDS seem to be a bit too enamored of their self-proclaimed "maverick" status and give the appearance of thinking that, like Ayn Rand's hero, they're "supermen" whose egoism and genius will inevitably prevail over timid traditionalism and social conformism. Reining them in with evidence only interferes with their autonomy and prevents them from exercising their genius for the good of their patients. If only the "herd" could appreciate that! No wonder JPANDS has published several articles with titles such as Evidence-based Guidelines: Not Recommended, The Effect of Peer Review on Progress: Looking Back on 50 Years in Science (featuring another scornful dismissal of the "herd instinct" and "conformity" and a fair amount of exaggeration of how much scientific progress is due to "violent confrontation" of old paradigms and how much is due to the slow accumulation of knowledge), and editorials attacking evidence-based medicine. To the AAPS, scientific consensus is evil, and evidence-based guidelines are unacceptable limits on the autonomy of physicians, as are any government regulations or third party payer systems.

But what about the claim that Hillary Clinton has Parkinson’s disease? As Steve Novella points out, first of all, Shkreli is not a neurologist. He isn’t even a physician. Yet he thinks that because he’s been involved in drug development and clinical trials he can diagnose Parkinson’s on the basis of a video in which Clinton shows an exaggerated startle response that looks kind of goofy, which he calls dystonia. He also claims the video in which she trips is a “Parkinsonian freeze.” Dr. Novella, of course, is a real neurologist, and he tells us that none of these were dystonia, a seizure, or anything consistent with Parkinson’s. As he points out, Parkinson’s is an “across the room” diagnosis that is easy for a trained neurologist to recognize. He also notes that it’s impossible to hide for very long and that Clinton has been in the public eye constantly for thousands of hours over the course of the campaign.

This brings us to Donald Trump. Four days ago, the New York Times published an article by Benedict Carey entitled The Psychiatric Question: Is It Fair to Analyze Donald Trump From Afar? The story starts noting an incident from history:

In the midst of a deeply divisive presidential campaign, more than 1,000 psychiatrists declared the Republican candidate unfit for the office, citing severe personality defects, including paranoia, a grandiose manner and a Godlike self-image. One doctor called him “a dangerous lunatic.”

The year was 1964, and after losing in a landslide, the candidate, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, sued the publisher of Fact magazine, which had published the survey, winning $75,000 in damages.

But doctors attacked the survey, too, for its unsupported clinical language and obvious partisanship. In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association adopted what became known as the Goldwater Rule, declaring it unethical for any psychiatrist to diagnose a public figure’s condition “unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement.”

Supporters of the rule make the arguments that (1) most diagnoses made from a distance turn out to be wrong; (2) the labels themselves can cause real harm to the person and family members; and (3) the practice undermines the field’s credibility. All of these are very good arguments, every bit as good as arguments why physicians shouldn’t be “diagnosing” Hillary Clinton with a neurological disorder. The Goldwater rule is still a good rule, but unfortunately during the campaign there have been psychiatrists openly flouting the rule when it comes to Donald Trump.

What I find particularly troublesome is the disingenuous and downright slippery rationalizations made by some psychiatrists and psychologists making these “diagnoses.” For example:

Dr. Steven Buser, a psychiatrist who with his colleague, Dr. Leonard Cruz, coedited a new book, “A Clear and Present Danger: Narcissism in the Era of Donald Trump,” stressed, “We are careful not to make a clinical diagnosis here, to say that Donald Trump has narcissistic personality disorder.” The contributing writers include psychiatrists and psychologists, but Dr. Buser said, “We are focused on the image he projects, on TV, in tweets, in quotes.”

This is, to put it kindly, self-serving bullshit, and highly unethical bullshit at that. Dr. Buser should be ashamed of himself, but obviously isn’t. He should also take a goo, hard look at himself and ask himself how much of his “diagnosis” is due to his political dislike of Donald Trump, and I say this as someone who quite literally despises Donald Trump and opposes him more than any Presidential candidate who’s run in my lifetime.

In the end, as is often the case, my views tend to align with Steve Novella’s view. First, using psychiatric diagnoses as a form of political attack further stigmatizes mental illness. Arguably, this is going on both in the attacks on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. While the attacks on Donald Trump explicitly invoke mental illness, the attacks on Hillary Clinton imply that she is unfit due to “brain fog” or mental or psychological consequences of a concussion. I also agree that, if you’re a professional, you should be really, really cautious and circumspect about attributing diagnoses to people whom you have not personally examined and whose medical records and tests you have not personally reviewed. And, certainly, if you are not a professional, you should just stop with the armchair diagnoses altogether. That’s nothing more than embracing the Dunning-Kruger effect wholeheartedly.

The retort one will hear, of course, is that the President is the most powerful person in the world. He or she will have access to the nuclear codes and will command the most powerful military in the world. Surely, the voters have a right to know if a Presidential candidate has a medical condition that might seriously compromise his or her judgment. While this is a good argument, armchair diagnoses, be they from actual physicians with no clinical contact with the candidate or amateurs with no clinical expertise, do not actually address that argument, nor do they serve to prevent compromised candidates from acquiring power. That’s because diagnoses aren’t made that way. They’re still made through direct, hands on diagnosis by physicians who have the appropriate expertise. In the hands of amateurs like Shkreli, quacks like Dr. Orient, and disingenuous, self-justifying docs like Dr. Buser, they are political weapons, not diagnoses.

Hijacking medicine for political purposes serves neither medicine nor politics. It just becomes a tool for partisans to bring down their opponents. Skeptics should not succumb to the temptation to use medicine that way.

oracknows Thu, 08/18/2016 - 21:17

Categories

Medicine

I hate armchair/internet/whatever diagnoses with a passion.

It isn't just in politics: the other day I was reading a piece about UK cyclist Mark Cavendish (for those who don't follow cycling, he'd just won an Olympic silver, shortly after winning another 4 stages of the Tour de France, making him the most successful sprinter in Tour history, he's a bit good on a bike)), who can be very blunt in interviews, not suffering fools at all, and can give very detailed tactical analyses of a race...

Some berk took this as signs of Asperger's...

Immmm, no. Cavendish comes from a part of the UK which does have a reputation for plain speaking, he's been asked more than his share of stupid questions by journos over the years, and he lives and breathes cycling and, especially, tactics in races, which is why he's so good at it...

People trying to see MH diagnoses annoys me especially, given my clinical background.

Golly gosh!

This is now twice this week I've been the first responder: this must be sign of a conspiracy or that I am under the control of Orac or something...

Excellent post. May I add something else? Not only does this kind of pseudo diagnosis of politicians add to the stigma around mental illness, but it drives further the trope that being old is being unfit. What would the modern armchair arbiters of presidential health make of JFK? Or F.D. Roosevelt?

#2 Murmur, it could also mean you are Orac ;)

"Inappropriate" laughter? Show me someone who only laughs when it's "appropriate", and I'll see someone with a stick up his or her ass. Not someone I would wish to get to know further. I imagine HRC's personal and political history has provided many causes for "inappropriate" laughter. Look who she's married to, for starters. Add in all the muppets (foreign and domestic) she would have met as Sec of State: if you didn't laugh about it, you would go mad.

And now that Breitbart guy is atop Trump's campaign, it's only going to get worse from all angles.

I'm not a professional psychologist, although I have read quite a bit of the subject. However, I am not offering a diagnosis of Trump. I will however say that he shows signs in public of being grandiose, self-centered, greedy, vain and short tempered. Yes, there is a DSM or ICD diagnosis that contains all of those. No, I'm not going to "go there" and claim Trump has that disorder. Yes, I am going to say that based on those characteristics I would not want Donald Trump to be president. I would have said the same of Barry Goldwater and of Joe McCarthy. Put bluntly, Trump may or may not meet the medico-legal definition of "insane" but he certainly isn't the stable, rational, intelligent man whom I want at the helm of the ship of state. (not to mention the nuclear release codes.)

Just wanted to add that Dr Drew Pinsky has joined the fray, claiming that he is "Gravely Concerned for Mrs Clinton's health." (methinks Dr Drew is Gravely Concerned for Dr Drew's Ratings. )

After talking this over with friends, I've decided to write to all of these people and ask for their help. I'm pretty much a shut-in these days, and the thought of being able to just send off a video of myself and receive a diagnosis (and possible prescriptions, because Dr. Drew whatisname, who knows Clinton isn't taking the correct medication, is all about the right prescriptions) without ever having to leave my house or having any of them examine me is intriguing! I'd never have to worry about transportation to a medical appointment again!

(3) the practice undermines the field’s credibility.
I am not convinced that "undermining the credibility of psychiatry" is any reason to abandon a practice. If anything, it's a reason for more of it.

Slightly OT, but every remaining irony meter I had blew a few days ago blew when I read that AV kook Robert De Niro called AV kook Donald Trump "totally nuts" ( http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2016/08/13/robert-de-niro-tru… ).

I like what Douglas Adams has to say about those who wish to rule, er, I mean lead us:

The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.
To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

Don't you think Trump looks tired?

What I find interesting is comparing the 2 attending physician letters for the candidates.

Dr Jen Gunter looks at the letter that is supposedly from Donald Trump's doctor, and rips it apart as unprofessional. (And, as a medical professional, I agree. It's very badly written. Sadly, I can also say that working in health insurance, I've seen letters just as badly written.)

Contrast that letter to the one Skeptical Raptor links to from Hillary Clinton's doctor. It's very professionally written, discusses her concussion and treatment, and states she is in very good health.

Just on the basis of the MD letters, I'd prefer Hillary over Donald.

@Mephistopheles O'Brien

*I* think he looks unhinged (not a psychiatric diagnosis, mind), but I like where you're going with this.

"What are the symptoms of increased intracranial pressure? The most common are headaches, visual problems, and dizziness/balance problems. We know that Ms. Clinton has had all three of these."

I have all three of these from time to time also. Maybe I am not fit to do my job! May I go on disability?

As for Trump and narcissistic personality disorder, I came up with that one on my own without hearing any of this nonsense first. I just did not go running to the press with it.

This idea that elections are won by dissing your opponent is beyond disgusting. I fear that this time we have reached the point of no return.

Personally, I think Trump has a totally non-clinical case of foot-in-mouth disease just from the huge number of ill considered, poorly thought out, and potentially dangerous remarks he has tossed out in his speeches and interviews.

My father and grandfather both had Parkinson's disease, but they were both very clear headed until they died in their 80's and 90's respectively.

My grandfather was a rather dour Baptist dairy farmer from Ohio and I barely remember him laughing, much less laughing inappropriately, but he did have a very dry sense of humor.

I also remember Gerald Ford got a lot of heckling for a couple of falling incidents, but I don't remember it being considered a disqualification.

@ MI Dawn, I just read that too and laughed at the style of the letter: https://drjengunter.wordpress.com/2016/08/16/im-a-doctor-these-are-the-…

I can only wonder what direction Trump's campaign will go in with Breitbart at the helm.

I don’t think you can blame people for trying to come up with something to describe the bizzare behavior and odd speech patterns that emanate from Trump. I also think the Goldwater Rule is a good thing. So...just what is appropriate when a public figure actually displays weird symptoms? Candidates usually release a letter from their medical doctor, but is it too much to expect the same for mental health?

Frankly, I’d rather have a Prez with a manageable medical issue that an undiagnosed and untreated mental illness.

@squirrelelite: I remember Gerald Ford very well, also. And his stumbles/falls were laughed off as "chronic clumsiness". No one questioned his fitness for the presidency based on those. But then, he was a WASP.

No one questioned RR's fitness, even though there were signs of dementia when running for his second term.

Strange how it's dangerous for a woman to (theoretically) show signs of problems, but never in a man.

@MI Dawn,

I agree about the double standard. I've seen a couple well written discussions of the narrow path Hillary has to tread .

Using my pediatric acumen, I will state both candidates are well outside my age range of comfort. They are are breathing, have a pulse and are perfused. Medically I will say nothing further.

Heheh.

@Chris Hickie: as a CNM, I'd go a little further and say that HRC is a well-developed, well-nourished woman who looks to be her stated age. Beyond that, I will say nothing without a physical exam or at least being in the same room with her and speaking to her (then I could asses some other things).

I would have nothing to say about DT as men were out of my field of practice completely.

Thank you for saying this.

"I remember Gerald Ford very well, also. And his stumbles/falls were laughed off as “chronic clumsiness”. No one questioned his fitness for the presidency based on those. But then, he was a WASP."

Ford was also an ex-athlete in good physical shape. But he was mocked unmercifully for alleged clumsiness.

"...both candidates...are breathing, have a pulse and are perfused."

Ha, what independent physicians have certified any of these "facts"? Can we confidently state the two major candidates are not alien robots simulating human physiology and feelings? Some observers have spotted false notes, especially regarding expression of human emotions.

Just raising some possibilities here.

@Dangerous Bacon: Isaac Asimov wrote about this in the short story "Evidence". Perhaps both candidates are from alien robotic cultures fighting for control of Earth.

Bornstein is a gastroenterologist. I regard such a specialty as being far to up-tract for a physician to Trump.
I would have thought it customary, when a physician intends to release actual details of someone's medical data, to address the letter to the person in question and allow that person to release the letter.

I suspect part of what is going on is diversion from the refusal of Trump to release his tax filings.

From the RationalWiki article on AAPS: "While purporting to have high regard for the Hippocratic Oath, "the sanctity of the patient-physician relationship, and the "practice of private medicine",[1] ..." Yet Orient is quite content to malpractice very publicly when it comes to HRC.

As he points out, Parkinson’s is an “across the room” diagnosis that is easy for a trained neurologist to recognize.

This was how Billy Connolly was first diagnosed.

" As he points out, Parkinson’s is an “across the room” diagnosis that is easy for a trained neurologist to recognize.

This was how Billy Connolly was first diagnosed."

My dad was diagnosed after his GP happened to see him walking down the street.

There is a big difference between the lay person saying eg Trump is a narcisistict, power hungry, looney and a doctor saying it.

Listening to political experts/ news folk delve into the morass that surrounds the Orange One is like deja vu for me because of my experiences trudging through the various swamps of unreason I frequent.

It's as though Null logic and the Adamsian thought [process/ libel factory have gone mainstream.

I look upon the entire circus as just that, a circus. Three rings worth.
There is no Constitutional health requirement, otherwise, Grover Cleveland would've never saw the inside of the oval office, as well as 1/3 of other past POTUS'. Period. Some, so unhealthy as to shock one and all today. Indeed, FDR was so ill, he had a stroke so severe, his aides first thought he was shot in the head.
No, just severe hypertension and a CVA from hell, which leaked from his ears.
Indeed, it's dubious if Congress could impeach a mentally ill POTUS, as mental illness is neither a high crime nor misdemeanor and a mentally ill person may well be capable of acquitting the office of POTUS without a problem (hell, these days, it actually might help).
In the fiction of things, it comes down to the popular vote. In reality, it comes down to convincing the electors (most states don't have a statute to force an elector to abide by the popular vote).

As for stumbling on stairs, glazed looks, I've had more than a few of those on my part. I injured my back when catching my wife after her abdominal surgery, preventing a fall, but ending up with severe spasms in both legs, especially calves. So, doctor prescribed an opioid for pain and it did well as a "muscle relaxer" enough that the "muscle relaxer" he did prescribe was only taken at bedtime.
But, I sure had glazed eyes and the neurological issues with my legs made stairways problematic.
Fortunately, I retained dad's cane after he died, as it came in really handy in preventing more falls than I had after the initial injury.

In other personal news, I saw the orthopedist today, it was found that my shoulder wasn't separated, but the ligaments were stretched. PT should help with that.
Maybe that would be considered disqualifying me for POTUS in some eyes or something.
Personally, I think my career inclination and preferences, plus my disposition disqualifies me from the office. Maybe that's why I won't run. ;)
Or more accurately, I'm not interested in that aggravation. :P

Don't forget we still don't know if Reagan developed while he was still president.

re comments above- various

Clumsiness ?
Yours truly played much tennis, dancing, martial arts, etc over many years.
In April, I had an incident with stairs near an underground train and have been dealing with it since and have improved until I tripped over a cat ( please don't laugh, Narad) 3 weeks ago and have had trouble driving, because of the clutch but am somewhat better. The cat survived without obvious damage.

I doubt that ethnicity has anything to do with it.

Don't get me started on cats tripping me!
Ours did his usual antics as I returned from home earlier this week. I was using the cane to walk, leaning rather heavily upon it, lest one leg collapse unannounced.
He tore around me, clipping the cane *just* as I was leaning down onto it and placing it on the ground, tearing it from my grasp and spilling me straight down onto one knee on the nice, soft ceramic floor.
Once recovered and inventory showed nothing broken, but fairly bruised, I picked up the cane and shook the crook at him, "Stay the F out of my sight until I calm down!".
He sat in the window watching me for the next half hour, then came over for his attentions.
He did end up waiting another hour for food to be set down for him - I was in no way ready to bend to put that bowl down after that twisting impact with the floor!

Thankfully, he's been more careful since.

Oh, I've tripped over cats.

I swear I have never tripped over a cat before.

Even wearing 90 or100 mm heels or after having ingested various libations/ potions.

I did slip on a wet floor once to avoid stepping on a cat.

Cats are wonderful magical creatures, no?

Medicine, politics, and social media.. a living venn diagram of dysfunction. If politicians ran medicine, we'd have the best iron lung in the world right now, but nary a polio vaccine. If social media and popularity bandwidth wagon ran medicine, the CDC mmwr would be off the chart.

Cats have an evil side...I had a few that LOVED to seek attention just as I tried to go down the stairs, usually with my hands full. They would wind around my ankles purring. One, however, preferred to try to jump into my arms. The first time he tried, however, when I had both arms full of baby, was the first time I didn't catch him. The look of betrayal on his face...

Claiming your opponent is incapable is a great way of trying to re-level the playing field when your own candidate is a abject failure and startlingly weak. But why the vehemence?

Answer: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/12/opinion/pieces-of-silver.html?_r=0

It all comes down to rich people, like quack doctors and financial speculators, not wanting to pay more taxes. After all the high-minded language about what is best for the nation it all comes down to what is best for their bank accounts. Both craven and simple.

Ugh, Shkreli. He needs to go jump down an obuliette.

MOB @ 12: Well played. He does look tired, don't you agree?

I am not convinced that “undermining the credibility of psychiatry” is any reason to abandon a practice. If anything, it’s a reason for more of it.

I could once be counted on to defend psychiatry, but I must say I am not at all a fan of this business of locking people up who haven't committed a crime (attempted suicide is not a crime the last time I checked), something which I narrowly avoided. (Thanks, lone sane shrink!)

^ One might note that "It's my life and my business," in so many words, is not the best line to take when asked about one's feelings regarding suicide by the DMHP.

@JP - after a suicide attempt that failed in my twenties I was asked by my assigned physician if I might try again. The actual words, "That was stupid. Going to do it again?" My response was, "Duh. It didn't work." Close enough. They released me.

Off topic (but about woo. Isn't woo always a topic here?): we went to the state fair this week and Mr Woo got talked into a fifty dollar rubber bracelet that "blocks radiation to allow detoxification and reduced inflammation." I couldn't hide my disdain, but he still offered to get me one, too, anyhow.

I am opposed to any third-party speculation about the health of Ms. Clinton or Mr. Trump. However, they are both 70. We have seen what time in the White House did to Mr GW Bush and Mr Obama. I think it is fair to ask all presidential candidates for an independent health screening and a list of their medications--regardless of age.

You really don't need to diagnose Trump with a mental illness or disorder to call him what he is: a colossal asshat.

I don't know why people need to justify labeling him with the former when the latter language will do quite nicely.

We have seen what time in the White House did to Mr GW Bush and Mr Obama.

TINW. Was it the same thing to both? What about everybody else? I mean, Obama wasn't 70. This really seems to need some more comprehensive data, no matter how primitive.

^ Should've been just "some" italicized.

Honestly though, who hasn't shown the strain of being POTUS, even if they only had four years in office?

Seriously, does anyone here think that having that job wouldn't be a tremendous strain, the late night awakenings due to a crisis, having to learn of, then speak to a nation after a mass shooting or other tragedy, heaven help those leading the nation in time of war!
Between that and the politics involved in all parts of the job, I wouldn't dream of wanting that job. It doesn't pay enough for the stresses involved and the BS inherent in the politics of the job.

As a Canadian, with no medical training whatsoever, I have become convinced from watching the news that your whole country is insane!

@Acitta #48, as a born US citizen, I have to concur. :/

I am diasppointed to learn that William Howard Taft did not in fact make a great sucking sound when removed from a bathtub.

@Narad, while amusing sounding, one can get stuck in a bathtub without being wedged in it.
Both my wife and I have (individually) been "stuck" in the tub, unable to rise from it, in one case, an injury that was being soaked prevented self-extraction from the tub.
In another, the kids had an excess of bubblebath residue in the tub, preventing regaining my feet and necessitating assistance from my wife, a small hoist and a skid jack.
OK, not really all of that, it just seemed that way as my feet slid like they were on oiled glass.
Funny now, but I very nearly broke my neck when I tried to stand up to exit the tub the first attempt. Even today, decades later and the kids long gone from the house, with homes of their own, I still ensure that the bottom of the tub isn't slicked down with bubblebath or conditioner (just about as bad).

As for Taft, well, he did break the bathtub ring, a porcelain price fixing ring. It's interesting that he'd break up such a criminal price fixing cartel, to suddenly find himself allegedly stuck in a bathtub... :)

Oh, for a bit more TMI, to this very day, I still take baths. It relaxes back muscles that are in spasm when I get out of bed quite effectively. A shower entirely fails to do that.
But, I do watch out for conditioner spilled in the tub. That crap's lethal!
For more amusing home accident anecdotes, get my wife on and ask her about my superman imitation on satin sheets, while making an amorous dive toward her. While it more resembled the landing of "The Greatest American Hero", my wife tells it humorously and accurately enough to bring the house down every time.
With a fair amount of effort, I did manage to repair the wall six feet away from the bed.

I have to agree - long distance diagnosis sucks, with some few exceptions One that I can think of is the profile a Dr. Brussel made at police request of George Metesky, the "Mad Bomber", who planted bombs all over NYC for too many years. It turned out to be stunningly accurate. The War Department also commissioned a psychological profile of Adolph Hitler.
With the major exception of exigent circumstance and no direct access to the subject, it is thoroughly unacceptable, unethical, and dangerous. I also believe that a professional publicly offering an unsolicited attempt at diagnosis is somewhere way out in the ethical stratosphere, where the air is mighty thin. It might pass in cases of "across the room" or augenblick (German for "blink of an eye") diagnoses, cases where the diagnosis jumps out at a knowledgeable practitioner. None of what's passing for diagnoses in this election rises to that level.

I too have "headaches, visual problems, and dizziness/balance problems" when I have migraines (not so much actual pain - acephalgic migraine). Or did three neurologists, a neuro-ophthalmologist, and a neuro-otologist who worked me up for a concurrent issue miss my elevated intracranial pressure and doom me to disability and death?

Much as I want to stay out of politics here, I do think that Trump's criticism of other people's appearances is prime chutzpah coming from someone who looks like a jack o' lantern left on the porch all winter.

@Wzrd1: A similar thing happened to my ex-husband (while we were still married.) His hip occasionally would go into spasm, due to a flag football injury where he was tackled *just* the wrong way. (And yes, I know you aren't supposed to tackle in FF - tell teenage boys that.)

Anyway, he'd taken a bath to relax some sore muscles, tried to stand up and realized he couldn't. He yelled for help, which I went to give him. Mind, I was 8 months pregnant at the time. Trying to life someone twice my (unpregnant) weight, with a very pregnant belly shifting my balance, was not an experience I want to ever repeat. However, we did finally manage to get him out.

FYI: if the footing is too bad, a number of towels thrown in underneath the feet and hips eventually will help.

@MI Dawn, my wife had gallbladder surgery and had a umbilical hernia repaired (c-section scar that is 30+ years old started to fail at the umbilicus) last month.
It was endoscopic surgery and hence, she returned home a few hours after surgery.
A few hours after that, she started to fall and I managed to catch her, injuring my back in the process and ended up with severe sciatica pain and spasms in both calves that literally pointed my toes downward and spasms across the arch of my feet, literally collapsing my arches. I'm on hydrocodone for the pain and it's effective against the spasms, so I'm only taking the "muscle relaxer" at bedtime.

The next morning, while I was at work, her legs gave out on her (she has a severe herniation of L5-S1 pressing upon the cauda equina (in the lumbar region, it isn't spinal cord, but the cauda equina (horse's tail of nerves bundled in a sheath).
I drove home from work after receiving an e-mail that she was on the floor, unable to rise. Not too bad, as the house is only four miles from my office.
It took a few tries to get her up off of the floor, as she lacks the leg strength to plant her feet firmly and she kept sliding on the tile floor. I finally placed her toes against my shoes and that gave enough purchase to lift her onto her feet.
Fortunately, she's not fallen since.
She also had an MRI of her cervical spine, viewing the dicom imagery, I couldn't find a single disc in her neck that wasn't impinging upon the spinal cord. Worse, the radiologist report later confirmed that.
Even worse, she has advanced osteoporosis. Something our former primary, back in PA, concealed and claimed had somehow cleared up. So, she's currently inoperable, lest the vertebrae collapse during surgery.
We're awaiting special dispensation from the insurance company to begin her injections to correct the osteoporosis.
She apparently had several vertebrae suffer fractures and heal and she currently has two fractures that are fresh.

Yeah, I'm getting accustomed to picking her up, either from a chair or from the floor. :/
Fortunately, I learned how to lift patients in a wide variety of situations, ranging from battlefield emergency moves through using bed lifts.
Laughably, once, I was working with a man who lifted weights on a regular basis and was quite muscular. He had trouble moving our weighted medical mannequins. Oddly, he entirely forgot all of his training in lifting an unresponsive patient and tried to manhandle the dead weight.
I used standard means to lift the mannequins, utilizing their articulating knees and hips, lifting them to chairs and medical litters with minimal effort.
Of course, moving an infantryman is easy - offer him a drink. ;)

@JP – after a suicide attempt that failed in my twenties I was asked by my assigned physician if I might try again. The actual words, “That was stupid. Going to do it again?” My response was, “Duh. It didn’t work.” Close enough. They released me.

I was actually trying to work out if this meant that you were or weren't going to try it again, then decided that you are probably a lot smarter than I am.

@Narad, while amusing sounding, one can get stuck in a bathtub without being wedged in it.

