The anti-vaccine movement shows just how low it can go

“Unfortunately, real life isn’t that simple, and, instead of realigning its beliefs to conform to reality, the anti-vaccine movement lashes out at those who point out that there’s no science supporting them. Worse, if there were any doubt that Age of Autism is profoundly anti-vaccine to its very core, that doubt was removed when AoA decided to liken those who stand up against anti-vaccine misinformation to baby killers and hordes of commenters descended to say that such a comparison was appropriate because they really believe that vaccines are a Holocaust, a Hiroshima, a Nagasaki, a Stalin, Chinese women sold into slavery, and the killers of thousands of children every year. Autistic children pay the price, and, if sanity doesn’t prevail, all children will pay the price in the form of the resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases that will kill and maim thousands of them.”

AOA clearly intended this post as a morale rouser for their followers, and even on that score it seems to have failed. I think it falls fairly neatly into the category of “things you wish you opponent would do but never dare to hope that they would be that stupid”.

The picture in question is still up there, and as of yesterday, there were still supportive comments coming in. Given the number of negative comments that they are allowing to be posted, though, I suspect you’re right that at least someone there has some shame.

I too fear for the future of science in this country. When dangerous internet-fueled ‘advocacy’ groups push people in this direction, it can have very bad consequences. In addition to your examples, I would point out that the increasingly outrageous anti-vaccine rhetoric calls to mind the recent battle over Lyme disease.

I led with Stagliano’s fellatio comment on my blog on it yesterday morning, http://counteringageofautism.blogspot.com/2009/11/standing-up-from-table-and-saying.html.

I ended up covering and deconstructing Blaxill’s post in another blog, and running a third calling for an letter-writing campaign to Google News to get AoA removed from the news feed.

Stagliano may have taken the worst of her comments down, but she expressed this: ” This is a cartoon/spoof of the team of people who have either made it their life’s work to make sure our kids go untreated or who have advanced that agenda unabashedly in the mainstream media. I feel no remorse in running it. I think Mark Blaxill’s comment explained our position very well.”

Whether she feels any remorse about stooping to the low level of Handley’ misogyny and that’s why she removed it, we probably will never know. It ‘s not like AoA or GenRes are particularly good at admitting when they are wrong.

I’d argue that they are letting their loyalists’ comments that are calling them out for this through in order to be able to deny that they heavily censor their comments.

“The history of the anti-vaccine movement is starting to look disturbingly like the history of the anti-abortion movement. Accusing your enemies of killing and eating babies,”, actually its reminiscent of anti-semitism: the whole thing is similar to the blood libel. Any bets on “jews being behind big pharma” next?
I suggest someone libeled by these people should warn them of the attitude of the British courts to such defametary posts.

Not even a raised eyebrow. It doesn’t surprise me in the least.

All it shows is that they are becoming more and more unstable as an organisation. As people begin to realise this they will leave, pushing them even further to the margins. ITs inevitable with so little basis in reality.

In the long run, this is a good sign of the eventual marginalisation of a group long since past insane and yet still whipping a dead horse for more speed.

Damn, and I thought GR was a slick, professional-like outfit. They couldn’t get someone with even a moderate amount of Photoshop skills to do this?

Then you say autistic children pay the price.

The idea that is perpetuated here is that autism is such a tragedy we’re better off dead.

Is it?…thats news to me. Perhaps a quote or two to back up that claim?

Children do pay the price though because these guys are demanding research (and have got it) into pointlessly unlikely areas of research instead of spending that money on more useful avenues. Not to mention their love of ridiculous “alternative” medical techniques where their own children are the guinea pigs.

Kowalski, I don’t know; morons such as Handley, McCarthy, Stagliano, and others are apparently deranged enough to think autism somehow makes a person worse off than they may actually be. I’m not autistic, but I know a few autistic people and I think I’ve got enough familiarity with what it entails to know that the anti-vaxxers are completely deranged.

Most anti-vaxxers aren’t doctors trying to bilk people out of their money; they’re dumb parents who aren’t educated worth a shit on this. Their degrees are likely in something in which they never had to take a biology class or a psychology class. They’re also flooded with wacky parent hormones so it’s somewhat impossible for them to think with a certain amount of detachment about their kid (not to disparage the sane parents who are logical). In sum, they are eejits.

I’m not saying autism, in the majority of cases, doesn’t provide difficulties for the person who’s got it; but they somehow think autism is some sort of condemnation to some imaginary fate. I see they’ve never met Temple Grandin.

Another day, another dead victim of Orac’s style of medicine.

“Miss Magnano, a 38-year-old mother of twins who won the beauty pageant in 1994, died of a pulmonary embolism on Sunday. She had spent three days in a critical condition following a gluteoplasty procedure in Buenos Aires.

A close friend, Roberto Piazza, said the procedure involved injections and the liquid “went to her lungs and brain”.

“A woman who had everything lost her life to have a slightly firmer behind,” he said.”

Alternative medicine practitioners do not cut people up or inject foriegn substances into their bodies for large sums of money, so it is impossible for an alternative medicine practitioner to kill a patient the way allopathic medicine practitioners constantly do.

I… Meh.
A wise person I once knew said, “you cannot reason with Crazy. You can’t even fight Crazy with Crazy, cuz it just breeds more Crazy.”
It isn’t even about a loss of civility, anymore. Civility has to be learned, earned, and cultivated. The only reason we have some to lose is because people worked so hard to earn it in the first place. I don’t see that stopping, across the board, even when subjected to this kind of mindless, ignorant hate. Let’s not lament the loss of something that some people clearly never had; let’s pay our respects to the good people who were so unashamedly attacked, instead. Let’s think of Paul Offit, Steve Novella, Amy Wallace, Trine Tsouderos, Paul Insel, and Alison Singer for who they really are, not as the targets for the distraction of truth that some would like them to be. Let us remember that they aren’t as sick and twisted as their opposition, whatever their real faults may be, and that they are trying to help, in the face of something that has quickly become terrifying in its myopic violence. I don’t know them personally, but I feel for them, and I’m proud of them, even if I don’t have a right to be. Here’s to you, folks.
Good luck, and good hunting.

One slight error, it was Jonathan Swift (not Thomas Swift) that wrote A Modest Proposal.

Their sense of humor is as poorly developed as their understanding of science.

Orac raises a very important point: that this sort of “humor” (and I use the term loosely) is a tactic to dehumanize the purported enemy, making it that much easier to justify violent acts. If this kind of thing keeps up, how long before vaccination clinics are bombed?

Someone close to me has commented, half-jokingly, that my site may bring the crazies a-callin’ if they found out who I was and where I lived. Though antiantivax.flurf.net is a somewhat humble endeavor and nowhere near as influential as the individuals featured in the cartoon, AoA’s actions actually make me a bit more concerned, for myself, those close to me, and for other bloggers supporting science-based medicine.

I think the point that AOA is dehumanizing people with autism along with their “enemies” is worth repeating. The approach they take to treatment is so completely unethical, it shouldn’t really be any surprise that they think this kind of “humour” is appropriate. Any group that considers autistic children as guinea pigs for unproven treatments is not really concerned with the autonomy of the people they’re claiming they’re “curing”.

Remember the movie by Autism Speaks that featured a mother talking about how she felt like killing her autistic kid. That’s the kind of attitude that many people find disturbing. (And no, the mother isn’t a bad mother for having those thoughts- she’s a bad mother for putting them on video.)

We’ve had our own recent dose of Mercury Woo in of all places the (formally) respected Pulse Magazine. Their Letter of the Week was from a Dr Jerry Thompson GP (Family Doctor) promoting the dangers of Thiomersal in Pig Plague vaccines… Pulse is widely read and perhaps it’s readers have enough sense to know what poison a Geier and Geier reference is…

A little research showed that he Dr Thompson was umm… well, he’s got a sideline in Homeopathy, Vega testing and Kinesiology…

I tried to make a fuss about it… But with Thanksgiving, and the approach of Chanukah, Xmas, Yule and Inti Raymi people have other things on their mercury poisoned minds…

You can read all about it on the New Republic’s “Mercury Quackery in Pulse Magazine”

A close friend, Roberto Piazza, said the procedure involved injections and the liquid “went to her lungs and brain”.

