Of all the antivaccine activists out there, arguably the most damaging to public health are the antivaccine pediatricians. True, they pretty much all to a person deny that they are “antivaccine,” instead portraying themselves as “pro-vaccine safety” or “vaccine safety activists,” but inevitably spew misinformation that reveals them to be either lying or delusional in that portrayal. Of these doctors, perhaps the one I’ve written the most about is “Dr. Bob” Sears. Besides his recommendation in his book on vaccines for antivaccine parents not to advertise their children’s unvaccinated status in order to allow them to “hide in the herd,” He’s spent at least the last three years regularly letting loose his antivaccine dog whistles. I first noticed it after SB 277, a bill that ultimately became law in California and eliminated nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates. That was when “Dr. Bob”” started really letting his antivaccine freak flag fly, invoking what have become the most commonly used antivaccine “dog whistles” with respect to school vaccine mandates ()”freedom” and “parental rights”) in his opposition to SB 277 but he started going full Godwin. Ultimately, he began selling medical exemptions to school vaccine mandates, to the point where the Medical Board of California took notice. Not surprisingly, antivaxers have rallied around him.
Of course, “Dr. Bob” Sears isn’t the only antivaccine pediatrician. There have been others before, including Dr. Jay Gordon and Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, and others. Well, there’s a new rising star among the ranks of antivaccine pediatricians, hell, among antivaccine physicians. I’ve been meaning to write about him for a while now, and his name is Dr. Paul Thomas. Basically, he’s continuing on down the path forged by “Dr. Bob” Sears by publishing a book for the vaccine-averse, in this case, The Vaccine-Friendly Plan: Dr. Paul’s Safe and Effective Approach to Immunity and Health-from Pregnancy Through Your Child’s Teen Years, which is advertised thusly:
The time has come to take our own health and that of our children into our own hands. Gone are the days when you can blindly follow your doctor’s recommendations, or count on your health plan or some government agency to have your best interests first.
Here I, Dr. Paul Thomas, bring you the best, and most important research, information, products, blogs and videos, vitamins and nutritional supplements, and provide links to information I feel you should not go without.
Lots of red flags there. Beware any “brave maverick doctor” who goes on about “blindly following your doctor’s recommendations” or “counting on some government agency to have your best interests first” as a prelude to selling you his book, his videos, and, above all, his nutritional supplements with blather like this:
It’s all there, starting with the favorite antivaccine claim that children today are not as healthy as they were in the past, how there he doesn’t remember any children with autism, asthma, ADHD, eczema, etc., while he was growing up. A physician should know better than to make an argument this blisteringly stupid, but apparently Dr. Thomas doesn’t. I’d be willing to bet that he knew kids with autism and ADHD when he was a kid. They just weren’t called that then because such the diagnostic criteria for these conditions were different then and even then they were underdiagnosed, with kids with ADHD simply being considered discipline problems and kids “on the spectrum” being viewed as just weird if their autism was mild and retarded if it was severe. I mean, seriously. Seeing a fellow physician make such idiotic arguments makes me want to get out my paper bag or Doctor Doom mask again. In the video, he asks, “Why?” And why is it? Well, he promises that his book will minimize the chance that your child will end up with any of these conditions. So that tells you right there that he must think it’s the vaccines that done it. He mentions all the “toxins” in the world as a prelude to mentioning that vaccines, although “very important,” also contain “toxins.” He even says, “This is not an antivaccine book. This is not a pro-vaccine book. This is a pro-kids, pro-healthy children book.”
He even offers a summary of his plan. Basically, it looks like a rehash of the same old discredited idea of “too many too soon,” with vaccines being spaced out or eliminated. Never mind that, like Dr. Sears, Dr. Thomas has no relevant expertise in immunology or infectious disease to be making such recommendations, and it shows. For instance, amazingly, he recommends no vaccines for pregnant women. That’s right, no Tdap and no flu vaccines. Why? They’re “toxic.” He doesn’t recommend HPV vaccines at all for anyone. Ditto the Rotavirus vaccine. Ditto hepatitis A (more on that later). He doesn’t recommend the MMR before three years of age. Why? Well, he lays down variants of the “toxins gambit” right in his pamphlet-version of his schedule:
The MMR vaccine contains human albumin, cow fetus serum, neomycin and chick embryo proteins. This live-vaccine is also perhaps the most controversial as time and time again (I’ve heard it over 100 times) parents have seen that after this vaccine their previously normal child became autistic. Though no study has definitively linked the MMR vaccine to autism, there is a case to be made for caution. Until a large double- blind study comparing unvaccinated children with vaccinated children is done, we cannot rule out the current American vaccination schedule as a contributing factor in autism.
What? He actually invoked the need for a “vaxed/unvaxed” study? Unbelievable. Worse than that, he didn’t invoke the need for an epidemiological study of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children, which would at least not have been completely indefensible from an ethical standpoint, although it would be very impractical from a scientific, financial, and logistical standpoint. He invoked the need for a double-blind randomized study comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated children, which shows that he is utterly clueless with respect to basic ethics with respect to human subjects research! Such a study can never be done, because it would leave half the subjects unprotected against potentially deadly diseases, which violates the principle of clinical equipoise and is therefore completely unethical. He also threw the “toxins” gambit in there for good measure, which he also does with the polio vaccine:
The Injectable Polio Vaccine (Ipol) contains formaldehyde, along with a host of other ingredients you probably wouldn’t want to inject into an infant with an immature immune system, including: human albumin, calf serum, 2-phenoxyethanol and antibiotics. Since the last case of wild polio acquired in the USA was 1979 and it is essentially eliminated from the world, I recommend babies skip this vaccine unless you plan to travel to higher risk areas of the world.
I hate to inform Dr. Thomas (actually I don’t), but the human body makes formaldehyde as a normal byproduct of metabolism, and there is far more formaldehyde naturally occurring in the body than there is in any vaccine. As for the other ingredients, they’re all present at trace amounts. Dr. Thomas seems to have forgotten his medical school pharmacology class. I haven’t even mentioned all the problems with Dr. Thomas’ “approved” vaccine schedule (as if being approved by Dr. Thomas means anything at all), but Dr. Thomas assures us that he’s not antivaccine.
Of course, his own writings rather bely that claim, for instance this article profile of and interview with Dr. Thomas by Ashley James entitled Safe Vaccines. Let’s just say that Dr. Thomas lays down a lot of tropes that sure do sound antivaccine to this guy who very much knows antivaccine when he sees it.
First, we learn that Dr. Thomas grew up in a village in Africa. (His parents were missionaries.) You’d think that this sort of upbringing would make him appreciate all the more the benefits of vaccines, but you’d be wrong. Instead, he touts his upbringing as making him more “open-minded” and willing to entertain new ideas. Of course, you know what they say about not being “open-minded” that your brains fall out. Is that gray matter that I see on Dr. Thomas’ shirt?
For instance, I’ll start with one of the most blisteringly stupid things that Dr. Thomas says in the whole article:
Dr. Paul Thomas believes that Hepatitis A Vaccine is unnecessary. In fact, Dr. Paul Thomas has not encountered a Hepatitis A case in his entire medical career.
For children, in particular, Dr. Paul Thomas says Hepatitis A is a benign, mild, cold, flu-like illness. It is harmless and apparently, we develop a natural immunity to it. Hence, we do not need a vaccine for it.
That must be why we have a huge hepatitis A outbreak here in Michigan and why there is a smaller, but still large, outbreak ongoing in Kentucky. You see, what Dr. Thomas doesn’t seem to consider is that, even if hepatitis A is a milder illness in children, vaccinating is still a good policy because hepatitis A is not nearly so benign in adults, as we are discovering in Michigan, and immunity from the two-shot series can last two decades or more.
Of course, Dr. Thomas is not “antivaccine.” Oh, no, he’s “pro-safe vaccine,” just like Jenny McCarthy:
“You don’t have to dig far to know that vaccines have caused tremendous harm. Have they had benefits? Absolutely. Which is why I remain somewhat on the neutral side in saying that I am not anti-vaccine,” said Dr. Paul Thomas. “I’m pro-safe vaccines. I’ve progressed along to the point where I now don’t believe there is such a thing.”
In other words, Dr. Paul Thomas says it’s impossible to have 100% safe vaccines. This is because we are injecting things that stimulate the immune system. This alone poses some benefits and risks. Apart from that, Dr. Paul Thomas says we’re also injecting toxins and elements that overstimulate the immune system.
Let’s count the antivaccine tropes, shall we? There’s the “I’m not antivaccine, I’m pro-safe vaccine” trope, although Thomas goes further than that. He actually says he’s “neutral” and clearly on his way to being antivaccine even by his own estimation, given that he now says that he doesn’t believe there is such a thing as a safe vaccine. Then there’s the “toxins” gambit yet again. There’s also the “too many” trope implied, with his saying that vaccines “overstimulate” the immune system. Then there’s this:
Dr. Paul Thomas says that generally speaking, what people look for is really informed consent. This means people want to have the ability of choice, ability to have a doctor who listens to them and a doctor who’s educated and informed on what exactly are safe vaccines.
This is what I like to refer to as the “misinformed consent” gambit. Here, antivaxers claim they are for nothing more than “informed consent,” which is a basic fundamental principle of any medical intervention. The problem is that informed consent requires accurate information and an accurate estimate of the risks and benefits of any intervention. Antivaxers, as I’ve pointed out so many times, actively misinform patients, vastly exaggerating the potential harms from vaccines and vastly underestimating the potential benefits in such a way that, if you don’t know anything else about vaccines and hear this combination of information, it would actually be rational of you not to want to vaccinate. However, that decision would be based on gross misinformation, the “consent” not to be vaccinated would be a decision based on misinformation, hence my term “misinformed consent.”
Misinformation like this:
Dr. Paul Thomas’ book is about a safe and effective approach to immunity and health. It covers a vaccine-friendly plan from pregnancy to a child’s teenage years. The book is really for people who genuinely want to follow the CDC schedule.
The guiding principle of the book is to minimize toxins, minimize risks, and still get some protection. Dr. Paul Thomas also singles out that aluminum is toxic, yet if you postpone some of the childhood vaccines until they’re older, it will make sense for a lot of reasons.
“I wrote my book because after I started my practice, I instituted what I called the Vaccine-Friendly Plan. Don’t do vaccines during pregnancy,” advises Dr. Paul Thomas. “No Hepatitis vaccine until you’re at least pre-teen unless the birth mother has Hepatitis B. And there’s no need for polio because it’s not infectious.”
Polio isn’t infectious? WTF is Dr. Thomas talking about? Of course it’s infectious! I suspect I know what he means, but who can be sure. On the principle of charity, I’ll assume that he means that polio has been eliminated from the US and has been for a long time. This is true, but it ignores the rest of the world. Until polio is eradicated from the world, given how safe the polio vaccine is, it makes sense not to let up. As for aluminum, as I like to say, aluminum is the new mercury, the favorite ingredient in vaccines for antivaxers to demonize. It is not toxic at the doses used in vaccines.
It also turns out that Dr. Thomas fancies himself a clinical researcher now:
Under the plan, Dr. Paul Thomas has gathered data from over 1000 patients. From the batch, 894 patients were vaccinated, and 238 patients weren’t vaccinated.
From that data, Dr. Paul Thomas found out that all of the patients with autism was in the group that was most vaccinated. On the contrary, there was no autism in the unvaccinated group.
“But a little caveat. There were 3 cases in the Vaccine-Friendly Plan, of children who were starting to show autistic-like symptoms such as decreased eye contact and language delay,” shares Dr. Paul Thomas. “Anytime I would see any delay; I would immediately stop further vaccines. I wish doctors and family practitioners would follow that principle.”
Dr. Paul Thomas also reports that three kids in the Vaccine-Friendly Plan and five kids in the vaccinated group returned to normal. This was after Dr. Paul Thomas stopped administering the rest of the vaccines.
It’s hard to interpret what the heck is being described here, although it is disturbing that over 21% of Dr. Thomas’ patients apparently receive no vaccines at all and he’s OK with it. In any case, I can’t figure out what the heck he means here. He claims that all the cases of autism were in the the group that was “most vaccinated.” What the heck does that mean? He also claims that there were no cases in the group that was completely unvaccinated. Basically, these numbers are impossible to interpret without knowing the definitions, and, more importantly: (1) the number of children who were completely unvaccinated; (2) the number of children on the “vaccine-friendly” schedule; and (3) the number of children on the CDC schedule. He’d still also have to control for other risk factors for autism, not to mention for the fact that he openly admits that whenever he sees cases of children with early signs of autism he immediatley stops all vaccines.
But that’s not all. Apparently, Dr. Thomas thinks he’s going to run the “Framingham study of our time”:
So what is the Pediatric Health Outcomes Initiative? This is how it’s described:
The Pediatric Health Outcomes Initiative is a prospective registry that seeks to recruit 5,000 newborns (< 30 days old), and will follow them for 18 years. The goal is to determine if vaccination status or other factors play any role in the development of either acute or chronic diseases in children in the United States.
Over the last 40 years, there has been an increase in the number of children diagnosed with both acute and chronic conditions, including asthma, eczema, allergies, attention deficit disorder (ADD), and autism. Some physicians and researchers have questioned if the increase in both the number of vaccines the pregnant mother receives, and the number of childhood vaccines, plays any role in the current state of our children’s health. In 1983, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) vaccine schedule recommended children ages 0-18 receive a total of 11 vaccines, five of which were given during the first 13 months. In 2017, that number had increased to 55 vaccines, with 28 administered in the first 13 months. This registry seeks to collect prospective data to help answer this question.
Dr. Thomas claims that his study has been approved by an institutional review board (although he doesn’t say which one), and presumably it has, given that he started to recruit patients in October.
Personally, I would love to see the protocol for this registry study, because I would love to see if Dr. Thomas realizes just how easy it is for bias to be inadvertently and unintentionally introduced into such registries. For instance, there’s likely to be ascertainment bias, which is the systematic distortion in measuring the true frequency of a phenomenon due to the way in which the data are collected. In this case, bias is likely to be introduced into the estimated prevalence of autism in the registry population. How could this happen? Think about it. Dr. Thomas believes that vaccines cause autism. That right there introduces unconscious bias that could affect how likely he and his staff are to investigate subtle signs of autism and refer out to for evaluation based on vaccination status. One can easily imagine this bias leading to unvaccinated children to be less likely to be given an autism diagnosis than vaccinated children. Are there safeguards against this in the protocol? I’d be willing to bet that there are not.
Other biases that could creep into the registry suggest themselves. For instance, the parents who choose an “integrative pediatrics” practice are not like the general population, and hence their children are likely to differ in significant ways from the general population, hence decreasing the generalizability of any findings. There is also likely to be a form of bias known as consent bias, in which parents who believe vaccines cause autism would be more likely to agree to enroll their children in the registry. Such parents would be more likely to be prone to recall bias with respect to the diagnosis of their child’s autism.
The list goes on. The point is that putting together such registries is not a trivial task. In the database for the registry, what elements will be included as fields in the database? Who will enter the data? Who will assure the integrity of the data? I learned from my experience at a statewide breast cancer collaborative quality initiative just how complicated and vexing these problems are, and how easily the incidence of something (in the case of this database, complications) can be under- or overestimated. Let’s put it this way. Setting up and maintaining a registry like this is not a job for amateurs. Did Dr. Thomas recruit any professionals? I wonder.
I wondered whether his protocol had been approved by an institutional review board (IRB). Apparently it has been. I’d love to know which one and what reputation it has.
I like to say that my identification of antivaccine views is a lot like what Justice Potter Stewart said about pornography: I know it when I see it. Actually, I have written extensively on things to look for in recognizing antivaccine views that go beyond “knowing it when I see it,” and Dr. Thomas’ rhetoric qualifies as antivaccine.
Sadly, I know from other reports that Dr. Thomas has teamed up with other antivaxers, like James Lyons-Weiler and Brian Hooker, to try to write up studies for the peer-reviewed literature, but so far I’ve only seen rumblings and reports from other skeptics. My guess is that Dr. Paul Thomas is the new Dr. Sears. Dr. Sears is still a major voice in the antivaccine movement, but he’s yesterday, he’s dull, he’s too tied to SB 277, and besides he’s under investigation by the California Board of Medicine. Dr. Thomas is new, now, hip, and happening. I fear he’s poised to fill the void left by Dr. Sears. Certainly teaming up with cranks like Hooker and Lyons-Weiler, if indeed that is happening, is an indication of this.
512 replies on “Dr. Paul Thomas: A rising star in the antivaccine movement”
“He claims that all the cases of autism were in the the group that was “most vaccinated.” What the heck does that mean?”
He did a scatterplot and chose the line to maximize the above/below ratio.
So asthma and eczema didn’t exist before vaccines, because he didn’t know anyone with those diseases, growing up? I’m older than dirt, so definitely older than this anti-vaxxer, and I knew kids with both of those problems. I remember the little sister of a friend with bandages wrapped around both arms because of eczema. I knew a couple of boys who were frequent visitors in the ER because of asthma. What a stupid thing for a doctor to say. And no, I didn’t grow up with people who were diagnosed with ADHD and autism. I grew up with kids who were labeled “retarded” and “uncontrollable brats.” However, if they had been born 40 or 50 years later, that would have been different. This is another one I’d put in an iron lung for a day, whilst afflicted with shingles.
Oh not just shingles, surely rotavirus too, and having to clean everything up at the end of the day …
Usually I add, and afterwards, put (whoever) in a sack and beat him/her with sticks until s/he is as crippled as an old friend of mine was from childhood polio. I do like the rotavirus and cleaning up part.. I’m going to have to remember that for next time.
I’m a geezer, too – retirement age although still working. My brother and my cousin both suffered from eczema, and I had twin uncles who both died in status asthmaticus as children. I also get a good laugh at his admonition which is basically: “Don’t do what your doctor or the government says, think for yourself and do what I say!”
Dad (born 1917) had bad asthma. Mum (1920) caught polio. Dr Thomas may not have seen these things as a kid but they damn well existed.
Oh, & Hep A. I contracted that in my late teens & it definitely wasn’t benign. I was sick as a dog for weeks 🙁
Silly Dr Thomas.
The “study” Thomas claims to have done which you mention is an appendix in his book. It is not peer-reviewed, and he’s never published it despite two years of claiming he will. Mayer Eisenstein claimed similar data in his Chicago practice but never went as far as Thomas in putting fake data out there. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=570890369956711&set=a.159450527767366.1073741827.100011072580129&type=3
Also from his book: “Since I opened my practice in 2008, not a single child has received the rotavirus vaccine. I refuse to stock it.” – so much for vaccine choice…
I have a friend who is a nurse in a pediatric ER who would love to have a chat with this “doctor.”
“Like.” I’ve heard that diarrhea in children has gone down quite a bit since the rotavirus vaccines’ introduction.
I’d like to discuss the rivers of poo we dealt with, and the subsequent 911 call and trip to the hospital because of seizures caused by dehydration.
I find it amazing that, if he truly grew up in Africa that he somehow missed the morbidity and mortality of rotavirus while he was there, given it kills ~ 200,000 infants and children in Africa yearly.
He likely had a privileged “colonial” upbringing, and never got to see any illness or disease. Where was he born, does anyone know?
He can’t have stayed in Africa for long, that’s for sure.
Does he mean he would treat the people who register for his study? If not, maybe that would help with the specific type of biaeses you started with? Wonder what “follow” is here.
It’s still going to be a group of people interested in participating in a study run by a favorite of antivaccine sites that are likely seeing like minded physicians or alternative practitioners.
With a 1-to-4 bias in the number of people between the unvaccinated group and the vaccinated group… There may be some reason why he found autistic people in the vaccinated group and miss them in the non-vaccinated group.
Reminds me a bit of Seralini study with the 180 rats on various herbicide/maize diets and the 20 control rats.
I would like to see plenty of details before accepting these results. To start, how many autistic people he found? And did he put his Guinea pigs in two groups randomly, and individually, or did he drop all family members together? If the latter case, it may not be surprising autistic people were concentrated in one of the groups.
There’s a far more serious bias here: unvaccinated children are significantly less likely to be diagnosed with anything period. Parents who choose not to vaccinate more often than not have a negative attitude towards regular medicine, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a significant proportion of their children ever see a doctor at all, unless things are really bad. Non-life-threatening ailments including mild allergies and less severe ASD cases are most likely left undiagnosed and untreated (i.e. ‘treated’ with naturopathy, homeopathy or other delusional types of ‘medicine’).
