More examples of how influenza still kills

@Pris: yes. I’ve seen the phrase “cytokine storm” mentioned in context with this. As I understand it, the immune system overreacts and the overreaction kills the patient.

Recent research into the 1918 influenza pandemic and other more recent influenza pandemics, attribute the high mortality in younger people to cytokine storms…an overreaction of the body’s immune system to an infection:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_storm

Children ages six months and older should receive seasonal influenza vaccine and any child between the ages of 6 months-8 years of age will require two doses of influenza vaccine, given one month apart…if they are receiving seasonal influenza vaccine for the first time:

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/children.htm

Local data (PDF). A minimum of eight deaths. I’d like the inflection point circa week 1 if it weren’t for Figs. 1 and 3.

Most large chemists in Ireland provide a walk in vaccination service for 25 euros. There shouldn’t be much excuse for not getting the jab.

I often wonder why most countries don’t provide a universal jab to anyone who wants it. It must pay for itself purely in terms of productivity – people not off sick or to provide care for sick kids, but also in reduced seasonal pressure on the GP and hospital system.

Just dropping in for another quick second drug-dealers.

Really — seriously — I have to ask this question: I am practically a middle aged man who has never had a flu shot. Yet guys, how is it possible that I don’t get the flu. Perhaps I have a strong immune system but I do get colds occasionally, but never the flu. Again drug-dealers, given the odds, surely by now I should have come down with even one episode of the flu.

Now of course you guys are well aware of my stance on vaccines, but I am really curious at what crocks you guys will spew to account for my case.

Greg: Every year, folks that had confirmed flu were disproportionately not vaxed. Forgive me for not thinking your anecdote eclipses that.

Greg the dim,
I suppose you might recognize the differences in mathematics and human beings. Math gives the same answer for the same conditions. Every time. Humans don’t work that way. There are too many variables to create the same conditions so the answer varies. Even when the conditions appear the same.

A sufficiently motivated 8th grade algebra student could have figured that out. Yet you fail. I do not wish the flu on anyone but you try the patience of more stalwart folk than I. Try and work out some of the variables that might have resulted in your good fortune fool.

Congratulations Greg, on your pure luck, and on bringing it up on an article in which two young people died demanding an explanation for your blind luck.

I do wonder, how many young people would get the shot if it was easier to get. I have a lot of friends who just can’t be bothered, it’s more laziness than delusions of invincibility. Anecdote alert: two friends who never got it because it involved a doctors appointment/waiting in line in a pharmacy/an extra step at a time when they didn’t want to think about it have consistently got the shot when their jobs started offering it (non-healthcare employers).

I actually got into a discussion with my PCP about the manner in which his office offers flu shots during December, I was in for another reason, and the nurse flew off a quick, “you want a flu shot?” when she was doing vitals. Like, “you could get it, but it’s not really important we’re just required to offer.” Of course I already had it, but when I told him the passive, flippant way it was offered, he was shocked. If it’s an extra step, an extra buck (even if only $25) and it isn’t encouraged, many people just won’t do it. He said he would discuss with his staff…I go back Friday, let’s see if the manner has changed. 🙂

So, my point: is it actively feeling invincible, or just laziness?

@Greg
All of the cycling “authorities” recommend wearing a helmet – and yet I rode a bicycle as my primary means of transportation for 8 years and never hit my head. Obviously there’s only one explanation – it’s all a conspiracy concocted by helmet manufacturers. What kind of crock will you spew out to account for my case, Greg? And don’t try to tell me that I was just lucky, or that even a small chance of getting a serious head injury greatly outweighs the minor inconvenience of wearing a helmet, because I’ll just call you names and pretend to be too stupid to understand basic logic.

in particular how people don’t get their flu shots because they don’t think they need them, because they don’t think the flu is a serious disease.

Sorry, I had to stop here.

This nonsense about how if it doesn’t kill you, it’s not a big deal nor worth vaccinating against drives me crazy.

I get vaccinated against the flu not because I think it is going to kill me, but because I CAN. The flu sucks. It may not kill you, but it makes you feel pretty lousy for a few days, at best, and more likely knocks you out of commission. Who the fuck wouldn’t want to avoid that if you can?

And if you have kids, it is even better to avoid it, because taking care of kids when you are dragging yourself around because of the flu is a major PITA.

Shit, give me a cold vaccine if you can, because even a common cold makes life suck. And vaccines are such trivial sacrifices to make to help avoiding this other crap.

Aren’t you doing the same thing that you’re always accusing the anti-vaxers of doing–using “heart-wrenching” (your words) anecdotal news stories to support your position?

Do we know the circumstances surrounding these anecdotes, such as the use or possible misuse of prescription or over-the-counter medications?

Most people’s knee-jerk reaction to a 103F temperature is to gulp down a few Tylenols or ibuprofen or Nyquil or whatever other OTC combo drug the TV tells you is the best way to get yourself back to normal quicker so you don’t miss any work or school, for goodness sakes, because we’re taught that fever is bad and if you don’t suppress it your brain will fry (yes, I’ve actually heard that phrase used!) even though evidence suggests that suppressing fevers can be detrimental to the immune response, and you know, increase your chances of dying.

http://jrs.sagepub.com/content/103/10/403.long

So…other than not being vaccinated, are there any other questions that we should be asking in response to these tragic deaths? Besides vaccination, is there anything else we could be doing that might reduce the risk of mortality and morbidity from influenza? Shouldn’t we be applying the same skepticism to the spurious claims of big pharma drugmakers as we do to the claims of homeopaths?

Just askin’.

Jen, who’s been vaccinated for flu (and TDaP, too-gonna be a granny soon!) 😀

On a related note, I’m looking forward to a skeptic’s take on the Brandlistuen study. Any takers?

http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/10/24/ije.dyt183.abstract

The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR) has the funeral for the local 5-yr old flu victim – Ronan Burgess – on the front page as the leading human interest story with a large photo of the bereaved parents embracing a friend.
The R-G continues to urge citizens to get flu shots (too much ignorant resistance here) and some of the local pharmacies are running out.
Our family is vaccinated.

Greg, did it ever occur to you that by insulting us instead of providing evidence, you’re only making yourself look suspicious?

@Jen in TX: Hey, welcome back! Congrats on the upcoming grandma-hood, and I’m so glad you were considerate enough to get the flu shot and TDaP!

Yes, we have all been taught fever is bad. OTOH, the last time I had the flu, I had gone to work fine at 7 pm and was in the ER with fever, severe body aches and a 104 fever before midnight (NY Eve….happy NY to me!). Because I am a nurse, and the curious type – and since the kids were out of the house and away from exposure – I decided the next day to find out HOW feverish I could get. I chickened out at 106.7 and took NSAIDS – I was so very miserable from the pain the fever, and everything. Even with my own kids, I generally treated fever by behavior than temperature (if they had a fever and were playing normally, fine. If they were miserable and crying, then they got NSAIDS). I do the same for me. Bedrest, fluids, and only medicate if necessary.

I get the flu shot every year now. I don’t want to go through that again. EVER. 7 days off work and 3 additional weeks of having no strength and no energy with 2 children under 7 is no fun.

I’m so glad Greg is Superman and has never had the flu. I hope, for his sake, he never does. And I don’t intend to meet you in the nursing home, Greg. I plan on traveling the world like my parents do and my grandparents did. Flu shots, all available vaccines and all. Not a single case yet of degenerative brain disease.

Greg,

I am practically a middle aged man who has never had a flu shot. Yet guys, how is it possible that I don’t get the flu.

What do you mean by, “I don’t get the flu”? If you are unvaccinated you have between a 1 in 10 and a 1 in 20 chance of getting influenza in any given year. If you are approaching middle age I would expect you to have had influenza once or twice in your lifetime. If you had it as a child and the same strain comes around, you may be lucky enough to have natural immunity.

Getting the vaccine drastically reduces your chances to more like 1 in 100 or even 1 in 200 in a good year. The chances of a serious adverse reaction to the vaccine are in the order of one in a million. Even your mathematical skills should be up to figuring out it is a good idea to get the vaccine.

You may be happy playing the odds, but you will regret it if you do go down with influenza, especially if you pass it on it to your children or to an elderly relative.

By the way, don’t you work with children with autism? Aren’t you are required to have up-to-date vaccinations, including influenza, for a job like that?

http://www.newsmaxhealth.com/Headline/influenza-virus-flu-vaccine-Peter-Doshi-Ph-D-/2013/05/16/id/504942

from Johns Hopkins, so not a quack

but see also

http://blog.alz.org/timely-topic-flu-vaccine-not-linked-to-alzheimers/

very contradictory. Please provide a website where pro and con are both examined.

Keating, there is no “pro and con”, only true and false. We don’t cover “both sides” of the issue because only one side exists.

Here’s the difference between using published, confirmed cases of influenza-associated deaths and using “heart-wrenching” anecdotes of how bad vaccines might be: These are confirmed and published cases.

In each anecdotal story about vaccine A causing diseases B, C, D, and E, there is always some doubt. There is a lack of a confirmation by legitimate scientists. There is some sort of innuendo, name-calling, or something that makes us realize that the story being told is a tale best used to scare children into eating their veggies.

We all remember Desiree Jennings. AoA, Generation Rescue, and any other anti-vaccine organization out there embraced her as a symbol of how horrible the flu vaccine is. Then what happened? I find her VAERS report in which it is clearly reported that hers is a psychogenic condition and everyone disavows her. Where is she now if she is such a great example of the horrors of the flu vaccine? They got rid of her faster than the British medical board got rid of Wakefield.

In essence, if you put up your vaccine injuries up against the actual deaths and severe cases of vaccine-preventable diseases, you’ll find yourself laughed at, embarrassed, and cowering behind ad hominem and appeal to popularity. This is the case with Greg. He’s never been able to bring forth a proper argument or proper evidence of what he says, just name-calling and innuendo. That is the whole of his arguments, and that’s why no one takes him seriously.

Ooops, that particular “Doshi problem.” Not article. If I remember correctly, Reuben goes into a lot of Doshi’s BS

Hmmm Roche paid a $3 Billion settlement. For lying on purpose to sell more drugs, and hide critical trials that show the drugs are not so good, even dangerous such as Paxil. And your response is a personal attack on the messenger whose only request is transparency. So typical.

@Gray Falcon It is unclear whether you are on the side of transparency or not. Do you think, by the way, that Roche was unfairly treated by having to pay $3 Billion dollars for lying? The truth in that case was evident. Roche was lucky not to have criminal liabilities as well.

Notice, for those medications that work well and have few side effects, there is almost no controversy. The controversy always seems to come when Big Pharma knows it is selling a dog, a dangerous or ineffective drug, and tries to cover it up, and attack the persons who brought the problem to light.

