FactCheck.org claims that the mercury in vaccines is harmless and science has proven vaccines don’t cause autism, but its own key source says otherwise.
On December 11, 2018, Mark Green, a member-elect of the US House of Representatives from Tennessee and a physician, told a town hall audience, “Let me say this about autism. I have committed to people in my community, up in Montgomery County, to stand on the CDC’s desk and get the real data on vaccines. Because there is some concern that the rise in autism is the result of the preservatives that are in our vaccines.”
By saying that he intended to push the CDC on the question of whether vaccines—and specifically the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal—might be contributing to the autism epidemic, Green committed the sin of heresy against the vaccine religion, and the mainstream corporate media was quick to attack him for it. The suggestion that vaccines might cause autism is “baseless”, declared CBS News. Green made the claim “falsely”, declared CNN.
The website FactCheck.org also dutifully got in on the act with an article by Jessica McDonald stating that Green “inaccurately claimed that vaccine preservatives might cause autism.” His statement, McDonald writes, was “bogus”.
To counter Green’s ostensibly “bogus” claim, McDonald writes (bold emphasis added):
Multiple large studies already have investigated whether any aspect of vaccination — including preservatives — can cause autism and found no evidence they do. The CDC alone has conducted nine investigations into the preservative thimerosal, finding no link to the disease….
Green’s suggestion that vaccine preservatives could be behind the “rise in autism” is not backed by science.
As the CDC says on its website, “there is no link between vaccines and autism,” and “vaccine ingredients do not cause autism.” And in fact, as we have written before, it is not necessarily clear that there has been a rise in autism. There certainly have been more reported cases in recent years, but during that time the definition expanded and awareness increased.
Then McDonald explains that the concern about thimerosal is the fact that it contains mercury. Specifically, thimerosal is about half ethylmercury by weight and is used in multi-dose vials of vaccines to prevent contamination. It was included in numerous childhood vaccines until the decision was made in 1999 to remove it from most. It is still used in multi-dose flu vaccines, which the CDC recommends for children as young as six months as well as pregnant women.
After explaining that the concern is related to the use of mercury in vaccines, McDonald continues (emphasis added):
Although the phrase “mercury-containing” might sound scary, thimerosal has a stellar safety record. Not only is the amount of mercury in a vaccine extremely small, but it’s also a type known as ethylmercury. This type of mercury is different from methylmercury, which is the form that accumulates in fish and is toxic to people. Ethylmercury is broken down in the body much more quickly, so it poses less of a risk.
The thimerosal in vaccines is only thought to be dangerous if a person has an allergy to the chemical, and that’s rare. The side effects are minor: a little bit of redness and swelling at a vaccine injection site.
I have preserved McDonald’s links to her sources in the above quotes from her FactCheck.org article. As you can see, so far, she has relied entirely on information the CDC presents to the public on its website—apart from the suggestion that the increase in autism prevalence is a statistical artifact, not real, which we’ll come back to.
You can click the links and verify for yourself that she is representing the CDC’s information accurately.
After taking the CDC’s word for it that science has demonstrated that vaccines do not cause autism and that the form of mercury in vaccines, unlike methylmercury, is not toxic, McDonald, feigning due diligence, cites some references from the scientific literature, including an Institute of Medicine report that the CDC also relies on to support its claims. She writes (emphasis added):
Numerous studies specifically have looked at thimerosal and autism. In 2004, the Institute of Medicine, which is now known as the Health and Medicine Division of the National Academies, reviewed the evidence and rejected a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism. A 2006 study of nearly 28,000 children in Canada found pervasive developmental disorders were actually more common in the kids who received thimerosal-free vaccines — and concluded that the amount of thimerosal exposure was “unrelated” to the increasing reports of such disorders.
The CDC also published nine investigations between 2003 and 2012 that failed to find a connection between thimerosal and autism. Two of these studies observed that autism rates continued to increase in countries such as Denmark and Sweden even when thimerosal was decreased or removed from vaccines.
Finally, McDonald explains the removal of thimerosal from most childhood vaccines by writing (emphasis added):
Indeed, despite a lack of serious safety concerns, the United States decided to begin removing thimerosal from childhood vaccines in 1999, and today all vaccines for children ages 6 and younger are available without thimerosal. This, however, was not done because of concerns about autism. As the CDC explains, “This was done as part of a broader national effort to reduce all types of mercury exposure in children before studies were conducted that determined that thimerosal was not harmful. It was done as a precaution.” And consistent with the data in other countries, reported autism rates in America have continued to rise despite thimerosal removal.
So now let’s fact-check FactCheck.org’s—and by extension, the CDC’s—claims about vaccine safety.
The Safety of the CDC’s Childhood Vaccine Schedule Has NOT Been Scientifically Demonstrated
First, McDonald’s claim that numerous large studies have examined whether “any aspect of vaccination” can cause autism is a bald-faced lie.
In fact, it is such a bold lie, we can see that her claim is false by turning to her own key source from the scientific literature: the 2004 IOM report, which reviewed the available studies, including those conducted by the CDC.
It is true that the IOM report concluded that the weight of scientific evidence supported the rejection of the hypothesis that vaccines can cause autism. However, far from investigating whether “any aspect of vaccination” might increase the risk of autism, what the IOM review showed was that the studies that had been done to date had only considered one combination vaccine (the measles, mumps, and rubella, or MMR vaccine) and one vaccine ingredient (thimerosal).
Of course, concerns about the harms of vaccination are not limited to concerns only about the MMR vaccine or the use of thimerosal and whether either of those might cause autism. There are concerns about all the vaccines, both individually and cumulatively. These concerns are not limited to fears about autism, but numerous other diseases, as well, including the alarming increases in a wide range of autoimmune diseases and other developmental disorders. They are not limited to concerns about mercury, but also numerous other vaccine ingredients, including aluminum.
Today, if following the CDC’s recommended routine childhood vaccine schedule, children can be exposed to as many as 43 doses of 10 vaccines by age six—two of which are combination vaccines containing three vaccine doses each (MMR and the diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis, or DTaP vaccine).
And, as we can learn by examining FactCheck.org’s own primary source from the literature, the studies that have been done to investigate whether there might be an association between vaccines and autism have only considered one of them.
They have only considered one vaccine ingredient, despite concerns about numerous other ingredients, including human DNA from aborted fetal tissue, animal DNA, and aluminum. There are also concerns about contamination, such as with retroviruses, which are well founded because such contamination has happened before, such as the discovery of a monkey virus in polio vaccines and pig viruses in rotavirus vaccines.
Far from numerous studies having investigated whether “any aspect of vaccination” might be associated with autism, as another report by the IOM in 2013 explicitly acknowledged, “existing research has not been designed to test the entire immunization schedule”. The IOM reiterated, “studies designed to examine the long-term effects of the cumulative number of vaccines or other aspects of the immunization schedule have not been conducted.” (Emphasis added.)
That is to say, the safety of the CDC’s routine childhood vaccine schedule has not been scientifically demonstrated. It is merely assumed. People who believe it is safe do so not based on science, but on faith.
The Studies Cited by the CDC Ignore Genetic Susceptibility
Furthermore, one of the biggest concerns about public vaccine policy is that it is a one-size-fits-all approach to disease prevention that puts at risk children who might have a genetically or environmentally caused predisposition to vaccine injury.
That vaccines do cause injuries to some children is completely uncontroversial. In fact, the government administrates a Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) to assist families of vaccine-injured children.
This was established under a 1986 law by which the government granted broad legal immunity from vaccine injury lawsuits to manufacturers of vaccines on the CDC’s routine childhood schedule.
The Supreme Court in 2011 upheld legal immunity for vaccine manufacturers on the grounds that certain adverse reactions to vaccines are “unavoidable” and “design defects” are “not a basis for liability.” It is precisely the “unavoidability” of a given vaccine injury that establishes “a complete defense” against lawsuits, given that the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied with adequate warnings (which are found in the manufacturer’s package inserts).
The VICP is funded by an excise tax on each vaccine dose. The tax is nominally paid by the manufacturers, but is included in the purchasing price paid by consumers. In effect, the VICP shifts the financial burden for vaccine injuries away from the pharmaceutical companies and onto the taxpaying consumers.
Furthermore, the US government has acknowledged that some children may be at greater risk of vaccine injury than others.
One famous VICP case was that of Hannah Poling, who regressed into autism after receiving nine vaccine doses (five vaccines, including the DTaP and MMR combination shots), all at once at 19 months of age. In that case, the government conceded that (emphasis added):
the facts of this case meet the statutory criteria for demonstrating that the vaccinations CHILD received on July 19, 2000, significantly aggravated an underlying mitochondrial disorder, which predisposed her to deficits in cellular energy metabolism, and manifested as a regressive encephalopathy with features of autism spectrum disorder.
Then CDC Director Julie Gerberding publicly acknowledged (emphasis added):
Now, we all know that vaccines can occasionally cause fevers in kids. So if a child was immunized, got a fever, had other complications from the vaccines. And if you’re predisposed with a mitochondrial disorder, it can certainly set off some damage. Some of the symptoms can be symptoms that have characteristics of autism.
Of course, by acknowledging that vaccines can cause “symptoms that have characteristics of autism”, the CDC director really meant “autism”, since autism is a disease diagnosed solely on the basis of it symptoms, and since she was referring specifically to the case of Hannah Poling, who was diagnosed with autism after her developmental regression following vaccination.
One of the CDC’s own lead researchers, who headed up a number of the studies that the CDC cites to support its claim that vaccines do not cause autism, is Dr. Frank DeStefano, the longtime director of the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office. In a 2014 interview, DeStefano acknowledged that “it’s a possibility” that vaccines could trigger autism in genetically susceptible individuals, but the problem is it’s “hard to predict who those children might be”, and trying to determine what underlying conditions put children at risk of vaccine injury is “very difficult to do”.
Returning once again to FactCheck.org’s own source, the 2004 IOM report, it in fact acknowledged that none of the studies it reviewed were actually designed to test the hypothesis that vaccines administered according to the CDC’s routine childhood schedule can cause autism in genetically susceptible subpopulations.
“This hypothesis”, the IOM pointed out, “cannot be excluded by epidemiological data from large population groups that do not show an association between a vaccine and an adverse outcome.”
The type of study that would be needed in order to be able to rule out any association to any reasonable degree of certainty is the randomized, placebo-controlled trial, which haven’t been done. The retrospective observational studies that have been done are prone to selection biases and can’t control for all the innumerable variables as well as randomized controlled trials, which is why the latter design is the gold standard for safety studies.