Maybe I’m not using the right search terms, but I can’t find this study on ClinicalTrials.gov, so I wouldn’t trust Dr Paul Thomas any further than I could throw him. ANY physician who sells supplements and stuff is suspect to me.
Trying to use my old email again…
I’m not sure that registry trials have to be entered in ClinicalTrials.gov. I think that just intervention trials have to be registered. I’ll have to check. He’s recruiting patients, as you can see if you peruse his Facebook page, and has been since October.
My reading is that they probably don’t. It’s also my understanding that there needs to be an intervention.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/manage-recs/fdaaa#WhichTrialsMustBeRegistered
Why is it that pharma-shill doctors never sell you stuff–if they write a script, the pharmacy fills it–whereas the noble, altruistic holistic practitioners are always pointing you toward “products, blogs and videos, vitamins and nutritional supplements” that profit them personally? Issues of conflict of interest are legitimate, but only, it seems, when “conventional” medicine is involved.
Why is it that big pharma won’t bother with supplements because they aren’t profitable, yet our shelves are full of supplements, many of which are sold by big pharma?
Or why is that big pharma won’t bother with supplements because they can’t be patented, yet our shelves are full of patented supplement blends?
What an excellent question, Heidi. Have you ever received an answer?
Except his recommendations of course, those you should follow blindly.
Given his shocking lack of basic medical knowledge (Test: If I, a code-wrangler by trade can count info in my basic understanding of medical knowledge then I’m very scared by a “doctor” who can’t) and the fact that immunology isn’t his specialty I’m going to say that the doctor he is talking about here is not him.
PS: Am I the only one who finds any doctor who refers to themselves as Dr [Firstname] to be more than a little creepy?
Yes, and who could be creepier than Doctor John the Night Tripper? At least before he dropped the last three words.
Sit alone late at night and listen to “I Walk on Gilded Splinters” with headphones.
Otherwise, I do agree with you, but then anyone who refers to him/herself in the third person seems to me to be a few bob short of a pound (Dr. Oz, Bob Dole, et al).
From Orac’s quotes, Thomas also appears to like to refer to himself by name in the third person. If the quotes at issue were from descriptive texts on a website Thomas authored, they still count.
On one hand that may “merely” be a misuse of oldschool academic style where one used the third person generic, e.g. “According to a previous study by this author…” etc.
On the other hand it may be an attempt to use that style to evoke a sense of “legitimacy.” And on the third hand it Might also be Signs and Portents similar to Those that occur to People who indulge in excess random Capitalization (sorry, couldn’t resist).
A quick look at Dr. Thomas’s Facebook page leaves no doubt that he is completely anti-vaccine. (If there was any doubt left.)
I can’t imagine that he would have many mainstream patients in his practice. Not even offering rotavirus vaccine?
Those anti-vaccine doctors always tell you, you should not listen to your doctor, but you should listen to them.
Can they tell me, why I should listen to their views on vaccinations and not to other doctors, who mostly don’t have books to sell?
Yes, I know, they consider themselves as being right and the other doctors as being wrong, but based on what authority? Did they have an extra education in vaccines, or did they just look for some information on Google that confirmed their own ideas on vaccinations.
Sure thing! The answer to all your questions and more can all be found in their book, available from their website for the low, low price of $99.95!
Well, here’s another up-and-coming quack pediatrician, who bills herself as holistic and is anti-vax offering you her holistic course for only $97: https://healthykidshappykids.com/everyday-holistic-pediatrics/ .
I’m so sick of these types.
Also, I have to ask – if he think vaccines have “toxins”, cause a lot of harm, and that the safe vaccines he would like to see cannot exist, that vaccines cause autism, etc’ – why isn’t he anti-vaccine, and why is he giving any vaccines? If he really believes his own tropes, he is intentionally doing harm.
Exactly! Wonder what his response would be to that.
Maybe there’s more money in a book about a new vaccine plan.
To answer your question about why he isn’t anti-vaccine and gives some vaccines himself, my guess would be that he thinks the risks of some diseases outweigh the risks of the vaccine for some diseases but not all. It’s a more nuanced viewpoint than simply declaring that vaccines are bad. He appears to accept that vaccines work and only disagrees that all recommended vaccines are worth the inherent risks.
That would be a good argument, but for the fact that his “reasoning” is unsound. He uses discredited and disproved arguments and tropes. And as the cliche goes…
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. Dr. Thomas is antivaccine.
It occurs to me that if the hypothesis that stopping vaccination reverses autism were true, wouldn’t any autistic person reverse their autism after the main vaccine schedule were completed? I mean, the only major vaccine I get is Td (I think that’s the right name) every 10 years…
Orac- just an aside to your comment ‘…given how safe the polio vaccine is, it makes no sense to let up’.
No one here denies that ‘safe’ vaccines are essential. This does require continuous epidemiological monitoring, as is the case, by various agencies.
The UK history of polio vaccination has some interest.
The last case of natural polio infection acquired in the UK was in 1984. Between 1985 and 2002 a total of 40 cases of paralytic polio was reported. 30 of these cases were vaccine-associated paralytic polio (VAPP) caused by the live attenuated vaccine developed by Sabine (OPV).
The risks of wild polio virus being imported and the benefits from OPV were balanced against the risks of VAPP from OPV use and the efficacy of inactivated polio vaccine(IPV) developed by Salk.
Since 2004 this balance now favors the use of IPV which is now in routine use in the UK.
Does the UK do wastewater surveillance? (The US doesn’t.) I think this has been added to the eradication standard. I can’t be arsed to do it on a tablet, but at least part of Israel had an OPV round after WP was detected.
I’ve little idea. We do have beaches that have varying water quality regards bacterial and other contamination. Many don’t reach standards required by the agencies of the European community so I assume at some point in the water cycle monitoring is occuring
The stupid, it burns. It is entirely plausible that he has never encountered a Hep A case, just as there are a bunch of other medical conditions he has never encountered. But that argument gets blown out of the water the day he sees his first such case, and the arguments he is making against vaccines such as Hep A make it more likely that that day will eventually come.
I have news for Dr. Thomas: the “Framingham study of our time” is already happening. They are now on their third generation of participants. There are some issues with the Framingham study, such as homogeneity of the population (when the study started Framingham was a small town in a rural part of New England; it has since been engulfed by metro Boston, so this may be less of an issue for the current cohort), but there doesn’t seem to be anywhere near the degree of self-selection Dr. Thomas’s proposed study is likely to have.
I’ve encountered Hepatitis A cases in my career as an accountant. As in sick employee and preventative interventions. He’s not inspiring confidence.
Paul Thomas is a veritable force field of crank magnetism.
In addition to the antivax views promulgated in his book (it gives unconditional support to only 3 of 13 vaccines on the childhood schedule), he warns against the dangers of aspartame, fluoridated water and amalgam fillings (which he thinks you should have yanked out, because Toxins).
Unsurprisingly he is also anti-GMO. Two such articles appear to have been scrubbed from his website, but a Thomas video entitled GMOs: Profit From Poison remains on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxYpq-HqRR4
I remain puzzled that he wrote something called The Vaccine-Friendly Plan – not merely that he’s dishonest about being “friendly” towards vaccination, but that a medical practitioner would need to be friendly towards a medical procedure rather than the patients who’d benefit from it.* Should we be anticipating other books called “The Mammogram-Friendly Plan” and “Love Your Colonoscopy”?
*the only semi-rational conclusion is that Thomas remains wary of being labeled antivaccine, and is attempting to forestall this accurate perception by calling his book “vaccine-friendly”.
Dangerous Bacon–he has a video on YouTube about how he nearly died from influenza but then goes on to tell parents not to vaccinate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvjJqt9q5k0 . He needs a place in the American Encyclopedia of Loons.
Here’s another quack you may have heard of.
Optician who claims to treat autism struck off
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-43300723
Paul Thomas, MD, FAAP is a disgrace to pediatrics.
Thomas is also putting his money-grubbing self into promoting homeopathy, most despicably homeoprophylaxix (probably nosodes) over vaccination (you can see his self-serving mug at 1:00 here: https://realimmunity.org/ ).
Also, Thomas was one of the founders of Physicians for Informed Consent, a vile group of anti-vax docs, fake docs (naturoquacks and chiroquacks) and other hangers-on who write bogus letters to journals like BMJ (which are published through Peter Doshi, an AVer who somehow got one their editorial board) and act like they are doing actual research, when all they are really doing is twisting facts into lies (in addition to their outright lies).
If there was even an anti-vax FAAP pediatrician that needs to have his arse punted out of the AAP, Thomas is it.
So Dr. Thomas is a FAAP, too? We know from previous posts on the topic that Dr. Jay Gordon is a FAAP. I’ve never heard either way about Dr. Bob Sears’ status.
A question I have asked before, but never saw a satisfactory answer: How does one obtain the unfortunate (or in the case of Dr. Thomas and Dr. Gordon, entirely too apt) title of FAAP? Can any member of the AAP claim that title? Or does it work like most (non-medical) scientific societies, which only bestow the title of Fellow on members who have earned the honor?
Eric–You have to belong to the AAP and apply for fellow status which requires board certification in peds. After that, as you can see, apparently all the AAP cares about is you send in your yearly dues. I only have had the AAP respond once to my repeated questioning about these AV peds members, and they told me they won’t do anything about these AV docs because they are afraid of being sued by them. I find this claim whimpy because anti-vax pediatricians are violating AAP by-laws. There’s a very good article on this by Tara Haelle in Forbes online from early 2015 that covers this well: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2015/02/03/sears-and-gordon-should-misleading-vaccine-advice-have-professional-consequences/#4aabe8071cf1
Oh, joy, “world-renowed immunologist” Tetyana is in on the gig (PDF), too.
His book’s appendix – and the book’s amazon.com page – mention “Western Institutional Review Board”.
I looked at his website:
he employs several doctors and nurse practitioners.
He claims that he serves 13000.
He also has a treatment plan for people addicted to opiates.
Lots of other warning signs.
I think this is Major League Woo.
Given time, Denice, it’s likely there will be outbreaks of vaccine-preventable disease(s) in his quacktice area in Oregon, just like the measles outbreaks of March 2014 and Dec 2014-March 2015 in Orange County (where Sears quacktices and next door to where Gordon quacktices as well).
And nine kids. A cluster unto himself.
FYI,Thomas was sanctioned by his medical board in Oregon in 2012 : “On August 27, 2012, the Board issued a Complaint and Notice of Proposed Disciplinary Action alleging violations of the Medical Practice Act (state law) regarding unprofessional or dishonorable conduct; gross or repeated negligence in the practice of medicine; and prescribing controlled substances without a legitimate purpose, or prescribing controlled substances without following accepted procedures for examination of patients, or prescribing controlled substances without following accepted procedures for record keeping.”
And now he’s writing a book on pain meds? Give me a f***ng break. (https://techmedweb.omb.state.or.us/Clients/ORMB/Public/VerificationDetails.aspx?EntityID=1459035)
My sister, a pediatrician, has vivid memories of caring for infants who died of pertussis. Because it happened as recently as last year. That’s either never happened to this quack, or else it just slipped his mind.
My father’s most vivid memories of his medical practice are of the always-full, 300-bed, pediatric polio ward in the hospital where he interned. Granted, doctors don’t see that often these days, so let’s bring it back? Would that do the trick? What the heck, why not bring back smallpox while we’re at it? That’d sure leave some unforgettable memories.
And, what’s wrong with human albumin? It’s just a protein, is it a “toxin” only because it has a name many people don’t understand?
If my Mother were still alive, I could ask her if she would have allowed the pertussis vaccine for me had it been available. She’s not, but I’m pretty sure I know what her answer would be, since the disease almost killed me when I was 9 months old. But, hell….let’s bring back VPDs. It’ll thin the herd, right?
He is either exceeding fond of seeing his name in print or hired a PR hack who told him to get his name out there as much as possible. With one exception (perhaps not quoted in its entirety, every paragraph Orac quoted has Dr. Pa_l T_omas in it at least once. I can’t recall ever seeing the like elsewhere.
Google SEO hack to be exact. He’s likely doing SEO on his name and associated keywords to get 1st and / or 2nd place on google for certain topic.
Best text length for a single page is around 1250 words, maximum.
Al
Hah! Orac laughs at your measly 1250 words and raises you another 2,000 without even warming his circuits. Cringe before him, mere carbon based life form.
I was stating the rule. Orac can write all he want 🙂
Al
“He claims that all the cases of autism were in the the group that was “most vaccinated.” What the heck does that mean?”
I speculate that by most he means greatest number of vaccinations. It seems to me that he is attempting to express a biological gradient: never vaccinated = no risk, greatest number of vaccines received = increased risk, and Vaccine-Friendly Plan (fewer vaccines than most vaccinated) = some risk that can be controlled by stopping further vaccination. Of course, such a gradient doesn’t exist though Dr Paul Thomas either hasn’t read about it or is in denial. Given that he apparently attended medical school it is possible that when he was occasionally conscious during an epidemiology class or an oncology rotation he was made aware of the Bradford Hill criteria (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_Hill_criteria) and is attempting to apply it to vaccines and autism.
He is an outlier as a physician and as an illeist by speaking in the third person with a full name AND title.
Actually, I suspect it means he didn’t control for age.
Years ago, Orac posted on a “study” done by the clowns at AoA. They “showed” that the more vaccinated you were the more likely you were to be diagnosed autistic. Their error? They failed to control for age. The older you are, the more vaccines you have and and the more likely you are to be diagnosed. I remember it because an annoying commenter named Greg showed up and was engaged by us.
Thanks for informing the public more about this public health menace. Having watched the entire Truth about Vaccines series, which features Dr Paul, I have other problems with him. He claims that by not fully vaccinated all his patients, in 8 years he has lost over $1 million in administrative fees. He fuels the fire of that irrational argument that doctors only vaccinate for money. He also advises his patients hide in the herd and not get HIB and measles or polio vaccines because those diseases are so rare in USA. And he says Hep B is only an SD and babies don’t need it. He really drives me nuts.
The problem problem with him is that he comes across as so cheery and kind. He’s popular for that reason. But, he is also completely anti woman. I need to write up truth about vaccines 7 because that is the episode where he and his co-author, Jennifer, really show their true colors – they believe a good mother will birth naturally, eat only organic, breastfeed for years, and thus their children won’t need vaccines. It’s insidious.
https://vaccinesworkblog.wordpress.com/2017/04/29/the-truth-about-vaccines-4-influenza-hib-and-pneumococcal-vaccines-and-herd-immunity/
I would have done much better financially when I had my own practice by NOT vaccinating given how poor reimbursement is for both vaccines and vaccine administration. The reason many adult doctors (meaning doctors who treat adults, as opposed to pediatricians, who treat kids) don’t offer vaccines is because they would either just break even or even lose money on vaccines. But given all the other nonsense that flies from the mouth of PT, this is no surprise that he states utter nonsense or lies.
Looking at his website, I wonder:
How can parents spot a quack before taking their children to him/ her?**
Quackwatch has entries like “How to spot a quacky website” that are more general…
A few days ago, Eric and I were discussing how quacks show off their lack of general knowledge as well as scientific knowledge and how this would fail to be detected by particular readers- misuse of words, mispronunciations, no ability with non-English words/ names because of their own educational lacks.
Let’s assume that these parents aren’t especially dense but are not experts in the life sciences.
They peruse sites like this guy’s ( or Sears’ or Jay’s***) and read:
MD, 30 years of experience, writes books, does research.
It sounds good. Then they read other stuff.
Is it all about their positions on vaccines? or natural health? supplements?
What would give them away? To someone without much bio/med/ etc
One of the things I NOTICE with real quacks ( not the fellows above) is that they try to sound knowledgeable to non-experts by using BIG words, chemical names, arcane biological processes, loads of studies applicable or not; they brag about their elite general, far reaching education: in other words, cargo cult.
e.g. Mike has a LAB with fancy machines, Null does CLINICAL studies: there are photos of them in lab coats
These doctors might actually have gone to good schools and worn REAL lab coats.
Ideas, anyone?
** now I know some parents are looking for quacks- not them
*** first name basis, note
And here I was hoping that the footnote was going to be a hat-tip to Bob Dylan.
Some signs of a medical dipstick: 1. Sells supplements and other stuff to patients. 2. Calls himself a researcher but cannot name a peer-reviewer published paper he has authored. 3. Speaks disparaginglly about other doctors in general.
I can’t disagree with any of that, but it seems a pretty high bar to someone who speaks English as a second language and has at best seen the outside of Nature on the magazine rack. After all, anyone who’s ever had a shot has had a doctor sell them a drug directly.
Denice: This is a bit of an evolutionary arms race.
Once any criterion for quackery becomes generally known, the quacks adjust their propaganda and sales claims to circumvent it. Thus we see them go from “vaccine skeptic” to “vaccine safety advocate,” and probably next to “safe vaccine advocate” (one or two “safe,” the rest “risky”), and from “natural cure” to “natural treatment” to “natural lifestyle” or “healthy lifestyle,” etc. etc.
Realistically the best way to keep abreast of the arms race is to stay up to date with sites such as this one, where people with relevant expertise and a well-developed “sense of smell” for these things can sniff them out as they appear. But since average laypeople don’t often run across these sites, the advocates of science-based medicine need to be all over the media, early & often, exposing specific instances and teaching the lay public how to spot them.
Old Rockin Dave- or two slices short of a loaf!
Leonard Sugarman, what’s wrong? Don’t you like Doctor John?
Old Rockin Dave-I was amused at your comment with reference to shortage of the full complement of money and it brought to mind the bread analogy which I have always used as a professional term for a description of the dogmatic, bigoted, unable to modify or adjust thoughts according to changing evidence and other irrational behavior etc. type of human being who may cross our paths in the journey of life: many of whom are described and parodied by Orac and his bloggers on this site.
A physician should know better than to make an argument this blisteringly stupid, but apparently Dr. Thomas doesn’t.
But Dr Thomas sure does know his market.
This num nut is conflating association with causation in this facebook post:
https://www.facebook.com/paulthomasmd/posts/10155156089338085
The odds that his peds health outcomes registry will have a fatal design flaw are approaching 100%.
Capt
I wonder if any of “Dr.” Paul’s patients are cheerleaders.
Thousands may have been exposed to mumps at a national cheerleading contest
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/09/health/mumps-cheerleaders-nca-health-trnd/index.html
@ Chris Hickie:
AoA posted a World Mercury Project article today that ‘splains why doctors like yourself dismiss non-vaccinating parents: you’re losing money because the CDC pays you, etc etc etc.
I know, it’s ludicrous – but that’s what anti-vaxxers believe.
@ Denise:
AoA is 100% FOS, which would explain why the keep pulling crap like that out of their arse ad infinitum. CDC doesn’t pay doctors. Doctor who dismiss electively non-vaccinating families do so to keep unvaccinated older children from dragging measles, pertussis and varicella into their waiting rooms, exposing newborns and other medically fragile patients. Those doctors are probably also just sick of hearing stupid anti-vaxx rhetoric from dumb parents as well.
Nature published an editorial Jan 17th, 2017 titled, “Trump’s vaccine-commission idea is biased and dangerous”.
No author(s) is disclosed.
https://www.nature.com/news/trump-s-vaccine-commission-idea-is-biased-and-dangerous-1.21310
When did the absence of vaccine-editorial authorship become significant?
At least “Orac’s” antivaxxer respectful-insolence can be traced, with a little effort, to a real person.
Q. What do you call a turtle without a shell
A. Soup
Good grief Doucheniak–maybe like every frickin’ person on the staff of Nature all the way down to the janitor agreed with that editorial and they didn’t have enough space to list them.
Don’t you claim to be an author yourself? Surely you’re aware that it is a decades old standard that an editorial without an author is meant to represent the opinion of the publication, regardless of whole wrote it? I learned that in 8th grade.
Did you look at the other two editorials in that issue, shitwit? Do you think a fucking editorial might be authored by, oh, say, one of the editors?
I think we should all do our own research. I went to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System and viewed the data. It looked at 76,638 people who were immunized with the MMR vaccine, and were later diagnosed with autism. It is 2.06% that means 1 out of 50 people who were immunized developed that condition.
