A commenter takes me to task for being mean to Andrew Wakefield

I have always wondered why more parents, aware of “the millions of sufferers” aren’t more angry at a fraudulent hack like Wakers for diverting millions and millions of dollars from real research on autism. I know it is difficult to come to these terms, but thy have to be assuming the hypothesis was right before the confirming results were in to so beatify poor Andy.

A quick search on Teh Googlez lead to this comment by her at the bottom of this webpage about Teh EVEEEL FDA stopping companies from making false promises about colloidal silver being able to stop AIDS and other diseases:

http://www.silvermedicine.org/fda.html

Anthro,

My son’s Dr. made a point of saying his autism diagnosis is separate from his ADD diagnosis. I don’t know if my understanding is correct. If ADD was just a part of his autism he wouldn’t have a separate diagnosis for it. But someone correct me if I am wrong.

Ooh! Ooh! Is it Pharma Shill Fallacy?

What do I win?

Until he has been strung up by his testicles and flogged repeatedly with a garden hose while being forced to watch every episode of ALF on an endless loop then nobody has been too mean to him.

He put making money ahead of children’s lives. That puts him in the 99th percentile of scumbags.

@Rasputin

I think Wakefield should be strapped down and made to take all the quack treatments created by the anti-vaxers. Castrate him with the Geirs protocol, while giving him EDTA suppositories.

“Rather than attack one man, governments and medical establishments would be better off finding ANSWERS to the question of autism”

Hmmm… Rather than attack one man, like anti-vaxers attack Dr. Paul Offit?

Government and medical establishments… Wouldn’t the anti-vaxers also be better off finding answers instead of scapegoats?

Just askin’.

This is what happens when you attack science education in both public and private schools. Combine that with the staggeringly high costs of real medicine, and it’s not surprising that desperate people who are either underinsured or not insured will reach for whatever straws the woomeisters hold out to them. They don’t have the basic grounding in science needed to know that the woomeisters are full of crap; worse yet, a lot of these people are actually smart, but so undereducated in science that they have no idea just how much they really don’t know — and there are no new Carl Sagans out there who are prepared to explain it to them.

Not House @ 8:
I’m picking “All of the above.”

If I thought she could be persuaded to actually give an on-topic answer (instead of Gish-galloping around the place and reiterating empty accusations) I’d ask Dinah “What evidence would convince you that Andrew Wakefield had acted dishonestly? Obviously you don’t want to accept the evidence that’s already out there, so what more evidence do you think would be there that isn’t? Would you refuse to accept that Wakefield had done anything wrong unless he personally confessed to it – or would even that not be enough to persuade you?”

Also, Matthew Cline, please see my answer to you on the “We will overcome” post thread.

. . . you ignorant bunch of fellow people . . .

I can only hear that line being delivered by the French Knight taunting King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Could this be the answer?

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cannabis-for-Autism/158293914193460

x

@19 MartinM: I think this is the exact point why she posted this comment and similiar once on two crany sites ( one of them was recently covered on sciencebasedmedicine.org 😉 ). It is just the old game of “every publicity is good publicity”. Following googletrends should be interesting.

Don´t feed the cranky trolls and greetings from Germany,

Asper

Cannabis, you are spamming and off topic. You should see this.

17: It’s even nonsense at that level.

The greatest doctor in the world might be able to cure all disease, but unless he can PREVENT all disease, he’s always going to have people coming to him with new problems. People seem to talk about a “Cure for Cancer” or “The Common Cold” as if the disease will vanish from the face of the earth once it’s discovered.

I spoke to my wife, the special ed teacher. Apparently, some therapists are in fact pushing for ADD and ADHD to be concidered part of the Autism spectrum.

Adding more to what Kristen said @3

Marc @1

I have always wondered why more parents, aware of “the millions of sufferers” aren’t more angry …

Part the first: I am guessing (without much data other than observation) that most parents of children of autism, especially those diagnosed say since about 2006, do not give credence to the “autism is vaccine injury” meme. They might be aggravated by the vaccine talk, but are too busy keeping up with their kids’ schooling, or advocating for better services and training at the local level, to give much thought to causation.

Part the second: One of the most irritating thing about the “autism is vaccine injury” brigade is that they have successfully marketed themselves as representing all parents of children with autism. It isn’t true.

This mythological platonic doctor will need to see 133,000 patients a day for 30 years if s/he is going to treat 1 billion people, which is probably an underestimate of the number who will need treatment. I’m not seeing this as much of a dilemma. Other doctors may have problems, but this guy will do just fine.

As for pharmaceutical companies:
1. If they cure one disease, they will still have many others that still needs drugs
2. If there is a cure, somebody else may develop it first
3. Another company can always develop a better drug, ending their revenue stream – being the current best seller for condition X is not that helpful long term (and long term is the way this works: by the time the cure has gone from first results to FDA approval, an eternity will have passed)
4. This is not a game of Civilization. You don’t know what your research will yield. I suspect that a cure will start as “that molecule does something interesting with this receptor that is part of the disease” (please correct me if I’m wrong on this. It just seems unlikely that you will know early on whether something will be a cure or a “lesser” treatment)

This is a variation of the prisoner’s dilemma, except we win 🙂

orac, marc: The hanging-on to Wakefield is exactly what cognitive dissonance theory predicts: it’s the old “throwing good money after bad” phenomenon. See Aronson and Tavris’s Mistakes Were Made (but not be me) for a cogent explanation of cognitive dissonance.

Anthro: The claim that ADHD is part of the autism spectrum is part of an attempt at Texas Sharpshooting: simply look at the incidences of various childhood disorders, single out the ones that appear to have risen recently, and then claim that today’s generation of kids is the least healthy ever. Snake-oil peddlers and their advocates like to claim that autism, ADHD, asthma and overweight are all essentially the same phenomenon.

There’s also the fact that autism treatment isn’t primarily pharmaceutical, so expanding the definition to include conditions that do have pharmaceutical treatments allows the woomeisters to claim a commercial interest that simply isn’t there.

Sastra, Greg: The problem with the Doctor’s Paradox is that in today’s economy, the number of players who would stand to profit (significantly) from a major reduction in disease substantially exceeds those who would lose money. That’s why Snyder has to falsely claim that Big Pharma accounts for almost all the economy. It plays into a common bogeyman of the Left, namely the notion that all corporate interests are monolithic and indistinguishable.

“Seriously, who on “our side” stirs up this manufactroversy when its embers are dying?”

You do!! You owe me a new irony meter, David.

Still, please let me know what you think about the measles data in the article. Thanks.

Jay

In the meantime, while I’m debating whether it’s better to ignore Kirby or to be a benevolent Plexiglass box of blinking multi-colored lights and give him the not-so-Respectful Insolence he clearly so desperately craves,…

Seriously, with so many other incredibly important topics to discuss and the very tenuous connection of “antivax” rhetoric to disease incidence, why not leave this alone for a few months??

Doctor J, how did you pass all those tests in school with such poor reading skills? Are you an idiot-savant? To answer your question, I wish to pose one of mine: what serious problems are solved by discussion on weblogs? Is RI replacing Nature as the publishing venue of choice? As for your blathering

Help from all assembled: Not your favorite website, but are the data in this article completely wrong?

The data are not wrong but perhaps the conclusions arrived from interpretation are?

I must say that I have found Andrew Wakefield’s exploits to be very useful–as fodder for illustrating concepts such as sample size, cherry picking, and confirmation bias in critical thinking units.

Dinah:

..”Scientific Integrity demands following the principles of ethical research, taking a hypothosis through to its own natural conclussion and NOT trying to make the science fit the need or preconceived idea/ notion!”..

But isn’t that exactly what you are doing – insisting that science is wrong because it doesn’t match your ideas of what it should be concluding, and ignoring what science has reliably shown time and time again (that Wakefield’s findings were incorrect)?

..”And, the study HAS been duplicated, ad nauseum, in the US, Japan and Australia in the years since Dr. Wakefields first paper hit the headlines.”

Cite those studies. I’ve seen ample evidence that the studies which claimed to find a link were flawed in major ways, of very small smaples, or never even published. I’d like to see what you’re refering to.

..”the chronic inflammation of the gut associated with many autistic children”

Some autistic people have gut issues / allergies / food intolerances. Some people without autism have gut issues / allergies / food intolerances. There is no necessary link between gut issues and autism – I am yet to see a study establishing one (and I have seen a large study showing the idea that diet change improves autism to be a placebo effect). Yes there are very many autistic children, so if you look for ones with gut issues, you are going to find them.

..”Rather than attack one man, governments and medical establishments would be better off finding ANSWERS to the question of autism.”..

Why do you think these are tasks which cannot both be performed? It is important to make it clear when “one man” has been fraudulent, causing preventable harm to millions. It is also important to find answers. It’s not like there’s one body out which does everything, and it’s chosen to attack Wakefield instead of find answers to autism. If anything is diverting funds from finding ansers to autism, it’s the people still insisting that Wakefield was right and requiring endless proof of otherwise(which they never accept anyway).

..”Drug companies are merely interested in profit, not solutions.”

Change “drug companies” for “alternative medicine companies”, and you’d be right. At least drug companies products do what they claim to do.

..”Autistic children deserve our compassion and attention and their families NEED our help. But for the grace of god, there stands each and every one of YOU.”

For the record, there DO go I. My son has classic autism. He was easy for the professionals to diagnose, it’s always been autism and only autism. Also for the record, he’s had it since birth – he never hit any of his developmental milestones and was always “different”, well before he had the MMR vaccine. And he has no gut issues or allergies or gluten intolerance.

It is YOU who should think about the damage your views are doing, to parents like ME who shouldn’t have to keep dealing with these conspiracy theories and “ignorance” (an easy throw-away word you used quite a bit – be specific about the ignorance instead). Please do your research, and keep reading Respectful Ignorance too, you might just learn something 🙂

Dinah:

..”Scientific Integrity demands following the principles of ethical research, taking a hypothosis through to its own natural conclussion and NOT trying to make the science fit the need or preconceived idea/ notion!”..

But isn’t that exactly what you are doing – insisting that science is wrong because it doesn’t match your ideas of what it should be concluding, and ignoring what science has reliably shown time and time again (that Wakefield’s findings were incorrect)?

..”And, the study HAS been duplicated, ad nauseum, in the US, Japan and Australia in the years since Dr. Wakefields first paper hit the headlines.”

Cite those studies. I’ve seen ample evidence that the studies which claimed to find a link were flawed in major ways, of very small smaples, or never even published. I’d like to see what you’re refering to.

..”the chronic inflammation of the gut associated with many autistic children”

Some autistic people have gut issues / allergies / food intolerances. Some people without autism have gut issues / allergies / food intolerances. There is no necessary link between gut issues and autism – I am yet to see a study establishing one (and I have seen a large study showing the idea that diet change improves autism to be a placebo effect). Yes there are very many autistic children, so if you look for ones with gut issues, you are going to find them.

..”Rather than attack one man, governments and medical establishments would be better off finding ANSWERS to the question of autism.”..