Furthermore, none of the studies reviewed by the IOM were designed to test the hypothesis that there might be genetically susceptible subpopulations. The IOM acknowledged that this provides “a theoretical explanation for the data presented in this report”—that is to say, the IOM acknowledged that existing studies had not ruled out the hypothesis for the simple reason that they weren’t designed to test it.
To further illustrate what a bald-faced lie it is for FactCheck.org to state that numerous large studies have examined whether “any aspect of vaccination” is associated with autism, consider the fact that none of these studies considered the possibility of synergistic toxicity between the mercury and the aluminum that children are also exposed to from vaccines.
Ethylmercury is a Known Neurotoxin That Accumulates in the Brain
FactCheck.org’s bald-faced lies about the science don’t end there. While it’s true that the CDC claims on its website that the mercury in vaccines is “very safe” to inject into children and pregnant women, the truth is that ethylmercury, like methylmercury and aluminum, is a known neurotoxin.
Recall that McDonald simply parroted the CDC’s own claims that the ethylmercury in vaccines, unlike the methylmercury found in fish and other environmental sources of exposure, is not toxic and is rapidly eliminated from the body.
Yet the very IOM review cited by both the CDC and FactCheck.org to support these claims actually described thimerosal as a “known neurotoxin”, acknowledged that some of the mercury from vaccines “accumulates in the brain”, and admitted that “heavy metals, including thimerosal, can injure the nervous system.” (All emphasis added.)
As another illustration of how, by lying to the public about what the science says, the media are simply following the CDC’s example, another source cited by the CDC to support its claims is a study published in 2005 in Environmental Health Perspectives.
Yet once again turning to the CDC’s own source, we can see that, in fact, that very study actually found that ethylmercury breaks down more easily into inorganic mercury and thus is more persistent in the brain than methylmercury, an organic form that is more easily eliminated. Furthermore, they observed that inorganic mercury in the brain has been “associated with a significant increase in the number of microglia in the brain” and that “‘an active neuroinflammatory process’ has been demonstrated in brains of autistic patients, including a marked activation of microglia.” (Bold emphasis added.)
In their concluding remarks, they further expressed dismay that the IOM, in its 2004 report, implicitly recommended that further research not be undertaken to test the biologically plausible hypothesis that vaccines can cause autism: “This approach is difficult to understand, given our current limited knowledge of the toxicokinetics and developmental neurotoxicity of thimerosal, a compound that has been (and will continue to be) injected into millions of newborns and infants.”
Far from supporting the CDC’s claim that science has shown that mercury exposure from vaccines is “very safe”, the CDC’s very own source actually concluded that more research into the neurotoxic potential of thimerosal and its breakdown product ethylmercury was “urgently needed” to be able to draw any meaningful conclusions about “the potential developmental effects of immunization with thimerosal-containing vaccines in newborns and infants.”
To cite just a few other studies highlighting the falsehood of the CDC’s claims about ethylmercury being rapidly and harmlessly eliminated from the body, a 2004 rodent study by National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers published in Toxicology Letters similarly found that, while ethylmercury is readily eliminated from the blood, it is persistent in the tissue, the kidneys, and the brain.
A team of Italian researchers published a study in Interdisciplinary Toxicology in 2012 finding that thimerosal is fifty times more toxic than methylmercury to human cells in terms of the dose required to significantly decrease cellular viability or induce cell death. As they concluded, “Our findings demonstrate that thimerosal at the concentration usually found in vaccines, affects significantly cellular viability.”
A meta-analysis of available studies on low-dose thimerosal exposure published in Neurochemical Research in 2011 observed that all such studies had found evidence of neurotoxicity. Furthermore, no studies had considered the synergistic toxicity of thimerosal-containing vaccines being administered concomitantly with aluminum-containing vaccines. Animal studies had shown that thimerosal exposure results in accumulation of inorganic mercury in the brain. Finally, at doses relevant to the exposure children receive from the CDC’s schedule, thimerosal’s demonstrated neurotoxicity “possesses the potential to affect human neuro-development.”
The cumulative exposure to thimerosal that pregnant women and infants get from vaccines, the study concluded, “is a likely risk factor for neurodevelopmental delays that has yet to be defined.” There may also be “subtle neurodevelopmental delays in susceptible infants” that “may not be perceived in routine medical examinations.” The evidence that low doses of thimerosal from vaccines “can affect neural tissues and functions” is “unequivocal”. Consequently, “use of thimerosal in vaccines should be reconsidered by public health authorities, especially in those vaccines intended for pregnant women and children.”
The science is absolutely clear: ethylmercury is a known neurotoxin that accumulates in the brain and kidneys and damages human cells at doses relevant to the CDC’s routine childhood vaccine schedule.
The CDC’s claim that ethylmercury, unlike methylmercury, is not toxic and that it cannot cause harm because it is readily eliminated from the body is a deliberate lie.
Lazy-ass journalists working for mainstream publications then echo and broadcast that lie to the public in service to the state, engaging in public policy advocacy rather than journalism.
It’s important to recognize that when the media so grossly misinform the public about vaccine safety, they are simply following the CDC’s example.
The Problem with Observational Studies
As mentioned, one problem with observational studies is that they are prone to selection bias. FactCheck.org actually presents an apparent example of this with the second study McDonald cites to support her assertion that science has falsified the hypothesis that vaccines can cause autism: the 2006 Canadian study that “found pervasive developmental disorders were actually more common in the kids who received thimerosal-free vaccines” (emphasis added).
It is notable that the authors concluded merely that there was no association between thimerosal and autism rather than concluding that thimerosal is associated with a decreased risk of autism.
One obvious reason for that is the lack of biological plausibility that injecting children with a known neurotoxin protects them from neurological damage.
Yet the authors of that study made no effort to explain their finding of a negative association.
However, there is a very simple and obvious explanation—and it’s one that would completely invalidate their findings.
The explanation is not that thimerosal exposure is associated with a decreased risk of autism, but that an eventual autism diagnosis is associated with a decreased use of thimerosal-containing vaccines.
It is only natural that parents concerned about abnormal behavior or neurological symptoms would take extra precautions, like choosing thimerosal-free vaccines.
Supporting this explanation, a study published in March 2018 in JAMA Pediatrics found that children with autism and their younger siblings are less vaccinated than the general childhood population. Once again, the obvious explanation for this is that parents who are concerned about the neurological development of their children are more likely to avoid certain or even all vaccines.
This type of selection bias is sometimes described as a “healthy user” bias, and it is one of the problems with relying on observation studies rather than conducting proper randomized controlled safety trials.
The Increase in Autism Prevalence Is Real
According to the CDC’s most recent estimate, the prevalence of autism among children aged eight in the US today is an alarming 1 in 59.
FactCheck.org’s claim that the perceived increase in the prevalence of autism may be entirely a statistical artifact, not real, is disingenuous. It is true that there remains considerable controversy about the extent to which changes in diagnostic criteria and greater awareness have contributed to the perceived increase; but not whether prevalence has increased.
For example, one of the studies FactCheck.org cites to support the contention that there may not even be more autism today than there was fifty years ago is a 2010 study in Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders that concluded the increased prevalence can only be “partly supported” by factors related to diagnostic trends. The question, the authors noted, is not over whether but “how much of a real increase in prevalence has occurred” (emphasis added).
A 2009 study published in Epidemiology by researchers from UC Davis examined prevalence of autism in California and found that “the incidence of autism rose 7- to 8-fold in California from the 1990s through the present”, from fewer than 9 in 10,000 for children born in 1990 to more than 44 in 10,000 for children born in 2000, with “no sign yet of plateauing”. Furthermore, changes in diagnostic criteria could not explain the full magnitude of the increase. The authors concluded that the rising rate of autism truly represents “a major public health and educational concern.”
As the UC Davis press release observed, the study “found that the seven- to eight-fold increase in the number children born in California with autism since 1990 cannot be explained by either changes in how the condition is diagnosed or counted — and the trend shows no sign of abating.”
As autism researcher Irva Hertz-Picciotto commented, “It’s time to start looking for the environmental culprits responsible for the remarkable increase in the rate of autism in California”.
A study published in June 2018 in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders examined this question by looking at autism prevalence in California using a dataset that “continues to exclude most milder cases of autism, despite two different changes to its diagnostic criteria in the last decade”. They found that prevalence slowly increased from about 1940, and the rate of autism “gradually accelerated over time” until 1980, when there was an uptick, followed by continued increase and additional upticks in 1990 and 2007. The prevalence of autism “increased from 0.001% in the cohort born in 1931 to 1.2% among 5 year-olds born in 2012.”
Dismissing parental concerns about the use of a known neurotoxin in vaccines by claiming that there may not even be an increased prevalence of autism as more and more vaccines have been added to the schedule is simply insincere.
The Real Reason Thimerosal Was Removed from Most Childhood Vaccines
Finally, FactCheck.org claims that thimerosal was removed from most childhood vaccines “despite a lack of serious safety concerns”.
That, too, is a bald-faced lie.
On the contrary, this decision was made because (1) it was economically viable for vaccine manufacturers to do so and (2) it had become known that, as the CDC added more thimerosal-containing vaccine doses to the schedule, no government agency ever bothered to calculate the cumulative levels of mercury that children were being exposed to, and when the FDA finally got around to doing so, it determined that the levels exceeded the safety guidelines determined by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
This finding was reported in a 2001 study published in Pediatrics by FDA researchers who also acknowledged that “no controlled studies have been conducted to examine low-dose thimerosal toxicity in humans” and conceded that “we cannot exclude the possibility of subtle neurodevelopmental abnormalities from the cumulative exposure to thimerosal in vaccines”. (Bold emphasis added.)
That study, too, is cited by the CDC to support its claim that thimerosal is “very safe” to inject into children and pregnant women, whom the CDC advises get a flu shot during any trimester even though the CDC’s own researchers have found that women vaccinated two years in a row with vaccines containing a pandemic influenza A(H1N1) antigen had a statistically significant 7.7 times greater risk of having a miscarriage.
The CDC researchers pointed out in their study, which was published in Vaccine in September 2017, that it was an observational study and thus does not establish that the vaccine actually causes miscarriages, although they did not identify any other more plausible explanation for the found association.