Another .52% developed asthma that is 1 out of 200, .05% became blind that is 5 out of 10,000, .04% had brain injury that is 4 out of 10,000, 4.14% went into convulsions. According to the data .18% died, that means approximately 1 out of 500 people who received the MMR vaccine died, .32% or 1 out of 300 developed encephalitis. .7% developed herpes zoster, that is close to 1 out of 100.
If only 0.18% died, does that mean MMR prevents death in 99.82% of the population? Impressive! Or maybe I am also misusing the data…
I think Stewart needs to get a clue in life about VAERS and the simple fact that anyone can report anything to it.
VAERS reports are unverified. This is an example of someone in the UK (that is another country) that a vaccine turned his daughter into Wonder Woman:
https://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2006/03/14/on-using-vaers/
Stewart: your basic error is that you didn’t take into account the number of MMR doses that have been given over the time period, so your denominator is wrong. But hey, it’s always good to show how bad you are at math on the internet. Go for it.
VAERS is also not a representative sample. Patients who suffer an adverse event subsequent to vaccination are disproportionately likely to be reported in VAERS. Also note the phrasing “adverse event”: the vaccination need not be the cause of the event. People who claim otherwise, without specific evidence, are falling into the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
It is difficult to ascertain what Stewart’s figures mean, but apparently he’s telling us that of the total reports in the VAERS system involving the MMR vaccine, X percentages cite it in association with various health outcomes.
Now (for example) if .18% of those VAERS submissions reported a death occurring some unspecified time after the MMR vaccine, that does not mean that “approximately 1 out of 500 people who received the MMR vaccine died”. No, Stewart, it would mean that roughly 1 out of every 500 unverified VAERS reports involving the MMR mentioned a death.
If 1 out of 500 people who received the MMR vaccine died, that would probably mean at least a couple million deaths every year in the U.S. alone. That kind of vaccine-associated mortality would be hard to conceal, even with all the $hillbucks that Big Pharma pays us to ensure our silence.
I agree “we should all do our own research”. However it is important to understand what research is, and what constitutes evidence. If we cannot first take those baby steps, we should STFU.
Its not my figures Dangerous Bacon its from the CDC site, it is hard to argue with. It is CDC research why would they post this? Why is there a site called Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Tell CDC (Centers for Disease Control) to STFU, why would anyone state that the CDC should STFU?
Stewart,
Please read the disclaimer on the VAERS website.
VAERS is one of several methods the CDC uses to look for possible problems with vaccines.
Anyone can report anything to VAERS. It’s an ear to the ground, listening for indications of problems. We want it to be open and unfiltered to get information to investigate.
But, that makes the data worthless for statistical risk analysis because we don’t know whether they are correct or accurately reflect conditions in the real world and the overall population.
We have other methods as well, that have detected problems like intussuception and narcolepsy occurring at a rate of about 1 in 100,000 doses. They would certainly have noticed a death risk as high as you calculated.
Stewart is attempting to use VAERS data in a manner that is expressly forbidden by the VAERS system – assessing causation from the reports.
.
The VAERS site updated/modernized its website in July 2017 which actually made the data disclaimer more obscure. Here is what it used to look like in June/July 2017:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170625204456/https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/index
.
Please read the first sentence of the VAERS data page.
What does it say?
“When evaluating data from VAERS, it is important to note that for any reported event, no cause-and-effect relationship has been established.“
Readers should ask:
What part of “no cause-and-effect relationship has been established” do anti-vaccine cultists not understand?
Are they all illiterate or merely outrageous liars?
Raw VAERS data cannot be used to say a vaccine caused anything.
Those who try to pass off VAERS data as fact are lying to you or are completely illiterate ignoramuses. That whole VAERS entry webpage is one massive warning to not do what they are trying to do.
.
The current VAERS disclaimer may be seen at this url:
https://vaers.hhs.gov/data.html
Which again states:
“Note that the inclusion of events in VAERS data does not imply causality.“
It doesn’t get more clear than that.
The VAERS site itself currently states that the data in the VAERS database cannot be used to assess causality. IOW – an adverse event (death, asthma, encephalopathy, etc.) reported that follows a vaccination cannot be assessed to have been caused by the vaccine. The reporting system used by VAERS makes determining causality impossible by its very nature.
That the anti-vaccine cultists fail to read and understand the VAERS disclaimer has been an ongoing demonstration of their ignorance for many years now and has provided many a laugh.
Perhaps a better current url from VAERS with their disclaimer on the data’s limitations which is nearly as inclusive as the June/July 2017 disclaimer:
https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/dataguide.html
“Evaluating VAERS Data
When evaluating data from VAERS, it is important to note that for any reported event, no cause-and-effect relationship has been established. Reports of all possible associations between vaccines and adverse events (possible side effects) are filed in VAERS. Therefore, VAERS collects data on any adverse event following vaccination, be it coincidental or truly caused by a vaccine. The report of an adverse event to VAERS is not documentation that a vaccine caused the event.
VAERS Data Limitations
Millions of vaccines are given each year to children less than 1 year old in the United States, usually between 2 and 6 months of age. At this age, infants are at greatest risk for certain medical adverse events, including high fevers, seizures, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Some infants will experience these medical events shortly after a vaccination by coincidence.
These coincidences make it difficult to know whether a particular adverse event resulted from a medical condition or from a vaccination. Therefore, vaccine providers are encouraged to report all adverse events following vaccination, whether or not they believe the vaccination was the cause.
When reviewing data from VAERS, please keep in mind the following limitations:
VAERS is a passive reporting system, meaning that reports about adverse events are not automatically collected, but require a report to be filed to VAERS. VAERS reports can be submitted voluntarily by anyone, including healthcare providers, patients, or family members. Reports vary in quality and completeness. They often lack details and sometimes can have information that contains errors.
“Underreporting” is one of the main limitations of passive surveillance systems, including VAERS. The term, underreporting refers to the fact that VAERS receives reports for only a small fraction of actual adverse events. The degree of underreporting varies widely. As an example, a great many of the millions of vaccinations administered each year by injection cause soreness, but relatively few of these episodes lead to a VAERS report. Physicians and patients understand that minor side effects of vaccinations often include this kind of discomfort, as well as low fevers. On the other hand, more serious and unexpected medical events are probably more likely to be reported than minor ones, especially when they occur soon after vaccination, even if they may be coincidental and related to other causes.
A report to VAERS generally does not prove that the identified vaccine(s) caused the adverse event described. It only confirms that the reported event occurred sometime after vaccine was given. No proof that the event was caused by the vaccine is required in order for VAERS to accept the report. VAERS accepts all reports without judging whether the event was caused by the vaccine.”
.
As you can see, Stewart, it helps if you actually read all the disclaimers and FAQs from a site before you think you know what the site is offering you…
I have a problem with these responses, why does even a site exist from the CDC that claims Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, that the public can search and see as I have done that 2.6% number. Okay I see that 2.6% number and I like any other individual go to to you tube. Lets say i watch 3 You tube videos…
On the third one are you kidding me, ass clowns outside beeping horns? Is this site full of paid losers beeping horns?
I sympathize with anyone who loses a young child. But, unfortunately children die every day for a variety of reasons. The tough question to answer each time is what caused it? Was it a disease, some unrecognized congenital defect, or something else that happened shortly before like something they ate or a medical procedure like a vaccination?
We look for those causes, not just so we can assign blame, but also to help prevent them in the future. And it takes careful study of the details, which you can’t get from a YouTube video, to tell if it was a cause or coincidence.
And since vaccinating as many people as possible is saving the lives of millions who used to die every year from measles alone, the US set up a system, the NVICP, to compensate those who suffer harm that is even slightly more likely than not to have been caused by a vaccine.
Did these people file for compensation and what was the result?
Dangerous Bacon writes,
If we cannot first take those baby steps, we should STFU.
MJD says,
In a recent communication from DATAUSA (2015) titled, “Medical Scientists, Life Scientists, All Others” it is written that there are about 152,000 of such individuals in the workforce.
https://datausa.io/profile/soc/1910XX/
With approximately 320 million people in the USA (2015), you’re “STFU” statement as it relates to the CDC VAERS-submission data dump appears pig headed and disrespectful to a vast majority of US citizens.
In continuation, Orac has written many times that there are trained physicians who continue to question the efficacy and safety of vaccines.
Therefore, your use of “STFU” baffles me too.
MJD–as usual you only blather in half truths. Orac has written “many times that there are trained physicians who continue to question the efficacy and safety of vaccines.” Orac has then successfully show how wrong those few physicians are, including in this blog, Thomas.
Dangerous Bacon-paraphrasing, to understand what scientific research comprises and the types of evidence that are useful or acceptable is hardly in the category of ‘first baby steps’. I would have thought some years of science education, practice and a little philosophy might be needed. Nevertheless in spite of the majority of the public not having a complete set of these credentials it is hardly helpful to some who are striving in that direction but before arriving ( if ever) are told STFU. Good argument not insults should be the name of the game.
Those who are interested in taking some baby steps and actually learning might start with some of the articles that specifically discuss the VAERS database like these;
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2012/11/20/dumpster-diving-in-the-vaers-database-again/
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2012/11/28/h1n1-vaccine-and-miscarriages-more-antivaccine-fear-mongering-about-flu-vaccines/
Stewart is not “striving in that direction”, your angst over “insults” notwithstanding*. He is misusing VAERS to promote antivax nonsense, ignoring efforts to correct his misconceptions and lashing out instead.
Try reading my post for content instead of getting bent out of shape over STFU. It gets tiresome when people repeatedly chant “do your own research” when they have zero interest in comprehending what research actually is. Typically they’re only out to harvest misleading and false information from dubious online sources, to use in propagandizing for antivax and other woo agendas.
*oddly, Stewart gets a pass from you for “ass clowns” and “losers”. Why is that?
Dangerous Bacon- I have no quarrel with the main content of your posts. Be assured I have no angst about your STFU jibe nor am I bent out of shape about it. I understand completely your frustration at the psychological mechanisms and misuse of data etc.( by Stewart and others of his ilk) to deny any contrary facts no matter how much they are based solidly in science, clinical practice, epidemiology and more, almost never conceding that they are in error.To be honest I didn’t even see the ‘ass clown’ or ‘loser’. If I had I wouldn’t have tried to pick him up on it because I don’t expect any good sense, clear thinking or much else from people with their mind-set. It has been repeated ad nauseum how bullet-proof these people are from reasonable argument. As you, I aIso tire of reading them.
Reading hundreds of Oracs blogs and bloggers and elsewhere there is obviously a huge problem of how to educate or persuade parents, who may be worried by the ant-vaxxers misinformation and lies, to vaccinate their children according to recommended schedules. One method among many possibilities may be to introduce them to blogs such as Orac’s where much clear argument and facts are available. It will do them no harm to read abuse by ant-vaxxers but I suspect if the same is forthcoming from people such as yourself and it is read by the parents they will not appreciate outright abuse and it will damage your case/argument/cause. Just my humble opinion.
Another fact that is hard to ignore after doing further research, one of the lead scientists at the CDC discovers, that there is a direct link between autism and African Americans with vaccines, he brings the other three authors of this research into the room. They all agree to get rid of the data, only another doctor has telephone recorded it, and contacted a member of congress. To a people who are already marginalized, and the movement Black Lives Matter, it appears to the CDC, that Black Lives do not matter. This is a fact, everyone here should have the discipline to get rid of the word “anti-vax nonsense”, its a polarizing word that leads to no open dialogue. The phrase “anti-vax nonsense” is as worthless as calling me a “n—-r- lover”.
Only facts and data should be allowed in science, not a dogmatic word like the “anti-vaxxers” and we all know how crazy they are. This story is out there its mainstream, no one here brought up this story, you bring up the good and the bad. I guess everyone here has said, black lives do not matter.
Our host has addressed the CDC whistleblower conspiracy theory multiple times. For example: https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2014/08/26/the-cdc-whistleblower-manufactroversy-continues-apace/
Try searching the blog. The short version? It doesn’t hold water. And there’s no indication African-Americans are at any more risk of MMR than anyone else. I agree black lives matter – that’s another reason African Americans deserve better than being tricked into not protecting their children from diseases like measles.
Remember their was four of them all scientists, why would four scientists all agree to destroy data?
Congressman Bill Posey states after reading through this data and documentation from the CDC on a radio interview, quote “…incestuous relationship between the public health community and the vaccine makers and public officials… as long as Thorsen [a scientist with connections to the pharmaceutical industry] was cooking the books to produce the results they [CDC] wanted, they didn’t care whether the studies were valid or how much money was being siphoned off the top.”
Is this documentation that was given to Congressman Posey, is it available to the public? I want to read it.
Again from Congressman Posey,
“Dr. Boyle was intentionally evasive. I asked her a, you know, very direct question, ‘Have you done a study comparing autism rates and vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children?’ She started telling us about everything that she had done in order to avoid answering that question. I mean, it’s like I asked her what time it was and she tried to take up all my time describing how a clock works, you know. And after she wasted three minutes, I cut her off. And I demanded that she answer the question. And then, only then, did she admit that the federal government had not done that very simple, fundamental, basic, study.
You can do that retroactively, as you know and most of the people listening know, every vaccine study the CDC does is retroactive and they parade them around as being valid, so, it’s shocking to know that for some reason suddenly they say if they do a retroactive study, that it’s looking at past data that already exist. They say that that study would not be valid. And that is just outrageous, to say the very least.”
Questioning and challenging is our right…
What that research actually shows if it shows anything is that African American boys vaccinated late have more autism, so the take home is that African American boys should be vaccinated on time to prevent autism. In reality the samples sizes were too small to show anything, it’s just an artifact of the data.
How about 360,000 black lives every year?
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2007/pr62/en/
I read the story at the link Dorit, the fact is the CDC had information and destroyed it, that is the story, that is the fact.
It is like Volkswagen and their cheat device, Volkswagen cheated, a senior scientist cheated at CDC and destroyed data along with the three other authors, end of story, there is no excuse for that.
The problem is at the CDC VAERS site I can look at data but there are no stories from the people. Why do they not publish the stories?
Here is a story from the data at VAERS, listen to the parents. have the courage to listen to the whole story.
There’s no indication any serious information was destroyed. The dad and certainly hasn’t; and if the documents allegedly destroyed are the ones Thompson provided, there’s nothing problematic there. https://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2016/01/06/a-look-at-the-garbage-can-quote-in-full-context/
What do you think a story shows besides that the family blames vaccines?
The fact is that all 4 CDC research scientists, thought it was important to destroy data because in their research scientists mind, it revealed a link between vaccines and autism. Why did they feel so compelled to destroy this data, they admitted to it. Is this an open and honest organization? Then Orac writes an article on how it was not that bad because the documentation they were considering destroying can be disregarded, Orac is not the research scientists, that did the study.
Dr. Thompson stopped short after reconsidering, it was a criminal act.
His quote;
“I regret that my coauthors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics. The omitted data suggested that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism. Decisions were made regarding which findings to report after the data were collected, and I believe that the final study protocol was not followed.”
Thompson states again;
“The authors of the study decided not to disclose to the public that African American boys under two were more susceptible to developing autism or autism-like symptoms from the MMR vaccine.”
“The remaining four coauthors all met and brought a big garbage can into the meeting room and reviewed and went through all the hard copy documents that we thought we should discard and put them in a huge garbage can. However because I thought it was illegal and would violate La Jolla and DOJ requests, I kept hard copies in my office and retained all associated computer files. I believe that we intentionally withheld controversial findings from the final draft of the pediatrics paper.”
From the Orac article, you sent me the link that explains away everything., this statement is biased
“First off, dammit, can’t antivaccinationists understand that a 3.4-fold increased risk is NOT a 340% increased risk. It’s a 240% increased risk.”These people are numerically illiterate; no wonder they’re impressed with Hooker’s incompetent “reanalysis.”
Is 240% significant?
Does the Orac article or any other article explain why these research scientists, were considering carrying out a criminal act?
If they had destroyed it, why were they even considering carrying out a criminal act?
The fact is why would 4 research scientists, consider destroying data? Why? It is a simple question, what were they fearful of?
Try reading the sources and answers you were provided, please. No evidence of data destroyed – Hooker used the same data in his retracted, flawed study. No real evidence of a link between vaccines and autism anywhere in this story.
The data was NOT destroyed.
Hooker ask for the data from the CDC, and they gave it to him.
As far as VAERS goes, friend Science Mom tells of examination the every report of HPV and death. True, it isn’t MMR and the claimed reactions, but it gives a good insight into the quality of the reports in VAERS, and the pitfalls of not looking beyond the number of ‘hits’.
https://justthevax.blogspot.com/2016/08/all-those-hpv-vaccine-deaths-arent.html
You got nothing, Stewart>
Looking for Dr John music yesterday, I came across this song which pretty well summarizes your arguments so far.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R9FXjsc9uBs
When I read your first comment, there was a possibility that you were bit familiar with risk benefit analysis and the limitations and purpose of VAERS.
But with all your subsequent comments we can see these.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LPn0KFlbqX8
“U.S. Court of Claims for a vaccine injury” , that is in your copy and paste, what is this organisation Johnny? Who sues who? What lawyer represents the plaintiff? Who does the plaintiff sue? How many people have successfully sued? How much has the total payout been, since this organization existed? Why would this organization ever exist? Can you do some research for me Johnny and please post it here? Thanks in advance.
You, me, and everyone here knows the answers to your questions, Stewart. There’s no need for you to play stupid.
Let me be clear – vaccines, like all medical interventions, can and do have side effects. Most side effects are mild, some are a bit more serious, and sometimes, but not very often, they can be very serious. Nobody here, and especially me, and including our host, will deny this. You will also find universal agreement here that sometimes, but again, not very often (except maybe the flu vaccine in some years), they don’t work very well.
But it’s also true that the diseases vaccines prevent, and the lingering effects of those diseases, is much, much worse that the side effects of vaccines.
Vaccines aren’t perfect and they aren’t entirely harmless, but you don’t want to live in a world without them.
Do you agree it’s stupid to count the number of hits in VARES without further analysis, stupid?
Here is some reading for you, Stewart. Share it with your friends, it actually contains useful science:
https://sparkforautism.org/discover/
Why would this organization ever exist? Can you do some research for me Johnny and please post it here?
Is ‘Stewart’ one of the usual trolls, here to chew gum and waste people’s time, or a new one?
I am a new one Smut Clyde, here to openly challenge a one sided view. If everyone thinks the same then no one is really thinking. I agree with some of what you said Johnny, but finding, this article and everyone who wholeheartedly bash this Doctor who this article was about, calling him stupid, num nuts, and claiming there is entirely no evidence that support him. Johnny why did not you or anyone else here, bring in a more scientific and balanced, narrative by bringing up why a vaccine court ever existed? These two things should never exist, this whole article placed their head in the sand, about CDC- VAERS and the Vaccine Injury Court. Of course VAERS should deserve further analysis, but why would the CDC even publish this data?
The CDC have never compared the vaccinated against the un-vaccinated for neuropsychiatric disorders. Congressman Posey states” Dr. Boyle was intentionally evasive. I asked her a, you know, very direct question, ‘Have you done a study comparing autism rates and vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children?’ He states she rambled on for 3 minutes, in frustration he asks, just answer the question, “then, only then, did she admit that the federal government had not done that very simple, fundamental, basic, study.”
The only fact we can state is that we do not know, does anyone here know of such study?
I ask you Johnny if no one has ever done a study, why have they not? It means the article has no scientific validity, along with the comments here, along with Dr. Paul Thomas. No one knows that, how could anyone know.
However that is changing, James Leckman a professor of pediatrics from Yale University and four other authors wrote in February of 2017, of a study that they have completed. They collaborated with Pennsylvania State University
Using information from a health insurance claims database, Leckman and his co-authors examined the correlations between specific vaccines and various neurological disorders in six- to 15-year-old children, and found that it yielded results that seem to dispute the safety of vaccines. But it deserves a wider study in order to bring validity to their initial study, they were cautious and did not say it was yet a causual relationship.
The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry, reports that patients diagnosed with neuropsychiatric disorders like obsessive-compulsive disorder and anorexia nervosa were more likely to have received vaccinations three months prior to their diagnoses.
Yesterday as I went through the VAERS site, and saw the condition anorexia. I looked at the high numbers 3,867 and .68% and thought how can a vaccine cause anorexia? Now today I read this? It makes me curious, nothing definite I can say one way or the other but I am curious to the results of Yales wider study.