I know; I've actually slipped backward and clothed into a dry tub while sitting on the edge and been stuck for several minutes while trying to figure my way out of the transverse-on-back-situation (as well as slipping during a regular shower, narrowly avoiding cracking my head, and having to resecure an upright stance).

This does not ameliorate my disappointment that the Taft story is bogus, though.

@JP – after a suicide attempt that failed in my twenties I was asked by my assigned physician if I might try again. The actual words, “That was stupid. Going to do it again?” My response was, “Duh. It didn’t work.” Close enough. They released me.

I was actually trying to work out if this meant that you were or weren’t going to try it again, then decided that you are probably a lot smarter than I am.

I wasn't quite sure about that anecdote myself.

Not quite the same, but I am periodically interrogated on the matter. "Not today, not tomorrow, but..." has worked. The question is what comes after the suspension dots. I'm down with Ken White here.

Dr. Gerard Gianoli is asking for medical record release, I am not a doctor but one thing I know for sure that no concussion will affect a person's integrity and we need someone to lead this nation in good faith. You however, Dr. Gianoli, did you act in good faith when you performed an unnecessary surgery and left me in a state of disability?

Long distance diagnosis is crap. It should only be done when there is no access to the subject. I can only think of two kinds of case where it belongs. One is when the patient is at a remote location where there is no one qualified to examine or treat, and the person at the other end accepts responsiblity. The other is behavioral profiling (Good riddance, Mr. Gibson.) of criminals and such. A brilliant profile helped in catching NYC's Mad Bomber of the '40s and '50s. The OSS had a psychiatrist profile Adolf Hitler and I'm sure it's been done on many others since.
Even if it's an across-the-room or an augenblick diagnosis, it's reckless and unethical to disclose it in public rather than privately to the subject. Not a lawyer, don't play one on TV, but I could posit circumstances in which there could be civil liability. Once you undertake to diagnose someone, anyone, to my mind it imposes confidentiality restraints if you're a practitioner, and imposes moral restraints on amateurs.
I was impressed by this quote cited on Dr. David Ramey's blog - “Before you speak, ask yourself: Is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve upon the silence?” - Sai Baba

#HillarysStools

“Not today, not tomorrow, but…” has worked.

I have decided to give myself a year or so and then I'll reassess. I don't plan on letting the shrinks in on this plan, though.

(This is no fun, though section 7 is better than the alternative.)

In happier news, my department wants me to take a year long leave of absence for "medical" reasons, so I am. The only thing left is to get the final form to the doctor and have him send it to Rackham.

(I gotta say that after recent experiences I miss my shrink back in Michigan.)

I respectfully disagree. Not being a physician, much less a neurologist or psychiatrist, I would be missing an observation about Trump that apparently is known to those in the field. It would now be appearing as a whispering campaign at the very least. The important point is that Trump's behavior -- both as political candidate and in the rest of his life -- is far off the charts for normality. Moreover, it's characteristics are known to the experts, and future behavior is predictable.

This description makes it easy for me to pigeon hole Trump as a potential catastrophe to America.

I can understand how reasonable people (i.e. readers of this blog) are annoyed with the phony attacks on Clinton's health, but they were already occurring and were going to occur in any case. It's the same political movement that continues to question the president's birthplace and commits so many other outrages. I would suspect that the only way to combat the attacks on Hillary is to refute them as has been done here.

This is not to suggest that the way to combat lies about Clinton is to make up lies about Trump, but the stories suggesting that Trump is highly narcissistic ring true, and we all have a large amount of data from his public pronouncements. Providing the public with the clinical term NPD may be a bit of a stretch, but it gives us a framework on which to hang Trump's bizarre reactions.

From my more lay point of view, the question is less about whether medicine is being hijacked, and more about which side is telling outrageous lies vs which side is telling the truth. In that regard, I suspect that the hostility to Barry Goldwater was taken beyond what was psychiatrically logical, whereas the concern over Trump's mind is legitimate.

Sai Baba

I take it that this is Sathya Sai Baba. A friend once brought over a giant haul from the (original) Powell's free-book box, to which all but one returned (The Holy Man ... And The Psychiatrist, just to remind me of the event).

In happier news, my department wants me to take a year long leave of absence for “medical” reasons, so I am.

Good. I remain dumbfounded by the atavism of the State of Washington's laws here.

I remain dumbfounded by the atavism of the State of Washington’s laws here.

In all fairness, most states have something similar in place.

Part of the reason for the outpatient commitment is that I've been hospitalized a few times in the past year, and at least one of them was involuntary.

In Michigan, though, my paperwork was changed to voluntary right away, and I was able to defer my hearing indefinitely, so it was a non-issue.

Sorry for borked link; the last two fingers on my hand are not working, due to ulnar palsy I didn't know I had and thus never got checked out. Unable to use my left hand much at the moment.

Let's try this. (PDF)

The whole experience did give me the occasion to ominously use the word "asylum" when a friend of mine suggested that maybe I needed to go to the state hospital and that I would get better soon there.

Let’s try this. (PDF)

Or this (the link still had '.pddf'). I can't read the whole thing right at the moment, but I'll note that having a basis for doing something is different from doing it automatically.

I'm sorry but there's not a rational person that would look at Hillary and think she's healthy. Even Dr. Phil expressed his concerns.

Funny how all the radical Democrats talk about Trump as if he's a narcissist; as If he's run for president in the past; As if he's a career politician who's made his fortune of the taxpayers.

@ Panacea:

I feel that psychologists shouldn't diagnose anyone in this fashion...
HOWEVER every single person has ( some) ability to evaluate how others act, speak and perform and it is on this basis- social perception- that I think anyone can speak up.

I don't think that he has the skills for the job. He doesn't have the social skills for negotiation. He carries grudges to obscene lengths. * Y mucho mas*

There was that old test: would you like to have a drink with the candidate? ( Even if s/he doesn't drink ).
No way. Unless if I were writing something and needed material.

@ JP;

Hey, I'm glad to hear that you are out and about ( which might be a triple entendre). At any rate, I hope so.

Besides tripping over large, Indolent furry creatures, I am rather well.

Following political news recently resembles my usual activities surveying woo in all of its rancid glory.

As a case in point:

today good old Mikey ( Natural News) rails against the *elites* whom he places as a class separate from regular folks like wage earners, the unemployed and HIMSELF.

Yes, Mike is just a regular guy. Just like the other woo-meisters. They are on the side of the working/ average person, they understand all of the problems poor people and minorities have and what is more
They are your friends.

In this alternate reality, what they say IS.

Narad, the quote is verbatim from Dr. Ramey's page so I don't know whether his Sai Baba is your Sai Baba. Whoever said it, it's an ideal that I wish I could live up to.
Ramey himself is horse veterinarian in California, and while I'm not a horse person, his blog is entertaining, informative, and woo-free.
Here's the URL: www.doctorramey.com

Hey, I’m glad to hear that you are out and about ( which might be a triple entendre). At any rate, I hope so.

Yes, don't worry, the places I have been in and the place I was on the docket for don't have Internet access (at least I assume so of the Eastern State Hospital) so it's a sure bet I'm not there. I have to live in "residential housing," though, for 90 days (halfway through) and am on something called an LRA for the same length of time, which says I'm not (ever) allowed to own firearms, that I can't drink or use drugs, that I have to follow a court-ordered course of treatment, etc.

I can come and go as I please, though. I did get in trouble once recently for being out late walking around, but I had been told when I got there that there was no curfew, and I had signed out saying I would be out late. Oh well. (They even called the police and the DMHP to go looking for me, but called them off.)

I can use the Internet at the public library (the technology at the house goes as far as radios, VHS, and a landline telephone) which is where I am right now.

One way to put this into perspective is to change the scale. Think of a local school board election. During the run-up to the vote, a local psychiatrist steps up at meet-the-candidates night and declares, "I've been watching Ms Smithjones for some time now, and it's my professional judgment that she's a borderline schizophrenic." I think you can imagine the consequences. If not a psychiatrist but a pediatrician, general surgeon, or a school nurse did it, it would be just as unethical, immoral, and possibly slanderous. Among other things, it is assuming a cloak of false authority, if done by a professional of any sort. To do it on a national scale is just as wrong as to do it in a village councilor election.
To my mind, if done to influence an election, it might reach the threshold of actual malice,the standard for proof of slander of a public person.
Besides all that, long distance diagnosis is nearly always just plain wrong.

(Sorry for the replicated posts upstream. Lately many things I have tried to post online seem to get lost in cyberspace.)

@JP, @ Narad

I was honestly saying I wouldn't try that method again. I was still very suicidal. Luckily, I guess, the inclination wore off before I found access to an adequate method that I was willing to use. I have dealt with periodic dark periods since childhood.

My theory has always been that it took them the 72 hours one would normally be on psych hold to get my kidney function where it should be. There were a lot of blood gas tests and high perfusion IV that kept setting off alarms (I think - this was the late 80s and I got pretty out of it for part of the stay there). I suspected my terrible health insurance didn't offer coverage for psych admissions and it further played a part in letting me go.

I’m sorry but there’s not a rational person that would look at Hillary and think she’s healthy. Even Dr. Phil expressed his concerns.

Dr. Phil? Ha. Haha. Hahaha. Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Dr. Phil is not a doctor. So who cares what he thinks?

I suspected my terrible health insurance didn’t offer coverage for psych admissions and it further played a part in letting me go.

When I was recently involuntarily detained (for one thing, I didn't say that I regretted doing it because I have so much to live for, but rather I regretted that it didn't work) it was under the involuntary treatment act (ITA), so the state paid for it. Probably they decided that you weren't "dangerous" enough to detain; I'm guessing you used pills.

It's kind of a morbid discussion, but the attempt I made was considered "violent" (I think most things besides pills are), which probably factored into it, too. And the method in the back of my mind is pretty violent, too, especially if done correctly.

@Narad - that was a great read. I am honest about all of me. I have found that usually when I share things that I worry might sound crazy (!) I often end up seeing a very relieved face and hear someone say, "Really? You too?"

Well, maybe not about house chickens. But, once you get to know them, you realize they are like any other pet bird, and only get treated as less desirable pets because it is a lot harder to eat chicken if you believe it might have feelings and any kind of self-awareness or intelligence...

@JP - so glad to see you here!

"Mrs. Clinton's current medications include Armour Thyroid..."

Armour Thyroid is a brand name for natural desiccated thyroid (NDT) -- a prescription thyroid hormone replacement medication made from the dried thyroid gland of pigs.

https://www.verywell.com/hillary-clinton-thyroid-condition-3233019

It has natural ratios of T3 and T4. It is also 1950's standard of care. Coumadin, for the withered utters win!

@JP – so glad to see you here!

Thanks. I'm still not stoked about life, but I'm glad to see me here and not here. (Okay, I wouldn't be in the forensic wing, but still.)

All politicians exaggerate and twist facts to suit themselves, but Drumpf has repeated very dangerous lies that include descriptions of alleged personal experiences, such as "seeing thousands of American Muslims celebrating 9/11", that never happened. Is he fully aware that he is spewing blood libel, or does he actually hallucinate or confabulate memories of nonexistent events that justify his dehumanization of groups he dislikes? Only the latter would be proof of diagnosable mental illness, but either is an absolute disqualification for the Presidency.

(the technology at the house goes as far as radios, VHS, and a landline telephone)

JP, how did you end up the 1980s?

I am glad to know you are up for commenting again. I missed your unique sense of humor.

Owww. My comment above did not have anything to do with Mrs Woo's comment earlier. I just read it now.

Mrs. Woo, I'm sorry that you had such a hard time then. I think the 1980s were the best time for me. With the exception of VHS and landlines. Never going back there.

JP, how did you end up the 1980s?

I always thought of VHS as more of a 90s thing, but the technology still had it's heyday over 20 years ago.

There is cable TV though, which is immensely popular. I myself have been watching more TV than I ever have in my life; there's f*ck all else to do around the house. Well, except read. I started reading again with the Bible, for whatever reason.

(the technology at the house goes as far as radios, VHS, and a landline telephone)
JP, how did you end up the 1980s?

Now I am concerned that JP is stuck in a Philip Dick novel, like Ubik, with the entropic temporal regression.

The whole experience did give me the occasion to ominously use the word “asylum”

Oh for the good old days when we got to use the title "Alienists".

I am glad to know you are up for commenting again. I missed your unique sense of humor.

That is one way of putting it. At the "treatment and evaluation center" I was bright enough to claim that I was worse than Hitler, because "at least Hitler had ambition."

It is possibly behavior like this that had most of the "treatment team" convinced that I was dangerously delusional or something. Luckily there was one psychiatrist there (who I only saw on weekends) who was of the opinion that I wasn't delusional, just kind of a f*ck-up, and who managed to keep me out of Eastern. Kudos.

I always thought of VHS as more of a 90s thing

Perhaps it became mainstream then but I remember my boyfriend dropping $600 for a VCR while I was away at basic training. Early adoption is expensive. But cable was cheap then; it was also when MTV actually was a music channel.

...because “at least Hitler had ambition.”

That is freaken' hilarious but I can see where it would be problematic in certain situations. My brother-in-law has a similar sense of humor (and numerous medical problems) and he jokes with his physicians a lot. But even there he went a little too far with one of them and they wrote "disinhibited" in his chart.

Dr. Phule is an authority on medicine?
He has a PhD in psychology. Psychologist is a protected title. You must have the degree and the license. He has the one, but he doesn't have the other. He surrendered his license rather than face a professional conduct board for doing the just about the most unethical thing a psychologist can do in clinical practice - he had sex with a patient, and to compound the sin he hired her to work in his practice.
All that is besides the fact that he is an arrogant blowhard with a tenuous grasp on some of the things he is supposed to be advising about.

At least you didn't go there: http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2016/08/hillary-clintons-teeth-tongue-h…

Where the Lord of Conspiracy points to a photo-shopped hole in Hilary's tongue and pronounces it an HPV-cancer biopsy.

The National Enquirer wouldn't even dare....

the technology at the house goes as far as radios, VHS, and a landline telephone

I have the complete Little Rascals/Our Gang hosted by Leonard Maltin on VHS. I could part with it.

@45 Narad
Last year there was a story going around the news media to the effect that the winners of presidential elections etc. died on average three years younger than the losers. But on a quick google none of the press articles I find bother to link or name the actual study they're based on.

I did find one saying US presidents live longer, but the comparison is with all other US men, which doesn't seem fair - for a start, people who die young never run for president.
https://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=201958

@jane:

Is [Trump] fully aware that he is spewing blood libel, or does he actually hallucinate or confabulate[?]

I believe he is a confabulist. He's a liar who believes his own lies and manufactures "evidence" in support.

Mr Trump's claim of Mexico sending rapists over the border is so utterly ridiculous that I'm amazed that no one has bothered to cite some facts to rebut it. If you know anything at all about Mexican "justice", then you'd know that given the tiny proportion of cases investigated, let alone reported, then you'd have to doubt that the Mexican authorities would even know who the rapists are.
If you want to know some actuality of sexual violence in Mexico, read this:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/06/mexico-sexual-violence-r…

George Meredith MD

In the year that preceded her run for the Democratic nomination, Hillary’s aides pressured her to go to the Betty Ford Clinic because of her alcoholism. Willful Hillary resisted, choosing instead to detoxify under the direction of an unnamed Internal Medicine detox specialist, working out of her Westchester home.

Curiously when her Internist Lisa Bandack MD released her medical record ( summary) last year, she neglected to mention Hillary’s alcohol rehab report. And the key liver function studies were likewise omitted from this personal physicians report. Go to the 2015 Bandack report and search for yourself….you will find no GGT, no AST, no ALT, no CDT, no AUDIT (alcoholic screening questionaire), , no serum alcohol level....Hillary and her doctors chose to hide these things from us. ...

Remember, Hillary provides cover for a vast narco trafficking network and as such she has the connections.....judges, prosecutors, DEA, DOJ, IRS, electronic media, etc....money and political power enough to steal this election.

And, were she to win this election, her temper tantrums, so well known to her staff and her secret service detail....her temper tantrums would place Planet Earth at considerable risk …..,.that WE THE PEOPLE should insist on a blood alcohol level, should she, in a drunken rage, decide to push THE NUCLEAR BUTTON

George Meredith MD
Virginia Beach

First, ethanol abuse is a rather well known phenomenon within the beltway, both among republicans and democrats.
Indeed, Nixon, toward the end of his administration, had any National Command Authority instructions quietly shunted away from the usual channels, straight to a specific General's desk, just to avoid problems with "THE BUTTON".
Oh, for a factual thing, there is no damned button, there is a telephone when in the Oval Office. There is a nuclear football, for use when traveling and away from Air Force One's communications suites, but that's actually something that'd be rarely considered in today's modern world.

So, let's discuss some mythical release of all medical records. If you're a physician, you should be conversant with the US code involved in the health insurance portability and accountability act and the penalties for disclosing medical information of US citizens to the public, yes?
Worse, do you realize that there is no qualification for POTUS in regards to liver function? Or even ethanol consumption?
Finally, I'll use my wife as a primary example of your malfeasance. Her liver function numbers are all over the map, in a deleterious way, courtesy of cirrhosis.
Biliary cirrhosis, to be specific. She doesn't drink ethanol in any meaningful quantity. Indeed, it's become something of an in joke with our primary care physician, her liver function is horrific, whereas mine is well above normal and my ethanol consumption is quite legendary.

This shows you to be entirely unworthy of trust. Unworthy enough that, were you the very last physician on the planet, we'd never see you at all, we'd do without and likely have superior care.
"Remember, Hillary provides cover for a vast narco trafficking network and as such she has the connections…..judges, prosecutors, DEA, DOJ, IRS, electronic media, etc….money and political power enough to steal this election."
First, zero evidence to support such a vast and damning claim and worse, alleging that somehow, a candidate could force the entire electoral college to vote against the popular vote *and* national interest.

Now, I have a reading assignment for you.
Look up the word prostitute and consider how you've prostituted your education and career.

However, I also consider the other candidate, one clueless on every major policy subject thus far presented and one entirely clueless as to what a nuclear triad is, but is of known intemperate spirit as evidenced by his many, many, many outbursts. A candidate who has embraced multiple conspiracy theories and has turned an election into a sideshow.
Corporate Hillary is a far superior choice to Dumb Donald, a man worth far less than he inherited from his father, but proclaims that loss is a success.
One candidate has been a cabinet member. The other, gave odd and erroneous advice to one POTUS's staffer.

Now, do sod off, the grown ups are talking here.

I knew your name rang a bell George Meredith: http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/fed_regs/actions/2003/fr0801.ht

I think you have a bit of a credibility problem.

Looks like Wzrd1's thyroid medication is talking again.

Ah, using the same level of ignorance that you approach engineering and explosive demolitions.
My "thyroid medication" doesn't do any talking, although my thyroid itself releases sufficient excess thyroid hormones to cause some anger management issues (to understate things greatly).
Hence, insufficient thyroid hormone blocking medication could and does create a problem, excess, not as much.

Thanks for reminding me! I'm due my second dose of the day of methimazole and my metoprolol. The former is the thyroid hormone blocker, the latter, a beta blocker for the hypertension caused by hyperthyroidism.
I swear, I'd forget my ass, were it not so firmly attached to me!

So, George Meredith , where's your proof that Hillary Clinton ever is or was an alcoholic or needed detox/dry-out ? Second , what in hell are you talking about with this "providing cover for a massive narcotics trafficking network" line ? How about some proof that doesn't originate in some wacky-land conspiracy theory blog or pseudo-news site ?

@DLC, that HRC was involved in some conspiracies, I have no doubt. She *was* SecState and there are always various operations that will never be admitted to.
That George had to come up with such odd things as wild claims, with zero supporting evidence and then add in some nefarious conspiracies that have no reflection in reality though, it's laughable.

Most true conspiracies exist only in that they're part of classified US government policies that promote US interests.
It's when people come up with odd conspiracies that have no basis in reason, fact or even generically promote US interests (or most commonly, are directly against US interests), well, those rightfully earn jeers.

As I outlined with Operation Ajax in 1953.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

Personally, with the 20/20 hindsight of today, I think that Truman refusing to authorize that operation was a very good decision. Alas, Eisenhower supported the operation and as a direct result, we have an Ayatollah running the show in Iran today.
And an angry Iranian government that still is waiting for an apology.

Wzrd1: When talk turns to conspiracies, I am reminded that
I have heard just about every claim about the JFK assassination, but none of them come anywhere close to the truth.
All I'm going to say about it is that it was mighty crowded on that grassy knoll, and Sam Giancana, Howard Hunt, and Rafael Cruz kept getting in my way.

A common defense mechanism, used repeatedly by hard core alcoholics, is to lie repeatedly, and to do so and without qualms. They lie, even when their self preservation does not dictate that they do so. They get so used to lying that it becomes a way of life for many alcoholics. And if they have enormous sums of money and power they can recruit hoards of others to do same, regardless of whatever oath these people may have taken. Witness the media thugs that currently associate themselves with the Former Secretary of State.

Consider:in the year that preceded her run for the Democratic nomination, Hillary’s aides pressured her to go to the Betty Ford Clinic because of her alcoholism. Willful Hillary resisted, choosing instead, to detoxify under the direction of an unnamed Internal Medicine detox specialist, working out of Clinton's Westchester home.

Curiously, when her personal Internist Lisa Bandack MD released Hillary’s medical record ( summary) on July 28, 2015, Bandark presented Hillary’s serum lipid and triglyceride studies, mammogram report and a host of other trivia. Bandack, however, cleverly neglected to mention Hillary’s alcohol rehab report. And key alcoholism studies were, likewise, omitted from this personal physicians “summary”. Go to the July 28, 2015 Bandack "summary" and search for yourself….you will find no CDT, no MCV, no GGT, no AST, no ALT, no BAC (blood alcohol level) and no AUDIT (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test).

Hillary and her doctors chose to hide these things from us. You should know that Hillary sits atop a vast criminal network, with which she and her narco trafficking cabal (judges, prosecutors, lawyers, private detectives, a variety of government agents, etc) have the power to steal this election. Furthermore, were they be able to steal this election, Hillary’s temper tantrums, so well known to her staff and her secret service detail, places PLANET EARTH at considerable risk …..,.THEREFORE WE THE PEOPLE, should insist on a blood alcohol level should she, in a drunken rage, decide to push THE NUCLEAR BUTTON

George Meredith MD

Virginia Beach
Major North American Flyway (Stopover) Refuges in peril.
The seasonal mudflats of Cheyenne Bottoms (Kansas state) wildlife refuge are vital spring over stops for almost 40 species of shorebirds. Six hundred thousand shorebirds fuel up each spring at Cheyenne Bottoms, prior to, for many, the long flight to, and stressful nesting on, the arctic tundra. And another 200,000 shorebirds use the "Bottoms" in the fall.
Sandhill and whooping cranes use Cheyenne Bottoms, and ten miles to the south, Quivira NWR, in both the spring and the fall as important stopovers en route to Texas, Louisiana, and Mexico, in the former, and to the Gulf Coast of Texas, in the later, bird’s case. Flint Hills and Kerwin NWR’s are but a couple hours away. These three federal, and one state, refuges are vital areas for resting and recharging for five tribes of Canada geese, and an increasing number of snow, blue and Ross’ Geese, gadwall, pintail, mallards, ring necks, lesser scaup, greater scaup, ruddies, buffleheads, blue wing teal, green wing teal and expanding flocks of redheads and widgeon.
Seaboard Farms pork production division, based in Shawnee Mission, Kansas, is planning to build a new $110 million pork processing plant to be located near Elwood, Kansas. Seaboard is about to build or contract almost 400 confinement hog operations with 3.6 million hogs scattered over 45,000 square miles of beautiful Western Kansas. Oxygen robbing nitrates, blue baby syndrome, phosphates, pfisteria, listerosis, coliform bacteria, fowl cholera, botulism, hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and carbon dioxide gases, heavy metals, screw worms, green flies and acid rain are all directly related to these massive pork packing plants and the hundreds of confinement hog operations that are needed to support them. Seaboard’s Elwood Plant and its 400 "family hog farms" would endanger not only Cheyenne Bottoms, Quivera, Flint Hills, and Kerwin NWRs, but also the Cheney Reservoir, the El Dorado Reservoir, the Equus Bed Aquifer, the Ogallala Aquifer, the Arkansas River, the Smoky Hill River, and Kansas River, and almost every municipal water supply from Tribune in the West, to Wichita and Kansas City in the East.
•.Read what John Meisner, water quality engineer for the USFWS says about Seaboard’s threat to these four vital stopover refuges.

•Larry Zuckerman, Director of Kansas Wildlife and Parks Pure Water for Kansas program: "Wake up, Wichitans, on Water", Wichita Eagle, Monday, April 27, 1998, regarding Seaboard’s threat to Central and Eastern Kansas’ water supplies and wildlife refuges.
•Wichita Eagle editorial writer Denny Clemments has correctly summarized (Seaboard’s) threat to water quality in Central and Eastern Kansas. Wichita Eagle editorial, "You Go!" May 30, 1999.

•Contrast these opinions with the ProSeaboard spin that Kansas Governor puts on all this. Kansas Governor signs Hog Bill (Corporate Piggery) (read full text of the bill (321,http://www.ink.org/)

Seaboard Farms has used (Korean, Malaysian and especially Japanese) soft money, corporate welfare money, and, I contend, tens of millions of narcodollars to corrupt all four branches of government in an all out effort to smooth the way for their $110 million dollar pork processing plant in and associated confinement hog operations.
•(Oct-Nov 1998) W.J. Clinton prevailed on Carol Browner and the EPA to radically relax their clean water standards to accommodate his goodtime buddies in the confinement poultry and swine business. See what Scott Dye of the Missouri chapter of the Sierra Club and the Citizens Legal Environment Action Network, or Clean, have to say about this Clinton brokered cozy arrangement.
To understand the politics of confinement hog operations vis a vis these vital mid-continent refuges, the reader must understand that:
•The U.S. Commerce Department gave Kansas Governor Bill Graves $9.6 in Industrial Revenue Bonds for "industrial development" in the state of Kansas.

•Graves in turn has given the $9.6 million to his "best bud", Rick Hoffman, CEO of Seaboard Farms, who spent, in turn, some of the money to construct "high tech" (hog) waste lagoons for his confinement hog operations in southwest Kansas.