It’s also worth noting that, when harms are found to be associated with vaccines, we are told that observational studies aren’t evidence of a causal relationship, and yet when no association between vaccines and autism are found, we are told that observational studies are absolutely determinative in disproving any possible causal association!
This is a stark illustration of the level of cognitive dissonance that exists in the mainstream discourse about vaccines.
The reason the FDA finally got around to doing the calculations to determine how much mercury children were being exposed to from vaccines was because in 1997, Congress passed the FDA Modernization Act, a provision of which required the FDA to compile a list of mercury-containing drugs on the market. The products included in the industry’s responses to the FDA’s inquiry included more than 30 licensed vaccines. When the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) did the calculations showing mercury exposure in excess of the EPA’s guidelines, government officials waffled over what to do about it. In a 1999 email to the acting director of the CDC’s National Vaccine Program Office, Martin Meyers, the director of the FDA’s Division of Viral Products, Dr. Peter Patriarca, opined that to call for the removal of thimerosal from vaccines would
raise questions about FDA being ‘asleep at the switch’ for decades by allowing a potentially hazardous compound to remain in many childhood vaccines, and not forcing manufacturers to exclude it from new products. It will also raise questions about various advisory bodies regarding aggressive recommendations for use. (We must keep in mind that the dose of ethylmercury was not generated by “rocket science”. Conversion of the percentage thimerosal to actual micrograms of mercury involves ninth grade algebra. What took the FDA so long to do the calculations? Why didn’t CDC and the advisory bodies do these calculations when they rapidly expanded the childhood immunization schedule?)
It’s not surprising that the CDC, too, states on its website that the decision was made in 1999 to remove thimerosal from most childhood vaccines while withholding the fact that the reason this decision was made was because the CDC was exposing children to higher levels of mercury than the government itself had judged was safe.
After all, to disclose that relevant information might cause members of the public to reasonably conclude that they cannot trust government agencies like the CDC and FDA.
Conclusion
Serious discussion in the mainstream media about the critically important issue of vaccines does not exist. Instead of educating people to be able to make informed choices about vaccinations, the media instead grossly misinform the public, engaging in public policy advocacy rather than doing journalism. The type of blatant lying you’ve witnessed here when it comes to the subject of vaccines is routine and systematic. Lying about the science so long as the purpose is to instill faith and confidence in public vaccine policy is considered perfectly acceptable.
In so deceiving the public, the media are simply following the example set by the CDC.
The demonstrable truth of the matter is that what the government and media say science says about vaccines and what science actually tells us are two completely different and contradictory things. It is well past time that the media started doing real journalism, and it is well past time that public health officials started taking parents’ concerns seriously.
This article was originally published at JeremyRHammond.com.
Serious discussion in the mainstream media about the critically important issue of vaccines does not exist because anti-vaccine arguments are incoherent, ill-informed, and many times dishonest. That wasn’t always the case. Look at news coverage of vaccines and autism in the years following Mr. Andrew Wakefield’s fraudulent MMR study. You guys had the mainstream media totally played. The New York Times, 60 Minutes, The Colombia Journalism Review, The Milwaukee Journal, and other venerable outlets fell for this nonsense. As long as editors are reading shrill, nonsensical online comments about the global conspiracy to sterilize girls with vaccines, or that vaccines don’t work at all, no public relations campaign will bring back those glory years.
Your argument seems to be that since the the above article criticizes public vaccine policy, therefore it is ” incoherent, ill-informed, and many times dishonest”. This is a non sequitur fallacy.
No, I didn’t say that.
The anti-vaccine movement lacks a mechanism for self correction. All ideas are welcome, and all are equally valid. I don’t remember anyone on your side challenging Donald Trump when he said a baby gets all his vaccines at once in a HUUGE syringe. Or when Jenny McCarthy said vaccines have anti-freeze. Or when Mark Blaxill said autism is the same as mercury poisoning. There have been a few exceptions. JB Handley recently said it is wrong to say vaccines don’t work at all, because that turns off “the malleable middle.” What in-fighting i see only started in the last five years or so, and it’s mostly contained to a few dissident voices.
Contrast that with scientists, who are conditioned to attack and probe and test other scientists’ ideas. If Paul Offit said vaccines should be sprayed on cities like fire retardant on a burning hillside, scientists would pile on. Even the most arcane points of medical science are the the subjects of debate. Every day scientific journals publish dozens of articles challenging what other scientists have written.
When was the last time you heard of a long-held anti-vaccine belief being rejected by your movement? There was a time when your folks blamed thimerosal for an autism epidemic. Take away thimerosal, and autism would go back to being rare. Well, thimerosal has been absent from the childhood schedule for 16 years, and we still have autism.
So how do AVs respond? Here are some actual examples:
• The thimerosal in pediatric flu vaccines is still around. In the US. It’s completely gone in many other countries where they still have autism
• The drug companies replaced thimerosal with aluminum, which also causes autism. This is like saying Ford replaced its cupholders with USB plugs – they serve different functions.
• The expiration dates on the thimerosal vaccines extended far into the 2000s. Studies show that 99% of TCVs were off the shelves by 2002.
No evidence, no matter how thoroughly documented and honestly portrayed, will cause a respected AV person to say “OK, we were wrong about thimerosal. Let’s move on.” There are several reasons for this, which would make a good story for someone who is willing to case aside old beliefs to accommodate new evidence.
Now these criticisms might seem terribly unfair to some, but that doesn’t matter. I offer them only to show why serious discussion in the mainstream media about the critically important issue of vaccines does not exist because anti-vaccine arguments are incoherent, ill-informed, and many times dishonest. If I overstate the case, it’s because what’s left are merely speculative and lack firm supporting evidence.
I didn’t say you said that. Nevertheless, it still seems that your argument is that since my above article criticizes public vaccine policy, therefore it is ” incoherent, ill-informed, and many times dishonest”. This is a non sequitur fallacy.
You can try to claim this wasn’t your argument, but the fact remains you still haven’t identified even a single factual or logical error on my part in the article.
That’s your interpretation. I’ll be more precise:
Serious discussion in the mainstream media about the critically important issue of vaccines does not exist because the debate is scientific in nature, and the anti-vaccine side is too easily caricatured by incoherent, ill-informed, and dishonest claims makers. Andrew Wakefield was successful in framing the debate 20 years ago, until he was outed as a fraud. After that it was Jenny McCarthy, who quickly became a late-night punchline.
One can be factually correct and misleading at the same time, and I spelled out how this works.
I see you still have not even so much as attempted to identify even a single factual or logical error in my part in the article.
I would argue this is not true:
“That vaccines do cause injuries to some children is completely uncontroversial. In fact, the government administrates a Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) to assist families of vaccine-injured children.”
Your wording is misleading, and if taken at face value, factually incorrect. I have no idea if you intended it that way,
I see this wording used all the time by AVs because it sounds scarier than the reality. NVICP adjudicates vaccine injury claims. Your wording assumes that NVICP ONLY assists families with proven vaccine injury claims. This is not true. If you’re interest in facts, you would write “NVICP hears cases of alleged vaccine injuries, and awards plaintiffs based on a standard of proof far less rigorous that civil courts. The court pays attorney fees win or lose, and petitioners have the option of filing their claims in civil court if they’re not satisfied with NVICP’s ruling.”
But that’s too many words, and it doesn’t sound as inflammatory.
The cause of most alleged injuries is simply unknowable. Other claims were settled only to be learned years later that the vaccine was unrelated (see Dravets Syndrome).
True vaccine injury, the serious kind, is extremely rare. NVICP pays for cases of encephalopathy that are temporally related to the MMR vaccine, but there is no evidence of direct cause. Even the most rigorous epidemiological studies cannot detect correlation much above a 1:1 million prevalence. But NVICP pays anyway.
I’ve been following the anti-vaccine movement since 2005 or so, and I’m pretty good at sniffing out its propaganda. You need to broaden your sources if you want to be taken seriously by people other than the ill-informed and incoherent readers who comment on your blog.
Hope this helps.
It helps clarify you are 100% biased. The NVICP is the best program in the World, for what it does. It has a method of operation based on vaccine science. It rules based on its current knowledge of vaccine adverse effects. Last I heard, no one from the VICP was seeking you out for any advice.
No, it does not. What I wrote is true. It is true that Congress created the VICP to provide compensation to vaccine-injured children. And the existence of this Vaccine Injury Compensation Program unarguably illustrates the fact that it is completely uncontroversial that vaccine injuries do occur. This is also illustrated by the fact SCOTUS upheld legal immunity for manufacturers on the basis of the “unavoidability” of vaccine injuries.
Also. this isn’t true:
“One famous VICP case was that of Hannah Poling, who regressed into autism after receiving nine vaccine doses…”
“Feature of autism” is not the same as autism. Would you says feature of polio means polio, or features of bi-polar disorder means bi-polar disorder? The Poling case is another example of a case that was settled even though the real cause of the injury is unknowable. Mitochondrial disorder can be triggered by any fever.
The VICP has ruled. Get over it.
Your claim that the statement isn’t true is hilariously vain, given the fact I specifically stated that Poling was diagnosed with autism.
It is a true statement.
“Kennedy and Hazlehurst claim to have evidence of “obstruction of justice and appallingly consequential fraud by two DOJ lawyers who represented the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in 2007.”
“Dr. Zimmerman who was the expert witness for the 1st and second test case subsequently submitted a second expert opinion on behalf of Hannah Poling, which in effect states that she suffers autism as a result of a vaccine injury. The same government officials, who submitted and relied upon Dr. Zimmerman’s first expert opinion as evidence in the O.A.P., secretly conceded the case of Hannah Poling and placed it under seal so that the evidence in the case could not be used in the O.A.P. or known by the public.”
Dr. Zimmerman admits that that vaccines can cause regressive autism in some kids with mitochondrial disorders. Because this evidence was placed under seal it denied justice to the other two test cases and they were denied justice. Evidence is coming to light that mitochondrial disorders are not rare and in fact could be present in 30 – 40% of children.”
Oh my, aren’t you the pseudo-intellectual with the one sided approach to debate.
great stand up material.
i think you misunderstood 1984.
The yearly flu shot in the USA and third world countries contains mercury even though they admit to its toxicity. However the CDC has only ever studied one ingredient thimerosal and one vaccine the MMR for safety. A retrospective vaccinated/unvaccinated study would settle the argument but they refuse to do it.
12 of 17 flu shots in USA do not have thimerosal at all.
https://www.fda.gov/biologicsbloodvaccines/safetyavailability/vaccinesafety/ucm096228#cstat
I don’t think facts matter to antivaxers like Judith. She’s too immersed in the propaganda.
