I was measured, science-based, and reasonable in yesterday's post about the new American Cancer Society guidelines for screening mammography (which is obviously why that post garnered so few comments, thus teaching me my lesson yet again0, but regular readers know that I can be quite obnoxious and sarcastic and there's a reason why this blog is called Respectful Insolence. It's based on a quote from a character (a computer, actually) in a 35 year old British science fiction series. That character, Orac, is my namesake, and the adopted quote is, "A statement of fact cannot be insolent."
Of course, you and I both know that a statement of fact can most definitely be very, very insolent indeed. That's why I like to apply science and fact liberally and—dare I say?—insolently to quacks, cranks, and pseudoscientists. Sure, I can be quite restrained and even-keeled when I want to be, but—let's face it—there are people who are not deserving of such respect. After I named the blog Respectful Insolence, it didn't take me very long at all to realize that there are those who deserve what I like to refer to as not-so-Respectful Insolence™.
Matt Jonker, who is responsible for the font of antivaccine idiocy known as Dinner For Thought, is just such a man.
We've met Mr. Jonker before, but I've only blogged about him once because a particular post of his, 15 Things You Should Know Before Becoming An Anti-vaxxer, went viral around the holidays last year. Suffice to say, Jonker's understanding of science was about as...lacking... as that of any antivaccine loon. He earned my attention not because of his very run-of-the-mill antivaccine pseudoscience, but rather because of his confident, even arrogant, regurgitation of antivaccine tropes so hoary that they were probably circulating within a year of Edward Jenner's discovery that he could inoculate with cowpox to protect people against smallpox. Yet, there Jonker was, delivering standard antivaccine tropes as though they were astoundingly brilliant insights that he himself had been the first to think of with unassailable logic and relentless research. That his logic wasn't quite so unassailable as he thought it was and his research consisted primarily of perusing wretched hives of scum and quackery and misinterpreting studies apparently never occurred to him but was painfully obvious to anyone with an understanding of vaccine science.
Well, he's back, this time with another listicle. Yes, Jonker seems to have figured out that listicles make good clickbait, although he does share one characteristic with me that prevents his listicles from truly achieving true viral status: He's just too damned long-winded for it. Of course, I never pretend to be otherwise, and my long-windedness usually has a purpose, namely in depth explanation of medicine and science. In any case, Jonker's latest is Why don't you vaccinate?, and it's a doozy, briefer than the first post that brought me to his attention but chock full of antivaccine pseudoscience nonetheless. It's like a black hole of antivaccine stupid, threatening to suck all intelligence from anyone with a brain who reads it. Fortunately, Orac is made of sufficiently stern stuff that he is not concerned about such threats to the integrity of his neurons. Neuron-apoptosing stupidity is (usually) beaten back by Orac's neuronal survival pathways.
Enough science geekiness, though. Let's see what nonsense Jonker is laying down. First off, you can see from the graphic he uses to illustrate his post that he's into the whole #CDCtruth thing, which is at the heart of the antivaccine protest rallies that will be taking place in Atlanta and Oakland this weekend. I assume that he also buys into the "CDC whistleblower" nonsense. He has ten reasons. All are straight from the antivaccine playbook. None are particularly compelling. Most are outright ignorant. All contain a lot of conspiracy mongering, like this:
To some, I may seem like some sort of modern day renegade; some kind of rogue in a vast wilderness of pharmaceutical influence. I suppose I am different, although I don't feel that way most of the time. What may set me (and millions of others) apart is how I reached this decision.
Translation: I'm different and awesome. I understand things you mere peons do not and am going to educate you clods with my brilliance thusly:
There is not one sole reason that I've stopped vaccinating my kids; there are many reasons.
I've been researching this topic in depth for quite a while now(spurred on by an adverse reaction my second child had to her twelve month round of shots), and I've come to the eye opening realization that the rabbit hole is much deeper than most people realize. I have many reasons for not trusting common vaccine science, but there are ten reasons that I feel compelled to specifically address whenever the topic comes up.
And there's the conspiracy you were waiting for.
So let's march down the ten reasons. Some I will only deal with briefly because they are, quite simply, not worth my spending much time on. Others I will discuss in a bit more detail. The first two are relatively easy:
10. Vaccine manufacturers are immune from any and all liability.
This is, of course, one of those half-truths that antivaccinationists like to parade out as though they were Gospel Truth. Yes, in 1986, the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act was passed, and this act created the the Vaccine Court, whose payouts are funded by a tax on each dose of vaccines. Of course, the Vaccine Court uses civil standards of evidence (50% and a feather, as some have put it) and pays the court costs of those bringing cases to it, which is quite different (and more advantageous) than suing in regular old civil court. Complainants who lose in Vaccine Court can still sue in the federal courts. Granted, it's more difficult, but it can be done. I also can't help but note that the very reason the NCVIA was necessary was because of a flood of frivolous lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers that threatened to drive vaccine manufacturers to stop selling vaccines in the US. Basically, Jonker sounds as though he watched a Canary Party propaganda video and confused it with reality, which has been described here.
Next, number nine:
9. Financial incentives and conflicts of interest turn me off.
That's nice. Antivaccine pseudoscience and quackery turn me off. Really, that's all this idiotic objection deserves. Well, that and a mention of how many antivaccine luminaries make money being antivaccine luminaries. Conflicts of interest are not good, but it's undisclosed COIs that really matter.
Next, number eight:
8. The vaccines aren't as effective as you're led to believe.
Some, like the pertussis, influenza, mumps, and meningitis vaccines, are easy to observe with the failing rates, by simply looking at a large percentage of vaccinated people that still contract these diseases. Even the CDC hesitantly admits some of them aren't as effective as advertised.
Others are a little more difficult to observe, because disease outbreaks in the US have become so rare. In the case of polio, measles, diphtheria, and tetanus, we can see clearly that cases were already declining before vaccine introduction, so it's almost impossible to prove that the vaccines are what saved us from outbreaks.
Ooh boy, this sounds like the "Vaccines didn't save us" gambit (more on that later, when Jonker explicitly invokes that gambit). More importantly, Jonker doesn't understand very basic math. Because no vaccine is 100% effective, even if a population is 100% covered by a given vaccine, there will be a percentage of people still vulnerable to the disease. That's the importance of herd immunity (more on that later, too). Because the vast majority of any given population is usually vaccinated, in an outbreak there will be vaccinated people who come down with the disease. What matters is not the raw numbers, but rather the percentages. When outbreaks are studied, the attack rate is always much higher in the unvaccinated. For example, those not vaccinated against pertussis are at a 23-fold higher risk of becoming ill with pertussis during an outbreak. Looking at raw numbers is profoundly deceptive. I suspect that smarter antivaccinationists know that. I also suspect that Jonkers is too ignorant to understand that; he really believes he's making a valid point.
Next up:
7. I don't believe that vaccines eliminated diseases.
At least, not in the manner that we're force-fed. It becomes quite clear from studying historical graphs of disease morbidity and mortality rates, that most of the diseases we vaccinate for today were already on a steep decline before their respective vaccines were widely introduced. While this may go against everything you've ever been taught to think, I'd ask you to look into this further before laughing it off. As it turns out, hygiene/sanitation has played the biggest role in reducing disease than any other factor. Again, I do believe vaccines have helped curb outbreaks in some ways, but I do not give them near the full credit as many people do without even studying the facts.
"I don't believe"? Oh. My. God. The stupid, it burns.
This is the lie that I like to refer to as the intellectually bankrupt gambit known as Vaccines didn't save us. Heck, Jonker even uses the same damned graphs that I mocked. His take on this is so stupid that I really don't see any point in doing any more than providing the aforementioned link to my takedown of this particular bit of antivaccine idiocy. Basically, it's a transparent bit of misdirection and misinformation that intentionally conflates disease incidence with disease mortality. The CliffsNotes version is that antivaccinationists like Jonkers argue that, because mortality rates for various vaccine-preventable diseases were falling before the introduction of vaccines against them, that must mean that the vaccines had nothing to do with the elimination of the disease. Of course, in most cases, better medical care was what was responsible. Besides, it is the incidence of diseases that matter for determination of vaccine efficacy, not mortality, and whenever disease incidence is plotted against the introduction of vaccines we always see that there is a rapid and obvious decline in disease incidence after the introduction of a vaccine for that disease.
