Another defense of the antivaccine propaganda “documentary” The Greater Good from the San Ramon Valley Unified School District

This is wonderful news. We need to take a more proactive look at our vaccination schedules. No more of this blindly adding vaccines to the recommended schedule without question. It’s great news that more and more people will be given the opportunity to see that there are two sides to this story. The crybabies will whine that movies like these will “scare” people out of getting vaccines and the world will turn into a germ infested mess… Get over it. My hope is that this would lead to a modified vaccine schedule. Less vaccines given, more spread out and with an acknowledgement that not all babies can handle all the vaccines given to them in a short amount of time. This is great news! Thanks for the information on the movie.

April, 22, 2015

San Ramon, CA

Today we report a massive breakout of measles, one of the most communicable diseases known to man. This outbreak of the disease has caused health officials to quaranteen large parts of the city to contain the outbreak. So far there have been 7 deaths of infants who were too young to get a vaccine, and there have been over 450 hospitalizations, most of whom failed to receive a vaccination for one reason or another.

This latest outbreak comes shortly after the whooping Cough outbreak last fall which killed 12 babies and hospitalized an additioal 512 people.

The toll on the local economy has been devastating. Visits to the area have dropped off dramatically. Further since this is the second time in a year that people have been prevented from gong to work, some businesses have actually had to close because they were unable to hire local help.

Comments:

Scienceherder
Why cant these idiots be put on an island if they dont want to get a vaccine?

MyBodyIsMyTemple
Why should the government tell me what I must put my my body?

AngryMom
Because of shit like this you moron!

LolCat
Iphones Suck!

Where was the notice to parents when Frontline did an expose on this subject? That was an excellent resource for parents regarding vaccines and presented interviews with people on both sides of the issue. I’m sure the school notified parents then, too? Right? Right? Hello?

Where was the notice to parents when Frontline did an expose on this subject? That was an excellent resource for parents regarding vaccines and presented interviews with people on both sides of the issue. I’m sure the school notified parents then, too? Right? Right? Hello?

[Crickets chirping]

Of course Mr. Marvel didn’t. That news report expressed a pro-science viewpoint.

What a coincidence that Kent Heckenlively and Nancy Sheets both work at the same middle school in the San Ramon School District:

http://grms.schoolloop.com/staff

Did Heckenlively’s pal Nancy Sheets recommend the series of treatments that included chelation and the stem cells injected interthecally at an off-shore clinic, that Kent subjected his daughter to?:

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2008/12/the_price_of_antivaccination_fanaticism.php

“April, 22, 2015

San Ramon, CA

Today we report a massive breakout of measles, one of the most communicable diseases known to man. This outbreak of the disease has caused health officials to quaranteen large parts of the city to contain the outbreak. So far there have been 7 deaths of infants who were too young to get a vaccine, and there have been over 450 hospitalizations, most of whom failed to receive a vaccination for one reason or another.”

LOL! Sounds like a plot to a really interesting movie. This does not help your case. Measles used to be seen as a normal childhood illness. Remember the Brady’s? Remember the books about kids having the measles and looking outside their windows because their mommies wouldn’t let them go outside to play with the other children. Poor kiddos… had to actually stay inside and allow the measles to run it’s course. Now, it’s “the most communicable disease known to man” and worthy of “quarantining” large parts of the city? Wow.

…wakes them up to the glorious sound of evidence-free, google-PhD, bathtub chemistry, my-feelings-trump-your-science shenaniganry.

Good investigation work, lilady.

Right now I’m focused on getting California AB 2109 out of committee., which would strengthen California’s ridiculously lax vaccine exemption law. Vincent Iannelli explains

A new bill in California, AB 2109, will supposedly make it harder to get a vaccine exemption. How much harder? Instead of simply signing a personal belief vaccine exemption form on their own, parents will be required to have a written statement signed by a health practitioner that says the parent was given information about the benefits and risks of immunizations and the risks of certain vaccine-preventable diseases.

Bob Sears, of course, is agin AB2109, for reasons that don’t hold water. And he shows his true colors: he is purely anti-vaccine. He directs readers to….NVIC. That’s right, Barbara Loe Fisher’s pack of misrepresentation and lies.

With his usual thoroughness, ToddW has analyzed NVIC’s objection to the bill, and the kind of misinformation and distortion Barbara Loe Fisher and NVIC provide.

Ms. Fisher then provides a suggested course of action, with talking points including the previously mentioned untruth about forcing parents to make appointments with physicians. Here is where we really begin to see what she means by “informed consent”. It appears that by “informed consent” what she really means is “informed with the information NVIC provides”, which other writers have shown on numerous occasions omits important information and that the information they do provide is frequently presented in such a way as to exaggerate the risks of vaccines while downplaying their benefits and the risks of diseases.

Back on topic: Reminder, the town is San Ramon; the school district is the San Ramon Vally Unified School District. The district has 35 schools and has about 29,000 students in kindergarten thru 12th grade.

Wonderful, do you question local engineers when they design a bridge that you might drive your child over someday? Do you suggest the pilot make changes to his flight plan on a plane you’re taking your child on? These are important questions! If doctors aren’t qualified to make decisions about health care, then why are we letting other professions get away with blindly doing whatever they want without regard to the greater good – because EVERYONE is qualified to make decisions about ANYTHING if they research it on the internet, right? Surely, those bridges and flight plans aren’t decided on with any safety in mind … it’s all about the money, isn’t it? Those greedy engineers and pilots. Why don’t they think about the children???

I guess ultimately for me it was a win / win situation as there were even more problems with the suggested schedule than I had originally imagined.

What problems, exactly? Be specific, and indicate the evidence that made you conclude that they actually are problems.

As I said above, while clearly you beleive the routine schedule needs revision you haven’t indicated why you’ve arrived at this conclusion. Hopefully it has some basis in fact, rather than an intuitive feeling of “Just seems like too much too soon to me”.

Wonderful, what is “controversial” about the chicken pox vaccine? (Citations and links please)

Have you seen these photos?”

http://www.immunize.org/photos/chickenpox-photos2.asp

I really don’t think you are a “wonderful” parent…just another ignorant, educated by Goggle U, anti-vaxer.

Wonderful, what is “controversial” about the chicken pox vaccine?

As I’ve explained many times before, anyone who forgoes the chicken pox vaccine, and, in particular, deliberately tries to infect their child with the disease instead can only be described as a completely heartless monster.

No one who has an ounce of compassion for their children could ever think was a good idea.

Marry Me, Mindy:

No one who has an ounce of compassion for their children could ever think was a good idea.

A person who thinks that a child suffering for two weeks covered in itchy open wounds (pox) is sadistic. The same goes for anyone who wants a child to cough hard and continuously for three months (pertussis), have their face painfully swollen with a horrendous sore throat (mumps), have a high fever and severe light sensitivity with a real chance of disability (measles), spend over a week with runny diarrhea that will not stay in a diaper (rotavirus) and otherwise wish a child to get sick.

Especially when the prevention is so easy.

As I’ve explained many times before, anyone who forgoes the chicken pox vaccine, and, in particular, deliberately tries to infect their child with the disease instead can only be described as a completely heartless monster.

Have you also explained to them that the chicken pox vaccine causes primary VZV infection and anyone vaccinated with it qualifies to develop shingles later in their life? So who’s the “heartless monster”?

Wonderful…here’s another picture of child…this one has hemorrhagic chicken pox:

http://www.aap.org/en-us/PublishingImages/varicella-infant-hemorrhagic_lrg.jpg

And, where are your citations/links to the “research” you did to “opt out” of giving your child the varicella vaccine…and to justify not protecting your child and others, against this virus?

Hey awesome guys, by promoting the chicken pox vaccine so strongly, you are now showing your lack of respect for the elderly (and others) who will now no doubt be suffering more with shingles. Great job! Go get em!

QUESTION:

“Have you also explained to them that the chicken pox vaccine causes primary VZV infection and anyone vaccinated with it qualifies to develop shingles later in their life?”

ANSWER:

Ignorant, delusional, disease-promoting *SFB* Troll are you still claiming you have an education beyond high school?

Are you still lying about your brilliant (imaginary) licensing and career in a health care profession?

Are you still in custodial care because you don’t have computer access in the sewer you crawl out of?