This is not a legitimate medical procedure. Any MD who tried it in my part of the world would lose his licence.

Alternative medicine practitioners do not cut people up or inject foriegn substances into their bodies for large sums of money

…except when they do – chelation, anyone?

What’s worse than a troll? A stupid troll.

Bob, the problem is that SOME CAM treatments DO work. (Nasal irrigation, for example.) So what do we do? Do we call it medicine if it works and not-medicine if it doesn’t? So if some traditional Chinese medicine treatments work but others don’t, should we call it traditional Chinese medicine-and-non-medicine? What about those treatments we’re not sure about? Do we call them not-sure-if-it’s-medicine? Science based medicine is just so much simpler as a term.

Any bets on “jews being behind big pharma” next?

You’re WAAAY behind the times. Over on MHA, the psychoceramics have been citing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion for ages. Along with the Illuminati.

I think you can find quotes over on whale.to

Bob Gardner:

I hate the phrase “Science Based Medicine”. TBH, I’ve started to wonder if thats part of the problem, the….theft…if the word medicine by hacks and woo pushers.

Actually the term was coined as a counter to “evidence based medicine”, and has nothing to do with an attempt to distinguish from so-called alternative medicine. See the first posting of the ScienceBasedMedicine blog for an explanation:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=1

Within the practice of medicine there is already a recognition of the need to raise the standards of evidence and the availability of the best evidence to the practitioner and the consumer – formalized in the movement known as evidence-based medicine (EBM). EBM is a vital and positive influence on the practice of medicine, but it has its limitations. Most relevant to this blog is the focus on evidence to the exclusion of scientific plausibility. The focus on evidence has its utility, but fails to properly deal with medical modalities that lie outside the scientific paradigm, or for which the scientific plausibility ranges from very little to nonexistent.

@Chris – 39

I stand corrected. I still get a strong nasty taste in my mouth whenever I hear the phrase however.

Oops, sorry we cross posted.

By the way, Orac:

If you think this is “just how low” the antivaxxers can go, I envy your sunny view of the world.

I stand corrected. I still get a strong nasty taste in my mouth whenever I hear the phrase however.

Thats because saying something either works or it doesn’t is the fallacy of the excluded middle.

Your comments, Orac, on the exact nature of Dachau were beyond tasteless. Benmyson simply referred to the image of people in boxcars being sent to Dachau. He did not give a timeline. He probably meant it as code for the worst of the worst of the Holocaust, and most readers understood it as such. Even those readers who know that the gas chambers were at the much bigger Auschwitz.

You do not refute Benmyson by pointing out that Dachau began as a mere prison. Suggesting that those poor Nazis just couldn’t keep up their high standards of taking several months to overwork underfed prisoners to death, thanks to those interfering Allies, is atrocious on your part.

Mr. Emba’s referring to my comments about the Nazi concentration camp Dachau as “beyond tasteless” in the context of a post about Age of Autism going for big yucks portraying those whom it perceives as its enemies as baby-eating cannibals just fried my irony meter, particularly given the echoes of the blood libel against the Jews that Age of Autism’s imagery evokes.

@JB Handley

I found the picture rather tasteless, as did a coworker to whom I showed it. The bad thing, though, is not the picture itself, but the idea behind it: that the individuals portrayed are baby-killers. I urge caution in your portrayals, lest you create a beast that you cannot control.

benmyson (quoted in original message):

It’s a horrible image. So are the images of boxcar loads of men, women and children going to Dachau…

Or the images of the rows upon rows of iron lungs, or the packed quarantine wards… I think someone needs to raid various photo archives and put together a nice collection of images that truly show how much better the world was before vaccinations. Add some newspaper and magazine articles from the time, to let the people from the past voice their agreement with those of today that, indeed, nobody ever died from whooping cough.

(As a complete aside, it struck me this morning that Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series is a good parallel to the vaccine issue; dragonriders=vaccine, thread=vaccinatable illnesses, rest of Pern population after “missed” threadfall=anti-vaxers.)

Not that this is anything like on topic, but I believe Dachau’s gas chambers were never operated. There were firing squads and a killing field near the oven building but no gas chambers.

@56 Matt

Actually, I’d disagree somewhat.

J.B. Handley has made a difference, just not a good difference, in my opinion. Through his organization, Generation Rescue and his blog Age of Autism and their unstinting anti-vaccine activism, arguably he, more than anyone else, has contributed to the unfortunate perception of the autism community as being full of anti-vaccine cranks. Arguably he, more than anyone else, has frightened scientists away from speaking out or even wanting to go into autism research, because they don’t want to have to deal with the hassles that his group causes them. (Who can blame them?) Arguably he, more than anyone else, has made scientists paranoid that their autism research will be misused by cranks, as was so ably documented in Trine Tsouderos’ second article.

Arguably he, above all else, has tainted the image of the autism community with the toxic stench of anti-vaccine crankery, at least in the United States.

I’m exceptionally proud of what Jeffrey became. To characterize him, however, as a criminal is untrue. In point of fact, Jeffrey was far more than a criminal, and he has dozens of admirers who have nothing at all to do with crime. For what it’s worth, neither I nor anyone else tells Jeffrey what to do.

One of the many reasons Jeffrey poses such a threat to people like you is that he represents the views of a large and growing community, a view that challenges the status quo, and a view that many more Americans each day are growing to share – partly due to the tireless efforts of Jeffrey. It’s also a view that, given your past inaccurate proclamations, you certainly pray is untrue: that the prevalence of cannibalism is growing, that the environment is playing a heavy role, and that hydrogenated oils appear to be the #1 culprit.

It was. With Benmyson not actually stating anything, you gave a brief whitewashed history of Dachau, the further to criticize him. It was just a “concentration” camp?

I neither said, did, nor meant anything of the sort. Nice try trying to liken me to a Holocaust denier, though. I suggest you peruse the numerous posts I have written about Holocaust denial before you pull something so ridiculous:

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2006/08/how_i_discovered_holocaust_denial.php
http://oracknows.blogspot.com/2005/04/60-years-ago-today-liberation-of_29.html
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/history/holocaust_denial/
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/history/holocaust/
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2006/08/how_i_discovered_holocaust_denial.php
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2006/08/eugenics_and_involuntary_euthanasia_1.php
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2009/02/bishop_richard_williamson_holocaust_deni.php
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2009/09/creationism_holocaust_denial_stupidity2.php
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2009/11/holocaust_on_trial_podcast.php

To suggest that I was trying to argue that Dachau was “just” a concentration camp is a massive straw man and hugely offensive. There is a distinction that Holocaust scholars make; the classic imagery that Benmyson was trying to evoke was of extermination, particularly taken in the context of what was written later.

Horse hockey, Mr. Emba.

So glad you could drop by, JB. Yes, you’ve done so much. You weren’t satisfied to defame and insult legitimate medical practitioners and scientists who have worked to decrease the morbidity and mortality from infectious diseases. You also have pushed pseudo-science and quackery on unsuspecting individuals with autistic kids. Way to go

One of the many reasons AoA poses such a threat to people like you is that it represents the views of a large and growing community, a view that challenges the status quo, and a view that many more Americans each day are growing to share – partly due to the tireless efforts of AoA. It’s also a view that, given your past inaccurate proclamations, you certainly pray is untrue: that the prevalence of autism is growing, that the environment is playing a heavy role, and that vaccines appear to be the #1 culprit.

More accurately, it’s a view that the evidence firmly demonstrates to be invalid. I note that you made no attempt to actually address this central problem.

The photo in question that you feign exasperation for is a comedic style known as “satire” that also deals in metaphors. It may have gone over your head, I found it hilarious, if only I had been clever enough to think of it myself.

So what would you think if I were to photoshop a picture together of you, Wankerfield, McCarthy, et al machine-gunning hundreds of children, dancing on their corpses, and then carrying on to torture hundreds more to death? That would have the advantage over this one that the premise (the fact that your activities threaten to kill thousands, nay millions, of children) isn’t actually grossly wrong.