Then there's this:
5. Herd immunity does not exist.
Nonsense. Yes it does. There are even a lot of mathematics to quantify it. Jonker just plain doesn't know what he's talking about. Imagine that.
And the beat goes on:
4. The ingredients in vaccines scare the crap out of me.
That's nice. What antivaccine fear mongering such as Jonker's can do scares the crap out of me, even as I laugh at his ignorance. I think of children developing vaccine-preventable diseases because their parents are misled by antivaccine propaganda of the sort that Jonker is regurgitating, such as "toxins gambit" writ large:
Formaldehyde is used not only for embalming dead bodies, but also to kill the viruses or bacteria in inactivated vaccines. It has been labeled a carcinogen in other areas, yet we're injecting it into our bodies. Sure, a pear might contain the same amount of formaldehyde as a single vaccine, but when's the last time you injected a pear, or even fed one to your 2 month old? The bottom line is, it hasn't been tested for safety in infants. Go ahead, check. Even the package inserts themselves state explicitly that vaccines have not been tested for carcinogenic or mutagenic effects. Have you noticed the epidemic of childhood cancer that is happening today? No, they don't know what's causing it.
Except that there is no "epidemic" of childhood cancer today. Some cancers are increasing in incidence. Some are decreasing. Mortality from all of them is decreasing. I would point out that the reason mortality from childhood cancer is decreasing is science, but I suspect that observation would be lost on our "friend" spewing antivaccine talking points. I would also point out that formaldehyde is produced in normal metabolism and that the amount in childhood vaccines is so far below that amount that it doesn't significantly increase blood levels in infants. Nor is there any believable evidence that mercury causes autism, as Jonker seems to believe, or any evidence that aluminum adjuvants are harmful.
Now here's one that made me laugh out loud when I read it:
3. Many vaccines contain foreign animal DNA.
There is no way around the fact that every vaccine contains some type of foreign DNA. Tissue from several animals is needed to cultivate viruses and bacteria. There are no safety studies on injecting foreign DNA and what it does to the body.
I've decided that I don't like the thought of my children getting injected with pig, cow, monkey, mouse, rabbit, and dog DNA; I don't care if it's widely deemed "safe".
With no studies on the effects, and my own common sense, this should be enough. No thanks.
Here's a rule of thumb: Whenever someone invokes "common sense" before discussing science, there's a pretty darned good chance that what will follow will be anything but "common sense."
In any event, this particular entry in Jonker's list is so amusingly silly that there's not a heck of a lot to say about it. It basically boils down to, "Ewww, icky!" Perhaps I should come up with a fancy Latin phrase that translates to "appeal to ickiness" or "repeal to personal revulsion." Of course, just because you find something repulsive does not mean it's harmful or dangerous. Besides, if Jonker is afraid of "foreign DNA," he really shouldn't be eating meat. Heck, he shouldn't be eating vegetables, either. I bet Jonker doesn't have clue one what happens to "foreign DNA" that finds its way into the bloodstream. He seems to think it will somehow contaminate him or his child. In actuality, the body deals with it quite rapidly.
This is, of course, a very common theme in antivaccine pseudoscience, that vaccines will somehow sap our purity of essence or contaminate our precious bodily fluids. I mean, seriously. Is Jonker Jack D. Ripper?
Which brings me to:
2. Many vaccines are designed using aborted fetal tissue as a growth medium.
Huh? What does this even mean? Aborted fetal tissue as a growth medium? Jonker clearly has no idea what the meaning of the term "growth medium" is in science. It has nothing to do with cells; rather, it is the liquid that contains all the substances necessary for cell growth in tissue culture. A word of advice: If you're going to refer to something like tissue culture, know what the hell it is you are talking about. Learn the basic terminology. The failure to do so only reveals your ignorance and thus lack of credibility on the subject. Not that our intrepid antivaccine loon is the least bit deterred by something as trivial as a lack of knowledge of the relevant science. Don't believe me?
Behold:
While there is no fetal tissue in vaccines (a common misconception), there are unavoidable traces of fetal cells/foreign human DNA in many of them. There are no safety studies that prove this isn't dangerous or doesn't cause adverse effects. There are studies, however, that do find a strong correlative link to the case spikes in autism and the introduction of vaccines containing human fetal cells.
I'm impressed. At least he realizes that there isn't actual fetal tissue in vaccines. On the other hand, that's about the minimum one should expect; so Jonker didn't hit a very high bar.
Not surprisingly, Jonker neglects to mention that the "studies" that claim to find a "strong correlative link to the case spikes in autism and the introduction of vaccines containing human fetal cells" are crap studies by antivaccine ideologues like Theresa Deisher, whose twisting of science in the service of religious dogma is, unfortunately, epic.
All of this brings us, countdown-wise, to #1:
1. It's MY choice.
It's not up to the government, the pharmaceutical giants, the health department, my doctor, or you to decide for me how to raise my kids. I'm not neglecting or abusing my kids by not having them vaccinated, despite a new push to paint this image into the minds of the public.
No, I stopped vaccinating my kids because I love them so much that I realized I really needed to be researching such an important topic; one that has destroyed the lives of many families.
No, not exactly. The "it's my choice" gambit is, as I've described before, an antivaccine dog whistle. Contrary to what Jonker seems to think, his children are not his property. Parents are stewards of their children, not their owners. They do not have the unfettered right to do whatever they want with respect to their children's medical management, and it is not an unconstitutional infringement of freedom to require children to be vaccinated as a condition of attending school or day care.
What this listicle shows is that Matt Jonker is suffused with what I like to refer to as the arrogance of ignorance. He thinks that his Google University learning and his "deep research" outweigh the real deep knowledge that scientists and physicians who've dedicated their professional careers to studying autism and vaccines. If you don't know much about science or vaccines, he sounds as though he knows what he's talking about, apparently subscribing to the philosophy that if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit, confidently delivered.
Harkening back to my discussion of who does and who doesn't deserve respect when taken down by skeptics, Matt Jonker is clearly one who does not. His unabashed arrogance of ignorance, coupled with is truly cringe-worthy assessments of evidence preclude that.
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It's a bit difficult to figure out if whale hunting is the reason whales are disappearing, because hunting ships have troubles finding whales.
Sarcasm aside, one can point to the occasions where some vaccines were withhold (Japan in early 80's, Ukraine in the 90's) and the following increase in the occurrence of the relevant disease.
But I guess it was just people who suddenly and coincidentally forgot to wash their hands.
Nice cartoon, BTW. Love it.
To some, I may seem like some sort of modern day renegade; some kind of rogue in a vast wilderness of pharmaceutical influence.
Is there some kind of law, like Scopie's or Godwin's, that can be invoked as soon as the "brave maverick" claim surfaces? Garner's Law, maybe?
Personally, I prefer Bill Mayer's term, bubble people. After referring them to the history of hepatitis A and B, along with yellow fever, I dare them to spend a few months in the central Amazon without vaccinations.
About #9:
COIs of those who profess anti-vax propaganda as well as those who sell supplements and naturalistic protocols- in general- are not entirely 'undisclosed' but followers must experience a _failure of inference_. Seriously.
- anti-vaxxers' presentations are rife with tales of children being "lost" after vaccination and "recovered" after following various fol de rol. Tellers of these tales are USUALLY parents of the children described, providers of the protocols or someone who has a book or film concerning the preceding or occasionally, 2 of these or even all 3.
- the aforementioned may experience rewards both monetary ( see AJW) and social ( see AoA,TMR), occasionally both. Obviously parents who write books published by Skyhorse on the subject may never earn much money but may instead receive increased prestige amongst their peers and followers which may even lead to 'careers' as speakers, advisers, 'experts' and quasi-celebrities in their groups.