QUESTION:

“So who’s the “heartless monster”?”

ANSWER:

Ignorant, delusional, disease-promoting *SFB* Troll, who takes particular delight in stating that the death of an infant from pertussis was “iatrogenic”. That same *SFB* Troll states that children who are developmentally disabled are “vaccine-injured”.

What the hell? You must be young enough not to have dealt with measles personally. When I was a kid, our school was shut down and children told to stay home because of a measles epidemic. Two dozen children, including my sister, were in the hospital due to measles induced encephalitis. They had to go through spinal taps, and some had to go into physical and occupational therapy afterwards (my sister included). One little girl never went back to school. She had been institutionalized because of the brain damage.

So, yes, back then quarantine was used, and yes, people were scared of measles.

The fact that we have to inform people that these sorts of things happened continues to tell me that anti-vaxxers have no understanding of history. We’ve got documentation as well as the survivor stories. A lot of anti-vaxxers essentially end up telling me that my grandmother lied about all the diseases that killed or maimed kids during her days. Same thing with the guides who talk about all the dead infants in their graveyard tours. Heck, these people seem to think Mark Twain’s references to the ravages of illness in his books was unrealistic. These people seem to think history is just a change in decor and fashion, like Hollywood suggests. Before vaccination, childhood illness killed a lot of children. Before vaccination, disease was a big part of life. It was only after all these vaccinations that society started taking health for granted, aided by historical myopia.

The fact that Wonderful treats The Brady Bunch as a reference resource for a real world issue is just sad.

This just in from the Canary Party

As discussions have spread about the film The Greater Good, more professionals, encouraged by the open discussion the film is promoting, are recommending the film. Today we recieved a letter from pediatrician Janet Levatin doing just that:

Re: The film “The Greater Good”
3/22/2012
To Whom It May Concern:
My name is Janet Levatin, MD, and I have been a board-certified pediatrician since 1989. I attended the George Washington University School of Medicine, graduating in 1982, and completed a pediatric residency at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. I have been practicing pediatrics as an attending-level physician since 1986, and have been following the issues of vaccinations and parental consent for many years.

I had the opportunity to see the film “The Greater Good” several months ago. I found the film very informative and thought-provoking in its discussion of the development of vaccines and vaccine policy. The information is well presented, and offers a balanced discussion of the issues. The opinions of neuroscientists and physicians who raise pertinent questions about current vaccine policy are presented; additionally, time is given to medical professionals who strongly advocate for vaccine policy as it exists.

Parents are constantly making decisions that influence the health and safety of their children. As a pediatrician I encourage all parents to inform themselves fully and to discuss many issues with their children’s health care providers, especially elective procedures such as vaccination. “The greater Good” is an excellent educational resource that parents can use as they prepare to discuss immunization plans with their pediatricians.
Sincerely,
Janet Levatin, MD

A reminder to watch The Greater Good on Current TV this Saturday at 1pm eastern.

Well who is Janet Levatin?

Uh, oh

HOLISTIC PEDIATRICAN JOINING TENPENNY INTEGRATIVE MEDICAL CENTER,
MIDDLEBURG HEIGHTS, OHIO NOW ACCEPTING NEW PATIENTS

Tenpenny Integrative Medical Center (TIMC) is pleased to announce the addition of Janet Levatin, MD to our holistic medical team. Dr. Janet is a pediatrician and homeopathic physician who was in private practice in the Boston, Massachusetts area for almost 25 years prior to joining our center.

Homeopath. On board with the dreadful Dr. Tenpenny.

@Wonderful – I am pretty sure I know exactly why your pediatrician blew up at you….you obviously haven’t studied history, definitely not medical history, know nothing about the ways medical research is conducted, and certainly aren’t using the brains god gave you.

As for Chicken Pox, myself & my two siblings got it (before the vaccine was available) and between the three of us, it was 8 weeks of hell in our household (each sick for about three weeks, with some overlap between infections). I know we would have certainly wanted to avoid that, if we could have at the time.

I also see about ZERO citations in any of your assertions – so unless you have evidence to back up your statements, they aren’t worth the electrons they are printed on.

Pretty sad when we start justifying vaccinations in this country because 2 parents work and can’t take time away from work to care for their children… Is that really a good reason to vaccinate your kids?

Have you not been paying the least bit of attention? Severe pain, permanent disability, and DEATH are the consequences – and for some reason you think we’re worried about people taking time off work?!?! You can be VERY sure my imminent daughter will be vaccinated according to the CDC schedule. Because I don’t want her to die from easily prevented disease.

I am of the believe that the more vaccines given, the worse off the child.

Belief is irrelevant. What’s your EVIDENCE?

Take them slow, one at a time

[citation needed] that there is any benefit to doing so.

which ones are truly needed and which ones are simply money makers and/or given out of convenience.

Death, permanent disability, severe pain, etc. – yep, definitely not “simply money makers” or convenience.

In other words, use your God given brains to actually think things through here.

Done. Said thinking (and the facts) demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that you couldn’t be more wrong if you asserted that 1+1=James Earl Jones.

Measles used to be seen as a normal childhood illness

Bubonic plague was a statistically normal illness at one time too.

The only thing “Wonderful” you are is an example of the morally horrifying antivax cult of infanticide. It’s no different from withholding medicine from kids because you’d rather speak-in-tongues over them. Your brainless voodoo is only good for killing children. All antivaxers are unfit parents who should have their children immediately removed from their care and never allowed contact with them again.

Take note, Th1Th2 has been asked repeatedly how to prevent diseases without vaccines, and everything she has produced has been either:
1) Uselessly vague.
2) Comically unrealistic.
3) Ludicrously unfeasible.
4) Horrifically immoral.

On the topic of these preventable diseases being a “normal” part of childhood: It was once “normal” to discover that some of your classmates died from these diseases. Or were permanently blinded, deafened, paralyzed, or brain damaged. It was once “normal” for adults who didn’t get childhood immunity to suffer some nasty effects of their own, like shingles from chicken pox or sterility from mumps.

Wonderful is apparently trying to whitewash history so that it conforms with his white bread TV sitcom expectations.

Wonderful, I doubt we will change your mind here. Would you kindly link some of your sources? I’m interested in seeing where you learned this.

@ Zab: I’ve been asking for citations/links from “Wonderful” since 10:27 EDT this morning. He’s not just pulling those factoids from his orifice…he knows they are from the notorious anti-vax websites that he visits.

So Wonderful, where are those citations/links?

Liz Ditz @37

Hmm, if you compare the 2 letters from the “health professionals”, it’s obvious that the second paragraphs are identical, and the third para is just re-arranged a bit.

Obviously a bit of a form letter campaign going on…

Wonderful:

I am of the believe that the more vaccines given, the worse off the child.

I’ve asked multiple times now: why is this your belief? If thre is actual evidence which convinced you this is the case, share it with us and maybe we’ll be convinced as well.

Take them slow, one at a time and make careful decisions as to which ones are truly needed and which ones are simply money makers and/or given out of convenience.

Why take it slow? What evidence argues the schedule as it stands needs revision?

In other words, use your God given brains to actually think things through here.

I have. I’ve simply reached a conclusion different than yours after considering the available evidence. If there’s evidence I’m unaware of you feel I should consider (perhaps whatever evidence convinced you of a need for revision?) share it with us all.

Unless of course your belief doesn’t derive from evidence…

Hey awesome guys, by promoting the chicken pox vaccine so strongly, you are now showing your lack of respect for the elderly (and others) who will now no doubt be suffering more with shingles.

Except that the vaccine is less likely to manifest as shingles in later years than wild strain chicken pox, and should they manifest symptoms are much milder and more manageable for those vaccinated than those unvaccinated.

I had a great aunt suffer shingles and have to manage the pain with opiates… I have no wish to do the same (which is a possiblity, as I have a scar or two from “natural” chicken pox) or have others do the same. So get your kids the shot, dammit.