Why do you think these are tasks which cannot both be performed? It is important to make it clear when “one man” has been fraudulent, causing preventable harm to millions. It is also important to find answers. It’s not like there’s one body out which does everything, and it’s chosen to attack Wakefield instead of find answers to autism. If anything is diverting funds from finding ansers to autism, it’s the people still insisting that Wakefield was right and requiring endless proof of otherwise(which they never accept anyway).

..”Drug companies are merely interested in profit, not solutions.”

Change “drug companies” for “alternative medicine companies”, and you’d be right. At least drug companies products do what they claim to do.

..”Autistic children deserve our compassion and attention and their families NEED our help. But for the grace of god, there stands each and every one of YOU.”

For the record, there DO go I. My son has classic autism. He was easy for the professionals to diagnose, it’s always been autism and only autism. Also for the record, he’s had it since birth – he never hit any of his developmental milestones and was always “different”, well before he had the MMR vaccine. And he has no gut issues or allergies or gluten intolerance.

It is YOU who should think about the damage your views are doing, to parents like ME who shouldn’t have to keep dealing with these conspiracy theories and “ignorance” (an easy throw-away word you used quite a bit – be specific about the ignorance instead). Please do your research, and keep reading Respectful Ignorance too, you might just learn something 🙂

Dinah:

..”Scientific Integrity demands following the principles of ethical research, taking a hypothosis through to its own natural conclussion and NOT trying to make the science fit the need or preconceived idea/ notion!”..

But isn’t that exactly what you are doing – insisting that science is wrong because it doesn’t match your ideas of what it should be concluding, and ignoring what science has reliably shown time and time again (that Wakefield’s findings were incorrect)?

..”And, the study HAS been duplicated, ad nauseum, in the US, Japan and Australia in the years since Dr. Wakefields first paper hit the headlines.”

Cite those studies. I’ve seen ample evidence that the studies which claimed to find a link were flawed in major ways, of very small smaples, or never even published. I’d like to see what you’re refering to.

..”the chronic inflammation of the gut associated with many autistic children”

Some autistic people have gut issues / allergies / food intolerances. Some people without autism have gut issues / allergies / food intolerances. There is no necessary link between gut issues and autism – I am yet to see a study establishing one (and I have seen a large study showing the idea that diet change improves autism to be a placebo effect). Yes there are very many autistic children, so if you look for ones with gut issues, you are going to find them.

..”Rather than attack one man, governments and medical establishments would be better off finding ANSWERS to the question of autism.”..

Why do you think these are tasks which cannot both be performed? It is important to make it clear when “one man” has been fraudulent, causing preventable harm to millions. It is also important to find answers. It’s not like there’s one body out which does everything, and it’s chosen to attack Wakefield instead of find answers to autism. If anything is diverting funds from finding ansers to autism, it’s the people still insisting that Wakefield was right and requiring endless proof of otherwise(which they never accept anyway).

..”Drug companies are merely interested in profit, not solutions.”

Change “drug companies” for “alternative medicine companies”, and you’d be right. At least drug companies products do what they claim to do.

..”Autistic children deserve our compassion and attention and their families NEED our help. But for the grace of god, there stands each and every one of YOU.”

For the record, there DO go I. My son has classic autism. He was easy for the professionals to diagnose, it’s always been autism and only autism. Also for the record, he’s had it since birth – he never hit any of his developmental milestones and was always “different”, well before he had the MMR vaccine. And he has no gut issues or allergies or gluten intolerance.

It is YOU who should think about the damage your views are doing, to parents like ME who shouldn’t have to keep dealing with these conspiracy theories and “ignorance” (an easy throw-away word you used quite a bit – be specific about the ignorance instead). Please do your research, and keep reading Respectful Ignorance too, you might just learn something 🙂

Opps, that should have said “Respectful Insolence” not “Respectful Ignorance”! I read the word “ignorance” so often in Dinah’s comment that it just slipped in there. Also, it’s early on a Sunday morning. I have excuses 😀

Opps, that should have said “Respectful Insolence” not “Respectful Ignorance”! I read the word “ignorance” so often in Dinah’s comment that it just slipped in there. Also, it’s early on a Sunday morning. I have excuses 😀

Dr. Gordon,

First off, you want us to believe an article written by a person who doesn’t believe Shaken Baby Syndrome exists?

Secondly, let’s look a little more closely at the HPA data, and not just the table Yazback refers to. I assume this is going to hit comment moderation, which is ok due to the number of links:

http://www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAweb&HPAwebStandard/HPAweb_C/1195733811358

Look at the numbers in the 1996-97 timeframe, and compare them to today. Notice that the number of confirmed cases per quarter is considerably higher now than it was 15 years ago?

How about the chart that shows that MMR coverage declined preciptiously in the early part of the 2000’s and is just now recovering? And then compare that to the charts presented above.

http://www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAweb&HPAwebStandard/HPAweb_C/1195733819251

And it ain’t just measles that we’re worried about, Dr. Gordon.

Mumps:
http://www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAweb&HPAwebStandard/HPAweb_C/1195733790975

If you want to argue that Andrew Wakefield wasn’t the primary cause of this phenomenon in the U.K., fine. I don’t think you can do that based on his prominent position as an opponent of the MMR vaccine and his notoriety, but at least that would be more intellectually honest than Yazbak’s inane argument that somehow measles and mumps incidence didn’t rise in the U.K. over the last decade. But it sure as heck did.

I’d post this on AoA, but the likelihood the post would ever make it through their moderation is about the same as you ever admitting that you’re wrong when it comes to this topic.

Help from all assembled: Not your favorite website, but are the data in this article completely wrong? Thanks for your comments

Awww, how cute, Dr. Jay and the AoA ignorati try to do epidemiology. No, Dr. Jay, the figures aren’t wrong but the sad/funny part is how you and they are trying to interpret them without some crucial information to anchor that information. The triple jab was introduced to the UK in 1988, then the second dose in 1996. Now take a look at what the measles cases did prior to 1998. Now look at post 1998 when it took a few years for the number of measles jab uptake to decline and breaks in herd immunity to occur.

Dr. Jay and the AoA crew doing epidemiology is like me floating in the air without any kind of assistance. I mean, it can be done, but it would require the suspension of all laws of the universe (or a miracle, like magnets).

I only clicked Post once! Honest! I moved out of WiFi to 3G only, and apparently my browser tried again automagically or something. I wonder if timeouts on desktop browsers do the same thing.

A-non: “Dr. Gordon,

First off, you want us to believe an article written by a person who doesn’t believe Shaken Baby Syndrome exists?”

He also wants us to believe an antivax fringe pediatrician (Dr. Yazbak, who, like Jay trumpets his FAAP status as though that gives him credibility) who’s featured on Barbara Loe Fisher’s NVIC website with the claim that he’s “conducted research” into regressive autism and “published extensively” on the subject, also serving as a witness in litigation. Oddly, I have great difficulty via PubMed finding any significant research contributions by Dr. Yazbak, apart from stuff like letters written to medical journals and papers published in the fluff journal “Medical Hypotheses”. But this is the kind of “science” Jay Gordon eats up.

As to Yazbak’s measles “data”, it’s previously been pointed out that he jiggered his statistics – claiming that measles cases in the U.K. dropped after Wakefield’s Lancet paper was published, but achieved that finding by incorporating large numbers of measles cases occurring in the U.K. as far back as 1988, when the MMR vaccine first began to be used.

This is the same sort of creative epidemiology used to claim that vaccines did not vastly decrease or eradicate infectious diseases. Maybe Jay believes those graphs too.

Speaking of blasted irony meters, if Jay wants the vaccine “controversy” to die down so we can discuss More Important Things, why keep stirring it up with drive-by nonsense?

I see the “repeated many times” claim many times. I wonder if people who make this claim just repeat it mindlessly, or if they investigate it and still manage to believe it,

ASD and ADD/ADHD are two separate diagnosis. The two can present simulatneously. But should not be merged as a single dx.

I am perplexed by Dinah’s claim “an illness they were not born with”. First I take issue with the term illness, secondly her knowledge of ASD is clearly limited. My son was born Autistic. Secondly he has no gut issues. He requires no medication, so big pharma don’t make a dime from his condition. And he is fully vaccinated. Didn’t have even the smallest reaction to them by the way.

AS she doesnt seem to have an ASD child one has to wonder why she is getting her knickers into such a twist over Wakefield and his detractors. If anyone should be pissed off it’s those of us who have had to defend our choice to vaccinate our kids, who have had to patiently argue against the crazy misinformation being spread, both about immunisation and ASD. Who have to endure the anger and frustration of watching those who ride the ASD gravy train for personal gain, and then retreat to their Autism free homes.

sastra

No, it doesn’t. I mean, even if you assume that drug companies and medical research facilities are filled with heartless monsters only in it for the money, I can’t even make sense of the idea that this would mean they would not want to make a ground-breaking discovery that would make them, personally, rich because … it comes at the cost of hurting the other heartless money-grubbing monsters?

Its not about the people in it, its about the structure of the system people navigate. Corporations are very sociopathic, and drug companies do some really horrible things. That does not lead to the conclusion that vaccines do not work though, or that drug companies have to cook up conspiracies to make people sick.

its true that they would make a lot more money off of treatments than a cure, but its unlikely that a cure for all cancer will ever be discovered. It is a very diverse disease. When someone undergoes treatment and is free of the disease, was it cured? Well, maybe, but cancer comes back a lot. People don’t ever say theres a cure for thyroid cancer, but the vast majority of thyroid cancers that need treatment are taken care of by cheap pharmaceutical means (or relatively simply surgical procedures). There are also vaccines that prevent many cervical cancers, and they are sold to people in the general public. Its already a huge complex problem, I don’t think that anything legally risky needs to be attempted to make it worse for a profit motive. There is plenty of cancer to go around.

Just asking a question, that’s all. Wondered how the graphs looked to you.

Hmm, the ‘just askin’ gambit.

I appreciate your responses and will have another look. I realize that Dr. Yazbak writes with a particular point of view and was very interested in how others with a diametrically opposing POVs saw the data he presents.

You are pandering to an overtly dishonest, anti-vaxx conspiracy theorist. Why? And if you doubt the dishonest part and choose instead to believe he is just mistaken, you can easily prove this to yourself. Comment there about what those tables actually infer and I’ll even give you some additional numbers; there was an almost 96% decline in measles cases from 1988-1998 but a 28% increase from 1998 to 2009. This not only directly coincides with a decrease in measles vaccine uptake, but is the highest number of cases than in the preceding 13 years. Now see if they post your comment and don’t dogpile you and if they make an addendum to the post.

@Science Mom:

I wonder if Dinah would be so kind as to share these alleged duplicated studies.

She was asked after her first comment, and didn’t cite a single one in her second comment, so, no, she wouldn’t be so kind.

@amphiox:

And since vaccines do not cure, but prevent, … then Big Pharma ought to be running away from vaccines like lemmings, screaming in terror.