•Hoffman then gave approximately $2 million back to Graves in soft money for his reelection/slush fund care of the Republican Party of Kansas. And Hoffman paid for Graves’s second inaugural ball. And, many agree, in one way or another, shared some of this same federal IRB (Industrial Revenue Bond) money, as well as other illicit monies, with Kansas attorney General Carla Stovall.

•"Be Open": Attorney General (Carla Stovall) brought troubles on herself (vis a vis "kickbacks" on tobacco settlements), Phillip Brownlee, Wichita Eagle, March 11, 1999.

•Graves and Stovall have bent over backwards to facilitate the construction of this Seaboard pork processing plant in Elwood. Many locals suspect that Japanese, European, Chinese, corporate welfare, and tens of millions of narcodollars have been/will be funneled into the Graves-Stovall-Clinton coffers on behalf of Hoffman and Seaboard. The Japanese (Nippon Industries) own Texas Farms, and Premium Standard, two other giant confinement hog operation. Clearly, the Japanese do not want these (toxic) confinement hog operations in their backyards.

•Eighty five percent (85%) of the "pork product" that comes out of Seaboard Farm's massive Guymon (Oklahoma) packing plant goes to their Asian customers. These "pork products" are routed through Japan. The Japanese take the prime cuts and then resell the remainder to Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and South Korea at a handsome profit. Seaboard, Tyson, and similar operations pollute our air and water resources. And corrupt all four branches of our government so that they can have a front for their massive cocaine transshipment enterprises.

The High Plains Journal (the farmer-rancher paper) published in its July 24, 1998, issue: "Seaboard’s quickly gaining ground as opponents fume...everybody in the (pork producing) industry is asking the question, ‘What is the Seaboard secret and how do I replicate it.’" (National Pork Producers) Council CEO Al Tank (said).
•Insiders believe that laundered narcodollars have been used to fund Seaboard’s rapid, "vertical growth."

• Hear what Texas County, Oklahoma natives say about the source of this cash and how it is being laundered. Interviews with Texas County (OK) Democratic Party Chairman Brett Fowler. And with Julia Howell, neighbor to one of Seaboard’s confinement hog operations in Texas County. (See Empire of the Pigs, Time Magazine)

•To gain further insight into the Clinton- Lasater- Hoffman modus operandi
http://www.dcia.com/mission.html
Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating protected George Bush from BCCI accusations while at Justice and Treasury
The spotlight keeps returning to Dave Walters, former governor of Oklahoma, friend of Bill Clinton and Dan Lasator. Ambrose Evans Pritchard in his book is quite clear about an incident when Strassmier was detained by law enforcement in Oklahoma. The chain of calls which came to Strassmier's aid began with calls from the office of Governor Walters!
This is very significant. It is known that present governor of Oklahoma, Frank Keating, was personally appointed by George Bush to positions in the Treasury and Justice Department that related to protecting Bush from allegations of involvement with B.C.C.I. and S&L looting. Now it is learned that the previous governor, Dave Walters, was involved up to his eyebrows in Mena like activities in Oklahoma with the same cast of Mena characters. In fact it was Dave Walters who introduced Dan Lasater to Bill Clinton!! Walters was involved with Lasater in the ANGEL FIRE cocaine scandal in New Mexico.
• Listen to cross country trucker, Chris Carson, talking about, thanks to Clinton's NAFTA, how easy it is to clear customs in Laredo, Texas. And how Clintons pals at the Arkansas based Stephens Trucking are periodically bringing swinging pork from 5 packing houses in Mexico up through Laredo (and Juarez) and other ports of entry to the Guymon, Oklahoma (distribution center) based Seaboard Farms. And how it's a "straight shot" up from Laredo to that Seaboard packing plant in Guymon. Question: have Clinton and Hoffman found a replacement for Mena (Arkansas) and Angel Fire (New Mexico)?

•"Mega Corruption at the Border", Jaime Dettmer, Insight Magazine. Three senior U.S. Customs officials are targets of federal probes -- including Pacific Regional Commissioner Rudy m. Camacho. Graft is so common there even is a price list for federal cops on take. Slowly, surely and relentlessly, the southern states of America are being drawn into the cocaine economy. As with every law-enforcement agency, the whole culture at Customs frowns on those who break ranks. The service is a small one - some would say claustrophobic - and everyone knows everyone else. Inspectors are recruited locally and seldom are rotated outside their state. That is part of the problem, say Customs internal-affairs investigators.
•"Growing Drug Corruption Panicking Agency Chiefs". Jamie Dettmer, Insight Magazine. Millions in dirty money have been used to corrupt law-enforcement officers on both sides of the border while Clinton administration pals at Customs freeze like deer in the headlights and pretend all is well. Nonetheless, Customs Commissioner George Weise opted to continue his "see-no-evil, hear-no-evil" posture toward persistent allegations of widespread border graft...Weise and Alan Bersin, the U.S. attorney in San Diego, boasted that the lack of indictments showed that all is well with U.S. law enforcement along the frontier. Bersin dismissed as "rumor, innuendo, speculation and half-truths" all talk of systemic or widespread narco-related border corruption.

Attention Wzrd1 Identify Yourself! Stop hiding behind your Internet Logo

Youv want proof of Ms Clinton's Criminal Past? Start with the above. Then go to the 99 complainents that HRC had bumbed off by thugs like you

Major North American Flyway (Stopover) Refuges in peril.
The seasonal mudflats of Cheyenne Bottoms (Kansas state) wildlife refuge are vital spring over stops for almost 40 species of shorebirds. Six hundred thousand shorebirds fuel up each spring at Cheyenne Bottoms, prior to, for many, the long flight to, and stressful nesting on, the arctic tundra. And another 200,000 shorebirds use the "Bottoms" in the fall.
Sandhill and whooping cranes use Cheyenne Bottoms, and ten miles to the south, Quivira NWR, in both the spring and the fall as important stopovers en route to Texas, Louisiana, and Mexico, in the former, and to the Gulf Coast of Texas, in the later, bird’s case. Flint Hills and Kerwin NWR’s are but a couple hours away. These three federal, and one state, refuges are vital areas for resting and recharging for five tribes of Canada geese, and an increasing number of snow, blue and Ross’ Geese, gadwall, pintail, mallards, ring necks, lesser scaup, greater scaup, ruddies, buffleheads, blue wing teal, green wing teal and expanding flocks of redheads and widgeon.
Seaboard Farms pork production division, based in Shawnee Mission, Kansas, is planning to build a new $110 million pork processing plant to be located near Elwood, Kansas. Seaboard is about to build or contract almost 400 confinement hog operations with 3.6 million hogs scattered over 45,000 square miles of beautiful Western Kansas. Oxygen robbing nitrates, blue baby syndrome, phosphates, pfisteria, listerosis, coliform bacteria, fowl cholera, botulism, hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and carbon dioxide gases, heavy metals, screw worms, green flies and acid rain are all directly related to these massive pork packing plants and the hundreds of confinement hog operations that are needed to support them. Seaboard’s Elwood Plant and its 400 "family hog farms" would endanger not only Cheyenne Bottoms, Quivera, Flint Hills, and Kerwin NWRs, but also the Cheney Reservoir, the El Dorado Reservoir, the Equus Bed Aquifer, the Ogallala Aquifer, the Arkansas River, the Smoky Hill River, and Kansas River, and almost every municipal water supply from Tribune in the West, to Wichita and Kansas City in the East.
•.Read what John Meisner, water quality engineer for the USFWS says about Seaboard’s threat to these four vital stopover refuges.

•Contrast these opinions with the ProSeaboard spin that Kansas Governor puts on all this. Kansas Governor signs Hog Bill (Corporate Piggery) (read full text of the bill (321,http://www.ink.org/)

•"Be Open": Attorney General (Carla Stovall) brought troubles on herself (vis a vis "kickbacks" on tobacco settlements), Phillip Brownlee, Wichita Eagle, March 11, 1999.

A common defense mechanism, used repeatedly by hard core alcoholics . . . .

Not in my experience, George – leaving aside the weird intensifier – but that's neither here nor there. The more salient question seems to be what you would "diagnose" weirdly copying and pasting the same thing hither and yon as being a symptom of.

Hilary is mean!

I watched a documentary that gave testimony of the Arkansas State Troopers that used to drive her around! They were known to actually trade shifts, to take the night shift, in preference to driving around Hilary during the day.

She is allegedly highly condescending to policemen.

I think Trump might be the "better" candidate here.

@George Meredith MD

A bit 'wordy'. All that matters is Clinton is a bitter, withered old hag funded by narco-dollars and dabbling in pork futures

by the by, Trump is a bitter, withered old hag funded by narco-dollars and dabbling in pork futures.

His 'law and order' plank is morbidly reminiscent of Richard Nixon and his initiation of the millons being imprisoned for possesion of a joint.

He sounds right on track to have intercourse with the filipino butcher --

Duterte, who has seen about two thousand people killed since he was elected in May, made the remarks late Friday as he shrugged off the United Nations' concerns over human rights in his country.

"Crime against humanity? In the first place, I’d like to be frank with you: are they humans? What is your definition of a human being?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/drug-users-arent-human-says-philippines-dute…

They say good fences
Make good neighbors

For you my friend
This might be true

But you still gotta put
The boards on the windows
To the soul inside of you

That t.v. in the corner
That's their greatest tool
They poison you mind
When you're a child

With their fear
And their guilt
And their rules

They teach you that you're just a number
As they program you in school
So by the time you're out
In their world on your own
You've been trained not to bite
The hand of the cruel

Wake up!

Don't believe that the system is failing
Don't believe that the planet is dead

They'll keep all the food for their fat fucking bellies
And the starving will kill or be fed

And they'll try to turn me against you
So divided,we'll turn to them
Because anything strong cannot be conquered from without
Before first being conquered from within. -- Shooter Jennings, Wake Up.

They say good fences
Make good neighbors

For you my friend
This might be true

But you still gotta put
The boards on the windows
To the soul inside of you

That t.v. in the corner
That's their greatest tool
They poison you mind
When you're a child

With their fear
And their guilt
And their rules

They teach you that you're just a number
As they program you in school
So by the time you're out
In their world on your own
You've been trained not to bite
The hand of the cruel

Wake up!

Don't believe that the system is failing
Don't believe that the planet is dead

They'll keep all the food for their fat fucking bellies
And the starving will kill or be fed

And they'll try to turn me against you
So divided,we'll turn to them
Because anything strong cannot be conquered from without
Before first being conquered from within.

-- Shooter Jennings, Wake Up.

One and the same.

Gilbert, it was a crappy poem to start with. Italics don't make it any more artistic or meaningful.

From the Poem: They’ll keep all the food for their fat fucking bellies/ And the starving will kill or be fed

Is that why you have to eat squirrels?

I apologize for the repeat, Old Rockin' Dave; I didn't think the first one went through as it kept saying 'spam'.

I didn’t think the first one went through as it kept saying ‘spam’.

That was the Crappy-Poem-Filter [CPF 2.0] that is in development holding you up. Apparently yours was just good enough to go through after a long deliberation!

I've said above that I don't do or support long-distance diagnosis, I do believe that Dr. Meredith has some issues, one manifestation of which is stringing together conspiracy beliefs in a paranoid-sounding manner, and trying to push them into a discussion where they are unwelcome and obtrusive.

That "Doctor Meredith" wants to know my identity, when this moniker is actually in the DBIDS database as a team leader is humorous and his astroturfing conspiracy theories long debunked as well,

Let's summarize his rant.
Hillary Clinton is an alcoholic, from his singular attestation alone, plus specialized testing not performed on patients without a valid medical reason, i.e.; liver function testing and alcoholism specific testing that even I've never received.
Then, via his singular attestation, Hillary Clinton has a vast Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps sized command to lie for her. Something typically only within the financial grasp of nations.
Followed by his singular attestation of some mythical "narco" empire, something the Bush clan would know a great deal about.

Yeah, I doubt that "doctor" has any medical certifications, let alone a degree. I am unaware of any board that would risk their reputation on such an individual.

Yeah, I doubt that “doctor” has any medical certifications, let alone a degree.

The license was revoked quite a while ago.

Without bothering to research, I imagine over mental fitness issues.

^ Oh, right:

Hillary Clinton is an alcoholic, from his singular attestation alone, plus specialized testing not performed on patients without a valid medical reason, i.e.; liver function testing and alcoholism specific testing that even I’ve never received.

It's loonier than that. He should be demanding a radiology report from an abdominal ultrasound, if that's the trip. Morphology trumps.

Heh, if he has the hots for Clinton and mythical ethanol abuse, he'd really love me and my legendary consumption of ethanol.
Amounts consumed previously only attributed to those living in Asgard. ;)

Without bothering to research, I imagine over mental fitness issues.

The documentation is incomplete, but I'm amazed that it took nine years from start to finish. Yay, Kansas?

I lost faith in state boards a long, long time ago. Self-policing is not something that they excel in, resulting in loss of licensure being reserved only for the worst of the most egregious worst.

Heh, if he has the hots for Clinton and mythical ethanol abuse, he’d really love me and my legendary consumption of ethanol.

Don't get too swell-headed. You might start oozing into the subarachnoid space.

P.S. Wait, Lucy Kaplansky has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology?
Holy cats.

Hilary is no doubt an alcoholic, but try to make your points more concise Dr Meredith. That was a huge pile of crap that you just dumped here, without primary references to back up the information/crap.

@Ted Striker:

Hilary is no doubt an alcoholic

Supporting evidence DEFINITELY needed.

That's as bad as the rumors of Ulysses Grant's drinking.
The man was legendary for his intolerance to alcohol, on the few times that he did drink, he had no constitution to withstand it.
One hallmark of alcoholism is tolerance to ethanol.

"That was the Crappy-Poem-Filter [CPF 2.0] that is in development"

I'm doomed.

As crappy poems and dirty ditties are the extent of my abilities to creatively write, I'm just totally SOL.

Fortunately for me, I have other communications tools, including an extensive vocabulary, plus the ability to flawlessly utilize boolean terms and regular expressions give me great skills to achieve in life.

No, not all in combination, that'd just confuse the hell out of people. ;)
But, I think in boolean terms and regular expressions are also quite natural to me. As natural as my command of English in a non-poetic way.

For those unfamiliar with regular expressions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expression
Neatest thing since the put the handle on the Popsicle. ;)
Learned when Google was still new and refined when managing a military installation's web filtering system.

I am anxiously awaiting what HRC conspiracy theorists will confabulate upon the news that Ms Abedin is now casting off her... I mean MR Wiener.

-btw- good for her!

I think it is obvious, Denice Walter. Hillary's not so much a carpet bagger as a carpet muncher.

Abadine has exchanged MR Wiener for Hillary's 14-inch strapon. It's nice that she 'came out' but I don't think she'll be staying with that rapidly withering old bat forever. She'll don a burka and start slumming herself out in Detroit or somewhere else equally receptive to her life-choices.

@ Julian Frost

Hilary Clinton drinking whiskey.

@Ted Striker, Jesus H Christ, she's in a room full of people with a drink in their mitts, that makes her an alcoholic.
Very well, Jesus himself obviously was, he hang with drunkards and worse.

Whatinhell is a photo op again?

Gilbert, thanks for showing one and all the level of non-support that you have for the LGBT community. It's nice to know that you'll insult a sizable minority, just to try to make political capital.
Because of you and assholes just like you, I abandoned the GOP.
The best part of you didn't run down your old man's leg, it stayed in the rubber.

Gilbert proves my point.

"the rumors of Ulysses Grant's drinking"

It was a bit more than "rumors'.

"By today’s standards, Grant could be considered an alcoholic, but he was able to control his addiction. As Grant biographer Geoffrey Perret explained: ‘The entire staff, as well as most of Grant’s division and corps commanders, was well aware of his drinking problem. [Brig. Gen. John A.] McClernand tried to make capital out of it and one or two other officers expressed their disgust at Grant’s weakness, but to the rest, it did not matter. A few were alcoholics themselves, but the main reason it was tolerated was that when Grant got drunk, it was invariably during quiet periods. His drinking was not allowed to jeopardize operations. It was a release, but a controlled one, like the ignition of a gas flare above a high-pressure oil well.'"

http://www.historynet.com/ulysses-s-grants-lifelong-struggle-with-alcoh…

Of course, Grant was a far better military leader than more sober predecessors.

That was the Crappy-Poem-Filter

Jack and Jill went up the hill;
Each with a buck and a quarter.

Jill came down with $2.50;
Do you think they went for water?

Looks like the moderator needs to update the CPF.

It partially works. I just tried posting some William McGonagall and it blocked it.

The CPF has a large database of known crap-poems, but has to use advanced algorithms for the original ones.

@136 Ted Striker

Hilary Clinton drinking whiskey.

That picture is clear evidence that Hillary Clinton held a glass of something. It's certainly not evidence of alcoholism. And, even if it was a glass of whiskey and she drank it, it's still not evidence of alcoholism but only evidence that she drank a glass of whiskey.

I will say the picture is evidence that people's faces, when frozen by a camera, often look very funny in ways we'd never notice just by watching them.

Indeed. By that criteria, I must be an alcoholic, because there are pictures of me at TAM mingling with my fellow skeptics at the Del Mar Bar and drinking beer. There is also a photo of me from my trip to London last September taking a drink of single malt scotch.

@Ted Striker #136, drinking whiskey is not proof of alcoholism. My mother enjoys the occasional glass and she is by no means an alcoholic. In addition, a lot of alcoholics only drink beer or wine, and never progress to "hard liquor".
Double fail on your part.
(The spelling whisky is generally used for whiskies distilled in Scotland, Canada, Australia, Japan and Europe, while whiskey is used for the spirits distilled in Ireland and America) - Whisky for Everyone

“An alcoholic is someone you don't like, who drinks as much as you do.” -Dylan Thomas

I was using the Mormon definition of the term "alcoholic".

[crappy poem deleted]

Gosh, Wzrd1 #137; I guess you're right. My apologies to Ms. Abadine and the entire LGBT community. I feel so... ashamed that I couldn't just leave it as Hitlary is rotten s**t.

The Ubiquitous Wallets of Christopher Dorner

Over here, over there, there's Dorners' wallets everywhere;

One on a bus,
And one in the street,
And one by a pier where the fishies like to meet.

At a park (there on the boulder),
And in a ditch there at the border,
And one in Big Bear survived a white-phosphor morter.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/13/christopher-dorner-wallet…

http://www.infowars.com/how-many-wallets-with-id-cards-in-them-did-dorn…

"I think it is obvious, Denice Walter. Hillary’s not so much a carpet bagger as a carpet muncher.
Abadine has exchanged MR Wiener for Hillary’s 14-inch strapon. It’s nice that she ‘came out’ but I don’t think she’ll be staying with that rapidly withering old bat forever. She’ll don a burka and start slumming herself out in Detroit or somewhere else equally receptive to her life-choices."
Gilbert, your comment is abominable, and I don't mean you're a yeti. As a member of the LGBT community, I absolutely condemn both your tone and your specific language. Further, your misogyny fills every line of your post. I pity anyone so hapless as to be in an intimate relationship with you. You are clearly many bricks short of a wall. You come across as someone as backwards and regressive as any I have seen in some time. To put it plainer, you are an unmitigated cesspool of bigotry.
As for your notpology, you only disgrace yourself more, while disclosing the untreated sewage you try to pass off as your thought process. There is no level of contempt so low that you would fail to be beneath it.

Oh, and Gilbert, your mention of Detroit in this context discloses another form of bigotry that you indulge in.

your mention of Detroit in this context discloses another form of bigotry that you indulge in.

And that would be what, exactly?

@Gilbert,

Try demonstrating your wit by reasoning it out for yourself.

I was also appalled by that comment, which was bad even your standards.

Gilbert?
Have you ever tried a fried-squirrel popsicle?

Ohh. Are there lots of Sharia law advocating muslims in Detroit?

Her closest adviser served as an editor for that same Saudi propaganda organ for a dozen years. The same one that in 1999 published a book, edited by her mother, that justifies the barbaric practice of female genital mutilation under Islamic law, while claiming “man-made laws have in fact enslaved women.”

...At no point in her long visit there, which included a question-and-answer session, did this so-called champion of women’s rights protest the human rights violations Saudi women suffer under the Shariah laws that Abedin’s mother actively promotes.

http://nypost.com/2016/08/21/huma-abedin-worked-at-a-radical-muslim-jou…

By 2015 many Muslim women in the Detroit area asked to be able to wear hijab in public places and in any identification photographs. Several municipalities are having to determine how to deal with producing identification photographs of Muslim women who are under arrest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Metro_Detroit#History

Wear that hijab while being face-scanned? 'Mericans can't even wear a ball cap for that -- While I sympathize with the right not to be entered into an all-inclusive biometrics database, I can also see that, under this new 'tolerance', cops would be forgivin for noting "they all look alike."

@Gilbert, with no due respect, it's called freedom of religion. It's guaranteed by our very first amendment.
A little education for you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijab

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abaya

My wife owns several abayas from when we were living in the Persian Gulf. She wasn't required to wear them, she didn't bother with the scarf, save on days that we had sandstorms (trust me, wearing a cloth on your head during a sandstorm is a damned good idea).
But, that modest token of respect for the local culture was thanked quite often and we even received sizable discounts in local businesses as a token of thanks for our respect for their culture.
It's called mutual respect, that can be built upon to become friendship.

Now, excuse me while I retrieve your gift from the cat box. Here's a cookie.

Gilbert, if you don't understand the difference between a hijab and a veil (tip: a hijab doesn't cover your face), then you are too ignorant to continue to participate in this conversation.

Also, I would note that these women are asking permission to wear more clothing, not demanding anything of anyone else.

"And that would be what, exactly?"
Wow, guy gets told off for crude bigotry and misogyny in no uncertain terms, and that's the part he responds to.
Try this:
http://www.snopes.com/2016/08/22/huma-abedin-muslim-journal/
and this:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/08/25/does-hum…
Hopeless. Witless too.

I don't know if what he said about Detroit was disparaging or complimentary.

Oh, some consider this an innovation of faith in Islam and hence, actually prohibited.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niq%C4%81b

But, again, it makes sense in a high sun, sandstorm prone environment. The dust builds up in your hair and respiratory tract, which then behaves like portland cement.
In the hair, highly annoying, in your throat, life threatening.

@Wzrd1, so the niqab could be considered similar to the cowboy's bandanna.

The tradition now is, covering of a woman's "proud parts" and how they interpret it.
But, functionally, yes, it's an effective dust filter.

if you don’t understand the difference between a hijab and a veil (tip: a hijab doesn’t cover your face), then you are too ignorant to continue to participate in this conversation.

O'really?

A hijab ... is a veil traditionally worn by Muslim women ..., which usually covers the head and chest.The term can further refer to any head, face, or body covering worn by Muslim women

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijab
It seems we're both tripped up by what constitues a 'veil', JustaTech #155. It's very chic -- very fashionable. I know I would choose to wear one while getting a mugshot taken.

My mother used to wear a scarf over her head in church. My wife rarely wore the hijab scarf over her head when we lived in Qatar. It wasn't required and when clear, why bother?

Mugshots are of the face. Are we now adjudicating crimes based upon hairstyle or something?
Hijab literally means modesty clothing, to cover a woman's "proud parts", which essentially would be cleavage, bustline and hair in that culture. Oddly, Muslim nations are able to book and identify women while permitting hair and boobies be covered, we're that inept?

As to your final question, Gilbert, Hillary covered it best at the time zippergate annoyed me enough to explain to my senator, Arlen Specter that, continue this, it'll be the Second Coming before another Republican holds office in this part of the state and at the time, I was a lifelong Republican.
She said, "That is between Bill and me".
Which, at the end of the day, is the simple truth of it.
And honestly, that places it entirely in the "it's none of my business" land.

Are are you so extremely fascinated with every other family's life in this land? Because, to be honest, if you are, stay out of our family business.
The ammunition saved will be my own. :P

That's a bit more than a bandanna, Julian Frost; It's ninja garb.

Btw, I always thought of hijab as being open-faced but that didn't seem to make sense in the aforementioned context of how to deal with mugshots -- I guess it messes up the profile veiw.

More interestingly, how does Abidine leaving her husband draw reflection that Clinton did not?

Wow, guy gets told off for crude bigotry and misogyny

def misogynist

A misogynist is a person who hates or doesn't trust women.

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/misogynist

I'm no 'misogynist'. I've never been in the military (unless ROTC counts) though I don't hold the view that women ought to hang out in the barracks and make sandwiches, not even in gaming.

I have a very particular disdain for Clinton, all the way back to the days of the Waco massacre when it was floated around that it was Hillary who 'wore the pants' -- Thus the duo was referred to as Billary.

https://newrepublic.com/article/136411/donald-trump-finds-huma-abedin-i…

@Gilbert #166, uh huh, hair is 6000% out of 100% of the profile or some other bovine defecation. Even Helen Keller could be able to identify the difference in profile. You don't need to see hair and jugs to know what a facial profile is, trying to justify that only shows a higher probability of being a perve.
Culturally, seeing boob outline, hair or anything else is equal to wanting to see every other part of her, no matter how intimate. Only an intimate member of the family, such as sister, mother or occasionally, a brother would be allowed to see her out of hijab out of concern for her reputation.
As I said, it's a major cultural taboo.
As taboo as if you were to come to my house as a complete stranger and demand to see my wife naked. Trust me, you'd find the Sicilian-American part of me real quickly - and my old fighting knife.
Indeed, I found many traditions inherent with Arabian families and habituation's closely similar to my father's side of the family. Close enough to become very, very close to several families and even become honored as a brother to some.*

As for Billary, I remember it well. Frankly, I think that Hillary's set is larger and have more cast iron than Bill's set.
That merely makes her a politician's wife and politician. (See My Fellow Americans for that punchline)

I have precisely zero love for Hillary, she's a corporate Democrat. But, I loathe bovine defecation being served up as a sandwich. It's still BS, no matter how you dress it up.

*Close enough as brother that, when one young man's elder brother came into town to visit my very close friend, his elder brother made the grave error of making a slighting comment about "old man". I immediately picked him up (he was six inches taller than I), threw him into the pool and drove him to the bottom, holding him there until I could feel him ready to try to breathe water. I then got under him and threw him out of the pool of seven feet of depth.
His younger brother was laughing his butt off the entire time.
We became very close after that, my age no longer being a factor. ;)
Oddly, the women were out of hijab when I was around after that. Perhaps, I was fully accepted as brother once we tried to harm one another as brothers are wont to do. ;)

""Hijab literally means modesty clothing

Ahh,

an Arabic word meaning “cover.”

http://arabsinamerica.unc.edu/identity/veiling/hijab/

I guess the mugshot controversy comes when the order 'turn to the right' is given.. the profile goes generic.