— Steve

Ren, I would add…

“I have done the “research” and I am flummoxed, so I get my knowledge about immunology and vaccines, from crank websites. With my (limited or non) knowledge of science, I cannot understand how vaccines have eradicated smallpox, how polio is no longer indigenous in all of the Western Hemisphere and only exists in small pockets in 3rd world countries, the simple epidemiology of disease incidence going up, when vaccine rates go down, eludes me (someone is tricking with the statistics), my belief that childhood diseases are benign, therefore the reports about the dramatic decrease in incidence and reported deaths from vaccine preventable diseases…are false…and a giant conspiracy involving *Big Gubmint* and *Big Pharma*. I know this to be true because:

a. my “mommy” or “daddy” intuition trumps science

b. my paranoia about conspiracies

c. my belief that natural disease is “better that vaccines”

d. I have the support of other trolls who post on blogs

This comment is a work in progress, so feel free to add more *valid* reasons for “opting out” of vaccines.

@ lilady

Unfotunately:

e. I have the support of attention-seeking, morally bankrupt ‘public figures’ and pediatricians.

Nursy-Nurse letter:

The information is well presented, and offers a well-balanced discussion of these issues. The viewpoints of individuals in the medical field who are strong advocates for current vaccine policy are presented, as well as the opinions and experiences of neuroscientists and physicians who raise pertinent questions based on their research or clinical experience in the care of children.

Holistic-Homeopath Doctor letter:

Hell, I don’t even have to run this through a plagiarism detector to see they are essentially identical.

So how did that mysteriously happen? Shouldn’t one of them be acknowledging the other?

Sorry about the prev double post.

I also notice this is in the Gale Ranch Middle School’s Student Wellness Policy (PB5030)
http://grms.schoolloop.com/cms/page_view?d=x&piid=&vpid=1331118073956

The Governing Board recognizes the link between student health and learning and desires to provide a comprehensive program promoting healthy eating and physical activity for district students. The Superintendent or designee shall build a coordinated school health system that supports and reinforces health literacy through health education, physical education, health services, nutrition services, psychological and counseling services, health promotion for staff, a safe and healthy school environment, and parent/guardian and community involvement.

and:

To encourage consistent health messages between the home and school environment, the Superintendent or designee may disseminate health information to parents/guardians through district or school newsletters, handouts, parent/guardian meetings, the district or school web site, and other communications. Outreach to parents/guardians shall emphasize the relationship between student health and academic performance.

They specifically mention they have a policy on Infectious Diseases.
Shouldn’t someone be directly contacting the School Principal and senior administration to enquire why their policies are being undermined/contradicted by their own staff?

@ hinterlander: Good for you, for coming up with…

e. I have the support of attention-seeking, morally bankrupt ‘public figures’ and pediatricians.

Oh Dr Jay, I visited the Frontline website to video the entire program, and to see the expanded interviews of the participants in the “Vaccine War” episode:

http://video.pbs.org/video/1479321646/

As I recall Jay, you were somewhat miffed that all of your interview ended up on the editing room floor. Your sniveling whining statement about this omission, was a gem:

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2010/04/poor_poor_pitiful_me_jenny_mccarthy_and.php

Thanks for adding to the measured, calm discussion about the relative merits of whether or not giving six vaccines to a six-week-old is the best way to do it.

I hereby publicly challenge Dr. Jay Gordon, pediatrician, to find his way into the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. He must have some connections to get in. Once in, he will maybe (and this is me going out on a limb), maybe, understand “the relative merits of whether or not giving six vaccines to a six-week-old is the best way to do it.” Or he can discuss with others on the committee why they’re all full of it. Personally, I can’t wait to read “statistical porn” in one of their reports should he serve on ACIP.

How about it, Doc?

ADDENDUM: Anyone missing resident troll Robert Schecter, not a scientist, not a writer, can find him on the discussion at this article: h_ttp://pediatrics.about.com/b/2012/03/21/pass-the-new-california-vaccine-bill.htm

Remember to take out the underscore in “http”

Hilarious. 🙂

And people call me crazy… TTT is a nut job. Glad he/she is on your side. Lol!

In case you haven’t gotten hep to this, a string of vapid emoticon-punctuated assertions capped off with “Lol!” is the rhetorical equivalent of dumping a bucket of shit on your head.

Ah, formidable!

Pretty sad when we start justifying vaccinations in this country because 2 parents work and can’t take time away from work to care for their children…

It’s me, or is Wonderful advocating for one parent to stay home and do its God-given duty to take care of the children? (and if so, can I guess which of the two parents should stay home?)
As if measles, chicken pox and the like were the results of child neglect.
And as if 2 weeks (or more) of missing wages, plus costs of care, times how many children and illnesses, were a trivial thing for everybody. You sound very privileged, sir.

given out of convenience.

Eh, it’s the same argument against measures surroundings reproductive health. Just clench your teeth and go through the pain, lads and gals. Or just stay cloistered home and avoid it altogether (if only it was that simple).
Yeap, very privileged.

Meanwhile, in Europe, people continue to sicken and die, from that “normal childhood illness” especially in France, despite its excellent healthcare system.

The WHO’s newest measles summary in the Weekly Epidemiological Record reports more than 26,000 cases of measles in 36 European countries from January-October 2011, with more than 14,000 of those in France. Despite strong health systems, Western European countries have reported 83% of these cases. These outbreaks have caused nine deaths, including six in France, and 7288 hospitalizations.
…
The majority of European cases (90%) were amongst adolescents and adults who had not been vaccinated or for whom vaccination history was not reported.

And for those who look fondly back on the good old days when one (female) parent stayed home to care for children, there are other good things to include.

Like reporting to the local police station when you return from your annual holidays. Because the relatives you went to stay with lived in an area where there was an outbreak of …. not sure, think it was polio. (Presumably, if there was a local outbreak, they’d know where to go first for candidates for quarantine or checking for disease.) My mother distinctly remembers this from the 1930s. Probably because a trip to a police station was an unusual, exciting event for an eight year old.

lilady,

The final number/incidence rate of confirmed Measles cases in France during 2011, and confirmed cases 2012 YTD, is now available.

Thanks, I bow to your superior abilities in negotiating the WHO website – I gave up before I found that information. There haven’t been too many cases reported in France this year so far, but I was looking at a graph of cases earlier that showed they seem to peak every April. It will be clearer later in the year if there has been a real decrease. I wonder why there has been such a huge increase in the Ukraine?

Last year in France there were 24.1 cases of measles per 100,000. If the same rate occurred in the US there would be over 75,000 cases and, assuming similar outcomes to France about 25 deaths, and 21,000 hospitalizations.

I find it interesting that 90% of cases were unvaccinated adolescents and young adults. What could possibly have happened to reduce vaccine uptake about 14 years ago when they would have been getting their first and second doses of MMR? [/sarcasm]

Mindy, (and anybody over 50), from NNii the National Network on Immunization Information:

03/24/2011

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of Zostavax, a live attenuated virus vaccine, to prevent shingles in individuals aged 50 to 59 years. The vaccine was already approved for use in individuals 60 years and older. Shingles affects about 200,000 healthy people between the ages of 50 and 59 each year in the United States. The approval was based on a study that included about 22,000 people who were 50 to 59 years of age. After half of the patients received Zostavax and half received a placebo, researchers monitored the participants for at least one year. Compared with placebo, Zostavax reduced the risk of shingles by about 70 percent.

Actually I’m planning on getting it in the next month. No shingles here, please; my mother-in-law suffered dreadfully.

As we gather around the campfire ( or the glowing computer screen), I’ll speak of an era rapidly fading into the mists of time- it’s called the Enlightenment. Perhaps we are its battered, frazzled end: tattered and torn but proudly waving in the stiff breeze opposing us.

Our most esteemed and enlightened host has chosen subjects recently that precisely illustrate *la nouvelle vague*: science being decided in a court of law or by public opinion. If you have critics, you may try to silence them through barratry and mis-using the courts rather than by replicating your results. Or you may present biased evidence to the public, mis-using your official responsibilities as you enjoy your freedom of speech and the wonders of PR. Or trying to change laws by harranguing legislators.

Let the public decide matters of scientific debate for we are all *equals*. The “cult of the expert” un-equally ascribes power based on irrelevant factors, like education and training: limiting privileges to a select few unfairly discriminates against those who follow the beat of a different drummer while rewarding the unjustly empowered elitist faction. Why shouldn’t everyone have the right to diagnose illness and treat patients *any way* he or she chooses?

I used to have the elitist notion that somehow we could eventually approach the truth of reality- how the world works- find what is the inner clockwork of nature- by study, experiment and debate rather than by politics, legal sophistry and advertising. I hope I wasn’t wrong.

lurker:

Orac is not a pediatrician, why does he keep harping on the vaccine schedule.