That’s probably one of the reasons people like her doubt the effectiveness of vaccines: if vaccines did work, Big Pharma wouldn’t make them, so since Big Pharma makes vaccines, they must not work.

Dr. Yazbak-“Trying to make sense of the number and percentage of confirmed measles cases in the UK since 1998 is a challenge.”

Read-The massive increase in confirmed cases of measles post-Wakefield doesn’t support my theory at all. Hence I will wave my hands around, and focus on the fact that the number of reported cases has not increasing substantially.

“Huh. Why would the number of confirmed cases show a much larger increase than the number of reported cases?”

Because doctors have recently become personally familiar with the symptoms of measles, whereas previously it was something they only knew about from books, and so they are less likely to misdiagnose something else as measles?

Not even going to try the drinking game on this one.
But it does demand a response.

Autistic children deserve our compassion and attention and their families NEED our help. But for the grace of god, there stands each and every one of YOU.

Dinah, I believe that I speak for the majority of Aspies when I say that you show far less compassion for us, nay, for all individuals on the autism spectrum, when you make this point than any pro-vaccine physician. You insist on claiming that we are in some way “broken beyond repair”, when in fact we are not broken, and there are ways of compensating for most (if not all) of our skill deficits. There are ways that do not involve drugs, as you seem to think that all scientific medicine does, but rather procedures grounded firmly in accepted (tested, peer-reviewed, demonstrated-to-actually-work) psychology. When you claim that we must be somehow “cured”, you reveal that you cannot differentiate between a disease and a part of a person.

Oh, and you misused “there but for the grace of god”. See, what that means is that the “grace of God” is the only thing keeping the circumstance in question from happening. So, when you say that “[to compassionate treatment of autistics] but for the grace of god go [scientists]”, what you’re saying is that God would not want autistics treated well. While there are several parts of the Bible that would support that attitude, I’m pretty sure that it’s not what you meant.

http://www.amazon.com/Vaccinations-Dr-Jay-Gordon/dp/B0013MELE0 Has Dr. Jay listed as an actor. I found that interesting.

Let me just throw out there, though, who one would trust more (let’s say we don’t know Dr. Jay’s predilections)? Dr. Jay on a DVD or any of Dr. Paul Offit’s books on vaccines? A Hollywood pediatrician or an infectious disease expert? Dr. Jay or the doctor who co-authored with Stanley Plotkin and Walter Orenstein a textbook, Vaccines, which is its fifth edition? Oh, the decisions!

“What I meant to ask was: if there’s an X% increase in measles incidence, then shouldn’t both confirmed and reported cases of measles increase by roughly X%?”

No, not if the number of false positives is going down (doctors now know the symptoms and are less like to misdiagnose) while the number of true positives is going up (there really are more cases of measles). That’s what I meant to convey.

Why wouldn’t there be a decrease in the number of false positives among the reported cases? I was expecting there would be.

Maybe my using the term “false positives” was confusing. I was focusing on whether the cases were correctly reported, not whether they were correctly confirmed. So by false positives, I meant cases that were *reported* as measles which were not in fact measles and were not confirmed as measles; I did not mean cases that were falsely *confirmed* as measles.

If the number of true positives (real cases of measles reported and probably also confirmed) went up, but the number of false positives (misdiagnosed cases that were reported but were not confirmed) went down, you’d have an increase in confirmed cases, and the number of reported cases might not increase as much, or might even decrease.

But I’m merely speculating in answer to the question, “Why would the number of confirmed cases show a much larger increase than the number of reported cases?”

@Boojum:

while the number of reported cases each year bounces around like a tennis ball

Ah! That explains it. I was assuming that the yearly reported and confirmed cases were both pretty much constant prior to the decrease in vaccine uptake, then both underwent increases, but the percent increase for reported cases was significantly less than for confirmed cases.

Any association between the two is lost in the noise.

Yeah, it seems like with anti-vaxxers skill with statistics is either non-existent or is only used for twisting the numbers around.

There is a broad downwards trend in reported cases from introduction of MMR (which coincidentally stops around 1998…..) but reported cases are pretty level from 1998 onwards so Yazbak argues there hasn’t been an increase in Measles ‘Post-Wakefield’ as he calls it. It’s pretty disingenuous though to make comments like this-

There were 188,483 reported measles cases in the ten years preceding the Wakefield paper compared to 28,289 cases in the following ten years, an 85% decrease.

Without mentioning the reason the “Pre-Wakefield” figures are so much higher is because MMR was only introduced in ’88.

@79: After reading through a Borg Cube of text that brings up numerous arguments that have been completely addressed in the past, I have to say, “Yawn.”

Please, do you really think that nobody has brought up those common antivax talking points before and that we haven’t addressed them?

Are you so arrogant that you think that you are really educating us?

Oh, and we’ve seen the “SAFE vaccine” smokescreen before. We’re not buying it.

But then, you’ve joined a long line of commenters that have done basically the same thing. Show up and repeat tired old tidbits of misinformation as if they were something new and groundbreaking.

I encourage you to read through this blog, and associated blogs like Science Based Medicine, searching for each of your points. Read the responses and if possible, take the time to go to the primary literature often provided to see the actual research.

Turn your enthusiasm to a direction that will help, and not continue on a course that leads nowhere.

EX CUSE me…. you say, ” something better than “one size fits all” would be great but we don’t yet have the medical knowledge to implement it…to tailor the vaccine schedule to individuals”…

THAT is your reply?

I am GAGGING at the utter ridiculousness of that statement….

Further, I believe that I made it fairly clear in my post that I do not believe that multi strain vaccines are inherently safe. I believe in the idea of a potential and possible system overload.
For example this happens too when a pathogen overwhelms the body causing multi organ failure…it is a system overload… simplistic example but suitable to the company.

Keep at it gremlins, one grain, one grain, one grain, gosh don’t you want to move on from this already….must be terminally monotonous out on that railroad waiting for Dinahs horn.

oh, and for the record, Bill Gates endorsement of something….anything…..should not influence ANYONE one way or the other. Mac, schmac or PC….
Bill Gates…who is he again….
Is he the guy whose foundation gave $35 million to ……. a while back for …..vaccines…womans health….the words on the header don’t matter…what is rather interesting is the relationship MICROSOFT had with the ……… regarding concerns over ……. and other related software conundrums. Has anyone noticed how well Microsoft and ….. get along? okay, that brings me to the BOTTOM line….
because I also happened to notice that ……. did not QUITE fit the beneficiary needs outlined to have received that $35 million…..what the heck…it’s just money, and half of it was Warren Buffets anyway!

sigh.

Dinah Everett Snyder.

Hi, Dinah. So, since you’ve written a book and all, you know about references. Where are all your references to your accusations? Where are your proofs that monovalent vaccines are safer, that Wakefield’s studies have been replicated, that vaccines AREN’T followed and monitored for many years after they are initiated? You don’t have to write a lot; as Chris has noted above, simply give us the Medline title and number and we’ll happily do the rest of the work. You DO have that information to support your words, right?

(going out to brunch. Let me know if anything but crickets arise, OK, fellow Pharma Shills?)

MI Dawn, she probably doesn’t know anything about references. She certainly doesn’t understand appropriate use of ellipses or how to correctly indicate emphasis. I hope she had a good editor.

This might be a good moment to post the BMJ’s response to the charlatan Wakefield’s various statements put round to those he looks to for his future income and lifestyle. Some people may not have seen this response.

“Since we published the first of three articles by Brian Deer on the secrets of the MMR scare [1] and a linked editorial [2] on 5 January 2011, the BMJ has been the subject of an orchestrated campaign of emails. In response to questions raised in these emails, we make the following statement.

“The BMJ stands by the article and the editorial. The article, which was subjected to peer review and editorial checking, was based on enquiries carried out over some seven years, involving, among other things, interviews with parents of children enrolled in Andrew Wakefield’s research. Four such parents are quoted in the article. As made clear in the article, the core data on which the findings were based were evidenced, except in the case of one child, by the transcript of a General Medical Council fitness to practise hearing which sat between July 2007 and May 2010.

“In many of the emails we have been sent, it is suggested that Andrew Wakefield did not have access to GP records and therefore could not be responsible for discrepancies between those records and what was published in the Lancet in February 1998. The case we presented against Andrew Wakefield that the 1998 Lancet paper was intended to mislead is not critically reliant on GP records. It is primarily based on Royal Free hospital records, including histories taken by clinicians, and letters and other documents received at the Royal Free from GPs and consultants.

“We draw attention to the finding of the fitness to practise panel, on which we are entitled to rely, that “the project reported in the Lancet paper was established with the purpose to investigate a postulated new syndrome and yet the Lancet paper did not describe this fact at all. Because you [Wakefield] drafted and wrote the final version of the paper, and omitted correct information about the purpose of the study or the patient population, the panel is satisfied that your conduct was irresponsible and dishonest.”

“Contrary to other suggestions contained in the emails, we made no allegation of dishonesty against Andrew Wakefield’s co-authors, or indeed against anybody else. As the GMC panel heard, it was Andrew Wakefield who wrote the Lancet paper, using data which he anonymised, with little oversight by other authors. We confirm that under the uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals all authors should be in a position to speak to data, but the evidence is that in this case they were not.

“We are aware of recent claims made by Andrew Wakefield that “new documents have come to light” purportedly confirming his claims in the Lancet. The material he cites was presented to the GMC panel two and a half years ago. Andrew Wakefield was last year erased from the medical register and he has chosen not to appeal that decision. As indicated, the very many charges proven against him include dishonesty in his research.

“We are unaware of any peer reviewed paper replicating Andrew Wakefield’s research or confirming his claims to have identified a new syndrome of regressive autism and inflammatory bowel disease associated with MMR vaccination. With respect to gastrointestinal issues, we draw attention to an authoritative consensus statement published last year by experienced specialists in this field [3] and particularly to statement 4: “The existence of a gastrointestinal disturbance specific to persons with ASDs (eg ‘autistic enterocolitis’) has not been established.”

“Fiona Godlee, Editor in Chief, BMJ

“References
1. Deer B. How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed. BMJ 2011; 342:c5347 doi: 10.1136/bmj.c5347
2. Godlee F, Smith J, Marcovitch H. Wakefield’s article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent. BMJ 342:doi:10.1136/bmj.c7452
3. Buie P, Campbell DB, Fuchs GJ, et al. Evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of gastrointestinal disorders in individuals with ASDs: a consensus statement. Pediatrics 2010;125;S1-S18.”

@ Dinah Everett Snyder #84

all you seem to be saying is…. I …. Have ….. No …. Clue ……. What …… I’m …….. Talking ….. About ….. But …. If ….. I ……. Put ….. A ….. Bunch …. of …….. Periods ….. Between ….. Random ….. Phrases …… People ….. Might ….. Like ….. Me.

Ain’t gonna work.