Orac,

You are correct.

I probably should have stated that JB hasn’t made a difference for the better in the autism community.

I honestly can’t think of a single thing that GR or AoA has done of value.

“Orac point-blank whitewashed Dachau”

False. Orac was reasonably accurate in his depiction of it.

Which part of “….either punished or worked to death.” or “…..prisoners of war, were imprisoned there under bad conditions that steadily deteriorated as the war continued and the Nazis became more brutal.” constitutes ‘white-washing’?

Also you attribute the following nonsensical claims to Orac:

“Orac than says it was only at the end that Dachau got really bad”. False, direct quote or get lost. Also irrelevant, “It went from bad to really bad” is in no way apologetics.

“because of the poor Nazis getting squeezed by the Allies”. False, direct quote or get lost.

“In other words, he was saying it wasn’t really the Allies fault”. WTF? This doesn’t make any sense in the context of your complaint. Not blaming the Allies puts the blame on the Nazis, yet you’re trying to blame Orac for ‘whitewashing’ Dachau, or somehow making it seem less worse for what it said about the Nazis than it actually was.

This claim makes no sense in the context of your complaint unless you meant ‘Nazis’, not ‘Allies’.

Direct quotes and explicit explanation or apologise and get lost.

I actually once had a civil discussion via e-mail with Kim Stagliano. She seemed reasonable… Sad. The very worst thing is that all of those people being portrayed as eating the baby would freely give up their lives for the lives of any on the editorial board of AoA… That’s the kind of people we’re dealing with on both sides.

I think my biggest problem with Orac’s post is likening the disgusting photoshop hack job to the anti-abortion movement. The only reason I object to that is because at least with abortion, unborn babies are actually dying. That is, after all, kind of the point of an abortion. Likening this image to anti-abortion rhetoric seems, to me, to acknowledge the anti-vaxxers claims that lots of children are, in fact, dying (or at least being maimed to the point where they are “lost” to their families).

I’d rather liken it, as others have in this thread, to the anti-semitic rhetoric used by the Nazis and many others. Which, of course, makes their reference to concentration camps all the more ironic.

Side note, apropos of nothing, my grandfather (US Army) was there at the liberation of Dachau. He is not at all sorry for how some of his fellow soldiers treated the guards after their surrender.

Orac wrote:

Benmyson is apparently unaware that Dachau was a concentration camp, not a death camp. Boxcar loads of men, women, and children were generally not taken there to be gassed, but either punished or worked to death. Political prisoners, Jews, Communists, Christian religious resisters to Nazi rule, and, later, Soviet prisoners of war, were imprisoned there under bad conditions that steadily deteriorated as the war continued and the Nazis became more brutal. But, hey, why ruin a good rant with a little history?

This is Orac’s whitewash. He has to rush in to emphasize that it was a concentration camp, not a death camp.

NOT A DEATH CAMP! Right, 30000 dead people doesn’t qualify? Sheesh.

Orac’s meaning is that the Nazis really didn’t want to cause all that death, but it happened anyway. Which means, something else has to get the blame. And look, part of the blame is the bad (ie, concentration camp) became worse (ie, death camp), and it wasn’t totally the Nazis fault, no, because it was the war dragging on that helped make it so, so what’s a poor Nazi to do anyway?

Why on earth is Orac mentioning the extra history? Simply to take a dig at Benmyson. Period. We all knew what rhetorical garbage he was playing: “the Holocaust was bad, and so is the Medical-Industrial-Complex, nyeah nyeah nyeah.”

Benmyson committed no historical errors in his little remark. In fact, if anything, he singled out one of the “lesser” horrors of the Holocaust for his analogy, and Orac is taking Benmyson to task for not going with one of the “greater” horrors, which no doubt was what he thought he was doing.

Does the extra detail that Dachau went from beyond-awful to beyond-description-beyond-awful, it was “really” a “concentration camp” past its expiration date, so to speak, serve any purpose? I can’t think of any whatsoever, short of partial exculpation of the Nazis.

I neither said, did, nor meant anything of the sort. Nice try trying to liken me to a Holocaust denier, though. …

I did not liken you to a Holocaust denier. You’re simply clutching at straws, the better to claim the moral high ground that you fell off of.

I am being precise with my criticism: you whitewashed Dachau, and I spelled out what I meant by that. When no one asked you to or needed the exact choice of propaganda the Nazis chose to hide their atrocities–Benmyson’s nonsense doesn’t really change by his picking a “lesser” atrocity when no doubt he thought he was picking the “worst”–you chipped in. That’s what I’m calling you on as beyond tasteless, and the more you invent fantasy responses, the more it’s clear I’ve nailed it.

Yes, Dedj, I messed up with “Allies” at one point where I meant “Nazis”. My apologies. I did not mean to confuse you. I believe all your other points are addressed above.

No, Richard, Orac has not noted my concerns at all. He has not noted the part where he said Dachau was “not a death camp”. Neither have you. Maybe you think getting the story of the Holocaust right is “concern trolling”, but I do not.

Just in case anyone missed it above, Orac said Dachau was “not a death camp”. Pure whitewash.

As I said in one of my earlier replies, I am quite aware that this was not Orac’s intent. But Orac’s replies have been to dance around his tasteless botch, the hint of an apology if maybe he wasn’t clear and yes sometimes he admits to writing one sentence too much. Classic notpology. Frankly, it’s only making it uglier.

*sigh*

It’s refreshing when an autistic individual speaks out against organizations like AoA, but yes, they’re usually adults with the ability to articulate their thoughts and feelings on an Internet forum. Not that autistic adults’ concerns are invalid. They are very valid, and often marginalized.

But I wonder about the children who undergo chelation, Lupron and all the other woo. I wonder whether they fight their parents when it’s time to go to their DAN! doctors. It’s only a matter of years before this cohort of autistic children enter the Internet community and begin to publicly opine about their treatments as children.

This is Orac’s whitewash. He has to rush in to emphasize that it was a concentration camp, not a death camp.

NOT A DEATH CAMP! Right, 30000 dead people doesn’t qualify? Sheesh.

Correct. Dachau wasn’t a death camp. It’s not my fault that you are clearly quite ignorant of some very basic accepted terminology with regard to the Holocaust. Dachau was in fact the first concentration camp built by the Nazis a couple of months after taking power. I’ll try to educate you. Not that I think it’ll stop you from hijacking the thread and concern trolling more, but I’ll try.

The term “death camp” has a specific meaning in Holocaust scholarship, specifically more or less synonymous with “extermination camp.” There were two main types of camps during the Holocaust, concentration camps and death (or “extermination”) camps. In general extermination camps were built for the express purpose of genocide. There are commonly accepted to have been six extermination camps, including Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. although Auschwitz was different in that it was made up of both a concentration camp and a death camp. The primary purpose of death camps was mass murder, and they were also sometimes referred to as “killing centers.” Here’s what the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum says about these camps:

In German-occupied Europe during World War II, the killing center was a facility established exclusively or primarily for the assembly-line style mass murder of human beings. Those few prisoners who were selected to survive, temporarily, were deployed in some fashion in support of this primary function. The killing centers are sometimes referred to as “extermination camps” or “death camps.”

Concentration camps served primarily as detention and labor centers, as well as sites for the murder of smaller, targeted groups of individuals. Killing centers, on the other hand, were essentially “death factories.” German SS and police murdered nearly 2,700,000 Jews in the killing centers either by asphyxiation with poison gas or by shooting.

Here’s more on the distinction between the killing centers/death camps/extermination camps and concentration camps:

The Nazis established killing centers for efficient mass murder. Unlike concentration camps, which served primarily as detention and labor centers, killing centers (also referred to as “extermination camps” or “death camps”) were almost exclusively “death factories.” German SS and police murdered nearly 2,700,000 Jews in the killing centers either by asphyxiation with poison gas or by shooting.

In essence, the killing centers were a specialized form of concentration camp designed for mass murder and relatively few inmates staying longer than it took to process them for death.