Gilbert proudly declares, "I’ve never been in the military (unless ROTC counts) though I don’t hold the view that women ought to hang out in the barracks and make sandwiches, not even in gaming." This would be in reference to what, exactly? Do you have to be in the armed forces to be a misogynist? Or a gamer?
Now, how are you misogynistic? Deriding women you don't like as whores is misogynistic right on the face of it. If you don't understand that, you should go live someplace where women aren't.
Your hateful description of Hillary Clinton as a "bitter, withered old hag" is also classic misogyny. I think Donald Trump looks like last year's jack o'lantern, but that's only relevant in the case of his remarks about others' looks, and his own.
In your apparent world view, powerful men are "strong", 'decisive', "forceful", "masterly". Powerful women are lesbians with strap-ons. 'Your comment shows that you equate having a penis, especially a large one, with strength, and not having one with weakness. so that any woman who dares to show strength in their dealings with others must be a lesbian, and of course. have a strap-on. I surmise that your mention of a "14-inch strapon" says more about your sexuality than about Clinton and Abedine.
I wonder if you would put up with that kind of commentary about your mother, sister, or wife (whom if she exists I have deep sympathy for her sorrowful marriage), and if you wouldn't, why you would want to characterize others that way.

ORD: I wonder if you would put up with that kind of commentary about your mother, sister, or wife (whom if she exists I have deep sympathy for her sorrowful marriage), and if you wouldn’t, why you would want to characterize others that way.

His dimness has been on drugs since he was fourteen, so he's still mentally a fourteen-year-old who thinks girls are more or less pet rocks. He also can't seem to spell Abedin.

In your apparent world view, powerful men are “strong”, ‘decisive’, “forceful”, “masterly”. Powerful women are lesbians with strap-ons. ‘Your comment shows that you equate having a penis, especially a large one, with strength, and not having one with weakness. so that any woman who dares to show strength in their dealings with others must be a lesbian, and of course. have a strap-on.

Ahh, no. My veiw and my statement are specific to Clinton. But, wow; You came up with all that -- I've noticed that liberals like to lay back and then pounce with the political correctness trolling whenever a PC blunder is made. And they also are often parroting sheep who still bleat out Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth as if it were factual.

While my response to Gilbert is rather dated, it's extremely late for me, I'm exhausted and in a fruckton of pain and taking an opioid for said pain, I'll respond to his Clinton is a lesbian nonsense.

First and foremost, I loathe the notion of her place in the POTUS race today, I'd have preferred a fossil to her, but, we've got what we've got and the choices are actually Trump the insane vs Hillary, the corporate Democrat.
Nowhere near six of one, half dozen of the other.

Now, here, in the real world, things are a lot more reality based than in your delusional version of the world.
Hillary is married to Bill, the king of zippergate, but I'm guessing precisely who holds Bill's Viagra.
As a user of said drug, courtesy of intensive beta blockers, I get a feel for such things. Hell, I'm ready to give my wife my entire supply, however, she poaches it, as it covers some symptoms of her menopause. So, honestly, we share.
TMI, tough shit.

So, Hillary is aggressive. She's a politician, that's natural. Hell, as a politician's wife, she has balls of her own, per "My Fellow Americans", which, in that part, is accurate.
Hell, it's one reason I don't go into politics, someone attacks my wife, I'd put a knife into his throat.

Big crap. She's a woman who has the temerity to go into *serious* politics.
Where you and I diverge on objecting is, I loath her very near GOP stance on multiple points.
I loathe Trump more, so it's a lesser of two evils.
Hell, given a choice, I'd put Bill in and double the guard, with special instructions.
Ain't got that choice, we got maniac Trump and Hillary.
I'll vote for Hillary.

For, to use your vernacular and knowledge base, she has her own set and Bill's at her disposal. That's fully five times what Trump, of short fingers can bring to the bed, erm, table.
This, from an accordionist, pianist and organist.
For the latter, feel free to range wild, it'll only give me a laugh.
As, in this castle state, yeah, it ain't pretty trying to violate the sanctity of the bedroom. :)

I'm perfectly able to play under your rules, I'll still win. :)

Do you *still*insist upon firing blanks?

OK. It was a crass comment. I see I'm not the only one, though--

the conservative Drudge Report ran the headline, "She's Had Enough Weiner! Huma Chooses Hillary." The headline ran with an image of the two woman together wearing similar outfits.

http://www.advocate.com/politics/2016/8/29/drudge-report-goes-hillary-c…

Well, after a few days**, I am rather pleased to observe that my stalwart colleagues at RI have shown Gilbert the blinding error of his ways illustrated whilst reacting to my note.

It's sometimes fun to plant a comment in order to get people to come out into the open with their various peeves and bents- including misogyny, homophobia et al.

I doubt that either woman is a lesbian BUT SO WHAT!
What's wrong with lesbians?

** I am in the midst of diverse projects including counselling adults and helping someone write.

AND before Gilbert reacts to that- I'll mention that I'm straight AND SO WHAT!

@Gilbert: the Drudge Report?!?!
The Drudge Report?!?! Are you serious?!?!

Denice Walter: "AND before Gilbert reacts to that- I’ll mention that I’m straight AND SO WHAT!" Right on!
To which I add, I'm not, and I know hate speech and crude bigotry when I see it.
Gilbert, if you think my reaction to your comment was "political correctness trolling" then you are denser than lead. I don't appreciate being anywhere near the receiving end of your crap. It has nothing to do with "political correctness trolling". It has to do with your delivering a deep insult to a good many people who have done nothing to deserve it, and I am one of those people. As someone who is a member of the LGBT community, I have been forced to put up with garbage like yours for years, but not any longer. Every member of that community deserves to have their rights and their place in society respected, and every one of us is one of mine.
Don't keep trying to excuse or justify yourself; you're only digging the hole deeper.
I suggest you go back to the folk who raised you and ask them to repeat your life lessons in common courtesy and polite discourse.

I’ll vote for Hillary.
Eww. There's always Gary Johnson.

Libertarian presidential candidate and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson is newly in favor of mandatory vaccination

http://digital.vpr.net/post/reversal-gov-gary-johnson-now-supports-mand…

Well, nobody's perfect.

Only idiots vote for libertarians, Though I notice the resident dimbulb finally stopped lying about his political affiliations. Though if you're a sexist dimbulb, you should really own your sexism and your dimness. Seriously, go join your fellow trogs on reddit and go beat your chest there. At least on reddit, no one cares if you don't have brain cells. Here, you just drag down the tone.

Though I notice the resident dimbulb finally stopped lying about his political affiliations.

I've never lied about that. Everytime I raise a point of fact with you, you accuse me thus, " Oh, I didn’t know that. I just figured Gilly was lying again."

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2016/08/31/in-which-a-professor-who-i…

I've not lied but have been fervent in my support of libertarianism -- Have I not pointed out here before that "Dr. Paul cured my apathy?" I've only ever been riled up to vote twice in my life: both for Ron Paul in two primaries.
=====================

she poaches it, as it covers some symptoms of her menopause. So, honestly, we share.

I'd prescribe cannabis for both your wife's menopause and your back spasms, Wzrd1#171.

@gilbert, thanks but no thanks. We're badly allergic to it, as in instant asthma attack for her and me, with slightly worse symptoms.
Doctor raised her morphine ER dosage and prescribed quick acting morphine for breakthrough pain. I've got my hydrocodone, prescribed at half to one tablet, 10 mg and I've only needed to take a full 10 mg three times since I started them last month, mid month.
The first night, due to severe spasms and today, after shopping for food, picking up RX's and assorted other tasks.
I'll hold off on checking motor and transmission mounts, a spark plug and oil change.
I had a major burst of intracranial flatulence and forgot to check my coolant levels before taking my wife to her specialist's appointment in Shreveport. By the time we crossed the river on the way home, the temperature needle jumped instantly from merely running high normal end of hot straight to its pins.
I drove a block to the exit, jumped off, waited for a traffic light and parked the car. When I opened the hood, I observed a blue glow in the air and was bombarded by neutrons, gamma and x-rays from the coolant's hydrogen fusing.
Well, it sure seemed like that was happening, it wasn't pretty. Even the motor oil had boiled out of the valve cover.
At two hours, things had cooled enough that I could pour in the water that was kindly provided by the mechanics of the car lot we pulled into and at two and a half hours, the fuel injection system recovered from vapor lock.
Fortunately, after reading out the computer, two plugs are fouled, the oil level is OK, but the oil's suffered from severe viscosity breakdown and from the sound made when putting the car into reverse, either a transmission mount or motor mount gave up and quit.
Boy, am I lucky! That could've gotten real expensive, really, really quickly.

The cause of the coolant loss is a pinhole leak that I'm utterly unable to locate. Hopefully, when fall or winter arrives, the steam from whatever tiny leak it is will actually condense enough to see.

Yeah, I'm one of those backyard mechanic, who has done major repairs in his yard.
I'll just have to put the toolbox onto my wife's rollator.

" I’ve only ever been riled up to vote twice in my life..."
Having seen the thought processes you show us here, I am glad you don't see fit to vote more often.
I'm not sure which Doctor Paul you refer to, Papa Doc or Baby Doc, but Dr Paul Senor is the man who puts the "Aryan" in "libertarian".
If anyone wants to see a pretty good summation of libertarianism, try this link:
http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/NoLibert.HTM

Your link convinced me, Old Rockin' Dave; I've decided to change my affiliation to 'minarchian'.

@ ORD:

Agreed.
You DO rock. All of the time.

I recall the old studies wherein (some) respondents attribute female success stories as being due to being a lesbian, 'not a real woman' or SIMILAR instances of bad thinking.

These creatures must be so freaked out about the prospect of a female president, PM or Chancellor ( oh wait, we have two of them already).

Is the real world mimicking Game of Thrones?

Thank you, Denice. Now if only you could tell my kids that.
If anyone cares, which I expect no one does, I will point out that I am cis-gendered (a clumsy formulation), I am not female, and I have a healthy sexual interest in in *both* major genders, not to mention an openness to the variations thereof

Yeah, I’m one of those backyard mechanic

Yea, I know what you mean. Back in the day, I've changed piston and rod with the engine still in the car, journal bearings, that sort of thing. I had a C-6 that would foul its valve body after a certain number of miles -- I kept a cleaned valve body to swap out on the side of the road (tranny fluid was collected by pulling a cooling line and discharging it into a three gallon waist bucket).

Speaking of cooling lines, "from the sound made when putting the car into reverse, either a transmission mount or motor mount gave up and quit.
Uh oh. Tranny is cooled by the same cooling system as the engine block. Sounds like a low/reverse band chattering (my sympathy); A problem that can arise from baked transmission fluid. If it were a motor mount then it would be the passenger side one if the fan is jumping into the shroud only in reverse -- You should be able to feel movement in the shifter when applying torque with any gear if it is a mount. But man, ford 429 mounts were always expensive for me even back then (had to get them from a company that supplied large 'rock' trucks (a giant dump truck).

No movement in the shifter, I'm thinking a motor mount. I feel the vibration of an impact when shifting to reverse on an inclined area (such as my driveway or some parking lots). It feels like a slight engine shift.
Add to that, it's a '96 Taurus, it's more than old enough for a motor mount to fail after an overheat.
I do have to drop the trans pan and pop in a filter & filter grommet, it's doing clipping when cornering and the kid that owned the car before me overfilled the trans in the mistaken impression that that'd help. I've had that happen a few times over the decades, new grommet, it stops sucking air from the lower transmission fluid pool and sucks the fluid through its filter.

Yeah, I'm familiar with marijuana usage for pain, however, when allergy is present, is it wise to try to widen the reaction into a far more severe reaction when an asthma attack is already present upon exposure? Repeated exposure triggering anaphylaxis might be something that I'd be willing to risk, save the cost of an epipen!

Besides, today, I've not needed a single hydrocodone. My wife is faring better as well, taking her morphine ER and not needing her immediate release thus far.
I'll also be laying down, as tonight is my "Monday" morning.*

*I frequently switch shifts from midnight to day on my "weekend", as I have learned the dozens of little tricks to move my sleep cycle without undue fatigue and stress.
A skill and rare ability even among military circles, but extremely useful when one could get a short notification order to travel halfway across the planet.

I suspect that when George Meredith MD shuffles off this mortal coil his epitaph will be "TL;DR".

From current evidence Gilbert is: dense as depleted uranium, homophobic, misogynistic, Islamophobic, a conspiracy theorist and a carrion picker.

But at least he can post about more than one topic, which is all we ask of our trolls.

thanks but no thanks. We’re badly allergic to it
Ahh well, Wzrd1, theres always kratom for pain -- No, wait; The DEA has emergency-scheduled it so they can start locking people up for those using it instead of bupenorphrin.

Way to go again, Pharma.

"We're all frankly feeling terrified," she says. "At a time when our nation is seeing the largest opiate epidemic crisis in our history, there's this cheap plant out there that's helping people getting off opioids, and now people are saying they are going to be forced back into active addiction."

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-09-01/deas-sudden-herbal-heroi…

Sergeant David Dasilma, a decorated Iraq war veteran, says he takes kratom about three times per week to treat pain in his feet, back, shoulder and head, the nagging result of injuries he experienced during his six years serving in the Army as a medic. He says kratom allows him to not take seven pharmaceutical drugs he has been prescribed, such as narcotics and muscle relaxants, which “turn him into a zombie.” ...

Dasilma, who was the 2009 non-commissioned officer of the year, says that the proposed listing deeply upsets him. He says he doesn’t suffer withdrawal when he stops taking it, and he doesn’t see it as an addictive substance.

“I’m not some crazy drug addict,” just a war veteran trying to experience less pain, he says. This listing is “taking away a right that I fought for—when I did my tour in Iraq—I fought for my right to be in America and help myself,” Dasilma says. “I’m not talking about snorting cocaine or doing heroin.… I’m talking about brewing some tea, and having a sip, and feeling better.”

http://www.newsweek.com/dea-list-kratom-schedule-i-effectively-outlawin…

No movement in the shifter, I’m thinking a motor mount...It feels like a slight engine shift.

If it is front-wheel drive then there is a mount up top that we used to call a 'dog-bone'. A bad bushing there can cause that if you're sure it is not a valve-body problem.

@JustaTech #189, all quite true.
I'm infamous for, when encountering an alt-right maniac at a social event, hearing the BS, ginning up a conversation to "learn more", being denser than the neutronium heart of a neutron star.
I'll then repeat back learned views, entirely incorrectly, but at a tangent that makes it obvious to every well balanced listener that I'm toying with the individual and sparing others the full range of their vitriol, while adding to their stress in the inability to successfully impart their views.
I'm able to keep that going for a minimum of 20 minutes, a maximum of 40 minutes, with the individual turning increasingly deep shades of purple. Eventually, I anticipate someone will experience a CVA or MI and I'll have to render first aid while awaiting the arrival of EMS.

But then, I never fully subscribed to Wheaton's law, on occasion, ya just gotta be. Something he discovered during gamergate..

There's a chance that Gilbert is salvageable, when exposed to those who have both shared similar life experiences and greater geographical ranges of life experiences.
And it really is far a better experience to deal with someone that is honestly mistaken in multiple areas to a bastard that gives a pleasant lie, while planning dastardly deeds. :)

That said, if I ever refer to carpet munching, it'd be in reference to one imbibing an excess of ethanol, while sitting upon the floor and awakening with one's tongue in contact with the rug, drool pooled about and carpet fiber in one's mouth. But then, that's something within my experience base from my youth. After a few times, I figured out, that wasn't any fun and found better ways to entertain myself that didn't involve such an undignified method of rest.
Although, that isn't the most unpleasant experience that I've experienced or others have.
May I introduce you to the longest free fall elevator as the longest elevator fall that someone survived and worse, the individual in question was injured?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-25_Empire_State_Building_crash#Details
75 stories, ending up in the basement. While injured. That just *had* to be unpleasant!
Found that event while confronting some 9-11 truthers.
https://web.archive.org/web/20060317041607/http://www.guinnessworldreco…

OK, that was just an excuse to add tangential trivia, which might just come in handy one day. ;)

it’s doing clipping when cornering and the kid that owned the car before me overfilled the trans in the mistaken impression that that’d help.

If by 'clipping' you mean "falling out of gear" then that is a symptom of low fluid level -- Since it was 'used', the dipstick may not be the right one for the car. Naturally, high fluid levels can cause the fluid to froth up from contact with the moving gearworks, allowing air into the hydraulics of the valve body and causing the same problem as low fluid.

new grommet, it stops sucking air from the lower transmission fluid pool

The grommet around the filler tube??? I don't think that would matter--I've a mechanic friend, perhaps I'll ask him about it for you.

That should've been slipping, damnable autoincorrect!
And grommet for the transmission filter, it's sometimes called a gasket, but it's a rubber grommet.

That said, if I ever refer to carpet munching, it’d be in reference to one imbibing an excess of ethanol, while sitting upon the floor and awakening with one’s tongue in contact with the rug,

An officer does not drink. And if he drinks he does not stumble. And if he stumbles he does not fall. And if he falls then he covers his face so that no one will recognize him as an officer. -- Men of Honor

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0203019/

Oops,

A Chief Petty Officer shall not drink. However, if he should drink he shall not get drunk. If he should get drunk, he shall not stagger. And if he should stagger, he shall not fall. And if he should fall, he will fall in such a manner as to cover up his rank so that passerbyers will think he is an officer.

Funny, that is not how I remember the dialogue... "cover his insignia" maybe? Damn now I'mma gonna have to watch that whole movie.

And grommet for the transmission filter

Ahh, I see (6 mins into this video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWFB1ze7xiA

The new Focus RS sounds like a sweet ride; 2.3L duel scroll turbocharger 350HP 350foot-lbs All-wheel drive.
http://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/09/the-ford-focus-rs-the-blue-ovals-be…

Well, good luck with it, Wzrd1; If I were able, I'd get the new one so as not to drip tranny fluid in my eye.

Hillary has amnesia?

FBI Reveals Hillary Could Not Recall Briefings Due To Concussion, Clot

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-02/smoking-gun-fbi-report-exposes…

Jesus H Christ! So, I'm now unfit for duty and should seek disability?
Unlike Hillary, I've injuries from IED's, as in multiple traumatic brain injuries.
Should I file now for my significant claims?
Or grow a set and realize, people get hurt and heal, kiddo?
As, my disability claim would be significant, far beyond VA levels, to significant levels, civilian side.
As I've had one trauma induced cataract replaced, wanna play? I've got a pocket full of million dollar quarters.
The other will get replaced either way, it'll only be a same time, same place pay-out.
Let's play.

Wzrd1: I’ve got a pocket full of million dollar quarters.

You have $0.25 coins that are actually worth $1,000,000?

Hey, I can wish.
I do recall a platinum 25 cent piece commemorative "quarter", still nowhere near worth a million bucks though.
The largest coin right now is a $100 face value, $1450 actual cost platinum coin from the US mint.

Particularly troublesome is the disingenuous and downright slippery rationalizations made by some psychiatrists and psychologists making these 'diagnoses'. “We are careful not to make a clinical diagnosis here, to say that Donald Trump has narcissistic personality disorder... We are focused on the image he projects, on TV, in tweets, in quotes.” This is, to put it kindly, self-serving bullshit, and highly unethical bullshit at that. </blockquote.
Ironically (?) Orac seems to have diagnosed an ethics disorder from a distance, without examining the patient. Which is to say he's taken as 'fact' the spin put on William Doherty's "Citizen Therapists Against Trumpism" by the NYT's Benedict Carey, which Carey took from his primary source, Columbia psych professor Paul Appelbaum. My guess would be that Appelbaum and Carey have an existing symbiotic source/reporter relationship, and Appelbaum rung up Carey, who hadn't heard of Doherty's website, with his concerns and Carey just took that peg without double-checking on the facts, or questioning Appelbaum's motives/ biases that might account for his dim view of 'anti-Trumpism'.
(That Orac doesn't mention Doherty, but only clips the Steven Buser quote from the NYT piece suggests his 'hot take' was generated quickly w/o further inquiry.)

Doherty was a guest on The Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnel

recently, where his roie was to criticize the various non-doctors (in this case, specifically David Plouffe) who have said stuff like 'Trump has NPD!'. (http://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/the-last-word/2016-08-29). So he was quite clear that his group's 'manifesto' is not a medical diagnosis and not about Trump as a real person, and that no mental health professional should go to either place long distance.

Focusing "on the image he projects, on TV, in tweets, in quotes”, is NOT BS, because it isn't a disingenuous excuse for diagnosing Trump. Doherty's group is doing ideology critique, not medicine.

[This is basically what scholars in contemporary film and media studies do – take intent and authorship off the table and concentrate on how the text works in society and culture. A classic example is "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" which is knee deep in gender politics whether Howard Hawks intended them or not. Hawks himself was adamant that he was just trying to tell "good stories" and denied any deeper purpose or substance in any of his films. The fish don't see the water... So we don't talk about Hawks, we just talk about the movie.]

So the argument Doherty et al are advancing is quite different from that of the armchair psychologists. The latter, of course, is 'Trump's a wacko who'll make dangerously bad policy decisions.' In contrast, the Therapists Against Trumpism case is that the the proliferation of "the image he projects" spreads and normalizes a quasi-fascist ideology that is unheathy for the body politic. They're not worried about what he'd do in office, but the effect of his TV persona on our society.

Trumpism will undermine the emotional health of those seen as the “other” in America—both historically denigrated groups and those whose turn will come. And it will compromise the integrity of those who are seduced by the illusion that real Americans can only become winners if others become losers. The public rhetoric of Trumpism normalizes what therapists work against in our work: the tendency to blame others in our lives for our personal fears and insecurities and then battle these others instead of taking the healthier but more difficult path of self-awareness and self-responsibility. It also normalizes a kind of hyper-masculinity that is antithetical to the examined life and healthy relationships that psychotherapy helps people achieve. Simply stated, Trumpism is inconsistent with emotionally healthy living—and we have to say so publicly...

To repeat: Trumpism undermines the core of American democracy by promoting the idea of a single leader who will bring greatness to the nation by battling Those People. Democracy requires personal and collective agency so that we can work together across differences to solve problems and develop a shared way of life. Psychotherapists must be firmly on the side of democracy and work in solidarity with groups directly threatened by current and future versions of Trumpism.

Appelbaum appears to have taken this through an extremely distorting set of confirmation biases (to the extent I have to wonder about HIS political allegiances). Alas, Orac's take on the Buser quote is fourth hand, filtered through Applebaum and Carey's biases which not only strip the full context, but hang it on a very dubious peg. If anyone wants to consult a primary source, the Public Manifesto of Citizen Therapists Against Trumpism is here: http://citizentherapists.com/manifesto/

Can we not-psychiatric-MDs distance-diagnose Trump NOW? Pretty please? ... ... ...
[crickets]
Well, I am going to state in no uncertain terms that this man is ABSOLUTELY suffering from Narcissistic Pussy Disorder.

Well it happened.
Donald Trump is the U.S. President Elect.
"Congratulations".

@ Julian Frost
So much for the science of polling with these small sample sizes.

Zika virus and microcephaly: Antivaccine warriors say it's vaccines that did it!

oracknows — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 02:00:28 +0000

Zika virus and microcephaly: Antivaccine warriors say it's vaccines that did it!

Last week, I wrote about how conspiracy theories have been flowing fast and furious about the Zika virus and microcephaly. Even if you didn't see that post (perhaps instead having seen this one), you've probably seen the news reports describing how last fall the observation of a large number of cases of microcephaly, characterized by an abnormally small head and delayed brain development, in Brazil led researchers investigating the problem to suspect a link to a virus. That virus, the Zika virus, as you recall, is a mosquito-borne flavivirus related to dengue virus and transmitted primarily by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes (photo source here). On the surface, this virus would appear to be a relatively benign virus, with 80% of its infections being asymptomatic and infections in the other 20% manifesting themselves as a self-limited, relatively mild flu-like viral illness characterized by fever, rash, arthralgia (joint aches), and conjunctivitis. Then came the evidence that prenatal infection might cause microcephaly.

As I discussed in my first post, the epidemiological link between Zika virus and microcephaly is not a slam dunk by any stretch of the imagination. It's not even clear that there has been a major spike in incidence of microcephaly in Brazil. However, the evidence thus far is definitely sufficient to be suggestive of a link, such that further investigation is certainly warranted and perhaps precautions for women in the affected areas would be wise. None of this uncertainty has stopped the conspiracy theorists, of course. As we will see, the bizarre conspiracies are still coming. Perhaps the oddest of them are the ones from antivaccinationists, including a crank group of physicians that I haven't discussed in a while. I'll get to them in a moment.

First, however, I can't help but mention that the CDC has published a new report on Zika virus for its latest issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), Notes from the Field: Evidence of Zika Virus Infection in Brain and Placental Tissues from Two Congenitally Infected Newborns and Two Fetal Losses — Brazil, 2015. This report describes the result of Zika virus assays developed by the CDC for testing formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue samples. (This is what pathologists routinely do to fix any tissue removed during biopsies or surgery.) In December, the CDC tested tissues from two newborns with microcephaly who died within 20 hours of birth and two miscarriages (fetal loss at 11 and 13 weeks). They all came from the state of Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil, and all four mothers had had clinical signs of Zika virus infection, complete with fever and rash, during the first trimester of pregnancy but had no signs of active infection at the time of delivery or miscarriage. Tissues subjected to testing included brain and other autopsy tissues from the two newborns, a placenta from one of the newborns, and products of conception from the two miscarriages.

These tissues were subjected to reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) directed at the gene for the nonstructural protein 5 and envelope genes using commonly used methods for RT-PCR. Tissues were also subjected to immunohistochemistry (using antibodies to identify specific proteins in tissues) using an anti-Zika virus antibody. This is what the CDC found:

For both newborns, significant histopathologic changes were limited to the brain, and included parenchymal calcification, microglial nodules, gliosis, and cell degeneration and necrosis. Other autopsy tissues and placenta had no significant findings. Tests for toxoplasmosis, rubella, cytomegalovirus, herpes simplex, and HIV were negative in the two mothers who experienced miscarriages. Placental tissue from one miscarriage showed heterogeneous chorionic villi with calcification, fibrosis, perivillous fibrin deposition, and patchy intervillositis and focal villitis, while tissue from the other miscarriage had sparsely sampled normal-appearing chorionic villi.