Incorrect. All multi-dose vials of influenza vaccine contain thimerosal. There are 13 flu vaccines licensed for use in the USA. 5 of them come in multi-dose versions. That means only 8 flu vaccines do not contain thimerosal.
I guess you missed the link I posted which shows how 12 of 17 flu shots available in the USA do not have any thimerosal at all.
https://www.fda.gov/biologicsbloodvaccines/safetyavailability/vaccinesafety/ucm096228#cstat
1. Afluria (single-dose presentation)
Seqirus Pty Ltd None
2. Fluad (single-dose presentation)
Seqirus Vaccines Ltd None
3. Flublok (single dose presentation)
Protein Sciences Corporation None
4. Fluzone High Dose (single-dose presentation)
Sanofi Pasteur Inc.
5. Afluria Quadrivalent (single-dose presentation)
Seqirus Pty Ltd None
6. Fluarix Quadrivalent (single-dose presentation)
GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals None
7. Flublok Quadrivalent (single-dose presentation)
Protein Sciences Corporation None
8.Flucelvax Quadrivalent (single-dose presentation)
Seqirus, Inc None
9. FluLaval Quadrivalent (single-dose presentation)
Biomedical Corporation of Quebec None
10. FluMist Quadrivalent (single-dose presentation)
MedImmune LLC None
11. Fluzone Quadrivalent (single-dose presentation)
Sanofi Pasteur Inc. None
12. Fluzone Intradermal Quadrivalent (single-dose presentation)
Sanofi Pasteur Inc. None
I believe you mean a prospective vaccinated/unvaccinated study, like a controlled trial. (Correct me if I’m wrong.)
From my understanding a retrospective study looks at cases which are already in the medical system so a researcher could go back and look at medical records and compare illnesses in those that have been vaccinated and those that have not been vaccinated. A prospective study would be looking at vaccinated/unvaccinated groups into the future. I think both would be good but neither has been done to my knowledge.
So you have spoken directly to these editors who confirmed your suspicions?
Serious discussion in the mainstream media about the critically important issue of vaccines does not exist because mainstream media gets over 70% of its revenue from pharmaceuticals. That is why. They’re not going to kill their cash cow. Look what happened to investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson at CBS. Her report on vaccines destroyed her career.
Your “argument” reminds me of the pharmaceutical cabal’s propaganda machine and it’s striking similarity to Israel’s hasbara industry. I can see why Jeremy Hammond reports on both.
I’d like to know where you found that “70%” figure. Total pharmaceutical ad spending in 2017 was $6.1 billion (down .2 million from 2016). 6.1 is 70% of $9.1 billion. TV advertising alone topped $70 billion in 2016, and radio advertising $16 billion. Are you including online advertising in your calculation? That’s well over $50 billion.
Like I said, incoherent, ill-informed, and many times dishonest. You hit all three.
If I remember correctly, John F. Kennedy Jr. mentioned that figure in a video clip that I am not going to try to find again. But this is a quote from JFK Jr. on his website, childrenshealthdefense.org, in answer to the question, “What has been the role of the press?”
“The media is complicit in the cataclysm. At least part of the reason is financial. America is one of only two nations in the world that allows pharmaceutical ads on television. Drug companies are the largest advertisers on TV and radio. They spend $3-$5.4 billion annually to saturate the airwaves with 80 advertisements every hour. Anyone who watches network news quickly understands that it has devolved into a vehicle for selling pharmaceuticals. That lucre seems to have neutralized the news divisions at CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS. Fox News alone is uncorrupted, but only because its shameless purpose, from its inception, has been to promote the ascendancy of corporate power. Fox’s former CEO, Roger Ailes, was sympathetic with the cause but he told me that he would have to fire any of his hosts who allowed me on his network to discuss mercury in vaccines or autism if I cost them an advertiser. He said, “Bobby, if I let you on to talk about vaccines, Rupert would be on the phone with me in ten minutes.”
Please read the entire article:
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/about-us/mercury-vaccines-cdcs-worst-nightmare/
Here is another quote from an article by JFK Jr. on the subject:
“Due to my long, strange friendship with Roger Ailes—which began in 1975 when we spent the summer in a tent together in Africa (It’s a long story!)—the now deceased executive regularly allowed me to appear and express contrary opinions on Fox talk shows. He drew a line, however, against direct criticism of his advertisers. In 2014, I was involved in the creation of a documentary critical of big Pharma, I asked him for an opportunity to discuss the subject on Neal Cavuto’s talk show. His answer was a hard “No!”
“Bobby,” he told me, “during non-election years, the bulk of news division revenue comes from pharmaceutical advertisers. I would fire any Fox host who allowed you on their show. And if I didn’t Rupert [Murdoch, the network owner] would be on the phone with me in 10 minutes demanding scalps.”
Link to the article:
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/06/07/elon-musk-and-corporate-controlled-media
And James Murdoch may have had involvement in the Wakefield affair, after which he was appointed to the board of GlaxoSmithKline.
Very interesting. I will need to do more research on that. What a tangled web they have weaved in
their practice to deceive.
He knew Brian Deer too
It is of interest that the person that retracted the study, Sir Crispin Davis, was making a large salary in a non-executive director position on the board of UK MMR makers GlaxoSmithKline. The “investigation” was funded by The Sunday Times whose owner at the time, Rupert Murdoch’s son James, was making a large salary in his director position on the board of UK MMR makers GlaxoSmithKline.
And it goes on and on with most involved being involved with vaccine makers, highly invested or married or otherwise related to a person with ties to them.
Retraction of the Wakefield study was an editorial decision taken by the Lancet (the science in it was poor and the gross scientific fraud that it manifested meant that it would have been retracted by just about any credible journal).
You don’t have to conjure up highly implausible conspiracies to understand this, Judith, it is entirely self explanatory and consequentially appropriate.
As for there being some conspiracy involving the father of one of Glaxo’s directors in targeting Wakefield, the simple fact that is that most of the MMR in use at that point was produced by Merck (not Glaxo), so your implication that someone only indirectly linked to Glaxo would try and act in a way which would maximally benefit their main direct competitor is stretching the bounds of credulity even further than your comments usually do.
If you unwrapped the tin foil that is covering your head, you might be able to see some of the real world.
You are full of it. Both Merck and GSK made the urube strain MMR but GSK was involved in going after Wakefield in part of a massive collusion to debunk the truth. And to imply the media wasn’t involved, who paid Brian Deer and who published his fiction?
More “it’s a con-speer-a-see” nonsense.
Wow, such a professional and educated statement tom. Your credibility (ZERO) remains intact.
You are the one with no credibility, no evidence, and no brains.
You are just digging a deeper hole
LOL
You can put an outhouse over it and store your ideas there. Maybe hang the patents on the wall. And a Merck manual in case you run out of T.P.
Where?
I would say that this massive amount of funding towards pharmaceutical propaganda also extends to paying these people who propagate disqus. They have a very formulated way of discounting any safety queries put out by concerned parents or public. Very black and white – absolutely no empathy or compassion.
And evidence at all for that accusation, Judith?
Its an allegation, similar to all the allegation against Wakefield, Murch and Walker Smith. Its a smear campaign
The “allegations” against Wakefield were quite clearly proven.
And the allegations against Murch and Walker Smith, not so much. And the criticism by Judge Mitting of the GMC conduct was what tom?
Unwarranted.
No kidding, but they were hung anyway
Speaking about the judge. He blew it.
You never tire of being wrong. He was a REAL judge, not a kangaroo court judge. Hence a PROPER outcome.
” … a team from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in
North Carolina are examining 275 children with regressive autism and
bowel disease – and of the 82 tested so far, 70 prove positive for the
measles virus … the team’s leader, Dr Stephen Walker, said: ‘Of the
handful of results we have in so far, all are vaccine strain and none
are wild measles.
This research proves that in the gastrointestinal tract of a
number of children who have been diagnosed with regressive autism, there
is evidence of measles virus. What it means is that the study done
earlier by Dr Wakefield and published in 1998 is correct.
That study didn’t draw any conclusions about specifically what it
means to find measles virus in the gut, but the implication is it may
be coming from the MMR vaccine. If that’s the case, and this live virus
is residing in the gastrointestinal tract of some children, and then
they have GI inflammation and other problems, it may be related to the
MMR.”
” I would say that this massive amount of funding towards pharmaceutical propaganda also extends to paying these people who propagate disqus.”
Of course you would – your penchant for evidence-free posting is well-known.
More like blatant lying.
Judith: “They have a very formulated way of discounting any safety queries put out by concerned parents or public.”
Yes.. and that ‘formulated way’ can be described as pointing out the incessant lies and fearmongering of the anti-vaxxers’ emotional appeals and then, countering said-same with facts and science.
Likely this is because we stick to facts and the facts don’t change from person to person.
yes you stick to the same tired propoganda from the pharma handbook
I have never seen a pharma book. I have read the Pink Book and many studies and some books on both sides of the debate.
“yes you stick to the same tired propoganda from the pharma handbook”
Judith, you owe me an irony meter or two.
Of all the folk who post comments critical of vaccines you are the one most inclined to post unoriginal, content-free comments, usually copy-paste efforts straight from the antivax propaganda manual. You have been doing it for years, often spamming webforums multiple times with exactly the same plagiarised text.
You know what they say about people who live in glass houses, don’t you?
They have a very formulated way of discounting any safety queries
Yeah, we ask for evidence.
You forgot to mention all the bribes and campaign donations given to all our politicians at the federal level. They’re also very generous at the state level California state senator Richard Pan, the author of SB 277, received $95,000 from the pharmaceutical industry
So how may children did Wakefield inject with the MMR in his study? Was it the GSK or Merck version that contained the URUBE mumps strain?
According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency’s massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines — thimerosal — appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in neurological disorders among children.
Dr Verstraeten:
Exposure at 3 months of age tics.
Exposure at 6 months of age attention deficit disorder
Exposure at 1, 3 and 6 months of age – language
and speech delays which are 2 separate ICD9 codes
Exposure at 1,3 and 6 months of age – the entire
category of neurodevelopmental delays which includes
all of these plus a number of other developmental disorders
page 41
In conclusion the screening analysis suggests a possible
association between certain neurological developmental
disorders. Namely Tics, attention deficit disorders, speech and
language disorders and exposure to mercury containing vaccines
from the age of 6 months.
page 50
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxjZGN3aGlzdGxlYmxvd2VyfGd4OmVkMmFiMmU1ODg2MmUxZg
You haven’t read the paper that they published about this, have you Judith?