Because it is something that interests him, just like the history of the holocaust.

Also, as an oncologist he has a great deal of interest in keeping up herd immunity for his patients. Cancer patients have depressed immune systems and are quite vulnerable to infections.

By the way, on the other thread you said:

The MMR contains a live virus so there may be carriers who exhibit no symptoms.

You never answered what evidence you have for that statement. Care to try now?

Also have gone to you library to get the books I mentioned:
Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It by Gina Kolata
and
The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John Barry

@Denise- I really enjoy your lyrical outpourings. I was a skeptic until someone-a
world famous magician, who we waited for after the show we saw with a pretty sturdy fork to debunk him and his spoon bending act- Well he did it by holding the edge of the fork and within a few seconds bent a tine of it before our eyes without touching the tine at all. Right in front of us! Of course no one believes us- and I still have the fork to prove it!
Real WOO WOO! Not science which hasn’t explained this at all yet but will someday.

“Orac is not a pediatrician, why does he keep harping on the vaccine schedule.”

Perhaps because these infectious diseases are dangerous vor everyone, not just children. I had the full dose of naturally acquired infections during the 1950s. But I had to care for my husband during a bout of chickenpox in the late 80s. He caught from our children – before the vaccine was available here.

It was devastating. Throat almost closed up from swelling. Mouth and ears full of pox piled on top of each other. A couple of nights of delirium. Beautiful clear skin scarred forever – it’s called pox for a reason.

@lurker

Well he did it by holding the edge of the fork and within a few seconds bent a tine of it before our eyes without touching the tine at all.

Are you serious? This is what convinced you to stop being a ‘skeptic?’ If you’d have bothered to do any research on this topic at all, you would have seen that this is a common stage trick, the methods of which have been known for years. No magic, just illusion. The wikipedia article “Spoon Bending” is a good place to start…it even has an image of a fork bent by woo-buster James Randi in just the way you described.

@Chris-re MMR- found answer-
“The vaccine gives long term immunity and the vaccine virus does not spread from the vaccinee.”

@ lurker:

While I certainly appreciate your kind words I truly hope that you undertsand that my third paragraph was meant as a sarcastic comment on alt med/ health freedom beliefs rather than my own opinion.

Bay Citizen has a handy-dandy immunization & PBE rate table for Bay Area schools, so I looked up San Ramon Valley Unified

What do you know: Tassajara Hills Elementary: 94% fully immunized, 6% PBEs (compared to state average of 2.28 % PBEs.)

For the District as a whole: PBEs range from 0% to 7%, with an average of 2.1%. Gale Ranch Middle School isn’t listed as the site only covers those schools that enroll kindergarteners.

Kent Heckenlively (Gale Ranch Middle School) and Nancy Sheets (Tassajara Hills Elementary School)

What’s this nonsense about non-vaccinated not getting shingles? Anyone who has had chicken pox can have it resurrect as shingles.

Shoot, my wife got shingles when she was in high school. She was never vaccinated against chicken pox.

What’s this nonsense about non-vaccinated not getting shingles? Anyone who has had chicken pox can have it resurrect as shingles.

Another loquacious ignoramus. Check #84. ‘Hey Zeus’ has been fed and now he’s quiet.

What in the hell are you talking about. How do you think disease is caused? If you can’t answer that it’s going make you seem like a bigger idiot than you already are, which is pretty hard to do, since you can’t seem to make a damn bit of sense and you have no idea how vaccines work, which they do, and what herd immunity is.

Sounds like you’re a n00b. Anyway, there’s the natural infection and there’s the vaccine. Happy now?

Thing, pretty much always well-fed, thank you. I admit I thought you were actually trying to make a point rather than to simply give your mitochondria something to do by randomly tapping keys.
http://tinyurl.com/th1th2-expertise
Good night!

@AdamG- We gave him the fork, extremely difficult to bend the tine!

Hmm, forces entirely undetectable to modern science or a trick that fooled you. What do you think?

@Th1Th1
As I still don’t see how you think a vaccine that has a killed organism can cause the disease that it protects against, and don’t confuse that with the very rare case of a attenuated vaccine causing infection. How do expect to keep everyone from getting Chickenpox?

Wonderful @32

Hey awesome guys, by promoting the chicken pox vaccine so strongly, you are now showing your lack of respect for the elderly (and others) who will now no doubt be suffering more with shingles. Great job! Go get em!

Way to show your true colors, Wonderful and selfish. Make your children suffer so you don’t have to! That’s not how being a good parent is supposed to work.
@35

use your God given brains to actually think things through

My brains tell me to protect my children (including from chickenpox). Your brains apparently don’t want you to protect your own children. Hmmmm.

In answer to your questions Chris…They game the system when their kids are young by becoming “free riders”…depending on the herd immunity of other kids whose parents don’t opt-out.

When they get older, they continue on their path of anti-intellectualism and ignorance, they become more entrenched in pseudoscience…and they get more selfish.

One internets to Ren #55.

One internets to Narad #72. Nearly had a small bit of wee escape during my laughter.

As usual, I come for the editorial brilliance, and stay for the batshit crazy comments. It truly is the blog that keeps on giving.

Way to show your true colors, Wonderful and selfish. Make your children suffer so you don’t have to!

When my kids get sick, I feel so badly for them. I’d give anything to be able to have it ME who is sick instead of them.

How can anyone see a 14 mo old who has Hand, Foot, and Mouth, with a throat so sore for 2 days that a drink of water makes them scream, and knowing that you can’t sit and explain to them what is going on, and not feel terrible? What kind of monster could see that and say, “Well, better them than me!”

And this is only HFM, which is supposedly one of those “mild” childhood diseases. I found it to be one of the most heartbreaking things I have had to deal with as a parent. I would have done anything to make my son feel better, even if that meant getting it myself, the guy was so miserable.

As Chris says, only a sadist would subject their child to two weeks of misery when there is a simple approach to avoid it.

@ Ellie, Sid is an ass and a troll and can’t stand anecdotes about disease injury because they don’t exist in his twisted mind, only vaccine injury.

@Miss Grace – because for some reason, anti-vaxers consider those injuries and deaths to be “acceptable losses.”

What parent would want to vaccinate their child with RotaTeq after reading this from Merck’s own website:
https://www.merckvaccines.com/Products/Rotateq/Pages/rotateq.aspx?WT.mc_id=T0061

(not so) Wonderful:

I also recognize the fact that injecting children with more and more immunizations does not automatically make them “healthier”. in fact, in my opinion, the opposite in many cases may be true. In my children’s case, they got sicker and sicker after each round of vaccines.

Then you have to tell us with actual scientific literature how vaccines are more dangerous than the diseases. You can start by HepB, which is also transmitted by children. You might actually learn something if you actually learn about the diseases instead of using your “beliefs.” And that includes the issues with influenza (the movie “Contagion has an explanation of how the virus changes).

As for your children, how is being out of sorts for a day as they have a immune response worse than actually encountering full strength pertussis, tetanus, measles, etc. microbes? Provide the title, journal and dates of the papers that show any vaccine (like MMR) is more dangerous than measles, mumps and rubella. You can also answer the question I asked at #23 about the dedication in a children’s book.

Again, you really don’t know what you are talking about.

lurker, stop being silly. I had a child with a rotavirus infection, and it is nothing to laugh at. It was over a week of runny diarrhea that could not be held in by diapers, often three of them at a time. I would take a cloth diaper, cover it with a plastic diaper, then cover that with another cloth diaper and covered the whole thing with plastic pants. And still the diarrhea ran down his legs, and all over the place. I did that sometimes more than once on hour.

Plus he became so dehydrated he had a massive seizure and ended up in the hospital with IV fluids.

lurker, you are completely clueless. I bet you never changed a diaper in your life. Please answer my question: which rotavirus vaccine was approved in the late 1990s: RotaShield or RotaTeq? Why is that significant in regards to Offit?

I have asked you several times, but you seem to be ignoring it.

Wonderful, where is your verifiable data? Come on, please tell us which vaccine, what the reactions are and compare them to the disease. I want to see actual papers from the scientific literature.