This report describes evidence of a link between Zika virus infection and microcephaly and fetal demise through detection of viral RNA and antigens in brain tissues from infants with microcephaly and placental tissues from early miscarriages. Histopathologic findings indicate the presence of Zika virus in fetal tissues. These findings also suggest brain and early gestational placental tissue might be the preferred tissues for postmortem viral diagnosis. Nonfrozen, formalin-fixed specimens or FFPE blocks are the preferred sample type for histopathologic evaluation and immunohistochemistry, and RT-PCR can be performed on either fresh frozen or formalin-fixed specimens. To better understand the pathogenesis of Zika virus infection and associated congenital anomalies and fetal death, it is necessary to evaluate autopsy and placental tissues from additional cases, and to determine the effect of gestational age during maternal illness on fetal outcomes.

In other words, the brains showed evidence of cellular degeneration and necrosis (cell death), and the placenta from one of the miscarriages had evidence of inflammation. The importance of these findings is that it shows that the Zika virus can infect the fetus when the mother is infected and that it appears to favor infecting the brain. Obviously, only four individuals are not enough to draw any sort of generalizable conclusions about prenatal Zika virus infection, but these results do provide evidence for biological plausibility of the hypothesis that prenatal Zika virus infection might be causing an outbreak of microcephaly. Still, there are many questions, such as why there haven't been outbreaks like this before, given that Zika virus has been endemic in many areas since at least the 1950s and there have been outbreaks of Zika virus before in Africa, southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands, as well as several countries in Central and South America where Zika virus outbreaks are currently being reported. Yet, despite how widespread the virus is, there haven't been reports of increased incidence of microcephaly before this.

As I said the first time I discussed this issue, the whole question of whether Zika virus is causing microcephaly is complicated. Of course, if there's one thing that attracts answers that are simple and wrong, it's complex epidemiological questions about whether a given putative etiological agent is actually causing the disease or condition that it's suspected of causing. No wonder antivaccine loons are all over the case! Sure, there's the usual nonsense about how Zika virus is nothing more than a fake disease invented by an unholy cabal of the CDC, big pharma, and the World Health Organization (WHO), apparently all in order to contribute to Bill Gates' global depopulation campaign, but one of the dumber antivaccine conspiracy theorists, the pseudonymous Levi Quackenboss, couldn't resist asking:

Being the quack that I am, three questions first came to mind.

What is the pesticide regulation situation in Brazil?

Is there a Zika virus vaccine coming down the turnpike?

Have prenatal vaccines been recently introduced to Brazilian women

Of course, Quackenboss forgot the most awesome conspiracy theory about Zika virus I've heard thus far, that the cause is genetically modified mosquitos that I discussed in my last post. Not surprisingly, Quackenboss' answers to all three questions are yes, yes, and yes. She goes on about how Brazil uses a lot of pesticides, which if true is not good of course. She discusses voltage-gated sodium channels in a manner that amused me, because it's so clear that he's just showing off to his fellow antivaxers that she knows science, ma-an—or at least thinks she does. Truly, the arrogance of ignorance engendered by the Dunning-Kruger effect is strong in this one. (Ironically, I gave a talk to an ion channel conference held in London in September and have a grant to look at voltage-gated sodium channel function—among other things—as a potential target for breast cancer therapy; so I'm geeking out here. I also know a lot about certain sodium channels.) It turns out that specific pesticides disrupt voltage-gated sodium channel function, something that is well known. It also turns out that Quackenboss found an eleven year old review article that points this out and also notes that anticonvulsants (many of which interfere with voltage-gated sodium channel function) have been associated with birth defects, including microcephaly. Not surprisingly, Quackenboss neglects to mention the other part of the article that give the caveat, "there are currently no data to suggest that developmental exposure to pyrethroids [pesticides] results in similar effects." Typical.

Also not surprisingly, Quackenboss points out that a Zika virus vaccine is in the pipeline and being pushed out as fast as possible. That's understandable, of course. Before, there was little incentive because the disease was thought to be a disease that made few people more ill than a self-limited viral illness. Add the potential for birth defects if pregnant women are infected, and the urgency of a vaccine increases by at least an order of magnitude. Predictably, though, to Quackenboss insinuates that the Zika scare is all about pushing this vaccine through the pipeline faster, the better to enrich our pharma overlords.

However, to an antivaccine loon, it's always first and foremost about the vaccines. (Always and forever, amen.) So the conclusion Quackenboss comes to is about as unsurprising as can be:

Lastly, it was just at the end of 2014– 14 months before Zika hysteria– that the Tdap vaccine was mandated for pregnant women in Brazil. The order came down in October, and 10 months later the first cases of microcephaly were seen by local doctors. So these poor women who are eating pesticide-soaked food, breathing pesticide-filled air, and probably drinking pesticide-poisoned water (except that the municipalities don’t even bother to participate in testing) are now vaccinated against their will with a Class C drug with no adequate studies in humans while pregnant.

This is a particularly dumb conspiracy theory, but, then, Quackenboss is an antivaccinationist. If Tdap is causing microcephaly, one wonders why, then, there haven't been outbreaks of microcephaly in the US, where the CDC has recommended the Tdap vaccine for pregnant women since 2011. Also, the Tdap is recommended in the third trimester, between weeks 27 and 36. That's long after microcephaly develops, as the standard recommendation to detect microcephaly is to do an ultrasound late in the second trimester or early in the third. In other words, there's no biological plausibility in blaming microcephaly on the Tdap vaccine because by the time the vaccine is routinely administered, microcephaly has already developed. Not that that stops Quackenboss from characterizing the association of microcephaly with Zika virus infection as "a misdiagnosed non-epidemic of probable pesticide poisoning and vaccine injury fueled by an American media bored with talking about Hillary Clinton’s email server." As I pointed out last time, Tdap is safe for pregnant women.

Truly, the stupid, it burns.

Of course, I expect this sort of pseudoscientific nonsense from a twit like Quackenboss. I do not expect it from a physician. Unfortunately, all too frequently I do get this sort of stuff from a physician, which is why I've never completely retired my schtick about putting a paper bag over my head when physicians say stupid things. In this case, the physician is Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS). We've met Dr. Orient the AAPS before, of course, dating back a long time. It is an organization of physician-cranks (or, if you prefer, crank physicians) that is known for being against vaccine mandates, Medicare (calling it "unconstitutional"), and any form of regulation of health care by government. To top it off, the AAPS has characterized public health programs as "tyranny." It has also published brain-meltingly bad papers claiming to find that abortion causes breast cancer, has promoted the vile idea that shaken baby syndrome is a misdiagnosis for "vaccine injury," supported HIV/AIDS denialism, and—of course!—done what all crank medical organizations like to do, attack evidence- and science-based medicine as placing unacceptable limits on physician autonomy. Worse, the AAPS doesn't even limit itself to medicine in that it's also published papers attacking anthropogenic global climate change, as though physicians have the necessary expertise to assess climate science. Truly, the crank magnetism and arrogance of the AAPS know no bounds.

Dr. Orient wastes no time demonstrating these traits in her article published—where else?—on WorldNetDaily entitled Zika Virus: What Should We Do About It? I sought it out because, being on the AAPS mailing list, I received a notification of Dr. Orient's article. Not surprisingly, in it Dr. Orient cites what she calls some "interesting facts":

Brazil had seen an increase in pertussis in fully vaccinated children, so early in 2015 officials mandated immunizing all pregnant women with DTaP (diphtheria/tetanus/acellular pertussis) vaccine, without awaiting proof of efficacy or safety in the developing baby. Only 32 pregnant women were enrolled in a trial of this vaccine, and no results are posted yet.

A variable number of months after the vaccinations, the number of microcephaly cases increased from essentially zero in October 2015 to 1,200 in November, and continued to climb.

Because of a measles outbreak, there was a major vaccination campaign with MMR (measles/mumps/rubella) in Pernambuco, Brazil, in late 2014. This is a live virus vaccine, and many women likely received it in early pregnancy or shortly before becoming pregnant. Congenital rubella syndrome can cause microcephaly among many other problems, but this was not found in surveillance of American women who inadvertently received MMR around the time of conception.

I can't help but note here that Dr. Orient actually one-ups the pseudonymous antivaccine loon Quackenboss by coming up with two—two!—different antivaccine conspiracies to blame the increase in cases of microcephaly on instead of Zika virus. That's hard to do. Instead of just blaming Tdap, she blames the MMR vaccine as well through a tenuous link with congenital rubella syndrome. Of course, many many millions of doses of MMR have been given with no observed association with an increase in birth defects consistent with congenital rubella syndrome. (One notes that congenital rubella syndrome is also associated with autism.) Quite the opposite, in fact. In the US, congenital rubella syndrome has been virtually eliminated, thanks to widespread vaccination with MMR. Seriously, you'd think that Dr. Orient could come up with a more plausible way to link the MMR to microcephaly. That she couldn't should tell you a lot about the science supporting her other claims about vaccines; i.e., there isn't any.

Worse, Dr. Orient can't even get her facts right. DTaP is the vaccine given to children. Tdap is the vaccine given to adults. Tdap is what Brazil started recommending for pregnant women beginning in 2014, because it's the adult version of the vaccine. She's also incorrect that there are no studies documetning the safety of the Tdap vaccine in pregnant women. Then, again, there is the aforementioned basic biological implausibility of the hypothesis that Tdap causes microcephaly based on simple embryology and the timing of the vaccination in the third trimester. None of this stops Dr. Orient from plumbing the depths of medical ignorance, though:

The damaged babies are a terrible tragedy. How can we prevent more? Instead of waiting for some future vaccine against a virus that may prove innocent, we could stop transmission now with effective mosquito control in affected areas. We could also immediately stop deliberately exposing women who might be pregnant to medicines or vaccines without thorough safety testing.

In fact, in this conclusion, consistent with her role in the AAPS she can't resist engaging in a bit of politics, including a little Rachel Carson revisionism. What do I mean by that? Simple. The above paragraph is the final paragraph in her piece; reading it doesn't tell you what she means by "effective mosquito control." However, earlier Dr. Orient spelled out what she meant:

The unfortunate babies are being used to promote political causes: legalization of abortion in Latin America, or the fight against “climate change.”

With warmer temperatures, mosquitoes might be able to move further north, it is claimed. But Aedes aegypti arrived in North America around 1980 in a shipment of used tires, not waiting for a temperature increase. And mosquito-transmitted malaria was prevalent in Minnesota during the Little Ice Age. Climate change or not, mosquitoes will not be inconvenienced if we bankrupt our coal industry or ban SUVs.

Travel restrictions would greatly harm the economy of Latin American countries, especially as Brazil is preparing to host the Olympics. Of course, there is no screening at all of illegal entrants to the U.S. The key public health measure is mosquito control. Mosquito-borne diseases, after a time when it was thought that even malaria might be wiped out, began increasing worldwide when the U.S. banned the most effective public health weapon of all time: DDT. If Zika causes rethinking of this disastrous decision, even though other deadly threats like malaria have not, it will save millions of lives – and even help us win the war on bed bugs.

Wow. Anthropogenic climate change denial, demonization of immigrants, and Rachel Carson revisionism, all in one scientifically ignorant package!

If you've read Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, you'd be aware that there has been a renewed concerted effort to discredit Rachel Carson, which is what I mean when I refer to "Carson revisionism." The original effort, of course, occurred immediately after the publication of her highly popular and influential anti-pesticide book Silent Spring and involved the pesticide and chemical industries. However, over the last decade or so, the story of Rachel Carson has been subjected to historical revisionism by the very same people who tried to deny the science demonstrating the harmful health effects of tobacco and who more recently have spearheaded anthropogenic climate change denialism.

It's beyond the scope of this post to go into detail about the new Rachel Carson revisionism (although I have touched on it before and might do so again in more detail some day), but suffice to say that it involves a narrative in which, because of the anti-pesticide and anti-DDT fervor ignited by her book that led to the banning of DDT in the US, and, if you believe the narrative, in the rest of the world, millions died of malaria that DDT could have saved. Indeed, in a speech railing against climate science, dismissing secondhand tobacco smoke as harmless, and characterizing environmentalism as a "religion," the arch crank himself, Michael Crichton, characterized the DDT ban as having "caused the deaths of tens of millions of poor people, mostly children, whose deaths are directly attributable to a callous, technologically advanced western society that promoted the new cause of environmentalism by pushing a fantasy about a pesticide, and thus irrevocably harmed the third world." In his novel State of Fear, Crichton even had one of his characters say, "“Banning DDT killed more people than Hitler." He even put the death toll at 50 million. Tellingly, the plot of State of Fear involved eco-terrorists plotting mass murder to publicize the dangers of global warming. No wonder Chris Mooney described the novel as "pure porn for global warming deniers."

There's only one problem with the revisionist narrative pushed by Crichton before his death and still being promoted by conservative free market-friendly think tanks like the Heartland Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Although Rachel Carson was certainly not correct about everything (for instance, the evidence linking DDT and cancer turned out to be fairly weak, even over 50 years later), nonetheless this revisionist narrative is demonstrably a load of fetid dingos' kidneys promoted by the likes of not just Crichton but Steve Milloy, who never met an anti-environmentalism myth he didn't like, DDT included. The "Rachel Carson killed more people than Hitler" myth is basically a zombie myth that won't die. In reality, DDT use peaked before Silent Spring and DDT use was decreasing because mosquitos were developing resistance. Sadly, it's a myth that skeptics who should know better not infrequently fall for, sometimes people I never would have guessed as being susceptible to such messages.

So, if you believe antivaccinationists, it's not Zika virus that's causing a surge in cases of microcephaly in Brazil, but—surprise! surprise!—vaccines. And if you believe Dr. Orient and her "brave maverick doctor" pals at the AAPS, the cure is to stop vaccinating reproductive age women, fire up the DDT plants again, and start spraying. Both of them, of course, agree that it's all the fault of big pharma, which eager to sell a new vaccine against Zika virus, also pushes ever more and more vaccines in order to maximize profits. It's all logical...if you're a an antivaccine warrior. Otherwise, not so much.

Where is that paper bag again?

oracknows Wed, 02/10/2016 - 21:00

Chris Christie and Rand Paul's pandering to antivaccinationists: Is the Republican Party becoming the antivaccine party?

oracknows — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 00:00:58 +0000

Chris Christie and Rand Paul's pandering to antivaccinationists: Is the Republican Party becoming the antivaccine party?

"I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice as well. So that’s a balance the government has to decide.”

-- NJ Governor Chris Christie, February 2, 2015

"The state doesn't own the children. Parents own the children, and it is an issue of freedom."

-- Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), February 2, 2015

Longtime readers know that I lived in central New Jersey for eight and a half years before taking an opportunity to return to my hometown just under seven years ago. Having spent the better part of a decade there, I think I understand New Jersey, at last the northern and central parts of the state. It's a strange state with a lot of corruption and mismanagement. (For instance, I was there when Jim McGreevey was governor, and I even met him before he became governor, back when he was still mayor of the Woodbridge Township and then later when he was governor.) Indeed, while I lived there I had a hard time deciding if Chicago politics was more corrupt than New Jersey politics or vice-versa. I ended up deciding that it was pretty much a wash.

Be that as it may, I can sort of understand why New Jersey elected Governor Chris Christie. He's big—literally. He's boisterous. He's blunt and plain-talking (for a politician), and he gives the impression of not taking any guff from anyone while being relatively moderate politically. All of these are very much part of how Jersey natives appeared to view themselves. (Personally, I don't like him much because I view him as a loudmouthed bully, but I don't live in New Jersey anymore.) As of yesterday Gov. Christie's also a poster child for the political peril of pandering to the antivaccine movement. In fact, I view him as Exhibit A supporting a growing belief that I've been developing that the Republican Party has become the antivaccine party. Wait, maybe that's a little too strong, but certainly it has become the party supporting antivaccine viewpoints more strongly than the Democrats.

Behold how this controversy began. There Christie was, in England on a trade visit, doing the things politicians do to try to bolster their foreign policy credentials in preparation for running for President, and he had to go and put his foot in it with respect to vaccines during a visit to a medical research facility. First, as background, you should know that the night before, Sunday night, President Obama had issued an unequivocal call to parents to have their children vaccinated:

"I understand that there are families that in some cases are concerned about the effect of vaccinations. The science is, you know, pretty indisputable. We've looked at this again and again. There is every reason to get vaccinated, but there aren't reasons to not," the president explained.

And:

"You should get your kids vaccinated. It's good for them, but we should be able to get back to the point where measles effectively is not existing in this country."

So far, so good. You can't expect a much more unequivocal statement of support for vaccination than that from a politician.

So Monday morning it just so happened that Governor Christie was touring MedImmune's research facility in Cambridge. MedImmune just so happens to manufacture a nasal influenza vaccine, FluMist. It's not clear what moved the subject to vaccines, but during the visit, Christie basically took the opportunity that presented itself to pander to antivaccinationists. It was so bad that even the far-right (oh, heck, let's just call it what it is, namely wingnut) website Breitbart.com described it thusly:

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s outreach to the anti-vaccination crowd is one of the strangest things anyone has done during the 2016 shadow primary season. In the midst of a significant outbreak of preventable, communicable diseases among children, Christie decided to throw anti-vaxxers a bone, making President Obama look enormously sensible by comparison.

So what did Christie say that annoyed even Breitbart.com's correspondent? This:

“All I can say is that we vaccinate ours. I think it’s much more important as a parent than as a public official, and that’s what we do,” he told reporters during his trip through London on Monday. He went on to say that’s “part of making sure we protect their health and public health.”

“I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice as well. So that’s a balance the government has to decide,” Christie added.

Asked whether he was advocating leaving parents the option to not vaccinate their kids, Christie said “I didn’t say I’m leaving people the option,” but that “it depends what the vaccine is, what the disease type is and all the rest.”

Oh, dear. Whether Christie realized it or not when he said these words, which must have seemed to him at the time to be an eminently reasonable attempt to describe balancing personal freedom versus public health, he was, as Breitbart.com put it, "throwing antivaxxers a bone." Of course, he was also doing this at the worst possible time. Think about it. Here we are in the middle of a measles outbreak that's cracked 100 cases, an outbreak in which the majority of cases were not vaccinated, indeed an outbreak that almost certainly wouldn't have happened if there weren't pockets of unvaccinated children in southern California near Disneyland, and Gov. Christie's blathering about vaccine "choice." His sense of timing is impeccable in its wrongness.

He also revealed himself to have an uncanny ability to demonstrate in a couple of sentences that he doesn't understand issues of public health with respect to vaccines. After all, parents already do have "vaccine choice." There is no such thing as "forced vaccination" in this country, no matter how much the antivaccine movement likes to try to characterize it this way. Rather, what we have in this country are school vaccine mandates. It's very simple, so simple that even Gov. Christie should be able to understand it. No parent is forced to vaccinate her child for anything, but if the parent makes that choice the child will not be allowed to enroll in school or day care. It's an eminently reasonable compact: You don't have to vaccinate, but you don't have the right to let your child endanger others. It's a system that has served us well for many years. It's less coercive than actual forced vaccination, which inevitably produces a really nasty backlash, but it still functions well to maintain high levels of vaccination in most cases.

That is, until the rise of various non-medical exemptions.

If you've studied vaccination policies, you know that every state allows medical exemptions. That is how it should be. However, there are non-medical exemptions as well. For instance, every state other than West Virginia and Mississippi allows religious exemptions to school vaccine mandates. Yes, I know it's odd that West Virginia and Mississippi would be leading the nation in rational vaccine policy, but there you have it. Of course, few religions have a problem with vaccination; certainly with only rare exceptions is vaccination against a religion. So religious exemptions tend to be uncommon (although antivaccinationists are not above teaching parents how to lie about their religion in order to obtain religious exemptions).

That's why antivaccinationists are becoming increasingly fond of personal belief exemptions or, as they are also sometimes called, philosophical exemptions. Currently 20 states permit these exemptions. Basically, these exemptions are granted based on parents' personal beliefs against vaccines, be they personal, moral or other beliefs. In essence, all a parent has to do is to say she doesn't believe in vaccinating, and the exemption is granted. True, different states have different requirements, but in all too many states such exemptions are far too easy to obtain. Indeed, that's why California recently passed a bill to make it harder to obtain personal belief exemptions by requiring parents requesting them to have a health care professional sign the form certifying that he's counseled them about the risks of skipping vaccination, although Governor Jerry Brown basically neutered the law through a signing statement. In any case, in at least 20 states, parents can obtain exemptions to vaccine mandates, with varying degrees of difficulty in doing so, simply by saying that they "don't believe" in vaccinating or have some sort of moral or personal objection to vaccination. It is these personal belief objections that have led to pockets of low vaccine uptake and subsequent outbreaks, such as the ones in California and, alas, my own home state.

So right in one interview, Gov. Christie showed that he doesn't have a clue about vaccine mandates, but worse, that he's willing to pander to those holding antivaccine beliefs.

Of course, if you've been following the story, you know that Gov. Christie started feeling the heat over his ill-advised remarks almost instantly. Twitter erupted in righteous fury mocking Christie's remarks. In particular, his willingness to quarantine a nurse who might have been exposed to Ebola without medical justification was contrasted unfavorably with his love of "choice" and "freedom" with respect to vaccines. So great was the backlash that Christie's office scrambled to "clarify":

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie walked back comments he made here Monday morning calling for "balance" on the measles vaccine debate to allow for parental choice, asserting that "there is no question kids should be vaccinated."

"The Governor believes vaccines are an important public health protection and with a disease like measles there is no question kids should be vaccinated," Christie's office said in a statement. "At the same time different states require different degrees of vaccination, which is why he was calling for balance in which ones government should mandate."

And:

Christie, however, said, “There has to be a balance and it depends on what the vaccine is, what the disease type is, and all the rest.” He added, “Not every vaccine is created equal and not every disease type is as great a public health threat as others.”

This is, of course, a clarification that doesn't clarify, empty words that say almost nothing, other than that kids should be vaccinated against measles. "Balance"? What does that mean? Does Christie think himself more capable of balancing risks and benefits in determining what vaccines should be recommended than the CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics? Does he think himself more qualified to determine which diseases are a sufficient public health threat to warrant a mass vaccination campaign than medical authorities? How would he judge which diseases are sufficiently threatening? What criteria would he use? Based on what science?

Unfortunately, Gov. Christie wasn't the only one laying down the antivaccine pandering. In fact, compared to Rand Paul, Christie is virtually the voice of reason. See what I mean:

Paul, in comments on conservative talk-radio show host Laura Ingraham's show Monday, said he's "not anti-vaccine at all."

"But particularly, most of them ought to be voluntary," he added. Paul cited incidents where you have "somebody not wanting to take the smallpox vaccine, and it ruins it for everybody else."

"I think there are times in which there can be some rules, but for the most part it ought to be voluntary," Paul went on. "While I think it's a good idea to take the vaccine, I think that's a personal decision for individuals to take."

He also said he was "annoyed" that his kids were supposed to receive the Hepatitis B vaccine as newborns, and that he had doctors space out the 10 vaccines they wanted to give his infant children over time.

And in a later interview with CNBC, Paul suggested he had seen the negative effects of vaccines that those in the anti-vax movement cite in their opposition. None, however, are widely supported by the scientific community, and Paul's office did not respond to a request for comment for details.

"I've heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines," Paul said. "I'm not arguing vaccines are a bad idea. I think they're a good thing. But I think the parents should have some input."

Rand Paul is another sad excuse for a physician. Remember how I described antivaccine "dog whistle" terminology that "Dr. Bob" Sears was so adept at using? Rand Paul is doing exactly the same thing here. He's using the same appeal to "freedom" as Dr. Bob, and that "annoyance" he expressed at the neonatal dose of hepatitis B vaccine reveals an ignorance that he could easily have remedied with a little reading; you know, that thing we doctors do when we encounter a medical issue with which we are not familiar. Dr. Paul is, after all, an ophthalmologist, and ophthalmologists do not routinely administer vaccinations, much less childhood vaccinations. Indeed, he has even less reason to be familiar with childhood vaccines than the ever-vile Dr. Jack Wolfson who, being a cardiologist, would be expected to offer at least the pneumococcal vaccine to his heart failure patients. As I mentioned before, administering the hepatitis B vaccine at birth is a very reasonable strategy for preventing hepatitis B, and that moralistic trope about its being a sexually transmitted disease is not a reason not to vaccinate newborns.

And Rand Paul also seems unaware that we do not have forced vaccination and that parents do have in put. If they didn't have the choice, with easy personal belief exemptions allowing parents in 20 states not even to have to choose between public school and vaccines, it's unlikely that outbreaks would be a problem.

I once described how antivaccinationism is very much at home with libertarianism, to the point where many libertarians express a view recently espoused by Dr. Jack Wolfson that it is not their responsibility to vaccinate, that they have no obligation to society, so much so that they reacted rather violently when one of their own, Ron Bailey of Reason.com, advocated coercive vaccine mandates. Rand Paul is simply dog whistling from that very playbook. Indeed, check out this interview given later in the day:

You don't have to watch all nine minutes; that is, unless you want to. Just watch the first 2:20 minutes of the video, which is all about vaccines. Notice how he starts out clearly sarcastic, replying early on, ""I guess being for freedom would be really unusual." No, Dr. Paul, being "for freedom" is not unusual, but spouting antivaccine nonsense about vaccines causing permanent neurological injury is unconscionable. Personally, I think Paul's most telling remark comes near the end of the vaccine segment, when, clearly irritated by the reporter's insistence on pursuing questions about vaccine choice, Rand Paul replies with petulant annoyance, "The state doesn't own the children. Parents own the children, and it is an issue of freedom." Yes, it's the antivaccine dog whistle about "freedom," but it's more than that. See what Rand Paul let slip? It's an attitude that is all too common, namely that the parents own the children and that parental "rights" trump any rights children might have as autonomous beings. The right of the child and any public health considerations are subsumed to parental "freedom to choose" and "parental rights," with children viewed, in essence, as their parents' property, to do with as they will.

As for the rest of the interview, it's the same old antivaccine dog whistles on steroids. There's the antivaccine trope against the birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine as being not indicated because it's a sexually transmitted disease, even though hepatitis B is transmitted by more than just sex. The trope is an obvious ploy to outrage parents by telling them that they're being "forced" to have a vaccine for a sexually transmitted disease as though they were immoral. We also learn that Paul delayed vaccines for his children, thus leaving them vulnerable to childhood diseases longer than they needed to be, just like many vaccine averse. Indeed, I'd be very interested in knowing what vaccine the Pauls gave their children and at what ages. He even repeats his claim that vaccines cause neurologic injury, even though, as a physician, he should know damned well that this question has been studied time and time and time again, with the overwhelming scientific consensus being that vaccines do not cause autism, neurodevelopmental disorders, or "profound mental disorders." And through it all, to Paul vaccine "choice" is all about "freedom."