Why would anyone think a preliminary analysis with raw data with no adjustments for confounders is more reliable?
Could it be that you just don’t like the conclusions of the properly analysed final scientific report, which showed no significant problems?
Aren’t you antivaxers tired of pimping pilot studies even when further more definitive research has been done?
What next… are you going to tell us how beneficial EMR is because an early study showed that men felt more virile after radiation exposure?
Hey, it worked for Steve Rodgers and Bruce Banner.
Heh!
Who are “they”? Let me guess. They are those in charge of damage control, and they made a few changes so that the truth is covered up.
Why would pro-vaccine safety arguments affect the media? Are you afraid they would publish the truth? Really? And lose all the $$$ pharma pays from advertising?
What a KILLER piece of writing that sums up the positions and tactics used by pro-vaccine Cult Members.
“The type of study that would be needed in order to be able to rule out any association [of autism] to any reasonable degree of certainty is the randomized, placebo-controlled trial, which haven’t been done. The retrospective observational studies that have been done are prone to selection biases and can’t control for all the innumerable variables as well as randomized controlled trials, which is why the latter design is the gold standard for safety studies.”
This is a strawman argument.
Other types of study can and have ruled out association with reasonable certainty (or at least reasonable certainty to those who know about these things)
To perform a randomised, placebo-controlled trial would be completely unethical, and would essentially produce a Tuskegee-style experiment on a vast scale. Nobody can condone that.
Imagine if you will a similar proposal to see if seatbelts prevent injuries in motor vehicle accidents. I mean…we can’t be sure they help, since there has never been a randomised, placebo-controlled trial looking at the outcome. And are they safe? Many people report injuries from seatbelts and some have died as a result of wearing them, so we must find out for sure, right?
So lets do a study, with 10,000 people using dummy seatbelts that don’t function, and 10,000 people with normal seatbelts. And we will make sure that the people wearing them won’t know which one they using.
Easy, huh? So who is ready to volunteer for this study? C’mon folks! …We need 20,000 people to see for sure if they work. Sign here please!
And if we don’t get to see the result of that study just yet, then let’s play it safe, and say that people should avoid them completely until we know for sure, ok?
So Mike flipped open his manual and decided the SEATBELT ruse would be best used as a false equivalent to vaccine injury.
so dated, they should refresh that manual.
I guess they like the seat belt one a lot
they do! it’s wonderfully nonsensical in this context. great pro – fit.
Plus it seems they can’t invent another.
No, it is not.
Incorrect, for reasons I have explained in the article.
On the contrary, what is unethical is to use the entire population as subjects of a mass uncontrolled experiment without informed consent.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6316a4.htm?s_cid=mm6316a4_w
If preventing all these illnesses and saving all these lives is evidence of what you oddly think is “an unethical, mass uncontrolled experiment without informed consent”, then all I can say is can we have some more please.
Your fallacies are begging the question and the strawman. You are simply ignoring my entire argument. You are, of course, welcome to actually address my argument, i.e., identify any factual or logical errors on my part (as opposed to strawman argumentation), but continued trolling will get you banned for violating the terms of use of this site.
I addressed your argument, picking up the point about your idea that a prospective randomised placebo-controlled trial of vaccines is required to show that they do or don’t cause problems like autism.
Threatening to ban me for trying to discuss what you have written in your article makes it sound like you don’t want people to do that or to challenge your position.
I think Jeremy should allow you to continue your baseless arguments as they show just how shallow Big Pharma’s team are.
:)
I see you get upvotes from your friend with the multiple sockpuppets.
I wonder if Jeremy Hammond is happy with contributers here using sockpuppets? Maybe he could tell us?
I do not know what a “sockpuppet” is.
Last point:
A sock puppet is a false/dummy account of someone pretending to be more than one person.
This enables them to make multiple posts pretending to be different commenters, usually to help promote an unpopular opinion.
See on this blog:
Sabelmouse and schpadoinkle.
Check their IP addresses- you will find they are identical.
That should contravene your blog’s comment policy. I suggest a ban is quite in order.
No, in fact you did not. You instead invented a silly strawman, falsely attributing to me the belief that saving lives is unethical, and argued against that instead.
Hence my warning that engaging in further trolling behaviors could result in you being banned for violating the terms of use of the comments section while welcoming you to actually address what I wrote by identifying any factual or logical errors in the article on my part — which I note you have yet to do.
“Hence my warning that engaging in further trolling behaviors could result in you being banned for violating the terms of use of the comments section”
Jeremy, I fail to see where any of my comments have violated the terms of use of the comments section. In fact, looking through other comments here I can see numerous violations by other posters (eg Peter Harris), yet the threat of the ban hammer from you is conspicuous by its absence. If you seek out genuine “trolls”, there are several culprits in evidence (I am not one of them).
The way I see it, you can go in one of two directions with the blog.
You can ruthlessly clamp down on any contrary views and ban any posters who want to debate the issues openly. You will then be left with a blog that is nothing but an antivaccine echo chamber, frequented by very few people and providing no vibrant debate.
Or, you could accept comments from those who try and challenge the anti-vaccine message, and moderate the comments fairly and without discrimination. This would encourage commenters from across a wide spectrum of opinion, and provide you with a thriving forum.
Ultimately, the choice is yours. As for “banning me”, I don’t think that is necessary, as I doubt I will stay on a forum which seems to be heading down the route of option 1) above.
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the issues I have managed to discuss.
Estimated?? Correlation is not causation. Strange that you can guesstimate that a person who did not get a disease after a vaccine didn’t get it because of the vaccine when there are so many variables such as nutrition, sanitation, current state of health etc. However you say you can’t do a vaccinated/unvaccinated study because there are too many variables. I guess you make it up as you go along. We know that all diseases not just those vaccinated for were down 90% due to better hygiene, nutrition, sanitation when they bought in the vaccines.
http://humansarefree.com/2014/02/2-centuries-of-official-statistics.html
Also there is new evidence that getting infections early in life is protective against leukaemia.
“For full leukaemia to occur, another biological event must take place and this involves the immune system. “For an immune system to work properly, it needs to be confronted by an infection in the first year of life,” says Knighted scientist Mel Greaves. Without that confrontation with an infection, the system is left unprimed and will not work properly.” Maybe nature does know best after all.
“Estimated?? Correlation is not causation.”
Yes, Judith, epidemiologists and public health experts can calculate how many lives vaccines have saved. They do this by determining the difference between the numbers of cases of disease that occur prior to an intervention (eg vaccination) and the number of expected deaths there would have been otherwise, but they make adjustments for other variables, so their “estimate” is as accurate as possible.
If you don’t approve of this methodology, can I ask what you’d say in this hypothetical scenario:
Vaccination is abolished. Within 3 years, nobody is diagnosed with autism. Epidemiologists calculate how many cases of autism have been prevented by stopping vaccination.
So. will you believe their conclusions, or will you be saying like you say here “Nope! – That’s an “estimate”. Correlation is not causation you know, stopping vaccination has nothing to do with the disappearance of autism!”?
Tell you what, I’ll give you $10,000 if that happened and you said that.
Mathematical models are not a substitute for randomized controlled trials. Models are only as good as the assumptions built into them, and your own failure to consider the opportunity costs of vaccination is an illustration of that. For example, studies have shown that the DTP vaccine is associated with a reduced risk of dying from the target disease yet nevertheless associated with an increased risk of childhood mortality.
“Also there is new evidence that getting infections early in life is protective against leukaemia.”
Like your friend with all the sockpuppets (sabelmouse) you misinterpret this, badly.
Greaves pointed out that having a healthy gut microbiome seems to reduce leukaemia in childhood, and suggests that exposure in the first year of life to “dirt” which provides a variety of bacteria important for a varied gut bacterial flora is a good thing, and people should not be obsessive about “hygiene” and cleanliness.
He was not talking about the diseases that are vaccinated against. In fact, as I pointed out to moosey, there are numerous articles showing how viral infections in childhood can increase the risk of leukaemia, and that advice to help reduce leukaemia includes advice to get vaccinated against these infections.
You will all just ignore that, however, and you will sail blindly on in your ship of cognitive dissonance.
On the contrary, Judith was simply restating what Greave said, i.e.,: “For an immune system to work properly, it needs to be confronted by an infection in the first year of life”.
Furthermore, early childhood infection with Hib has been associated with a reduced risk of cancer, as has childhood infection with measles.
“On the contrary, Judith was simply restating what Greave said, i.e.,: “For an immune system to work properly, it needs to be confronted by an infection in the first year of life”.
Yes, that is what Greave stated. But there is a stark difference between the infections Greave is referring to and the ones that Judith would have others believe he is referring to.
As I clearly explained, Greave is discussing the bacterial flora in the gut – the microbiome. These flora are derived from ingestion of different environmental bacteria during early life, and these are shown to be important in later life as they influence the risks of developing other diseases, one of which seems to be acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Greave describes these bacteria as a “cocktail of microbes”. He comments that people’s obsession with cleanliness and eradicating all “dirt” is serving to deprive infants of exposure to these bacteria.
Greaves is actually quoted as saying that infections cause leukaemias:
He does explain that having exposure in early infancy to pathogens might counteract the later phenomenon of infection-provoked leukaemia.
Judith however is deliberately trying to mislead people, by misquoting Greave and implying he says that exposure to vaccine-preventable infections is beneficial at preventing leukaemia. That is a lie (and one you will not call her out on, I am sure) and a blatant attempt to twist his opinions into some form of “antivaccine” argument. As you know, most vaccine-preventable infections (such as chickenpox, measles, rubella, mumps etc) would not occur in early infancy – most happen when the child attends preschool/school. That is far to late to influence the process Greave is referring to, and he was not referring to these viruses anyway but to bacterial pathogens.
In fact, several virus infections are directly implicated in triggering the development of leukaemias and lymphoma. These include HTLV-1 and EBV for which there is unequivocal eveidence of causation. Other infections may be implicated too, such as H. pylori and even malaria. The pathogenesis stems from infection with viruses that are capable of integrating into the genome of B cell precursors, producting transformation and disrupting their differentiation and proliferation. Viruses implicated include herpes group viruses other than just EBV such as HHV-6, HHV-7 and HHV-8 (varicella is one of the herpes group) and CMV.