Do you understand what that means? It means things like Impact of anti-vaccine movements on pertussis control: the untold story and Historical Comparisons of Morbidity and Mortality for Vaccine-Preventable Diseases in the United States. We cannot just take your random comments about your beliefs.

Here is a father’s story about his daughter and Hepatitis B. Wonderful should actually read it, just like she should read the story of Roald Dahl and the child that his book, The BFG, is dedicated to.

Antaeus Feldspar, I suspect Wonderful is not actually reading the replies to her comments. Especially when she gives me such a weak answer to my questions.

#130

Sad story. What does it have to do with the Hep B vaccine at birth? I thought that it was in bad form to trot out the sob stories every time these vaccine questions come up…. (with due respect to the young woman who died). Should I go ahead and post all the horrifically sad stories about babies dying from vaccine injuries? Should I go ahead and give you the stats and details of a bunch of horrible vaccine reactions? Should we do that? Seems like a waste of time…. Just know, you aren’t the only one who can post sad stories here.

Did you catch the part where the acupuncturist was able to identify a problem with this young lady’s liver 3 years before traditional medical doctors were…. I’m sure that every here just loved that part.

(not so) Wonderful:

Sad story. What does it have to do with the Hep B vaccine at birth?

It would have prevented the cancer that killed her.

Yes, I know it is an anecdote. But since you asked the above question it is clear that you do not understand the issues with the vaccines and the actual diseases.

Should I go ahead and give you the stats and details of a bunch of horrible vaccine reactions?

YES! I asked you multiple times to provide the actual scientific literature showing how the vaccines are worse than the diseases. I provided you two examples of the type of literature that are acceptable. Where are the studies showing how horrible the DTaP is compared to diptheria, tetanus and pertussis? Show us the statistics of the HepB vaccine versus chronic hepatitis and resulting cancer.

Now, can you also tell us about the dedication in the front of The BFG?

Wonderful believes in spoon bending.

I just thought I’d make that clear to any lurkers out there who thinks this is someone worth paying attention to.

Once again.

Wonderful believes in spoon bending.

So, in the interest of fairness, I think we should ask Wonderful what its qualifications are…we ask some of the other trolls, but get no answers. Maybe Wonderful would like to tell us why we should listen to her? Not that we will heed her nonsense, but it might be enlightening to see what her ‘creds’ are.

demandbanana:

It was actually lurker @88 who fell for the classic spoon bending illusion, not Wonderful. Not that it really matters….same s***, different toilet.

Fact: being a doctor or medical professional does not make you objective.

Fact: The training of medical professionals has a built in bias against all forms of “alternative” medicine.

Fact: All pharmaceutical drugs are toxic to life so all have negative side effects.

Fact: Most herbal or homeopathic medicines are not toxic

Fact: Aluminum, Arsenic and Mercury have been known for hundreds of years to be potent neuro-toxins.

Fact: Thimerisol, the preservative of choice for vaccines for almost a century is Methyl mercury, the most toxic substance known to occur, until the creation of Plutonium.

Fact: Formaldehyde which is used to kill the live virus in vaccines and is stated as an ingredient is extremely carcinogenic.

Fact: The oil industry took over the production of medicine from plant based sources during the first half of the last century, with the help of government and implication of the FDA and CDC.

Fact: The combined profits of the Petrochemical industry including the Pharmaceutical industry, account for most of the worlds GDP.

Fact: Money is power and power corrupts, doctors are paid to sell the products of the pharmaceutical industry, so are therefore also corrupted.

Fact: A Human being with no genetic defects, who has not been exposed to any toxins in utero, who has been breast fed and raised on organic foods, containing all the nutrients required for life and has been physically active from birth. Has absolutely no need of vaccinations, antibiotics or any form of medicine, because that person will have an immune system that can fight off any disease that mother nature can throw at it.

Final fact: Thanks to the petrochemical industry, no such person exists on this planet.

Advice: DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH, DRAW YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS AND NEVER LISTEN TO YOUR DOCTOR.

Hey Joe, try your hand with Smallpox sometime

Don’t you see, Chris?

Those losers who caught and died from vaccinE preventable diseeases wEre just genetically inferior and deserved to die.

BTW, if it were true that thimerasol contained methyl mercury, all it would mean is that the claims about how toxic it is are nonsense, since, as Joe claims it was used for a century but problems didn’t happen until the last 5 years of it. Of course, thimerasol isn’t used as a preservative anymore so is not causing any probels currently, so you would think Jow would be happy about that.

@joe

The truth is, just as everything is political, it is also propaganda, but when one side starts to increasingly resort to childish insults, it is clear that they know they are on the wrong side of history

Is it me, or did my irony meter just break at that statement.

Guess you and your ilk will be on the wrong side of history then, eh, joe?

Joe:

It’s true that Dr Offit is dumb as a stump.

That is an interesting statement from someone who posted “facts” that with a little bit of checking are shown to be completely wrong.

Apparently Joe believes that there was no industrial pollution prior to the advent of the petrochemical industry. Apparently the pulp mill effluent and the waste products from gold extraction are benign. Any chemists here care to list some chemicals that are more toxic than methyl (never mind ethyl) mercury. Botulism toxin and tetra ethyl lead come to mind.

Joe:

Apologies for the inaccuracies: ethyl or methyl it’ll still kill you.

Citation required. Since one guy tried and failed to commit suicide with thimerosal: Clinical course of severe poisoning with thiomersal.

Plus it is old news, thimerosal was removed from pediatric vaccines a decade ago. So if you are still persevering on it answer these two questions:

1. What pediatric vaccine is only available with thimerosal? Do not say DTaP, because there are two without, and don’t say influenza because there are four without thimersal.

2. Why did Sallie Bernard post this plea for a vaccine with thimersal over ten years ago:
# Subject: Thimerosal DTaP Needed
# From: Sally Bernard
# Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 00:01:50 -0400
# Yahoo! Message Number: 27456
http://onibasu.com/archives/am/27456.html

Hi all:

A group of university-based researchers needs several vials of the older DTaP vaccine formulations which contained thimerosal for a legitimate research study. If anyone knows an MD who might have some of these vaccines or knows where to get them, please email me privately.

Thank you.

Sallie Bernard
Executive Director
Safe Minds

The herbal medicine bit is called the “naturalistic fallacy”, and Orac covered it here. There have been lots of poisonings from those who think they are drinking a safe herbal tea, only to find out it was something like foxglove. Many of our pharmaceuticals started out as herbal cures, but were processed to make the doses more consistent. Like for two cardiac/vascular medications: digitalis and warfarin.

Aluminum hydroxide has lots of uses, including antacid. The amounts used in vaccines in miniscule. The soil that we use to grow food consists of minerals containing aluminum, one of the most abundant elements on this planets crust. You get more from your daily food intake or even by skinning your knee than from a vaccine.

Yes, lead and mercury were used for centuries. Except that their toxicity was not widely known. Mercury was commonly used in teething powders in the mid-20th century:
Br Med J. 1952 Feb 16;1(4754):358-60.
Mercury nephrosis in young children, with special reference to teething powders containing mercury.

And it was not until the 1960s that enough data, or enough to convince lawmakers, to show the toxicity of lead to remove it from gasoline and paint.

Go to your local library and pick up the following fun, scary and educational book:
The Poisoner’s Handbook.

And in the future do not get your science from biased documentaries. Try learning some of the data from other sources: like a chemistry or biology textbook. Or even a history book.

Thomas, you might explain to him that methyl alcohol will first make a person blind. Though ethyl alcohol is what is in his beer gives him that fine buzz.

The effects of wood alcohol (methyl alcohol) are also explained in The Poisoner’s Handbook (and to make Joe really want to read the book, the poisoners were agents of the USA government!).

Chris,
You obviously are not as educated as you think We are not talking about alcohol, but mercury which is deadly in any form, and anyway either form of alcohol can kill you if you drink enough of it.
I’ll get my info from where I want to, that is my first amendment right, but I guess you all don’t like our constitution, and your textbooks are no less biased, how do you all think you all became so narrow minded

Joe: It’s certainly your First Amendment right to believe every scam artist that comes down the pike. And it’s our First amendment right to laugh at you.

P.S. You’re right that a small amount of ethyl alcohol won’t kill you but a large amount will. Now that you’ve discovered that the dose makes the poison, apply that principle to other substances and you’ll be smarter in no time.