None of this is to say that lots of people didn’t die in Nazi concentration camps. The Nazis were brutal. In these camps, overwork, starvation, and disease, as well as summary executions for even minor infractions, led to the death of tens of thousands of prisoners in these camps. Indeed, at Dachau there were medical experiments, too, on par with what Mengele did. However, the main purpose of Nazi concentration camps was not genocide, and these camps are not the ones with the common imagery of trainloads of Jews arriving for the selection process, followed by the gas chambers. The main purpose of these camps was punishment and forced labor.

Again, it’s not my fault that you are unaware of this distinction, which has been accepted in Holocaust scholarship for a long time now, or that you don’t know what you’re talking about. Really, that ignorance is leading you to dig yourself in deeper. I had tried to engage you by admitting that perhaps I got too history wonkish in my post, but now that I see your ignorance on display, I realize that I was wasting my time with you. Ironically, exploiting the general ignorance of the average person over the distinction between death camps and concentration camps is a favorite tactic of Holocaust deniers.

As they say, concern troll is concerned.

“I believe all your other points are addressed above.”

Not a single one was addressed.

Orac is correct that it is a ‘concentration camp’ and not ‘a death camp’.

Althoguh not distinguished in name, death camps have the primary purpose of extermination. Dachau was primarily a concentration camp. Pointing this technical difference out is not a denial of what went on there.

You, and only you, have taken this as a denial of what went on there. Orac has neither stated nor implied anything close to what you have attributed to him. Orac has not denied the existence of the Holocaust, nor of death camps. Orac expressly mentioned the very things you are accusing him of trying not to mention, even in the very quotes you use to attack him.

You are lying about Orac to Orac on the very page you accuse him of lying on. Not very clever.

Orac’s was perfectly clear in what he said. Only one person (you) has read more into it. You have not giving any reason why you did so, except to repeatedly bleat that Orac ‘obviously’ meant something else that isn’t contained within the words of what he wrote.

You have been dealt with. Do your image a favour and clear off before your already negative reputation gets damaged by your out-right crankery further.

You have already derailed enough of this thread for your own purposes. Please do not continue.

“The anti-vaccine movement shows just how low it can go”

It is a sad statement that we have accepted the fact that groups like Generation Rescue promote uncontrolled medical experiments on children to the point that their crass behavior is an example of “how low they can go”.

The truth is too difficult to look at.

Heidi Concern Troll Anderson, where is Orac mention Jenny McCarthy in this blog posting? Help me, because I cannot find it.

I may not be an expert in medicine, but I do know comedy and I’ve noticed one thing: parody is impossible unless it’s based on facts. You cannot successfully parody something that is not factual, it simply just fails to work. So most attempts at parody that come from the decidedly humor-impaired woo community usually fall terribly flat, seeming hateful and churlish instead of snarky.

This is why the snarkfest that is the comments section of pretty much any of the ScienceBlogs are so chock full of fun. You have an endless procession of verifiable logical fallacies to make light of: creationists, anti-vaxxers, denialists of all stripes.

Painting Hitler moustaches on Obama is moronic and unfunny because there isn’t the slightest bit of truth to the accusation. Showing a group of scientists and doctors who have probably personally saved dozens of lives, as baby eaters would be ironic if they actually advocated harming children. But they don’t, so it just seems dumb and evil (that they couldn’t find a photograph of the author of this blog shows a decided lack of investigative skill to boot).

And speaking of lacking skills, the fact that Mr. Handley referred to the “artist” who did the dreadful, hack Photoshop job as a “Photoshop Queen” (more like a CorelDraw Princess), betrays an artistic expertise on the same dismal level as his critical-thinking skills.

JB (not that i think you will ever read this), its not satire when the metaphor depicted is only slightly more exaggerated than what the people on your site truly feel.

And here comes Jake, taking a spoofed video that misinterprets a statement! Bringing on more intelligent banter. Well isn’t that special?

Dachau wasn’t a death camp. It’s not my fault that you are clearly quite ignorant of some very basic accepted terminology with regard to the Holocaust.

Ah, enlightenment.

Actually, the accepted terminology has changed. What you should have said, if you wanted to be accurate, is that it’s not your fault that I was educated by a previous generation of Holocaust scholarship. After 3 or 4 volumes, I won’t do more than “light” reading in passing. Being au courant with the new academic terminology can’t interest me.

In particular, the last volume I read on the Holocaust was Konnilyn G Feig, 1981, Hitler’s Death Camps. Note the title. The book was on the entire camp system, and Feig called them what they were. Inside the book, Feig distinguished between killing centers/extermination camps and concentration camps.

So, I apologize for the whitewash accusation. I thought it was an accident on your part, and now I see it’s a vocabulary change, after my time. (I’d be curious if Feig broke some taboo with the phrase “death camp”, and partly caused the vocabulary change.)

Meanwhile, I hold by the original beyond tasteless accusation. Benmyson mentioned Dachau, gave no details, said nothing actually wrong regarding Dachau itself, and rather than sticking to the refutation of his ridiculous Hitler gambit, you rushed in to bludgeon Benmyson above and beyond with Holocaust scholarship, waving around your superior education on that topic just because you could. Beyond tasteless.

Dedj-I did not accuse Orac of Holocaust denial in any way shape or form, not even between the lines. That you say so is just point blank lying on your part.

I hate to see skeptics call anti-vaxxers evil

Yes, because they merely want to spread falsehoods about a medical intervention that has saved billions of lives. All that they advocate is the unnecessary spread of infectious disease through the population. They only want to characterize autism as a fate worse than death.
That’s all! Nothing evil about that.

“And here comes Jake, taking a spoofed video that misinterprets a statement! Bringing on more intelligent banter. Well isn’t that special?”

Leaving aside Jakes total failure at forming a logically and grammatically correct post, didn’t we go over this with him before? Wasn’t he shown to have utterly misread the original literature? Why does he keep coming back to have his ass handed to him in a way that must inevitably be damaging to his ego?

Tip to Jake: when posting, the purpose is to write in such a way as to c-o-n-v-e-y (look that word up in the d-i-c-t-i-o-n-a-r-y) what your argument is to the reader. A quote, a irrelevant and discontiguous question and a youtube reference with insufficient context, may mean something to YOU but it’s supposed to mean something to the READER too.

You do make some sense. I was once (i.e. several times) labelled an “ND Troll” (complete with insinuation that my anonymity was somehow sign of moral corruption on my part) by Jake for pointing out that dysphasia is group of conditions and that you cannot simply claim shared aetiology is indicated due to shared names for the area of impairment.

Somehow asking him to be more specific about what he was actually claiming drove him absolutely bonkers.

And doesn’t Sid just add more class? Isn’t he special?

Depressing indeed, but totally unsurprising.

I don’t think this represents how “low” they can go as much as how “far” they have gone. The comedic attempt that we consider tasteless is just one part of the logical conclusion of their position.

I mean, the premise is that their beliefs go against “mainstream” science and evidence-based medicine, so they can only conclude that:

1. They are wrong and incompetent.

or

2. Their opponents are wrong and incompetent.

or

3. Their opponents are greedy, deceptive and cruel.

or, for the less extreme among them, a combination of #1 and #2.

Personally I almost never attribute #3 to anyone, for it goes against human nature to be consciously immoral while it is perfectly human to be fallable, but apparently it’s easiest for a lot of people to label someone they don’t like as the incarnation of pure evil.

Or perhaps I just have naturally high trust-inducing oxytocin.

Anyway, when some of them are convinced that their opponents are the antithesis of all that is good, what exactly is not fair game in their crusade against us? Accusations like Big-Pharma-shilling, baby-mutilating or prostitution all stem from this mode of thinking. If there were less doubt and inconsistencies among themselves in their pseudoscientific positions, I wouldn’t be too surprised if vaccine proponents started getting gunned down like abortion doctors, as depressing and grim as it sounds.

Now, at the risk of looking like a concern troll, I think the science- and evidence-based people should always try to keep the #3 conclusion out of the picture, if not for the those who have already disconnected from reality then for the undecided and uninformed, in order to keep the dialogue open and civil. Only then can we effectively explain how science weeds out incompetence and make people see which side is more likely to be right.