( see Kim Stagliano, LJ Goes, Ann Dachel, TMR).
In addition, parents who feel slighted by Nature ( having a so-called imperfect child) can be a bit compensated through secondary gain.
- woo-meisters with websites and alt media ( PRN and Mike's newest project, Talk Network) bang on about conspiracies to enhance their own following ( number of listeners, readers, friends, clicks, ad payments) who in turn may also purchase products from their web site "stores". This can lead to increased prestige and ego puffing as well.
( Like they need more !)
Their followers most likely don't put these hints together thus I say, "a failure of inference" - I wonder why that is?
I'll answer that:
BECAUSE they do whatever they can to DISTRACT their audiences and potential clients from their own COIs by forever, tirelessly, endlessly pointing out their critics' ( SBM and the reality-oriented) alleged COIs, malfeasance and downright devilry.
Conspiracies rule because they serve as a distractor away from what I described previously:
it is a *distraught parent* relating this
or someone who provides a woo treatment, sells books, supplements or films about the issue.
They are not free of conflicting interests.
People who study cognition know how much distraction can interfere with WHERE attention is focused-
suppose I keep direcingt you towards material about A in order to keep you from looking at B- you'll be thinking and remembering A more likely as not instead of B. .UNLESS of course, you're on to me. I doubt most followers of anti-vax prophets question their leaders' motives because after all, they are pure and just, as they tell you over and over and over again. Why question paragons of virtue like them- devoted parents and providers-and when you have daemons around like Offit, Orac and Deer?
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shay@3: It's a version of the Galileo gambit, with a side of martyr complex. Jonkers is casting himself as a modern-day Galileo fighting against the dogma of the Church of Big Pharma. There are many problems with that analogy, not the least of which is that he is incorrectly identifying the side of this so-called debate that's being dogmatic (almost theologically so) about their position.
I'm not going to dignify Jonkers by comparing him to Bozo the Clown. Bozo was at least competent in his field of work.
Denice @5: Exactly. The pharma shill gambit is pure projection. Don't buy those nasty chemical products from that giant corporation, buy my products instead. What's unsaid is that since the woo-pushers are making (I insist on the Americanism here, because they certainly aren't earning it) big money on their products (else they wouldn't be selling said products), Big Pharma must be in it for the money as well.
Speaking of the Dunning-Kruger effect:
SafeMinds has a new "review" of the data that they don't like from the studies that they wish they had not funded. The review was written by two marketing specialists and a nurse. Because waaah.
http://www.safeminds.org/blog/2015/10/19/safeminds-review-of-vaccine-sa…
@ Eric Lund:
Sure. Woo-meisters are business people.
All of them though- parents, woo-meisters / vitamin pushers- present themselves as humanitarians- selfless, martyred saints whose ONLY concerns are -respectively- their precious children- indeed ALL children- and all humankind around the globe and the TRUTH of course!
If they are so concerned about humanity why do these guys live in veritable palaces instead of donating most of their earnings to the impoverished? Why do their services and products cost so much?
I should really do a pricelist sometime.
"I was measured, science-based, and reasonable in yesterday’s post about the new American Cancer Society guidelines for screening mammography (which is obviously why that post garnered so few comments, thus teaching me my lesson yet again)"
Insolence or no insolence, I still read your posts religiously every day and enjoy them, may they be making fun of some clueless bozo or outlining the subtle nuances of a given medical practice. I guess it's just easier to crack jokes at the former rather than making pertinent observations at the latter, especially when you have no expertise in that field like me.
If herd immunity does not exist, how does one explain how the recent measles outbreaks "originating" at Disneyland petered out quite rapidly?
I sometimes wonder if "they" think herd immunity actually means that if most of the herd is immune that herd members who aren't will somehow acquire immunity from those who are. I've seen lots of "it doesn't exist" claims, but never anything beyond that assertion. I've seen a few claims that it can only exist with "natural" immunity, not as a result of vaccination, which is what leads me to believe they think some sort of mother-to-child or peer-to-peer process is in play.
On the matter of the measles outbreaks, does anyone know of a nice summary of where they occurred, how many were infected and how long each outbreak lasted?
To most rational folk, Jonker seems like just another false meme-belching antivax loon; a turd in a vast punchbowl of scientific literacy.
@ Garou
I had a similar reaction.
Breast cancer screening? Um, not a clue here, I will just sit at the back and watch.
Antivax nonsense? (or antisense?)
OK, SIWOTI kicking in, full speed. Time to dust off my microbiology/physiology/immunology 101, or what's left of them.
Either way, if I remember to pay attention, I learn stuff.
I think the material that pretends to be balanced is often far more insidious, like this recent effort from a popular Australian parenting website which even claims that 'we don't want to change your opinion'. Uh huh. http://www.bellybelly.com.au/baby/whooping-cough-why-are-we-having-outb…
Go to the author's personal FB page however, and it's anti vaxx all the way.
I love this post, and am deeply grateful to Orac for responding to these baseless claims, but I want to correct something in relation to #10. Orac says: "Complainants who lose in Vaccine Court can still sue in the federal courts. Granted, it’s more difficult, but it can be done"
That's not quite accurate.
Petitioners who lose in NVICP can appeal to the federal courts - first to the Court of Federal Claims, then to a circuit court, with a potential (if hard to get) appeal to the Supreme Court.
But suing in state courts, which is what anti-vaccine activists seem to think they should have, is harder. Under Breusewitz v. Wyeth, they can't sue for design defects at all. They can sue for other things, however, for example, manufacturing defects. As Orac points out, winning in the regular courts would be harder.
I would add that the causation standard used in NVICP is also less demanding than that in federal courts.
The document to look for is the petitioner appeal brief in Cedillo. This sets out why - in the submission of the omnibus petitioners themselves - why they don't need to prove that the vaccine causes harm to win in vaccine court.
It's wonderful exposition that blows the bottom out of all this crap about all these billions in compensation means that vaccines cause autism.
@Brian Deer: I'd be a little more cautious. They do need to meet the program's standards for proving causation, if there's no settlement. Cases are denied for not proving causation. It's just that the standard is a pretty low, relaxed one.
"when you have daemons around like Offit, Orac and Deer?"
Offit, Orac and Deer, oh my!
Offit, Orac and Deer, oh my!
(With apologies to a long dead composer.)
15 things you absolutely know after becoming an anti-vaxxer:
1. You are the specialest snowflake in all the world.
2. Google U. is fully accredited.
3. Doctors and scientists are only in it for the money.
4. Andrew Wakefield is only in it for kitten smiles and sunbeams.
5. Your children do not need rights. They have You.
15. "You can't tell me what to do!!!!!!"
Did I forget any?
You left out "Mommy intuition trumps evidence".
"There is no direct scientific proof, Michelle concedes,
that vaccines cause autism. As the Federal Circuit noted in
Althen, the field is “bereft” of science in this area. 418 F.3d
at 1278. However, she also submits, substantial circumstantial evidence, albeit indirect evidence, supports such a link. Indeed, Michelle says, similar circumstantial evidence, preponderant evidence, consisting of the statements of treating physicians in medical records, expert opinions, scientific literature, and concessions by the respondent’s experts, has been sufficient to support compensating a wide variety of injuries in the Program.
In this regard, Michelle is sure, each of the respondent’s seventeen experts in her case would deny that vaccines are capable of causing any of the below-cited injuries. There is simply no scientific proof. None of thesecases would survive a Daubert motion in a civil court. However,
Michelle submits, all of the below petitioners were compensated in the Vaccine Program because of the Program’s relaxed standards of proof. All were compensated because they, like she, presented preponderant evidence, legally sufficient evidence, that a vaccine injured them."