Thank God for trial lawyers who show up on the doorstep of Big Pharma and crush them.

It is interesting that Doshi’s critics ([1], [9]) seem to evade the crucial issue of the extent the flu vaccines are succeeding in preventing clinical flu. The results of two recent meta-analyses are by no means encouraging ([6], [7]). In [6], which deals with 65+ individuals (one of the high priority groups for mass vaccination according to the CDC), it is stated that “the usefulness of vaccines on the community [as opposed to long-term care facilities] is modest”; in [7] the effectiveness of vaccines in children younger than 2 (inactivated vaccines) or older than 2 (both inactivated and live attenuated vaccines) was found to be “low”. One of the main reasons given to explain these disappointing results is that “vaccines are specifically targeted at influenza viruses and are not designed to prevent other causes of influenza-like illness”[7].

In an interview the senior author of [6] and [7], Dr. Tom Jefferson, put the issue in a refreshingly explicit way: “The vaccine doesn’t work very well at all. […] Vaccines are being used as an ideological weapon. What you see every year as the flu is caused by 200 or 300 different agents with a vaccine against two of them. That is simply nonsense.”[8]

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Are US flu death figures more PR than science?
BMJ 2005; 331 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.331.7529.1412 (Published 8 December 2005)
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Flu Vaccine Research: More Detailed Statistics Needed
5 May 2006

In his article, Peter Doshi contests the official government statistics for flu deaths, claiming the figures are too high. In his letter in response to this article, Prof. Marco Mamone-Capria writes that the situation is more complicated, regarding alleged flu deaths, than public health authorites would have the public believe. And he raises questions about how useful flu vaccines might be.

Some clarifications might be attained by means of more precise and detailed statistics. For example, during each year in which there is a promotional campaign for flu vaccines, there are four groups of persons: 1) Those who got their flu vaccine, and then got the flu. 2) Those who did not get a flu vaccine, and did not get the flu. 3) Those who did not get a flu vaccine, and got the flu. 4) Those who got their flu vaccine and did not get the flu.

Statistics for each of these groups would provide important information for scholars, and the public, in helping to arrive at informed opinions and decisions. Along a similar line, it would seem likely and logical that many, if not most, of the alleged flu deaths are among persons in the over 65 age group. In fact, this group is a specific target during flu vaccine promotional campaigns. How many of the alleged flu deaths in this age group include persons who got their flu vaccine in the wake of the public health officials’ warnings and suggestions, and how many among persons who did not heed the warnings and did not get a flu vaccine? Such statistics might provide important information relating to the relative urgency to get flu vaccines, and relating to how useful and effective flu vaccines really are.

Competing interests: None declared

Competing interests: None declared

Gordon F. Moran, Independent scholar

Via delle Terme, 3, Firenze, Italy 50123

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How useful are flu vaccines?
25 January 2006

Thompson et al. [1] highlight the correlation between “pneumonia and influenza” estimated death rates and the percentage of samples positive for influenza A(H3N2) viruses by week in United States from 1990 to 1998 (cf. Fig. 1, [1]). This correlation is not in itself inconsistent with the hypothesis that other factors might substantially or even predominantly contribute to the mortality seasonal burden. Apart from the respiratory illnesses caused by the increase of environmental pollutants during the winter season [2], it is worth remembering that “Cold weather alone causes striking short term increases in mortality, mainly from thrombotic and respiratory disease”, even without an influenza epidemic [3].

This is in agreement with the generally recognized circumstance that “isolation of human influenza viruses in the blood has been reported only rarely”[1] and that the immediate cause of death in almost all cases is not the viral infection itself but an indirect “complication”, like secondary bacterial pneumonia.

That there is a serious problem here for the conventional estimates of the “pneumonia and flu” death rates is widely accepted. For instance, one member of the Simonsen et al. team, Jonathan Dushoff, published a few months ago a useful note emphasizing: “Approaching a consensus on the health and mortality burden of influenza, and on the cause of winter excess mortality in general, is an important scientific and public policy goal. For this to happen, further progress is needed in several areas”, and concluding: “The contribution of influenza to morbidity and mortality – and, more broadly, cataloging the causes of daily and season excess deaths and hospitalizations – remain as unresolved questions with important scientific and public-health implications.” ([4])

More should be done in the way of epidemiological research to assess the relative weight of all plausible factors and to ascertain how frequently the flu viruses are actually involved in the fatal outcomes. Most importantly, it must be pointed out that the so-called “complications” are also linked to influenza-like illness (ILI), which is “clinically indistinguishable from influenza” [6]. ILI, defined as a symptomatic syndrome, is in fact caused by hundreds of different agents, including RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), picornaviruses, parainfluenza, hMPV (human metapneumovirus), coronaviruses etc.(see e.g. [5]).

Now, an important public health issue arises at this point, since vaccine is protective only against two of the agents causing symptomatic, clinical flu. It follows that even if clinical flu were the underlying cause of seasonal differences in “pneumonia and influenza” death rates, this would not in itself provide a solid ground for the mass flu vaccination campaigns.

It is interesting that Doshi’s critics ([1], [9]) seem to evade the crucial issue of the extent the flu vaccines are succeeding in preventing clinical flu. The results of two recent meta-analyses are by no means encouraging ([6], [7]). In [6], which deals with 65+ individuals (one of the high priority groups for mass vaccination according to the CDC), it is stated that “the usefulness of vaccines on the community [as opposed to long-term care facilities] is modest”; in [7] the effectiveness of vaccines in children younger than 2 (inactivated vaccines) or older than 2 (both inactivated and live attenuated vaccines) was found to be “low”. One of the main reasons given to explain these disappointing results is that “vaccines are specifically targeted at influenza viruses and are not designed to prevent other causes of influenza-like illness”[7].

In an interview the senior author of [6] and [7], Dr. Tom Jefferson, put the issue in a refreshingly explicit way: “The vaccine doesn’t work very well at all. […] Vaccines are being used as an ideological weapon. What you see every year as the flu is caused by 200 or 300 different agents with a vaccine against two of them. That is simply nonsense.”[8]

So it appears that the picture, not only at a theoretical level but even as regards “public health efforts”[9], is much more complicated than that provided by the NIH and CDC representatives.

References

[1] Thompson WW, Shay D, Weintraub E, Brammer L, Meltzer M, Cox N, Bresee J. “Are estimates of influenza-associated deaths in the US really just PR?”. BMJ [rapid response] (18 Jan 2006) (retrieved 23 Jan 2006).

[2] Crowe D. “The Peril of Correlation”. BMJ [rapid response] (14 Jan 2006) (retrieved 23 Jan 2006).

[3] Donaldson G. C., W R Keatinge W. R., “Excess winter mortality: influenza or cold stress? Observational study”, BMJ, Vol. 324, pp.89-90 (12 Jan 2002)

[4] Dushoff J. “Assessing influenza-related mortality: comment on Zucs et al.”, Emerging Themes in Epidemiology, 2005, 2:7, doi:10.1186/1742-7622-2-7

[5] Kelly H., Birch C. “The causes and diagnosis of influenza-like illness”, Australian Family Physician Vol. 33, No. 5, May 2004, pp. 305-9

[6] Jefferson T., Rivetti D., Rivetti A., Rudin M., Di Pietrantonj C., Demicheli V., “Efficacy and effectiveness of influenza vaccines in elderly people: a systematic review”, Lancet, Vol. 366, pp. 1165-74 (1 Oct 2005).

I have also never had the flu shot however have had the flu in the past. Honestly I don’t know weather to get it or not. I respect both sides of the arguement and haven’t been able to find a convincing enough reason to get the vaccine, however I am open to consdering it. Here are my questions;

1. If you have had the flu before, does it not naturally stengthen your immune system?
2. Are more people actually dying from the flu, or because of so much tv and internet news it is just getting reported more?
3. My friend works in health care where over 80% of staff are vaccinated, and yet our citizens are still experiencing high rates of the flu, our hospitals are full, and people are still dying. Does getting the vaccination really make that much difference? At least where I live, the stats don’t seem to support it.

Any feedback would be much appreciated. Thanks!!

Radical fruitcakes, no. Trustworthy, also no. Not since they printed the Bush administration’s lies about Iraq and alleged “weapons of mass destruction” without bothering to fact-check, and dismissed evidence provided by critics of the war. So not only is that article irrelevant, this isn’t even argument from authority, it’s Argument from Unreliable Authority. You might as well ask me to believe in Santa Clause because Bernie Madoff told you he’s real. Sure, the Times might print the truth, but I’m skeptical of them on anything more potentially controversial than “new species of ant found in the Broadway median.”

@Canadian Social Worker,

1. Having influenza does not strengthen your immune system. It most cases it does leave you with some level of immunity to that strain of influenza and perhaps a few related strains, which is a far more limited effect than the phrase “strengthen your immune system” would imply.

2. It’s my understanding that the death rate from flu varies from year to year and strain to strain.

3. I don’t understand your statement. What does the immunization rate of hospital staff have to do with the people from the general public hospitalized for influenza?

Katherine: due to the Affordable Care Act, your flu vaccine will cost $0.

I had the real flu in college. What a miserable experience. A full week in bed and another two weeks of feeling pretty crappy and exhausted. Unfortunately, we often use the word “flu” to describe any bad cold, so for many people “the flu” is 2-3 days of sore throat, Kleenex, and sinus pressure and little reason to vaccinate. If, like my mother, you got to spend two weeks in the ICU, you’ll be a lot better about getting that little vaccine.

Thanks Meph,

I can see how question 3 is confusing. Let me reword it. The city and province I live in has a really high vaccination rate, and yet we are getting tons of news reports that there are a lot of cases of the flu, and many have been hospitalized with it. I guess what I am asking is that if vaccination rates are at the 80% level, and there are people still getting hospitalized and dying, is the vaccine making a difference?

Also, if the death rates vary from year to year how can people use that as a measure of the flu vaccine being effective?

Thanks!

*Reading Willcox copy pasta*

Gah. Déja vu. This article I alluded in 25 was part of the Jefferson/Cochrane panel controversy. Still cannot find the article itself
But I found this old post about Jefferson’s declarations on influenza.
Short version: he is overaching a bit.

About flu vaccine efficacy, Mark Crislip did a good job 5 years ago.
He is notably quoting a number of studies where the presence of the influenza virus’ DNA was checked among the studied patients, as part of comparing infected vs non-infected people, to avoid some of the biases alluded by Jefferson & co quotations.

Back at checking local physicians for an appointment for the flu shot. Spent enough time procrastinating about it.