“Why it won’t go away”? Seriously! I recall that I first heard about Andy’s “project” soon after its publication ( well before I serendipitously fell into my own “studies” of pseudo-science, c. January, 2000): one of my first thoughts was that, well, it just didn’t “sit” well with other information** with which I was familiar. And always, always – there was the issue of the 12 subjects. I was rather shocked when, in 2001, my cousin ( a bright guy who creates “movie magic” via film editing) was alarmed, questioning whether he should vaccinate his newborn- I remember telling him that *I* wouldn’t be worried if I had a child. I never gave much creedence to the results.

You can imagine my surprize when I began to hear that many parents actually entertained the veracity of what we now know to be tripe, contrary to most pediatricians’ advice, and *acted* on this belief by choosing not to vaccinate.

As I surveyed various charlatans’ spiels, I began to notice that anti-vax talking points were often critical to their MO: it was a way to fan the flames of distrust of the medical establishment and simultaneously talk up their own “tried and true” methods for invalidating the need for vaccination. It has been alt med credo forever.

As we began to learn more and more about the true nature Andy’s “work”, those resplendent in their pseudo-scientific trappings, protested loudly. I suspect that this will continue. If someone’s livlihood, “claim to fame”, and *raison d’etre* are threatened, they’ll probably yell like mad things. Hopefully, fewer and fewer parents will listen.

** like graduate courses in cognition, developmental, and physiological. And my prof’s tale of Sir Cyril Burt.

MR KIERAN COONAN QC appeared on behalf of Dr. Wakefield. In his closing submissio­ns, he said:

“Dr Wakefi­eld was, as you know, a senior author of the Lancet paper, and publicatio­­n of the paper, together with the commentary and the observatio­­ns that he made at the press briefing, has led on the evidence that you have received to a downturn­, or at least did turn to a downturn­, in vaccinatio­­n rates for the MMR vaccine. That is a fact.”

Source: Transcript day 130, page 3, letter B accessed from the GMC computer in Manchester­, UK

Previous comments about Dinah’s upcoming book:

“I hope she had a good editor.

“Having read examples of your prose and seen your methodology in argumentation, all I have say is, why do you hate your editor so much?”

It’s one heck of an assumption that there is any editor or quality control of any sort involved. Much more likely is that this is Dinah’s personal E-book or vanity press project – no editor involved. And based on her writing style, anything that got as far as a real publishing house would require teams of editors, all tearing their hair out in an attempt to make…sense…of that…horrific…prose.

“For the record, I never ONCE claimed to be anti vaccines….
rather, I am an advocate of SAFE vaccines.”

Again, the refusal to acknowledge the obvious. Lots of other “antis” are unashamed of their positions (anti-gun and anti-abortion advocates, to name a couple) – why do antivaxers find it so abhorrent to admit how they obviously feel?

It can’t all be embarassment. After all, Dinah is sharing her “FDA; CrimesAgainstHumanity” title (what’ve you got against spaces, Dinah?) with some of the biggest loons on the Internet who also use this catchphrase – among them, NaturalNews, the Natural Solutions Foundation (co-run by that ex-general who though he could walk through walls), Alex Jones (the Prison Planet dude) and David Icke of Giant Alien Reptiloids fame. Making common cause with all those crazies shows she’s pretty much immune to feelings of embarrassment.

The least she could do is wear dark glasses when out in public, like this guy.

MI Dawn@86

Hi, Dinah. So, since you’ve written a book and all, you know about references. Where are all your references to your accusations?

Silly Dawn – don’t you know … the references are …. hidden in the randomly …. sprinkled …. ellipses.

Breaking news, Andy has a press release but nothing new about it. Childhoodsafety.wordpress.com. Already a comment from DES, no pun intended with reference to a dangerous drug but it kind of fits.
Sorry, I don’t know how to do the links yet.

Actually, I think I have to thank Dinah for letting me know that my ADD and my dad’s were apparently caused by getting a MMR vaccine.

Oops. Wait. We never got them. My kids have, however, and so have my niece and nephew. They’re pretty spazzy, but nothing out of the ordinary for kids their ages. I’m not ready to say that MMR is protective against ADD, but maybe I can spin that into a Lancet article. All I need is another eight test subjects like your hero Wakey, and after all, my kid’s having a birthday party soon. I hear that’s primo subject recruiting territory!

Ooh! I know! It was all a plot by Big Pharma to get money out of my family for Ritalin.

Oops. Wait. Neither me nor Pops had a prescription for that.

In fact, the closest thing we ever had to Ritalin was in our morning dose of coffee. So all this time we’ve been supporting Juan Valdez for generations instead of Merck or Glaxo.

Hey, Dinah, where can I get some homeopathic colloidal silver? I bet that will clear my problem right up, eh? I’m tired of spending so much money on flavored creamers. Help a sista out here, will ya? Because I gotta get over this before I end up on your spectrum…..

Hey Dinah —
I hope you’re still reading and writing and [almost] replying — it is rare to see someone show such a serious commitment to a complete and total lack of understanding of the actual data. I look forward to ridiculing whatever “publisher” prints and sells all seventeen copies of your book.

……Deth……..

I must reluctantly admit a grudging respect** that I have for Andy: he has had the creativity and determination to parlay his ( slightly) taller than average, (somewhat) athletic physique, fair hair, and winning smile into a highly paid, long lasting career complete with adoring fans- while I only managed to use similar qualities to *get guys to buy me drinks* at bars…. when I was 21.

** Only joking, I have absolutely no respect for him.

So Jay – since you asked for responses on the graph & we were happy to comply (basically, it is a bunch of cherry-picked BS) what is your opinion?

Dinah, since you’re here, where are the links to the studies we’ve requested?

“Are you seriously suggesting that everything that’s good to put on wounds is also good to drink??”

Of course, I am going to make a rubbing alcohol martini right now.

(no, not really, DO NOT TRY THAT)

Dinah Everett Snyder shows all the signs of paranoid schizophrenia. The writings have all the signs: 1) unintelligible, timecubian gibberish 2) mad-libs style punctuation 3) random capitalization and 4) narcissism (i.e. think they need to get their earth-shattering conspiracy theories published, put their name everywhere).

Dinah, most kooks like yourself get far better publicity over a pharyngula (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/). If you write to PZ, you might even make it on the “I get mail” segment. You could maybe mix your anti-vax views w/ Christian fundamentalism for maximum effectiveness.

could it not be considered a Crime that Colloidal Silver is not more widely used?

I suppose it could…but where would it be ranked? Child abuse, drink driving, internet plagiarism, war crimes – where would you rank it on the scale of global wrongdoing? Do tell.

I think it’s hilarious that somewhere in the world, someone called Dinah Everett Snyder is getting REALLY ANGRY because we’re denying her fractal insanity. Carry on, D.

#109 Travis

I have no idea what point was being made about Bill Gates as the important parts about what Bill Gates has done wrong seem to be hidden under the ellipses.

I think she’s just being a faithful little AoA groupie. AoA has just run a little rant calling for its sycophants to target Bill Gates.

On the topic of AoA, I noticed they are currently touting a review from the Journal of Immunotoxicology written by Helen Ratajczak. here’s a taste:

Theoretical aspects of autism: Causes—A review.
Helen Ratajczak
Journal of Immunotoxicology, 2011; 8(1): 68–79
The new version of the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine (i.e., MMR II) that did not contain Thimerosal was introduced in 1979. By 1983, only the new version was available. Autism in the United States spiked dramatically between 1983 and 1990 from 4–5/10,000 to 1/500. In 1988, two doses of MMR II were recommended to immunize those individuals who did not respond to the first injection.
A spike of incidence of autism accompanied the addition of the second dose of MMR II. Also, in 1988, MMR II was used in the United Kingdom, which reported a dramatic increase in prevalence of autism to 1/64 (noted above). Canada, Denmark, and Japan also reported dramatic increases in prevalence of autism. It is important to note that unlike the former MMR, the rubella component of MMR II was propagated in a human cell line derived from embryonic lung tissue (Merck and Co., Inc., 2010).

The MMR II vaccine is contaminated with human DNA from the cell line. This human DNA could be the cause of the spikes in incidence. An additional increased spike in incidence of autism occurred in 1995 when the chicken pox vaccine was grown in human fetal tissue (Merck and Co., Inc., 2001; Breuer, 2003). The current incidence of autism in the United States, noted above, is approximately 1/100.

The human DNA from the vaccine can be randomly inserted into the recipient’s genes by homologous recombination, a process that occurs spontaneously only within a species. Hot spots for DNA insertion are found on the X chromosome in eight autism-associated genes involved in nerve cell synapse formation, central nervous system development, and mitochondrial function (Deisher, 2010). This could provide some explanation of why autism is predominantly a disease of boys. Taken together, these data support the hypothesis that residual human DNA in some vaccines might cause autism.

Newsflash!!1!eleventyone!!
It’s not the Thimerosal niether the evil MMR vaccine spirits which cause Autism, it’s that Satanic foetal DNA in vaccines that does it!!!

Now, if you will excuse me, I need to round up my neurons out of hiding and and gently coax them into interacting somewhat intelligently with each other again.