This is a bad PR move by them in their attack on vaccination and it wouldn’t hurt us to call them on it far and wide, but at the end of the day, I doubt the deeply committed cranks would feel a tinge of guilt about this. After all, we vaccine proponents are the demons – what’s wrong with depicting demons feasting on babies?

Chris,

Yes, I am a concern troll who has deeply infiltrated the skeptic movement just to point out that we should base our arguments on facts and not hyperbole and vicious personal attacks. In fact, I am such a good concern troll that Ben Radford AND Joe Nickell of CSICOP, Derek and Swoopy of Skepticality, Richard Saunders and Kylie Sturgess of the Skeptic Zone, Daniel Loxton of Junior Skeptic, Ginger Campbell of the Brain Science Podcast, and several of the Skepchicks have all been FOOLED by my ruse. Bwahahahaha!

I know Orac never called Jenny McCarthy a slut, I merely pointed out that skeptics themselves have used misogyny and sexism against the anti-vaxxers, and that we are better than that. We don’t have to use those tactics, as we have the TRUTH!

I am not claiming any standing or position of influence in the skeptic community, but I am no concern troll. I have tried very hard to contribute to this community in many ways, and feel like my points do not deserve to be dismissed because you disagree with them.

http://www.csicop.org/news/show/on_newstands_now_skeptical_inquirer_vol._33_no._6

http://assholeskeptic.blogspot.com/2009/10/heidi-anderson-asshole-skeptic-honour.html

http://www.skepticality.com/sn_Ep97.html

http://www.meetup.com/The-Spartanburg-Skeptics-Meetup-Group/

http://www.meetup.com/AtlantaSkeptics/calendar/9854632/

http://skepticzone.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=532854&comments=on

http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/showquestion.asp?faq=6&fldAuto=475

http://www.skeptrack.org/schedule/

http://www.skepreview.com/2009/10/skepticality-skeptics-guide-to-universe.html

I know Orac never called Jenny McCarthy a slut

Funny, you could have fooled me, because I was puzzled when I read your first comment. It sure sounded to me as though that’s what you were accusing me of.

Heidi, I know exactly who you are. I heard you on at least one of those podcasts. I was commenting on your comment today, not on what you have done in the past.

What you did was post the same comment on more than one blog. What you failed to do was to look at the content of this blog before commenting.

Also, with your blanket posting (spamming) of your comment you were painting each and every one of us with the same brush. You should know better than that.

I do agree that comments about the actions of certain people should be limited to their actions, not to certain perceived characteristics (slut, pot-head, bible-thumper). This is one reason I tend to stay away from certain blogs.

I do not think that skeptics are a homogeneous group with all the same behaviors. Yes, if some of them are stooping to “stupid blond” jokes, of course that should be pointed out. But not to every one on every skeptic blog.

An old rule from long ago that used to be posted on various Usenet newsgroups and also Compuserve forums was to lurk before posting. The thing to do was to learn what the standards of a group was (do they allow profanity, is grammar and spelling important), and to learn what was going on before posting (don’t ask a question that is in the FAQ, etc). So in the future, when you want to educate someone, please read the content where you are commenting.

Oh, and another thing Heidi: Being part of the “Skeptic Movement” does not give you a free pass from criticism.

Part of being a skeptic is admitting you are wrong or changing your position when sufficient evidence is produced.

This happened recently on this blog. Someone made a comment that during the summer I had gotten so riled up that I was swearing. Since I make it a point to not use profanity, I asked for evidence and pointed to the dialog in question. The person demurred and admitted they were wrong. I have also done the same in the past when I have made an error (okay, I tried to find a link, but ther are so many of us who admit to screwing up… Wait! I found one!).

I wasn’t sure how many people would notice the “blood libel” parallel. My own response was, “The anti-Semites called. They want their blood libel back.”

But, I say there are more important matters to attend to: In particular, there is the GR/AoA push for a “Green Vaccine” law in Oregon, which I suspect stretches if not entirely exceeds what is appropriate and legal for “non-profit” orgs. There is also the matter of them proposing to ban H1N1 vaccination for pregnant women, who have a 1/25 risk of death from swine flu.

It figures. Hey, JB, mind if I post your picture with a toothbrush mustache and a brown tunic with a red armband?
I’ll bet it’d be hilariously funny.

Flippant, but I think Lenin and Stalin would be pissed to know Hitler’s getting all the “numero uno genocidal bastard” glory. What about Kolyma? The terror famines? Hell, the entire gulag archipelago?

And Mr Emba, I am *staggered* to think that you could have read “Hitler’s Death Camps” or any scholarly work on the Nazi Holocaust without realising there were gradations of camps. Srsly.

@116, I’ve been making the point that AoA is deeply, intimately connected to whale.to for months now. Not that they are as bas as it, but they are an arm of it.

Likewise, it should not matter how God created life, whether it was through a miraculous spoken word or through the natural forces of the universe that He created. The grandeur of God’s works commands awe regardless of what processes He used.

Orac, you are right. It did look like I said you specifically called her a slut. I apologize. My wording did indeed paint ALL skeptics with the same brush stroke. It was not what I meant to say, but what my wording said.

Chris, I did read the blog entry, and all the comments. And you and I agree that we need to focus on attacking the issues and not the people. We also agree that skeptics are not immune from criticism.

The reason I posted on this site, as well as Skepchick (you said there were more, I have honestly forgotten if there were) was that the issue of sexism and disgusting personal attacks was raised. That is the issue I commented on. They are not ok from either side.

When people who are neither skeptics nor anti-vaxx search for information on whether or not to vaccinate their children, they want facts and advice written in a way that neither offends them nor makes them feel stupid. I am a pro-vaccination mother of two who in the trenches EVERY DAY with mothers making decisions about whether or not to vaccinate. I post about it on my FB page, talk about it with female co-workers, and educate about it with breastfeeding and mother’s advocacy groups.

I am confused as to why I would be labeled a spammer or concern troll, when my concern is and always has been, on how to increase the number of children vaccinated. That’s it, bottom line.

And when ANYONE, anti-vaxxer or skeptic, uses sexist and misogynistic attacks on a woman for her opinions, other women will get turned off. And in THIS country, who is still responsible for the majority of decisions made about children and their health care? Women.

My mistake is clearly that I have chosen the wrong forum to discuss this on, and not followed the rules you have set up on your forum. That is tacky and rude on my part.

But please, do not discount my sincerity at wanting to increase the number of women who hear the pro-vaccination message and choose to protect their children and mine.

You see, Dachau in fact was, like Auschwitz, part-concentration, part-extermination camp. It changed over time, and it had started out as a simple political prisoner camp in the 30s that evolved into a concentration camp, but in the end, it had its own death factory

That is simply not accurate. Dachau was never an extermination camp. Many died there and many prisoners of war were executed there, but Dachau’s purpose was never primarily extermination. Indeed, although a gas chamber was constructed there, it is not clear whether it was ever actually used. Historians argue about whether it actually was ever used, even experimentally.

You seem hung up on the term “death camp,” thinking it to mean something other than how historians define it for purposes of the Holocaust. The term has an explicit meaning, and that meaning is not what you apparently seem to think it is, namely “a camp where lots of people died due to overwork and brutal conditions or were summarily executed for the most minor infractions,” nor does it even mean “a camp where the Germans tried to remove all the prisoners near the end of the war through brutal forced marches in order to hide the evidence of the murders and brutal conditions there as the Allies advanced on it.”

Rather, the term refers to a Nazi camp whose primary purpose was extermination. Historians do not consider Dachau to have been an extermination/death camp or “killing center” because mass murder and genocide were not its primary purpose, as they were for the Aktion Reinhard camps Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka, for instance. That does not lessen the atrocities that were perpetrated at Dachau, nor does it lessen the horror of the thousands who died of overwork, starvation, and rampant disease.

You see, Dachau in fact was, like Auschwitz, part-concentration, part-extermination camp. …

That is simply untrue. Dachau was never an extermination camp. …

I refer you to Feig. That’s how she described it. The extermination camp part was small scale, both in relative and absolute terms, and comparatively late in the history of Dachau.