@CS – you need to define “high vaccination rate” because even an 80% rate leaves a lot of people unvaccinated & the flu is highly contagious – plus the vaccine isn’t 100% effective, so even a portion of the vaccinated will contract the disease (hopefully with few symptoms & a shorter duration).

You can only improve your chances if you vaccinate – better safe than sorry.

Greg,

Lots of soldiers came home from world war 2 without a scratch. Does that mean they are immune to bullets?

And an apology for the “drug dealer” comment is in order.

C

Hmmm

I’m tempted to say “you lose” here and leave it at that, but I’m waiting for the coffee to brew.

Roche paid a $3 Billion settlement.

You mean GlaxoSmithKline. It was actually two separate settlements.

For lying on purpose to sell more drugs, and hide critical trials that show the drugs are not so good, even dangerous such as Paxil.

Again, you’re kind of making a hash of this. Three-quarters of the first billion related to promoting Paxil and Wellbutrin for off-label uses (depression in under-18 patients in the first case, weight loss and other conditions in the latter). With Paxil, they also misreported a trial such that they claimed efficacy in this age group when it wasn’t really there. This doesn’t really have anything to do with Paxil’s ultimate “black box” warning regarding pediatric use.

The remainder had to do with failing to include postmarketing safety data regarding Avandia.

The big chunk, $2 billion, was about two things: (1) misreporting best prices to Medicaid for reimbursements and (2) promoting (including physician kickbacks) Advair, Lamictal, Zofran, Imitrex, Lotronex, Flovent, and Valtrex for unapproved uses and thus causing false claims to be submitted to federal programs.

Financially defrauding the feds is a really, really bad idea. It also is the bulk of what you’re pointing at yet unrelated to your putative point.

You folks must think we are just stupid.

Given that you barely understand what you’re talking about and much of it doesn’t have anything to do with influenza, you’re making it awfully tempting. Who’s “we”?

Hi JGC (or anyone else),

As I am working through all this JGC’s point reminded me about another question I wanted to ask.

What about the theory that getting the flu shot every year will eventually wear down your immune system because the body loses it’s ability to develop it’s own capacity to fight things off?

Gah, I meant 48% of the population is protected.
stoopid no preview feature.

I’d originally had an appointment with my GP to get the flu shot back in October, but there was a conflict with another, more critical appointment, so it got postponed indefinitely. It was actually Orac’s previous flu-related post that finally got me motivated. I went to the nearby pharmacy, filled in a quick questionnaire, and got my injection (multi-dose but, sadly, no thimerosol). If I can avoid the bug for another few days, I should be relatively safe. Unless I get one of those neuro-degenerative diseases so-o-o-o-o many of the vaccinated succumb to…
And, thanks to the evil socialist regime of Canuckistan, I didn’t have to (directly) pay for it. Unlike all those over-the-counter flu medications. Hmm, anybody ever check out if they’ve got any connections with the anti-flu-vaccination crowd? “Big chicken soup”?

When I got my flu shot in October, I jokingly asked for extra thimerosol. The nurse simply looked puzzled. Perhaps we don’t have a lot of mercury militia types around here.

What about the theory that getting the flu shot every year will eventually wear down your immune system because the body loses it’s ability to develop it’s own capacity to fight things off?

See the comment about “original antigenic sin” at #55. Vaccines have the luxury of not generating full-blown responses that can prove to be a liability down the road.

What about the theory that getting the flu shot every year will eventually wear down your immune system because the body loses it’s ability to develop it’s own capacity to fight things off?

Keep in mind that your body is exposed to literally millions of antigens daily environmentally, through diet, etc.. If this hasn’t been seen to cause the body’s ability to develop protective antibodies to “wear down” why would you expect being exposed to a few dozens of antigens as the result of immunization to do so?

Rather than’wear down the ability of the body to developprotective antibodiesimmunization capitalizes on that ability by exposing the immune system to specific antigens efectively ‘teaching’ it to recognize wild type viruses when exposed.

As for why people do not get their flu shots – laziness may be one factor but it’s not crucial. I work at school, under our former head teacher we would get flu shots at our school nurse’s office and we would only have to pay an equivalent of $10 for the vaccine itself. There were maybe about five teachers (out of 60) who would go for it, me and the head teacher included. Even though it was cheap and convenient. The rest thought that flu is not that bad, that they are strong and healthy, that the shot is not really effective or that it wears down the immune system.
Now we have a new head teacher and getting the shot is much more complicated for me, I have to get a doctor’s appointment and pay three times as much – but I still do it, had my shot back in October, and so did my husband.

I got mine a week ago at a nearby grocery store pharmacy, no cost because I’m retired military.
I tried on Wednesday and heard them tell the man in front of me they were out of shots but expected some the next day, so I went back and got mine.
I used to skip it because they would have delays due to supply shortages and wanting to give it to vulnerable people (seniors) first. But I was working in the schools a few years ago when H1N1 hit and got a shot when they did free immunizations at the school.
I’ve gotten one every year since then.

my 27 year old friend died of flu.

anything I can do to prevent anyone else’s family going through that trauma I will.

I worked on the acute medical take during swine flu, when we were ventilating young adults in theatre because there was not the space in ITU

I worked in paediatrics over winter a couple of years back during normal flu season and had numerous neonates admitted with collapsed lungs due to influenza

I have lost 2 of my 13000 current patients this year to pneumonia following flu. It has not been a bad flu year yet, due to the warm weather I guess.

typical peak flu in the UK is first week in December

flu kills, flu disables, flu makes you feel rotten

and we have a way to prevent that. Sure it’s not perfect, but it’s better than the alternative.

I have my flu jab every year. I trust it

When I got my flu shot in October, I jokingly asked for extra thimerosol

Me too. At my age, I need all the preservatives I can get.

And a better example of the point I made before….

http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/vaccinate-the-cost-catching-flu/

Maeltne–

We know that the flu vaccine is a closer match some years than others. We also know that there’s no way to be sure, at the beginning of the flu season, how close a match it will be: if you could do that without a time machine, you also could and would be getting a better match.

The question to ask yourself isn’t “is this year going to be 90% effective or only 50%?” It’s “How closely will not getting vaccinated match this year’s strain of the flu? The comparison isn’t that, say, this year’s flu shot might be only a 60% match, and the one I had last year might have been a 90% match, or vice versa. (Those numbers are purely hypothetical.) The comparison is that not getting a flu shot is a 0% match with the circulating strains of the flu.

It also seems as though this year’s flu is nastier than average, making protecting yourself against it more valuable.

If you get the vaccine free (I know coverage in Canada varies depending on the province) or can afford it without skimping on food, other medicine, heat, and other essentials, it’s worth it even in a year when it’s a relatively poor match.

@Greg:

Thank you Keating for the wealth of scientific evidence

Evidence…
You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.

I am sure others who are serious about researching the safety and efficacy of the vaccine will also be grateful.

At least Gerg had the courtesy to exclude himself by construction from this category.

Stella B

Unfortunately, we often use the word “flu” to describe any bad cold, so for many people “the flu” is 2-3 days of sore throat, Kleenex, and sinus pressure and little reason to vaccinate.

And that doesn’t even follow.

Why would I want 2-3 days of a sore throat, sinus pressure, and a box of kleenexes when I could have a sore spot on my arm for less than a day instead?

Sore throats suck. Constantly blowing your nose sucks. Having your head stuffed up sucks. By comparison, a sore muscle is nothing. Shoot, I have minor tendinitis in my shoulder right now that’s worse than my typical flu vaccine reaction.

Damn it, give me a common cold vaccine!!!!!

And speaking of serving copy pasta- with a side order of word salad..

I alert readers to AoA today wherein Teresa Conrick conducts her variations upon themes by Wakefield:
vaccines damage immunity/ GI symptoms.
And OBVIOUSLY: ‘Listen to the parents’.

Perhaps a loyal minion might enjoy de-constructing her perseverations. My own suspicion is that she is desperate to attribute her daughter’s difficulties to outside, physical causes (vaccines, parasites etc) rather than accepting that autism is an intrinsic part of her daughter’s being.

People who have autism can learn to change how they BEHAVEandinteract with others. Teachers and therapists are much more necessary than calling out the De-contamination Squad.

@ JustNuts:

No, no,no!
I meant for our incredible minions to discuss it HERE.
I think that Conrick is a rising star in the anti-vax firmament.
She has it all.And she doesn’t hide it.

Marry Me, Mindy wrote:

Damn it, give me a common cold vaccine!!!!!

The colleague I complained about in the other flu thread opined today that to vaccinate against the flu is like vaccinating against the common cold. I didn’t find the energy to ask him if, then, he thought one shouldn’t consider the availability of an effective vaccine when deciding whether to vaccinate.

genetically engineered nanoparticles

I can think of few combinations of scary words better designed to freak out the anti-vaccination crowd. Bad Magic!

If it could be shown that is what he was told by the OBGYN there’s a huge mispractice/wrongful death lawsuit in the wings…

@ Roaderstergal:

Ha!
It seems that our anti-vaxxers, Canary Partiers and TMs *simultaneously* decry the both rise in autoimmune disorders AND decreased immunitydue to vaccines- shouldn’t they make up their minds!

In fairness, Greg never said he has a strong immune system. That is one possible explanation he said that others might choose to use for why he never gets the flu shot and claims never to get the flu. However, he also stated that he gets colds, which would say his immune system is not freakishly good.

My question back to Greg is – here we’ve got all this good anecdotal data that influenza can kill, why are you arguing against it?

As to Greg’s question of why he never gets the flu, possibilities include:
– he does but gets mild cases that he does not recognize as influenza.
– he has not received sufficient exposure to get sick.
– when he has been so exposed, he has already been immune to that particular strain (say, by an infection received as a child).
– he does not remember correctly; he in fact has contracted influenza but either does not recall, has mislabeled the incident, or has glossed over that to make a point.

One other note: let us assume that about 10% of the population gets influenza in any particular season and that the distribution is random (grossly oversimplistic, I know). One’s chances of not getting influenza over 1 year is 90%; over 2 years it is 81%. By my simplistic calculation, the odds of not getting influenza in any year for 30 years would be 4.2%. This is the equivalent of 30 rolls of a 10 sided die without rolling a 10, and is doubtless an invalid analysis but we could certainly chalk the lack of a particular illness up to luck alone.

.HDB,

I can think of few combinations of scary words better designed to freak out the anti-vaccination crowd.

Now I’m thinking of getting an ” I [heart] genetically engineered nanoparticles” t-shirt printed up.

Canadian SW:

Your “theory” about the flu shot eventually wearing down the immune system is not a theory at all, it’s merely a hypothesis. Do you have any scientific evidence to support it?