@has - Oh, I might be able to think of a few:
6) Your Mommy (or Daddy) instinct gives you the ability to intuitively and inerrantly parse the cause-effect relationship(s) between any two events
7) You can fully understand a research paper merely by reading the title and abstract
8) Anyone who disagrees with you is either a clueless sheeple or part of the conspiracy
"As it turns out, hygiene/sanitation has played the biggest role in reducing disease than any other factor. "
Of course he's right. I remember when I was a child, my Grandma would send me out without breakfast or warm clothes, to make mud pies in the cesspool. Then, when she finally let me back in the house, there was no sissy hand washing or washing after using the open pit toilet in the living room. And food? We didn't eat any of those expensive fruits and vegetables. We ate dirt, and were glad to get it. I'm not sure exactly when hygiene and sanitation came into vogue...I think it was about the same time as the polio vaccine came on the market. Remarkable coincidence, no?
Now let me correct you on a couple of things, OK? Yeasts are not animals. The petri dish was not named after Flinders Petrie the Egyptologist. Puziss-Wright 1095 culture medium* is not actually made from Drs Puziss and Wright. Those are all mistakes, Otto Matt. I looked them up.
* For culturing anthrax. Purely synthetic, made by combining glucose, various amino acids and salts in the stated proportion.
Ah - the "hygiene/sanitation" saved us" gambit once again! I always relish pointing out a few things at anti-vax blogs about how and why "hygiene/sanitation" has really had little effect:
- Most (~80%) of the vaccine preventable diseases are respiratory aerosol transmitted.
- Others are spread by sexual contact, sharing needles or airborne and crawling insect vectors.
- Only a few VPDs are fecal/oral transmitted (Cholera, Hepatitis A, Polio & Typhoid Fever) where hygiene/sanitation is a factor.
- For the vast majority of viral, bacterial & parasitic diseases that are fecal/oral transmitted world-wide, there are no vaccines!
Oh Orac of old, how many problems would have been avoided if the crew had just listened to you ... rather like Orac the blogger really.
It is curious how improved sanitation began ‘eliminating’ pertussis infections in the 1940’s in the US, but didn’t also eliminate measles almost 30 years later beginning in 1968 and didn’t impact chickenpox until 1995 or shingles infections until 2006 (remarkedly, coincident with the development/approval of vaccines against these infectious diseases)>
I guess some dirt is dirtier than other dirt…
Other than claiming "polio is still there, they've just renamed it," I haven't seen any anti-vaxxer offer up an explanation for how polio has been recently eliminated in countries where, to my limited knowledge, hygiene practices have not improved much for a significant fraction of the population any time during the course of the vaccination push.
Someone in the comments for a CBC article mentioned that incidence of diphtheria in Canada dropped dramatically soon after the introduction of the vaccine. Anyone seen any good data for that? Presumably the effect was similar in the US.
---
"Puziss-Wright 1095 culture medium* is not actually made from Drs Puziss and Wright."
"Baby Oil" is similarly misleadingly identified.
I would submit that this is not even a half truth. Vaccine manufacturers can still be sued for manufacturing defects, which makes the claim about "any and all liability" wrong.
Some date here.
On the subject of diphtheria and vaccination, this is a fascinating article. Obviously, around 1980 there was a collective loss of memory of how to wash hands.
That should be "some data".
Damn you autocorrect.
And now I see why there were so few comments yesterday. Nothing in that informative and factual post (however controversial some of your positions may be among professional colleagues) made me want to reach through the computer screen and strangle anyone.
"Vaccines didn't eliminate diseases." Arragh! When was the last time you saw an iron lung, Mr. Jonker? When was the last time you got vaccinated against smallpox? Arrogant twerp.
ChrisP@30
Hmmm, around the same time pertussiscases started increasing too. Clearly you're onto something.
“Baby Oil” is similarly misleadingly identified.
It is not boiled out of them?
I was misinformed.
I met Agar the surrealist painter at her last exhibition in 1989. She denied being the inventor of Agar plates.
@herr doktor bimler #34
You certainly were - everyone knows you don't boil babies to get baby oil - you render them.
"pig, cow, monkey, mouse, rabbit, and dog DNA"
Or, as it's known, DNA. Same backbones and bases as ours, same backbones and bases as the stuff in food and apoptotic cells that our body deals with just fine. Man, they are terrified of the most random things.
Mr. Jonker: "Others are a little more difficult to observe, because disease outbreaks in the US have become so rare. In the case of polio, measles, diphtheria, and tetanus, we can see clearly that cases were already declining before vaccine introduction, so it’s almost impossible to prove that the vaccines are what saved us from outbreaks."
It would be interesting to how he would dodge my American 20th century measles incidence data. I have yet to get anyone to tell me what other than vaccines caused measles incidence to drop 90% between 1960 and 1970. Though there have been some interesting answers.
I kind of remember John Stone trying to get away by using death data from England and Wales. I had to tell him that neither of those were American states.
By the way, that census data also includes polio, pertussis and diphtheria, but not tetanus. It is on page 10. This is a useful table because it does include the data before 1950 when some of the vaccines were not available.
Yah, and besides eating food, it's been mentioned on numerous threads here (often involving APV) that we get foreign DNA IN OUR BLOODSTREAM (!!!eleventy!) pretty GD often, like say when we cut ourselves while chopping vegetables, if an animal bites/scratches us, etc. I recently cut my finger, in fact, when I was chopping onions; strangely enough, I have not turned into an onion or anything. I don't think.
Milled, malaxated and centrifuged according to the rules.
10. Vaccine manufacturers are immune from any and all liability.
Where?
French water cervids, what did I start!?
The real question, of course, is does the oil contain proteins and what happens if you ethoxylate it and use it in vaccines? Will it make children allergic to ...? The horrors!
---
ChrisP, thanks for the info on diphtheria.
Tetanus outbreaks? Does this bozo think tetanus is a communicable disease?
It isn't too hard for me to imagine some "natural" decline in tetanus, simply due to the reduction in the number of people doing things where they are likely to be punctured or cut by dirty objects, such as farming and gardening.
If cold-pressed there is likely to be a small protein component. This can be removed if you go for the more industrial hexane extraction.
Now watch out , minions-
I can imagine the commenters at AoA discussing those
"CRUEL, childless pharma shills"-
selling foetal parts willy nilly is not good enough for them. NO! They have to boil babies down to retrieve their valuable essential oils an then sell it on Etsy!
Yes! WE can call it *L'huile de Bebe* or *Eau d'enfant*
It's the "Etsy" part that really makes that comment.
Great read. Thanks. I think I'll have a glass of dihydrogen oxide now, and go to bed.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2015/10/22/more-antivaccine-stylings-…
Denice,
Given that they're so infailible (sp?) with their child, how come they we're not infailible with our own conclusions or reasoning?
Al
This is interesting:
"Healthy User Bias: Why Most Vaccine Safety Studies Should Not Be Trusted." (Vaccine Papers):
http://vaccinepapers.org/healthy-user-bias-why-most-vaccine-safety-stud…
Good grief. Not the VaccinePapers website.
The owner and writer of that website certainly suffers from Dunning-Kruger syndrome.
So rather than send us to that website, how about you describe in your own words why that article is 1) interesting and 2) worthy of reading?
@Puddin' Tane, Vaccine Papers describes itself as "An Objective Look at Vaccine Dangers", so already I'm suspicious. But, as Orac says, "let's dig in, shall we?"
Already that's deceptive. In vaccine trials, people don't know if they're getting the vaccine or a placebo, so that's wrong.
Another half truth. Vaccination is delayed but not halted. And I could be wrong, but I don't think "neurological problems" are grounds for delaying vaccination.
Use of emotive language.
And there is the lie. Any subgroup with a lower vaccination rate and a higher risk of adverse outcomes would either be completely excluded from any vaccine safety study, or randomised so that representative proportions appear in both the treatment and placebo groups.
The article is clever propaganda. Orac, I think you should take a look at the "Vaccine Papers" website. "Target Rich" is an understatement.
From Puddin' Tane's link
Emphases added. Somehow this doesn't strike me as definite or irreproachable evidence for the dangers of vaccines.