Congressman Posey states
The opinions of a pig-ignorant gun-whoring gobshite are noncupatory.
My time here is done, I am neither pro-vax nor anti-vax, however after reading, I think smart vax is the way to go. Improve it, however to improve it you have to know whats wrong with it. By coincidence I stumbled on this Ora blog, and had to say something, I have no interest in the anti-vax or pro-vax movements, I knew very little about it until yesterday, I had a vague memory of the anti-vaxers claiming it caused autism that was all. Smart-vax is the way to go. I do not want to have anything to do with any movement.
I can claim I have learned something here but, it was on my own.
I read a book titled “I’m Right and You’re an Idiot: The Toxic State of Public Discourse and How to Clean it Up” exists here. If I brought up a valid point admit to it, first reply to my post STFU.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2262534/American-parents-awarded-600-000-compensation-son-developed-autism-result-MMR-vaccine.html
How many children are like Hannah Poling? We do not know. Should we know?
http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1721109,00.html
There has been a study completed on vaccinated verses un-vaccinated
http://info.cmsri.org/the-driven-researcher-blog/vaccinated-vs.-unvaccinated-guess-who-is-sicker
After that last reply, I lost interest, my last post, Goodbye…
Oh please. You’re antivax. That much had been obvious.
Well, now I feel so guilty about abusing Stewart, turning him away from the path of honest “striving” to understand vaccine research, and in just a few short posts transforming him into a dogmatic antivaxer.
There’s a lesson there for all of us. 🙁
It was not my intention to get under your skin by pulling you on the STFU comment. My apologies for such a result. I could do with a little enlightenment on what you perceive is the lesson for all of us!
I’m sorry he flounced before I got the chance to tell him I believe him, and I predict that I will die within one year of getting a flu vaccination. Not sure which one, but one of them. I’ll be sure to tell my kids and grands to report it to VAERS.
Dear Sir or Madam or It,
I must sadly once again complain about the product you recently sold me: the Arcturus Galaxy Wolverine AI Bot. Not only did I discover, per my previous communication dated February 23, that the bot is not in fact imported from Arcturus, that Arcturus is not a galaxy and that there are no and have never been wolverines on any planet orbiting Arcturus, the AI portion of the product is only half present, namely the ‘A’ without the ‘I’. I would hope that at least on these points we can agree.
Per the extensive downloaded instruction sheet in a language which even Google Translate balked at (and what is it with that latency from Arcturus’ servers anyway?) I proceeded to train the bot on the extensive archives of the fora in which I participate. These included, among many others, AoA, NVIC, TMR, NN, etc. etc. While this should have been sufficient fodder to prime the bot’s pump (so to speak) I was sadly disappointed with the results.
When unleashed among the pro-vax extremist lambs the wolverine’s claws immediately retracted and then beat a hasty retreat! The bot was incapable of forming any truly innovative arguments which would (to quote from the brochure) ‘terminally eviscerate their cleverest retorts and find the thinnest of cracks in any sequence of self consistent logical argumentation.’ Despite the many conversational gambits it received every stratagem of the bot exhibited not the slightest trace of creativity, going no further than paraphrasing the same tired and already well trodden ground. It was most embarrassing.
The internet crawling subroutines were no less disappointing. The bot seemed at a loss when it came to locating data to support its over worn missives, instead relying on misquoting the available data and then proceeding to mathematically incoherent conclusions. Upgrading the firmware to version 8.2, as you previously recommended, had no discernible effect except to add emotion to its lengthy tirades.
In short I insist on a full refund. The purchase credit you offered last time is unacceptable since it is only for products on the online Arcturus Galaxy store and the shipping charges are never included, and those are outrageous! I expect the refund in local currency and not that Arcturan cryptocurrency you tried to fob off on me once before. How do you guys even stay in business?
Sincerely,
Your former customer, A. V. Stewart Esq.
et cetera, et cetera
😀
I was going to complain to the moderator of what use are the last 3 posts. Do you have the fairness to allow me to mock remarks on this site? Or do you allow only mockers, of your own beliefs. This is your statement on your contact site, ” In those cases, Orac has zero compunction whatsoever about publishing your e-mail. If you threaten to sue Orac, he might even consider it his First Amendment duty to publish your e-mail or cease-and-desist letter for all to mock.” How can anyone think this site has any credibility. There is no dialogue here there is only a narrative, I believe it is a paid narrative.
You had placed on your contact information you may not reply to all e-mails.
Can you convince me this site is not a paid narrative? I ask you one question Mr. Moderator, do we actually put criminals in prison? Do we ever trust criminals, we all say they are con-men. I will ask a stupid question can you tell me how many large corporate pharmaceutical companies have been charged with criminal charges? You tell me, I am asking another stupid question, can we trust con-men?
Be honest after looking at the last 3 posts for me, you allow mocking, really? Most progressive think tanks always say there are never any stupid questions. Do you really understand this Mr. Moderator? The only reason you allow mocking remarks, is because you are a mocker. A mocker would not tolerate someone else to mock them. You are living in a glasshouse Mr. Moderator, it is really easy to mock someone. Is not mocking an ad-hominem attack? How much worth is that to an honest learning blogsite? A blogsite that is based on the fact mockery has value, and allows it, how much worth is that? Post this, if there is any credibility to this site, and then allow me free rein to mock others, I will show you how easy it is to mock.
There are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of stupid people.
How can we miss you if you won’t go away?
Johnny I am using my mocking option, by your Moderator, clap your hands gleefully point your finger at me then gleefully prance around, thinking how smart you are, oh yes you are so smart Johnny. Is Johnny a paid idiot of big Pharma? Are you going to post this Mr. Moderator, they mocked me Mr. Moderator, can I mock them?
There might be “no stupid questions,” but there are disingenuous questions, questions not asked in good faith.
Stewart,
Looking at your first post, you did some calculation based on the VAERS database to figure out several claims and you claim we should be all doing our research. I agree on the last count (we should be all doing our research) but, there is a caveat: You used the VAERS to do research on vaccines causing issues which are reported on VAERS without considering that there is other causes for the reported illness, symptoms or syndromes (anorexia for example, there can be many causes).
A real scientist address all other possible causes and work out the probability for each of them. It’s part of the process and this is why you get laughed out of the room (figuratively speaking). Other scientists replicates those findings and thus, it add weight for a possible cause, or 2, or 3 and this is what you mistake for dogmatic thinking. The more evidence pile up for a cause, the more you will intepret that as dogmatic thinking. There is a metric ton of evidence against vaccine being implicated as the cause of autism. There is a ton more about genetic being implicated as the cause of autism. For us, the conclusions are clear. For you, this is more again dogmatic thinking.
What about the videos? They don’t constitute proof of anything.
What about the rogue maverick doctor? Can you prove beyond resonable doubt that these rogue maverick doctor are in it for the good cause? Or about the money being paid by those parents who concluded vaccines caused their child’s illnesses? Or about fame? Hey, they’re popular, and they rake in money with books and supplements.
I don’t see my primary care doctor going on TV, or trying to sell me supplements and books or anything. She get paid to give me the best care, using the same evidence that is published in scientific form (definitely not youtube video). the vast ,majority of scientists of this world are “dogmatic” because that is where the evidence lead them, with the corresponding weight of the evidence. Youtube video aren’t cutting it in this regard; we’re all asking for the best evidence there is and conclude on that because we are all using the same method to assess the evidence for and against a cause and this method has been derived by philosophists,
namely: the philosophy of science.
To learn that method, you need at least 2 university courses: one on philosophy of science and another on research method (probably a third one would statistics 101 at least). Otherwise, it is a reasonable conclusion that you will get ridiculed because frankly, we aren’t being dogmatic, we are weighting all the evidences and deriving out the same conclusions (within reasonable limits of courses). You tried to post some evidence but it is pretty clear you have never put your bias aside and are ill equipped to weight them.
Do yourself a favor, go take these 3 university course.
Al
Okay if your not a collective thought, watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSjVZx4jnuY
Why? It is just another unverified anecdote.
So what do you think of https://sparkforautism.org/discover/ ? Or do you hate real science?
Stewart,
I’m not a collective thought, I carry my own thought. That said, what does this video prove according to you?
How do you know it’s vaccines?
Alain (<– sleepless and the alarm clock was supposed to wake up in 2 hours…)
Oh, forgot to add, pretty much everyone here carry their own thought. The thing is, when the evidence goes in one direction, we are not going to lie about it. Ex:
If the current massive epidemiological evidence doesn’t implicate vaccine, we will not lie and say that vaccine cause autism because it does not.
The current concensus say that vaccine don’t cause autism. We definitely won’t lie and pretend vaccine cause autism. Period.
Alain
The methods used in science ,in the main, did not derive from studying philosophy. The philosophers of science developed their ideas from studying what scientists do or perhaps should do. It is most unlikely that a majority of practicing scientists have a degree in philosophy. Richard Feynman had no use for philosophy whatsoever.
Leonard,
Good to know, I do have an interest in philosophy but practical constraints dictate that I spend my time on other topic, namely getting prepared for metalworking school next month (I’ll be paid to do a machining technics course). Work in progress.
Alain
“Do you have the fairness to allow me to mock remarks on this site?”
Do you know what the word “Insolence” means? It is part of this site’s web address.
Okay then allow me the insolence factor with no cencorship
It seems you do not understand how to use a dictionary. Where were you censored?
Oh Please. The Pharma Shill gambit? Oh, Stewart. Can’t you at least use the brains given to you at birth and go to a decent site like PubMed or Google Scholar and research vaccines? I can promise you that 1)not all research is from the USA 2)not all studies are funded by Big Pharma and 3)you will probably find out scary things like yes, vaccines MAY have side effects in rare instances and yes, vaccines are safe for most people.
YouTube is NOT a site for research.
Yes, we DO get to mock people who post silly comments. The rule here is “you make the statement, you supply the research”.
Probably not, because I’m quite sure you wouldn’t believe me if I said I wasn’t and that no evidence would sway you otherwise. You probably wouldn’t believe me if I showed you my hosting bills and their payment with my credit card and pointed out that there are no ads on this site. In your fevered conspiracy mongering mind, you’d claim that pharma is still paying me and reimbursing me for my expenses. Hell, if I showed you my tax returns you’d probably imagine that I was getting unreported under-the-table payments.
But, really, you are a special snowflake, aren’t you, expecting that I address your “concerns” and being so outraged that my regulars here mock you for spewing bullshit. Let’s just put it this way: I don’t care if you like it here or not. I don’t care if you think I’m fair or not. Stay and try to mock. Or don’t. I really don’t care. Just read my comment policy, particularly these words:
Learn them. Live them. Love them.
No, stupid questions absolutely exist, though I’ve never heard one that started with “this might be a stupid question…”
My personal favorite stupid question “You have books, right?” (Said as I sat at the reference desk of a library with a shelf of books behind me).
You are a shill of big pharma, you are disregarded. I am an irritant to your silly cult, Johnny. You have no credibility. Stare blankly at the television screen, then blather. Forcibly inoculate people, the people will still revolt, and go after the elite, violence erupts.
Oh yeah, we are elite because we all uses the same method to weight the evidence.
Can you tell me where my money is?
Al
“You are a shill of big pharma…”
Ooh, the “Big Pharma Shill” enlargement:
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2013/02/14/the-pharma-shill-gambit/
Pharma shill? Is that the best you got.
About the only thing you’ve been right about is that you are an irritant.
You’ve lied about being newly introduced to the vaccine ‘controversy’, you’ve practically admitted that your questions are designed to make others waste their time, and my only connection to the health care industry is that my sister was a Candy Striper back in the ‘70s.
Having every other argument you’ve tried to make fall flat, you’re now reduced to ‘pharma has done bad things’ and what you think is mockery. Yeah, some pharma companies have sometimes done evil, the same as any other industry, and your mockery is nothing but unfounded random insults. Yes, you’ve been insulted by those here, including me. The difference is that we can tell you why.
You still got nothing – no evidence, no science, and no wit.
Yeah, when someone starts invoking the pharma shill gambit, it’s a very good indication that he has nothing other than pseudoscience and conspiracy mongering and is thus no longer worth dealing with.
Hey Stewart–you want to know the difference between here and that wretch hive of scum and quackery call AoA (or for that matter any anti-vax site including NVIC, GreenMed, Natural News, Mercola, etc)?
You get to post here uncensored all you want. When one of us goes to post there, we are deleted and/or not allowed to reply to our original posting while their anti-vax posters pile on.
You may not like the answers you’re getting here (and suck it up, buttercup if you don’t) but at least you’re getting answers.
And none of us are paid to respond to you. As a pediatrician I’ve seen unvaccinated children die from vaccine-preventable diseases and I do all I can to convince parents to vaccinate. But I’m not paid by “big pharma” to do this and resent this implication from anti-vax liars and trolls like you who couldn’t science your way out of a paper bag.
Alain, here it is. Why did the French Revolution occur? Why did they march all the elite, up to the guillotine?
Now can you address my comment up there: https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2018/03/09/dr-paul-thomas-newest-antivaccine-pediatrician-making-name-himself/#comment-392337 instead of trying to send me to the guillotine pretty please?
Al
The most worried thing, is that 43% of Americans own guns, 90% were opposed to the Syrian war.
I think Stewart is broken. Recent responses seem to be not even tangentially related to the topic or previous comments. Of course, this could be a symptom of vaccine aversion. Obviously vaccines promote on-topic comments and completed thought processes.
Well in any case, I’m oversimplifying it to an extreme so much that it look to me that my comments are in the range of not even wrong…
Alain
Retropastiche where were you all along? Hiding silently in the background? Listen to these broken stories.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJIdmougQLA
Again, Stewart: anecdotes are not data, and YouTube videos are not science. This is science:
https://sparkforautism.org/discover/
Alain- I have the same interest in philosophy of science. I am ‘fortunate’ in that my science teaching career is over ( UK,37years) and I have time for whatever is my fancy.I can recommend anything by Peter Medawar. Karl Popper. Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, John Ziman. Stewart might profit from dipping into some of this. I am certain it will help to clarify some of his confused thinking
Awesome 🙂
I just found out our governmental national library downtown has 39 books on Karl Popper. I’ll check the other authors too (I recognize Kuhn but all the other are unfamiliar to me).
Alain (<– currently vomiting trigonometry)
John Ziman wrote ‘Real Science-What it is and What it Means’ also ‘Reliable Knowledge- An Exploration of the Grounds for Belief in Science’. Another great book is ‘Laboratory Life’ by Latour and Woolgar with an introduction by Jonas Salk. I could go on but you probably have sufficient for a little while. Happy reading.
I’m fond of Feyerabend, mainly because he was not a prolific writer.
I am not guided by how much is written rather than by it’s content. Peter Medawar wrote a lot ,apart from his scientific papers, and I am sure you would enjoy what he had to say about science.
I have a stupid question, can anyone name a pharmaceutical company charged with criminal activity? Give me one name? What is this group going to tell me?
Off the top of my head? GSK were criminally charged for off-label marketing in 2012. Not that I’m sure what that has to with anything.
How much were they fined? What was the charge about?
So one thing we can certainly, GSK is a criminal institution?
Oh please… it’s painfully obvious where you’re going with this. Any minute now you’ll post some triumphant conclusion about how all these companies are proven criminals and therefore they must be lying criminals with regards to vaccines and expect everyone to suddenly bow to your wonderous and unassailable logic. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. Yes GSK (and many other pharmaceutical companies – I’m not going to list them here when a google search will get you that info in seconds) have committed crimes as many other types of company, many governments, and many individuals. I know I have, and I’d be very, very surprised to discover that you hadn’t. But that doesn’t make everything that they do a crime by extension any more than my sordid criminal past (damn you speed cameras!) makes me an axe-murderer.
Can anyone else here name a pharmaceutical company that has been charged with criminal charges?
Here you go:
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Pharmaceutical_fraud
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_largest_pharmaceutical_settlements
Glaxo Kline Smith is a criminal organization according to a post here. Tell me another one that has been criminally charged?
Oh and nice use of a loaded term to try and mischaracterise what my post said.. the general use of the term “criminal organization” refers to an organization whose primary or sole purpose is commiting crime (the Mafia, Triads, drug cartels etc) which of course might be what you’re trying to depict the pharmaceutical companies as but is plainly not what my post said. Of course, should it come to light that Jimmy Hoffa is alive and well and running GSK from behind the scenes then I’ll gladly revise my stance.
Stewart- Grunenthal in Germany because of negligent homicide and injury due to thalidomide
Thankyou Sugarman
And this is relevant to vaccines how? Especially in the USA, where the FDA made sure thalidomide was never given to pregnant women.
M I Dawn-I simply answered Stewart’s question. He thanked me so I must have addressed something of which he had an interest. Perhaps you don’t wish to please him, for reasons apparent by his blogging. He should be pleased with Dangerous Bacon’s references. I wonder if Stewart will thank him.
Sorry, Leonard. Didn’t mean you. I meant that Stewart is going off tangent because he has no proof of what he’s claiming.
Stewart: Also, if you are really curious, LeftBrainRightBrain blog has a link to ALL the “Whistleblower” documents through a FOIA request that AOA et al got their hands on and STILL haven’t posted. If you’re really curious about the truth of the study, go read all the information and how the AOA people twisted it.
Slight correction: no FOIA request was needed. We emailed Congressman Posey’s office and asked for the documents, and they graciously gave them to us.
Can anyone else here state other than GSK what other pharmaceutical company has had criminal charges laid against it?
Looks like you’re going for a Nirvana/perfect world fallacy here, Stewey-boy. Can you tell us you’ve lived a perfect life and never been in trouble with the law first? Can you tell us you’ve never had a speeding ticket or parking ticket or never shoplifted or never done anything criminal that you got away with. Because clearly if you’ve EVER broken any law then you’re a person not worth the salt of anything else you’ve done in your life, correct? Because that’s what you’re saying here and it’s one of the stupidest of anti-vax approaches around.
Go back to your sandbox little boy. Mommy’s calling and you need to brush your teeth.
Funny how you didn’t respond to the fact that the CDC study shows if it shows anything is that African American boys vaccinated late have more autism, so the take home is that African American boys should be vaccinated on time to prevent autism. In reality the samples sizes were too small to show anything, it’s just an artifact of the data.
Why would you ignore this?
Supplement companies and/or their owners have been criminally charged:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/11/17/supplements-charges-justice-investigation/75943252/
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndga/pr/owner-wholesale-source-convicted-selling-unsafe-dietary-supplements-online
And antivaxers have been charged:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41504796
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/southwestern-ontario-teacher-denies-anti-vaccine-allegations-at-hearing/article34096013/
I get a charge just reading about this stuff, but I’m still not sure what it has to do with Paul Thomas’ bogus antivax rhetoric.
It has nothing to do with Thomas and everything to do with Stewart having a tantrum over this. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that Stewart is Dr. Thomas since Thomas censors anyone who even posts the slightest negative comment on his FB page. Are you really Dr. Thomas, Stewey? C’mon and de-cloak. I bet Orac will still let you post here and we can actually discuss what this article is about and instead of your silly attempts at diversion. Plus you can team up with Dr. Jay Gordon who occasionally shows at RI to tell us what a swell guy he is, even though he’s anti-vax. Dr. Bob Sears apparently–a long time ago–used to post here, but got his feeling all hurt and won’t anymore.
Unless he’s using a VPN (and the same one every time), I don’t think Stewart is Dr. Thomas. I suppose it’s possible, but it just doesn’t seem very likely from what I see on the back end here, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.
I suppose that Stewart will next be reading AoA which discusses a governor’s comment that terrorist organisations use fear to accomplish their goals and asks which do this better than the NRA:
KIm responds: the AAP, Pharma and CDC.
There’s a whole page in W_pedia listing fines and charges. Not sure if you don’t know this and are wanting to imply that Big Pharma get away with everything, or if you do know this and …. what?
Friend Smut Clyde nailed it here https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2018/03/09/dr-paul-thomas-newest-antivaccine-pediatrician-making-name-himself/#comment-392325
Speaking of (increasingly) lesser lights in the world of antivax pediatricians – Jay Gordon still has this comment up on his website:
“I am very much opposed to the routine vaccination schedule in the U.S. There are too many vaccines given too early in a child’s life and not enough information given to parents”
Wonder if parents continue having to talk Jay into giving their kids necessary shots.