I just can’t with the “I won’t, why should I, not that effective, flu not that bad” garbage. It defies common sense. The flu vax is safe and 60% is better than nothing. And this year’s dose is a good match.

On another thread, I posted my experience with the flu. I won’t rehash in full, but essentially — then-24 year old, non-smoker, no underlying health issues, never ever hospitalized in her life, BMI of 19, runner, tennis and hockey player…influenza, pneumonia, ventilator. I don’t remember the first three days in the hospital, but I will never forget waking up on Day 4 and seeing my Dad crying with his head in his hands at the side of my bed. They couldn’t quite get my numbers right and my old man, the old school physician, stiff upper lip Brit, never saw him cry before that day, was scared sh!tless.

Get the shot. Really. Please. No excuses, if you can and don’t.

Also, why is lining up toys considered an undesirable/strange behavior? My sister and I used to have ‘pony parades’ all the time. (We had a *lot* of toy horses.)

PGP is like that to everyone who is not exactly like her. You’ll get used to it.

PGP: Yes really. What you do is bigotry, no matter how much you might try to deny it. Being prepared for the possibility that you might encounter Stereotypical Trait X in a member of Group Y is not the same as what you do, which is assuming that you already know what to expect from someone just because you have a group you can slot them into.

@MOB

n fairness, Greg never said he has a strong immune system. That is one possible explanation he said that others might choose to use for why he never gets the flu shot and claims never to get the flu. However, he also stated that he gets colds, which would say his immune system is not freakishly good.
—————————————————————————-

I don’t know you — I haven’t met you — but I can sooo feeelll your conscience rumblings. I know I should resent you guys, but why do I sometimes feel pity? MOB, you must save yourself and leave the Dark Side! Turn a new page MOB and let light into your heart!

Indeed MOB, from time to time I do get prolonged colds with coughing, sneezing, running nose, but never a fever. They are never that devastating that I am bed-ridden and feeling that the stuffing was knocked out of me, as Orac described.

Usually at my mother-in-law promptings (old people can be such hypochondriacs) I will sometimes go the doctor for these bouts. And, after waiting in the waiting room for an eternity, putting up with the unpleasantness of fellow sick patrons, uncomfortable chairs, really out-dated magazines, etc, I am then ushered in the doctor’s office where I have to wait another eternity. Feeling impatient and checking that they way is clear, I will further kill time by weighing myself or checking my blood pressure.

Eventually the doctor will grace me with his presence: ‘Hi there Mr. (insert Greg’s last name) — what brings you here today?’ I am tempted to mock him and ask, ‘what do you think?’–but I will behave.

After explaining that I have a cold, he runs me through the whole check-up gamut: ‘Open your mouth — cough- breathe–let me examine your eyes.’ And finally, after finishing this routine, he tells me that it looks like I have a bad cold. Aghast, I wonder why he gets paid good money for this.

He usually will then advise me to give the cold a few more days to run its course and if it doesn’t clear up to take anti-biotics. Of course, I have no interest in popping pills, so I ignore this. And eventually, my colds do clear up without any further fanfare and I am back to normal.

MOB, maybe some of these bouts were indeed the flu, but the doctor never referred to them as such, and, as I already stated, they are never devastating. And, given the option of ‘potentially’ avoiding these bouts by injecting toxins in my system that carry health risks, I would rather — skip!

@Greg: if you have a cold, why on earth would you waste your doctor’s time going to his office? I never go to the MD office with a cold. They are self-limiting, and why would I waste my money and his time? I understand you do it to arrogantly appease your MIL, but seriously? Of course, you have demonstrated such passive-aggressive behavior in the threads here, I’m not totally surprised.

Why does Gerg think we have the least bit of interest in what he does when he gets sick? It doesn’t mean anything.

He may think it does, just as a sports fan might think that some ritual they did while watching the game at home was VARY MEANINGFUL in producing the favored team’s victory. But that’s the sports fan’s (and the health crank’s) delusion, that a single anecdote, how the dice come down for a single person, makes a foundation for a Proven Formula.

@ MI Dawn

@Greg: if you have a cold, why on earth would you waste your doctor’s time going to his office? I never go to the MD office with a cold.

Not only would I not waste my doctor’s time, I also wouldn’t waste the $20 co-pay, and my doctor would promptly tell me he doesn’t want me there. He’s got this thing about needlessly making already sick people sicker.

@ Greg They are never that devastating that I am bed-ridden and feeling that the stuffing was knocked out of me, as Orac described.

Then yes, you’ve never had the flu. Congratulations again, on your good luck. However, don’t belittle the flu, the dangers of the flu, or how other people will have complications to the flu just because the URIs you’ve been fortunate enough to have weren’t that devastating.

@Jen – it doesn’t state that the “fever reducing medications” are harmful to the individual, as much as it creates a false sense of feeling better (and increasing the number of infectious agents in the person), which can lead to spreading the disease…certainly something to consider – but probably not in the way that you are trying to imply.

@Julian

I just read an article on Cracked. 5 ways your Brain is turning you into a jerk. Item 4 is the illusion of asymmetric insight. Please read the article before you make an even bigger fool of yourself than you have already here

———————————————————————————-
So Julian, you’re saying my insight isn’t really that good, and I don’t really know MOB? Ok, let’s have a test.

MOB, do you believe that vaccines has administered in their totality according to the childhood vaccination scedule plays no causual role in autism? Remember just a one word ‘yes’ or ‘no’ MOB.

Now Julian, unlike Mr. Antaeus I-am-so-perfect-I-even-where-a-suit-when-I-am-taking-my-kids-to-the-park-Feldar, MOB has character. I am betting his conscience won’t allow him to lie, so he will either refrain from answering the question or say ‘no’.

We are awaiting on your response MOB.

No, we don’t believe it.

@Greg: you want a 1 word answer: No.

Expanded answer: No. I don’t believe that the current, past or future vaccination schedule(s) have/could/did/will cause autism.

More expanded answer: No. I don’t believe vaccines cause autism. I do believe that vaccines are safe for most people; that some people cannot safely be vaccinated due to individual health (allergy, autoimmune problems) issues. I do not believe that vaccines cause or worsen autism.

I do believe that vaccines will continue to improve but will never be 100% effective, 100% safe or 100% perfect. We are human and live in an imperfect world, with constant change/evolution of disease.

Again: I DO NOT believe vaccines cause autism, can lead to worsening autism or have anything to do with autism except that autistic individuals should be vaccinated like any other person unless they have underlying health reasons to not be vaccinated.

There, Greg. Happy? (I doubt it, actually. You would only be happy if I lied and said I do believe vaccines do cause autism. But I won’t lie to make you happy.)

Ooops…. ‘Vaccines as admistered’ and ‘wears a suit’

@Mi Dawn
I think you need to chill a little. You are getting all worked up. Practice being less emotional.

@Greg

As someone on the spectrum myself, I do not believe, given the current body of evidence, that vaccines have any link with mine or anyone else’s ASD. In fact, the evidence points more away from vaccines than ever.
It sickens and infuriates me whenever I hear anti-vaxxers call those on the spectrum “broken” and imply that we are somehow worth less than our neurotypical counterparts. I would opine more on this but it would end in rudeness and ad-homs so I won’t 🙂

Speaking of colds and doctor visits, I’m glad I went to the doctor during my last cold. Started with a sore throat and ended up putting me out of commission for a day or two as it became a full-on head/chest affair. Finally went to the doctor a week and a half in and found that it had opened the door to a nasty sinus infection. A round of antibiotics and some nasal steroids (my nose was completely swollen shut) later, and I was good as new, though I’d managed to use up all my floating work holidays.

Then again, I like going to the doctor and I don’t walk around smugly declaring that I am smarter than all the doctors in the vicinity, so I guess the visits probably are a bit nicer for me.

Greg, your words and actions could lead to the loss of human life. We have every right to be emotional.

@Julian
I win–I win!! He didn’t really answer the question, stating what he personally believes. He just deferred to ‘ther e evidence’. Hey Julian, how do you like them apples?

@MOB

Sorry dear friend to put you on the spot like that. It’s just that Julian have a way of shooting off his mouth and I just have to take him to task now and again. What dya gonna do with that guy?.

@Antaeus
Did you learn anything?

Aren’t you doing the same thing that you’re always accusing the anti-vaxers of doing–using “heart-wrenching” (your words) anecdotal news stories to support your position?

Jen in TX, this is not the same at all; these are medically-verified flu deaths. Of course they are heart-wrenching, people died of a VPD. How does that compare to the unsupported claims of anti-vaxxers regarding “vaccine injuries”?

Do we know the circumstances surrounding these anecdotes, such as the use or possible misuse of prescription or over-the-counter medications?

Such as?

Most people’s knee-jerk reaction to a 103F temperature is to gulp down a few Tylenols or ibuprofen or Nyquil or whatever other OTC combo drug the TV tells you is the best way to get yourself back to normal quicker so you don’t miss any work or school, for goodness sakes, because we’re taught that fever is bad and if you don’t suppress it your brain will fry (yes, I’ve actually heard that phrase used!) even though evidence suggests that suppressing fevers can be detrimental to the immune response, and you know, increase your chances of dying.

http://jrs.sagepub.com/content/103/10/403.long

While you are correct about the perception of fevers and the overuse of anti-pyretics to treat fevers, a single mouse study isn’t something I’d be waving triumphantly about as proof of human mortality increases with anti-pyretics.

So…other than not being vaccinated, are there any other questions that we should be asking in response to these tragic deaths? Besides vaccination, is there anything else we could be doing that might reduce the risk of mortality and morbidity from influenza? Shouldn’t we be applying the same skepticism to the spurious claims of big pharma drugmakers as we do to the claims of homeopaths?

Just askin’.

No you’re not “just asking”; your tylenol obsession is well-known.

Jen, who’s been vaccinated for flu (and TDaP, too-gonna be a granny soon!) 😀

Congratulations on both!

On a related note, I’m looking forward to a skeptic’s take on the Brandlistuen study. Any takers?

http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/10/24/ije.dyt183.abstract

Sure I’ll bite. What did these women have in order for them to be taking anti-pyretics? How can you tease out infectious diseases from the use of anti-pyretics particularly when some (diseases during pregnancy) are known to cause neurological disorders in infants?

Greg: You do realize that’s a ‘have you quit beating your wife yet’ question, right? Of course you do. It’s just there’s no way a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ suffices. I’m surprised you even go to a doctor- why bother if you already know all the answers?

Cakesphere: That’s awful, I’m glad you recovered. I tend to put off going to the doctor interminably, since I really hate visits. Although, in the case of the sprained ankle, I probably should have gone.