Oh, and his selective reading of the history of smallpox vaccination as being "voluntary" throughout most of our history is telling as well. He neglects to note that, as History of Vaccines notes, the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that the state has the power to make vaccines mandatory.

Is it any surprise that Rand Paul is a prominent member of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), the organization of "brave maverick physicians" that has a history of promoting the lie that shaken baby syndrome is a misdiagnosis for "vaccine injury" and extreme libertarian views, such as the view that Medicare is unconstitutional?

In any case, as a result of Christie's and Paul's statements, this story has even hit the national news. For example:

Antivaccinationism is often presented and criticized as a belief that arises primarily among crunchy, affluent liberals. Even The Daily Show makes that mistake. In fact, existing evidence suggests that the prevalence of antivaccine views are very similar on the left and the right, or, as I like to say, antivaccine views transcend politics.

However, the roughly equal prevalence of antivaccine views on the left and right do not mean that both parties are equally good (or bad) when it comes to vaccines. Over the last several years, I've noticed that antivaccine views, supported under the rubric of "freedom," have grown in prominence more in Tea Party and conservative circles. Antivaccine views are very much intertwined with the "health freedom" movement, which tends to be primarily (but certainly not exclusively) a product of right wing circles, given its emphasis on freedom from government regulation and mandates with respect to health. Indeed, it is no coincidence that my one experience watching Steve Novella debate antivaccine physician Julian Whitaker occurred at FreedomFest in 2012, a yearly conservative/libertarian confab that happened to be going on in Las Vegas as TAM that year. Also that same year, the Texas Republican Party had strong "health freedom" and "vaccine choice" planks in its party platform, planks that were still there in 2014.

I don't think that Gov. Christie is antivaccine (although I'm not so sure about Rand Paul). What I do know is that the conflation of "choice" with vaccination has led to a powerful incentive for politicians, particularly Republican politicians, to pander to antivaccine views. Nor is pandering to the antivaccine movement a new thing for Christie. In 2009 he met with Louise Kuo Habakus (whom we've met before) and the NJ Coalition for Vaccine Choice, a very much antivaccine coalition whose member organization list reads like a who's who of the national antivaccine movement and includes Life Health Choices, an antivaccine organization founded by Habakus. Indeed, Habakus herself is coauthor with antivaccine lawyer Mary Holland of a book entitled Vaccine Epidemic: How Corporate Greed, Biased Science, and Coercive Government Threaten Our Human Rights, Our Health, and Our Children. Indeed, so prominent an antivaccine loon is Habakus (at least in New Jersey, if not nationally), that she has her very own entry in the Encyclopedia of American Loons. To these people, Christie followed up his visit with a letter, quoted thusly:

“I have met with families affected by autism from across the state and have been struck by their incredible grace and courage,” Christie wrote in the letter. “Many of these families have expressed their concern over New Jersey’s highest-in-the nation vaccine mandates. I stand with them now, and will stand with them as their governor in their fight for greater parental involvement in vaccination decisions that affect their children.”

Indeed, Republicans and Independents are more prone to oppose vaccine mandates:

Republicans and independents are more likely than Democrats to advocate against required vaccinations.

Thirty-four percent of Republicans and 33 percent of independents told pollsters that parents should be able to decide about vaccinations, versus just 22 percent of Democrats who said the same.

And, within the past five years or so, Republicans have become LESS likely to say vaccinations should be required, while Democrats are now MORE likely to advocate for the mandatory shots.

In 2009, 71 percent of both Democrats and Republicans said vaccinations should be required. By last August, that number decreased to 65 percent for Republicans, but it's increased to 76 percent for Democrats.

Not only do antivaccine views fit in nicely with libertarian and Tea Party political beliefs, but such views have become so conflated with "freedom of choice" that it's become worth it to Republican politicians to espouse these views, or at least to give a nod to them in order to curry favor. It's not universal, of course. Another Republican physician running for office who is known for saying stupid things about other issues actually has come out strongly supporting vaccine mandates. Yes, believe it or not, Ben Carson did just that. Still, he seems to voicing a less common view within the base of the Republican Party.

I noted back in 2008 that both Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain had, to one degree or another, pandered to the antivaccine movement. Now, in 2015, what we see here appears to be a rising tide of support for "vaccine choice" among Republicans, with a concomitant decrease in support for vaccine mandates, while among Democrats, it would seem that the opposite is happening. Yes, the Democrats have Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, and he is indeed an antivaccine loon, but you don't see major Democratic candidates pandering to antivaccine views the way Rand Paul did and Chris Christie recently did, nor do you see major liberal confabs staging debates with antivaxers, as happened at FreedomFest.

Maybe the Republican Party really is becoming the party of the antivaccine movement. If that's true, it is very bad news indeed.

ADDENDUM: This morning the New York Times published a story entitled Measles Proves Delicate Issue to G.O.P. Field. While noting that it isn't a clean left-right break and that there are pro-vaccine Republicans (such as Scott Walker), the NYT also notes:

But for Republicans like Mr. Paul who appeal to the kind of libertarian conservatives who are influential in states like Iowa and New Hampshire, which hold the first two contests in the battle for the nomination, there is an appeal in framing the issue as one of individual liberty.

Asked about immunizations again later on Monday, Mr. Paul was even more insistent, saying it was a question of “freedom.” He grew irritated with a CNBC host who pressed him and snapped: “The state doesn’t own your children. Parents own the children.”

oracknows Mon, 02/02/2015 - 19:00

Categories

Policy

Methinks it will play out much as it did on the very small scale in Connecticut in the mid-terms.

briandeer.com/solved/tara-cook-littman.htm

There aren't many family issues over which the electorate has so clearly spoken through their actions.

What is it about Presidentian wannabes traveling to Brittian and saying stupid stuff (see Bobby Jindal and "no go zones").

Pandering for votes transcends party affiliation but Republicans, in particular, have a large anti-science constituency. I see incremental improvement on that front but the pace of change can be painfully slow.

What's with Chris Christie? He knows his every move and his statements are being monitored by the mainstream media, especially since his missteps about the nurse's "quarantine" who had returned from Africa after caring for Ebola virus patients. IMO, he's just killed his chances to mount a serious campaign to be nominated as the Republican Party Presidential candidate.

Rand Paul? He just might have positioned himself in a better spot, if, in fact, the far-to-the-right fringe groups/Tea Party are the strong voting bloc in the Republican Party Presidential primaries.

There's that common thread of "heath freedom" and "right to chose which vaccines (or no vaccines), are given to their children. They own their children and "so sorry if your kid is unable to receive MMR vaccine". Ethically challenged, lacking in empathy and self-centered parents...all of them.

Haven't they learned from Michele Bachmann's statement about an adolescent who received an HPV vaccine "and became mentally retarded, thereafter"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cru2KsV5UxA

I found this great site for people, regardless of their political affiliation, to educate themselves about the link between autism and vaccines.

www.howdovaccinescauseautism.com/

Orac, I was reading your comments on Dr Burzynski last night, could not comment 'cos at the end of every page I got : "The site is currently under maintenance. New comments have been disabled during this time, please check back soon". Well, comments on this page are not disabled and since you have been very actively critisising Dr B for THE LAST FEW YEARS, I hope, you and some of your fans might want to read this. I enclose my mail and I write under my full name unlike the rest of you. This is my cell number +48 505 505 600 just to make sure, that I will not be accused of being another of Dr B's employee or even Dr B himself.

I'm 52, 3 kids, Gist since 2010, 3 surgeries, tumor 20cm x 10cm fully removed after 18 months on Glivec, complications after op, without Glivec tumor has grown back to the size of 7cm x 4, back on Glivec and stable since 2012.

Am I Dr B patient ? - no, never seen this guy and I will not get paid for what I am writing here
Do I intend to be his patient ? - maybe, when Glivec stops working, but before i will try to gather as much info about Dr B as possible. Luckily I will not have to rely on your comments alone.

Let's start with facts:

1. it took me few minutes on Google to find a Polish girl, Kalusia Dzieniak with a head tumor, who runs a blog since 2012 describing her fight against cancer. http://kalusia82.blogspot.com/
At the end of her treatment and given no hope in local hospitals, she raised a great amount of money and for the last 2 years she is Dr B's patient - alive, stable and happy with the treatment she recieves. There are numerous tv shows about her case and over 1600 people on Facebook, rising funds every year to allow her to carry on with the treatment at Dr B clinic. You guys could not find few cases like this in all those years of your "interest" in Dr Darth Vader's evil manipulations? You spend hours writing about Dr B, how many hours did you spend verifing the "success stories" on his site ? Have you contacted any former patients ? Did you enclose any prove, that the treatment they recieved at Dr B's clinic was wrong - caused death or injury?

Well, you did not show or proved any of this - exept for long, medical / scientific explanations, that are just your point of view.

I believe, that Dr B runs his clinic for over 20 years - your Dr Mengele must have had thousends of patients and not one, who successfully charged him with malpractise - show that person, let's read about this case or else shut up and stop defaming others. I showed a positive, documented example of Dr B ongoing treatment, what have you got to show ?

2. Cost of treatment - 10,000 USD per month for a treatment at Dr B's clinic proves to you that he is a fraud ?? Well, I got a bill for 15000 USD for starters from "politically correct" MD Anderson - they would not accept my molecular tests done in Poland, they have offered to open me up again just to repeat this test.
The needle is not prefered option, as it might cause the cancer to spread.
MD Anderson, after being informed about my medical history and ongoing treatment with Glivec, offered me genetically designed doses of ...Glivec.
Well, Glivec depending on the type of gist, IS treated with various douses and that is just the normall procedure - 1 x 400mg, 2 x 300mg or 2 x 400mg daily.
Would you consider this offer for me from MD Anderson as "fraud" by your standards? And if so, shall we start a blog ? You may enclose my story as a first comment.

There are hundreds, if not thousends of semi-doctors and scientists "providing" cancer cures all over the world. Diets, roots, vitamins and mental healing cures everything - according to people that make money in this business.
It is absolutly right to pin point fraud and warn people in need, but one must stay tolerant, unbiased and open minded. Do not kill hope when you are not 110% sure, because often it is the only thing that some of us have left. Check your story, Check your story and again Check your story.

Regards,

Bad News for Sharyl Attkisson?

Real fans of all this stuff may be interested to know that my new laptop suddenly acted identically to that videod by Sharyl Attkisson as evidence that the government was bugging her.

Out of the blue (although possibly triggered by some unknown sequence of keystrokes) the copy on my screen began deleting itself.

I don't know if anyone checked whether Ms Attkisson was using a Lenovo, or whether she had the new rent-a-software version of Word, as I have. But if the government was deleting her priceless investigative work, I wonder why it would be deleting my novel.

I understand that she has some multi-million lawsuit going, so maybe my novel will do better than I expected.

I wished I'd videod the phenomenon (on a month-old machine), but I was so alarmed at seeing my writing vanishing that, after helplessly tapping various keys, and mousing around, I shut the lid.

Readers may recall that McGreevey was forced to resign the governorship when it was revealed that he was a closeted gay man who had appointed his boyfriend to a state job despite lack of qualifications. Which prompted the greatest Onion headline, ever:

Gay Man Tearfully Admits to Being Governor of New Jersey

Also, Charlie Pierce (Esquire.com, politics) has a "five-minute rule" regarding Ron and Rand Paul: They may make sense for five minutes, but at 5:01 they'll say something completely off the wall and you'll realize that they're basically a lunatic.

Christie has been influenced by Louise Kuo Habakus (American Loon #163 http://americanloons.blogspot.com/2011/03/163-louise-kuo-habakus.html). She is a hater of science and modern technology as part of her woo group Fearless Parents. Bonus to any reader who can find something they don't fear.

Here, for example of Christie with this American Loon and friends from perhaps 2009.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/chris-christie-expressed-concern-about-vacci…

I think you read far too much into President Obama's statement. While it certainly encourages parents to immunize their children, it says nothing about what government policy should be towards vaccines. Did he speak out against the personal belief exemption or religious exemptions? Did he discuss the pediatric vaccine schedule and whether it should be followed or whether he believed in a certain latitude in timing?

Sorry democrats, 2 people do not a political party make. You're confusing the fact that republicans have a wide range of values within their party with dissidence. It's only because of the strictly enforced "my way or the highway" dogma of the democrat party that you see it this way.

Hmmm, have there recently been prominent Democrats advocating for "vaccine choice" for parents and saying vaccines cause brain damage, as Rand Paul strongly implies when he repeats his story about having seen children suffer neurologic injury after vaccines? BTW, that's not a new story for Paul. He's been saying it for years.

Hobbes,

I am reminded of when Will Rogers said

I belong to no organized political party. I am a Democrat.

I've seen no evidence that the Democrats have a strictly enforced “my way or the highway” dogma. If you've got evidence of that, please share.

@Yvette: Yes, I remember about Louise Kuo Habakus. Thanks for that link; I've added a blurb to the post mentioning Christie's having pandered to at least one explicitly antivaccine crank group in New Jersey during his original bid to run for governor.

"Yes, I know it’s odd that West Virginia and Mississippi would be leading the nation in rational vaccine policy, but there you have it."

I think you would appreciate the irony of this:

http://www.statemaster.com/graph/hea_aut_num_of_chi_wit_aut_percap-auti…

You know you've stepped off the deep end (however temporarily) when even a Breitbart.com writer is more sensible than you.

“The state doesn’t own your children. Parents own the children.”

A rather revealing statement. Sen. Paul views children as chattel. We've been hearing similar statements from autism woo pushers as well as anti-vax types. And it's still so far wrong that I don't know how Sen. Paul will find right even with a map.

For all these small government Republicans, I'd like to see the cost to each state, county, and city. It would also be interesting to determine the cost to businesses, including but not limited to Disneyland. (And this is for a small outbreak of around 100 people.)

And wouldn't you know, Rand Paul is featured in a large photo @ AoA today ( -btw- he's not named after Ayn) with a smaller photo below of that stealthy vaccinator, Barack.

More hilariously, it appears that AoA/ TMR/ et al now have additional television personalities and journalists to despise and abuse whilst championing Attkisson.**- it's not just Anderson anymore.

Some reactions I've heard are that the mainstream is bought and sold thus strengthening alt media ( in their downward spiral down the drainpipe of unreality). As I've said many times, these advocacies are 'group therapy gone wrong'.

Interestingly, anti-vaxxers have been trying to get themselves on mainstream media for the past several years through twitter campaigns, PR announcements, writing ( crappy, fantasist) books and now, they finally will be receiving the attention they deserve but not in a way they like.

** as I mentioned previously,when my own computer behaved bizarrely in November my first thought wasn't " North Korea!" but, "I need a new computer"

As we've seen over the years, anti-vax views are neither right nor left ( and woo-meisters tailor their anti-vax talking points accordingly- see PRN and NaturaL News esp) BUT I wonder if politicians like the aforementioned might be pushing the faithful towards one end of the spectrum.

re Habakus:
she has been making a splash on alt media running "fearless Parent Radio" and website since MacNeil dropped out.

Randal Paul is not pandering, he is actually that crazy. He panders when he pretends not to be a complete libertarian, ie, no one has any right to tell him to do anything.

As for herbal pills...

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/03/new-york-attorney-general-targ…

Yes, I am sure all the west side mommies causing this crisis are radical republicans. That's what white upper-middle class women are known for in CA.

In fairness to the President, this is the entire statement, made after a voter came up to talk to him about vaccines:

We’ve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Nobody knows exactly why. There are some people who are suspicious that it’s connected to vaccines and triggers, but (pointing to his right) this person included. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it. Part of the reason I think it’s very important to research it is those vaccines are also preventing huge numbers of deaths among children and preventing debilitating illnesses like Polio. And so we can’t afford to junk our vaccine system. We’ve got to figure out why is it that this is happening so that we are starting to see a more normal, what was a normal, rate of autism. Because if we keep on seeing increases at the rate we’re seeing we’re never going to have enough money to provide all the special needs, special education funding that’s going to be necessary.”

DATE: April 21, 2008
LOCATION: Blue Bell, PA

@ TK:

Great.
In fact, one of the idi... I mean *alternative medicine advocates* I survey characterises NY, NJ and CA as the most corrupt and simultaneously most anti-alt med states- they have too many laws that impinge upon his freedom.

Before I depart:
both of these fellows rhapsodise in unencumbered fashion about freedom and choice but IIRC, neither is a particularly strong advocate of *choice* involving abortion and issues concerning women's reproductive health.

Charlie Pierce just posted a great column on Rand Paul ("Senator Aqua Buddha") over on Esquire/politics, highlighting his antivax lunacy.

Pierce can be one of America's finest, and funniest, political writers. That's what a background in sportswriting gets you.

Looks like the anti-vaccine bashing of Ben Carson bashing is already starting!

From Mothering:

"...do you know that he has part in a group creating a colon cancer vaccine?"

"Yes, Ben Carson is working on a colon cancer vaccine. How did anyone miss that?"

Annie @27 -- OMG that's hilarious!

They're eating their young!

I will never understand the boogeyman of "The government should force parents to vaccinate!" I would think reality and common sense would dictate the need to vaccinate.

Shay @23 -

How is it "in fairness to the President" to bring up a quote from almost 7 years ago and imply that it was part of what he said most recently?

The President appeared to be firmly in the vaccination camp, all the while agreeing to spend coin to research the supposed increase in autism. Randal wants to stop public health needed vaccines.

Paul's comments are hilarious when set against his avowed anti-abortion stand. Kids belong to their parents, unless the parents don't want them, then they belong to the state.

LH -- because our esteemed box of blinky lights specifically mentioned the 2008 incident which -- if you only are aware of the sound-bite -- makes it look as though he was "pandering" to the antivaccine movement while running for his first term.

In context, the quote comes off as not quite so anti-vaxx friendly..

I also note that I blogged about the whole quote in detail in 2008 and linked to my discussion in this post. Click the links, people, before you criticize. They're there for a reason. :-)

I haven't combed the numbers (polls) but from my conversations I can say the anit-vaccine loonacy crosses the complete political spectrum from far left progressives to far-right religious zealots. My sister is one of the latter.

I have a new weapon in my anti-lunacy bag of tricks:

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2014/01/growing_up_unvaccinat…

See the top comment on the left.. Powerful.

There are really 2 different issues with 4 different policy positions.
Pro or anti-vaccine
Pro or anti- government mandated vaccines

I consider myself pro-vaccine. I have all my vaccinations up to date, I always get the quaternary flu vaccine, my kids are up to date on their vaccines and we even enrolled our children in a phase III trial for a new vaccine.

I also consider myself anti-government mandated vaccination. I can understand government vaccine mandates for places like public schools where kids will be crammed together as long as public schooling is not compulsory.

I think that Orac is lumping these two different issues together under 1 topic. I don't think that is fair or accurate.

I turned off a national news channel(CNN?) last night while treadmilling, because they were promo-ing "Pediatricians Go Head To Head Over Vaccines". Couldn't stand the thought of another round of "both sides".

But I wasn't fast enough shutting off the radio at midday when Rush Limbaugh was launching into a screed about how Demoncrats* are intentionally targeting Republican presidential candidates with vaccine questions in order to create a new version of the War On Women.

You see, there's no debate! It's a dead issue! Measles was eradicated in the U.S. until Obama relaxed immigration laws and allowed lots of Mexican with rashes over our borders!!

I've just got to be faster hitting the off button.

*intentional misspelling.

I’ve just got to be faster hitting the off button.

You always have the Elvis option.
http://www.elvisinfonet.com/elvisgoulet.html

@JeffM

The Slate article is very good. The anecdote from a reformed anti-vaxxer is helpful for sharing with those n the fence.

Interesting bit of news, thoujgh not exactly welcome around here

Two adults and two children have fallen ill in four separate cases, according to Toronto Public Health.

---

The message is that measles is circulating in Toronto,” said Dr. Lisa Berger, associate medical officer of health with Toronto Public Health. “There has been spread somewhere.”

Berger said that in three of the four cases, the individuals had not been vaccinated against the disease. In the fourth case, the person received only one dose of the double-dose vaccination, she said.

None are from the same family and there is no source case, said Berger. ”

I was impressed with Rand Paul's comment "The state doesn’t own the children. Parents own the children, and it is an issue of freedom.”

How easy is it to transfer ownership?

@16 Eric Lund

“The state doesn’t own your children. Parents own the children.”

I too am appalled that someone who claims allegiance to libertarian principles would say such a thing. Too often I think the 'health freedom' argument for parents control over their children is pitted as freedom vs collectivism, with any govt or CPS control being viewed as 'collectivism'.

I think that is completely wrong. Vaccination and ensuring proper medical care for children IS an individual rights issue. The individual rights of the child to proper healthcare and the opportunity to reach adulthood. Parents need to realize that THAT is what they should be seeking to uphold, their own children's rights. Not stripping them away in the name of 'health freedom'.

Again, the idea that a stalward of the libertarian party doesn't understand that is incomprehensible...

"Parents own the children." I've long suspected libertarianism isn't about the desire for freedom for all, it's about freedom for those who have "earned" it. This certainly goes a long way to support my suspicions.

DW:

both of these fellows rhapsodise in unencumbered fashion about freedom and choice but IIRC, neither is a particularly strong advocate of *choice* involving abortion and issues concerning women’s reproductive health.

Typical ladybrain logic fail. Libertarian support for property rights means the right of a man do what he wishes with his property, not that his property has rights. Therefore no contradiction in Rand Paul's stance on freedumb and choice.

J.K. Rideau

How easy is it to transfer ownership?

According to Micheal Shermer the infallible "mind of the market" will sort that out.

Little Green Footballs has been a very relevant site to the "debate" recently, for example: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/44285_Vox_Misrepresents_Obamas_… and http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/44280_Death_and_The_Anti-Vaxxer
As to Baby Doc Paul and whether parents own their children, we never thought we owned our children, but held them in trust for the adults they have grown to be. I am not a great admirer of Kahlil Gibran*, but his saying that "They come through you but not from you" resonates with me.
Regarding the Hepatitis B -- STD trope, as someone who treated HIV patients in the mid-80s, it sounds depressingly familiar - "It's the queers and junkies, it's their problem, who cares anyway?" Yet Hep B not only comes through other routes, but it can infect through so many more than HIV far more effectively that refusing the vaccine to your children will come back to bite you, or more accurately, your children, in the ass.
*"People read Gibran when they want to get laid." - Lenny Bruce

Gray Falcon

I’ve long suspected libertarianism isn’t about the desire for freedom for all, it’s about freedom for those who have “earned” it.

Your rights end where my privilege begins.

All fringe crazies meet around the back. I am a libertarian and I'm shocked that Rand Paul claims to have heard of ( not seen or witnessed)many cases where children have had grave mental injuries from vaccines. How very irresponsible to make that claim and not provide any data to back it up. I'm all for voluntary vaccination however; I believe and as stated in the article, the state has a compelling interest in denying those who chose not to vaccinate attendance at public schools without a medical exemption being the only exception.

I see that AoA is in full-on fetal-position babbling-to-itself mode, with John Stone not just still trying to sell the notion that there have really been only single-digit measles cases, but declaring that "there is a feeling in the air rather like the last days of the Warsaw Pact and the Fall of the Berlin Wall."

@ Militant Agnostic:

Right, choice is only for the chosen.

If the un-chosen would like to choose their own course in life they can't. I know that often includes what I mention but I wonder if marriage choice for gay men and lesbians i

Republicans have been the prime movers on the vast majority of antivaccine state legislation introduced in the last several years. To be fair, a few physicians who are also Republican legislators have sponsored bills to limit nonmedical exemptions, but taken as a whole, this stuff gets more support on the right hand side of the aisle, at the state level, in any case.

Take for example this (http://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/local/2015/01/06/concerns-r…) interesting new legislator, who took a bill before her committee to allow the department of health (*clutch pearls!*) to set school immunization requirements.

Her contribution to the process? She deleted all of that stuff, added in a new requirement for chickenpox, and created a philosophical exemption for everything. Unfrickinbelieveable.

Oooops!
if marriage choice for gay men and lesbians is acceptable.
AFAIK Paul may support it but most others don't.

Slate: The case for lawsuits. Sources include Arthur Caplan of NYU and Dorit Reiss. Check it out.

For further evidence of politicizing of the vaccine "debate" , check out today's editorial in the Wall St. Journal criticizing "Christie's Vaccine Stumble".

The editorial slams Christie's "meandering meditation on parental rights", praises Obama's pro-vaccine message (acknowledging that must have been physically painful) and notes that "The real public health problem isn't a lack of parental choice but a lack of common sense about vaccines, and politicians should do more to promote the latter."

This is all very nice, but I strongly suspect the Journal is landing on Christie with both feet because the Journal's editorial board views him as a dangerously "liberal" Republican candidate who must be neutralized before he threatens the nomination of a nice, sensible conservative candidate (interestingly, the editorial says nothing about Rand Paul's meandering meditations).

This is the same Wall St. Journal that routinely sneers at the idea of climate change, so their newfound allegiance to common sense and scientific consensus is a bit suspect.

DB, as you mention, I do find it interesting that the WSJ stomps on Christie for his mistake, but says nothing about Rand Paul, whose antivaccine spew was clearly way worse than Christie's, which was far more a stumble based on ignorance and the perilous conflation of "vaccine choice" with freedom. Moreover, Paul has been letting loose antivaccine bons mots for at least five years, if not a lot longer.

I rather suspect that's the same reason Breitbart.com comes down hard on Christie but doesn't seem to mention Rand Paul.

Oh, wait. Maybe not. Check out this video:

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/02/03/rand-paul-flashback-mandatory…

At least my party still has the hot women......that's all I got on this one.

I would presume that everyone already knows that Senator Paul, like Congressman Paul, opposes government mandates. Thus Senator Paul's comments come as no particular surprise.

Senator Paul is also an inexperienced politician and (hopefully) not considered as a serious presidential candidate except by a small but vocal group of enthusiasts.

Governor Christie's rather mild comments, on the other hand, get more play because he is a more experienced politician and a more serious contender for the presidency. The comments are also more vague, giving people lots of room to argue about what he really means.