@gaist: yeah, well spotted. VP makes a bunch of dubious assumptions. In fact, it's almost as if he was trying to load the deck.
Jazzlet@26: But Tarial Cells cause Autism!!!!!
"I don’t believe that vaccines eliminated diseases."
At least, not in the manner that we’re force-fed. “I don’t believe”? Oh. My. God. The stupid, it burns."
The long term impact.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26122188
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7715338
IKZ, your second link goes to "Is measles vaccination a risk factor for inflammatory bowel disease?" It was written in 1995, and one of its authors is "Wakefield AJ".
As for the first, "Association of measles and mumps with cardiovascular disease: The Japan Collaborative Cohort (JACC) study", I spotted a big problem.
OBJECTIVE: Although it has been suggested that exposure to infections during childhood could decrease risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD), the evidence is scarce. We investigated the association of measles and mumps with CVD.
RESULTS: Men with measles only had multivariable HR (95% confidence interval) of 0.92 (0.85-0.99) for total CVD, those with mumps only had 0.52 (0.28-0.94) for total stroke and 0.21 (0.05-0.86) for hemorrhagic stroke, and those with both infections had 0.80 (0.71-0.90) for total CVD, 0.71 (0.53-0.93) for myocardial infarction, and 0.83 (0.69-0.98) for total stroke. Women with both infections had 0.83 (0.74-0.92) for total CVD and 0.84 (0.71-0.99) for total stroke. We also compared subjects with measles only or mumps only (reference) and those with both infections. Men with both infections had 0.88 (0.78-0.99) for total CVD. Women with both infections had 0.85 (0.76-0.94) for total CVD, 0.79 (0.67-0.93) for total stroke, 0.78 (0.62-0.98) for ischemic stroke and 0.78 (0.62-0.98) for hemorrhagic stroke.
Notice the problem? If you don't, here it is:
They mention people who had measles, people who had mumps and people who had both, but don't mention people who had neither. That's a strange oversight, don't you agree? Another problem is in the Method.
Questionnaires are known to be questionable.
IKZ@55: The PubMed website has a known critical defect in that it fails to play Dance of the Cuckoos whenever a user clicks on that second link. Please file a bug report on it.
Re: injecting non-human DNA.
For a long time, diabetics used Pig Insulin. (or was it a different animal).
Surely there would be some study about the health effects of that.
Wonder if Jonker attended the CDC Truth protest? He'd have been in select company if he did.
Jeez, I just saw a Periscope broadcast of the CDC rally on @vialnews. Whoo-boy. The stupid it burns. We see them chanting, "Stop killing our babies!" and "Stop vaccines!"
But they're not antivaccine. Oh, no...
But Orac, did you get a head count? I am panting to know how many have showed up....
@ Liz:
I looked at one of twittering ninny sites - probably #cdcrally which showed a photo of protesters- one of those close ups which can disguise poor attendance.
If I wanted to show a crowd in a photo I wouldn't choose that way- compare this to the red shirt rally photos where there actually were more people present.
Professor Reiss helpfully sent me a link... looks like 10s of protesters; sounds like 10s of protesters.
Too bad the CDC employees are too classy to come out, point, and laugh....
>Perhaps I should come up with a fancy Latin phrase that translates to “appeal to ickiness” or “repeal to personal revulsion.”
This has been described (in a non-Latin way) as an "appeal to disgust". The phrase "wisdom of repugnance" has been used, meanwhile, by people who wish to support their arguments using this particular type of fallacious reasoning.
It is a particular type of "appeal to emotion", which of course does have a pretentious Latin form: argumentum ad passiones.
Wow, these guys want so desperately to be important. See this hilarious Twitter thread.
h[]ps://mobile.twitter.com/TannersDad/status/657545916904136705
Specifically these 2 pictures:
https://mobile.twitter.com/TannersDad/status/657565950875537412/photo/1
h[]ps://mobile.twitter.com/TannersDad/status/657566928668463105/photo/1
And this response video (you can see the crowd, it's small time through and through).
https://t.co/u56jF1ZgVd
Delusions of granduer?
Here's a funny one:
Could not have made that any clearer there. God I #hate Twitter #the #stupid #it #burns.
@ capnkrunch:
Ha!
You'll notice that like the usual suspects, they multiply their efforts-
- there are quite a few twitter accounts/ thunderclap others
- there are several anti-vax websites/ facebook pages
- there are multiple advocacy groups ( with the same people)
- they take part in many events, films, conferences
like the woo-meisters who have
- multiple websites
- multiple projects
- more than one charity
- diverse income streams
- more than one way to reach their audiences
- always new methods
One of these days, I should list the ways they contact potential customers and exactly what they sell. It's somewhat shocking. So many ways to woo and so much money to take.
Also- they seem to manipulate charity endeavors/
Like I said a long time ago @ RI-
it's like an animal puffing itself up in order to appear larger and more substantial than it really is.
Perhaps, should Mr. Jonker mature in his blogging style, his listicles will be dropped..?
I see a new product is coming out soon. The new cure for everything: Slowly pressed and steamed (in a mangle) anti-vaxer oil. Before pressing are anti-vaxers are fed the purest BS available to produce only the finest quality oil. A package of thin mints is provided with each bottle. You do not need to worry about kuru because there are no brain proteins in anti-vaxer oil.
I didn't see Jake Crosby with his "Autistics for Wakefield" sign among those few dozen anti-vaxxers. Doesn't Jake care anymore?
@ brian:
As best as I can tell from reading his rag... I mean *blog*, Andy is no longer Jake's icon, mentor, patron saint or whatever he was. Jake believed that AJW did wrong a while back. I DO mean recently ( concerning an "outing") not in his data fixing days.
Yeah, it seems Jake is pissed at or has pissed off everyone in the anti-vax community.
On "Doctor" Wakefield, note that prior to 8 AUG 2014, every mention of the guy was "Dr. Wakefield", and articles that mentioned him were tagged "Dr. Andrew Wakefield" http://www.autisminvestigated.com/tag/dr-andrew-wakefield/ , but after the 22nd of that month, the "Dr." is dropped, and the articles are just tagged with "Andrew Wakefield" http://www.autisminvestigated.com/tag/andrew-wakefield/
Wonder if Jonker attended the CDC Truth protest?
Surely he would devote another listicle to the names of protesters.
Perhaps I should come up with a fancy Latin phrase that translates to “appeal to ickiness” or “repeal to personal revulsion.”
"Argumentum ad nauseam" works for me.
It was after Andrew Wakefield released the name of the 'CDC whistleblower'. Even before that, Jake had switched his hero worship from Andrew Wakefield to Brian Hooker. For some reason, Jake felt that it was OK for him to do his 6 degrees of separation investigative reporting and splash it all over the internet, but wrong for Andrew Wakefield to mention William Thompson.
Roadstergal's comment at 37 prompted me to consider something I hadn't previously, and with a moderate amount of web surfing haven't found an answer for: How long (how many base pairs) would a "foreign" DNA fragment have to be to have some reasonable chance of being unique for a human - that is, the fragment does not match any piece of intact DNA?
Also, when considering gene differences from one individual to another, are the variant genes any more or less likely to be "short" than genes that are common to everyone?
My favorite was his attempt at sample-size calculation. The pluralis majestatis was just irritating, although he may actually be dim enough to suppose that inconsistently pretending to be some sort of collective would be a bulwark against turning "anonymity" into (weak) pseudonymity.
Repetitive phraseology will fell that every time if anyone is inclined to bother. I'll credit him with requiring me about 45 minutes to confirm well enough to lose interest in the weird details.
Richard Smith@70: I see exactly what you did there.
Off now to dig out my eyeballs with a spoon...
My bad eyesight initially rendered 'listicles' in my brain as another word. Richard Smith appears to have seen the same thing...
Q: What do you do when your listicles fill up with too much stuff?
A: Jonker!
JULIAN FROST
You should re-read it. It is written by ONLY “Wakefield AJ”? Incidentally, the last word is not yet written on causes of autism. And what about the other study?