@Chuff
Although I think mainstream medicine is over-rated, I do not consult ‘quack’ doctors. Indeed my doctor has prescribed anti-biotics on several occasions but he always suggests that I give the cold time to run its course before I opt for taking them. As I mentioned, I am not a fan of medication so I don’t take them. I will occasio atnally take is advise and take Advil Cold and Sinus Gel. They usually work pretty good, but again folks, I take them at last resort. So there you have it big pharma: I will refuse your vaccines and anti-biotics, but I will very infrequently take your cold medications.

Dawn:

if you have a cold, why on earth would you waste your doctor’s time going to his office? I

The one time I did that was because my head was so stuffed and about to explode that I couldn’t sleep. I told the doctor, I just want to get some sleep, can you give me something to help with that? I would have taken Valium, but he went with the prescription decongestant.

Thus, I can see situations where a visit to the Dr is appropriate with a cold.

(I could have also seen an NP if that was deemed more convenient for them)

@Julian
I win–I win!! He didn’t really answer the question, stating what he personally believes

Personal beliefs have no relevance in a discussion with demonstrable data. Another indication you’re over your head. You’ve already forfeited.

Re: vaccination and egg allergy, Gemma wrote: “My response to this very scary prospect has been to not be vaccinated. What would you do in my situation?”

Well, I suppose I would search for information regarding the safety of influenza vaccination in individuals who are allergic to eggs.

Information like this 2013 article:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23805959

“It is as safe to provide [trivalent influenza vaccine] to [egg-allergic individuals] as providing it to a non-egg-allergic individual.”.

@ Gemma: There is a flu vaccine available for those who have had an anapylactic reaction to eggs:

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/vaccinations/Pages/who-shouldnt-have-flu-vaccine.aspx

The CDC’s Flu Vaccine Recommendations, has a section about “egg allergies” and anaphylaxis episodes associated with eggs and having a reaction to ingesting egg protein is not an absolute medical contraindication to receiving flu vaccine:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6033a3.htm?s_cid=mm6033a3_w

@MMM: I agree. If I’m *really* sick with a cold (non-stop coughing, inability to breath no matter what I’ve tried either home remedy – showers, soup, curry) then, yes, I agree seeing a doctor is the right thing to do. But from the way Greg made it sound, it was a run-of-the-mill URI and certainly didn’t require the time spent.

@ Mrs Woo:

You are correct.
Here’s the reality: anyone can say anything on the internet- doesn’t mean it’s true.

I could say, ” You know that guy, J, who comments on PZ’s site? Child abuser. And that woman, M, who comments at Phil’s place? She’s a home wrecker” ( examples are totally fictional, like- unfortunately- most of the internet). So what!

Taunts and accusations mean little unless you can illustrate them with additional data, photos or documents. Anti-vaxxers call Orac ( and us) ‘pharma shills’ but we have yet to see any pay stubs, compromising photos or proofs of payment. If they had real evidence, they would plaster it everywhere.
BUT they don’t. They insinuate; they construct Rube Goldbergian contraptions consisting primarily of smoke and mirrors or the *possibility* of relationships; they make claims and accusations that they cannot substantiate. ( See Jake Crosby).

When some of us point out what alt med folk do, we can show examples and refer readers to websites. Mostly we are talking about what someone says or what they sell- the only ‘proof’ we need is language, presentation and ad copy. Sometimes we have proof of income.

And it doesn’t matter whether we have degrees or not: a person without a degree in science can still be logical and refer to research.
It’s what’s OUTSIDE of us ( data, research, evidence, logic) that matters- not US. Often woo revolves upon an axis of personality instead- not the hard facts.
Science is beyond personality- it’s not dependent on one person or a belief. Or what anyone SAYS.
It’s what can be shown easily by data or evidence.

Anyone can say anything on the net:
As our lovely brothers and sisters in New York would call it-that’s “talking out of one’s” @rse.

Greg: MOB, do you believe that vaccines as administered in their totality according to the childhood vaccination schedule plays no causal role in autism? Remember just a one word ‘yes’ or ‘no’ MOB.

MOB: Greg – there evidence currently shows that vaccines administered in their totality according to the childhood vaccination schedule plays no causal role in autism, within the limits of measurement

Heliantus: So, now, presenting evidence you took pain to memorize about something is completely separated from “believing” in that these facts support.
Even creationists are not that schizophrenic.

——————————————————————————-
Heliantus, what if I ask a person if they believe the earth is round, and to answer with a one word ‘yes’ or ‘no’. And, the answer they give is:

Greg, there (meaning scientists) current evidence shows that the earth is round within the limits of measurement.

Heliantus, should I accept this answer as one that satisfactorily answers my question?

Greg, I believe the reason your doctor tells you to take antibiotics instead of returning if your cold doesn’t clear is that he does not want to see you again.

I don’t blame him.

Practice being less emotional.

I’d instead suggest you practice shaving your balls with a straight razor while grossly hung over, but you’ve repeatedly made a point of showing everyone that you don’t have any.

Further, if one is prompted to give his beliefs, and he ‘out of the gate’ defer to the opinion of others–aka ‘what the science says’– then I think this is a fair sign that the person does not trust the science that he is referring to, and is uncomfortable in admitting such.

That’s because you’re a moron.

I heartily endorse your three last posts.

I appreciate that, but I think the more important one is that regarding his claim to be “checking his blood pressure” while waiting in an exam room. I simply have never been in a position in a medical setting where this was even possible. I don’t for a second believe that Gerg has the slightest idea what to do with a sphygmomanometer, and there’s no logical reason to believe that automated units are sitting around idle in exam rooms and no reason to assume that he would even be able to figure that out, given that he can’t even cipher his fυcking way to rudimentary HTML tags.

In other words, I presume he’s lying again, just as with his posturing over his study design, long after which he apparently thought it would be clever to reveal that he couldn’t figure out what “average sample size” meant and hadn’t the slightest clue what statistical power was.

And if he’s lying about this, he’s as likely as not lying about having never had the flu and is just looking for attention at any cost. I mean, seriously, WTF other explanation is there for this?

@Antaeus
Did you learn anything?

The curious thing is, although they’re notoriously censorious asshats, I’ve had next to no problem commenting at AoA on the odd occasions when I’ve felt moved to do so. It’s for the same reason that I never had any trouble at MDC over the space of a couple of years: I know how to appropriately modulate my tone.

Gerg, on the other hand, has this entirely backward: His comments at AoA, where he has nothing to lose, are pathetic (although Gerg does manage to continue the screamingly obnoxious habit, Gerg, of addressing people, Gerg, over and over, Gerg, again). My guess is that he thinks that this pabulum will be considered “measured” and earn him some sort of esteem or something. But when he shows up someplace where he presumably has something to prove, he just drops his pants, inadvertently performs some pratfalls, and runs away, only to compulsively repeat the performance.

That reminds me of a story.

A BBC television crew had recently visited the property to make a documentary. The director had blandly informed us that he was “naturally stoned.” He wasn’t afraid of taking LSD. Heaven forbid.

He didn’t need it.

This line of shit will drive all but the most saintly Psychedelians who hear it up the wall, across the ceiling, and down the other side. It’s an insult, and such blatant self-deception it’s almost unbearable to listen to it.

The spiritual four-flusher visiting a Psychedelian community should avoid saying things like “the vibrations around here are terrible” or “I’m a witch, you know” or, “oh sure, I talk to trees all the time myself,” but of all the comments likely to enrage his hosts, “I can do anything you can do but I don’t need LSD to do it,” or words to that effect, are provocation in a class by itself.

It’s like saying, “the law can’t touch me, baby” while drunk and disorderly in a Chicago police station at 3 a.m. It’s an insult to the honor of the group, and something has to be done about it. Haines let the director have it in his coffee one morning, and he went bounding and sprinting all over the woods and fields for about four hours, bellowing like a moose. When it was over, he admitted he had been afraid of it all along and didn’t understand anything about it. He then packed up his staff and stuff and left. We never saw the documentary, if there ever was one.

The big reveal time of a CSI:Miami episode. Horatio Caine is busy giving a list of all incriminating evidence.

“…and finally, the DNA found on a discarded cup of coffee on the crime scene and the fingerprints on the murder’s weapon both match the suspect’s ones.”
Suspect’s lawyer: “Ah, but you didn’t say you believe in all of this.”
Horatio:”Frankly, sir, I believe…”
*removes sunglasses, tilts head*
“…that you are full of sh*t.”

@Narad

Do you believe that vaccines as administered in their totality according to the recommended childhood vaccination schedule plays no causal role in autism? Hey Narad, remember just a one-word ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response. For demonstration, I would say no.

(Now what will Narad’s response be? I sense that he is too proud to lie and embarrass himself in front of his peers, so he won’t say ‘yes’. His shill situation also, definitely, won’t allow him to commit suicide by telling the truth and answer ‘no’ . Narad will either completely ignore the question, or in a fanciful way, or maybe not even that fancy, tell me to go FM. I can’t wait for his response — hee hee hee.)

Greg, you are a liar.

MOB, do you believe that vaccines has administered in their totality according to the childhood vaccination scedule plays no causual role in autism?

MOB’s reply:

[The] evidence currently shows that vaccines administered in their totality according to the childhood vaccination schedule plays no causal role in autism, within the limits of measurement.

You responded:

He didn’t really answer the question, stating what he personally believes.

Do you not understand that people can personally believe in something that is supported by the majority of evidence? Or do you believe that “personal belief” is just an article of faith?

@Orac

Hey Orac,

I haven’t addressed you in a while. Must say that your snoozefest blogs have not graduated to anything greater. Was curious about something though: What happened to Elburto and Old Rockin Dave? Why did Management retire their scripts?

Your friend (‘friend’ in sticking around here and waking your guests from their slumber), Greg

Greg:

If I look at the evidence and make a decision based on that evidence then invariably my belief should be consistent with my trust in the evidence. If the two are not consistent, then this would mean I do not trust the evidence.

Fair enough. You’ve made it clear that you don’t trust the evidence that refutes your opinion on vaccines causing autism.

[I]f one is prompted to give his beliefs, and he ‘out of the gate’ defer to the opinion of others–aka ‘what the science says’– then I think this is a fair sign that the person does not trust the science that he is referring to, and is uncomfortable in admitting such.

Umm, what?
No, seriously. How is deferring to expert opinion (the ‘others’ to whom you scornfully refer) a sign that one does not trust the science? I believe in exoplanets. Were you to ask me why, I’d reply that astronomers have detected over 400 exoplanets. I’m not an astronomer and have never been involved in a search for exoplanets. In this case, I’m relying on the experts.