You seem hung up on the term “death camp,” thinking it to mean something other than how historians define it. …

Not in the least. At this point you are being deliberately disingenuous, for no reason except to “win” an Internet argument. As I posted previously, the term indeed had a slightly different meaning to previous historians, a fact as unknown to you as the fact that historians now use it to mean “extermination camp” was to me.

“How’s that one baby gonna feed all those vaccine fanatics?”

A ten-pound turkey, with side dishes, would be plenty to feed a group of that size. Newborn humans generally run a little below that, but we can allow for a few weeks to fatten it up before serving.

“Again, you’re just point blank lying. You previously wrote in response to me:”

Sorry, your quote of me did not contain the accusation you claimed it did. Did I day you were accusing Orac of denial? You will not, as you have not, found any evidence that I have attributed that claim to you. I was however pointing out that he has not denied the holocaust or the existence of death camps. Both of my claims are true.

Give it up.

Anyway, you have failed to justify why you lamblasted Orac for an alledged mistake. You have weakly attempted to jusitfy your mistake with a weak reference to a older publication, when you could have spent less than two minutes to research whether or not your critique was up-to-date and relevant.

At no point have you justified your use of terms, nor have you justified your false attibution of beliefs onto Orac, even if your use of terms was true.

You messed up, got caught out, yet you’re still trying to blame anyone but yourself for your easily verifiable mistake.

Again, you could simply have stated that you consider Dachau to be a death camp, and that Oracs criticism was unfounded.

You did not, instead going off on one at Orac for holding a viewpoint that only you could see. For you to claim that you did not respond to his alledged viewpoint with anything less than moral indignation is utterly false, or indication of lack of insight.

It is clear that you will, or can not, cope with responsibility for error. Every attempt to ‘apologise’ has been accompanied by whining about how it wasn’t actually your fault really.

You have added nothing of value since yesterday. I am advising you to leave this discussion for your benefit, not ours.

Heidi in post 127 seems to have posted one of the most complete apologies I’ve seen on the web.

I call Godwin’s law on this one. Can we ditch the discussion of which-Nazi-camp-was-worse and get back to the issue at hand, which is the utterly insane hyperbole used in AoA’s photo?

“Well, technically a notpology is when you say you are going to apologise and don’t. Instead, you either shift the blame, start ranting about something else or some other form of wordsmithery.”

The best notpology I’ve ever seen, bar none, occurs in “The Fall of Night”, the action-packed finale of Season 2 of “Babylon 5”. Captain Sheridan was ordered to apologize for destroying a Centauri cruiser that had fired upon Babylon 5.

I apologize. I’m…sorry. [sighs] I’m sorry we had to defend ourselves against an unwarranted attack. I’m sorry that your crew was stupid enough to fire on a station filled with a quarter million civilians, including your own people. And I’m sorry I waited as long as I did before I blew them all straight to hell! [pauses] As with everything else, it’s the thought that counts.

Yay for OleanderTea!

Concern Troll threadjack:

And:

Even if I had said “Emba thinks Orac is a denier” it is utterly irrelevant to Emba’s defence.

And:

Even if Emba really well and truly does think Dachau is a ‘death camp’, it does not follow that Orac believes any of the beliefs Emba subsequently attributed to him.

Hiding behind a flimsy excuse of “It was the word I was taught to use” does not in anyway justify Emba’s false and irrational attribution of beliefs to Orac. And thats before we allow for the mistake of not checking the accuracy regarding use of terms.

We have wasted enough time on this. I’m no longer willing to offer Emba one post to apologise for, and correct his behaviour.

I’m out. Well done for spoiling the thread Emba. Well done.

OK, now that the Emba detour has been back to discussing the behavior of that site that claims to be the “online newspaper of the autism epidemic”.

On Nov. 30, Pediatrics published a paper, Randomized, Controlled Trial of an Intervention for Toddlers With Autism: The Early Start Denver Model (ESDM)

At Science-Based medicine, Steven Novella published a review of the paper: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=2924. It is a pretty exciting paper showing ESDM reduces autism symptoms.

Since that date, the “online newspaper of the autism epidemic”. has published:

*An article on Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee & vaccine safety
* An article on that organization’s annual awards
* An article inviting readers to email or call Jon Stewart (the comedian) about his upcoming interview with “Denialist” author Michael Specter
* An article publicizing an interview on a quack “treatment” for autism, Hyperbaric Oxygen (HBOT)
* an article on the physical ailments that are presumed to be “co-morbid” with autism, such as GI issues, that are also assumed to be causing autism symptomology
* an article publicizing a fundraiser for an allied organization
* an article publicizing an article at the Huffington Post, which attacks Paul Offit MD while comparing him to Catholic church officials who covered up pedophile priests
* an article with an open letter to Paul Offit MD on the future of current teens and young adults with autism
* an article attacking Amanda Peet for her pro-vaccine stance.

Not a word on the ESDM paper or implications for the autism “epidemic”.

That site rarely covers “recovery stories”, and if they do, the child is depicting recovering because of the “treatments” they promote.

Okay, this whole thing involving Orac, william e emba and Dedj is ridiculous. Drop it, as Orac has and others have recommended. It’s way off topic and has only served to hijack the thread.

Just wanted to add my strong agreement with Dedj and others that william e emba is clearly in the wrong and a thorough unambiguous apology is in order. (sorry Todd W. *sheepishly*)

Jiminy, jeepers, good lord etc. Guys, give it up! Orac’s most likely sane and correct so move it on now.

Mr Emba,

You really should beep when you back up like that.

Toodle pip,

Prudence.

Emba:
You know what they say about arguing on the internet and the Special Olympics, don’t you?

Just came across this comment in an AoA post about Gardasil:

I do not think an electric chair would be unfair for anyone that created and marketed this vaccine.

I know this may not be politically correct, but I feel great rage over this.

Yet more evidence that they don’t really care about autism and are simply against vaccines. The post was by a non-editor at AoA, Mr. JB Handley, and included a large list of cherry-picked newspaper (rather than peer-reviewed journal) articles.

30 years ago these same people would be telling us all about this great new miracle cure for cancer called “Laetrile”

Even back then some parents had no qualms about rejecting conventional therapy in favor of a supposed miracle cure (chelation, anyone?)

There’s at least one court case from that time where the judge allowed a parent to use Laetril – and the child later died of symptoms suspiciously similar to cyanide poisoning.

Those are the ones all too willing to sacrifice children on the altar of credulity.

I think it’s funny that the article on AoA was called “Pass the Maalox”. Maalox does contain aluminium.

I have recently become aware of your blog and enjoy the wit with which you attack the twits as well as your championing the scientific method. I direct McGill University’s Office for Science and Society where our mandate is to demistify science and separate sense from nonsense for the public. I thought your readers may enjoy a column I wrote for the National Post, a widely read Canadian paper. Here it is:

The H1N1 Influenza
An Injection of Reason
Joe Schwarcz PhD
I think the time has come to panic. But not about catching the H1N1 “swine flu.” And not about the alleged risks of the vaccine that can protect against it. For the vast majority of people, the flu will mean no more than a week or so of misery, not different from previous versions. As far as the risk of the vaccine goes, it’s minimal. However, there is something to panic about: the stunning and spectacular amount of misinformation being bandied about, ranging from cherry-picked data and the promotion of quack remedies to outlandish conspiracy theories about culling the world’s population.
I freely admit to not having expertise in this complex area, but I think I do have expertise in judging who does. And that would be the scientists at Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, the World Health Organization, Health Canada and major universities. These immunologists, virologists, toxicologists and epidemiologists spend their lives researching and evaluating vaccines. I trust their opinion, which is based on experimental evidence, over that of naturopaths, homeopaths, chiropractors and various graduates of the University of Google, for whom evidence-based medicine is a foreign concept.
No rational person with a plumbing or electrical problem would seek help from a former Playboy centerfold, a comedian who specializes in facial contortions, or a retired neurosurgeon. We would seek out a licensed plumber or an electrician. Yet when it comes to immunology, a field more complex than plumbing or wiring, many see no conundrum in being swayed by the rhetoric of Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey or Dr. Russell Blaylock, none of whom have training in this field. Of course, not all anti vaccine advocates are wackos, some do raise legitimate questions about vaccine components and possible subtle effects. Indeed, there are two sides to the vaccination debate, it’s just that they are not equal sides.
Unfortunately, the lay press, in its attempt to be “fair,” often presents the pro and con arguments as if these had equal weight. They do not. The vast majority of knowledgeable scientists are in the vaccine corner, recognizing vaccination as one of the greatest advances in the history of public health, at the same time being fully aware that as with any medical intervention, there are some risks. The point, though, is that they judge these risks to be significantly outweighed by the benefits. On the other hand, the very loud and often verbally abusive anti-vaccine minority greatly exaggerates the risks and minimizes the benefits. Science, though, is not on their side. But unfortunately emotion often trumps science. And conspiracy theories can be seductive.
One of the most convoluted tales is spun by Australian “investigative journalist” Jane Burgermeister. She contends that the H1N1 virus was genetically engineered and released by pharmaceutical companies so that they could then reap the profits from marketing vaccines. That claim almost sounds sane when compared with her other allegation that there is “evidence that an international corporate syndicate, which has annexed high government office inside the United States, is intent on carrying out a mass genocide using an artificial (genetic) flu pandemic virus and a forced vaccination program.” What possible reason can there be for decimating the public in this fashion? This mental maven has the answer: “To transfer control of the United States to the World Health Organization, the U.N., and affiliated security forces.” What can one say? Sometimes you run across comments that are so outrageous, so mindless and so contemptible that they do not merit rebuttal.
No, the H1N1 virus was not engineered by Big Pharma for financial gain. Neither is there any attempt to “cull” the population by the American government, and there is no callous disregard for public health by releasing an untested vaccine. Furthermore, it is not true that swine flu is simply another version of flu and is not unusually dangerous, as some allege. This flu affects young people, sometimes severely. Last summer, not considered to be flu season, 1 in every 20,000 children under four years old who contracted the flu ended up in hospital. The number of diagnosed cases is increasing and so are hospitalizations. The possibility of a serious pandemic is real and vaccination is a viable way to reduce the risk of this happening.
Of course when it comes to a new vaccine, there can be no guarantee of 100% safety. In science you have to learn to expect the unexpected. But there has been extensive testing of this vaccine, which is produced the exact same way that seasonal flu vaccines have been produced for decades. Over ten million doses of the 2009 H1N1 vaccine have already been administered with no more than the usual minor side effects, nothing more than a sore arm or headache. Of course as more people get vaccinated there will be claims of all sorts of adverse reactions as people will link health problems that would have arisen anyway with the vaccine. “After it, therefore because of it,” is a mental trap into which many fall.
One of the noisiest anti-vaccinationists is former neurosurgeon, Dr. Russell Blaylock. I can tell that his scary message about the horrors of vaccination is making the rounds very effectively because I’ve been deluged by emails asking me about his reliability. Well, to be charitable, I think his mental machinery is in severe need of a little lubrication. I’ve long been aware of the good doctor’s outlandish views on food additives, particularly aspartame and MSG. So I’m not at all surprised by his anti-vaccine rant. Some of his allegations about vaccines can be instantly shown to be wrong. For example, there never has been any squalene adjuvant in any U.S. vaccine. Adjuvants are added to increase the efficiency of the body’s reaction to the active ingredients in a vaccine, so that a smaller amount of vaccine goes a longer way. Squalene has been used in Europe and Canada for years without any problems being reported. That isn’t surprising given that this compound is actually produced in the human body, it is on the metabolic path to cholesterol. The amounts present in the body at any time are greater than that added to vaccines. Curiously, squalene is sold in health food stores as a dietary supplement to increase immunity, and is often guzzled by the same people who are worried about its presence in vaccines. More on the iconic and eclectic Blaylock later.
Anytime vaccination is mentioned, the issue of thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative used in some vaccines, rears its head. Numerous studies have investigated the allegation that mercury in vaccines is linked to developmental problems such as autism. No such connection has been found. One of the best studies was carried out by McGill researchers who surveyed almost 28,000 children born between 1987 and 1998, a period when thimerosal was widely used. There was no link with autism or any other developmental disorder. Another study at the University of California looked at 452 children aged 2 to 5 who were either developing normally, or had developmental problems such as autism spectrum disorder. There were no differences in blood mercury levels between autistic children and children with normal development.
Vitamin D, promoted as a weapon against the flu by those self-appointed saviours of humanity, Russell Blaylock, Joseph Mercola (an osteopath who maintains a popular website) and Gary Null (who is wooed by every type of woo out there) does play a role in immune function. But catching the flu is not a sign of immune deficiency. And the most recent double blind study, carried out with 162 adults taking 2000 IU of vitamin D3 daily during the flu season, showed no benefit in decreasing the incidence or severity of upper respiratory tract infections. Of course good nutrition is important for bolstering immune function, and taking a vitamin D supplement (1000 IU is the current consensus) is a good idea for various reasons, even if it doesn’t play a critical role in protection against viral diseases. However, suggesting, as Blaylock does, that fish oil or antioxidants help with H1N1 has no evidential basis, and recommending homeopathic remedies against the flu is just plain silly. The basic tenets of homeopathy, namely that a substance that causes symptoms in a healthy person will cure a sick person experiencing those symptoms, and that the remedy becomes more powerful with greater dilution, are absurd. Non-existent molecules do not have a physiological effect. They do, however, increase the coffers of the purveyors of these products, who incidentally, are often the same people who criticize Big Pharma for bilking the public. Nonsensical folkloric remedies such as placing bowls of onion around the house to “absorb” the virus are also making the rounds of the web.
The anti-vaccine crowd commonly brings up the possible link to Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare but potentially dangerous neurological disease. A possible connection to vaccines arose in 1976 when 48 million Americans were inoculated against the swine flu and 532 developed Guillain-Barre. That means roughly 10 cases per million vaccinated. No such relationship has been found with any vaccine since that time, suggesting that there was a problem with that specific vaccine, perhaps bacterial contamination. But here is the important statistic. The flu itself can cause Guillain-Barre, the risk being somewhere between 40 and 70 cases for every million people who get come down with it. Of course Guillain-Barre can be acquired by other means as well, with infection with the bacterium Campylobacter jejuni being a prime cause. Incidence, though, has been steadily falling, probably due to improved meat hygiene. Given that flu vaccines are produced in chicken eggs, the 1976 link between vaccination and Guillain-Barre may have been due to contamination of the vaccine by Campylobacter proteins. The 2009 H1N1 vaccine is produced the same way as the seasonal flu vaccine, which has been given for years with an impressive risk-benefit profile and no significant link to Guillain-Barre. Bottom line is that the risk of getting Guillain-Barre from the flu is 40 times greater than getting it from the vaccine.
People like Blaylock, Mercola and Null, with their scientifically unsupportable inane comments are a public menace. Having a background in neurosurgery or dentistry does not make you an expert in immunology or toxicology. For this we should look to the real experts at Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, the World Health Organization and Health Canada. Or listen to the likes of Dr. Paul Offit of the University of Pennsylvania who has spent decades carrying out research in immunology, including the development of a vaccine against rotavirus that has saved thousands of children from death. Of course Blaylock and his simple-minded confreres will claim that these organizations, as well as Dr. Offit are in cahoots with Big Pharma to sell more vaccine. Not only that, these evil organizations have even managed to convince the Deans of all major medical schools, who of course support vaccination, to collude with them in a nefarious scheme to defraud the public. What poppycock!
And then there is Dr. Rauni Kilde, a former provincial medical officer in Finland, whose video interview is all over the web. She sings the common song that the H1N1 vaccine was designed to diminish world population and put billions into the coffers of pharmaceutical companies. Children and pregnant women are to be vaccinated first, because this is the quickest way to eliminate the next generation. This mental giant is reported to believe that the Nazis visited the moon in the1940s, that the U.S. government has inserted microchips into babies for future mind control, and that extraterrestrials saved her life three times, once by using a force field to deflect an elk that jumped in front of her car. Gee, if only there were a vaccination against lunacy.
Life offers us no guarantees…except death. Everything comes down to a risk-benefit analysis. I’ve scrutinized this issue very carefully, listening to all opinions, but obviously relying more on real experts than on contrarians who have forged opinions based on flim-flam or on questionable political or social agendas. I don’t pay much attention to Dr. Blaylock. He’s weird. He denies global warming. He states that the Soviets had a plan to drown the country in illegal drugs to destroy the moral foundation of western society and weaken its ability to resist a Soviet military invasion. These drugs were to be pushed especially to high school students to create a future dysfunctional leadership. And you know what else? According to Blaylock the Soviets developed crack cocaine and managed to spread it in the U.S. to create a drug culture and diminish the religious underpinnings of the nation. He believes that President Obama, who is merely a puppet of his “Elite” backers (whoever these may be) is trying to establish a “New World Order” that is based on eliminating the old and the disabled. Blaylock is an ultraconservative defender of “American values” who appears regularly on extreme right wing radio shows plugging his outrageous agenda. He has the gall (and mental decrepitude) to liken the Obama administration to the Nazis. I don’t think this is the kind of character from whom we should be taking scientific advice. Rather, I will take the path that has been forged by evidence-based science. I will roll up my sleeves for the H1N1 vaccine, as will my wife, children and grand children.