Judith, for the x-th time. Mortality down does not mean that the diseases are down. You have to look at the incidence and there the picture is dramatically different. The diseases where not down.
Second, Graves does not mean contracting a severe childhood disease within te first year, he means harmless infections.
Third, Judith, “mother” nature does not care about you. Not one little bit. Even the entire species homo sapiens is completely irrelevant in “mother” natures eyes.
Tommyboy, for the x-th time. The mortality of a disease is what’s important. Considering how many people get ” colds ” every year does the medical establishment panic of make a big deal out all those people getting colds? No you say. Well why? Oh no one dies from a simple cold. Now instead of colds lets insert the word measles and you’ll get what I mean. Now I realize the drug industry’s profits would decline substantially if people didn’t vaccinate. For one they would lose the profits on that vaccine and two they would lose the prfits to be made from treating all the injuries cause by that vaccine.
of course if they ever make a vaccine for the common cold it will become deadly ;)
OK, once again. First, people die of colds. Second, in any disease you have (a) a certain residual mortality, (b) a certain rate of complications and (c) a certain rate of permanent damage. For measles this is 0.2%, 20% and 5-10%. Even with the best medical care. Incidence includes all that, mortality does not. Repeat 100 times Ronnyboy. One that does not get a diesease, does not die of it, and it not disabled because of it. Therefore incidence is what counts. Got it ?
Again you clown, which measles variations are you referring to?? You fail to answer this question, every time it’s put to you.
Once again, Ron and I have exposed you’re flip flopping on mortality and morbidity.
The Thomas Mohr clown Show continues for 2019.
If the medical profession is so “state-of-the-art” Thomas, then why do people die of colds?
If your treatments are so successful, why to 50% of the cancer patients die, Petey ? over 20% more than with state of the arte, Petey ? Why ?
Reading comprehension problem Thomas, again?
The issue is about your stupid statements, and your inability to back them up with some data.
The issue is about your medical fraud, you potentially killing of patients and your violations of the law. Always was, is and always will be, Petey.
Thomas, I know you’re a simpleton, and you have a short attention span, so ill just show you what this discussion really is about…
FactCheck.org, Following CDC’s Example, Lies about Vaccine Safety.
But we know, you like to go off on incoherent word salads, because you think you’re contributing to these discussion boards… but that’s just another one of your delusional States.
The discussion is about Trump ? You are a clown, Petey. You don’t even get a simple link correct.
Hahaha, thank you for confirming that you are an ingrate and uneducated clown.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d3d3dbfeb66a613168c28781e533c9ed238a7591f15e42686a083a6eafa7bee8.jpg
This is how it works, Petey.
Once again Thomas, we know you’re a simpleton and a bit slow to catch up, but again for your benefit…
FactCheck.org, Following CDC’s Example, Lies about Vaccine Safety.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d3d3dbfeb66a613168c28781e533c9ed238a7591f15e42686a083a6eafa7bee8.jpg
Too stupid to post a link.
???????
Well, Petey, where is your link ?
You are onfirming my comments regarding your stupidity and low IQ.
If the discussion is about your fellow clown, Donald Trump, then why did you say this?
“Mortality down does not mean that the diseases are down. You have to look at the incidence and there the picture is dramatically different. The diseases where not down.”
Is that your example of confusing mortality and morbidity ?
That reminds me, remember when you confused Mad Cow Disease (BSE) Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, with Marburg Hemorrhagic Fever?
Verbatim quote, Petey ? Nope ?
In your history, unless you haven’t already deleted it.
In other words, no verbatim quote. Why is that that you never quote verbatim or never post screenshots ? Because you lie, Petey.
He is too dense for simple facts to penetrate.
Projecting on your master again??
So amusing.
People die of colds? Are you serious? Maybe the flu ( but a lot more from the flu vaccine ) but the common cold? Citations please. And don’t include flu deaths.
Incidence means squat it’s the mortality that we should worry about. The sooner you phoney scientist learn that the ONLY way to a healthy body is NUTRITION hygiene is also important but a healthy individual has nothing to fear from unhygienic situations. The whole of the MEDICAL MAFIA( disease care ) is a self perpetuating entity. If they practiced nutritional medicine their empire would collapse.
They die of colds. Elderly for instance. In the history of our own continent you have whole epidemies.
Citations please.
Where is your evidence?
How many thousands of times, do you make ridiculous statements, without any medical data to back them up?
Nevermind, I ask too many rhetorical questions.
Ron Roy: “People die of colds? Are you serious? Maybe the flu ( but a lot more from the flu vaccine ) but the common cold?”
Ronald P. Roy !!
I think I found your “Google library” !!
And good news !!
Q: Has anyone died from a cold?
A: Danielle Brooker.
Wow a search of the World Wide Web and you found ONE! Oooo scary thing those colds. Now search” how many people die from vaccines.” Then get back to me.
cause there’s NO vaccine, duh!
People do not die of colds Tommy boy…….people die of complications due to lack of nutrition, poor health, etc etc. people don’t DIE of colds.
Incidence of disease…lets talk about that for a second….you are assuming everyone who gets a disease reports it. The CDC is reporting these for you, no? They are reporting in the case of measles 1:500 will die (your .2%). that is a bald faced LIE. Try 1:10,000.
What IS ‘best medical care” ….this day and age that WILL kill you. Are these people with measles all on Vitamin A and Vitamin C?
5-10% of people who get measles have permanent injuries???? ummm…no.
Seems to me we have so many things that could hurt, kill, maim, that vaccine injury would be on that list, right? Since measles is so very deadly, (and they didn’t have measles parties back in the day or anything)….that more care would be given to track all these dead children after vaccination, no? Point? You are regurgitating dogma. If they are so worried about children and their diseases, they wouldn’t be killing them with vaccines.
Quote: “that is a bald faced LIE. Try 1:10,000.” Citation, Sara. if the death rate is 1 in 10.000 how do you explain the many we had in Europe ? They are more compatible with 1 in 500 to 1 in 1000.
Quote: “5-10% of people who get measles have permanent injuries????”
What did I write ? I wrote 5-10% complications, Sara. And no, Sara, SIDS is NOT linked to vaccination.
Thomas, there is a problem with your statistical analysis, do you know what it is?
Share your wisdom, petey. However, I bet this is again the I won’t show you dance.
The problem is easily identified Thomas, and that is with you, because you are illiterate, and cannot even tell the time, so how can you analyze statistics?
“…which time 13:00am is.”
“I may have slipped with a.m. and p.m…”
In other words, no statistical analysis. Tomonthebay is right. We can add moron to your attributes.
That’s right Thomas, no statistical analysis, from the clown who cannot write or read.
Yeah, Petebyoy No statistical analysis by YOU, you little naturopath.
You still haven’t worked out your problem, with your statistical analysis?
So what is it, peteyboy ? Can you point it out or is that again the I don’t poit it out dance as usual ?
The problem is obvious Thomas, How Can You analyze even simple statistical analysis, when you can’t even read a clock…
“…which time 13:00am is.”
“I may have slipped with a.m. and p.m…”
“2 hour clock does not use am or pm.”
As usual. The I don’t tell you dance. Don’t tell you equals don’t exist, Petey.
As usual, you have put yourself in the dock, because you make outrageous claims, and you can’t back them up.
Oh, and you tell Dr. Chasen of your fake credentials?
No doubt, when he reads your unintelligible and unhinged comments on these discussion boards, he will dismiss your letter immediately.
Since he is just making it up he has nothing to show so he will just double down on the nonsense and lies.
Oh the irony… you two clowns talking about nonsense and lies.
In fact, a decrease in SIDS is linked to vaccination.
Where’s your proof?
Now Ted has aligned with Big Pharma in promoting a vaccine to treat superbugs which are created by the pharma promoted overuse of antibiotics – conflict of interest? How about research on how to increase a healthy micro biome.
The alarming rise of “superbugs” could claim up to 10 million lives globally by 2050 due to their unique ability to resist antibiotics. However, pharmacist Vikas Jaitely is researching ways we can battle these drug-resistant bacteria — by studying how they evolve in order to create more effective treatments and vaccines.
This talk was presented at a TED Institute event given in partnership with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. Read more about the TED Institute.
https://www.ted.com/talks/vikas_jaitely_how_we_can_fight_antibiotic_resistant_superbugs_with_a_new_class_of_vaccines
that’s why MEN rebel and try to ”beat” nature.
Once again, Judith making you, the fake researcher look totally stupid…
Firstly, you’re confusing mortality will morbidity again.
Secondly, you should read Graves objectively, and not embarrass yourself with stupid and simplistic replies.
And thirdly, your science answers all questions argument, is so stupid, it is beyond comprehension.
The medical iatragenic model has always been eliminate infection at all costs. We are only now discovering that there is a microbiome that is destroyed by the endless pharma prescriptions for antibiotics. We have learned that nutrition, healthy lifestyle, fresh air, sunshine, clean water eliminate nearly all infections and keep our immune system strong. There have been numerous studies that show childhood diseases are protective against cancer: So the fact that people were getting these diseases and mortality was down is a good thing – it meant real herd immunity was developing and people were passing on immunity to these much milder diseases to their children, especially through breast feeding.
Consistent with the ‘hygiene hypothesis,’ natural infections during childhood and onward, may prime our immune system and help to balance the Th1 (innate) and Th2 (adaptive) poles of immunity, producing a healthy immune system as a result. Vaccines, by disrupting this evolutionarily determined balance, may be contributing to widespread immune dysregulation, both suppressing innate immune mechanisms as well as over-stimulating the adaptive pole, contributing to widespread autoimmunity in exposed populations.
As science and molecular biology progresses and continues to reveal the inherent intelligence within the commensal relationship of the human body to the microbial universe, we are left with a crucial question: is the present-day globally orchestrated vaccine agenda really improving health, or does it belie a hubris that shirks the scientific evidence in favor of an agenda that wishes to exert control over the human body due to economic and socio-political agendas?
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/why-we-may-need-viruses-more-vaccines-2
I want to see the studies that childhood diseases protect against cancer, Judith.
Thank you Thomas – always love the way you guys open up the opportunity to show why your vaccines are so harmful to humanity: Just a few, I have a lot more.
Clinically observed chickenpox was associated with a significantly lower risk of a first episode of MS in children (Table 3). After adjustment for a family history of MS or of another autoimmune disease.