Nice try, LW! And I am the one that is often accused of mental gymnastics and contortions to justify an untenable position.

With religious matters, indeed your beliefs are contingent on faith. With scientific matters, however, your beliefs extends from your trust in such evidence. To suggest that you can never ‘really’ hold such beliefs because the evidence will always be tenable is egregious, if not downright stupid. To the extent that you can either trust the evidence or not, you can always hold beliefs in scientific issues. The fact that your beliefs may later change based on changing evidence does not negate this.

Greg – I provided my view in the simplest way I can that is complete and accurate.

I got to thinking this morning how I would answer the question “Yes or no: does the sun rise in the East?” And my answer would be that depending on where you are on Earth, the date, and your speed over ground the sun generally appears to rise in a more-or-less easterly direction, due to the west to east rotation of the Earth. This allows for some observations, such as:
– If you’re flying westward fast enough, the sun can appear to rise in the west.
– if you are sufficiently far north or south around a solstice period, the sun will rise in a point of the horizon that is decidedly off from east – assuming it rises at all.

Julian Frost and LW summed up my reasons to respond the way I did quite well.

@MOB
Indeed friend I meant ‘tentative’. Also, you’ve said enough so out of respect I won’t pressure you anymore.

@VCADODers
I feel this session was a good outing. We saw a little how Narad and Mi Dawn lost their cool, but I guess that is to be expected now and again. Anyway folks, I must take a little break and we can resume our conversation shortly.

Since Greg has brought up the question of assessing the reliability of evidence, I thought I would pick it up as a useful discussion point. If we assess the evidence for, say, the efficacy of influenza vaccines in healthy children, we can find a systematic review like this one. The authors used strict inclusion criteria to assess published studies, and out of 10 that might fit their criteria they found 14 randomized controlled trials, eight cohort studies, one case-control study, and one randomized controlled trial that were of sufficiently high quality to include. They used the Cochrane reviewers handbook to assess the studies (there are some useful tips for Greg in there about assessing the quality of evidence). The authors state that:

The most frequent reason for exclusion was lack of independent controls (n=29) and non-comparative design (n=15).

What do these carefully selected, high quality studies tell us about the efficacy of the vaccine? Table 2 is a useful summary. Of the 24 studies included, all showed that the vaccine was effective i.e. the relative risk was less than 1, with all but 7 showing statistical significance at the 95% level. The ones that did not reach statistical significance all had fewer than 100 vaccinated subjects, or were on very young children or both. The largest study, with over 15,000 vaccinated and almost 90,000 controls found over 90% efficacy for all ages.

Now, personally I am inclined to accept this evidence, and conclude that influenza vaccines are very effective, for healthy children at least. I have no evidence at all to suggest that every one of these studies was in some way fatally flawed; the inclusion criteria used for the systematic review argues strongly against this possibility. I suppose it is theoretically possible that every one of these studies is fraudulent, and that researchers in Russia, the USA, Italy, Japan etc. are all under the control of the Big Pharma Illuminati, and churn out fraudulent studies showing their masters’ evil vaccines are effective, but I doubt it.

It is also possible that the systematic review authors deliberately cherry-picked studies that showed what they wanted. Since they have clearly stated their inclusion criteria and anyone can duplicate their methods, this also seem extremely unlikely.

I wonder if Greg can explain why he rejects all this, and large amounts of similar evidence, and still doesn’t believe the influenza vaccine is effective. I very much doubt it.

Hasn’t he made it obvious by now, kreb? Greg rejects the studies because they don’t say he wants to hear (that fle vaccines aren’t effective).

I’ve stopped counting the number of people around me who had a bad case of flu this year, a lot of them healthy adults in their prime who didn’t think they needed the vaccine. And then discovered the joys of being so sick they couldn’t get out of bed for days. With a little luck, they’ll remember it next autumn when vaccine time comes.

We saw a little how Narad and Mi Dawn lost their cool, but I guess that is to be expected now and again.

I am and was as cool as a cucumber, baby. “Polarity is selected at will, for I am not ionized and I possess not valence.”

I note that you didn’t address the substance of any of the comments. For instance, let’s consider this:

That’s sweet, coming as it does from the same asshοle who has demonstrated that he doesn’t actually give a fυck about “the answers” to his shıtwitted “questions.”

I take this, coupled with the fact that you had no response to my answer, about which you prognosticated “I sense that he is too proud to lie and embarrass himself in front of his peers, so he won’t say ‘yes’,” as a concession that you, in fact, do not care about such answers unless you think they offer an opportunity to yet further make a fool of yourself by declaring victory. Observing in passing that you are an asshοle and that the “questions” are shıtwitted merely comprises statements of fact.

Mutatis mutandis the fact that you are a demonstrated posturing liar.

Anyway folks, I must take a little break and we can resume our conversation shortly.

Sure thing, chickenshıt. I hope you’ll be prepared to explain how you take your blood pressure while waiting in the exam room by then.

I came across a nice exposition of scientific uncertainty while reading about Henry Gee. It was written by Jerry A. Coyne, Ph.D here::

Yes, science is about doubt and knowledge, and some of that knowledge, while not true in the philosophically absolute sense, is true in the only sense that matters: you’d bet all your fortune on its being right. I’d give up my fortune (small as it is) right now if some scientist proved that earth was 10,000 years old. In fact, I’d bet a thousand dollars against ten dollars on this issue.

Similarly, I would bet my paltry fortune against any scientist proving that the increase in diagnosed autism over the past few decades has anything at all to do with changes in the vaccination schedule, or that vaccination is an important or even a minor cause of autism. In the only way that matters, it is not true that vaccines cause autism.

Jen in Tx,
I don’t have currently access to the full text of the study but it is a bit worrying. I do wonder a bit about the use of drugs during pregnancy when the evidence base for safety often isn’t very solid. Casting a critical eye, the use of subject reported acetaminophen* use is concerning. I also wonder if there might be other confounding factors that the researchers haven’t thought of.

As a speculative example, since this is a study of siblings, perhaps the length of time since the pregnancy affects how much acetaminophen was taken, and for how long. Perhaps acetaminophen use during pregnancy in Norway was discouraged more in the earlier part of the study period than later. Perhaps acetaminophen use increased generally in Norway during this period.

If so, since we know that increased maternal age correlates with an increased risk of minor neurodevelopmental disorders, this might explain the apparent link. Do they discuss whether they took this into account in the study?

There might be other confounders, or there might be something to this. As one of the study’s authors stated:

“The results strengthen our concern that long-term use of paracetamol during pregnancy may have an adverse effect on child development, but that occasional use for short periods is probably not harmful to the foetus. Importantly, we cannot assume that there is a causal relationship between maternal use of paracetamol during pregnancy and adverse effects in children from an epidemiological study. Since this is the only study to show this, there is a need for further research to confirm or refute these results,” says Professor Hedvig Nordeng.

* I’m a Brit, so I generally call it ‘paracetamol’, but this is an American blog so I use ‘acetaminophen’ here.

Science Mom, with all due respect, did you actually read the full study? Even the abstract notes that there was no association with ibuprofen, which would exclude an effect of illness.

Not yet but will try tomorrow. I will even read it critically and ignore your tylenol obsession re: autism which this doesn’t even seem to be about any way.

Jen, while I think the study is fairly well designed, and the topic does indeed merit further study, the kicker is this:

because clinical assessments with diagnostic tools were not available in this study, we could not determine the clinical importance of the difference observed.

Narad: “……… which is the first I had heard about Millbrook, and the rest is history.”

And we’re SO GLAD that you did. Hear of Millbrook.

@Johanna:

Friends, why do you keep feeding the troll?

Two reasons. Firstly, to show lurkers that Greg (and other antivaccinationists) is clueless.
Secondly, the same reason I fill out the Su Dokus in the newspaper. It’s an exercise for the mind, and sometimes quite entertaining.

Great thing is, we don’t have to “believe” like Gerg does…we can know…and why? Because the vast preponderance of the evidence exists to allow us to know.

So which is it Gerg? That this so-called link is so rare as to be impossible to detect using large population studies or a Tsunami of hundreds of thousands requiring a vast conspiracy involving millions of people worldwide to cover it up?

Finally, how did I measure my blood pressure in the doctor’s office? Actually Narad, the automated machine is simply left sitting on his desk. In fact, before he comes into see me, his assistant will enter the office, ask some preliminary health questions, measure your blood pressure, and then leave (I did leave out this part in my earlier synopsis of my visits). Narad, I am then free to measure again if I choose.

I don’t believe you, for several reasons: (1) As noted above, I actually doubt that you’re bright enough to operate a vital-signs monitor. (2) I’ve never seen one that wasn’t mounted on a rolling stand, or an exam room that didn’t have a wall-mounted sphygmomanometer. (3) Nobody would want that kind of clutter on the small workstations in an exam room – there’s the cuff, the SpO2 finger clip, and the sleeves for the temperature probe. (4) One doesn’t just leave pieces of thousand-dollar equipment sitting around as toys for intellectually challenged patients. (5) One also doesn’t leave them sitting idle when one needs to get patients in and out as quickly as possible. (6) Putting on a cuff single-handedly is a pain in the ass. (7) If you were caught doing this when somebody came in, he or she would have to whack you upside the head, which would be unprofessional. (8) You just had your blood pressure checked.

Of course, we do have real physicians here, so I’d welcome any corrections to the foregoing assumptions. In the meantime, I’m going with your being caught making things up again.

@Lawrence

Occam’s Razor is lost on the conspiracy theorists.

@Lawrence

“Great thing is, we don’t have to “believe” like Gerg does…we can know…and why? Because the vast preponderance of the evidence exists to allow us to know.”

So you are suggesting that whether you believe that vaccines cause or do not cause autism is irrelevant, the important thing is that you know?

In my intro philosophy course I remember learning about the three conditions that constitute knowledge. First, you must believe in the thing or theory. Second, you must have evidence to support your belief(s). Third, the thing or theory must be true.

Lawrence, without believing you can never know. And, I am also tempted to add that with the notion that vaccines do not cause autism, you will never be able to satisfy the third condition for it to tantamount to knowledge.

@Gerg – your beliefs are irrelevant, because the evidence, research and science has consistently rebutted your “beliefs.”

Haven’t you gotten tired of having your ass handed to you?

You can believe that the world is flat…people can tell you that the world is flat, but the actual evidence and Science shows that the world is roundish – not flat.

In my intro philosophy course I remember learning about the three conditions that constitute knowledge. First, you must believe in the thing or theory. Second, you must have evidence to support your belief(s). Third, the thing or theory must be true.