Rogue Epidemiologist said:
“But I wonder about the children who undergo chelation, Lupron and all the other woo. I wonder whether they fight their parents when it’s time to go to their DAN! doctors. It’s only a matter of years before this cohort of autistic children enter the Internet community and begin to publicly opine about their treatments as children.”

Yes, btw, many of the autistic adults who do speak up do so because they were abused in institutions (ECT treatments, psych-drugging) and by behavioral interventions.
It’s not only woo that harms autistics.

This pathetic attempt at “smearing” the people in the picture shows an interesting aspect of the echo-chamber society to which AoA and other such groups belong.

I’m sure that everybody in the AoA “inner circle” thought that this picture was hilarious and a real slap-in-the-face to everyone on it. I’m also sure that this same “inner circle” thought that there was nothing about it that might come back and bite them on the bum.

However, when this feeble attempt at humor hit the light of day, the reaction to it – even among the rank-and-file of AoA readers – was extremely negative. I’m sure this came as a huge shock to the AoA “inner circle”, and that is the take-home message here.

As long as AoA and its members, affiliates, mimics and wanna-be’s refuse to listen to anything but their own opinions (and those of their pet “scientists”, like Jay Gordon, Boyd Haley, etc.), they will continue to be blind-sided by reality.

Let’s face it, “mercury-causes-autism” is a dead hypothesis, “vaccines-cause-autism” isn’t looking too healthy, and “something-in-the-environment-we-don’t-know-yet-causes-autism” is seriously lacking in crowd-motivating power. These groups have been trying for over fifteen years to pin the blame for autism on something or someone other than their own genetic contributions and they haven’t hit a winner yet.

If these people were financial advisers or corporate CEO’s, they would have been unemployed by now (unless they were working for GM), given their terrible track record. They have been right exactly zero times in their guesses about what “causes” autism.

I don’t see that changing any time soon.

Sitting in their echo-chamber at AoA (and similar groups), there are no dissenting voices. Why? Because dissent is not tolerated. Dissentors are hounded out of the movement, shouted down and intimidated. This provides a “purity of thought” inside the group, but also means that there is nobody to warn them of the rocks and shoals ahead.

Is it too much to hope that AoA might founder on these shoals? Sadly, it is. The “hard core” of AoA and other such groups will never admit – even to themselves – that they are wrong. In fact, they may never even realise that there is a possibility that they are wrong, since there is nobody left in their groups who would dare to suggest that there is a problem with the dogma (“Ice ahead, Captain!”).

No, we’ll probably have to wait until the current generation of “leaders” in AoA (and other groups) dies and is replaced by people who are more open-minded.

Prometheus

J. Mason, are you also willing to talk to a parent whose child was injured by an actual disease?

What about those whose child suffered from a disease because they followed the advice of Generation Rescue and did not get their child vaccinated. Like the three unvaxed children who were hospitalized in Grant County, WA when the entire family of eight kids got measles last year?

Or how about the nine month old child who got measles while in the doctor’s waiting room because some mother who followed the advice to vax her kid, and brought him after he caught measles in Switzerland. That nine month old child was hospitalized with a high fever and came close to death.

@ Chris(#171) & DT(#172):

What you both are participating in (knowing or unknowing) is a propaganda technique called “Transfer”.

Both of you are taking the topic of vaccine injury and crafting a response to appear in the same light as a child contracting a disease. One is not the other.

Please answer J. Mason’s (#170) question. She brings up a germane point. What is a concerned parent to do in pursuit of the truth of vaccine information?

Jeffry, a concerned person goes and finds the real risks between the diseases and their vaccine from real sources. Sources like the CDC Pink Book or the NHS Green Book, not from “parent advocate sites” like Generation Rescue, SafeMinds and the like.

I would also suggest reading the contributions of Dr. Crislip, Dr. Snyder and Dr. Albietz on Science Based Medicine. Starting with this one:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=186

By the way, Jeffry and J. Mason, my son suffered seizures while ill with a now vaccine preventable disease. Why are the trials, tribulations and questions from those of us who had our children injured by the actual diseases more trivial than those who claimed it came from the vaccine?

What makes having the disease and suffering very real consequences not as dire as yours?

AoA has taken the page down, but I did find the photoshopped picture by doing a Google image search for ‘pass the maalox’:

http://www.rescuepost.com/.a/6a00d8357f3f2969e2012875ee0678970c-350wi

(that’s a funny looking URL, but it’s the only way to get to the picture)

Just in case, like me, you are reading Orac’s article several months after the fact and needed some context.

I live in Michigan, and it would be cool to be an extra if it came to that. I wonder what specifically they’re looking for.

I actually hadn’t checked on this site in some time. There isn’t enough time in the day to “lurk” on a forum. My mind reels.

” Why are the trials, tribulations and questions from those of us who had our children injured by the actual diseases more trivial than those who claimed it came from the vaccine?

What makes having the disease and suffering very real consequences not as dire as yours?”

Holy crap! When did I even suggest such a thing? That is an assumption drawn from your emotional state. This is what I mean. Having reviewed this entire thread, there is no value in any of this, and those of you having petty discussion on Dachau and Hitler and whether Jenny McCarthy is a slut or D-list actress, whichever side of the argument you rally to Vac or Non-vac, are wasting time and energy. This is a personal decision made within a family.

In free societies, it should stay that way. Removing mercury from vaccines was easy. It’s done for the most part. What did it hurt? Removing Pthalates and other such chemicals? What could it hurt? Are they necessary in the product? Usually not. Does any of this matter? Not a bit. It may help and it may not. Like recycling, should we do it? Again, probably.

My family, like many others, still gets up in the morning struggling with our personal choices and circumstances. Nothing said here changes any of that. Remove morality and emotion from the equation for a second, all of you. Is there a problem and is it growing?

My suspicion is that we have a genetic propensity meeting modern day diet, chemicals, etc. Does that change my son’s life? Not one bit. What changes his life? Hard work, education and repetition of tasks, research (lots of it), and keeping things as simple as possible. Our bottom line is that parents have the right to parent their children and decide their medical care. Period.

We can spread balanced information. That helps. We can educate parents on the issues facing their child now. That helps. We can work to fund research into every aspect of autism and developmental disorder. That helps. But the stuff above, that doesn’t help. It only hurts the hurting and frustrates the already frustrated. I’m speaking to all of you. Age of Autism included. Put your energies into the things that help, and put comments and ugliness like all this in the garbage where it truly belongs.

“talk to a parent of a child who was brain injured by a vaccine”

Aside form the obvious problem of begging the question, some such parents have come out in favour of vaccination, mainly because the objectively provable benefit substantially outweighs the objectively provable risk.

I wonder if these “if only one life could be saved” types drive cars, at all? That’s an activity which would not survive the “one life saved” test. Or ten lives. Or a hundred. Or a thousand. Every year.