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/169/10/1260.full
http://www.ovariancancer.org/2010/06/25/mumps-and-ovarian-cancer-modern-interpretation-of-an-historic-association/
MUMPS: Researchers investigated whether mumps might engender immunity to ovarian cancer through antibodies against the cancer-associated antigen MUC1 abnormally expressed in the inflamed parotid gland. MEASLES: Albonico et al found that adults are significantly protected against non-breast cancers — genital, prostate, gastrointestinal, skin, lung, ear-nose-throat, and others — if they contracted measles (odds ratio, OR = 0.45), rubella (OR = 0.38) or chickenpox (OR = 0.62) earlier in life. [Med Hypotheses 1998; 51(4): 315-20].
MEASLES: Montella et al found that contracting measles in childhood reduces the risk of developing lymphatic cancer in adulthood [Leuk Res 2006; 30(8): 917-22].
MEASLES: Alexander et al found that infection with measles during childhood is significantly protective — it cuts the risk in half — against developing Hodgkin’s disease (OR = 0.53) [Br J Cancer 2000; 82(5): 1117-21].
MEASLES: Glaser et al also found that lymph cancer is significantly more likely in adults who were not infected with measles, mumps or rubella in childhood [In J Cancer 2005; 115(4): 599-605].
COMMON INFECTIONS: Gilham et al found that infants with the least exposure to common infections have the greatest risk of developing childhood leukemia [BMJ 2005; 330: 1294].
EARLY EXPOSURE TO INFECTIONS:Urayama et al also found that early exposure to infections is protective against leukemia [Int J Cancer 2011; 128(7): 1632-43]. Read more….
CHICKEN POX (VARICELLA Canniff J., Donson A.M., Foreman N.K., Weinberg A. Cytotoxicity of glioblastoma cells mediated ex vivo by varicella-zoster virus-specific T cells. J Neurovirol. 2011;17(October (5)):448–454. [PubMed] Canniff et al. reported an association between those individuals with clinical or laboratory evidence of varicella-zoster virus (VZV) infection and lower risk of glioma.A glioma is a type of tumor that starts in the brain or spine. It is called a glioma because it arises from glial cells.
CHICKEN POX IN CHILDHOOD: Silverberg J.I., Kleiman E., Silverberg N.B., Durkin H.G., Joks R., Smith-Norowitz T.A. Chickenpox in childhood is associated with decreased atopic disorders, IgE, allergic sensitization, and leukocyte subsets. Pediatr Allergy Immunol. 2012;23(February (1):50–58. [PubMed Silverberg et al. also reported that wild-type VZV infection up to 8 years of age was found to be protective against atopic disorders that are thought to be “mediated by suppression of IgE production and allergic sensitization, as well as altered leukocyte distributions.
Chicken Pox references taken from Goldman, King STUDY
The universal varicella (chickenpox) vaccination program now requires a booster vaccine for children and an HZ vaccine to boost protection in adults. However, these are less effective than the natural immunity that existed in communities prior to licensure of the varicella vaccine. Hence, rather than eliminating varicella in children as promised, routine vaccination against varicella has proven extremely costly [60], [62] and [168] and has created continual cycles of treatment and disease.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X12007761
http://vaccineliberationarmy.com/2015/03/10/studies-show-natural-mumps-measles-chicken-pox-influenza-viruses-protect-against-cancer/
http://www.atherosclerosis-journal.com/article/S0021-9150(15)01380-5/abstract
Association of measles and mumps with cardiovascular disease: The Japan Collaborative Cohort (JACC) study
A prestigious journal reported that men who had measles and mumps as children suffered 29% less heart attacks and 17% less strokes! Women with a history of both infections had a 17% lower risk of cardiovascular disease and 21% lower risk of stroke. The journal Atherosclerosis recently published these shocking findings in the June 2015 issue(1).
And more:
Benefits of Getting Measles
“In the 1970s,” as Science Daily notes, “measles infections were observed to cause regression of pre-existing cancer tumors in children.” This observation has led Mayo Clinic to experiment with using measles virus to treat brain cancer.
A study published in The Lancet in 1985 found a negative history of measles to be associated with an increased risk of developing “immunocreactive diseases, sebaceious skin diseases, degenerative diseases of bone and cartilage, and certain tumours.”
A study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology the same year found that infection with measles is associated with a reduced risk of Parkinson’s disease, suggesting “a truly protective effect of measles”.
More recently, a study published in the International Journal of Cancer in 2013 found “a protective role of childhood infectious diseases” — namely measles — “on the risk of CLL [chronic lymphoid leukaemia] in adults”.
A study published in the journal Atherosclerosis in 2015 found that “Measles and mumps, especially in case of both infections, were associated with lower risks of mortality from atherosclerotic CVD [cardiovascular disease].”
now let’s see what inane nonsense he/they come/s up with as reply ;)
really ? explain this:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4823017/
I think this better explains it
When you lower a child’s immunity by vaccinating they become more susceptible to other diseases and die
“DTP was associated with 5-fold higher mortality than being unvaccinated. No prospective study has shown beneficial survival effects of DTP…It should be of concern that the effect of routine vaccinations on all-cause mortality was not tested in randomized trials. All currently available evidence suggests that DTP vaccine may kill more children from other causes than it saves from diphtheria, tetanus or pertussis.”
http://vaccinepapers.org/high-mortality-dtp-vaccine/
Paper (Mogensen et al): The Introduction of Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis and Oral Polio Vaccine Among Young Infants in an Urban African Community: A Natural Experiment
This sudy is complete crap. They have an extremely rare event and therefore need much more people included to draw a robust conclusion. This is probably best visible from the HUGE confidence intervals.
“This sudy is complete crap.”
Isn’t it funny, you say it’s crap, but you provide no evidence to that opinion, and you can’t even spell the word study correctly… oh the irony!
It explains nothing, except your cherry picked and specious evidence. As usual, you need to provide meta-data to backup your nonsense.
Judih, I looked at a few of your examples of your papers. Summary, marginally better ORs (typically 0.8) with either gigantic 95% CIs. or CIs close to including 1. I.o.W. slight effects with high variations and comparatively high p-values. Taken together that most virus infections increase the risk of cancer via a quite well understood mechanism (DNA damage due to virus DNA incorporation) I think these results are spurious.
” I looked at a few of your examples of your papers.”
Exactly, you’ll never look at the totality of Judith’s work and links she provides.
Put simply, her far superior understanding of medicine and biology, makes you look like a fool that you are.
“…slight effects with high variations and comparatively high p-values.”
Any evidence of that Thomas?
tl;dr version regarding Measles…
Possible good things:
Slightly lower risk of a handful of rare and usually non-serious outcomes as compared to no measles (but measles vaccine is likely to confer the same “benefits”, being a live vaccine).
Possible bad things:
Significant risk of: Death; encephalitis; greatly increased susceptibility to numerous bacterial infections; viral pneumonia; laryngotracheobronchitis; gastroenteritis and malnutrition, etc.
Great Post!
This highlights many discussion points, but the most obvious, is the failure of the pro-vaxxers to rebut anything you have said here… other than of course, the usual irrelevant and willfully ignorant replies.
Bullying Judith again with your lies and hypocrisy??
My god, you never provide any studies to backup your nonsense.
Another thing, Judith. If you look at mortality stats pre-vaccine ad pre-medicine, you see an average life expecancy of roughly 40 years, which dramatically increases if an individuum has passed childhood. Why ? Childhood diseases, which where one of the great killers at the time. So far to your “herd immunity” and immunity conferred by breast feeding thesis. Herd immunity does not work if people actually get the diseases. This, Judth is the evolutionary program mentioned in the article. Think about that.
Of course, a fool and a fake scientist such as yourself, would deny the evidence of herd immunity.
But this is no surprise, you have said many times in the past, that the immune system is an evolutionary relic, and should be disregarded.
so very important to see that difference/ though strangely i remember reading about the importance of these things for wild animals/the tendency toward disease regarding over crowding/population/food shortage.
so it’s not like nobody has been aware of this ;)
That is working so well in Italy.
France, the UK, Germany, Spain…
Came across this yesterday. Thought it was well done and informative.
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/12/2/1295/htm
A review article by a nutritionist. Not very impressive.
That’s because you are outdated . You’re Windows 95
Yes very good study – the summary as follows:
” Rigorous and replicable studies (in different animal species) have shown evidence of EtHg, and of Al toxicities. More research attention has been given to EtHg and findings have showed a solid link with neurotoxic effects in humans; however, the potential synergic effect of both toxic agents has not been properly studied. Therefore, early life exposure to both EtHg and Al deserves due consideration.”
They were quite direct and serious. This is honest research not obliging to Pharma or CDC.
Yes no conflict of interest.
You said IF what’s the deal?
Your seatbelt argument is a pharma stock item – I have seen it used endlessly. Laughable. – you and I know that a proper vaccinated/unvaccinated study could be done. Under pressure from Congress and parents, the Institute of Medicine convened another panel to address continuing concerns about the Vaccine Safety Datalink Data Sharing program. In February, the new panel, composed of different scientists, criticized the way the VSD had been used in the Verstraeten study, and urged the CDC to make its vaccine database available to the public.
So far, though, only two scientists have managed to gain access. Dr. Mark Geier, president of the Genetics Center of America, and his son, David, spent a year battling to obtain the medical records from the CDC. Why is the VSD so hard to access and why isn’t it being used to do a vaccinated unvaccinated study. The VSD has comprehensive medical records of both vaccinated and unvaccinated and these could be used to do a retrospective study. In Australia we have medicare records which also would provide information to do an excellent vaccinated unvaccinated study. They refuse to do it. However one day when the population gets wise to Big Pharma they will be dragged kicking and screaming to do this study.
Judith, I’m sorry if that tin order to make the complex issue of vaccines understandable to people like you that we have to use simple analogies. But it’s necessary.
Regarding the Vaccine Safety Datalink, access is freely available to their databank for bona fide researchers. As they themselves state:
The website explains how researchers can apply for access.
This can be done, and the fact that the Geiers did so is a sign of how readily the VSD will share data (One Geier has been delicensed as a doctor in no fewer than 13 states, and the other Geier has been convicted of impersonating a medical doctor, so the bar for access is set extremely low)
As for your claim that the Geiers were the only people (you call them “scientists”) to gain access, please tell me why the VSD website lists by year all the hundreds of publications that scientists have published using their data?