I have not used my mocking statement yet, but I think I should, is there anyone here that say I should not be given that low down privilege to mock? After all, everyone here is a mocker. Should not I be allowed to mock? I am not very good at it because its not my style. I will do my research on mocking and get back to you, which might be not as good as your least practiced mocker here. After all in the contact section the person who ran this site stated that there are professional mockers here. That is the theme of this site not to learn, but to improve your skills of mocking.
But you’re so easy to mock. Low-hanging fruitcake, as it were.
Name the site you were banned from. I will go there and make comments in favor of the pro-vaxxers, logged in with the same name as Stewart. I am curious if they will ban me.
Age of Autism is a good place to start. Then copy/paste the comment here so we can all go look for it. BTW..AOA heavily moderates so it’s possible your pro-vax comment just never sees the light of day. OTOH, if you are already known there, they might let your comment through just for fun. Who knows? Or you can always try The Kid’s blog – I’m sure he’s tired of talking to himself and his sock puppets.
Actually, concerns about aluminum may have come into the anti-vax brain-movement from elsewhere. As far back as the 80s, noted skull-farmer Doug Smith (in his public identity as that most sacred of scribes, Rev. Ivan Stang), was reporting on the California woo-peddlers who called themselves the Ministry of Dietetic Law, and their claim that their patented Polarity Pillow.
Are you ready for the Fourth Frequency? O ye bipeds!
Dangerous Bacon how could anyone know those shots are necessary? There has only been one study that gathered info on vaccinated people and un-vaccinated people, and it was done by the anti-vaxxers. It is most likely biased. My question to you, why the CDC has not carried out any study? Do not start your reply out with “Oh, please!!” because it is sort of corny and unoriginal mocking statement.
We know what happened before vaccines. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6316a4.htm
And there are many studies of vaccines safety. The implication that it’s unknown is just incorrect. Some of that literature is reviewed here. https://www.nap.edu/catalog/13563/the-childhood-immunization-schedule-and-safety-stakeholder-concerns-scientific-evidence
In the interests that this site improve its mocking skills, lets look at another Doctor, lets all try to poke holes and find something wrong with what this Doctor is saying. Take your time be critical and watch this 15 minute video.
Wow, I’ve totally missed out on the new chew toy.
lets look at another Doctor, lets all try to poke holes and find something wrong with what this Doctor is saying. Take your time be critical and watch this 15 minute video.
Please. Dude. You are here to entertain us. You seem to expect it to work the other way around.
Well. I’ll start- I fully expect that others will complete the critique-
I watched the entire video and can report no new material which we have not encountered before.
I’ll leave medical criticism to others ( Dorit already started because she listed safety studies) but IMPORTANTLY
consider the source:
the doctor was interviewed by Polly Tommey on the VAXXED bus. VAXXED was created by Andy Wakefield who is hardly unbiased as he started the whole modern anti-vaccine movement ( search box: see Wakefield VAXXED Tommey)
Do you seriously think that they would allow antagonistic material through?
The doctor says he never knew certain things he was told: sure, because they presented pseudoscience that is NOT taught in medical school.
NO studies have ever linked vaccination with autism.
The doctor observed parents who believed that vaccines caused their children’s autism because of a purely temporal connection**. He is probably emotionally affected by the sad tales. He mentions that this is not his area of expertise.
Payments for vaccine injuries do not mean that the vaccine caused ASDs ( see search: Hannah Poling)
There’s so much more but I don’t have enough time to replay the video etc.
** similarly, I had a flu shot and fell a few days later injuring my leg. Did the vaccine cause the injury?
Stewart: “here has only been one study that gathered info on vaccinated people and un-vaccinated people, and it was done by the anti-vaxxers.”
Sadly, the facts mock Stewart yet again. 🙁
https://thoughtscapism.com/2015/04/10/myth-no-studies-compare-the-health-of-unvaccinated-and-vaccinated-people/
Yes, I am the totally mocked. I am a marked man …oh mocked man. Thanks for the link Dangerous Bacon, interesting stuff. I am reading the Dtsch Arztebl Int Journal 2011 Vaccination Status and Health in Children and Adolescents I will get back to you when I am done, for further mockussion.
I am still digesting this but the study is about something else. Its to contradict a study that was done earlier. I do not think the person who posted that link actually read it
A previous study brought some parents—and doctors—fear that vaccinated children are protected against specific infections, but that their immune systems reacts less to non-specific diseases. A previous study found vaccinations lowered a persons protection against other disease and that the vaccinated group had more allergies .That vaccinated children contract infections such as colds, bronchitis, or gastrointestinal infections more often than unvaccinated children.
They placed their conclusion at the top, it reads;
Conclusion
The prevalence of allergic diseases and non-specific infections in children and adolescents was not found to depend on vaccination status.
However on the graphs the un-vaccinated are a bit better off.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3057555/figure/F2/
In the number of other infections from
This one actually shows 1-5 year age group vaccinated group averaging 20%, (3.3 – 4.2) more infections than the un-vaccinated group. Then from 6-7 years it is statistically insignificat.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3057555/figure/F2/
I did find some bias in the other graphs.
This one is for atopic disorders one of them being asthma
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3057555/figure/F3/
For the 1-5 year old’s maybe a couple of percent difference with the un-vaccinated better off.
For the 6-10 year old’s a 5% percent difference with the vaccinated better off.
For the 11-17 year old’s a 10% percent difference with the un-vaccinated better off.
The 11-17 year old’s probably holds the largest population of the three groups, because it is 7 years. The others are just 5.
It appears you are better off to be un-vaccinated, for atopic disorders
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3057555/figure/F3/
For pertussis, measles mumps and Rubella
13% less in the pertussis vaccinated group, 10% less in the measles vaccinated group, 7% less in the mumps vaccinated group, 10% less in the Rubella vaccinated group.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3057555/figure/F1/
This is rather ironic, given that you have just demonstrated that you don’t know what a p-value is. Or you, who posted the link to Figure 2 (repeatedly) didn’t acturally read it.
Okay Narad fill me in about p-values, it is a simple graph, un-vaccinated had less. Convince me during the daytime the sky is black. Tell me what it means. Its plotted on a graph. Most people have an understanding of graphs, the bar that is higher means more, the bar that is lower means less. Thats it….
<
blockquote>Okay Narad fill me in about p-values
Sure: In biomedical literature, p-values greater than 0.05 by definition mean an absence statistical significance. Maybe you shouldn’t use technical terms that you don’t understand. It’s not as though they’re not right at the bottom of the figure, afterall.
Bwahahaha.
Not only is Stewart functionally illiterate – see his earlier post attempting to use VAERS data to assess adverse events causality when the VAERS site itself states that the data cannot be used to assess causality.
He also reacted to the information debunking his assertions as do all delusional anti-vax culties – he ignored the information; did not acknowledge his error; and, he quickly changed the subject to the next anti-vax talking point…
But he’s not anti-vax – just ask him.
.
He is now demonstrating he is also functionally innumerate.
Gee, he seems to be a typical anti-vaccine cultist:
– little to no knowledge of the subjects of vaccines, science, and maths
– arrogantly ignorant and damn proud of it
He is viewing a graph (Fig. 3) with 95% confidence intervals and thinks that one population(unvaccinated) shows different result than another(vaccinated) when, in fact, the data show the exact opposite. The data show there is no statistical difference between the populations so, as far as can be determined, both populations are in fact a single population and there is no difference in outcomes.
.
That he gets it completely backwards is no surprise as we’re all familiar with the laughable state of maths knowledge from the anti-vaxxers. They can’t balance their checkbooks let alone do elementary stats which require high school maths.
These are the dopes who think they are going to school PhD scientists when they can’t understand basic math enough to accurately interpret a scientific paper.
.
It is to laugh.
Dunning-Kruger on display once again.
If Stewart is going to play with dynamite, it would behoove him to learn something about fuses.
Dear Doctor, do you or a close relative have a child with autism ? No ? Then why be so judgmental, sir ?
If I may be so bold as to speak up here:
I believe Orac nor any of his relatives has a child that transmogrified into a werewolf from vaccinations yet he is quite justified in judging people who claim such to be virtually guaranteed to be wrong.
.
One can know something without having lived it, you know.
In like manner, having lived through something doesn’t mean you know anything about it – witness ancient blood sacrifices to the sun god to bring rain after the long dry season…
Humans are notorious for fooling themselves which is why a systematized method of inquiry was developed which tries to remove the person from the data as much as possible to minimize bias…
We call this system – Science.
You guys gave me the links, and tell me it proves something, what did they prove Reality, tell me? No one but myself has read them certainly no one here. Am I bad for actually reading it? If you give me something to read then give me something good, in support of the pro-vaxxers, not a link that leads to support of the anti-vaxxers.
You may know the “scientific” facts about vaccinations but if you don’t have a child with autism that regressed severely following 4 shots in one day, after a year of typical development, then you won’t know the trauma / tremendous guilt that comes with parenting a child with severe autism.
Parents may know better – logically – to buy into conspiracy theories about vaccinations but no parent can emotionally consider vaccinations for their kids after such a life changing tragedy. Yes severe autism is a tragedy that I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy but what do I know ?
I am just an affected parent while you are the well read / educated “scientists”. Maybe some day you would also consider having some empathy for affected families between your logical scientific debates.
Gayatri, have you signed up for this yet:
https://sparkforautism.org/
My kid had seizures, he also has a genetic heart disorder and autism. So explain why I should believe vaccines cause autism… did it also cause his obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy?
So please provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that any vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule causes more seizures than the diseases.
Gayatri, I’m on the spectrum.
Leaving aside your patronising condescension, once again, how is calling out someone for lying about vaccines causing autism indicative of “a lack of empathy” for autistics and their families? I would say that it shows empathy.
I was hoping that someone with more appropriate communication skills would step in here, but I guess I’ll try: Your statement above is false. You are not every parent who has a child on the spectrum.
It sounds as though you’re blaming both vaccines and yourself for having a child with a developmental delay or more severe disability. I don’t have kids.I do, however, have a dear friend with a son on the spectrum. Nobody here is denying that it can be a very hard road. Blame is not the answer. Not protecting your children with vaccines is not the answer.
Narad, the blame is not realizing that de novo mutations happen. Or that there is a genetic cause, which is why there is research checking both parents’ genetic against the child.
Instead of the blame game it is more productive to embrace the differences, and work on things that can be worked on. So my kid was non-verbal, so he learned sign language and was admitted to a special ed. preschool with kids just like himself and slowly started to attempt speech.
There was the ten years of speech therapy. Plus the visits to neurologists. And the endless IEP meetings. And after a certain age dealing with state agencies including the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR). Signing him up for Medicaid. Getting a proper diagnosis after age eighteen, the having the fantastic counselor at DVR submitting the paperwork to get adult child covered the the Developmental Disabilities Administration (DDA)… which worked! Then there was getting the young man on SSI disability benefits.
Which all leads to job training and getting a job supported by a job coach paid by DDA.
It is a long road, and it is not done by playing the Blame Game.
It is helped by participating in your local disability community, like The ARC.
(oh, there is also the setting up of special needs trust, plus paying for some extra therapy by real autism therapists and others to teach independent living… and then getting a proper independent living situation is the next step after getting a paid job)
Just popping in at the mention of SSI and work;
My therapist is still pushing for me to pursue SSI. She thinks it would be best for me to have stable income, even if I work and make some money on top of it. And there are benefits like guaranteed Medicaid, which is I guess what would be most important to me in the current political climate.
But I’ve really been digging my work as a transcriptionist. Once I get a decent ergonomic setup (right now I work on my little laptop) I can work more hours. At the moment I only make about ten bucks an hour for hard, skilled work, but the upside is no commute and I can work however much I want and work my own hours.
Sometimes it’s actually interesting, and while it’s hard in a way, it’s also easy in another, and it suits me.
After a year or so I could probably move into a professional transcription job and get my own place again and everything (or live in Portland with roommates or something, which I could probably do even with the current job if I work enough.)
I am just an affected parent while you are the well read / educated “scientists”.
OFFS. I think we can do without the phony-self-deprecating passive aggression. That whole rhetorical gambit is pretty contemptible.
Your statement above is false. You are not every parent who has a child on the spectrum.
Consider Gayatri’s use of scare-quotes and passive-aggression: “You may know the “scientific” facts”… “you are the well read / educated “scientists””… The take-home message is that he or she is simply a dishonest person, and any claims to personal experience should be treated accordingly.
Because these things are not connected and antivaccine cranks are a menance to public health, mayhaps?
I will address your comment. For the record, I am autistic. I am not the only commentator here who is. Others here are siblings, spouses, parents and/or offspring of autistics.
How is calling out Doctor Paul Thomas for lying about vaccines causing autism being judgmental? Surely it is a good thing to challenge and refute lies about autism and autistics?
If you are able to login to an internet forum and hold you own in a debate on quackery then you are nothing like my son who is still in diapers, functions at a young toddler level and cannot say a word. I would be glad if he could just say a word or communicate with a gesture and would sell my soul for him to be able to do what you’re doing here – debate with me on the pros & cons of autism. You are the one being patronizing … here, not me.
The woman who runs our sewing meetup has an eighteen year old child with cerebral palsy. She is also in diapers, and a large motorized wheelchair. She also had a trach tube and is tube fed. She has no language and also functions as a toddler, only with lots of mobility issues.
You are not the only one with these issues, plus you are in a very very small percentage of the autism spectrum. Please go find a support group, check out your local ARC chapter. There are parents there who have the same issues, and they can help you.
Again, please check this out:
https://sparkforautism.org/discover/
Some of the medical interventions have to do with sodium channels which dictate if one should use more or less sodium.
Gayatri’s faux-humility comments are funnier when read with random aspirations and dropped aitches in the manner of Uriah Heep, very ‘elpful, very ‘umble.
There are many who comment here have children on the spectrum, or on the spectrum themselves. Here is an idea, you can be part of real autism research by signing up this this:
https://sparkforautism.org/
As far as my son goes, he had his first seizures when he was two days old. This was way before there was an HepB birth dose. It was also before several vaccines were available, so the kid had a seizure because he had a now vaccine preventable disease.
I also got to take care of three kids with chicken pox, including a six month old baby, a year before the varicella vaccine was available.
Now it is up to you to provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that any vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule causes more seizures than the diseases.
American centric ? SSI / SSDI ? Medicaid ? DDA ? Many of us live in third world countries where these things don’t exist and where we’re on our own. Special needs trust ? HA !
I also ask that you reread my original comment. I clearly stated that parents may – logically – know better than to subscribe to vaccine conspiracy theories but – emotionally – may be too devastated to vaccinate again ! It’s called “the human factor”. How about some consideration for this annoying little thing, please ?
My son being one of a “small percentage” of those severely impacted does not negate his experience or mine. Are only the opinions of those who are “high / moderate” functioning of any merit or value ?
As for Dr. Orc, where is your consideration of the “human factor”, sir ?
And which “third world country” do you live in, Gayatri?
So Gayatri I am supposed to know where you live how? I live in a country where folks have lots of different names.
I am not negating your experience, especially when you left out a whole chunk out of your narrative. There is no way for me to know the extent of disability or even where you live.
Those who have responded to you live on at least three continents, and we can only give you what we know by our local systems. If you have an issue with social systems then it is up to you to take it up with your local community. Do not blame us for not having imaginary psychic powers to fill in the parts you failed to tell us.
Still, you have no actual data to connect autism with vaccines. If you are in a third world country the most likely reason is a diet deficit in something like iodine, or infection from a disease… or just a bad roll of the genetic dice.
It is up to you to find those in your community who have similar needs, and then try to make changes. This is what happened in the USA, UK, Canada and elsewhere. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was only passed in 1975 because parents where angry their disabled kids were denied access to schools.
What are you going to do? Whine at us because life is unfair, or do something about it?
By the way, blaming vaccines is not “doing something.”
By the way, I never used the initials “SSDI”… why did you add that? If you are not in the USA why would you know the jargon?
I don’t know where Gayatri lives, but I can tell you based on his IP address that he’s posting from the US; that is, unless he’s using a VPN.
Once again, Gayatri, how is calling out DR. Paul Thomas for lying about vaccines causing autism not showing “consideration for the human factor”?
It is time for an ultimatum question. if you do not answer my question above in your next three posts, we will assume you can’t answer it and are attempting to sealion.
It gets even worse for the person who built that site, I truly do not believe anyone went to the links on that pro-vaxx website. I went to them and I read everything, not one of you did, including the person who built that site.
The link to the Philippine study on better cognitive ability from those who are vaccinated against measles, polio, Tuberculosis (TB), Diphtheria, Pertussis and Tetanus (DPT) . I thought okay this looks interesting.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00036846.2011.566203?src=recsys
That is what I saw.
Now look at the two link’s to the right what ‘People also Read’. These links may also appear below and if they are below you will see numerous links to other journals or studies.
If you guys are so much better than the anti-vaxxers, and I have been reading your stuff and see this stuff as links on the same page, not small links but huge links. This is the stuff you are giving me to make me a pro-vaxxer? Its lousy links to convince anyone, in fact it will change their mind.
A Positive Association found between Autism Prevalence and Childhood Vaccination uptake across the U.S. Population
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15287394.2011.573736?src=recsys
Theoretical aspects of autism: Causes—A review
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/1547691X.2010.545086?src=recsys
Hepatitis B triple series vaccine and developmental disability in US children aged 1-9 years
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02772240701806501?src=recsys
OK, so you need hand-holding on how to read a paper (Gayle DeLong? Look at the reference list), and an explanation of what “people also read” means?
Narad once again, you have never read this before me, Dangerous Bacon gave me the links, I guess I am bad for actually clicking on the links and reading them. They are both in favor of the anti-vaxxers. Comment on the other two Narad, once again Narad if a bar is higher it means more, if a bar is lower it means less. These are links that you guys gave me, too lazy to read them yourselves. Lazyness. If a bar is higher it means more, if a bar is lower it means less.
Because you have done so much searching for anti-van websites, you get pop ups for other anti-vax information. They may not be generated by the pro-vax site you are viewing. That’s how you ended up in the anti-van echo chamber, and It seems that you are unlikely to escape.
When you draw the opposite conclusion than what the evidence shows, by selectively picking your data points and scrutinizing details while ignoring results, you are just indulging in reinforcing you biases. It’s hard to believe that you went from neutral and uninformed on vaccines to a fervent antivaxxer in only four days. That might be a record. I’m sorry that what you perceive as mockery is mostly directed at your stubborn insistence that anecdotes are better than large, long-term scientific studies, and that a few cranks know the truth while the vast majority of medical specialists are evilly and deliberately deceiving the public. It makes me wonder what other conspiracy theories you believe.
Ref: “A Positive Association found between Autism Prevalence and Childhood Vaccination uptake across the U.S. Population”
That “paper” is written by Gayle DeLong who, yep, has PhD – in Finance and International Business, and while I haven’t taken that course myself I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the epidemiology (and indeed science in general) content is probably quite low. The paper is published in a low ranking journal (impact factor of only 1.733, not quite the lowest of the low but Nature it is not!) that isn’t even one focussed on medicine, neurology or epidemiology.
A quick glance through the references list shows her referencing some real stand up people:
Andrew Wakefield – a man who had his medical license taken away for his fraudulent research on MMR & Autism and as far as I can see has spent every waking moment since in a concerted effort to be crowned the most despicable human being alive
David & Mark Grier – David is another Doctor who had his medical license revoked for severe ethical breaches and his Mark who pretended to be a doctor despite not having a license and was censured for it. Their own sterling entry in the “most despicable human being” contest is a joint one where they basically chemically castrated autistic children based on nothing more than a wild bit of fantastical thinking that had no basis whatsoever in biological reality.
Mark Blaxill – Oh look, he’s not a doctor or scientist either. He’s a businessman turned author who writes for AoA and also writes books with Dan Olmstead about how dangerous vaccines are and how the autism apocolypse is nigh.
While we are on the subject of despicable human beings DeLong blamed dealing with her two autistic children for her getting breast cancer. I mean.. just.. what the actual f**k?!
The “study” described in her paper is excerable in both it’s design and execution, understandable given that she’s not a scientist but I’ll leave it to our host to point out the flaws in it far better than I ever could:
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2011/06/08/more-bad-science-in-the-service-of-the-discredited-idea/
What about the other two links, you have to remember you guys here at this site, gave me the link, so I know you have never been there.