Next in line is the chicken pox vaccine leading to increased cases of shingles.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2563790/
This is for a condition when a relationship is known and effect starts after 40 years. For measles the impact came in after 35 years.
What about vaccines for which links are not known? As is customary, a prevention procedure that leads to larger unintended and unknown problem.
And Orac calling names!!!
I just wanted to say about his previous listicle (because comments are disabled on that posting of yours) that number 1 there "Once you've gone down that road, you can't come back" is total bullshit. I am an ex anti-vaxxer and I know other people (unfortunately not as many as I wish there were) who are.
"Because no vaccine is 100% effective, even if a population is 100% covered by a given vaccine, there will be a percentage of people still vulnerable to the disease. "
The article says it right there. No vaccine is 100% effective. The fact really is, that parents are willing to sacrifice some, and hope it isn't their child. We place the value of some over the LIVES of the others. My sister was KILLED by vaccination s given to her when she was only a month old. Boom. Dead by morning. But no "provaccinators" want to hear that. Because their child wasn't personally effected. That is the problem with parents, America, and the world today. If it doesn't effect them, then its not their problem.
IKZ, that study is almost ten years old, and the varicella vaccine had only been in use for ten years. It also does not even mention that there is a shingles vaccine. Do you have anything more recent that includes the use of a shingles vaccine?
By the way, only a child hating sadist would insist children suffer almost two weeks covered with dozens of itchy open wounds that are vulnerable to secondary bacterial infections to "prevent shingles" when there is a vaccine to prevent shingles. What kind of monster wants kids to get sick instead of getting a safe vaccine?
Fun story: a couple generations of good varicella coverage and we won't need to worry about either chickenpox or shingles.
What is even more hilarious is that it is, in fact, having had chickenpox that makes one vulnerable to shingles later in life, as the virus goes and hangs out in your nervous system for the rest of your life. Like herpes. (I am thinking of the mouth type, though, which I had an outbreak of recently while recovering from a cold.)
Anyhow, the chickenpox vaccine does away with both chickenpox and shingles, as far as I know.
Jo Green,
Are you suggesting that we sacrifice thousands of children's lives each year, not to mention allowing incalculable misery, with the aim of preventing a few deaths that we aren't even sure were caused by vaccines?
If you accept that argument, why not ban seat belts and air bags too? A tiny number of children have been injured or trapped by them; why value the many lives of all those saved by seat belts over the few ended by them?
What vaccine do you believe did that? I'm not aware of any vaccine with the known side effect of sudden death the next day but I'm guessing it was DPT which was at one time wrongly blamed for SIDS.
I believe your sister died; sadly sudden infant death happens. However, the evidence tells us that DPT (which is no longer used in the US) reduces the incidence of SIDS.
That is exactly the opposite to how I see it. I think that getting vaccinating protects not only me but other people too. I see it as a community-minded action; taking a small personal risk for a huge community benefit. The problem is that some people are unwilling or unable to accept the overwhelming evidence for vaccine safety and efficacy.
IKZ, what do you mean:
I dealt with the other study. I pointed out that:
And that it used questionnaires, a highly unreliable method of data gathering.
Please learn to read. As for the study, any study with Wakefield as co-author is automatically dubious.
Jo Green:
The parents who choose to not vaccinate show exactly that willingness to sacrifice some and hope it isn't their child. They prefer to take the much larger risk of children dying from disease rather than the smaller (though real) risks involved in vaccination. They often try to justify this by saying that the diseases were never really all that bad anyway, or that the mortality would be way down because of better treatments, or that THEY never knew anyone who died of measles or was paralyzed by polio. But the reality is they'd rather let the rest of the population take the small (but real) risks of vaccination and get the benefits for their own children free.
In this case, there are no choices that are completely without risk or consequences.
Rich: "I see a new product is coming out soon. The new cure for everything: Slowly pressed and steamed (in a mangle) anti-vaxer oil."
Available in enema form, one hopes.
More trouble with vaccines: ?
"Danger of Aluminum in Vaccines." (Vaccine Papers):
http://vaccinepapers.org/danger-aluminum-vaccines/
No, sorry. Scurry off and get the PMID.
^ Or is this one of DDanimal's own attempts at writing?
Let me guess?
Chris Shaw and Lucija Tomljenovic will be mentioned.
Puddin' Tane: " (Vaccine Papers):"
VP is a silly person. He/she keeps repeating stuff on SBM even after being told how it lacked actual relevance, or substance. The idiot even referenced the Geiers like they actually matter!
ChrisP: "Chris Shaw and Lucija Tomljenovic will be mentioned."
Actually no, it is worse. It mentions IV solutions for preterm infants, and studies in bunny rabbits. Which we all know bunny rabbits are exactly the same as full term human infants, and vaccines have the same volume as IV feeding solutions. (for the clueless, that was sarcasm)
Chris@97
They are being pumped with massive injections after all. Also, IM is the same as IV; both go directly into the bloodstream.
15 things you absolutely know after becoming an anti-vaxxer:
1. You are the specialest snowflake in all the world.
2. Google U. is fully accredited.
3. Doctors and scientists are only in it for the money.
4. Andrew Wakefield is only in it for kitten smiles and sunbeams.
5. Your children do not need rights. They have You.
15. “You can’t tell me what to do!!!!!!”
Did I forget any?
Nope. Now put a single of these labels along with their label numbers on a pig (one label, one pig); take pigs to antivax event and them in their events. Watch antivaxxers try to find out pigs number 6 to 14. Smile :)
Evil Al
Drop them....
Add this nice song in the background:
http://youtu.be/UxxajLWwzqY
Evil Al
@Puddin' Tane #92, I clicked through and read the article posted on that link. Colour me unimpressed. "Vaccien Papers" makes a number of questionable assertions and offers no citations in support. It's as if they are sourcing their data rectally or pollexally.
This is interesting:
"House Republican Resurfaces Claims Of CDC Vaccine Cover-Up." (TheHill):
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/257581-house-republican-resurfaces…
What doesn't Congress just investigate this? If the allegations of fraud turn out to be unfounded, then this whole Thompson issue can be put to rest once and for all (it's not like Congress has anything else to do, and their approval ratings are pretty dismal these days ?).
Congress has one pointless investigation (full of sound and fury, and signifying nothing) on the table already and is about to launch a second.
Why should they bother with a third exercise in futility?
FTFY. By the way, how's that Wakefraud complaint to the ORI going?
Oh, wait, you're a write-only device.
@ Narad
"CDC vaccine whistleblower: the silence that kills." (Jon Rappoport/No More Fake News):
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2015/08/23/cdc-vaccine-whistleblower…
FTFY yourself ?
Why on Earth would you think that website is a decent cite? Do you live on Htrae?
It’s as if they are sourcing their data rectally or pollexally.
Pollex and hallux are both fine words which I should endeavour to drop into conversation more often.
Also "bletting", which I only learned today.
@ #107
Nope...not that one, I live on a planet in the Orion system ?. And if wasn't for NMFN, I wouldn't get reports such as the following:
"Canada: scientists' right to free speech shut down." (Jon Rappoport):
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2015/05/21/canada-scientists-right-t…
By that logic, Congress should also investigate the allegations that the Earth is 6,000 years old and put those allegations to rest. The fact is, no one outside a few sandwich board-wearing crazies gives a toss about "the Thompson issue".
Jon Rappopor left the punctuation out of his web site's name. Correctly done, it would be "No! More Fake News?"
And speaking of fake news:
AoA replays Stone who asserts that De Stefano has tampered with data on another vaccine study- rotavirus.
Puddin' Tate@109
I would look for a new news source. Even if Rappoport wasn't a dunderhead AIDS denialist, he got on that PIPSC study nearly 2 years late. Even by crank standards NMFN is a poor source; at least NN and AoA mostly stay current in their tomfoolery.
Speaking of the PIPSC study (pdf), it is an online survey from a group with a vested interest (a public servant's union) with ~33% response rate full of loaded questions such as:
Don't get me wrong, industry pressure can certainly negatively impact science (climate denial comes to mind). However, this is also a distorted view just in the other extreme.