Oh, and Dinah Everett Snyder, as a long standing senior member of The Elipse Fan Club, let me say on behalf of our millions, if not thousands of devotees…maybe even hundreds…we really wish you wouldn’t give us such a bad name!
~~~~~
On a more sober note, I’m still snowed under here with the daunting cyclone cleanup and general aftermath. Power came back on Friday after 8 days absence. Mobile network and landline returned on Thursday…7 days after Cyclone Yasi.
I was evaccuated from the property I have here (visiting on an extended Xmas/New Year break)due the predicted ocean/storm surge (am on beachfront) and now I’m having trouble finding all the stuff I sequestered away at friends houses. Then there’s 10 acres with trees down everywhere. Only one of them just side swiped the corner of my roof, but many incredible and frightening very near misses.
Soooo glad I didn’t stay. Guess the FSM vaguely sober and watching over me and mine 😉
A Cat 5 cyclone over 500kms wide and mostly heathens round these parts, yet no one seriously injured…go figure!
May You Too Be Touched By His Noodly Appendage.

Regarding the claim that colloidal silver isn’t an accepted treatment because it can’t be patented by pharma companies – What about aspirin? It’s an accepted treatment that pharma companies can’t patent. I don’t have any stats to back me up here but it’s probably the most widely-used drug in the world, and I can walk into any supermarket and buy 24 tablets for about 50 cents. If it’s all a conspiracy, where’s the big push to keep me from taking aspirin when I get a headache?

The editor would have to be the nicest, most understanding person ever.

Speaking from long experience in that end of journals publishing, I’m pretty confident in asserting that he or she would actually have to be a ruthless bastard.

Travis (#115) comments (tongue-in-cheek, I presume):

“I am going to start drinking hydrogen peroxide. It is an antimicrobial agent and can be used to help treat wounds.”

Travis, several “alternative” practitioners have beaten you to it. In fact, they’ve gone you one better – they’re injecting hydrogen peroxide into their victims…er, patients.

No, I’m not kidding.

Dinah’s non-sequitor segue into colloidal silver isn’t the craziest thing I’ve heard, not even this week. It doesn’t work, of course, but it’s not nearly as toxic as, say, injecting hydrogen peroxide. And aren’t these “alternative” practitioners the same clowns who sell “anti-oxidants” in their shops? You’d think someone would tell them that hydrogen peroxide is a powerful oxidiser.

Dinah is certainly worth reading (despite the fractured syntax and eccentric use of punctuation) simply for the entertainment value. Even though I work with the public every day, I occasionally need reminding of how deep the pool of ignorance and gullibility runs.

Prometheus

Apologies that I didn’t have time to cast a spell against those spelling & grammar demons before my last post.

@Science Mom
Theoretical aspects of autism: Causes—A review

The human DNA from the vaccine can be randomly inserted into the recipient’s genes by homologous recombination, a process that occurs spontaneously only within a species.

How easy or hard is it for naked DNA to pass through the outer cell membrane? And then how easy or hard is it to pass through the nuclear membrane? For the second I would have assume really, really hard, or the nucleus wouldn’t be able to contain DNA like it does.

Look at the contradiction! Boasting about how it’s patented, then saying it’s not used because it can’t be patented? I’ve never seen anything that bad before. Blogging fodder time!

PS: you’re using ellipses wrong. For one thing, you never need to use more then 3 periods.
I had a longer comment, but forgot to put a name and email address, so I lost it.

Dinah, dahlink, you’re not a loony for believing in the amazing qualities of colloidal silver.

You ARE a loony for thinking that NASA’s application of it in heating and cooling systems somehow demonstrates a remarkable antibacterial property. You ARE a loony if you think that ADD has something to do with bacteria, when almost all of the evidence to date shows that genetics are high on the list of likely culprits. You ARE a loony if you think that a vaccine administered to girls over the age of nine is somehow connected to autism spectrum disorders that show up before the children even enter school.

Just between us girls…did you author any of the “studies” you cite as support for your theories?

@ Science Mom: I love your posts. Information about every vaccine used in the United States is available on the web at “CDC Pink Book”.

The MMR Vaccine NEVER contained thimerisol, nor does the MMRV vaccine contain thimerisol. They are packaged in one-dose vials in lypholized (freeze-dried) powder form, reconstituted with individual vials of sterile water, also supplied by the vaccine manufacturer. Once reconstituted, they should be used immediately or in the case of MMR vaccine, reconstituted vaccine can be stored under refrigeration and discarded if not used within 8 hours. The MMRV vaccine when reconstituted, can be used within 30 minutes and must be discarded, if not used within that narrow time frame.

The history of the development of single antigen vaccines (measles, mumps, rubella and varicella) is provided in the CDC Pink Book, under the disease name. In those chapters, the history of the MMR and MMRV vaccines is also provided.

Regarding the claim that colloidal silver isn’t an accepted treatment because it can’t be patented by pharma companies – What about aspirin?

I think the claim is that a drug company won’t invest the money into doing the clinical and pre-clinical trials to, for example, demonstrate that ingested colloidal silver acts as an antibiotic, if all of that company’s competitors can then immediately swoop in and start selling colloidal silver without having to have spent any money on any of the trials.

Dinah: the Army also bought 10 or so (now thoroughly discredited) “Sniffex” explosive-detecting dowsing rods, only to find out at much cost and many experiments that the things were completely bogus. The US Army also wasted years screwing around with psychics and so-called “Remote Viewing”, only to find out they were being rooked.

Well then, under Dinah’s logic, anything that can be topically applied to the skin should definitely be injected! Here’s to neo & polysporin shots for everyone!!!

Oh, and did anyone catch this little gem from Dinah?

I would also like to point out that the Flu vaccine suspension liquid is 50% by volume mercury….

Something tells me that our favorite self-published Mad (Libs) Scientist read somewhere that thimerosal is 50% mercury by weight, and not only got confused between “by weight” and “by volume”, but even more egregiously between “the trace amounts of thimerosal used to ward off contamination in the suspension liquid” and “the entirety of the suspension liquid.” Dinah, honey, it doesn’t do any good to remember just the digits; you also have to remember what they apply to.

When you think about it, it’s pretty ironic that Dinah should scream so loud about one metallic element used in vaccines to destroy contamination (mercury) and at the same time be championing another (silver.) Doesn’t it occur to her that if silver has this amazing power to destroy micro-organisms (many of which are essentially just cells we don’t happen to want) then it’s possible that what it does to human cells isn’t necessarily nice either?

Of course, Dina reveals her true colors by bringing up Gardasil. She is apparently not actually concerned with autism, or she would be unconcerned with a vaccine given so long after autism symptoms become apparent.

Mentioning Gardasil is a dead giveaway that the real belief is “vaccines are evil” and autism is just an excuse.

@Beamup:

Of course, Dina reveals her true colors by bringing up Gardasil. She is apparently not actually concerned with autism

There are people who are quite open about thinking that autism is just one of several (or many) problems caused by vaccines, so I don’t think it’s fair to say of Snyder that “autism is just an excuse”. It’s places like Age of Autism, which are supposed to be about autism, where talking about Gardasil is revealing of their true intent.

My experience with silver nitrate is entirely constrained to the treatment of canker sores. It really does work, but is thoroughly unpleasant, and except for the very largest sores, I’d generally rather suffer through the sores.

But you had novocain; that’s gotta make a world of difference.

MESSAGE BEGINS———————————

Shills and Minions,

This Dinah rebel may be baffled by the simplest of syllogisms and certain basics of English grammar but do not underestimate her, she is clearly on to our most nefarious and eeeeeevil plans.

The news is not good my minions, the drones down in encoding have deciphered the rebel message. The elipses are not a sign of mental lapse, they are in reality holographically inlaid Sooper Seekret™ rebel hypercode messages:

what is rather interesting is the relationship MICROSOFT had with the Glaxxon Corpus regarding concerns over Operation: Monkey Brain Shrink and other related software conundrums. Has anyone noticed how well Microsoft and The Great Egg Mother Lizz, Reptile Queen of England get along? okay, that brings me to the BOTTOM line….
because I also happened to notice that Paula Abdul did not QUITE fit the beneficiary needs outlined to have received that $35 million indecipherable gibberish what the heck more indecipherable gibberish it’s just money, and half of it was Warren Buffets(sic) anyway!

As I said, Imperator Gates of the Great MegaOmnipentium is most displeased. As our “man” on the beat as it were, he will tolerate no interference from the rebels. Obsidian 4 has been dispatched.

Oh, and I am told it is a something called “Valent Time Day”, where you evidently worship your primary blood pumping organ. In celebration you will no doubt consume massive amounts of simple carbohydrates that will ironically contribute to your pumps’ early failure. Cindy tried to explain it to me to no avail, but we support this festival since it means that you will be gobbling down more of our lovely pharmacopæa. You’ll find a lovely box of chocolate in your messenger port with your other ill-gotten Pharma lucre.

As we say on Glaxxon prime: Shill’t v’ Minion’t ekkxh verat m’hoch el mt*eef v’trech on ottk!

Rough Earth translation: Keep loading the cart shills and minions, the horse is blind.

Lord Draconis Zeneca, VC, iH7L

Forward Mavoon of the Great Fleet, Suzerain of V’tar and Pharmaca Magna of Terra

PharmaCOM Orbital HQ

0010101101001

—————————————— MESSAGE ENDS

Re”Many of the posters here have real medical credentials,”

of course you do !! That completely explains your narrow minded and bigotted view of the world, and medicine.

In fact that also goes a long way towards explaining the rabid pack mentality and ” me first” rush to blog something inane without s l o w i n g down long enough to actually read what I wrote and retain it for long enough to get the facts straight.

I never made reference to a link between Gardasil and autism. ( as a cause) I merely used the example of Gardasil as another dangerous vaccine where currently the risks appear to outweigh the benefits. And the fact that although the test subjects were 15 and older, the FDA has approved it for children as young as 9. On what grounds does the FDA approve it for 9 year olds, because the studies clearly do not include any 9 year olds. And, as a mother, (although this should be evident to most normal people), there is a world of difference between a nine year old and a 15 year old, physically and hormonally.
I am sure that you will all be able to look into the questions being raised about Gardasil on your own steam since it has been quite widely reported.

Here is one guaranteed to get your stethescope in a knot kids: Red Cross staffers also use Rooibos Tea intravenously to combat dehydration and electrolyte inbalance in pediatric and geriatric patients in rural areas of Southern Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. Why? because supplies of traditional electrolytes are sporadic at best, and Rooibos Tea seems to work just as well.

Tsk tsk.. and you thought tea was just a quaint English custom.

Yes yes I know…….whine whine whine…you want to see the study….well, sometimes when people are actually really going out of their way to save lives and use what they have at their disposal they don’t have time to dilly dally with a study. The Rooibos Tea must work since they have been doing it for around 30 years. )Of course Vioxx was used for years too before….and FDA approved that !!)
gasp ! no! really !?

Or you could just click your heels together and say,” It isn’t true, it isn’t true…because I say so. And I’m a doctor. And everyone on this site agrees with me too”.

RE: ” The FDA has issued a final ruling on the inappropriateness of using this compound in any ingested medicine.” Hail Hitler !
Just a heads up, if every person who uses Colloidal Silver internally turned blue there would be millions of blue people walking around. The fact that there are NOT millions of blue people walking around is a testament to the inaccuracy of your statement concerning the ingestion of CS. Go and check your facts.

Frankly, if this site is any indication of what they are letting out of medical school these days then the public is in more danger than anyone realizes.

I have never encountered such a pack of hyennas, of course maggots all stick to the same piece of rotting meat, and birds of a feather will flock together. So do baboons…
in fact you make a good case study for the question of whether Neanderthol genes could possibly still be lurking in our gene pool… Craig Venter may have a trial you could sign up for, go on, please, do something useful.