What the fuck are you talking about? “Never been there”? Taylor & Francis just showed you what papers other people have also read. Did you read the papers on the T&F page directly replying to Helen “homologous recombinaltion tiniker” Ratajczak’s “literature review”? No? I didn’t think so.
LB/RB has dealt with Gallagher & Goodman; the library here doesn’t subscribe to that T&F title.
Try this: lizditz.typepad[dot]com/i_speak_of_dreams/2013/08/-those-lists-of-papers-that-claim-vaccines-cause-autism-part-1.html.
These are the links you gave me, and they prove in favor of the anti-vaxxers? Goodbye its no use to even be here. No acknowledgement of anything here. At least say we screwed up, or we were wrong. It is not a learning culture here. Now its my turn to mock, the site moderator, are you still watching? No one on this site has any credibility, you got caught admit it, Narad is not a statistician, he cannot even read a bar graph. This site is shameful, mock someone then, gleefully clap your hands and prance around like you are someone. If you get caught, admit it you tell me to go to this site, and you have never been, lazy arrogant ignorant people, both sites prove in favor of the anti-vaxxers. How foolish is that, its beyond the point of foolish lazy person who built that site, why did he or she not even read it. You are a lazy man, Dangerous Bacon. Everyone here should go to those two links and feel some shame. Lazy!!
Why do you not intervene and say something here. No credibility, Dangerous Bacon tells me here is proof , but he has never read it, bravo Dangerous Bacon, what was posted proves otherwise. Mr. Moderator have you gone to those two links? Not a learning site but an embarrassment. Everyone here is paid to do a task, but the task you do is lousy. Garbage site , garbage forum goodbye.
No one here cannot even read the results of a simple bar graph, this site is worthless, crap garbage. If you are caught your caught. Lazy people.
I hope you choose to stick the flounce this time. I end my response by saying that it is you who doesn’t understand. You are Dunning-Kruger personified. Not only are you wrong, you are too incompetent to realise how you could be wrong.
Julian Frost at least go to the sites that were given to me, you are another lazy person. They told me go to these two sites, both were in favor of the anti-vaxxers. Have you read what is on these two sites?
Wow, the second flounce lasted all of 55 minutes.
Because you probably haven’t gone (in the same way you hadn’t really gone last time you flounced) and because for some reason I just can’t help myself, let’s buckle up and go for a ride down the anti-vaxx rabbit hole…
No-one from here linked you directly to Taylor & Francis – you arrved there following a link from the thoughtscapism article debunking the vacc. vs non-vacc study myth to the Phillipines. A study by the way which, while published in a relatively low impact factor Economics journal (and two of the authors are economists!) does have at least some actual proper medical credibility lent to it by the fact that both the economists work at the Harvard School of Public Health and the third is an Associate Prof of Medicine at Harvard. Still at this point it’s mainly an interesting analysis of third party data and raises some points that I’d like to see further study on.
Taylor & Francis isn’t a “pro-vaxx site”, they are a publisher of various journals. Some of which are, shall we say a bit on the low quality side (hence them publishing the utter tripe that DeLong wrote). While no guarantee that everything published there is tripe, I would approach with caution.
3.Once you had arrived on T&F you managed to find your way to various other papers on there and seemingly cherry-picked some that played into your confirmation bias. Nobody here sent you to those other papers despite what you seem to be claiming.
I haven’t read all the papers you linked back to.. my time is limited and frankly I was feeling more than a little nauseus after having to endure the utter rubbish that flowed from the keyboard of that vile Gayle DeLong and knowing the other papers as I do I wasn’t prepared to wade through more of that sewage but here’s a run down:
a) “Hepatitis B triple series vaccine and developmental disability in US children aged 1-9 years” Gallagher et al. – A study done on parent-reported data (i.e. little better than anecdotal in scientific terms) and one that has been thoroughly debunked in a later study (carried out by MIND in 2013 I believe) which showed that essentially there was no difference between vacc. for Hep B vs. non-vacc. In fact there was a slight decrease in ASD for those who were vacc’d! Albeit too small a difference to draw any real conclusions from.
b) Theoretical aspects of autism: Causes—A review Ratajczak HV – This is nothing more than the scientific equivilant of drunken ramblings. It regurgitates pretty much every debunked bit of fringe “science” on vaccines and autism, the Geiers, the Bernard paper from 2001, she even alludes to Wakefield’s fraudulant hypothesis for pity’s sake! To top it off she throws out her own extremely implausible hypothosis about how somehow the brain takes up this human DNA and somehow it combines with the existing DNA and becomes an “altered self” or something… basically I think Ms Ratajczak may have written this section of the paper under the twin influences of lots of alchohol and some bad comic books. Everything in this paper is utter rubbish and has been shown to be rubbish time and again.
Phew! Made it back out with may sanity intact (well as a intact as it ever was), and I didn’t even mock you. Now I’m going to go outside, breathe some fresh air, enjoy some sunshine and try and forget that that vile oxygen theives like Wakefield, DeLong and the Geiers are out there somewhere doing there utmost to spread their lies and misinformation for their own profit.
Ugh.. formatting went to crap on me, and I managed to make more than a few typos. Apologies people! In my defence all I can say is that because I don’t get any of that sweet, sweet Pharma lucre that I keep hearing about I had to fit writing that ramble around doing my day job. The one that actually does pay me.
Correct.
Let’s review, shall we?
So, you (1) invented a 6-7 year bin and (2) still don’t understand what “statistical significance” means. One does not need to be a professional statistician to understand p-values, overlapping error bars, or reading x-axis labels.
I’m not even sure he understands what error bars even are.
Its obvious cutting and pasting something that someone thinks, supports pro-vaxx, when in fact supports anti-vaxx, how good is that? Anyone can insult, its easy to insult, but you guys gave me a website with links that are in favor of anti-vaxxers.
When I point that out to you, you scramble to discredit something that you said would inform me of the pro-vaxx cause. All I can say is your lazy, why did you not read this before Narad. Because you are lazy, Julian Frost blindly insults, but why he does he not read what I read? Laziness. Incredible laziness.
Stewart, you call my colleagues lazy but have you read anything any of us have suggested?
Most of the regulars here read huge amounts of scientific material because Orac isn’t skimpy with wordage, he links to other articles, we read other writers and many of us monitor the woo-esphere for egregious claptrap in order to provide laughter for our compeers. This is no big deal if you have a personal history of being required to cover vast amounts of literature on a schedule – because you have serious academic accomplishments in actual universities.
How about reading one post by Orac for a start?
Subatsu suggests one above…Or his current one about the Italians? Or the one we’re commenting on?
Do you read ANYTHING Orac writes?
AND -btw- many of us have studied statistical analysis and research design.
Actually you are lazy for not actually even clicking on the link I gave you several times:
https://sparkforautism.org/portal/page/autism-research/
Plus, you gave a list of terrible papers which have all been discussed on this blog. You are being lazy by not clicking on the “Search and explore” menu and putting their titles.
Sorry, MI Dawn missed your post, I went to “Age of Autism” site, I am going to post something pro-vaxx on their forum, but I cannot find the forum . Can you please send me a link?
It’s just like this site, stupid. Pick a post (or article, or whatever you want to call it) and make a comment.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=age+of+autism
Oh, sorry, you did got to them. Try giving them this link:
http://spark-sf.s3.amazonaws.com/SPARK_gene_list.pdf
In case Stewart finally makes good his threat to flee our shameless mockery, Forrest Maready offers more comic relief.
Maready has published an e-book called “Crooked: Man-Made Disease Explained”, in which he reveals the basis for a slew of health problems (including MS, Parkinson’s, Zika virus infection etc.) – metal poisoning, in particular that caused by aluminum in vaccines.
https://www.amazon.com/Crooked-Man-Made-Explained-incredible-microbes-ebook/dp/B079J3QTGX
The “crooked” part refers to Maready’s conviction that lopsided smiles, misaligned eyes and other facial distortions are vastly more common these days, because vaccines.
In case you’re wondering, Maready’s scientific credentials include time spent in the film and TV industry (he says he worked on Muppet movies) and advertising. He also has “popular” Facebook and YouTube platforms, where he “opines on the hubris of human beings”.
Maready’s views are amusingly mocked on this site:
http://www.werewecrooked.com/
All in all, a characteristically worthy addition to the antivax literature.
I’m not sure whether this is competition to the core WAPF notion or a possible tie-in.
Maready’s conviction
Nah, he’s a pure scammer with merch to sell. I doubt he believes any of his fraud.
Hoo, boy, howdy, he’d have a field day with me.
Back in the day, I came down with Bell’s Palsy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_palsy
I mostly recovered. Mostly. But one side of my face is now weaker, and nerves that used to go a particular muscle are now ‘cross connected’ to others. I have some really strange facial expressions. My ‘pucker’ is lopsided, but I have it on good authority I still kiss good. As a result of the weakness on one side, I also developed TMD (or, as it was called back then, TMJ). But it also left me with the ability to do the Mr. Spock raise one eyebrow thing, so I got that going for me, which is nice.
And I’ve had more than the average number of vaccines, so we have dose/response validation.
So, because no other cause of the Bell’s was ever identified, I gotta say, maybe he’s right.
/sarcasm
Pro Tip – When you go to the emergency room, and you say half of your face doesn’t move, and you show that to the nice intake people, you jump right to the head of the line, even past people who are bleeding.
Yah, I have a submandibular cyst, and after the ENT’s advising me about the possible risks, it’s staying in place so long as it doesn’t become too noticeable.
Lucky you! I had to wait 3 hours (9 am -> noon) in a wheelchair before getting examined for my ruptured appendix because I didn’t look too bad. ER doc put me head of the line right upon examination (noon) and 3-4 hours later (4pm) with many tests (echography, pet scans, blood and metabolites), I was signing the paperwork to get surgery that night (midnight).
Alain
“I am not very good at it because its not my style. I will do my research on mocking and get back to you…”
You sure had us fooled for a while. Instead we discover that you are indeed a fabulous mocker. Your mockery of the stereotypical anti-vaxxer by mimicking their style and content is truly superb, and you’ve flawlessly maintained the pretense for days on end. An excellent demonstration of the Poe gambit.
Well played, sir! Well played.
I’m starting to notice crooked facial expressions among old-time baseball players, for instance Carl Hubbell:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hubbeca01.shtml
That crooked expression has got to be due to vaccines, or maybe throwing the screwball all those years warped his face.
Is it me or in this decade, I seem to witness more epic case of bullies (Orange Thinskin among others…) and similarly epic cases of bµtthµrt (guess…) and professional victims (correct a misunderstanding and get labelled as a bully…)
Alain
Your very much welcome rs, for awhile, I thought I had you guys fooled too. I made a questioning and innocent, “pro-vaxx” post on the “Age of Autism”, waiting too see if they are as over the top insolent and combative as you guys.
The article was called, “A Dozen Things We Can Do RIGHT NOW to Help Stop the Vaccine Holocaust”, by Laura Hayes. Just by the title of the article I feel strongly I will get some feedback.
I must say your site is more user friendly than their site, my post disappeared when I hit the post button. I wonder why it disappeared? Unless they read it really fast, saw keywords then trashed it right away? Waiting for the approval, they seemed to have a word limiter on it, it cut off my last sentence, unless they somehow could see me typing in the textbox, erased the last sentence, then decided to trash my whole post.
I suspect user error; it should say something along the lines of awaIting moderation if it were actually submitted. Your comment about formatting suggests that you must havw seen it at some point. Did you press yhe button clearly labeled “preview”?
Why did you pick a post that’s 9 months old?
http://www.ageofautism.com/2017/05/a-dozen-things-we-can-do-right-now-to-help-stop-the-vaccine-holocaust.html
I wondered that too Johnny in retrospect. I did not look at the date. That article wanted me to write something, after I posted, I re-read the article and my eyes fell on the date, the last response was in September 2017. Okay I agree, I messed up on that one, I messed up because I did not notice it was a html site, the formatting is messed up. I was going to post the same post to a more recent article, but I thought it best I wait.
They have not posted it yet, all sites are not the same, might be 2 days? I hope maybe it does not post, just because of the formatting, not the best post.
You didn’t look at the date? I call BS on that.
You scrolled way back on the AoA site and picked a post that was darn near ancient, because you figured it might slip by without being noticed, then, when it drew no responses, you could say that they weren’t mean to you like all of us highly paid pharma-shills are.
This is what I posted at “Age of Autism”, you guys do not have the best approach, here is how I approach anti-vaxxers;
Its my first time here and some of the anti-vaxx posts seem quite harsh.
I have a copy of Mercks MMR II vaccine insert, this is what is printed at the beginning;
The impact of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination on the natural history of each disease in the United States can be quantified by comparing the maximum number of measles, mumps, and rubella cases reported in a given year prior to vaccine use to the number of cases of each disease reported in 1995. For measles, 894,134 cases reported in 1941 compared to 288 cases reported in 1995 resulted in a 99.97% decrease in reported cases; for mumps, 152,209 cases reported in 1968 compared to 840 cases reported in 1995 resulted in a 99.45% decrease in reported cases; and for rubella, 57,686 cases reported in 1969 compared to 200 cases reported in 1995 resulted in a 99.65% decrease.
I have no reason to doubt these numbers, and will do further research on the internet that prove they are true.
Vaccines have no doubt benefited many, however as with anything you can improve the safety on anything.The VAERS site is proof of that, the vaccine insert directs you to VAERS, I am sure that they will react to that, if it is posted here, they will look at the numbers and try to improve those numbers.
Perhaps waiting a few days between each shot first Measles, wait 3 days then Mumps, wait 3 days then Rubella, I do not know, I am not a biochemist.
Perhaps its not the best idea to line the public up, ask them a few questions then jab them in the arm, without a thorough honest, statement from the insert in the MMRII, vaccines insert. The health-care-provider have to really inform the parent or guardian. Of course the parent or guardian, should make the final decision which is emphasized in their vaccine insert.
If a child screams for 4 hours straight, extensive rashes, or any changes that last beyond a few days the health-care-provider should make a statement and it goes on a child’s medical record, the child should no longer be given any further vaccines.
We all know children can die from trace amount of peanuts.
If a child’s weight is not normal their immune systems are compromised. Tell the parent the child must either lose weight or increase weight. If the child’s parents have recently undergone divorce, no vaccine should be given, because a child’s stress response can compromise their immune system. This will improve the safety of all vaccines, and there should be clinical trials done on a vaccine at least every 5 years, with strong un-biased oversight.
Merck states towards the end of their Vaccine insert what the health care provider shall do. The health-care-provider could maybe follow more closely Mercks protocol, this comes directly from MMR vaccine insert.
The health-care provider should determine the current health status and previous vaccination history of the vaccinee.
The health-care provider should question the patient, parent, or guardian about reactions to a previous dose of M-M-R II or other measles-, mumps-, or rubella-containing vaccines.
Information for Patients
The health-care provider should provide the vaccine information required to be given with each vaccination to the patient, parent, or guardian.
The health-care provider should inform the patient, parent, or guardian of the benefits and risks associated with vaccination. For risks associated with vaccination see WARNINGS, PRECAUTIONS, and ADVERSE REACTIONS.
You make lots of claims and provide no real evidence. Vaccine inserts are lawyer written CYA documents, not data.
In the future stick to PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that the MMR vaccine that was first introduced in the USA causes more harm than measles, mumps and rubella.
Until then, have you even read about the SPARK for Autism research program? I linked to it multiple times.
Hello Chris yes I did open it once, it was biased.
In the statistical sense, I presume.
Explain. Tell us how a program that has found over the genetic sequences of over half of the causes of the autism spectrum, including valid medical interventions, is biased? Is must be because none of the reasons are associated with vaccines.
Because it always has to be the vaccines, despite what data say.
This was your promised “pro-vaccine” post at AoA?
Who-ever made this site, is not a good person.
Your scientific illiteracy is not his fault.
Why do you even want to fight with anti-vaxxers, they have a valid point, appease them and you may gain some headway. The CEO who is giving, instruction, to another giving instruction, to another giving instruction. WTF. he or she is a an idiot, there is one corporate member, giving Merck bad advice. Merck cannot find their own ass with both hands, colossal lawsuits, its sits stunned, in all its irrelevant glory, of the 1910-1925s.
The author of this site does not work for Merck. That is one screwed up version of the Pharma Shill Gambit:
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2013/02/14/the-pharma-shill-gambit/
Because their ideas are foolish, wrong, and have the potential to cause significant harm.
Not about vaccines causing autism, not about vaccines causing SIDS, not about the vaccines being worse than the diseases they cause, not about herd immunity being a myth, not about Japan’s experiences etc. etc.
In fact, I challenge you to provide an example of a valid antivaccine point.
You are either antivaccine, colossally ignorant, or both. Scientists have done plenty. They have investigated hypotheses from antivaxxers that could politely be called unlikely. Each time, the results disproved the hypothesis. And each time, the antivaxxers ignored the evidence or shifted the goalposts. In the case of vaccines causing autism, the hypothesis was that the MMR Vaccine caused autism. When that was proven false, the argument was that a component of MMR caused autism. After that was shown to be false, the antivaxxers moved on to the “susceptible subgroup” – that there were children who would not have become autistic had they not received the vaccine. That has been shot down. Still, antivaxxers insist that vaccines cause autism, in the teeth of evidence to the contrary.
@Stewart:
Appease? I should appease people like Wakefield, the Geiers, DeLang, McCarthy and Mike Adams? People who spread lies and disinformation about people like me in order to line their own pockets or boost their own egos? People whose lies and worse have resulted in real suffering, illness and death for thousands off innocent people (many of them children) around the world year after year? People who prey on the worries and fears (both real, and imagined) of scared and worried parents to make money, not caring who gets hurt along the way? (bleach enemas anyone?) I should appease people like Polly Tommey who tacitly condones parents murdering their autistic children? Or maybe you mean people like Del Bigtree who incite their followers to violence? How about those who launch merciless attacks on any who speak out against their beloved “cause”, harrassing them both online and in person, threatening their professional careers, their reputations and even their lives?
Appease?? F**k that.. I oppose
Sorry the date to was 2025
The date to what?
Merck has to face all the bloggers on You Tube, if you are going to act badly, then blame it on your bloggers, and then abscond yourselves with a really emotional advertisement. What does Merck expect?
If you act badly and the public has observed it, who is going to promote the idea, that the smartest mother here is not as smart as me?
Has Poe’s law been violated here in the domain of off-topic, absurdist antivaccine manifestations?
I am a mother. My oldest kid is on the autism spectrum. I know it was not vaccines.
I was an aerospace engineer (yes, even for one project a rocket engineer). Does this mean I am smarter than the medical researchers, doctors, technicians and others. No, it does not.
When my newborn had seizures I knew the best thing was to have the baby taken away in a special infant isolette for the transport by ambulance to the Children’s Hospital. I listened to the neurologist and gave him the meds that stopped his seizures. After he was weaned from those meds at one year, he got a now vaccine preventable disease that caused a seizure. I listened to the firefighter paramedics who arrived at my house after I called 911 and rode with the toddler to the hospital.
Why would I care about your illiterate uneducated opinions?
Stewart you seem to have missed my last two posts so I’ve coppied one below
Funny how you didn’t respond to the fact that the CDC study shows if it shows anything is that African American boys vaccinated late have more autism, so the take home is that African American boys should be vaccinated on time to prevent autism. In reality the samples sizes were too small to show anything, it’s just an artifact of the data.
Why would you ignore this?
Especially when the reality is that low income and lack of insurance is probably why they were not vaccinated on time. It took someone to notice the boys were not developing normally (probably Head Start, preschool for low income children), referred them to services to diagnose them (may Child Find, a program required on all public schools due to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) and then a referral to a clinic for a free/low cost vaccine for them to get services at a local public school special ed. preschool.
They diagnosed with autism before getting the MMR vaccine. Plus it was just a few of the children in that study.
Stewart ignores it because it is not part of his preferred conclusion.
Low income plus kids should imply Medicaid in all 50.
Indeed it should. But not everyone is aware, especially in certain states.
(and if they are in the state my youngest is living it… they are doing their best to block access like requiring expensive drug testing)
Also in that study, out of fifty those kids numbered somewhere around half a dozen (sorry forgot the details)… it was a number that Hooker had to rejigger the ages to get something. So it was just a few.
Still it means they only got the MMR vaccine so late because they were diagnosed and then needed it to attend a special preschool. The vaccine came later!