Ah, climate change denial. I don't think anyone is denying that climate exists.
@ capnkrunch
Don't bet on this.
If anything, people confusing weather and climate may occasionally come very close to cross the line.
This seems a suitable place to congratulate Nigeria -- as of 10/23, polio is no longer endemic there.
And it's all the fault of those ebbil, ebbil vaccines.
Just to spite you (or support your original statement), I deny that climate exists. There is no climate, only patterns of changing weather.
@Shay,
Excellent news on the polio efforts in Nigeria. What are the rules/criteria to declare Nigeria polio free? Or is that it?
Cue denialists claiming sanitation as the prime mover.
@MikeMa
I think it is 12 months with no new cases to get on the polio free list.
Um, Puddinhead,
More spamvertising for even staler Rappoport demonstrates the point.
It's one year for a country to get off the "endemic" list, and three years for eradication to be certified in a WHO region.
The WHO announced that Nigeria had been removed from the polio-endemic list on September 25. I think the October date was sort of "ceremonial" for World Polio Day.
www.polioeradication.org is a good place for info.
WHO held a ceremony on the 23rd. From the news release (posted on CIDRAP):
In 1988 polio was considered endemic in more than 125 countries, says a WHO press release today. And a release Sep 25 said that as recently as 2012, Nigeria accounted for more than half the polio cases worldwide.
Moeti gave much credit for Nigeria's achievement to those on the frontlines, saying, "Health care workers, community mobilizers, religious and traditional leaders have been the real unsung heroes in helping to reach every last child with life-saving polio vaccine."
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the last two countries on the list.
One of the commenters has noticed the discrepancy that utterly and hilariously tanks Stone's shreiking.
Fact checking was never one of John Stone's strong points. However, this particular posts reads much more like Clifford Miller's craptulous offerrings. Clifford has been remarkable quiet of late.
Perhaps I'm ( not) seeing things but Stone's post isn't there although the 'recent comments' has comments to it ( however when clicking them on, they fell through).
"Craptulous" is accurate, ChrisP.
Both this and the original from August have disappeared as of 1210 UTC (Oct. 28). There were two more comments on the error, "n davis is correct," pointing out that NVIC deliberately inflates its VAERS numbers by including foreign reports* and pointing to the title of the paper, and another from "n davis" – who seems not to have seen the previous comment** – correctly guessing that it was something to do with NVIC.
Correction? Retraction? Memory hole? Someone should start a pool.
As DW says, the post has been deposted. Still there in Goofle Cache.
^ Oh, right:
* "VAERS occasionally receives case reports from US manufacturers that were reported to their foreign subsidiaries. Under FDA regulations, if a manufacturer is notified of a foreign case report that describes an event that is both serious and unexpected (in other words, it does not appear in the product labeling), they are required to submit it to VAERS. It is important to realize that these case reports are of variable data quality and completeness, due to the many differences in country reporting practices and surveillance system quality."
** They seem to batch-process their comment moderation.
^^ Dammit.
Well that was quick.
Given that the comments were in fact posted, my first guess is that he's rewriting. My second is that he doesn't know how to delete entries from the "recent comments" widget.
The Goofle snapshot of the reprint of Stone's post was taken just after Stone responded to "n davis"'s attempt to correct his fundamental mistake, and shortly before Stone realised that the correction and DeStefano were both right.
my first guess is that he’s rewriting
is there anything to salvage there? Haber et al. look at 108 cases from the VAERS records. Stone accuses Haber et al of lying, and says that there are 500-odd cases in the VAERS records, because that's how many show up in the NVIC data base... he hadn't bothered to look at the original source, and his entire post was a pukefunnel for NVIC dishonesty.
Time to drop a note to Retraction Watch?
The goo-le cached post ( August) includes many SB comments by a PhD, MPH which I recall reading.
I'm very pro-vaccine and some of my social media friends have been asking me about the following website and I've seen it shared twice on FBook this week:
http://healthimpactnews.com/2015/healthy-people-who-were-vaccinated-for…
Do any of you have a response and/or link regarding the "deaths after the vaccines" claims I can post online?
@ 110
Why then did Thompson go public with his infamous statement last year? He must of known that would draw some level of attention. Or is this a disgruntled employee who wanted a pay raise? A promotion? Perhaps a better parking spot at the CDC? ?. Does he still have a job at the CDC? And if he's now "antivaxx," as some here have suggested, is he still participating in vaccine sudies? (Now that would be hilarious ?).
Because the Wakefraud–Hooker surreptitious-taping tag team outed him?
@ 111
Na....I don't like that one. I think it should say: "No! More science bloggers living with mommy?" ?.
"To science bloggers living with mommy." (Jon Rappoport):
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2015/08/25/to-science-bloggers-livin…
Note: The quotes by Richard Horton (Editor-in-chief, The Lancet) and Dr. Marcia Angell (former editor of the NEJM) are pretty profound ?.
^ Puddinhaid appears to simply be spamming for Rappoplonk at this point, but it occurred to me to review Jake's comments. This one is an update, but it links back to the orignal post. It's scathing.
Don't forget to include his E-mail contact address, which was helpfully provided by "YoDaddy."
Puddin head seems to think that he/she is showing how grown up they are by trolling a science thread with Rappoport.
It is in fact all a little bit pathetic.
In other news, Jake is back commenting at his blog. Kennedy's call to be sued seems to have energized the anti-vaxxers. That call itself seems to be all the evidence the anti-vaxxers need that MMR causes autism.
It must be pretty galling to the organisers of the CDC march that there was virtually no media coverage.
Anne Dachal is crowing that the single news report by CBS Atlanta was picked up in "several places". A google news search shows tumbleweeds rolling down main street.
Didn't your "news source" Rappoport bother to inform his dunderhead readers that Thompson has been in the Division of Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, National Center for Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for years now?
@ 143
No I didn't get that from NMFN, and I must have missed it on AoA...thanks. Interestingly, there's no comments in reference to the profound quotes on the negative status of published scientific research by the renowned Richard Horton (Editor-in-chief, The Lancet) and Dr. Marcia Angell (former editor of the NEJM). Here it is again from a different news source:
"Shocking Report From Medical Insiders." (NEO/061815) ?
http://m.journal-neo.org/2015/06/18/shocking-report-from-medical-inside…
Interesting experiment here. Have a nice day/night ☺
Puddin' Tane #144
Well as it is I was just preparing a comment. And that is : stop pretending Horton and Angell are on YOUR side.
If you really care about pharma corruption, it's better to read on organisations which do the real work and obtain results (the Cochrane Fondation, Healthy Skepticism, No Free Lunch, All Trials, the english version of the Prescrire journal...)
People like Rappoport like to cite these authors ad nauseam, but only their crictisms (and not in details) ; never the solutions they advocate, perhaps because they differ widely.
It is even more glaring given your interest in vaccinations, because Angell has definitely came out as pro-vaccine, including in her book denouncing pharma abuse.
In fact, she complains that the actual faults and corruption in the system favor useless medications, instead of useful and essential ones... like pediatric vaccines.
- "The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It"
p.91-92 :
https://books.google.fr/books?id=5DKwxAnhTygC&printsec=frontcover&hl=fr…
- "By the usual measures of health (life expectancy, infant mortality, immunization rates), we do worse than most other developed countries."
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/statement_of_dr_marcia_angell_introducing_the…
And if you want to play that game, I observe that you have been silent on the Ioannidis quote. Perhaps Orac has written several articles about him and appreciates him ?
Last sentence :
"Perhaps *because Orac has written"
Well John Stone has finally managed to send the comments on the reprise of his silly article about DeStefano down the memory hole. The original has been sent downafter the reprise.
It was fun while it lasted. I am strongly tempted to remind Stone of this fasco every time I run into him.
wijo@136,
First response: Causation does NOT equal causation. Millions of flu shots are provided. In any population of this size, deaths occur.