DB@52: The Wall Street Journal is ostensibly the mouthpiece of the investor class. If measles (or pertussis, mumps, diphtheria, etc.) outbreaks become common, the government would likely (and justifiably) have to impose some serious travel restrictions. That would be bad for business. Much better if vaccination rates are higher, so that those who can't get the vaccine (and those for whom the vaccine fails) can hide in the herd.

As for the Pauls: In the last two presidential primaries Ron had a devoted and vocal but small following. Rand might do slightly better, but unless the field is thoroughly fragmented (which the Republican money people are hoping to avoid) I don't see how he wins the nomination. Note also that Rand's senate seat is up for re-election in 2016, and Kentucky (unlike some states) does not allow a candidate to appear on both the president/vice president line and another office. So I'd look for Rand to exit the presidential race in late 2015 or early 2016. I'd be surprised if he continues past the New Hampshire primary.

It's a good thing posts here are moderated. Ron Paul supporters troll the internet for criticism of their guru and unleash a torrent of vitriol when they find (or think they find) some on a news story, blog, or so on.

Rand Paul today released a photo of himself getting a booster shot for Hep A on Capital Hill. The blowback from his recent comments was getting to him.

“It just annoys me that I’m being characterized as someone who’s against vaccines,” Mr. Paul said as he settled into a chair in an examination room in the Capitol physician’s office.

“There’s 400 headlines now that say ‘Paul says vaccines cause mental disorders,'” he added. “That’s not what I said. I said I’ve heard of people who’ve had vaccines and they see a temporal association and they believe that.”

Except that IS what he said. He's splitting hairs now that his buddies on the Hill are not backing him up.

Panacea, Orac does not "moderate" comments. IIRC, new commenters with new IP addresses are put in moderation, until Orac has the chance to remove them out of moderation. Only very filthy phrases might not be posted...simple no-no words used to emphasize an opinion...will eventually leave moderation and will be posted.

Speaking of libertarian health regulations:

For much of the past 36 or so hours, we’ve heard from a number of Republicans that risking the occasional measles outbreak is simply the price of liberty. While Rand Paul and Chris Christie were busy championing the sacred right to expose others to disease, it fell to freshman Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) to take up the next great cause in the fight for freedom from regulatory overreach. We speak, of course, of the right of restaurants not to require their employees to wash their hands after using the restroom.

Speaking during a question-and-answer session at the Bipartisan Policy Center on Monday, Tillis related a story from his tenure in the North Carolina legislature to help explain his overarching philosophy on the finer points of hand-washing.

“I was having this discussion with someone, and we were at a Starbucks in my district, and we were talking about certain regulations where I felt like maybe you should allow businesses to opt out,” Tillis said. “Let an industry or business opt out as long as they indicate through proper disclosure, through advertising, through employment, literature, whatever else. There’s this level of regulations that maybe they’re on the books, but maybe you can make a market-based decision as to whether or not they should apply to you.”

When Tillis’ interlocutor noticed a Starbucks employee coming out of the restroom and inquired whether Tillis would apply his anti-regulation stance to employee hygiene, Tillis affirmed that he would.

“I don’t have any problem with Starbucks if they choose to opt out of this policy as long as they post a sign that says, ‘We don’t require our employees to wash their hands after they use the restroom,’” he said. “The market will take care of that.”

Great read. Personally, I believe they've become the anti-science party and that GOP should now stand for Gobs of Paranoia. Looks like both Christie and Paul are backtracking. Nice to see the RN involved in the anti-science ebola quarantine weigh in on Christe's actions on this topic.

if marriage choice for gay men and lesbians is acceptable. AFAIK Paul may support it but most others don’t.

This is where they play the States Rights card so they can be both for it and effectively against it.

Slightly off topic: there is a new facebook page encouraging everyone who is pro-vaccines to donate money to UNICEFs vaccination effort, in the name of prominent pro-diseasers (Vaccines from Anti-Vaxxers). Might I suggest Chris Christie, Rand Paul, MAM or the so-called "Dr" Jack Wolfson as suitable recipients. The "Dr" will be receiving a card thanking him for 400 tetanus vaccines to protect mothers and children, and a message stating how I feel about him in a few days. I found it to be a far more satisfying way to let out my anger at these people than repeatedly punching a wall.

On topic: I think that parents should absolutely be able to choose not to vaccinate their kids. However, this choice, like any, has consequences. If they make that choice, they should not be allowed to send their kids to public schools, take them to public parks or use public transportation. If you choose not to participate in public heath measures, you also choose not to participate in any public service where you can infect those who for legitimate medical reasons can't vaccinate. And of course, if an (intentionally) unvaccinated child starts an outbreak, the parents should be held liable for all costs to society and the individual.

Mephistopheles:

He opposes government mandates *on well-to-do adult men*. He thinks it's fine to tell a rape victim she has to bear the criminal's child, but once the woman has made it through pregnancy (at her own expense, of course), he has no objection to letting the child die of whooping cough.

Let's not forget Hillary on vaccines too, demanding an investigation into vaccines and autism while speak to anti-vax crowds.

http://hotair.com/archives/2015/02/03/hillary-in-2015-vaccines-work/

Apparently you didn't read my post very closely. Actually, I rather suspect you didn't read it at all, other than perhaps the title. In this post, I actually did make it a point to refer to how all three major candidates in 2008, Barack Obama, John McCain, and Hillary Clinton showed a little too much credulity when it came to the vaccine-autism link. I even linked to blog posts I wrote about each incident back when they happened in 2008.

Seriously. Read the damned post next time.

It is rather interesting how some ostensible libertarians can be so opposed to women's rights. The actual Libertarian Party platform has a very strong plank supporting women's right to choose, Faux libertarians have a distressing tendency to be all about freedom until it comes to certain intrusion into private health and sexual matters. On the other hand, to be fair to Paul, he has been generally good opposing foreign military entanglements and the rise of the surveillance state.

Time to get your credit cards out and give to charity on Paul's and Christie's behalf. You can buy a donation of vaccines through UNICEF and have a gift card sent to the anti-vaxxer of your choice (with a personal message for extra sneering joy), thanking them for the donation you've made as a gift to them. http://www.unicef.org/inspiredgifts/index_51968.html

“I don’t have any problem with Starbucks if they choose to opt out of this policy as long as they post a sign that says, ‘We don’t require our employees to wash their hands after they use the restroom,’” he said. “The market will take care of that.”

Excellent, then he won't mind those who eschew vaccines and their unvaccinated spawn will be required to wear signs stating such.

Hey, let the market take care of that right?

Vicki,

I disagree with his position on abortion, but that's not how Senator Paul would phrase it. His phrasing is at http://www.paul.senate.gov/?p=issue&id=3.

Videos show that Mr Christie was more subdued today - he didn't speak to reporters in London.

Orac @67

It is rather interesting how some ostensible libertarians can be so opposed to women’s rights.

I thought I explained it quite clearly at #43

Seriously, this is what you get when you combine the misogyny of abrahamic religion with the sociopathic philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Hey Minions! I worked all day on an anaylsis of the GOP politics around the vax comments, with discussions of the primary/caucus schedule, campaign financing, vax and exemption rates in each of the early states, data from a study in Pediatrics about the difference between anti-vaxers and non-vaxers, more GOP pols who've made comments during the day, Hilary's take, and Ron Paul's outlook as a 'serious candidate'.

Yes, it's almost Oracian in length, but not quite. Please take a look.
https://sadmar.wordpress.com/2015/02/04/gop/

Last time this came up I looked into the question of who "owns" the children and concluded that rooted in British common law the state claims to have the strongest claim on "ownership". By convention, and lacking more suitable candidates, the parents are, by default, given charge of the children until it is shown that they are unwilling or unable to raise them as good citizens.

This is why there are no property rights claims when the state removes children from derelict or abusive parents.

Orac, I see your Christie and Paul and raise you a Walker and a Carson. I love your work, but I don't see how this supports your notion that the GOP is somehow well on its way to becoming "the antivaccine party". The fact that Christie had to walk-back some of his comments because of the heat aimed in his direction would seem to also not support the idea that this original comments found fertile ground with the party base.

The fact that Christie had to walk-back some of his comments because of the heat aimed in his direction would seem to also not support the idea that this original comments found fertile ground with the party base.

The conclusion doesn't really follow from the premise, but that may have something to do with "the party base" not being imbued with any particular meaning.

@Art:

Last time this came up I looked into the question of who “owns” the children and concluded that rooted in British common law the state claims to have the strongest claim on “ownership”.

Parens patriae has come a long way, baby.

I may not agree with their politics, but props to Rubio and Jindal for apparently getting it right the first time:
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/rubio-jindal-latest-weigh…

Ahh, the AAP chimes in on Christie and Rand with about as spineless a statement as possible (http://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/Pages/American-Ac…) ;

"A measles outbreak has grown to more than 100 people in 14 states. As public officials discuss the outbreak and the immunizations that could have prevented it, the American Academy of Pediatrics urges each of them to research the issue first, using credible, science-based sources of information. It is incumbent on public officials to speak from the facts when shaping public perception and policy. This is crucial when it comes to our children's health and safety".....

"We encourage public officials to employ sound science in communicating about such an important topic. Our children's health is at stake."

C'mon--is the AAP that terrified of offending anyone that can't specifically address the anti-vaccinationism expressed by Christie and Paul? Then again, this is another manifestation of the same AAPathy that, to date, has weakened the AAP to the point of not speaking out against FAAPs Robert Sears and Jay Gordon.

Art, #74: the concept in English law (not sure about Scottish) also involves the "inherent jurisdiction" of the high court, which is what is ultimately invoked when parents are acting against the interests of their children.

The 1989 Children's Act is also very clear on parental responsibilities towards their children. In my old line (child and adolescent mental health) we kept an eye on repeated failures to attend appointments as a possible sign of neglect which we would need to contact our local children's services about (family protection in US-ia, I think).

FWIW, some big name Republicans have made statements in favor of vaccines. From the Cincinnati Enquirer:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky offered an intensely personal opinion Tuesday about the necessity of childhood vaccinations: "As a victim of polio myself, I'm a big fan of vaccinations."

House Speaker John Boehner of Butler County came out pro-vaccination Tuesday: "I don't know that we need another law, but I do believe that all children ought to be vaccinated."

Cartoon of the day:

http://www.dispatch.com/content/cartoons/2015/02/beeler0204.html

Re. Orac @ 60: Sen. Thom Tillis, moving the party "forward" from anti-vaccination to anti-sanitation. Who needs clean drinking water standards either? Bring back the chamber pot too!

We were having a time of it over on Daily Kos on Tuesday, reading about Tillis and more about Christie and Paul, and feeling stuck somewhere between shock and nausea, alleviated only with the aid of mild scatological humor.

The three of them even got nicknames:

Cholera Christie, Typhoid Tillis, and Polio Paul.

And someone came up with a package design for a Tillis-endorsed brand of latex gloves, that one should wear while shaking hands with Republican politicians.

All of which commentary doesn't sum to policy proposals, but there have been many of those over there as well.

IMHO if this got politically polarized it would be a good thing. Republicans would get trounced in next year's election, and then hopefully the party would get its act together about science. That would make it easier to pass legislation.

As for voluntary/mandatory, I'm for mandatory and free, with medical exemptions only. Make it a requirement for anyone applying for a driver's license or state photo ID, and if they're a parent, they have to show that their kids are vaccinated as well.

It's bad enough to have little vectors running around in school, but they do also take the bus and go to movies and malls, etc., where they can infect more people. So I say No to that: get your shots or live in a closed community like the Amish.

As for Paul's item about parents "owning" their kids, on any ordinary news day that would be shocking and horrifying enough, but Tuesday it merely came across as dumb-headed and crass.

@MOB #81
FWIW, the Cincinnati Enquirer is trying to spin mushy fake walk-back as 'pro-vaccination.'

"I’m a big fan of vaccinations." So is Chris Christie. So is Mike #36. Note the subject of the sentence. Well, at least Mitch is a 'fan'.

Boehner, not so much. " I do believe that all children ought to be vaccinated.” is about as weak and distance as prose gets.

Cincinnati, as some may not be aware, is only de jure in Ohio, de facto it's the largest city in Kentucky, which is probably why the Enquirer is carrying water for McConnell, and failing to parse for it's readers Boehner's shout out in support of he-who-shall-not-be-named, better known to us as Rand Paul: "“I don’t know that we need another law." That 'other law' we don't need is restriction or elimination of PBEs, or any other measure that would actually involve "government" big or small to intervene in even the teensy-tinest way with the collapse of herd immunity due to 'personal freedom'.

That's the line, "I like vaccinations! (but if you don't want your kid to get one, that's up to you)."

Politically, exemptions are the issue, period. Cruz did actually come out a bit 'pro-vax' in a policy sense by saying other states should adopt Texas's standard, which is 'religious and medical exemptions only' – pretty easy to do in Texas. Rubio really put himself out there: "medical exemptions only".

HRC didn't say anything about exemptions, but compare her comment to McConnell and Boehner, "”The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork. Let’s protect all our kids. #GrandmothersKnowBest” She actually endorsed the science, called the anti-vaxers flat-earth idiots, one-upped the anti-vaxers on the 'Mom' card, referenced herd immunity ('all our kids') and implied policy be using the plural subject "us" and the active verb "protect".

The way you figure out what someone means by an ambiguous-seeming statement is by figuring out all the other expressions that might have been used to express whatever, and seeing what the expression at hand is NOT.

E.g among the things "I do believe that all children ought to be vaccinated.” is NOT is "Listen people, there's a public health crisis. If your kids aren't vaccinated for measles, take them in for the MMR now."

How does anyone sane NOT say that now? Only one reason. They're afraid of the voting/finacial power of "”I guess being for freedom would be really unusual.”

Hillary Clinton on Twitter 2/2/15:

The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork. Let's protect all our kids. #GrandmothersKnowBest

@Gray Squirrel #83
In Lancaster County anyway, the Amish shop at WalMart. There are bunch of special spaces in the parking lot reserved for buggy's. (The don't do the indoor mall, though. Too hochmut.) I'm totally for 'medical only' myself, and vax is the kind of thing where most the Amish anyway might come around. (It's not core to a simple plain life "not of the world".)

But we all know if it's medical only, there'll be a First Amendment challenge from somebody. I say: "Bring it on!" But I'm not running for President in Iowa or New Hampshire, the later BTW being the only state in the Union w/o a mandatory seat-belt law..... FREEDOMMM!!!

(They should change the motto from "Live free or die" to "Live free and die")

OBVIOUSLY AoA is quite pleased with Christie and Paul: today they feature articles by Heckenlively and Handley.
Although TMR wasn't up when I looked, its facebook page was and it featured a link to Handley's " Angry Father's Guide to the Measles Vaccine".

But we all know if it’s medical only, there’ll be a First Amendment challenge from somebody.

So far, we haven't seen any such challenges in Mississippi or West Virginia, the two states that currently allow only medical exemptions.

@DB #82
I don't know how you interpret the cartoon, but fwiw...
It's not saying "Science has won and proved anti-vaxers are as wrong as flat-earthers."
It's a political cartoon saying that the anti-vax 'movement' has sailed off it's own dining room table and is now as politically relevant as flat-earthism. It's saying anti-vax ain't gonna be around much longer. I think it's probably right, but we'll see. It all depends on far and how long the current outbreak goes, sad to say...

The frustrating thing about having Christie et al wade into this is that they have blurred the line between "should vaccination be compulsory" and "should vaccination be a condition for school entry." Those are two very different things. State laws mostly address the latter as they relate to children.

As for the First Amendment and the "because, freedom" argument, this is pretty well settled in the law. Nonmedical exemptions exist because of politics.

Antivaxers frequently misrepresent school vaccine mandates as being compulsory or "forced" vaccination in order to co-opt the "freedom" and "the government can't force anyone to inject chemicalz into my body" message. This is a feature, not a bug, as I'm sure Rand Paul knows. I doubt Christie knew and that's why he so blindly blundered into this issue. To him it probably seemed like a reasonable approach to make "both sides" happy.

@ sadmar:

Whatever happens, I think that the anti-vax movement WILL be around - although it may have hopefully less influence on young parents in the future- and it may be moved off further into the darker, festering depths of the cybersphere.
many, many diehard believers have invested their lives in it and some entrepreneurs - as well as parents- have made money off of it and have achieved a measure of fame- they get support and applause for their madness.

If you read the regulars at AoA/ TMR and dedicated facebook pages, you'll find that the movement has become their social life and often, their claim to fame. They identify themselves through it and they have a perpetual axe to grind against the mainstream.

How would people like them ever get on television otherwise?' These outlets then embed the video and followers later congratulate the Truth Teller on facebook.
Quite a few get book deals to narrate their tales of woe or showcase their 'investigative journalism' Would any of them write a book WITHOUT these covens of bad science pulling for them or without a cohort / fellow traveller who owns a publishing company?

And they get to style themselves as Brave Maverick Parents in mimicry of the Brave Maverick Doctor- ex-doctor , really- so many mini- Andys and Andreas attempting to ride upon his tattered coattails..
And last but not least, Andy is only 50-something, he can be around for decades.

I'd post this link to Orac's pitiful, cowardly blog titled "Antivaccine cranks try to create Vaccine Injury Awareness Month. Everyone either yawns or laughs."
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2014/10/01/antivaccine-cranks-try-to-…
but he's closed that heinous blog, akin to Holocaust and climate change denialism, from further comment.

Here's a new, brief article I wanted to share with all the vaccine injury denialists here:
http://www.gutmicrobiotaforhealth.com/gut-microbiota-infant-vaccine-pro…

So if the Republicans need another voice saying we need to get rid of any kind of public health requirement of any kind I present:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/thom-tillis-on-whether-employees-need-to-wa…

I'm still waiting for the embarrassment my state elected him to the Senate to overtake the relief I feel that we don't have him mucking around directly with my state anymore.

What is the next thing that restricts our freedom to infect others that will be made OK to do by legislative act?

Well, the Wall St. Journal has belatedly turned on Rand Paul in a new editorial headlined "The Weird Vaccine Panic". Paul is lambasted for "broadcasting misinformation" and "libertarian dormitory passions". He was also criticized specifically for trying to connect "mental disorders" with vaccines, in what the Journal said was "a dog whistle )perhaps unintentional) to autism fears".

The editorial also took note of Obama's sidling around vaccine fears in 2008, along with Hillary Clinton who "responded to a questionnaire from an autism activism group with a commitment to 'make investments to find the causes of autism, including possible environmental causes like vaccines'". And the Journal declared that the "privileged communities of the liberal elite" in southern California are centers for vaccine refusal.

It's sort of entertaining to see the political fur flying - as long as these folks get it right in the end.

So far, we haven’t seen any such challenges in Mississippi or West Virginia, the two states that currently allow only medical exemptions.

No, Patti Finn did her usual crash-and-burn routine in Workman v. Mingo County Board of Education.

On the subject of Mississippi, though, this is timely.

^ It should perhaps also be noted that Mississippi is unusual, in that the reason there's no religious exemption is that in 1979, the Supreme Court of Mississippi held them to be unconstitutional on an equal protection basis (Brown v. Stone).

sadmar,

The way you figure out what someone means by an ambiguous-seeming statement is by figuring out all the other expressions that might have been used to express whatever, and seeing what the expression at hand is NOT.
E.g among the things “I do believe that all children ought to be vaccinated.” is NOT is “Listen people, there’s a public health crisis. If your kids aren’t vaccinated for measles, take them in for the MMR now.”

While that can be a useful technique, there are a few limitations and cautions. For instance:

- you don't always know the context of the statement, which can make a difference. The words used depend on the question that was asked.

- you don't know that the article includes the full statement. The article may leave out the boring bits, or may be restricted for length. Just as an entire 1 hour speech may be cut to 4 5-second sound bites on television news, a longer quote may be cut down to what the reporter (or editor) considers the essential point.

- it can be used in parsing those you agree with as well as those you disagree with. For example, only given former secretary Clinton's statement above, can you realistically infer her views on religious or philosophical exemptions? How about President Obama's views?

As to Boehner's statement that "I don’t know that we need another law", I suppose that would all depend on the context. He's a Congressman from Ohio - perhaps he doesn't think a federal law is appropriate (due to, say, Constitutional issues) and he thinks that the Ohio statue (http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/3313.671) is adequate. I really couldn't say.

As to "Cincinnati, as some may not be aware, is only de jure in Ohio, de facto it’s the largest city in Kentucky, which is probably why the Enquirer is carrying water for McConnell,...", the article does say that "The Enquirer surveyed the governors of Ohio and Kentucky plus members of the local congressional delegations on their views about vaccinations." Thus if you found and read the article (as opposed to my snippets), you'd also see responses from other Ohio and Kentucky politicians. McConnell (KY), Rand Paul (KY), and Boehner (West Chester Township, OH) would be considered members of the local congressional delegations.

DW: "Ethically challenged, lacking in empathy and self-centered parents…all of them."

Except for parenthood, that could also describe any Republican candidate. Like the anti-vax movement, the GOP has become a haven for unpleasant people.

@ PGP:

But I didn't say that.
Must have been my evil twin - well, one of them. I have several...
( Not that I'm not evil)

"Which prompted the greatest Onion headline, ever"

Second greatest? "New President Feels Nation’s Pain, Breasts."

I really feel like we're in a place where parental rights over 'ownership' of their children are in direct conflict with critical public health concerns - and that's the individual right of each child to herd immunity, IMO. There should be no religious or philosophical vaccine exemptions for school. Medical only.

Rand Paul's ties to the AAPS highlighted in today's NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/05/us/politics/rand-paul-linked-to-assoc…

Perhaps the silver lining in all of this is that the anti-vaccine movement will get the negative publicity they so richly deserve and will be finally relegated to the same level as holocaust or moon landing deniers. It's a horrible price to pay, though.

“The state doesn’t own your children. Parents own the children.”

Makes you wonder if his parents made him pay for his freedom.

Charlie Pierce has yet another excellent column on this today:

So this is what I'm thinking. The Republicans will use this as a wedge to split the Democratic party along the Nervous Parent fault-line that is rivening it. This fault line may well crack open between classes, as the wealthier left seems more inclined toward using Internet quackery to protect their little snowflake babies.

Don't know if anything will come of it, slightly off topic(but not);
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2015/02/anti_vaccination_d…

And...Jake Crosby weighs in on his Epoch Times blog, which gave me the opportunity to link to his posts on the CDC Whistleblower. Jake removed all the comments on the Whistleblower one month ago, yet he continued to post comments at me.

Jake's last comment directed at me was posted 8 days ago and he admitted that his mentor for his "Culminating Experience" (MPH-Epidemioogy thesis), was former medical doctor Mark Geier, who (somehow) got him access to the Vaccine Safety Datalink database.

Screen shots...the only way to preserve comments that Jake sends down the old memory hole:

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/blog/obama-contradicts-vaccines/

To excuse Dr. Randel Paul's opinions on medicine just because he is an eye doctor. It is way too forgiving. He went through many of the same general classes required of every doctor, he would have been taught all of the same basic principles of medicine and science that is taught every medical student. While I often spoke poorly of the medical profession in my career, chided them memorization over application, even I can not imagine that anyone gets to put a "M.D." after there name without being exposed to enough information to know better. No, don't blame his education, don't blame his specialization. You insult a lot of good honest doctors.

FYI, There is no love lost between Mitch and Dr. Paul, Mitch is an over school establishment republican, a wheeler-dealer, a person with huge ties to the establishment. Dr. Paul is an upstart, whom beat Mitch's anointed candidate in the primary. There was no love lost in the primary battle, Dr. Paul spoke of Mitch as the enemy. After the victory, pleasant fwords and a facade were placed over wounds and scars, do not expect that they do not fester beneath the surface.

@ lilady:

Gawd, I just read that!
Jake seems to have difficulty interpretting what people say ( e.g. Barack Obama) despite the fact that it was relatively simple and in English .I'm not sure if he has some sort of language-based disability ( or NVLD) or if it's merely a stubborn refusal to acknowledge reality.

He doesn't put simple facts together as most people would but then he creates mountains out of molehills and intricately elaborates upon relationships that don't exist outside of his fevered imagination.
In short, lots wrong there.

I notice that PRN put up one of his old, crappy AoA posts about Dr Offit saying f@cking and sh!t.or suchlike.
If I met Jake in person I'd probably say f@cking and sh!t as well.

BUT I'd glad to come across this after reading someone's recollections about victims of terrorism- I need a laugh.

No spoken or receptive language disability, Denice. Just a nasty, over indulged "kid" who only thinks he's qualified to work as an epidemiologist; he's not.

I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Offit, Summer 2013. He's a warm, compassionate charming man who is dedicated to the children entrusted to his care and he's been subjected to Jake's lies and pathological stalking behaviors.

I'm delighted to be your "evil twin".

Can anyone point me to the scientific evidence for herd immunity?

Can anyone direct me to the scientific evidence for herd immunity?

Thank you.

Can anyone direct me to the scientific evidence for herd immunity?

Sure.

One way to see how this is going to fall out is to keep an eye on 'mainstream' non-fanatical granola crunchers...
@ Denice #92
That's what I mean in my hyperbolic way in #89, AV isn't going away as a culture, I just think it's on its way off the table as a significant political influence. And while I'm sure about the former (it will live on in some form) I'm nowhere as sure about the later, but that's how I read the signs du jour

As far as book deals and TV and profitable ventures go — Disneyland changes everything. Again, it's so sad/stupid it had to come to this, all the poor kids actually getting sick. My hypotheses for the near future:

AV Entrepreneurs. There will continue to be $$ to be made by selling re-inforcement to this community, just less of it. The 'base" won't shrink, but the secondary/tertiary spheres will and mainstream publishers who would have put out an anti-vax book two years ago won't touch them now, leaving them to specialty presses.

Television/Media: Clearly the new AV role here is whipping boy/ villain. Which will just make them more mavericky in their own shrinking bubble. But it's absolutely slaughtering them as a meaningful social force.