I know Chris, but sometimes I like to play the broken record 😉
Such attempts have failed in the past on Fourth Amendment grounds, and it can be argued that they’re impermissible under the Social Security Act.
Yet, they keep trying. Even though it is very expensive.
Why do you even want to fight with anti-vaxxers…
Whilst some anti-vaxxers are disgruntled parents, others are entrepreneurs who make money off of their cause.
There are quite a few doctors and non-doctors who provide bogus treatments to cure or ameliorate autism; others sell supplements or food products; others yet author films and books. some do research that is funded by anti-vax groups. For a partial list, look at any AutismOne website speakers’ list.
There are parents who become speakers, internet phenoms or authors as well- quite a few of these at AoA. They may create charities which are income streams for them as well as providing “services”.
This would be all very well and fine if it were supported by science but it isn’t.
One of the pseudoscientists I survey ( for many years) has probably made money because he has produced several films that continue to propagate the true mythology of vaccines as causative of ASDs.( see Gary Null films) Why repeat yourself? Because people are buying it. Andy Wakefield became a film maker, not a novelist. Even so-called nutritionists like Mike Adams- who started out as an internet scammer- see that if he writes about vaccines, people will respond and reward him by buying his products.
Anti-vaxx is big money.
Addendum:
As if to augment my argument, Adams ( NaturalNews.com) announces that he is expanding his Store.
IN other words, s#itloads of money are coming his way.
In related news…
Mikey ( Natural News) is squawking because You Tube’s CEO announced that videos with suspect, conspiracy-laden content will be accompanied by a “correction” from wikip— .
Yes, free speech has been eclipsed by socialist corporate mind control.
So all of those vaccine damage videos will be rendered unusable.
Obviously I am your only challenge here. Maybe I may help to keep your debating skills at an improvement level , comments such as STFU or “I am right and you are an idiot.”, demoralize everyone in your group. How do you contest the anti-vaxxers, with that attitude. Never!!!….
You know, if you hadn’t simply infested this comment thread rather than familiarizing yourself with the content of where you are, you might understand the demographics better.
And, seriously, just fuck off. You simply abandon everything provably false or frankly stupid from your keyboard that is cleaned up by others on Aisle 1, and then you run to take another shit on the floor by the dairy case.
Stewart, I did a search on this page. The only person who used the word “idiot” was you. As for you being our “only challenge”, read a few more posts. Other antivaxxers have come here and spouted the very same discredited arguments you have made. You’re hardly a challenge.
Hey, I called him ‘stupid’, because, well, he is.
It’s people like him that help make something like this a story, and not a non-event.
Travelers who landed in Detroit, Newark, Memphis pop up with measles
https://usat.ly/2FHqv70
I maintain that people like him, who are responsible for spreading FUD about vaccines, that is clearly wrong, are either stupid or evil. Not understanding the limitations of VAERS makes him stupid. Not knowing the difference between median and average makes him stupid. Not knowing how to post a comment at AoA does not make him stupid. It makes him incompetent. That’s a dangerous combination.
Seriously, sweet deer, you are not a challenge. Your only problem is being profuse with submitting total nonsense that had been addressed multiple times before.
How hard is it for you and your friends to use the “Search and explore” menu?
Julian Frost, they are not discredited remarks, you tell me you have autism, is this a gift of GOD.I think it comes from the greed of mankind, 8 vaccines a year in the eighties, to 90 after 2002, at the same moment of this increase, autism increases. Was it not in Minnesota autism rates went from 1 in every 8 to each Somalian?
“..is this a gift of GOD
By the hammer of Thor, which one?
You are now reduced to blithering. Go away troll.
Trollin’ Trollin’ Trollin’
Trollin’ Trollin’ Trollin’
Trollin’ Trollin’ Trollin’
Trollin’ Trollin’ Trollin’
Rawhide!
Trollin’ Trollin’ Trollin’
Though the threads are swollen
Keep them comments trollin’,
Rawhide!
Chris I am not a troll, vaccinate everyone with no discretion? Let us make some money, and you go along with the corporate system that is promoting it.
Let us devise a cheat device to foil the pollutant regulators. VW was one, tell me of others, do you have an imagination, BMW was also caught, tell me of others. If you blankly stare at your screen, look off to the corner of your reality, there is a set of nuts, strap them on.
It’s true that it would take a great deal of talent to sustain this level of dumbfuckery by design.
I prefer identity first language. Most autistics do. Please keep that in mind.
According to my mother, I was showing clear signs of difference as a baby, even before vaccinations. I didn’t like being picked up and would try to move away. And my father is most definitely also on the spectrum.
90 vaccines on the schedule? Are you serious? Oh, and do you know what has a tighter correlation to autism than vaccines? Consumption of organic food.
Fancy that. Refugees from a failed state with no healthcare who moved to a first world country all of a sudden got diagnosed with things they weren’t diagnosed with before.
An increase in diagnosis is not the same as an increase in real cases.
Julian Frost I have a problem with you stating you are autistic, actually people who no autistics would say Nahhhh. By your posts, an impossible feat of an autistic is to be forceful or arrogant.
Oh I see. You think I’m too articulate and smart to be autistic. As for:
If you knew me personally, you’d realise just how wrong you are. The fact that I am able to carefully think out what to write does not mean I am incapable of being very forceful in face to face interactions.
Julian Frost I have a problem with you stating you are autistic,
Stewart, I have a problem with you claiming you are human, and not some kind of talking pustule.
@Stewart:
And there you have it.. another classic anti-vaxxer trope: Dismissing and denying the experiences of autistic people (especially those that self-advocate) simply because what they are saying doesn’t go along with the anti-vaxx narrative of autistic people all being brain-damaged subhumans.
That one is straight out of the Andrew Wakefield playbook, I’m sure he’d be very proud of you.
Are you going to go so far as some off his supporters have in the past where they have declared any autistic people who speak out against the anti-vaxx cause as being “freaks” and “lunatics” I wonder?
All you’ve done there is demonstrate that you know even less about autism than I previously thought, either that or you’re more of an aehe then I thought. I’m going with a little from column A and a little from column B.
Everything you’ve posted as “proof” of the anti-vaxx stance has been discredited, over and over again or else shown to be unsupported anecdote. When myself and others have taken the time to refute the things you’ve posted you decide to ignore these posts and instead go back around the same old routes of ad hominem attacks, trotting out the pharma-shill gambit or spouting more of the same sort of unsupported waffle.
Or occasionally you go off onto a bizzare tangent that has nothing whatsover to do with vaccines at all, like this little gem:
Really? That’s what you’re going with? At least your earlier attempt at a Nirvana fallacy involved pharmaceutical companies, now you’re not even trying.
Stewart,
What does it mean to be autistic according to you??
I can post, that mean I am not autistic either??
Al
Julian isn’t the one smearing shit on the wall, if you want to semiliterately invoke stereotypes.
Evidence please. I don’t see those figures supported here:
http://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-history/developments-by-year
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child-adolescent-shell.html
Correlation is not causation: https://image.ibb.co/maR7CH/Organic_Food_Causes_Autism.png
No. But the Somalians were plagued with a hideous measles outbreak after dishonest anti-vaxxers persuaded them to stop vaccinating.
https://rtc.umn.edu/autism/
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/10/26/16552864/minnesotas-measles-outbreak-immigrants-anti-vaxxers
Know
Stewart- I know very little about autism and the spectrum of abilities of people with this disability. Since you seem to know substantially more than myself, even contesting someone unfortunate enough to have the disability, I request some insight from where you obtained your knowledge. And if you like I’ll recommend a few good books that will give you some insight into how and why vaccination has proved to be probably the most successful intervention in medical history. So far you have displayed magnificent ignorance on many levels in your inability to think clearly. Others have noticed this also!
Well,
I most (trolls) cases, I sometime ask if the troll in question is trying hard to be an id10t or if it come naturally but in the case of Steward, the prior probability weight in a good case of trying hard to be an arrogant, !mbec!le id10t with a dash of naturally occuring of these phenomenoms.
I would think I’d have a field day meeting him face to face in a controlled setting 😀
Al
I would think I’d have a field day meeting him face to face in a controlled setting
Headbutting dickwads into oblivion is more my area of professional expertise.
Julian Frost an arrogant person is actually autistic, a humbling and continuously wondering person
Can you point to what Iv’e said that’s arrogant? Oh, and you would be well advised to not try to diagnose people over the internet.
Julian,
He qualified you as arrogant but that being said, his comment make me think he’s the friggen self-righteous person devoid of good personnality who feel the need to support a cause to think he’s doing something good[1] and merit some self-love because he ain’t getting any.
[1] == good according to his own criteria. I’d say that arguing over the intertoob is low. Cherry picking is low. Look to me like parasiting…
Al
You haven’t Julian, unless disavowing an ignoramus of their notion of how an autistic should behave is somehow arrogant.
Stewart you seem to have missed my last three posts so I’ll copy one here.
Funny how you didn’t respond to the fact that the CDC study shows if it shows anything is that African American boys vaccinated late have more autism, so the take home is that African American boys should be vaccinated on time to prevent autism. In reality the samples sizes were too small to show anything, it’s just an artifact of the data.
Or are you ignoring me becasue you don’t like what I say? Are you afraid to answer?
Stewart, there’s a phrase you need to learn when interacting (in person or online) with autistic people, or for that matter, anyone with any sort of learning disability.
Presume Competence.
What that means is that you should assume that the people you’re interacting with actually have a certain level of ability. Dismissing them as incompetent, or accusing them of not being autistic (as you did with me) when they show a level of ability you weren’t expecting, simply exposes you as ignorant, patronising and obnoxious.
That’s sort of a parallel to, or part of, the principle of charity or rational accommodation.
This assumes the other person:
1) uses words in the ordinary way;
2) makes true statements;
3) makes valid arguments;
4) says something interesting.
Which of those applies may vary with the context or purpose of the discussion.
As far as I know, an opposite principle hasn’t been formulated, but I looked for an antonym to use and decided that many of our commenters practice the principle of hindrance. That is, they
1) don’t understand or deliberately misunderstand the difference between the language of science,which is very nuanced and quailfied, and ordinary language which is more absolute and simplistic. They will misinterpret which type the other person or quoted source is using and then turn that into a straw man argument or claim of lying.
2) refuse to accept that we really believe what we are saying to them or find some other excuse to ignore the statement. One example is the pharma shill gambit. Another is to refuse to accept or discuss the statement because we use a pseudonym instead of our real name or don’t have the right professional qualification. Or they refuse to accept that some of us are really autistic or have an ASD, or have a child with an ASD or similarly debilitating problem.
3) never accept the validity of a contrary argument. They ignore supporting material by skipping links or not acknowledging if they do open them. Or, they look for some minor point to disagree with so they can discount the overall source. And they will often fixate on a disparaging term if used, so they have an excuse to ignore the main argument.
4) avoid replying directly to the other person’s comment. Direct questions or statements pertinent to their argument or claim are often skipped or ignored. Or they will jump ahead to the next talking point. Giving positive feedback to anyone you disagree with is an absolute no-no.
In other anti-vaccine news, The Kid tries to call down a troll storm. The problem is he only has maybe 4 fanbois and 2 sock puppets (I may be overestimating the fanbois). The result would be more of a troll dampening.
http://www.autisminvestigated.com/congresswoman-baloney/
This site shuts down when it feels there is no competition, it is like everyone her is suffering from leaky bowel syndrome. Or, tell me what to say and I will say ignorant comments , to the type of post, you want me to say. (Government which=Big Pharma). I want you guys to make money, so bring on the parasitic comments, let the shills make money, bring it on shills.
Or do you lack the spine? Bend over to the big pharma Johnny and become, the fan-boi you are, that is where the money is.
It has become widespread knowledge that GMO’s cause cancer. The vaccines probably trigger it. Why would the government recommend, only so many servings of sea fish per day? Who did that to our waters?
I have to agree Wes, settle down, why would Johnny, accuse me of being a transgender,(fan-bois) and suggest it as being a negative character issue ? Johnny makes no sense. If the medical community was watching or the public was watching, what would they say? Moderator did not reply, no one else replied, what would they say?
Its a human rights issue and this site does not respect. The silence is overwhelming from this site
Put down the bag of glue, Stewart.
The definition of “fanboi” has nothing to do with being transgender:
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fanboi
Most often it is someone devoted to a certain technology:
https://www.techopedia.com/definition/28754/fanboi
Get over yourself, Stewart. At this point you are definitely trolling by taking a common internet term and twisting to something to just fit your weird agenda.
IF YOU ARE A TRANSGENDER PERSON DO NOT COME HERE Johnny and the moderator have already said this.
Point to the exact phrase or comment which says transgender people are not welcome.
Or you admit to being a lying, faeces smearing troll.
Meet every Sunday at your “Watch Tower” meeting, and then stand before the “Elders” naked” and state, “The transgenders shall not inherit the earth.” Awesome Johnny!!
As far as I know, none of our regular commenters ate Jehovah’s Witnesses. But I thought this comment on their website was interesting .
However, their overall approach is at odds with the DSM-V and current scientific consensus.
They also used to be virulently antivaccine, but that routine was abandoned in the ’50s, IIRC, over worries about secular entanglements. Oh, and on the “set of rules” bit, trinitariasm is right out.
My mom is a Jehovah’s Witness, and I went to meetings from about age 12 (when she converted) until age 16 or so.
Happy to answer any questions.
JP- What type of human body will it be that one day can live forever.? At what age will ageing stop for these ‘long-lived ‘ bodies? Or are they just going to get older and older?
It’ll just be a perfect adult body, is what I always imagined. In the literature, you see families with kids; I imagine the kids would supposedly grow up to adulthood and then stop againg.
No infirmities, sickness, old age, etc.
So the answer is I couldn’t say exactly; but like being eternally 30 years old in good health or something? There are pictures of old people in Paradise.
Also I think no new people would be born, so the kids in the pictures must have survived Armageddon. (Magically no PTSD!) Or died as kids, I guess.
There are NO pictures of old people in Paradise, rather.
I couldn’t find a TG definition of fanboi, but I did find this:
Geek Term related to forum users who think a product/company/person can do no wrong.
Perhaps you were thinking of Shisutaabooi ??
I have never seen any negative aspersions on TG people on this site.
No, dude. It is because you are a fanatic of nonsense.
No, Chris this is you, “I want to fit into the mainstream idea of thought, let me say something sarcastic, so that I may fit into this womb, of irrelevant glory, so that I may exit life as someone irrelevant.” Become relevant Chris…
I have done more research, and believe that vaccines do not cause autism.
I was wrong, and admit it. Blame it on Monsanto and Round-up, It is glyphosphate, it is an anti-biotic.
Some people here may know this, but why they have not told me, I do not know. Is to protect Monsanto?
Within the last 4 years or so, they have discovered a new organ, some people doing autism research call it the second brain. I was not aware of this, because its not the type of material I read.
This organ if spread out, would occupy the area of a tennis court, it is a huge rain forest of bacteria. The human body is composed of 10 trillion cells, the bacterial cells within our guts, are 10 times more at 100 trillion. Seems a bit creepy we are host to life forms that are, ten times more than us. Current research shows that, if the body needs more of a certain hormone, vitamins, or anything that may be helpful, these microbes go into action, to feed the host.
Micro-biologists, call it the the micro-biome, it starts at our mouths and ends at our butts.
During birth if we are forced through the birth canal we are inoculated through our mouths and noses with bacteria that wind up in our stomachs, that protects us from disease and autism. C-sectioned babies have more autism, it is a fact.
Only a fact by correlation:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/123/5/1293.short
“The prenatal factors that occurred significantly more frequently among children with autism spectrum disorders were advanced maternal age and parity. Increased duration of education among mothers of children with autism spectrum disorders was small but statistically significant. Significant perinatal factors were breech presentation and primary cesarean delivery. When corrected for breech presentation, a known indication for cesarean delivery, the association between primary cesarean delivery and autism spectrum disorders was eliminated. There were no significant associations found between autism spectrum disorders and neonatal factors.”
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2323630
This study confirms previous findings that children born by CS are approximately 20% more likely to be diagnosed as having ASD. However, the association did not persist when using sibling controls, implying that this association is due to familial confounding by genetic and/or environmental factors.
Like most of your other ‘facts’ it evaporates on investigation.
Julian Frost, is not and never was an autistic person. He is just a conforming ass
hat. Julian Frosts, method is that everyone tell me what i should do, or be (an autistic person) so that everyone will be impressed..
Julian Frost, is not and never was an autistic person.
I have an official diagnosis from a psychiatrist. I don’t know whether to be impressed that you believe I’m too eloquent and articulate to be autistic or insulted that you believe that autistics are not capable of that level of articulacy and eloquence.
Either way, you’re obnoxious. So FOADIAF and then GTH.
I have an official diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome from a psychiatrist. I don’t know whether to be amused that you believe I’m too articulate and eloquent to be autistic, or offended that you believe autistics aren’t capable of that level of fluency.
Either way, you’re obnoxious. So kindly die in a fire and go to hell.
Julian Frost MARCH 18, 2018 AT 2:04 AM
Point to the exact phrase or comment which says transgender people are not welcome.
Or you admit to being a lying, faeces smearing troll.
THIS IS YOUR POOR AUTISTICALLY CLAIMED PERSON , ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Ha ,ha,,ha
Well, Stewart, I think you managed to check boxes 2, 3, and 4 with that comment.
It’s hard to check box 1, though, if you don’t even bother talking about your own change of subject.
No what, squirrelelite you are not even serious of talking about vaccinations, because I am able to crush the anti-vaxxers easily, with what I have found about Monsanto. Why not talk about the microbiome? This has and will always have anti-vaxxers, running unable to find their own ass with both hands. Lets talk about Monsanto… squirrelelite, …cmon add to it…It is not a change of subject, check box 1… you guys..tell me of what you know of the microbiome…otherwise STFU!!
Stewart, if you can present a prima facie case including evidence of a dose response relationship, I will respond to it.
Since over half of ASD diagnoses are linked to specific genes and fetal rubella syndrome can lead to an ASD diagnosis, demonstrating one cause does not disprove a different one. However, the large scale epidemiological studies that have been done show that any connection between vaccines and autism is extremely low probability.
But how about first simply replying to Julian’s request and my previous questions?
I will add a few other questions for you, Stewart.
On March 11, you referred to the Mawson pilot study and indirectly referred to it on the 12th.
Was that a prospective or retrospective study?
How were the health records of the vaccinated and unvaccinated children verified?
Can you provide a link to the final published version of the study? (It was first published and then retracted.)
Johnny MARCH 16, 2018 AT 1:12 AM
In other anti-vaccine news, The Kid tries to call down a troll storm. The problem is he only has maybe 4 fanbois and 2 sock puppets (I may be overestimating the fanbois). The result would be more of a troll dampening.
http://www.autisminvestigated.com/congresswoman-baloney/
Reply
Ha,ha.ha 4 fan bois Ha,ha,ha
He writes fanbois twice Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha, Lets see where he is against transgenders… Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha… Idiots… Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha
Stewart is not now and never was an actual human being. It is, rather, a badly malfunctioning chat bot.
Stewart,
some friendly advice: don’t let your pre-teen use your computer while your blog comments autofill.
Most everyone’s first brains realize that glyphosate 1) is not an antibiotic, 2) does not cause autism, 3) whatever traces of it may be found in food or beverages are so tiny as to be insignificant, and 4) glyphosate is a far safer herbicide than other herbicides whose use was commonplace in pre-GMO days (such as atrazine, arsenic etc.).
It takes a secondary pea-brain to conclude that glyphosate is some sort of deadly peril.
Dangerous Bacon- glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in human history; is found in 60% of UK bread, in crackers, crisps, and breakfast cereals; the EU voted on whether to revoke it’s licence; it’s residues were found in 45% of Europe’s topsoils; found in the urine of 75% of Germans tested, at 5 times the legal limit for drinking water; a WHO IARC 2015 study found that it was probably carcinogenic to humans. I simply present this as opposition to your contention that only traces are found in food or beverages and the ‘pea-brain’ slur to those who may consider it’s ubiquitous use a peril. It is a highly debated and contentious topic.
The fact that glyphosate is found in a lot of places does not make it dangerous.