Second response: Most flu shots have a component of egg protein in them. I am always asked if I am allergic to this. If someone was allergic, that could account for a very small number of adverse reactions including death in extreme cases. Know your allergen status.
Thanks to all who provided the Nigeria status links. Good news all around.
#139
1. I think it's admirable when people choose to provide their mothers (and fathers) with financial assistance, including sharing living space. There are too many families that aren't close, and it's a beautiful thing to be with the ones we love. In many places it's expected that large extended families live in the same town or even building. If science bloggers are showing this level of love and commitment to their parents, more power to them, sez I.
2. I don't recall any science blogger accepting any published study uncritically, as is claimed in the link.
3. I am shocked - SHOCKED - to find there are misleading, unsupported, or fraudulent studies published in scientific journals!
(sigh)...having a little FB argument with friends. Neither vaccinated their youngest child because of their "research". And Friend 2 is sure that the vaccines his child got caused child to die of SIDS, which is why he didn't vaccinate his youngest. I don't want to stomp on his (still) grief and anger, so I'm dropping out of the conversation. What would you say, especially given that neither of these people trust conventional medicine, generally?
(They both believe in homeopathy, acupuncture, reiki, etc...)
I could point out that babies die of SIDS with or without vaccines (I had one die in the newborn nursery I was working in). But, outside of their wacky beliefs, they are very nice people. However, I plan to avoid them both if anything infectious comes around - I don't convert with the MMR to measles immunity (and I HAD the measles, my mother swears). I don't need to be sick.
Happy/annoyed note: got my flu shot last week. The person giving it was not competent - I've never gotten a BRUISE from an injection before!
Chris
" What kind of monster wants kids to get sick instead of getting a safe vaccine?"
My friend, a doctor, suffers from Asthma. His father, also a doctor, surgically removed his tonsils when he was young. Exactly your sentiments.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12907054
http://www.sott.net/article/242574-Why-You-Should-Never-Remove-Your-Ton…
http://preventdisease.com/news/articles/112207_tonsils.shtml
@ Lou V:
I've also noticed that when woo-meisters quote Angell et al (I've even heard one quote GOLDACRE!) they are very selective and leave out the SBM which the writers advocate, i.e. most of what they're actually saying.
Recently, I've heard much about the former editor of the Lancet. They like to toss around titles.
Holy sh..., Goldacre. Just imagining this is painful. O_o
Yes, I am always extremely annoyed when it happens, for several reasons :
- They take very general quotes on corruption, without giving details on how this corruption manifests, even though it is the most interesting part in these authors' work. Then they can use this vagueness to pretend that corruption occurs in the cartoonish manner they imagine. (Fighting a cartoonish enemy when the real enemy is far more subtle is not a good method.)
- As I said, they don't talk about the solutions advocated by these authors, who most of the time advocate renovating the current system (healthcare, drug regulation and/or medicine journals). They don't want to simply run away from these problems and go into alternative therapies instead. (Hell, quite a few methods used by alternative promoters are the same as pharma promoters, in an even less subtle way. If my fight was used to promote THAT, I would feel incredibly insulted.)
- They describe these authors as mavericks of the system and pretend that they are the only ones actually doing something by publishing books, completely disregarding the organizations I cited @145, and of course never working in cooperation with them.
IKZ: "His father, also a doctor, surgically removed his tonsils when he was young. "
And this had to do with child hating sadists wanting kids to suffer through vaccine preventable diseases how? You are still a monster for thinking kids should get covered in dozens of itchy open wounds (pox) because you are too scared/stupid to get a safe shingles vaccine.
By the way, all of my children have their tonsils. Though the youngest had an issue with tonsil stones, which were kind of annoying.
One of my gentlemen has asthma which has waxed and waned over the past 50 years despite having tonsils which also flare up on occasion.
The disapppeared post by Stone @ AoA has re-appeared with an explanation of sorts.
Stone's explanation seems to that his foolish, misguided post is not due to his obvious incompetence, but is instead attributable to the fact that DeStefano is "involved in another case of apparently hiding data"by writing only about US cases in an article titled "Intussusception after monovalent rotavirus vaccine-United States, Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), 2008-2014." Of course, according to Stone, DeStefano was apparently similarly guilty of hiding data in an MMR study: he and his colleagues surveilled subjects only in metropolitan Atlanta for a study titled, "Age at first measles-mumps-rubella vaccination in children with autism and school-matched control subjects: a population-based study in metropolitan Atlanta."
I have learned from Stone that the VAERS system is simultaneously set up to discourage reporting of vaccine side-effects:
Perhaps I should come up with a fancy Latin phrase that translates to “appeal to ickiness” or “repeal to personal revulsion.”
May I suggest "appellare foeditas", an appeal to foulness?
In the addendum by Stone :
Aside from the fact that, well, looking outside of the US never was in the scope of the study, what does Stone mean by "a relative flood from abroad" compared to "a trickle of cases from the US" ???
"Abroad" can be an extremely large population compared to the US population, so the numbers of reports can't be compared that simply. (That way, if 50 countries each report 10 cases, it suddenly becomes "a flood of reports")
Unless he tells us that most of the foreign reports come from 1-2 countries ; and even in that case, if these countries are for example China and India, you still have to be careful in your comparison.
So rather than take responsibility for not reading the title of the article he was criticising, Stone is now complaining that the results don't support his position. Therefore, the results must be wrong, because there is no way that John Stone's beliefs about vaccines could be wrong. Oh no.
What a maroon.
And in other surrealist news Anne Dachel has decided she wants to join forces with the Nation of Islam after reprinting a glowing write up of Minister Tony Muhammad by members of his own family.
Critical thinking is not one of their strong points.
@LouV #161:
I assume he means people from the US who went abroad, caught measles there and then came back to the US. Alternatively, he could mean visitors from abroad coming to the US, either as tourists, students or workers.
In fact Stone is referring to the 396 entries in the VAERS database that are reports of Intussusception following Rotovirus vaccination that occurred in countries other than the USA.
Ignoring of course that more than half these events occurred from 15 days to 3 years after the vaccination. So outside the timeframe and location that DeStefano et al. were looking at.
"I’ve also noticed that when woo-meisters quote Angell et al (I’ve even heard one quote GOLDACRE!) they are very selective and leave out the SBM which the writers advocate, i.e. most of what they’re actually saying."
They never approvingly quote Brian Deer, even though a lot of his reporting was on Big Pharma failures/misdeeds. Deer is off limits because if you ever concede anything he wrote is valid, then you might find yourself questioning your worship of the saintly Wakefield.
The horror.
@ Dangerous Bacon:
Because BD is already infamous amongst their followers whilst Goldacre, Angell, Ioannidis et al are just names to the woo-besotten.
Interestingly, they sometimes cast one of their cohorts in a Goldacre-like role despite the fact that whomever they're applauding hasn't a background relevant to criticism of such scope. I'm thinking especially of people like Moss and those who critique mental illness and meds .
Hilariously, there is an interview ( "debate") of Mr Deer by Null ( PRN.fm/ Gary Null Show/ late January 2011) wherein he discusses Vioxx briefly then basically goes mad when Andy is the topic. In the same broadcast.
ChrisP@166:
397 if he also checks in a mirror; a case so severe the patient's rectum has enfolded his head entirely.
Denice Walter@154
In my experience it goes something like this:
crank: We can't trust any studies. Peer review is broken. Everything is corrupt. Ben Goldacre says...
me: Goldacre is pro-vaccine.
crank: Goldacre is also bought by Big Pharma and therefore not a reliable source.
I expect internal consistency in fantasy novels but I guess it's too much to ask for antivaxxers to keep their fantasies internally consistent.
See above.
@MobiusKlein.Comment 58. I was living with a diabetic woman at the time injectable human insulin became available in Canada under the brand name Humulin. As she put it, "They taught a bacterium to make human insulin."..... Before that ,and for for some time after, until discontinued, other insulin bottles were labelled "Beef And Pork" .