'Natural' Entrepeneurs/activists: Wedges may well appear in previous alliances. In the cherry-picked media quotes from appalling unaffected AV parents, I've noticed two slightly different philosophies: 1) the very specific 'MMR causes autism' standard line, 2) the more generic 'naturalistic fallacy" rejecting corporate commodities, embracing Gaia myths & organic everything This position has previously accommodated a 'vax MUST be toxis POV' though the exact mechanism and product of toxicity is left open and can be fluid. What any number of commenters (a growing minority it seems) in this subculture are showing is that anti-vax isn't necessary to this world view and can easily be discarded. One of the anti-(anti-vax) 'trolls' on mothering.com has a sig "I'm pro natural birth, midwife care, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, baby wearing and a keen advocate of cloth diapering. And I'm pro-vaccine." C.f. also Tara Cook-Littman, the pro-vax, anti-GMO Connecticut Dem mentioned by BD #1 who got pole-axed by the GOP in 2014 for having been duped into giving an interview to the producers of Bought:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mxYu7CL1Xg

Anti-vax isn't core to the organic/natural mythos — and neither are organic 'cures". The mythos basically comes down to a fairly generic belief that less processing is 'healthier' in some vague way. Typical granola-crunchers just try to reduce 'unnecessary' industrial diddling in a more-or-less pragmatic mode — e.g. they still drink tap water, etc. So this 'lifestyle choice' can go forward perfect well if MMR and flu shots move into the category of "no reasonable pragmatic natural alternative" along with hundreds of other elements of quotidian existence in industrialized society.

So I'd keep my eye on the less wiggy 'natural food' promoters — not necessarily Mikey — to see if any of them are easing up on doing any cross-promotion with the AV crowd — as I have a feeling it will be in their economic interest to do so.

@ Meph #99
All excellent qualifiers! Yeah, those are the kinds of things you have to do if you're using that method (a basic technique of 'semiotics') in a serious scholarly paper. They're part of the necessary 'controls' if you will, of establishing a solid argument. I was just firing off a quick lil polemic: sort of 'well, it could be this' rather than any kind of sold 'proof'.

And I thought I had at least implied that re: HRC by noting that unlike Rubio and Cruz, she didn't state an exemption policy, only inferred one by very different language choices than McConnell and Boehner used. Still, if there was a liberal's illustrated dictionary there'd be a pic of BIll and Hil next to the entry for "slippery".

I'd also add re: McConnell and Boehner. As Majority Leader and Speaker they'e going to be concerned with keeping some appearance of unity amongst the various caucuses in their party, and model 'let's stay on the same page' strategies. Both of the quotes (can't speak to the full statements) offer the opportunities in private discussions with different members to say either 'I came out as pro-vax' OR 'I didn't endorse restricting exemptions'.

@ MarkN #55
"At least my party still has the hot women……"

Citation needed. :-)

There are numerous tv shows about her case and over 1600 people on Facebook

OK, that combination has totally convinced me!

Oh dear. Dan Olmsted has posted a link on AoA to an interview he's done with "Vox". I imagine he thinks he comes over quite well, but actually comes over as a frothing loon, with all his points debunked - mostly with references, some to our esteemed host.

The phrase "done up like a kipper" springs to mind.

You sad, sad fool, Olmsted.

http://www.vox.com/2015/2/4/7972335/dan-olmsted-anti-vaxxers

@ MarkN #55 and sadmar#119
Your sexism is noted.

MartinB @122 -- I'm acutely aware that accusations of hypersensitivity and humorlessness are the go-to tactic for sexist bullies attempting to defend the indefensible, but MarkN and sadmar's little exchange struck me as being entirely in jest, and actually pretty funny.

@palindrom
Sure - when talking about a political party, discussing the "hotness" of women is just funny and nothing else.
Yes, it was somewhat funny, yes, it was in jest, no, it is not a big problem, and neither is the world going to end nor will MarkN and sadmar be held in contempt forever because of these remarks, but yes, the remarks were sexist all the same.

@ sadmar:

I think the book deals may continue but only because they originate from Skyhorse, which is owned by a fellow traveler,, Tony Lyons, who has written a few tomes from his perspective as a ( woo-drenched) autism parent- he published his ex's book as well- that's devotion to a cause for you!

But truly, I think that recent events have helped push anti-vax towards the darkest depths of cyberspace- Ickes' and Bolen's territory as it were. Actually, this might assist alt media loons who have been telling the faithful that the mainstream is utterly corrupt; *bought* by the corporatocracy and governmental fascisti.

I listened to PRN"s head honcho rant yesterday and I detected a hint of desperation amidst his pressured, malaprop-ridden speech ( see PRN/ the Gary Null Show/ yesterday) and dear Mikey appeared to be grasping at the same straws but more feverishly than is usual ( see Natural News, recently). It may make it harder for them to reach a general audience- which is after all, their aim, supplanting the mainstream in an orgy of paradigm shift: their fantasy system come true.

-btw- I thought the 'hot women' jibe was funny.

The mention of Tony Lyons is inclined to set me off. This is a guy - very much like Wakefield - who has abandoned any kind of professional standards in order to hawk his wares to the vulnerable. He sees the desperate parents of often seriously challenged kids as a marketing opportunity.

Forget his pumping of Wakefield's fraud which, had he perpetrated it in the UK, would have bankrupted his company with uninsurable libel bills.

But look at his publication of a book advising parents how to vaccinate their children, written by people who are not doctors and have no relevant expertise. In my view, a truly sickening scam on the public that could never pay for itself without the captive vulnerable group to be preyed on at the usual quack conferences.

Then look at his publication of a book by the ludicrous malignant crank David Lewis, whose writing is so poor and whose mental condition so questionable that any competent publisher would have thrown his manuscript into the trash after reading the first page.

This is the David Lewis who says that my journalism is of such a high professional standard that I must be corrupt. Really. I kid you not. Unusually, you can see Mr Lyons's author saying so himself. I have him listed on my website as the funniest crank I've ever encountered:

http://briandeer.com/solved/david-lewis-true.htm

I’m totally for ‘medical only’ myself, and vax is the kind of thing where most the Amish anyway might come around. (It’s not core to a simple plain life “not of the world”.)

They don't need to come around, however: the idea that the Amish do not vaccinate is a myth. The majority of Amish parents do vaccinate their children, and among the minority who do not the most common reasons cited for failure to vaccinate are the same anti-vaccine fueled fears that non-Amish anti-vax parents embrace in the absence of supporting evidence. (see PMID:21708796)

@ Brian Deer:

There is so much lunacy surrounding Lyons that if he didn't exist, sceptics would have to invent him to serve as a sterling example of the literary enablement of bad science.

I once spent an hour or two surveying his wares ( @ Skyhorse's website)- new releases especially - altho' there are a few meaningful items- there is a miasma of alt med/ anti-vax/ autism garbage in numbers hitherto unseen in the western world. He gave Gary Null his own imprint. He has already printed loads of AoA contributors' bilge as well as Andy's, sponsors book events with them and assists TMR by printing their madness involving parental advice gone wrong, histrionic tales of woe and the creation bizarrely restricted cuisine for kids with ASDs. Lyons even has published autism-themed fiction -
oh wait, all of these books are fiction, aren't they?

He wrote ( IIRC) two books about autism himself. The entire list of crap lit hawked at AoA was made possible by him.
Lewis fits right in.

I think that recent events have helped push anti-vax towards the darkest depths of cyberspace

Unfortunately people have short memories. I am very much afraid that going through outbreaks periodically is the only way to convince people that VPD's are, in fact, dangerous and children need to be protected from them.

For a moment I had skyhorse confused with "Slaying the Sky Dragon", which is a book that attempts to disprove the atmospheric greenhouse effect. The book is, of course, a hilarious compendium of crackpot science.

Sounds like its near-namesake is also not exactly an authoritative source on matters scientific.

Martin #124 - yes, thank you, all of that.

I sure hope Martin never winds up reading Clickhole.

Brian Deer, Tony Lyons publishes (almost) all of the anti-vaccine books written by the AoA crank journalists and commenters. He did, after all, refuse to publish one book:

"Skyhorse has got several excellent books. Not mine however. They won't even reply when I send them the manuscript for my book (which is freely downloadable at maryWmaxwell.com). Title: "A Balm in Gilead: Curing Autism and Awakening the Physicians."

When I was a Good Girl, years ago, four of my books got published by university presses. Now that I am a Bad Girl (i.e., I say who dunnit), I may as well be a leper.

Speaking of leprosy, it was caused, in modern times, by the smallpox vaccine. Don't take my word for it; many eminent docs said so. And then that was end-of-career for them, of course.

Posted by: mary w maxwell | January 28, 2015 at 11:44 PM"

@ lilady:

It never fails to amaze about how these people catastrophise every single life event that befalls them as they imagine that having an autistic child- rather than the perfect one that exists only in their imagination- is an earth-shattering tragedy which they OBVIOUSLY will rise above In g0dlike fashion to countless readers' applause.

Lyons isn't just their enabler- and that of the loony medical critics as well- he is a fellow traveller- he's one of them- and as much a drama queen.

I think that my friends** whose lives have been transformed by terrorism decades ago sound much more upbeat than this lot of soppy cry babies.

** not the ones form Northern Ireland

@ Lilady: I'd quite like the five minutes back that it took me to download Mary Maxwell's opus but, despite everything, I think she would not make the threshhold for Mr Lyon's tastes because she is not a malignant crank.

Did I say anywhere that BMJ got a threatening letter from some run-out-stock lawyer for David Lewis (the dental equipment hygiene guy) threatening to sue them if they didn't accede to all kinds of weird demands.

Of course, they got told to f--- off, but it was truly hilarious. I ought to post it sometime. It was full of stuff like "you will post on x website denouncing Brian Deer" and so on and so forth.
Pages and pages of gibberish.

not the ONE FROM...

@Lilady, there is a grain of truth in the smallpox vaccine and leprosy.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC422848/

I mean grain, in that there is some evidence that given a small pox vaccine to a person with leprosy can cause problems, but I expect not as much as a leper that actually catches smallpox.

Of course, they got told to f— off, but it was truly hilarious. I ought to post it sometime. It was full of stuff like “you will post on x website denouncing Brian Deer” and so on and so forth.
Pages and pages of gibberish.

And you're holding this back from us why?

@ Denice #125

In my remark about book deals, I was thinking about:
Dr. Jay, whose Autism and ADD books are published by Wiley
Dr. Bob, whose Vaccine book is published by Little Brown
and of course
Jenny McCarthy, whose autism books are published by Penguin

A quick Amazon search reveals a number of 'beat autism with health food' books from major presses.

@Lilady, there is a grain of truth in the smallpox vaccine and leprosy.

Maxwell's basic source dates to a bit before 1973, though.

@Colonel Tom - actually, excema is also a contra-indicator for the smallpox vaccine as well.

@Lawrence I am surprise, contra-indications for the small pox vaccine is surely not something being currently taught?

However, and it shames me that I have this link saved, is a case where excema was a factor in a "secondary" exposure. The reason why I have this link, is the poor girl properly expressed her concerns to a Dr., but her concerns were not given the weight they should have been.

I must warn that this is a rather, graphic, case summary.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5925a2.htm

I got the same vaccine, and everyone was warned to minimize contact. I have no idea if disciplinary actions were taken, after he completed his deployment. For all I know, he never came home.

I also like the notes on this case, one might use the "upon hearing hoofbeats expect horses not zebras", but the notes are rather "clinically icy" in their presentation that the other indications for the STD he tested for were just not there. .

Not that I am antiVax, debate about the smallpox vac and its military use is a more subtle issue.

Of course, they got told to f— off, but it was truly hilarious. I ought to post it sometime. It was full of stuff like “you will post on x website denouncing Brian Deer” and so on and so forth.

I believe the standard legal version of the response to that is "We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram."

Narad, thanks for the 100 + year old references from whaleDOTto.
C'mon Brian Deer; we're waiting for your post about David Lewis...Wakefield's good buddy who sent you the scoring sheets for the bowel specimens from Wakefield's study subjects.

Colonel Tom: I had the smallpox vaccine (NYC Department of Health Dryvax smallpox vaccine) during the run up to the bogus WMDs scare, promulgated by Bush I...post 9-11. I was qualified to receive Dryvax because I had smallpox vaccines in early childhood and prior to a trip to Europe, 1972. I also did not have an history of eczema.

Incidentally, as either sadmar or Denice predicted, now that anti-vax views have intersected with politics, Rachel Maddow is indeed covering the matter, and quite well. She's charmingly somewhat baffled by the whole thing: "Wait, this is a thing? Why on earth is this a thing? Why on earth are mainstream politicians touching this thing with a ten foot pole?"

If there's one thing I can do whilst almost catatonically depressed, it's watch Rachel Maddow. Well, that and drink gifted homemade mead, apparently. Dangerous stuff, that.

Funny thing, as a kid, I had measles, mumps, chicken pox, rubella, and poliomyelitis, all before they were vaccine-preventable. but I still wound up with an autism spectrum condition, and I can't even blame it on vaccines.

@ JP:

Well, I hope she can influence some left-leaning people.
She has social power in certain quarters I would guess as well as being quite gifted as a barkeep instructor.
Am I not right?

@Colonel Tom:
While Rand Paul almost certainly learned at least the basics of infectious diseases, immunology, and vaccines in med school, it doesn't mean he didn't start forgetting the day after the final. With a lot of medical knowledge, it's a matter of use it or lose it. Of course, he may also have been poorly taught. I still remember many things I was taught and never worked with because some of my instructors made them interesting and taught with clarity.
When I was still a working PA, I did presurgical testing. One time I saw an abnormality on an ECG and called the surgeon to tell him that the case would have to be postponed for further workup. When I started to detail the findings to him, he said "You forget, I'm an orthopedic surgeon. I don't know about that kind of thing."

leprosy, it was caused, in modern times, by the smallpox vaccine

Time travel is a dangerous thing when misused.

@Denice:

I can only hope so. I've been monitoring FB for any sort of anti-vax statements by my more crunchy liberal friends back on the Left Coast, and they've been basically silent - good news or bad, that, I'm not sure. In any case, if anti-vax views do start to become aligned with right-wingers, it might at least drive some liberal fence-sitters in the opposite direction. (My friends here in Ann Arbor town have been joining me in pro-vax sentiment; they are, though, of the more nerdy, wonky liberal variety. One of them is studying medical history, and runs the excellent Nursing Clio blog.

I do always enjoy Maddow's "Cocktail Moment" segments, and have been tempted to attempt several of the recipes, though the closest I typically come to mixing drinks is putting ice in my bourbon, and that on rare occasions.

Old Rockin' Dave, I went through about half of those classes with the med students, bio medical engineer, and I just have trouble believing that you could forget so many basics. How diseases spread, how can you forget that. Now you forget what exactly what areas of the heart are affected by which bifascicular blocks, but you surely remember what the bundle of his is. I hope. My allergist understood his own condition when his cardiac pacemaker cells began to go wonky, and he was older than dirt.

Rekha Basu, Des Moines Register columnist is on Rachel Maddow, talking about how Paul's and Christie's vaccine comment's are dog-whistling both the Iowa Tea Baggers (no big government) and Christian Conservatives (Parents Rights) that form the two wings of the GOP caucus vote in the state and have few issues in common — even though, as Maddow says, "there's no national constituency for playing with that kind of fire, playing with vaccine conspiracies." Also, both Maddow and Basu say the pols know setting themselves up to get criticized by the media, lets them complain about being bashed by liberal media, which also plays really well in Iowa to both factions.

Maddow's take is ultimately that these are not blunders — even though the national press considers them so — but planned strategic moves to gain ground in Iowa that will be abandoned and forgotten once the campaign moves to larger states and a national audience.

Meanwhile Christie and Paul are talking out of both sides of their mouths. Putting it forward, taking it back, putting it forward, taking it back. Christie might have had a chance to get away... but he doesn't want to! Today it came out he's like the only governor that doesn't participate in Hallmark's vaccine reminder card to new moms program...

Here's a 2009 photo of Chris Christie smiling posing with a group of 6 anti-vaxers, with only one identified on screen: Louise Habakus. And then the screen shows the campaign letter Christie put out referring to — well, Rachel says "anti-vaccine groups" with a pull quote "I stand with them now, and will stand with them as their governor." But I see Orac has the text in the OP; "families affected by autism [who] have expressed concern over New Jersey’s highest-in-the nation vaccine mandates." Evil, evil mandates.

I Googled "Chris Christie Louise Habakus" and see this story went viral at the beginning of the week... Stuff movin' faster than I can follow...

@ lilady. I fear the danger of succumbing to the entertainment quality of some of these people. Malignant cranks may have all manner of personal issues they are expressing - in some cases, I believe, organic - but they are easy to play for laughs.

A more serious issue arises when you come across people like Wakefield, Lewis and even Celia Farber (who descends from time to time from the astral plane to critique molecular biology).

They believe they are entitled to accuse any number of people of the most horrendous, foul crimes against humanity, with the most vicious, unsubstantiated abuse. Then, if the accused turn round, defend themselves and and say: "You lying f--- scumbag", people such as Wakefield, Lewis (the most malignant of the cranks that I have ever encountered) and Farber, they sue, or threaten to.

Between them, they've run, I'd say, about ten or more lawsuits: none of which have done anything useful, but have consumed huge amounts of money and given them a few years to use these for public relations purposes (to quote a judge), presumably to raise more money.

Well, yes, the double standard these cranks demonstrate is spectacular. They'll compare pro-science advocates of all manner of horrific activities, crimes even. They'll compare them to Hitler and the Nazis. But if anyone calls them out for their misinformation, pseudoscience, and lies, suddenly they clutch their pearls, shocked—shocked, I say!—that anyone would say anything mean about them. Then some of them threaten to sue.

They’ll compare them to Hitler and the Nazis
Case in point:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/02/anti-vaxxer-radio-host-accuses-jon-s…

Responding to Daily Show host Jon Stewart’s criticism of both the far left and far right wings of the anti-vaxxing movement, an anti-vaccination promoting radio host compared the Jewish comedy host of being a “Nazi” ready to put the anti-vaxxers in “concentration camps.”

They’ll compare them to Hitler and the Nazis.

Gerg, a Canadian, has recently asserted that vaccines are worse than DAESH, or something, and that history will judge Obama harshly.

Speaking to the GOP = leaning anti-vax thesis of the article, I'm pleased to report that the on right and libertarian-leaning discussion website I follow, people are jumping the Rand Paul ship as fast as they can (Christie they never liked much anyway). Vaccines are the hot-topic of the day (as they are elsewhere), and I'd give a rough estimate of 90% of commenters are strongly pro-vaccine; the anti-vaxxers who comment are challenged in strong language.
Can't speak for the politicians, but for the electorate, I do think it's split pretty evenly left and right.

Colonel Tom, you know as well as I do that they can make you study something but they can't make you believe it. Baby Doc's membership in his fringe medical society proves that, not to mention all the other a-hole physicians Orac has alerted us to.
It seems to me that his sole motivation in getting his MD was to become a surgical specialist in order to rake in some bucks, and not have to bother with all those troublesome facts that contradict his favorite fairy tales.
Thankfully, not all surgeons are like that (Hat tip to you, Orac.).

@Old Rockin' Dave, I do have a paranoia of my own that runs into what you just said. Having been a premed, having a cliche of friends that were premed, having been in a graduate program taking some school of medicine classes, having worked with lots of doctors in my early career. I have this concern that the whole medical education system is slanted more towards those individuals that are in it for the money. Not exclusively, but the insanely high cost of the education combined with the tortuous training, it does seem to be biased towards a certain type of very materialistic souls. Not exclusively, but if I had to evaluate the other 12 pre-med chemical engineers I went to school with, I'd say at least 4 of them were money fixated. Especially Chuckles, geez what an ahole he turned out to be.

I have this bad tendency to believe that people do bad things because they don't know better. Time and time again I am disappointed by my bias.

Its funny, my daughter's illness kicked up again, and I was surfing to see if there were over the counter testing for parasites. I did not know that this is a new pet theory of some really wacko people. I found an excellent source of information on round and tape worms, the website sponsored by a doctor with good credentials, her school respectable. Until I got deep into what she was recommending, including that she used an herbal concoction similar to the medicine my grandmother would have brewed. She did leave out the red oak fungus at least, that stuff will take you to places you don't want to go. I might use traditional blends for minor purposes, but if you have round worms I'd really expect a doctor to use pharmaceutical grade medicine. The stuff my grandmother made, I still use it on chickens and dogs.

Well, at least I know why my pediatrician looked at us like we were kooks when the wife asked about worms.

I have been immensely pleased with my cardiologists, I am on my third one. Unfortunately, the first one I had I have outlived, against all odds. He was the walking breathing posture child for cardiac health, fit and active. Damn inoperable cancer in the hippocampus.

Old Rockin' Dave:

Please tell me this has nothing to do with Duvalier.

Vicki, it's just a passing middle finger up to the Drs. Paul, Congressman and Senator, father and son. The rotten apple didn't fall far from the diseased tree.
Colonel Tom, I have had general good luck with my docs, with the sole exception of the urologist who nearly killed me by leaving a bleeder in my abdomen. That turned an expected two day hospital stay into two weeks, half in SICU, most of which I can't remember, and that also left me with a hypovolemic ischemic encephalopathy, mainly manifested with some badly delayed recall for proper nouns and the occasional adverb. Ironically, for someone who made his living as a PA, the recall most affected is for brand names of medications.
I entirely regret not going with my gut on this one - I didn't like him from the beginning, and I have learned that a doc that I don't like as a person is more than likely to be a bad practitioner.

Crap Dave, we're both members of the scrambled brains club. At least in my case, I doubt my surgeon did anything wrong. I was at death's door because I had a real atypical right side heart attack (right corn artery), I was misdiagnosed for six days. By the time they got me on the table I was almost gone. A few little clots got stirred up. Lost the power of speech for years, but during a religious ceremony I discovered I could still sing. I'm almost to the point where I can "sing-talk" to just talk. My use of language appears to have suffered too.

Am I understanding properly, that you went into shock from a bleeder to the point your brain went hypoxic? Crap, how were they monitoring you post-op? That is just, so wrong.

I have spoken here before about the bad obstr that refused to believe us on the conception date, daughter almost died during a late delivery as it was. My beloved, praise to her, had the sense, strength and gift to know a person that won't listen is not who you want to delivery your child.

You also seem to know Senator Paul fairly well, as I keep telling people it isn't a political mistake on their part, he almost certainly believes the crap that he is saying. He believe he has obtained everything on his own, andothers that need are weak.

P.S BTW, people like us were part of my never completed PhD. Everyone talks about artificial intelligence, but we really don't understand how memory works (although we know much more now). One part studying the tragic cases, one part trying to model computer programs to mimic human memory.

The dissonance that overshadows both parties glimmers here. The Left, the intellectuals and scientists and artists; all embody the liberated mind, the free thinkers; and yet they fail to sympathize with parents who, in the light of vaccinations being admittedly often preserved with Mercury, a known neurotoxin, have shied away from exposing their children to questionable medical practices, of which many have been revealed over the decades. In fact individual choice seems to be the watchword of the Left, but not on this topic, clearly.
Meanwhile, the Right, that bastion of Christian thought on Creation, among other questionable notions;and yet, they advocate a 'sink or swim' policy with social services, implying that Darwin was right, Gol'darnit! People should survive or not on their own merits and efforts, ignore government edicts if they choose, and the Government should basically ignore them....sounds like Natural Selection to me!

No, molly cruz, almost no vaccines are preserved with mercury these days.

Also, you are at best oversimplifying on the left/right thing: for one thing, the intelligentsia are not necessarily "embodying the liberated mind." "Individual choice" is too broad to be useful here: it could be carelessly used to describe whether I go to church, and if so which, as well as whether I drive a car while drunk or toss my trash in someone else's backyard.

Molly Cruz, a new coal powered power plant puts out hundreds of pounds of mercury, a gypsum wallboard plant puts out a third of a ton of mercury because it uses byproducts of coal combustion. Forest fires put out huge amounts of mercury, rereleasing material absorbed from years of coal combustion. Mercury is so many places, yet some how mercury that used to be in some vaccines in a form of very limited bio-availability are the few molecules that cause autism.

Molly Cruz, the mercury (lower case m, the upper case is a god or a planet, that's just me being pedantic) in vaccines you are referring to is an organic compound called thimerosal. Yes, it contains mercury, but very little is absorbed, the amount in any single dose of a vaccine is incredibly tiny, and most vaccines that used it were reformulated in the wake of Wakefield. The presence of mercury in it doesn't mean much out of context; cobalt is seriously toxic to humans as well, but it's present in cyanocobalamin, aka Vitamin B12, which you regularly ingest in your food without a second thought.
Meanwhile, I have never heard that there is an inherent or natural right to spread potentially deadly infectious diseases to others. I don't think there was a plot to leave it out of the Constitution, the Atlantic Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or any other document. Even the Bible comes down foursquare on the side of quarantine.

Colonel Tom, I had a "robotic"-assisted prostatectomy. I went back to the OR for the interventional radiologist, then again for an emergency laparotomy. I was a week in SICU, either heavily sedated, lightly comatose, or both. I was another week on a regular floor, most of which is a blur too. I was blunted for months after. Finally realized I often can't recall names I should know well until well after I need them. My brain throws out plausible but wrong answers (Frederick Turner for Frederick Remington, Keith-somebody for Ken Russell, etc.). Recently I meant to reference "regression to the mean" but could only come up with "reversion"; good substitution, but still wrong. I find that if I review everything I know about the person or thing, it will eventually come to me, but it can take any time from minutes to a day or so.
Now as to the Pauls, the two of them, and many another libertarian, are somewhere between obtuse and detestable. I have often said that Ron Paul puts the "Aryan" in "libertarian". I share the opinions of them are expressed well by Prof. Steve Dutch at this link: http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/NoLibert.HTM

Old Rockin' Dave, the technique of not trying to remember a name, but remembering an event or circumstance where you used that name. Sometimes it works.
I actually called up a friend doing research with access to a PET scanner. For the shear fun of it, we traced the three areas of my brain that got zapped. I thought it was important at the time.
I find "libertarianism" such a strange mindset. While I actually am a huge fan of self-sufficiency and discipline, I am also a person who had the safety net there for them after his father died at a very young age. Social security and my father's VA benefits are what kept us in beans and corn meal. Back then, summer jobs and selling your life to the military were enough to get you a college career.

Given your ability to devastate the most impervious medical quackery with reason and logic, after all these years, I still am amazed how politics seems to short-circuit that part of your reasoning mind. I see your two Republicans with Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer (or any other D from California) and raise you Dennis Kucinich.

Here's how another Science oriented blogger put it 3 years ago:
http://www.science20.com/cool-links/urban_legend_democrats_are_proscien…

Here’s how another Science oriented blogger put it 3 years ago:
And here's how another Science oriented blogger kicked seven kinds of sh1t out of Berezow and Campbell's tendentious exercise two years ago:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/progressive-mythology/

In the comments, of course. :-)