What a shameful waste of energy here, when you could be out doing something worthwhile with your time!Ergo, that trial over at the Genome Project, quick before all the other doctors beat you to it.

So, little gremlins, keep on down your mindless path of spite and malice, childish and churlish verbal mesafirstas, and don’t forget to buy my book so that you can check out all those pesky study references.

Dinah Everett Snyder.

Dinah, thank you for your responses. Would you happen to the links to the studies that replicated Wakefield’s work? Someone above mentioned that you referred to some studies in Australia?

They have in fact studied the use of Gardasil in 9 year olds, according to this FDA report:

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/AdvisoryCommittees/CommitteesMeetingMaterials/PediatricAdvisoryCommittee/UCM234387.pdf

And colloidal silver is not good to eat. It’s not just the US government that thinks so, the Aussies do, too.

http://www.tga.gov.au/adr/aadrb/aadr0710.htm#a3

You know, we are all still waiting for links to those studies that replicate Wakefield’s.

Dinah, I’m just curious, but could you explain why you brought up Gardasil as an example of a vaccine where the risks outweigh the benefits without elaborating? I mean, I’d ask you to provide evidence, but honestly you didn’t even get to the point of stating your case. It’s just a vague assertion.

I’m also still curious what the use of silver in heating and cooling systems on spacecraft has to do with ingestion of colloidal silver. You have a very high standard of evidence for safety and efficacy of vaccines; surely you have the same standards for silver?

(I’m also curious from a pure geek perspective. I’m a major space geek, and consequently am curious just which heating and cooling systems you’re referring to. The category is pretty broad, after all. I know silver is used in radiators and some thermal blankets, which are part of the overall thermoregulation of the craft — whether manned or unmanned — but this seems irrelevant to colloidal silver taken orally.)

Autism cured! Well, maybe controlled for one person so far.
Austism is the lack of worms in our diet.

TheScientist 25(2)42

a bit off topic but it does have a bit about autism.

Via Michelle Dawson on Twitter, http://twitter.com/autismcrisis:

Oh no “Andrew Wakefield trying to open a facility for autistic adults” http://j.mp/hqB6Dj what, to experiment on?

Dinah,
I think it’s fairly well known that silver is antimicrobial. Are there studies that show that it provides a benefit when ingested? Are there other benefits for silver and are there studies for same?

@ peebs: You made my day with that video of the blue man! It seems that he made his own colloidal silver “supplement” with directions from the web…as I mentioned in a prior post.

He first started with a colloidal silver cream applied to his skin as treatment for “dermatitis”…obviously not diagnosed by a “traditional” medicine practitioner. Why go to a traditional medicine doctor, when you have the ability to self-diagnose and self-prescribe medication?

@ Dinah: I’m still waiting, while controlling my “rabid pack mentality” for your “Red Cross using colloidal silver in lieu of antibiotics” citation. While you’re at the Red Cross site, please provide their report on the use of roobis tea intravenously for re-hydration. I’m especially interested in how they are able to sterilize the substance and how they are able to package the tea in sterile IV bags…in the field.

Hope Dinah has viewed the blue man video; she should be contacting him for an endorsement for her soon-to-published book.

Well, I can’t find anything about the Red Cross using rooibos tea for dehydration through google. I do find that the Red Cross Memorial Hospital in Cape Town, SA, uses it externally for eczema and other skin rashes. And there are a lot of cosmetic companies interested in it externally. So, I don’t know where Dinah got her info from. However, I did NOT go through all the references listed on the one pdf I found; it was by a Euro Cosmetic company and had a lot of references.

It apparently has been used as a traditional medicine for a long time, but I can’t find any real clinical studies.

Red Cross staffers also use Rooibos Tea intravenously to combat dehydration and electrolyte inbalance in pediatric and geriatric patients in rural areas of Southern Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. Why? because supplies of traditional electrolytes are sporadic at best, and Rooibos Tea seems to work just as well.

Dinah is confusing Rooibos tea with Brawndo.

RE: Colloidal Silver benefits when ingested.

There is a peer reviewed study that demonstrates no clear adverse reactions to ingestion as well as confirmation that it is not toxic to the body when ingested. The noted outcome is of course Argyria, which despite FDA claims to the contrary is not always a permamanent condition and can, over time be reversed. However, argyria is also extremely rare, with only a few ( under 50)documented cases in over i50 years of use. The recent, most publicized of the Argyria cases was falsely claimed as a result of Colloidal silver ingestion. It was not. The man was making his own product at home and was doing so incorrectly, ending up with something that was not CS and ingesting large quantities.

However, using a spray mister of 10 ppm Colloidal Silver has been demonstrated to clear the strep virus in children who have already been identified as strep carriers with difficult to treat ( with antibiotics)strep virus. 5 spritzs and 48 hours later all tests for strep were neg and the children remained strep free after 3 months.

CS has also been demonstrated to kill Listeria monocytogenes through a fine mist application.

There is currently a test going on with oral misting of CS to treat gum disease topically, as well as a study with CS and MRSA strains.

Note that the FDA has indeed made a final ruling on Colloidal Silver, stating, ” all OTC- drug products containing colloidal silver or silver salts are not recognized as safe and effective and are misbranded”.

This is utter nonsense! as someone here pointed out
” Well established that silver is anti- microbial”

Misbranded? well yes in that if one wants to say that CS treats syphillis, shingles, strep etc…well then CS must be ( under current rules and regulations) re branded as a drug BECAUSE according to the FDA, only “drugs” are allowed to treat, cure, mitigate, alleviate or prevent any illness known to mankind. ALL other things ( according to FDA) are “inert”, including food items, although in that category they do allow for the notion that items contain “calories”. No more and no less.

Therefore, you may tell people to eat cherries, walnuts and soon oranges too,( see current Vit C and intravenous IV C issues) however if you tell someone to eat cherries/ walnuts/ oranges because they have( name your antioxidant or vitamin here, and link it to proven scientific benefits of said vitamin or antioxidant) well then, the FDA requires a rebranding of that item as a ” drug” and will accuse the seller of cherries, walnuts, oranges of ” misbranding” their produce because IF it cures, prevents, alleviates or mitigates then under current laws it cannot possibly be a food because foods are inert and only drugs have ingredients/ can cure.

Now, gremlins et al, I know that you are going to nit pick this to eternity and back, however I want to caution you that these are not my words but the words directly from FDA in letters to cherry growers and walnut growers. Google at will and make sure to read the FDA letters and the growers responses. Diamond Foods is fighting back at the insanity of the FDA and their notions of drugs versus foods and the nonsense about ” inert”, which is probably how they can conceive of the notion that there is absolutely NO risk at ALL with ANY genetically modified foods whatsoever…I mean, if ALL food is ” inert” then there is no problem!
Right?

which is interesting because USDA has funded some pretty powerful studies supporting the benefits of many of the vitamins and antioxidants that the FDA is sending warning letters out about, and claiming are ” unscientific” or ” not scientifically proven” or ” misbranded if you claim the benefit and links to study of X Y or Z”.

Most of our ” drugs” come from nature, however the ” drug” is a synthetic compound of the original, natural ingredient
because only the synthetic compound can be patented.
Therefore only the silver approved by the FDA ( belonging to some pharma corp)can possibly be the one that is okay !

Artemisinin is a classic example, perhaps I should pause here, I wouldn’t want a google stampede……………..
……………………………..
Dinah Everett Snyder

Red Cross staffers also use Rooibos Tea intravenously to combat dehydration and electrolyte inbalance in pediatric and geriatric patients in rural areas of Southern Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

When I was just starting at the University, one of my Biology teachers, a physician who apparently did a few stunts for Doctors without Borders, claimed that they sometimes used Coca-cola for this purpose (after degassing it, of course). For the same reasons: a reasonable amount of electrolytes, plenty of sugar, and clean, sterile water. And no shortage of it.
For all I know, maybe he just passed on some urban legend to impress us kids.
Of course, the use of Coca-cola, or Pepsi, or any other drink of choice, in lieu of IV bags is not exactly a validation (and neither a rebuttal) of whatever healthy effect this drink is supposed to have.

Just a heads up, if every person who uses Colloidal Silver internally turned blue there would be millions of blue people walking around.

The same could exactly be said for vaccines and whatever outrageous side-effect you want to blame them for. Millions of people had used vaccines.

The fact that there are NOT millions of blue people walking around is a testament to the inaccuracy of your statement concerning the ingestion of CS

Ditto your own statements about vaccines. Maybe we should stop talking black and white and start talking about risk/benefit ratio.

Frankly, if this site is any indication of what they are letting out of medical school these days then the public is in more danger than anyone realizes.

Frankly, if your posts are any indications of what passes for sane these days, bring back the loony bins!
Oh, so much entertainment from so little intelligence. Hey, I bet you think 9/11 was an inside job, evolution is impossible, and global warming is a fraud (do tell!)
So here’s the headline counteracting your “gardasil hasn’t been tested on 9-year-olds” bollocks (thanks DRK)

Main Results: Approximately 94% of these reports were non-serious. The most frequently reported adverse events were syncope, dizziness, nausea, headache, and injection site reactions. The overall safety profile described in VAERS was consistent with prelicensure data, with 2 notable exceptions.

Full study available @158.
Thanks, Dinah, you are providing pure joy for us posters here, currently on a lean diet of dim augie, intellectually-challenged sid offit, and unutterably slimy Dr Jay.
Please, please, please continue – you are, literally, priceless.
And do inform us when/if your ahem, snort book comes out; we all most interested….

However, argyria is also extremely rare

Dinah, don’t feel obliged to make up egregious bullshit about every single topic you shift the conversation to while running away from your egregious bullshit on some other topic. You are allowed to tell the truth occasionally and no-one will think any less of you. This is not a challenge.

No, I am not confusing Rooibos Tea for Brawndo, and in the field staffers use what they have, boil up the tea, it was in IV bags and I did see dict tape…no idea about the brew to IV bag dynamic and how they got it in there! My first experience of Colloidal Silver was in Zimbabwe, watching a staffer making it at a Leprosy clinic.
Rooibos Tea has an earthy taste, full of antioxidants that the cosmetics industry has cashed in on. The tea is now found in Origins cosmetics and was clinically tested at Estee Lauder for inclussion in their Clinique line a long time ago. The South African brand name cosmetics line for Rooibos Tea is Annique. The tea is indigenous to many areas of Southern Africa, predominantly the region around Cape Town. Locals use the tea as an all purpose health drink and it has a long history, dating back to the Boer War. It is used extensively in hospital settings as a means to combat upset tummies in dysentry patients and those with malaria because of it’s antioxidant and healthful properties.

Funny thing about Coco Cola, I pour it down the toilet to remove hard water stains. Works like a charm. Personally I would never drink it though.

Dinah Everett Snyder

There is a peer reviewed study that demonstrates no clear adverse reactions to ingestion as well as confirmation that it is not toxic to the body when ingested

[Citation needed]

You still haven’t posted the studies from the other, so every time you say “studies say”, you will be ignored unless you actually provide the reference.

I submit that herr doktor needs to go and do some err fact checking of herr.. I mean his..own.
and AnthonyK: the Gardasil document says it is monitoring the various age groups/ symptoms etc etc etc now, 2.5 years into making it available/ post FDA approval,
however my point is that there was NO study done prior to FDA approval for 9 year old. The youngest participants in the trial were 15….don’t obfiscate the issue, those are simply the facts, not mine, the ones in the FDA approval notification and the facts as reported in the Gardasil pamphlet.

And the last time I checked, strep was a bacteria,and yes, a spray mist application would be considered a topical application and is reported as such for this study. I would also like to point out that I never claimed oral ingestion as an exclusive terrain. Although it has been used to treat chronic oral thrush and in that case is used as a gargle and swallow, which clearly makes it an oral ingestion.