Joe, answer my questions.

And work on your reading comprehension.

Joe:

If you actually watch this movie you will see it is equally professional in it’s approach to any PBS type documentary.

and

as this blog was so old but current TV just played the Greater good again and I saw it for the first time two days ago and that’s how I found this blog

The First Amendment starts with “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”.

I guess wanting to believe something Joe saw on TV can be considered a religion. Perhaps he thinks that the Ghost Hunters on SyFy show is a documentary, and ghosts are real.

But we are not Congress. Telling him that his “facts” are wrong does not prohibit him from believing something just because it was on TV. Nor does telling him that there are these buildings in most towns full of books. Most of them have the book I suggested.

Though it seems his religion has a policy against having an open mind that can accept new information, especially if it contains science!

Joe,

Fact: being a doctor or medical professional does not make you objective.

Off to a good start!  That is unfortunately true.

Fact: The training of medical professionals has a built in bias against all forms of “alternative” medicine.

I would hope that’s true. You know what they call alternative medicine that works?  “Medicine”. I’d hope medical professionals have a bias against treatments that aren’t known to work or are known not to work.  Unfortunately all too many of them don’t — search for “quackademic medicine” on this site for relevant discussion. 

Fact: All pharmaceutical drugs are toxic to life so all have negative side effects.

News flash: Everything is toxic, including water and oxygen, both of which can kill you in large doses and have decidedly negative side effects (why is Stevie Wonder blind?).   Note what others have mentioned: “the dose makes the poison”. 

Fact: Most herbal or homeopathic medicines are not toxic

Homeopathic medicine are generally not toxic if prepared as “6C” dilution or better since they’re nothing but water or sugar pills (but see above that water is toxic in large doses, as is sugar). As others have noted, some herbal remedies are decidedly toxic even in small quantities.  (Remember the teething remedy with belladonna that was recalled because it was capable of poisoning children?) But all herbal medicines are potentially harmful or even deadly in large doses.

Fact: Aluminum, Arsenic and Mercury have been known for hundreds of years to be potent neuro-toxins.

Actually, no. Mercury was used in teething powders, causing “pink disease”, into the 1950s in America. That wouldn’t have been allowed if mercury had been widely recognized as a potent neurotoxin.  People used to *eat* arsenic in the 19th Century. Aluminum, as noted by others, wasn’t even isolated until the 19th Century. Did you know the capstone of the Washington Monument is aluminum?  At the time, that was a precious metal. 

Fact: Thimerisol, the preservative of choice for vaccines for almost a century is Methyl mercury, the most toxic substance known to occur, until the creation of Plutonium.

As others have noted, it’s ethyl mercury not methyl mercury. Moreover, there are lots of substances vastly more toxic than mercury — fortunately for us, since there’s mercury in seafood…

Fact: Formaldehyde which is used to kill the live virus in vaccines and is stated as an ingredient is extremely carcinogenic.

Formaldehyde is also a natural product of the body. It’s in your blood right now.  Seriously, search for “Formaldehyde” on this site and see.

Fact: The oil industry took over the production of medicine from plant based sources during the first half of the last century, with the help of government and implication of the FDA and CDC.

The CDC didn’t exist until 1946. Its predecessor organization didn’t exist until 1942. The FDA didn’t really start regulating drugs until 1937. 

Is the oil industry your pet bugaboo?  The oil industry produces oil and other petrochemicals. Those petrochemicals are used for lots of things: the asphalt on roads, the body of your monitor, and, yes, some medicines. But the oil industry itself doesn’t produce medicines; it sells raw materials used for various things. And if it did produce medicines, well, I’m really happy that the average lifespan has nearly doubled since it started!

Fact: The combined profits of the Petrochemical industry including the Pharmaceutical industry, account for most of the worlds GDP.

Okay, this is getting silly. If you count every dollar that comes from every product that uses petrochemicals as “profits of the Petrochemical industry”, well, maybe that’s true. The “Petrochemical industry” would love to get its hands on all that filthy lucre but there are all those other industries in the way…

Fact: Money is power and power corrupts, doctors are paid to sell the products of the pharmaceutical industry, so are therefore also corrupted.

“Money is power and power corrupts” — wow, a somewhat true statement!  But there are degrees of power and degrees of corruption. To what extent are doctors paid to sell medicines?  You need to offer some kind of documentation that this practice is widespread and that the amount involved are sufficient to overcome the average doctor’s honesty. 

I wonder, when I read screeds like yours, if you’ve ever actually met a doctor. I have, though I’m not a doctor myself. They are, by and large, nice people. They want to help. They’ve never pushed any drugs on me; my pulmonologist is always  happy to hear that I’ve been getting along without any treatment.

Your caricature of doctors is simply wrong and offensive. You probably congratulate yourself on how open-minded you are, but in fact you’re just a bigot.

Fact: A Human being with no genetic defects, who has not been exposed to any toxins in utero, who has been breast fed and raised on organic foods, containing all the nutrients required for life and has been physically active from birth. Has absolutely no need of vaccinations, antibiotics or any form of medicine, because that person will have an immune system that can fight off any disease that mother nature can throw at it.

Yeah, that was so common back in the good old days. It’s why you find old graveyards with little tombstones of little children who were breast-fed and raised on organic foods, were physically active (to the extent that babies can be), and certainly didn’t get any nasty vaccines or antibiotics — and died of disease.

Final fact: Thanks to the petrochemical industry, no such person exists on this planet.

Oh right.  Like any such person ever did exist. Another news flash: babies and small children used to die of disease all the time. Long before anyone even imagined the petrochemical industry, babies and small children died of disease.

Advice: DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH, DRAW YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS AND NEVER LISTEN TO YOUR DOCTOR.

Here’s some advice for you: read some history. Try Barbara Tuchman’s “A Distant Mirror”, for one. Learn about what life used to be like. Don’t compare life today with paradise; there has never been paradise on Earth. Compare it with the real past.  You truly can’t grasp how different life today is from what it used to be.

To Mindy I’m so glad I’m not married to you

How could you possibly know that no one has died of mercury poisoning, following vaccination, apparently the CDC doesn’t keep records of vaccine injuries and as the manufacturers are exempt from lawsuits they have no reason to. This is how our government gets away with murder.
what is known by all of us, is that thousands of infants die right after getting shots and millions more are permanently damaged. we may not be able to prove it against the wealth and power of industry protected by government, but we know it and we are angry, very angry, now we at least know what is being put in our bodies without our consent.
I personally have a friend who is a paramedic, who contracted Garrien barre syndrome after a flu shot. after being in a wheelchair for some time she has recovered enough to go back to work, but still has lesions in her brain and some issues, which will probably always be with her. She is now exempt from flu shots. so tell me; if the powers that be don’t accept that the flu shot was the cause, why did they grant her exemption. GB syndrome is listed as a very rare one in a million side effect of many vaccines. Now I don’t know near a million people, but I know one who got GB from a shot: is this just coincidence, or is the CDC Lying, you be the judge, but I know what I think.
How you out there who are doctors sworn to do no harm can say it is OK to inject Aluminum, arsenic, mercury, formaldehyde etc, into a human of ANY age defeats me. You are all guilty of mass murder and as befits your crimes, should be executed by lethal injection, unless you personally take a stand against the drug industry and refuse to vaccinate until the vaccines are all pure saline and in sterile refrigerated single dose form.
That’s just my opinion.

Joe,

what is known by all of us, is that thousands of infants die right after getting shots and millions more are permanently damaged.

You got any evidence for that? Please focus on those whose deaths are caused by shots.

You are all guilty of mass murder and as befits your crimes, should be executed by lethal injection

You mean with a flu shot?

And you know this how? Definte “right after”. Is it seconds? Minutes? Hours? Days? Weeks? Months? Years? Decades?

He doesn’t have to answer such a stupid question on your part, Todd.

According to your ignorant scientific opinion how do you characterize a vaccine death? Could you please cite your scientific peer reviewed non pharmaceutical source. Of course you deny that vaccine death actually exists, like the rest of the biased oxymoronic “science bloggers”?

@ Joe…any “citations” for your statements about the dangers of adjuvants and preservatives in vaccines?

Lilady, any non conflict of interest long term RCT scientific studies of safety?