Lawrence, without believing you can never know.

This is jaw-droppingly hilarious. What Gerg is babbling about is the “JTB” analysis. However, he gets it very badly wrong. The actual prongs are as follows:

1. The proposition is true.
2. The perceiver believes that it is true
3. The perceiver justifies the belief

Gerg, on the other hand, scrambles this:

1. The perceiver believes that something is true
2. The perceiver concocts an explanation for the belief
3. Therefore, No. 1 is true, and hey presto! Knowledge!

Greg should really get his money back from whatever academic establishment misinformed him so badly. I have come across social scientists with no clue about natural science, and vice versa, but Greg is impressively ignorant in both areas.

Kudos to Narad and Bill for putting his mangled propositions straight.

Oh, I’m quite late responding to greg thinking I lost my cool. But I had other things to do, and bouts of hysterical laughter at work make people wonder what’s going on.

Greg – if my response to you makes you think I lost my cool – talk to my kids. They will tell you I very rarely lose my cool, but when I do, it’s a LOT scarier than that comment. You obviously confuse “losing one’s cool’ with the exhaustion of a mother who is having to explain simple facts to a 3 year old again (no, dear, we are not buying that toy today) – for the nth time.

Sometimes moms get tired of telling children basic facts. And I was tired of telling you basic facts and reading your juvenile (hee hee hee) humor.

Further to my argument at #217, you guys do not know that vaccines do not cause autism because you are only satisfying one of the three prerequisite of knowledge. First, you don’t believe it. Second, you can’t show it to be true. I mentioned how that truth must be verifiable according to the scientific method. And, as was already fleshed out, even the Chochrane Review of the vaccine/autism studies established that the limitation of the studies, and how they do not conclusively settle the matter. Guys, this leaves you merely with a few flimsy, vested interest, pharma studies that only looked into a few vaccine ingredients anyway as evidence. Again, there is not much here in the way of knowledge material.

Next, Gerg claims to be “the Lorax” as only he and his ilk can speak for those with Autism….you know, be he “knows” they are brain damaged and couldn’t possible hold ideas of their own or form independent opinions.

Thanks for once again showing how despicable you are.

@Greg: oh, you ARE funny. But, sure. You pay to have it done – and I’ll happily undergo a lie detector test. I have no fears, since I don’t believe vaccines cause autism, that any test would show differently.

By the way, Greg. I sincerely doubt you will accept the test results anyway. If I have it done, you will then point to studies that have shown that lie detector testing isn’t that reliable, and (I’m sure someone will correct me if I am wrong), most police departments have stopped doing them and they are very rarely admissible in court.

And, I don’t think I’m autistic or even ASD. While the diagnosis does exist within my family tree (various members), I don’t have, nor did I ever have, any of the diagnostic criteria.

As for your question – remember, Greg. We’ve answered it several times. You called us liars. Why should we answer it again and again, just to have you call us liars again?

Greg: “Guys, this leaves you merely with a few flimsy, vested interest, pharma studies that only looked into a few vaccine ingredients anyway as evidence. Again, there is not much here in the way of knowledge material.”

Whereas you have only provided us with nothing other than name calling. You have blatantly refused to answer direct questions posed to you. You even ignored the one I asked you several times.

Greg, show you are not a troll. Go up and read the title this article. Don’t worry, we will wait. Now look at this bar graph on pediatric influenza deaths over the past few years. Don’t worry, we will wait some more.

Now those who understand basic English and some math will notice that over twenty kids died from flu this year, and well over a hundred died last year from flu. Now, Greg, just provide us the PubMed indexed study by a qualified reputable researcher that any of the influenza vaccines are more dangerous than influenza.

Now that is the end of me addressing Greg. I shall go back to ignoring him unless he shows that he actually has some verifiable evidence the it is more dangerous to prevent influenza in children than for them to actually get it.

how WOULD he KNOW anything

Gerg also claims “thousands or tens of thousands” of parents have insisted that their children regressed immediately after vaccination….so where are they exactly? Because we keep seeing the same names and faces over and over again – representing a vanishingly small number of people….

Better yet, given the large numbers of population studies – where are these people that Gerg claims exist? Because for some reason, we just never seem to find them….at anywhere near the numbers that get claimed.

Sigh, WordPress removed something from my comment above. My Grandmother’s statement above should read ““I’d better get ready because (my grandfather) is picking me up at two o’clock.”

Glerg’s “thousands or tens of thousands” of parents are probably friends of the “thousands or tens of thousands” who suffer whiplash injuries when the driver in front put his tail lights on.

It’s bizarre to see Greg attempt to argue this completely backwards. Maybe its time to resurrect my broccoli-autism hypothesis – where’s the evidence to support claims that this is not true? I bet a carefully worded telephone survey would provide plenty of anecdotal evidence to support it. A fraudulent paper published in a respected medical journal would probably do even better.

Or perhaps I’ll start insisting that unicorns exist – how do we know a breeding population of these timid beasts isn’t living in a remote forest somewhere? If I believe in unicorns and no one can provide conclusive proof they don’t exist, by Greg’s standards that proves they are real doesn’t it?

Here’s my ‘alternative’ hypothesis:

there was a huge uptick in autism dx in the 1990s which was *about* the time that alternative music (a/k/a “grunge”) and its ride-the-coattails-trailing unfashionable fashion emerged.
Alternative music encouraged lessened communication and decreased social interaction as well as repetitive, ritualised actions a/k/a “moshing”.
It was all Kurt Cobain’s fault.

On a daily basis I’ll hear people say, “that (drug – Tylenol, Advil, whatever) didn’t make my headache go away so I’m taking some more” – and they had only taken the first dose 20-30 minutes prior! In vain I have tried to explain that oral medications can take 45-60 minutes to obtain a therapeutic level…they want instant gratification.

There was a somewhat related problem when 2,5-dimethoxy-4-methylamphetamine (“STP”) first hit the streets. As for Gerg’s BP story, have the monitors you’ve seen left in the exam room been cart-mounted or sitting on a “desk”?

@Narad – actually a little desk – kinda like the ones they have you sit in to have blood drawn. And it’s a simple monitor…kinda like those you buy at the drugstore for $130 or so. But then, I’ve been in a lot of weird offices in my time…

I’m actually disappointed in Greg. I always wanted to have a lie detector test done….

I don’t see any reason why anyone would believe that Gerg is psychic – which he would have to be, for anyone to give his “They said one answer, but I knew they actually secretly believed the opposite!” any credence.

But even if we believed that Gerg was psychic, why would we believe that he’s telling the truth about what he divines with his psychic powers, when he himself has been caught lying through his teeth?

To name just the most obvious example, there was the time that he claimed he knew of a study design which would completely settle the question of whether vaccines cause autism, and that there could be no reason why anyone would oppose doing such a study, except if they were afraid of the results.

When challenged to spell out that study design, Gerg finally admitted that he had no such study design in mind and in fact knew very little about study design. He had a design that he thought would answer the question solidly, but he openly admitted that he gave no thought to whether it would be ethical to do such a study (ethical concerns would of course be an extremely valid reason why a person with a functioning conscience would not want a particular study to be done, making Gerg’s claim that “no one could oppose doing this study except if they feared the results” a bald-faced lie.)

So if Gerg claims someone around here is lying, why on earth would we believe it’s anyone but him?

If you guys cannot look yourselves square in the mirror, and say with absolute conviction that I believe vaccines do not cause autism, then you can never assert this as knowledge. You won’t have this knowledge despite being able to argue that ‘scientific’ evidence say they do not.

I’m sure that Gerg is quite proud of himself for unearthing the hoary old trope of “justified true belief.” And getting it wrong, of course.

I will first note that JTB is trivially falsifiable, as it requires knowledge of the externality of relations and plural minds to bootstrap. (I of course also deny both in the first place.) This is the sort of thing that rightly causes people to wonder why on earth it’s still possible to draw a paycheck for making a fuss over purportedly 2600-year-old epistemology.*

But so, let us delve into the woods of primitive supernaturalist first-order propositional logic,** in which The Truth Is Out There. As already noted, Gerg fails to grasp that in JTB, the truth of the proposition comes first;† it most certainly cannot be the output of any probabilistic system such as, say, the scientific method. Truth values of propositions are binary-valued.

Gerg has suddenly done an about-face on this, having spent quite a bit of time arguing that propositions more elaborate than his boneheaded “gotcha” attempts are prima facie invalid. This unsurprisingly involves redefining “scientific method.”

Let us further go back, way back, back into time, to Edmund Gettier, who made two observations about the underlying notion of justification:

1. The requisite “justification” for “knowing” p can also “justify” “knowing” a false proposition. This is quite simple: maybe the battery in your clock went dead overnight. The time on the clock, however, has always previously been a suitable justification without checking the battery after checking the VOM, etc.

2. If the justified false proposition p implies (or entails) q (and one accepts q), then one is also “justified” in believing q. This is where raw JTB fails. I will simply repeat Gettier’s example:

[S]uppose that Smith has strong evidence for the following proposition:

(f) Jones owns a Ford.

Smith’s evidence might be that Jones has at all times in the past within Smith’s memory owned a car, and always a Ford, and that Jones has just offered Smith a ride while driving a Ford…. [I]magine, now, that Smith has another friend,
Brown, of whose whereabouts he is totally ignorant. Smith selects three place names … random and constructs the following three propositions:

(g) Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Boston.
(h) Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Barcelona.
(i) Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Brest-Litovsk.

Each of these propositions is entailed by (f)…. Smith realizes the entailment of each of these propositions … and proceeds
to accept (g), (h), and (i) on the basis of (f). Smith has correctly inferred (g), (h), and (i) from a proposition for which he has strong evidence. Smith is therefore completely justified in believing each of these three propositions.
Smith, of course, has no idea where Brown is.

[I]magine now that … Jones does not own a Ford, but is at present driving a rented car. And … entirely unknown to Smith, the place mentioned in proposition (h) happens really to be the place where Brown is. If these two conditions hold,
then Smith does not KNOW that (h) is true, even though (i) (h) is true, (ii) Smith does believe that (h) is true, and (iii) Smith is justified in believing that (h) is true.

JTB is therefore not a sufficient condition for knowledge. It is also not a necessary condition for knowledge: One can know that know that travel by plane is safer than by automobile yet not believe it, as evidenced both to the perceiver by virtue of internal states and to observers by virtue of overt behavior, such as driving rather than flying even when the latter would be cheaper and faster in the absence of countervailing goals such as sightseeing.

It’s just an incredibly stupid peg for Gerg to try to hang his hat on.

* As it happens, academic philosophers are somewhat overrepresented in my circle of acquaintances. I have a call in to one, and I’ll have to wait till tomorrow to contact the other one. During his blues show on the radio. This examination is thus just mine.