The MRSA study uses CS internally and topically and Malaria is treated by ingesting CS.

Dinah Everett Snyder

Ms. Snyder, you will be considered either a liar or just delusional until you post evidence for your claims. Please post the cites that we have requested.

Or go away.

Put up, or shut up.

Dinah is confusing Rooibos tea with Brawndo.

It’s got what cranks crave!

Candy; it is evident that you just don’t understand, I am not going to cite the Wakefield things here, as for the FDA documentation re ” cherries and walnuts” ” inert”
” misbranded” : it is available ad nauseum on the FDA website…go find it. For the Colloidal Silver: the CS sites have posted their FDA warning letters for the world to see and more on that is also available on the FDA website.
As for the studies on CS,( oral thrush, strep) they are current clinical trials, and no gremlins, I am not involved with the studies, I just have prelims of what is in progress….the CS gum disease study is available online…go find it. Syphillis has already been established, as has Malaria and Leprosy treatment protocols.

Strep and CS is already an accepted protocol in third world countries as is the use of CS to treat oral and body sores and boils in HIV Aids patients.

Gosh, such a lather about citations ! Do you all wait for your patients to give up their diagnosis too, before you write that acceptable prescription for acceptable treatment….
or do ye all just wing it?

Which reminds me: Mr. Deer posted somewhere above, nothing original, just a citation from BMJ…how droll..
fitting though. He never struck me as much of anything. For a journalist he has a peculiar lack of conversational skills…perhaps that is why he is such a useful pet for concerned parties. The perfect patsy is one who has no original thoughts. Did a good article on Septrin though, not bad follow up either. All things considered.

here is a tidbit:( about autism folks, do keep up)
Dr Bernadine Healy ( former director of National Institute of Health) said, ” Govt, or health officials within govt, have been too quick to dismiss the concerns of these families, without studying the population that got sick”.
And let us not forget this, from the govt ruling or
” concession” in Hannah Polings case “Mitochondrial dysfunction exacerbated by vaccine fever and immune stimulation”. Of course in her case she managed to get several vaccines on the same day….. sounds like a clear case of medical misconduct to me. And a hocus pocus word jargon from govt vaccine council to boot.
That’s it gremlins, I am off to a Valentine dinner sans GMO commodities or Coco Cola. And my Colloidal Silver spray in my purse should I be coughed on by some dimwit.

Being that I am a believer in pre ventative medicine, as opposed to a pharma band aid.

Dinah Everett Snyder.

Dinah, you’re an idiot. It’s really that simple. Why should we have to look up the citations you asserted existed? You’re a mendacious liar, a goal post-shifting dishonest twit, and obviously a believer in every crank idea that comes down the turnpike. Your books will probably make quality door-stops, though.

Babs, we have seen those studies, and they are not independent replications. Why would you think that Krigsman, a colleague of Wakefield would be independent? And which one was from Australia? Dinah claims there is one from Australia. Did someone lose it?

Anyway, those were all debunked ages ago here.

Babs, next time make sure to cite the study and why it is:

a) Independent. That means that Wakefield and none of his associates, like Krigsman, are involved.

b) Have a similar set of cases. This means children (not adults like the some on the list), and include at least the same number, preferably more than twelve.

c) List which MMR vaccine was being investigated. If you check, you will see that measles is not even mentioned. It should be either the one approved in the UK before or after 1992.

d) Must be full published papers, not IMFAR posters.

Please try again with those guidelines.

Dinah:

And the last time I checked, strep was a bacteria,and yes, a spray mist application would be considered a topical application and is reported as such for this study. I would also like to point out that I never claimed oral ingestion as an exclusive terrain. Although it has been used to treat chronic oral thrush and in that case is used as a gargle and swallow, which clearly makes it an oral ingestion.

No, that would also be a topical application, because it’s meant to work exactly where it is applied, not by passing though the gut and into the bloodstream. I’ll grant that if swallowed, it is being taken internally, but I rather suspect it’s the rinsing and gargling that’s useful and you’d get the same benefit (without the risks) if you spit it out afterwards.

I have no doubt whatsoever that silver (colloidal or otherwise) is an effective antiseptic; it’s been used for that purpose quite effectively for a long time. It’s pretty lethal to a lot of organisms. But why drink it? Chlorine’s an effective antiseptic too, and I have no intention whatsoever of drinking it. Most antiseptics are fairly stupid things to drink, actually — it’s rare for something to be deadly to pathogens and harmless to human tissues.

BTW, what’s so special about it being colloidal? Colloids are not unusual substances, really. I have a sneaky suspicion it’s a bit like “quantum” — it sounds impressive to the scientifically illiterate. Making it into a colloid just makes it easier to drink, just like Nyquil and other drugs in liquid formulation. Has very nearly zip-doodle to do with its chemical properties.

@Dinah Everett Snyder:

it is evident that you just don’t understand, I am not going to cite the Wakefield things here,

You’re going to cite them somewhere else, just not here? Why cite them over there (wherever “there” is) yet not here?

Also, you phrase that as if it’s obvious you’re not going to be citing them here. What have you said to make that obvious (other than not answering after being asked many times)?

Oh, and since that question is off the table, how about this question: what in the world does silver being used in mechanisms on the space shuttle have to do with silver being used as an antibacterial?

Gosh, such a lather about citations ! Do you all wait for your patients to give up their diagnosis too, before you write that acceptable prescription for acceptable treatment….

So…. Asking you for citations is like a doctor asking his/her patient for a diagnosis (a professional asking her client to do the professional’s work for her)? Or asking you for citations is like a person seeing a drug advertised on TV, demanding that drug from the doctor, and the doctor just handing over a prescription for the drug, with the doctor then working backwards from drug to diagnosis?

Anyways, us asking your for citations is basically us saying “we don’t believe you, provide us with some evidence”.

He never struck me as much of anything. For a journalist he has a peculiar lack of conversational skills…perhaps that is why he is such a useful pet for concerned parties. The perfect patsy is one who has no original thoughts.

1) Genuine investigative reporters have good conversational skills.
2) Brian Deer doesn’t have good conversational skills.
3) Thus, Brian Deer isn’t a genuine investigative reporter.

Did a good article on Septrin though, not bad follow up either. All things considered.

If Deer is a patsy with no original thoughts, who hired him to do his article on Septrin?

Being that I am a believer in pre ventative medicine, as opposed to a pharma band aid.

That’s a bit of a non-sequitur, since the only thing you’ve mentioned that could be considered preventative medicine is anti-oxidants.

@Gray Falcon:

Don’t vaccines count as preventative medicine?

Yes, but she said “as opposed to a pharma band aid”, so since vaccines are made by pharma I assumed she didn’t mean to include vaccines when she talked about preventative medicine.

All the studies where silver has documented antimicrobial uses, they’re talking about silver ions (i.e. a salt of some form) rather than in its elemental form (e.g. colloidal) when it’s inert and has no effect except on your skin pigmentation.

To play devil’s advocate, the microscopic silver particles will have to be turned into ions by the stomach acid in order to pass through intestinal wall, so it winds up being ions by the time it gets into the blood.

On the other hand, it would make colloidal silver not very effective for topical treatments.

(Also, I wonder why they sell it colloidal form. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to dissolve the silver with some acids rather than grinding the silver down into microscopic particles?)

Prometheus:

It doesn’t work, of course, but it’s not nearly as toxic as, say, injecting hydrogen peroxide. And aren’t these “alternative” practitioners the same clowns who sell “anti-oxidants” in their shops?

From the Google I learned that a lot of the alt-health loons who are poisoning themselves with household bleach (alias Magical Mineral Supplement) because it is a powerful oxidant that will selectively kill all pathogens (but not healthy cells) are also taking DMSO. Because it’s an anti-oxidant.

It’s all about the cargo cult. Sometimes they call this a ‘drug cocktail’ and sometimes a ‘protocol’.

Wouldn’t it be cheaper to dissolve the silver with some acids rather than grinding the silver down into microscopic particles?

My understanding of the process is that the silver is not made into a colloid mechanically. Some people use an electrolytic process: the silver starts on one electrode, where it’s ionised; the ions come back out of solution at the other electrode where they’re neutralised and clump into colloid particles with other ions doing the same thing. Others start with silver nitrate and neutralise it with sodium hydroxide. So the colloid has a high surface area, like a catalytic converter, which is possibly part of the appeal.

@Chemmomo:

Actually, that’s kind of unlikely. Stomach acid is basically HCl, about pH = 1. Silver isn’t oxidized by HCl.

So when someone gets blue skin from ingesting too much colloidal silver, that’s entirely from the silver ions already present in the liquid, with the silver particles simply passing through the digestive system? Huh.

Dear ” Julian”,
Before your knee jerk reaction you should have gone back and read my post. If you had you may have noticed the sarcasm applied to the statement” FDA has issued a final ruling on the inappropriateness of using this compound in any ingested medicine”. “Hail Hitler” was MY sarcastic reply to the FDA ” final ruling”.

Having said that, it may interest you ( or not) to know that I am Jewish and also lost family in Germany, and Poland, and Kiev. My Yiddish is quite profound although my Afrikaans is better.

This knee jerk must stop….not sure if you have watched any of the Holocaust stories currently in overdrive to preserve them before the last survivors pass on, but, in one of them there is a lovely old lady who talks about how holding onto the knee jerk mentality gives away ones power, and that if there is one thing she learnt through all of her experiences it is that the only thing they could not take away was what she held within her heart. And in her heart she vowed to never ever react to ignorance. She went on to say that all her life she has held onto that notion of letting go: of anger, of hate, of fear, of reaction and specifically mentioned the knee jerk reaction of the young.
Well, for her everyone was young ( actually those were her words too) She was 97 and attributed her longivity to living life to the fullest and not holding grudges ( based on the above.)Nelson Mandella said much the same during his presidential festivities.
I believe her name was Ivy though I don’t remember her last name. I remembered her name because ivy ( the plant) is like that, tenacious….

It may also interest you to know that I have met several elderly ladies who refused chemo treatment for their breast cancer, saying that using the chemo would be horrific because the treatments involved using products that had been tested ( and used) on Jewish prisoners of war in the concentration camps. The elderly ladies preferred a death of ” dignity” rather than a death of ” betrayal” towards their lost kin.
So, next time you pop an asprin made by Bayer you think on that.
And for the rest of you: the Bayer of today can be traced back to the IG Farben Industry, whose members were tried for Crimes Against Humanity by a special Tribunal at Nuremburg in 1945.
The United States and other Allies developed the Agreement for the Prosecution and Punishment of the Major War Criminals of the European Axis and Charter of the International Military Tribunal overseen by General Telford Taylor, US Chief Prosecutor.

There are official transcripts from the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal Against the Oil and Drug Cartel available online and they number in the thousands.

Hence the name of my book (FDA) Crimes Against Humanity which follows the charter as outlined in the tribunal et al.

And while you may howl, snap, snarl and rip apart my writing skills or lack thereof please understand that I simply cannot part with citations because they are integral to my book. So, ” put up or shut up” is what I believe the words were, correct?

In that case I guess I will leave, leaving all the
” techies and lab rats” to continue their stumble through the dark as they babble on about the finer points of what the hell constitutes Colloidal Silver…..ah yes! the great minds…at work again !

Carry on, at ease gremlins…lordy! what a bunch!

though some of you have turned out to be quite elegant off the forum. In case you missed it, you may contact me directly:

[email protected]

And Julian, I really am sorry that you were so offended, it was not my intent.