In 2018 there were 17, for example.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/ensuringsafety/monitoring/vsd/publications.html
Judith, a word of friendly advice – please take care about what you post on the internet. Lies and deliberately misleading claims can be easily refuted, as I have done here.
This claim of Mike’s is a lie. He tries to support it by referring to the availability of “public use dataset”, but this is limited to datasets from only two studies. He also tries to support it by pointing to 17 studies that were published in 2018 using VSD data, but he doesn’t tell you that most of these were not by independent researchers, but mostly by researchers from the health care organizations and the CDC — the parties that created the VSD.
It is true that the CDC tightly controls who gets access to VSD data. It is not “freely available” for independent researchers, and needless to say, the argument that any independent researcher to whom this data is not freely available is not “bona fide” is both an ad hominem and non sequitur fallacy.
Not unethical at all if they choose people who refuse to submit to vaccines. Find 100 or so of them and compare them to those who do submit to being poisoned oops I mean vaccinated. Heck come to my town I’ll find you a couple hundred people within a few hours.
Thanks for the laughs, Ron.
Please look up the definition of the term “randomised”, and get back, will you?
Why would it be unethical Mike? tell me? How could proving a vaccine on its own, or several vaccines tested together be unethical to test for safety? Tell me why? So if any drug on the market is to be tested, we shouldn’t use double blind placebo controlled bc its’ unsafe and unethical? When do we give people diseases and then give them drugs to see if the drug is safe? Oh, we don’t that’s right. <—–sarsacsm. You must know that makes no sense, right?
So there are these things called 'dummies' that they use to test seatbelts. They look, weigh, and to some even feel like real people. smh.
“Why would it be unethical Mike? tell me? How could proving a vaccine on its own, or several vaccines tested together be unethical to test for safety?”
You misunderstand, as your question indicates. It is fine to do studies on vaccines to look at safety and efficacy, but one needs to ensure that these put nobody at additional/necessary risk, and certainly one does not wish to place subjects deliberately in the way of certain harm/risk of disease or injury.
I explained this already with respect to the study that antivaxers always try and promote – they use the concept of the “prospective, randomised, double blind, placebo-controlled trial” as some kind of “gotcha!” moment. Since this is not always possible,ethical or even necessary (there are other ways of determining safety and efficacy), antivaxers like to call for it to be used, and [quite wrongly] dismiss everything that is not such a trial as being absolutely incapable of determining safety.
There are ethical standards, and these principles are enshrined in the Declaration of Helsinki. With respect to placebo-controlled vaccine studies, the WHO has given further specific guidance, and indicates when such trials would be ethically acceptable. I recommend you look at both of these, since they will answer your questions. You might also like to look at a Lancet editorial on the topic if you can access it (you may need to register as a guest).
Here is what the WHO indicate:
Sara, placebo controlled double blind studies are only done if no treatment is available. Otherwise you do superiority trials. Imagine f.i. giving a cancer patient a placebo. Not nice, right ? That means, in many settings RCT with a placebo are the exception and not the rule.
So tell us Dr Clown, how does a placebo work?
There is one problem with your whole description Thomas, do you see what it is?
No yadda yadda yadda yadda this time.
Enlighten US Petey
Surprise surprise, you don’t even understand the question…
As I keep repeating, it’s a good thing you are a clown, and you don’t actually treat people.
in other words, the i dont tell you dance of idiotic naturopaths.
In other words, the clown of these discussion boards, you cannot tell the time, can’t answer simple questions.
Speaking of dancing, let’s watch Thomas Mohr dance around this…
https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/ idUSKCN1R02O3
That is your explanation ? Laughable. Fact is, you yaddayadda around and when challenged it is hot air. You are a disgrace in an already shady profession.
As I thought, the clown dances around serious subjects, like an uncoordinated duck.
I’ll just explain it to you Thomas, seeing as though you cannot read.
In a second separate trial, it has been determined that glyphosate causes cancer.
Oh really ? Citation Petey ?
I posted one, in my original post to you, outlining the new findings in the second trial… from Reuters.
Reuters is no original paper Petey.
???????????
Thomas, you’ve done it again!!
A report from a respected news source, about a trial, is not a “paper.”
Once again, we will just have to add that to the list… sorry, the long list of your f*** ups.
original papers, Petey.
Hahaha, true to form, the unintelligible clown doubles down on his stupidity, and cannot distinguish between a news report and a “paper.”
It needs to be said again, thank God you’re just a clown, and you don’t actually work in the field of Medicine.
I am only applying your standards. Original paper, Petey.
My standards are very simple, I can distinguish between a Reuters news report, and a paper.
Your standards?
God only Knows, somewhere between Dr. Seuss and Alice in Wonderland.
yes, your Standards arte simple. Hypocrisy. but not here. original paper Petey.
Says The Man, Who Cannot distinguish between a news report, and a “paper.”
I can Petey. You can not. Thetefore you think newsyaddayadda is valid. Where is the original paper ? I bet you never read it.
Again, for the fourth time, you make yourself look monumentally stupid, because you cannot distinguish between a trial, that found for a second time, glyphosate causes cancer, and a scientific paper.
The original study, you clown.
Hahaha, please continue with your idiocy, because this will be bookmarked for the future, as another one of your epic failures.
Again, confirmed, you don’t know the difference between a scientific paper and a court case.
You can not even post the paper, Petey vor a link.
And for the fifth time, you make yourself look stupid.
Thomas, are you a sadomasochist?
Still no paper or link in dot domain format ?
Tell me this Thomas, do you now agree that the second trial got it right, when they determined that glyphosate is linked to somebody’s cancer?
So it is a trial now and not a study ? What is it ?
Yes Thomas, it’s always been a trial, that’s what I’ve been discussing.
It was you, that dumb clown who thought it was a study.
Then why did you call it a study ?
Petey is so dumb that he thinks science is determined in civil trials.
I know. He is even too dumb to forma a link in a way that the moderation lets it through.
And you’re way too dumb, to just simply join them together.
But what do you expect, from somebody who cannot read a clock.
You and your fellow clown, are so dumb, you think you’re smarter than the lawyers, judges and juries at these two separate trials.
My God, you’re so dumb, it’s just too laughable.
Where did I call a trial a study you dumb clown?
You I just trying to back down, again, because one, you are deliberately obfuscating, and two, you can’t bear the fact that glyphosate has been responsible in a second separate trial, for causing somebody’s cancer.
What is so difficult with posting a valid reference to the original study, Peteyboy ? Can you do that or not ?
Thomas, please continue with this line of inquiry, because you’re only making yourself look Monumentally stupid, as usual…
We will add this to your list of screwups, where you cannot distinguish between a court case, and a paper.
This is how your reuters page looks like. Note the <- no story found -> heading in the browser heading ? You know what you are ? A foul tooth. Outside maybe white, but as soon as one probes into the surface, it collapses into a big black hole.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6e56f29f0353e6f0733fef4936c967a3ac2c01763567fb8b152c8e09e9ec4d66.png
Ha ha ha…
2 points Thomas, all you had to do, is put the link together.
I cut it in half, so it wouldn’t be held up in moderation.
And secondly, it seems you can post pictures here, when you said 4 hours earlier you couldn’t.
You lie so much, you’re not even aware that you do it.
So if you can post pictures, let’s see a screenshot of your patents, and some sort of image of your so-called 40 papers.
That was in a different forum, you clown. Since we have now established that we can post links and screenshots here, how about a screenshot of my allegedly empty google profile, Peteyboy ?
No excuse Thomas, you get up to Monkey Business every day, and you can’t put a link together, that shows that glyphosate has been found responsible for someone’s cancer, in a second trial.
You cut it in half ? In other words, no idea how moderation in disqus works. Half a link is still a link. You should have used dot domain notation, AS having Bern gold several times. Can you post the original study in Author Title source Format vor not ?
Yes, if I posted the full link, it would get stuck in moderation.
But you being the clown that you are, can’t figure that out.
Moderation halts any link, regardless of length.
Thomas, you’re just avoiding the issue, and that is, in a second trial, glyphosate has been found to have caused somebody’s cancer.
A civil trial result is in no way a scientific finding.
Really, can you backup that monosyllabic statement with some scientific discussion?
And you think that is a scientific finding ? Oh man.
So the Dancing Clown, Thomas Mohr continues…
This is just more confirmation, that you are completely clueless about the basics of this discussion.
You cannot distinguish between a court finding, and a paper.
How come you are never able to point out those problems ?
Why is it, you can never see your problems in the first place?
Rhetorical question, I know.
Enlighten us Petey.
Hint…
Something to do with you being a clown, who doesn’t have any qualifications, even in the basics of medicine and biology?
Elaborate further Petey.
Ok…
There’s this clown on these discussion boards, who goes by the name of “Thomas Mohr,” who claims to be an expert in every facet of Medical Science, but in fact he has zero qualifications and zero knowledge.
Have you got it now?
Yes, Petey. You have nothing of substance to add. I have a question for you. In a superiority trial, are the dtatistical tests twosided vor threesiided ? A simple one word answer.
That’s true Thomas, when talking about you, and exposing your deceitful character, there is no substance.
how many sides do the statistical tests in a superiority trial have ? Two or three, Petey ?
Let’s recap, on why you fail at even the basics of statistical analysis, because you can’t even read a 12 hour or 24 hour clock, or the mysterious Thomas Mohr “2” hour clock… Ha ha ha ha ha ha
“…which time 13:00am is.”
“I may have slipped with a.m. and p.m…”
“2 hour clock does not use am or pm.”
A superiority test is ONE sided. There is no such thing as a threesided statistical test. Why is it onesided ? Because only the superior side is of interest. you f* cked it up Petey. again.
Says the man, who cannot read a clock…
“…which time 13:00am is.”
“I may have slipped with a.m. and p.m…”
“2 hour clock does not use am or pm.”
You are finished Petey.
Never finished Thomas… my work in exposing you as a clown of these discussion boards, will continue infinitum, as long as you make statements like this…
“…because you can’t accept that some things just happen.”
“mice, or anything…”
That was in regards to Medical trials.
“…which time 13:00am is.”
“I may have slipped with a.m. and p.m…”
“2 hour clock does not use am or pm.”
Deceitful character ? Linke your threats to commit sexual crimes involving children ?
Says the man, who uses these platforms to talk about The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Thomas, we are still waiting for you to explain the placebo effect.
Failure to do so, will just confirm further your zero knowledge of medicine and biology.
Still waiting Dr clown, for you to explain the placebo effect.
Thank you! Great article.
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