** I’ve mentioned this, but I once was made to attend a 10-week seminar, out of interdepartmental congeniality. The fellow thought that AI would fall out of automated theorem proving. His chosen platform was Logo.

† Roderick Chisolm advanced a formulation similar to Gerg’s in 1957. Nine years later, W—pedia informs me, he noted that it is also possible to justifiably believe in a true proposition by accident, basically repeating the tanking of the entire unreconstructed JTB pig-iron works with a simpler nondisjunctive example.

I’m trying to figure out how Greg figures he “knows” anything about the commenters here, given his own definition of knowledge.

He believes every commenter here is a lying pharma shill. But he has no evidence for this belief; he merely believes only a pharma shill would say that the evidence shows that the vaccination schedule is not causally related to autism, within the narrow limits of evidence. He doesn’t even get to his third prong, which is the actual truth of the matter, namely that the people commenting here are not pharma shills.

I do still very much intend to inquire into taking legal actions against you for the vicious, undeserved, slander that I have incurred here.

Uh-huh. I’ll see you in court once you figure out what “slander” isn’t.

Still, nevertheless, I am hoping that you can save me some legal fees by responding to my earlier inquiry of whether pseudonyms can sue pseudonyms. (hee hee hee)

Of course they can; anybody can sue anybody for anything. There would be no issue of pseudonyms beyond the initial filing, though (which can name a pseudonym as defendant), as the next step would be subpoenas to the intermediate parties to identify the defendant.

It would likely be a hard sell, turning most obviously on (1) whether pseudonyms can be construed as “pen names” and (2) whether the actual identity of the plaintiff is widely enough known for the defamation to attach to the person.

With respect to No. 1, Eb*y has previously warned that defamatory feedback may lead to legal consequences, although I’m not finding it in their current TOS. Pen names tend to exist in the commercial realm, as do other pseudonyms, such as musician “Cliff Richard,” who prevailed in the UK, which happens to be the most plaintiff-friendly libel venue on the planet. To a certain extent, this comes down to whether a value can be assigned to the pseudonym, although libel per se may be subject to statutory damages without regard to actual economic harm.

With respect to No. 2, if you were to address frank libel to “Orac,” a subsequent legal action would have a very good chance of being cognizable.

Of course, none of this really matters, as your libel is indiscriminate, and your deranged pals at AoA are even worse. Sooner or later, you’re going to bumble into claiming that someone who is not pseudonymous advocates vaccination while secretly eschewing them or some such.

The same goes for AoA: If somebody who has been defamed has some free time and money, that person just might choose to pursue an action for the simple purpose of making the culprit have to defend it.

Gone again!

You might look a little less enthusiastically stupid if you didn’t keep pulling this routine and returning in short order.

And…

now I joke a lot here but I am dead serious: Go to an independent party and have a lie detection test done, and please provide the results. If everything is legit, and you are telling the truth, I will offer a full apology.

As your bona fides have been in question for far longer, the appropriate response is “you first.” In other words, until you provide proof of your professional credentials, by your own standard, they are presumptively false.

Greg,

The fact though that you would genuinely believe that vaccines do not cause autism is utterly astonishing.

If that is true, you must be absolutely gobsmacked that doctors, scientists and public health specialists in every country in the world (as far as I know) genuinely believe this. A glance at my files reveals the following (links removed to prevent moderation, but can be supplied on demand if necessary):

The UK’s Health Protection Agency says:

MMR uptake fell in 1997 in the UK following publicity about speculation that the MMR vaccine might be linked with autism and Crohn’s disease. These concerns have been investigated by the PHLS (now HPA) and others, and have been firmly refuted – MMR remains the most effective and safest way of protecting children against these dangerous diseases, and parents are urged to have their children vaccinated with MMR.

The World Health Organization says:

Available epidemiological data show that there is no evidence of a link between measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism spectrum disorders. Previous studies suggesting a causal link were found to be seriously flawed. There is also no evidence to suggest that any other childhood vaccine may increase the risk of autism spectrum disorders. In addition, evidence reviews commissioned by WHO concluded that there was no association between the use of preservatives such as thiomersal that contains ethyl mercury in vaccines and autism spectrum disorders.

The Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety writes:

Based on the extensive review presented, GACVS concluded that no evidence exists of a causal association between MMR vaccine and autism or autistic disorders. The Committee believes the matter is likely to be clarified by a better understanding of the causes of autism.

The Institute of Medicine concluded:

The committee has a high degree of confidence in the epidemiologic evidence based on four studies with validity and precision to assess an association between MMR vaccine and autism; these studies consistently report a null association.
[…]
The committee assesses the mechanistic evidence regarding an association between MMR vaccine and autism as lacking.
[…]
The evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between MMR vaccine and autism.
[…]
The committee did not identify literature reporting clinical, diagnostic, or experimental evidence of autism after the administration of vaccines containing diphtheria toxoid, tetanus toxoid, and acellular pertussis antigens alone or in combination.

I could go on and on, but this surely makes my point. Anyone who manages to remain astonished when the issue has been so thoroughly examined by respected scientists globally must surely be missing a brain cell or two (my personal opinion, of course).

Denice,
Kreb, don’t you know that those sources are just as compromised as we are?
Sshh. It took me ages to make all those quotations up and plant them in Google and all those websites all over the world 😉

I’m just astonished that anyone in such a tiny minority as Greg could still be astonished that 99% of people with any knowledge and understanding of the subject think he is a loony.

Scrub that, I had an extra / in there that I didn’t see.

I mentioned no rational person who has followed the autism/vaccine debate long enough, and who is not autistic that prevents them from being able to sort out the web of denialism deception can ever truly believe that vaccines do not cause autism.

Which, of course, is why the belief is less popular than NWO conspiracy theories and the belief among Romney voters that Obama is the Antichrist and that there was a Roswell cover-up and, moreover, isn’t gaining steam.

AoA’s Alexa metrics are dismal. NVIC is worse. The Autism Media Channel might as well not exist. AVN is sad. “Think Twice” is just as bad. The No. 2 search term leading to “Child Health Safety” is “wordpress statistics,” suggesting that Clifford Miller himself may be driving most of this traffic.*

SBM, a niche blog, blows them out of the water. “Voices for Vaccines,” which is quite new and not particularly interactive, easily outranks AoA. A brief survey suggests that the trend holds for page ranks.

“Pack up your money, pull up your tent, McGuinn
 You ain’t a-goin’ nowhere”

* “Keywords related to wordpress statistics”:
❄ swine flu jokes
❄ swine flu vaccine cripple
❄ dr. andrew wakefield
❄ autism amish
❄ sunday times london
❄ compulsory vaccination uk
❄ vaccines cause autism
❄ wordpress graphs
❄ anti vaccine movement

I do still very much intend to inquire into taking legal actions against you for the vicious, undeserved, slander that I have incurred here.

As Private Eye is prone to state: “We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram”

Duh. I had not quite completed editing the above comment when it seemed to decide to submit itself. The Submit Comment button wasn’t even on the screen.
I might have some revisions to note below. Or I might not.

Bill Price,

What, if anything, is that supposed to mean?

A close examination of Greg’s comments reveals a lot of this: sentences that look as if they should mean something, but that I find impossible to parse as meaningful English. I think my favorite is his hilarious tirade against Antaeus here. Apart from the clumsy mischaracterization of various other commenters, he included morsels of quasi-word-salad such as:

So, when face with opposition, you let loose your intellectual barrage, if not tinged with dishonest.

I think I get the gist of what he means, but it’s very weird. Maybe English isn’t his first language. His English is certainly poorer than those here I know are Francophone – Helianthus and Alain for example whose bilinguality puts my schoolboy French to shame. I know we all make mistakes, but I hope I never lapse into gibberish like that.

I must admit I am grateful to Greg, as the psychology of the antivaxxers is something I am very curious about. He has been a useful lab rat I have been able to observe and poke with a metaphorical stick, without having to soil myself over at AoA, or worse.

Reviewing the bidding, Greg came to Respectful Insolence with the hypothesis that anyone who has looked at the evidence must conclude that vaccines cause autism. He has been attempting to collect evidence to prove that hypothesis. Unfortunately, as LW pointed out, this has become something of a belief in the “firm faith, especially religious faith” category for Greg. Thus he has chosen his methods of collecting and interpreting that data to show that when people say that vaccines don’t cause autism that either:
– they don’t actually believe that
– they haven’t looked at the right evidence
– they have tortured that evidence to make it say something false
– the evidence they have looked at is all tainted and lies
– they are lying about what they think

If Greg would let go of this idée fixe if his, he might discover that his original hypothesis is false – that people are speaking honestly, they have looked at the evidence, and they have concluded that there is no obvious causal link between vaccines and autism; therefore, it is possible that someone could look at the evidence and NOT decide vaccines cause autism.

Sadly, I don’t expect him to come to that realization.

Krebiozen – you reminded me of the Isaac Asimov essay “The Relativity of Wrong”. The curvature of the Earth (assuming a sphere 25,000 miles in diameter) is 0.000126 per mile, or about 8 inches/mile. If you only go out 3 decimal points, it rounds to 0.000 per mile, which would be flat.

Naturally, those round off errors add up.

There is, however, a grain of truth in that if you recast it somewhat. In order to know something to be true it is not simply good enough to believe it to be so. You must also have evidence and, of course, it must be true.

This fails on the issue of “false lemmas,” which are different from lucky guesses in that they’re justified (e.g., driving through a realistic movie set without knowing that’s what it is and concluding that the facades are real buildings).*

There haven’t really been any successful attempts to salvage JTB. The question, though, is why would you want to? The only cases that get dragged out are trivialities. Consider this: Do you know your doctor’s name? Of course not. Maybe your doctor got run over by a bus two days ago and you haven’t received a letter informing you yet. It’s not even possible to couch every utterance in sufficient qualifications to admit some sort of go/no-go “knowledge” test. Maybe your doctor was using an assumed name all along. Maybe your doctor wasn’t really a doctor. Maybe your doctor was a robot.

Of course, in obtaining, and expressing the state of, scientific knowledge, one does attempt to do this, but Gerg rejects this out of hand, because it doesn’t fit within the framework of his moronic games.

Furthermore, in the real world, the more interesting question isn’t “does X know p,” but “does X know how p” or “why p,” i.e., testing understanding rather cataloging the epistemological internal status of a grab-bag of fact utterances.

As usual, the Stanford Encyclopedia is thorough.

* A shorter version of “Barn County.”

False lembas would be Waybread baked by orcs. Just sayin’.