No. No. and NO. Try again.Your ignorance and 1960’s limited bachelor’s only degree doesn’t mean something is safe or has no damaging effects on the human body.

Somebody please help the old senile lady out. She’s spending too much retirement time on the computer. Her socialist agenda keeps her going I suppose. Poor lady thinks she’s a christian AND a skeptic. So sad.

Sometime back I did some proofreading for Project Gutenberg. One book I worked on was about weasels. The book was written in the late 19th Century, so before the evil petrochemical industry took over the world. The author went into exhaustive (and exhausting) detail about just about every weasel bone ever found in North America. Those little weasels were not exposed to human-made toxins as they lived up near the Arctic Circle; they were of course breastfed and ate nothing but organic food; and they were very active. And yet practically all of the little skulls showed damage from disease.

Why weren’t their immune systems proof against anything Nature could throw at them? With their shorter lifespans, they’ve had much more time to adapt than we have, and yet, strangely, they don’t seem to have evolved invincible immune systems. It’s almost like there’s a counteracting effect that keeps species from having perfect immunity to every single micro-organism…

Joe:

I feel sooo safe. and I Know what you’re all saying, but I came here just to piss you off.

And with each post you have become less literate and more amusing. Here is a word of advice: don’t drink while on the internet. It leads to bad things.

@ken

Still spewing your idiocy, I see.

Could you actually come up with a post with some, let’s say, actual facts?

I feel sooo safe. and I Know what you’re all saying, but I came here just to piss you off.

You don’t seem to have much succeeded. Hell, I couldn’t even sustain the interest to complete a reply in the face of more engaging tasks such as buying onions and cleaning the litter box.

that’s why we never fluoridated our water supply over [in the UK].

Needless to say, Joe is either lying or so ignorant as to call into question his claim to hail from the UK.

Trying that again…
These animals are not pissed off, just very disappointed in you.

The link is working now, thanks Doktor Bimler.

@ Kelly: I just visited the Ho-Po. Are you posting at the crank who is fixated on Lyme disease and has made the *connection* between syphilis and HIV infections…all*caused by prions*?

they lived in harmony with the earth as hunter gatherers

Perhaps an anthropologist will come along — or even better, a non-fantasy Native American — to explain the history of pre-European agriculture and urban settlement.

joe:

Yet to inject it directly into the bloodstream in larger doses can’t be good can it?

I missed this mainly because I did not read the article.

Joe, you have not answered either of my questions. But you can make it up by telling us which vaccines are injected into the bloodstream?

We will never end tyranny by fighting it.
I’m sure that sentiment would have gone down well with the Resistance movement.

Joe@192:

Thank you for your response.  I can’t respond line by line to your long response, but I will hit the high points.

You bring up a few points of interest, such as Formaldehyde being in our bodies naturally, isn’t it is produced constantly by cellular metabolism? Yet to inject it directly into the bloodstream in larger doses can’t be good can it?

This is why you should read what Orac has said on the subject. I’m not giving links because I don’t want to be caught in moderation, but just use the search facility in the upper left to vaccines and formaldehyde. The amount in the vaccines is a minute fraction of what the body produces every day.

Your dates re CDC FDA etc are all in the first half of the last century like I said, so Whats your point there?

My point is that they’d have to work really fast to assist in a takeover in the first half of the century if they didn’t even exist for most of that time.

I’ve met many doctors some were in my family, I just don’t employ them.

Do they know you think they are mass murderers who should be executed without trial?  I really think you should seriously contemplate your casual bigotry. 

Your reference to the past health conditions pre modern medicine is the myth of choice espoused by all doctors when confronted by any kind of criticism, along with the statement that we are living longer, as an excuse for the ever increasing rates of cancers and other health problems that plague ALL ages today.

I’ve never had a doctor bring that up to me, frankly. The doctors I know are more interested in science than in history. I learned about past health conditions from reading history books. 

firstly your comparison is with western Europe and early European immigrants in the US, from the middle ages to the time vaccination started.

Well, yes. Graveyards are the easiest place to see evidence of infant mortality, so I cited them, but they aren’t the only evidence.

These people were mostly impoverished, had terrible nutrition, lived in squalid overcrowded conditions, under oppressive monarchies and equally oppressive christian churches who would burn them alive for witchcraft, if they were caught using the herbal knowledge handed down from their pagan ancestors.

City life was squalid and overcrowded. The great bulk of the population didn’t live in cities; the economy wouldn’t support it. They lived out in tiny hamlets, being physically active out in the fields and eating good organic food.  They used herbs; it was quite traditional and there were books on the subject.

 

Despite all this, most who actually survived the childhood diseases, child birth, brutal wars and oppression lived into their 90’s and even 100’s.

This is just not plausible. It contradicts everything I’ve ever read about the Middle Ages and, for that matter, any other time or place. I need better evidence than your recollection of looking at gravestones. 

 

most of us will get cancer or some form of dementia before we die, which was rare 100 years ago I think.

Cancer and dementia were rare because they are diseases of old age and most people didn’t live that long. Also, I do find it plausible that those who managed to survive the vicissitudes of life and got to be old were naturally healthier than average. Since the average person in developed countries now gets to be old, old people today are less naturally healthy than in the past. I do not consider that a criticism of modern medicine.

Now if we were to compare today’s population to say the native Americans 100 years ago I think you would find far less disease and infant mortality

100 years ago Native Americans were not living their traditional lives.  Europeans have been on this continent for over 500 years.  You seem to have a strangely compressed view of history.  But I’ll assume you’re talking about Native Americans 500 years ago.  

They did have less disease because they lived in small communities that couldn’t sustain most contagious diseases. but, strangely, despite their natural way of life, their healthful food and physical activity, and their lack of vaccines and antibiotics, they died in droves when exposed to European diseases, contradicting your claim that people who lived the way they did “will have an immune system that can fight off any disease that mother nature can throw at it.”

After all, the wisdom of elders has been one of our most valued assets since the beginning of our time on earth. Of all our crimes against humanity, none has and will have such a devastating effect as the chemical destruction of this wisdom. it could set back our evolution a thousand years in one generation. nothing saddens me more.

We have these things called “books”. The wisdom of elders can be preserved in them. I’m having a hard time seeing how such knowledge can be chemically destroyed, or how much evolution there has really been in the past thousand years. 

As a side point, agriculture has been practiced in the Americas for thousands of years.

Just a few obscure plants like maize, potato, sunflower, pumpkin, chocolate, peppers, and tomato.

There were many varied cultures here, with different languages, customs, and beliefs; acting as though they all had the same religion is like assuming that, 500 years ago, the various peoples of Africa, Europe, and Asia all worshiped the same gods in the same way.

Of course my facts are just my opinions but I’m sticking with them.

Oh, insist your false beliefs are equivalent to empirically-derived fact, that’s a very atheist/skeptical thing to do.

Public Service Announcement for the Irony-Impaired: That was sarcasm.

As I said before, Joe would not be embarrassing himself so much if he actually picked up a real book instead of believing what is said on television.

To repeat LW:

We have these things called “books”. The wisdom of elders can be preserved in them. I’m having a hard time seeing how such knowledge can be chemically destroyed, or how much evolution there has really been in the past thousand years.

To all that replied to my last post

Re books: You might check out one titled ‘Our stolen Future’, which came out in 1996. Have long since passed it on and don’t remember the author’s names, there were 3 of them, all involved in breast cancer research in the 80’s and 90’s. They accidentally discovered the estrogenic effects of plasticizers such as BPA, after switching from glass to polycarbonate petri dishes, which caused their breast cancer cells to multiply without adding actual estrogen. They went on to identify large #’s of similar estrogen mimicking compounds used in the plastics industry, which leach out of the plastic and are found in the blood and breast milk of all the women they tested from all corners of the world. It was 12 years until I heard anything in the mainstream media about this, which has singled out BPA as the only culprit, so the plastics industry can sell us ‘BPA free’ products that still poison us. Now you all know I’m not a doctor so don’t know jack s**t, but suppose if, as women’s estrogen level’s naturally decline during menopause, they are constantly absorbing synthetic estrogen’s, which cannot be readily metabolized. Could this not be a major factor in the skyrocketing breast cancer rates, which seem to correlate neatly with the increased use of plastics? I’m sure it’s not the only cause, Premerine HRT was another, but that’s gone now and the rates still go up. Just wondering. I’m sure you’ll smack me down on this like everything else, but yes I can read too.