okay Orac, I assume that I have now fulfilled the finer points as laid out in your disclaimer of: information is for discussion and entertainment purposes only,

therby fulfilling your humble bowing and scraping to FDA whether in fact you realize it or not.
” not intended to diagnose, treat, mitigate or cure”

Tsk tsk
I really did want to tell you about Artemisinin, most especially since you mention cancer so often in your bio
but honestly, based on your title piece re Alt meds frankly this may be too much, even for you. Pity.

I particularly loved the WarCraft pieces popping up sporadically, they were superb.

Dinah Everett Snyder.

@Dinah Everett Snyder:

please understand that I simply cannot part with citations because they are integral to my book.

First, we aren’t asking for all of the citations in your book. We’re asking for citations for a few specific things, namely the research papers you claim duplicate Wakefield’s work. Surely the citations regarding Wakefield’s research don’t form such a large portion of all your citations that you’d be giving away the majority of your citations?

Second, if you’ve signed a contract giving a publisher right of first publication, I rather doubt that they’d be bothered by you giving some of the citations from your book (or even all of them). If that’s what worrying you, you should ask your publisher/agent about that, since being unable to give any citations when arguing about things like this is rather like fighting with one hand tied behind your back.

I simply cannot part with citations because they are integral to my book.

You do realise what is being asked for, don’t you? Just references for published research that is available to anyone with a subscription to the journals concerned (in some cases they may even be available free). All they should be doing in the book is supporting the statements you make in the book. If anything is “integral to [your] book”, it is your own arguments, not the external sources the book uses. You seem quite happy to post your own statements here, but claim that the external citations you use to support them cannot be revealed?

All this looks like is “I have evidence but it’s a secret”.

There are official transcripts from the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal Against the Oil and Drug Cartel available online and they number in the thousands.

Hence the name of my book (FDA) Crimes Against Humanity which follows the charter as outlined in the tribunal et al.

And while you may howl, snap, snarl and rip apart my writing skills or lack thereof please understand that I simply cannot part with citations because they are integral to my book.

Hilarious!

Seriously, Dinah, that is the single most pathetic excuse I’ve ever heard for not providing even a single citation. In fact, it’s beyond pathetic and, from my perspective, more than adequate justification for having a hearty chuckle at you and your cluelessness.

Put up or shut up. You bore me now.

@Orac:

Seriously, Dinah, that is the single most pathetic excuse I’ve ever heard for not providing even a single citation.

What are some of the most amusing ones you’ve heard?

Matthew Cline @ 204:

All the studies where silver has documented antimicrobial uses, they’re talking about silver ions (i.e. a salt of some form) rather than in its elemental form (e.g. colloidal) when it’s inert and has no effect except on your skin pigmentation.

It’s right up there with confusing elemental mercury for Thimerosal, really.

(Also, I wonder why they sell it colloidal form. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to dissolve the silver with some acids rather than grinding the silver down into microscopic particles?)

I am now quite convinced that it’s for marketing reasons. “Colloid” sounds very sciency and advanced, but it’s not a word you hear used much in pharmaceuticals, even though so many pharmaceuticals *are* in a colloidal preparation — it’s a bit like trumpeting that silver nitrate is an ionic compound. True, but to anybody with much of a chemistry background, pretty trivial.

There’s also the fact that making a colloidal silver preparation is somewhat complicated, so it becomes a sort of magic, much like homeopathy. Complicated placebos are generally more effective than simple ones.

But bacteria can develop resistance to silver. Can bacteria develop resistance to oxidizing agents?

They have to increase their own oxidation potentials significantly, especially in the regions that silver accesses. Basically, what I would expect to happen is that they end up having those regions of the proteins selected for hydrocarbon side chains.

Note that the difference between Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria is in whether they can be oxidized by peroxide (at least, that is my understanding of it – regardless of whether that is specifically Gram pos or Gram neg I don’t always remember, but ultimately some bacteria will be oxidized by peroxide and others are not)

So, to summarize the precedent episodes

Dinah shows up and tells us that Wakefield’s results have been replicated, without doing the obvious thing, pointing to the article.
Then she spouts more shocking revelations, again without any support.
(what? medical teams from humanitarian societies using local resources in remote areas? Shocking, I tell you)
Then she insists on the benefits of drinking colloidal silver, and justifies it by pointing at the use of silver as an antiseptic, or as a coolant by the NASA.
Incidentally, for someone so knowledgeable on microbes, she is swapping virus for bacterium, and doesn’t seem to realize why this is a big deal. One is precise or one is not.
And finally, when Julian was sort of upset of Dinah going for the Godwin award, she retorts what he shouldn’t make a big deal of this and should just forget and do not hold any grudge (just like this sweet old lady), and she keep digging deeper by revealing shocking facts about IG Farben, Bayer, and more (so much for not holding grudges).
Hint, Dinah. Look at Orac’s favorite blogs, on the left. The ones in the category “Combating Holocaust Denial”. Look at the non-medical topics Orac was blogging about. Do you really think that the regular readers here don’t know about IG Farben?

I’m sorry, but there is nothing news in what you are spouting. The shock value is fading away.

One of your goals coming here was obviously to look smart, stunning us with your deep knowledge of real life.
For confusing us and keep moving the topic, you are good. If you have a cat, I am sure you are confusing it regularly. It’s good for its health.
But as for looking smart. I suggest you reassess your strategy.

I’d be willing to bet that Dinah is using her book as her reference. Her reference is the book, and the book is the reference. It’s circular reasoning, sure, but it’s a better reason than anything she has said. I thought she might have taken a page from “Dr.” Wakefield, and went with the ‘everything is in my book, please buy it’ route, but that’s just wrong, and a kind soul such as herself wouldn’t do that.

For a good discussion of CS, I’d suggest Dr. Crislip’s podcast at
http://moremark.squarespace.com/quackcast-list-mp3/
Number 36, Hi Ho Silver. Should you use colloidal silver? Was there WMD’s in Iraq. Same quality data.

For the “good” Dr. Jay, I’d suggest Quackcast Number 30, Lets Kill The Children or A Defense of Vaccines Why vaccines, to quote Mr. Pooh, “Are a Good Thing.”

Because the world needs more Mark Crislip

Heliantus:

For confusing us and keep moving the topic, you are good. If you have a cat, I am sure you are confusing it regularly. It’s good for its health.

This looks like a job for . . . Confuse-A-Cat!

please understand that I simply cannot part with citations because they are integral to my book.

You know, Dinah, the cool thing about citations is that they are easily reproduced, such that even if you use them in one place, that does not mean they cannot be shared in others. For example, I routinely mention citations to papers in my daily activities, including those that I have previously included in my published, copyrighted works.

So no, I don’t understand why you can’t give us citations for the references that you continually assert to exist. Your comment that they are “integral to your book” does not explain why you can’t provide them here, except in a “you have to buy my book to get the citation to the references” way, which would suggest that you have no interest in actually talking about this and your sole intent is to advertise your book.

While Orac does not often ban commentors, I do think that “spamming advertising trolls” would match the level of what would constitute the level of being banned, I suspect.

If I am misinterpreting something, you can clarify, but as the others have said, it’s time to put up or shut up. If you don’t, I will just assume you are spamming us to get us to buy your book. Then again, your marketing approach seems to have a lot to be desired, because you are going to be hard pressed to convinced anyone to buy a book written a someone who shows herself to be blinken idiot.

@Pablo:

Your comment that they are “integral to your book” does not explain why you can’t provide them here, except in a “you have to buy my book to get the citation to the references” way,

Well, if she has a publishing contract for her book (rather than having it self published), she might think that giving citations contained in the book before it’s published would violate her contract. I rather doubt that any publishing contract would say anything like that, and even if it technically said that I really doubt that her publisher meant for it to say that.

Well, if she has a publishing contract for her book (rather than having it self published)

That’s a pretty big “if”. Probably big enough to have a gravitational field, and several planets orbiting around it.

@Pablo:

That’s why I mentioned that I regularly provide references that I have included in copyrighted publications.

Besides copyright, there’s also the right of first publication (which most publishers will demand) which says that the author can’t publish their writing elsewhere before the publisher does it first. Someone might misunderstand that to mean that citations contained in a book can’t be shared until after the book is published (or if the wording of the contract is weird it might actually say that, although I can’t believe any publisher would actually mean for the contract to say that).

If Dinah’s worried about violating an agreement with the publisher, then should she be discussing any of her arguments in these comments? I assume many of her points on this page are “integral” to the book.. no?

The citations are public domain and therefore have no copyright policy. The only reason for Dinah to hide them is to lure people into buying her book.

Let’s think about the point of all of this. Dinah has argued online that Wakefield’s research has been duplicated in several countries. When asked for proof, she tells you to wait and buy her book. If she was trying to make a valid point that enlightens and expands the minds of those she’s debating, she would provide the reasoning behind her claim.

No competent, well-intended debater provides a claim and refuses to provide evidence. Not only is it poor etiquette, but the end goal makes little sense. What is the point in her arguing? Does she assume that we’re going to change our minds because she stated a claim?

This goes further than making a bad argument. This has more to do with the fundamental goal of having a discussion. Clearly, Dinah’s goal is something else… perhaps advertising?

That’s it. Dinah isn’t here to change our minds. She’s here to advertise her book.

Dinah, that whole “you gotta buy the book to get the references” thing was done far better by Kevin Trudeau a few years back, or even by Nancy Pelosi when she said they had to pass the healthcare bill in order to find out what was in it.

I’m not a scientist like most of the commenters here. I am a writer, however, and you simply don’t have the way with words to pull that kind of bullshit off.

Provide the sources. It’s not violating ANYONE’S copyright for you to do so. That whole “look ’em up on Google/FDA website because I’m just too busy” thing wouldn’t cut it in an elementary school book report, much less your magnum opus.

Either you are unbelievably intellectually lazy to the point of sloth, which makes me pity your copy editor and fact checkers, or you are flat out making crap up and hoping that no one catches on until you recoup your vanity press investment. Which is it?

Mesafirsta? No, yousafirsta. Mesa no wanna gets hit bya dor onna wayout.

You should not have come back.

@Lazer:

The nom de Web appears in odd threads using some interesting, dare I say British, word spellings and phrasing. (“practise” for practice, jab for vaccine.) Strange that a brit would go after the FDA (see above silver comment) but he/she could be a transplant to our fair shores.

Dinah says she can speak Afrikaans. That means she, like me, is a Saffer.

Dinah claims:

“And while you may howl, snap, snarl and rip apart my writing skills or lack thereof please understand that I simply cannot part with citations because they are integral to my book.”

Although it is probable (as many commenters have noted above) that this means Dinah has no clear idea of what “citations” are, there is an alternative explanation.

It could be that Dinah’s book is simply a bibliography – a listing of books and articles that are (at least tangentially) relevant to a certain topic. That would explain why the citations are “integral” to her book – they are her book.

Of course, I think that the odds are in favor of the first hypotheses: that Dinah doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

Prometheus

I think you’re all missing what Dinah’s book really is. It’s The Big Book of Paranoid Mad-Libs, and the bibliography is just there to give you ideas for the conspiracies with which to complete the Mad-Libs.