Re My ponderings on native American’s: Yeah 100 was a typo sorry very tired by then, was meant to be 500 years ago, and Kelly M Bray, Your the first NA I’ve met who admits their ancestors may have come from Eastern Eurasia, funny that’s where the Celts were supposed to originate from too, at least in that general region and they were the “ancient Europeans I was reffering to. Guess I’ll have to be more specific from now on. I was also aware that some tribes practiced agriculture while some were Hunter gatherers, but I bet they didn’t use pesticides or GMO’s.
I dare you to educate this unoble savage some more, just don’t ask me to attend a sweat lodge, do a sundance or peyote ceromony I’m not that pretentious.

To JGC re Thimerisol: so if it dissociates to form ethyl mercury does that mean it was in methyl form in the shot, meaning I was right on that ‘FACT’? Anyway, if what you say is true, how does that explain Jordan’s ‘off the chart mercury levels’ in the film. They did explain that autistic children seem unable to excrete mercury like the rest of us. Wouldn’t it seem that the one size fits all approach to vaccination is part of the problem just like the documentary suggests. Once again Why the **** are we using ******* deadly toxic preservatives in vaccines that would never be allowed in our food. Thank **** some of us have the guts to question authority cause it never questions itself.

@joe:

re Thimerisol: so if it dissociates to form ethyl mercury does that mean it was in methyl form in the shot

No, it does not mean that.

meaning I was right on that ‘FACT’?

No, you were not.

how does that explain Jordan’s ‘off the chart mercury levels’ in the film

I haven’t seen this film, but a common trick among those who blame autism on heavy metals is to compare “provoked” heavy metal levels with “unprovoked” reference ranges, making it seem that the patient has an unusually high heavy-metal burden. In reality, those tests cannot be interpreted meaningfully: see here and here.

Once again Why the **** are we using ******* deadly toxic preservatives in vaccines that would never be allowed in our food.

Thimerosal contains ethyl mercury, which is much safer than methyl mercury– the kind found in the fish available at your local grocery store, so some common foods are more “dangerous” than vaccines.

Thank **** some of us have the guts to question authority cause it never questions itself.

The vaccine schedule is constantly revised and updated to reflect current knowledge. A common preservative was removed from many vaccines, and certain vaccines are no longer used, as a result of scientific monitoring.

I should perhaps have made it clear in my previous comment that methanol is metabolized to formaldehyde by our bodies. That’s why I mentioned the high concentrations of methanol in fruit juice.

Joe,
You might take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal. You’ll notice that thimerosal is Ethyl(2-mercaptobenzoato-(2-)-O,S)
mercurate(1-) sodium. The term “methyi” appears nowhere in the chemical name. When the mercury-sulfur bond dissociates, you’re left with mercury connected to an ethyl group, not methyl.
The thought that a methyl compound could dissociate into an ethyl compound is, if I recall correctly, the punchline of a very bad joke in 2nd year organic chemistry.

@madder

A common preservative was removed from many vaccines, and certain vaccines are no longer used, as a result of scientific monitoring.

A minor quibble here. Thimerosal was removed from nearly all vaccines, not because of science, but because of fear and congressional pressure based on a lack of understanding of what science there was and calls for more research to be done. Once the research was done and it was found that there were no ill effects from thimerosal in vaccines, production had already been shifted to thimerosal-free formulations. Going back would have entailed far too great an investment (i.e., waste of money) by manufacturers to make it worthwhile. Not to mention, despite the evidence, people still feared anything associated with mercury, so a “better safe than sorry” approach maintained.

“Your the first NA I’ve met who admits their ancestors may have come from Eastern Eurasia…”

We know who we are and where we came from. We don’t need to be patronized by the likes of you.

I was also aware that some tribes practiced agriculture while some were Hunter gatherers, but I bet they didn’t use pesticides or GMO’s.

But some Plains nations did routinely conduct mass slaughters of buffalo (prior to the introduction of firearms) by driving them over cliffs. They also used fertilizer and controlled fires to enhance plant growth and keep the forest primeval in check. So your notion that the pre-European Americas were some kind of idyllic paradise inhabited by hippy-dippy flower children living in harmony with nature is as poorly researched and indefensible as the rest of your claims.

BTW, I’m not, so far as I know, even one scintilla American Indian, but I had two Irish grannies who would whale the snot out of you for suggesting they came from Eastern Eurasia.

I dare you to educate this unoble savage some more

You’re uneducable.

“So your notion that the pre-European Americas were some kind of idyllic paradise inhabited by hippy-dippy flower children living in harmony with nature is as poorly researched and indefensible as the rest of your claims.”

Well, true, but they didn’t have vaccines, antibiotics, petrochemicals, or inorganic food*, so clearly their perfect immune systems made them absolutely immune to every disease that nature could throw at them.

* the specification of “organic food” always amuses me.

ken @222 : do you genuinely believe that organizations all over the world decided one day to base their infant vaccination schedules on a back-of-the-envelope computation presented by *one man* for purposes of illustration?

No, Ken, that’s not what the IOM is considering.

From their website: “The IOM will conduct an independent assessment surrounding the feasibility of studying health outcomes in children who were vaccinated according to the CDC recommended schedule and those who were not (e.g. children who were unvaccinated or vaccinated with an alternate schedule). The IOM will review scientific findings and stakeholder concerns related to the safety of the recommended childhood immunization schedule. Further, the IOM will identify potential research approaches, methodologies, and study designs that could inform this question, including an assessment of the potential strengths and limitations of each approach, methodology and design, as well as the financial and ethical feasibility of doing them. A report will be issued in mid-2012 summarizing the IOM’s findings and conclusions.”

Ken: I did not misunderstand. You really should read your own links.

The site you quote above announces the third meeting of the committee and then invites you to take a look at the project website. If you click on the link provided, it takes you to exactly the same study I mention.

I’m not obfuscating. I posted a link to the committee and you claimed it wasn’t the same study when it most certainly is (which causes me to draw the not unreasonable conclusion that you never bothered to read it but were parroting something you’ve been spoon-fed by GoogleU).

And it’s not a safety study. It’s a study to see if it is feasible to conduct a study .

BTW, you state that there have been no safety studies done on vaccines (untrue — what’s your source for that?) and yet you point to the existence of the IOM committee study as proof, somehow, that vaccines are unsafe? An amazingly loopy piece of inverted logic.

“The committee finds that evidence convincingly supports a causal relationship between some vaccines and some adverse events—such as MMR, varicella zoster, influenza, hepatitis B, meningococcal, and tetanus-containing vaccines linked to anaphylaxis.”
h ttp://www.iom.edu/Reports/2011/Adverse-Effects-of-Vaccines-Evidence-and-Causality.aspx
There might be a synergistic and cumulative effect from “too many, too soon.

That’s what I get for posting at midnight. However, a feasibiliy study =/= a safety study in any known universe. Nor is it any kind of admission, no matter how you spin it, that there is something unsafe about the current vaccine schedule.

I notice that your quote @233 leaves out the rest of the paragraph which does not support your contention:

“Additionally, evidence favors rejection of five vaccine-adverse event relationships, including MMR vaccine and autism and inactivated influenza vaccine and asthma episodes. However, for the majority of cases (135 vaccine-adverse event pairs), the evidence was inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship. Overall, the committee concludes that few health problems are caused by or clearly associated with vaccines.” (emphasis mine).

@ Fully Vaccinated: Here is an updated report from the CDC Vaccine Compensation Task Force on the 2011 IOM Report:

http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/taskforcedeliberations.pdf

I worked as a public health nurse investigating outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases and I worked as a public health clinic nurse. During my tenure at this large County health department, I administered thousands of vaccines. I participated in major flu immunization clinics and post- exposure immunization clinics. We always had ampules of epinephrine and syringes nearby to administer epinephrine for the first sign of anaphylaxis…none of my colleagues ever recalled an anaphylaxis episode…following the hundreds of thousands of immunizations we provided.

The only report of an anaphylaxis episode I recall, was reported by a pediatrician, who “rescued” a child who had received an antibiotic shot administered by another doctor, in another practice, nearby. That doctor did not monitor the child after the antibiotic shot was given.