When it is found it is in traces. Detection equipment is getting more and more sophisticated allowing the detection of smaller and small concentrations of compounds. Even so, some of the more scary findings are by activist groups misusing ELISA. Often the LOQ is not given, or the values reported are below the LOQ.
While the IARC classified glyphosate as a probable carcinogen, they did this based on a very small sample of the data. The US EPA assessed all the available data and concluded glyphosate was unlikely to be a carcinogen at normal exposures. The largest ever study of pesticide applicators over 2 decades failed to identify a link between glyphosate use and additional cancers.
This is actually a good thing.
found in the urine of 75% of Germans tested, at 5 times the legal limit for drinking water
That has completely put me off the idea of drinking the urine of Germans.
Do they had that result during Oktoberfest?
Alain
Chris Preston- I am making NO case for the dangers, say of cancer, or otherwise of this herbicide nor trying to present a case for or against it’s use. What I am trying to convey is that the institutions and their scientists involved in the disputes of the issues are not and should not be maligned as ‘pea brained’. ( Stewart is not included in those contesting the issues since he has no expertise- he may be pea-brained but I suspect his frontal cortex lobe neurons have become re-aligned to his detriment).
The German example was simply an illustration of the possibility of larger than trace quantities entering the human body.This may or may not be a good thing regardless of the efficiency of the kidneys to eliminate the glyphosate or it’s metabolites. Is it not feasible that trace amounts consumed in a variety of foods can result in a larger amount in total? What studies have been done in humans to explore this concept? Are the tests with the latest every sensitive equipment being used to explore mixed diets over a wide range of foods? Are scientists just looking for any link ( cause and effect) between this herbicide and cancer.? Are there not possibly many other subtle, as yet undetected , deleterious effects of cumulative amounts of this herbicide perhaps even combined with many other pollutants entering our bodies from a variety of sources. It is not a question of scaring anybody. These have been legitimate questions for many years. So I hope you will agree that there is potential for further research on these matters.
It in fact does no such thing. Glyphosate is highly water soluble. Urine is a water matrix for excretion of waste molecules in concentrated form. If you consumed glyphosate in water at the legal limit, you should excrete it at higher than the legal limit.
Observational studies of those that have been exposed to glyphosate. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00003-014-0927-3
Yes. They typically find glyphosate at levels considerably below the RfD.
Yes, but it is now very much an academic exercise. The largest ever study of herbicide applicators failed to find a link between using glyphosate and cancer. https://academic.oup.com/jnci/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jnci/djx247/4633859
Probably not. Given the number of studies and amount of scrutiny any significant deleterious effect should have surfaced by now.
Chris Preston- thanks for these considered and informative comments. You have clarified some unanswered questions which I thought legitimate. It was not something that animated me particularly.
Chris Preston – I have found no mechanism, using standard physiology texts. to support your notion that highly water soluble molecules, with no physiological purpose are concentrated to levels higher than that to which the humans were originally exposed. A highly soluble molecule I used to know much about,with a limited capacity for resorption was vitamin C which showed no signs of the concentrating mechanism you allude to.
Your reasoning and physiology is incorrect.The first reference you link supports exactly my original contention that the urinary levels of highly water soluble glyphosate ARE an indication of intake levels. It appears you didn’t even read your own reference.
I make no claim for the validity or otherwise of the ‘ German study’.
Your view, and that’s all it is, that further studies on glyphosate are ‘academic’, I presume to mean that they will not produce results significantly different to those already acquired which indicate safety and particularly no evidence for carcinogenicity.
Well the experts ( IARC and EHP) in their reports have indicated where data is sparse, inadequate, insufficient quantitatively and other considerations that do not allow conclusions yet with a sufficient degree of certainty.They would disagree with your dismissive assertion that further research is ‘academic’.
The reference YOU link also indicates the necessity for more research.
I read elsewhere that Hodgkins lymphoma takes about 20 years to develop, hence the need for long term studies.
How can you know the results of future research before it has been conducted?. I think your bias is being self-exposed. Further research may well consolidate previous conclusions but the reverse is also possible.
The hypothesis regards glyphosate and cancer is still to be tested to the satisfaction of those who understand the problem: that is the experts, which you are not.
Hypotheses are nets; only he who casts will catch.
The AHS involves health records going back to 1993. As of last November it is still coming up negative. So the hypothesis that glyphosate causes cancer is less and less likely to be true.
https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/atniehs/labs/epi/studies/ahs/index.cfm
The mechanism is called evaporation. You input water by drinking it, including contaminants like glyphosate. Your body excretes sweat which evaporates to control the body temperature. Contaminants which are not metabolized or stored in tissue eventually get excreted in urine at a higher concentration because there is less water to dissolve them in.
I see Leonard is Just Asking Questions about glyphosate.Too bad he hasn’t looked carefully into the answers.
Making alarmist comments about how glyphosate residues are ubiquitous is highly reminiscent of antivaxers blatting about Toxins in vaccines, while ignoring the elementary principle that the dose makes the poison.
As for IARC, not only are its conclusions an outlier, unsupported by the vast majority of published research and the findings of other regulatory bodies, it’s been reported that key evidence casting doubt on IARC’s conclusions was edited out of its final report. And a central figure pushing the glyphosate-cancer link was an IARC scientist who failed to disclose that he was working with (and getting handsomely paid) by lawyers handling lawsuits in reference to glyphosate claims.*
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/who-iarc-glyphosate/
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/weedkiller-scientist-was-paid-120-000-by-cancer-lawyers-v0qggbrk6
*I’m reminded of a formerly respected scientist who also neglected to disclose that a lawyers’ group paid him big bucks, in hopes he’d trash the MMR vaccine and make it easier for them to win huge judgments from vaccine makers. Workfield? Wakeman? I’m sure the name will come to me.
Dangerous Bacon- I did not ask any questions so no need to research answers as you suggest. Glyphosate being ubiquitous is only an alarmist fact in your mind. Drawing parallels with anti-vaxxers is not relevant, except to score points. You seem to be using their type of conspiracy ideas against the WHO and others! The questions and science regards pollutants, agricultural or other, and their potential or actual environmental as well as human effects is nothing like as established or settled as is the science behind and the use of vaccines. The problems are much greater and more difficult to unravel.You appear to think otherwise based on dose response. I do not ignore this. I just do not know what the dose is. I have asked questions of Chris Preston which I will not repeat here .I have no settled view regards whose research has more validity either side of the argument; I await the experts, and I predict, their continuing research and reports on still remaining problems. Whichever side these eventually favor it is bizarre to malign the participants as ‘pea-brain’. ( Not including Stewart, who is not a scientific contributor to the research and debate)
Ahem:
Smut Clyde-were you planning to travel to Germany to imbibe or is there an import facility that you can access? Either way I have saved you some money with my few facts extracted from a Guardian piece. My good deed for the week.
Griping about a lack of “settled” science is not just common to antivaxers, Leonard – it’s also a tactic used by climate change deniers as well as GMO-phobes. I note you ignore the problems with IARC’s glyphosate report and the much larger body of work validating its safety (especially in comparison to herbicides formerly used on a wide scale). Here’s some more reading for you.*
https://gmo.geneticliteracyproject.org/FAQ/is-glyphosate-roundup-dangerous/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/15/no-cancer-risk-to-using-glyphosate-weedkiller-says-eu-watchdog
I suggest you spend more time “researching” the evidence, instead of passing on uninformed prejudice in the name of “asking questions” and berating posters who come bearing facts, on the grounds that they are Meanies.
*I’d hope that in future your statements about glyphosate and cancer reflect the scientific consensus on this subject rather than just regurgitating the flawed IARC report, but I’m not optimistic about that.
Dangerous Bacon-Problems of the effects of pollutants is an ongoing problem. It is impossible to be ‘settled’ since the variables are changing regularly. I accept the present consensus of expert opinion but I also know that could change depending on further research and evidence that will occur. My temporary opinion will coincide with the expert consensus, if there is one. I am not ignoring anything but I lack your apparent certainty on these matters. If there is no evidence of say increased incidences of cancer due to glyphosate exposure, after suitable research, then I’m fine with that. And glad.The problem is what type of research is even possible to settle such a matter? Is the epidemiology ongoing? My uninformed facts were simply drawn from a Guardian piece and have nothing to do with any prejudices I may have. Clearly this was insufficient. I am berating no one on the issues just you for your ‘pea-brain’ assertion . Does that make you a meany?
Try reading the articles and their source material instead of continuing your embarrassing duck-and-dodge fest, Leonard.
The pea-brain remark was primarily directed towards Stewart (who has amply earned it), but is applicable to anyone who proclaims that glyphosate is a major toxic threat to human health (but hasn’t bothered to do any reading other than cherry-picked defective research and nonsensical meme-shouting from anti-GMO and organic industry sources). Such evidence of harm does not exist, the Stephanie Seneffs of the world not withstanding.
One of my favorite glyphosate memes involves trace residues found in wine (! the horror!), forgetting that alcohol itself is a proven toxic and carcinogenic substance. It’s also been breathlessly announced that wine tasters can detect ppb levels of glyphosate and other pesticides, and that it ruins the taste. The level of self-delusion is striking.
https://www.momsacrossamerica.com/pesticides_proven_to_change_the_taste_of_wines
Dangerous Bacon- I am reading your articles and very interesting they are. I just do not understanding your accusation of ‘dodge and duck fest’. Damned if I agree damned if I don’t. The sciences involved in ‘human health’ are numerous, complicated and messy. I have made my attitude clear- I think! I have no intention of entering into a dialogue/argument with you , or anybody, in any detail about glyphosate or any other agricultural chemical. I know well the commercial and practical arguments for their use. Even Orac has made a passing comment that we could do with less of these chemicals if possible. The argument is it is not possible.There seems a vast distance between your statement’ a major toxic threat to human health’ and the one I quoted ‘a possible human carcinogen’. Do you know of any reputable scientist or institution in the field ( no pun intended) who makes such a claim as ‘ major toxic threat to human health’?
I make no defense , nor is it possible, of Stewart except that it may not be the size of his brain at fault, but possibly the wiring.
Leonard, six somewhat lengthy comments is a lot of “not entering into a discussion”.
Would you please read this article about the IARC classification and tell me what you think of it?
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/glyphosate-cancer-data/
Personally, I’d like to see these data published soon. It’s been 2 years now. They should have been able to squeeze out at least one MPU by now.
There are a lot of studies on glyphosate, but I haven’t seen one that strongly implicates it at levels likely in food or water. Do you knoow of one?
squirrelelite- My comments so far don’t even scratch the surface of possible debate on these matters. The latest US Environment Agency Report alone is over 200 pages. The IARC monograph on glyphosate about 90 pages. The IARC response ( particularly answering Reuters criticisms) is only 10 pages . There are 100s of pages , many of which are being used in litigation on the US Right to Know site; and much more. I haven’t the will/tenacity to digest that lot in preparation for a debate that may still lead me back to my position of a provisional acceptance of a consensus of scientific opinion on this and any other scientific matter. Any of us can post articles to support our view. I am still trying to locate a letter signed by over 100 reputable scientists supporting the IARC monograph. There is a mix of politics, commercial vested interests and science and it’s a mess I will leave to others with more certainty that they are on the correct trail. I will read and form a temporary opinion as the evidence leads me.
I only asked you to read one news article and respond to it.
That was from last summer, but a PubMed search still didn’t find Blair’s study.
Do you have a link for the IARC response?
And surely you have at least one source that shows a strong connection to be so concerned.
squirrelelite- the IARC response covers in detail the answers you want. Go to their website. It’s there, and more. I am not so concerned , it’s just that one comment leads to another and merits a reply. Are you asking for a reference that shows a strong causative link between glyphosate and cancer? Why would I have such ‘information’ when the best the IARC can come up with is ‘probable’ and the US Environment Agency says ‘none’.
OK. Perhaps we (tinw) could start with how glyphosate works.
Narad – you are too clever by half. I’ve already commented on why a debate cannot take place between myself and other bloggers and since the expertise is already on display you can read whatever at your leisure. You can read how glyphosate works by reading the IARC monograph and perhaps a plant toxicology textbook. Why would you wish to know from me, a novice? I could fairly easily duplicate from the Monograph or Wiki but to what purpose? Methinks to drag me into a debate with no end since even the experts disagree. And perhaps give you an opening here and there to ply your expert trade at ridicule, sarcasm and more. I think not sir.
Narad- I stand corrected. Nevertheless these are legitimate questions to answer for those who have certainty on these matters. I do not have such certainty therefore leave these questions for others to ponder. Most of what I have read indicates these are difficult questions that have no definitive answers.
Yeah, that’s one hell of a lot of “no intention of entering into a dialogue/argument” by Leonard.
Here’s the thing (as Leonard might say on the Big Bang Theory): stating that glyphosate residues in food/beverages have not been found to be a human health threat is not a statement of scientific “certainty” – it’s that evidence supporting such a conclusion just isn’t there, despite the IARC’s report (wonder what it would take our Leonard to acknowledge the behind the scenes flummery and gross conflict of interest leading to that report?). Lacking such evidence (and given the extensive evidence supporting glyphosate’s safe use (also unacknowledged by Leonard), one should probably be cautious spreading alarums and citing such luminaries as U.S. Right To Know.*
“Do you know of any reputable scientist or institution in the field ( no pun intended) who makes such a claim as ‘ major toxic threat to human health’?”
Exactly. 😉 Those who do tend to be of the Seneff and Seralini variety, plus the usual threadbare assortment of “scientists” who tend heavily to have expertise (such as it is) in unrelated fields. We’ve encountered similar letters/statements by “reputable” scientists before, on everything from vaccination to water fluoridation. Somehow it isn’t impressive to get a hundred signatures from alleged scientists/health professionals on an issue, when vastly greater numbers of far more qualified and experienced professionals have opposing views.
*USRTK was the subject of Oracian insolence awhile back, over its harassment and sliming of Kevin Folta, a pro-biotech scientist. USRTK’s truth impairment problems may have something to do with the group’s acceptance of funding from the organic food industry via the Organic Consumers Association, which also has an unsavory antivax reputation. Anti-GMO activism and antivax proclivities often overlap.
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2016/01/11/transparency-should-not-mean-a-license-to-harass-scientists/
http://www.marklynas.org/2016/08/anti-gmo-group-usrtk-attacks-uc-davis-scientists-refusing-answer-questions-anti-vaccination-links/#more-1792
Dangerous Bacon- a meaningful dialogue on glyphosate is conducted by those in the know, that maybe you but it is not me. You read a few of the possible references in squirrelelite. I do not state US Right to Know’s opinion ( if they have one even) just that they have loads of documents relating to the subject with which I have no desire or energy and perhaps ability to engage for use on this blog . So you know already without having read ‘ the letter’, the credentials of the signatories based on other similar ‘letters’ ( I think that is referred to as bias or worse prejudice). Me I’ll wait to read it, if it exists. A careful reading of the IARC response to criticisms is quite rewarding.
I’d be tempted to ask what is “quite rewarding”, but then again we must remember you’re not debating or engaging in any sort of dialogue, and don’t actually have any opinions, just questions that Must Be Asked.
If you ever summon sufficient “desire or energy”, here are a couple more analyses of the IARC debacle that make rewarding reading.
https://thoughtscapism.com/2016/11/06/iarc-under-fire-from-scientists-mission-outdated-methods-lacking/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/geoffreykabat/2017/10/23/iarcs-glyphosate-gate-scandal/2/#7524612a18eb
Dangerous Bacon- you will find the answer to ‘quite rewarding’ if you read the IARCs response to critics. Rewarding to me may be anathema to you. I have never said I am not engaging in any sort of dialogue just not what would be required to do justice to the dispute. Since you may have unlimited capacities for argumentative blogging let me challenge you to read the IARC response and take it apart statement by statement and show where they are in error or whatever. ‘s too long to blog I will offer my email address for posting. I have an opinion, already stated, if you can understand what I mean by saying it coincides with consensus of scientific opinion but held on a provisional basis in case further evidence accrues to change it.
Alain- I appreciate your humor. You should realize I just picked out that ‘fact’ from a Guardian article to illustrate the point that larger than trace quantities can be found in the human organism. That’s it. I have no profound feeling that this powerful evidence for anything.
Thanks,
I needed the humor. (offtopic alert), I think I opened a gigantic can of worm at school and I got myself threading carefully around landmines (figuratively speaking of course). More later in the open thread.
Alain
Leonard: “let me challenge you to read the IARC response and take it apart statement by statement and show where they are in error or whatever.”
That’s not the way it works around here. He who makes the claim (in your case, that glyphosate is carcinogenic), supplies the evidence. Challenging others to ‘prove me’ (or my source) wrong doesn’t cut it.
Dangerous Bacon – the way it should work is that you don’t attribute opinions, views or whatever that are not held by the recipient. I have made no claims that you attribute to me. I offer the IARC report and their rebuttal of critics for the ‘probably carcinogenic’ conclusion and the EPHA 2016 report with concludes the opposite.My position is clear. I am not sure about yours unless it’s that of the EPHA. If it is then we are as one. Perhaps you feel there will never be further evidence that could alter these conclusions. But that is not the way science works! Finally I am not challenging you to ‘prove’ anything. I was just offering it , as you have done for me, as a source from which you may have some food for thought. Do what you will with it although I would have been pleased to read of any sensible critical thoughts on it
Oh, and another classic: “you may have unlimited capacities for argumentative blogging”.
This is rich, coming from someone who has posted numerous lengthy responses and now, trapped without evidence to support his position, falls back on a variant of “I have better things to do with my time”.
We’ve seen this dodge many times.
Dangerous Bacon – use that valuable time to study and respond to the IARC rebuttal of it’s critics rather than trying to score points at my expense. How so trapped without evidence when I have before me a great deal but particularly the Environmental Protection Agency Report 2016 and the IARC report and my present opinion must relate to the EPAR conclusions? I do have other things to do with my time but I have given reasons why it is futile on a blog to rehearse all the arguments for and against the issue. You have guided me to several articles which I have read thoroughly and matched those with numerous findings independently of your suggestions. There is no ‘dodge’ except that of being goaded by you into exchanges that will lead nowhere except allow you to rehearse your smart-alec put-downs.. I do have much time to read about these things but to share my thoughts with you, other than those already posted, I will not do.
“I have made no claims that you attribute to me.”. Uh-huh. Your one-sided JAQing off on the subject is obvious.
“Perhaps you feel there will never be further evidence that could alter these conclusions. But that is not the way science works!”
As previously stated: the way science works is that one presents evidence to support a theory. If evidence is lacking, one does not say “well, there could be evidence discovered in the future to support my claims, therefore my theory must be respected!”. As matters now stand, the evidence heavily supports safety of glyphosate use, without a demonstrated cancer risk or other significant health effects on humans. The same cannot be said for herbicides that glyphosate largely replaced.
Good luck with your reading.
Dangerous Bacon- there you go again, unable to accept what I state is my provisional opinion. Believe otherwise if you wish but you are wrong to suppose I think as you say I do. Even the EPAR recommends many different aspects of the research that still needs doing They are not recommending this to ‘prove’ or support their conclusions but to get closer to the reality of things, wherever the science takes them. If the research is ever done it may or may not result in a different conclusion that may alter the present consensus.Who knows? Certainly not you or me.
I have learned a lot since first quoting a few ‘facts’ from the Guardian.
Thanks for the good wishes.
Sadly, this is another situation in which “the reality of things” does not equate to “what I choose to believe”.
Suggestion: Next time, bring facts – and omit the tone trolling.
Dangerous Bacon – that’s a new one for me; ‘tone trolling’. But then I am new to this blogging business. The consensus will probably, in most instances, get closer to the reality of things which is something that will guide me in my ‘beliefs’.
I must try harder to find some facts. Thanks again for good advice
For my own edification, I looked up and read the IARC response from January 2018 published on 2/2/18. Most of it is a defense of their process and there are no substantive discussions of the rationale for their decision other than to note that
and
However, the November 2017 update of the AHS
https://academic.oup.com/jnci/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jnci/djx233/4590280
states that:
This is especially noteworthy because the AHS reviews the health of agricultural workers who are exposed to much greater doses of glyphosate in their day to day work than the trace amounts people might consume later after washing and processing foods grown where it is used.
The first part of the IARC response discusses two articles, one by Reuters (October 2015) and one by Forbes (March 2015). The Forbes article was deleted after revelations that it was ghostwritten by Monsanto. However, the Reuters article is still posted online and Forbes ran a new article discussing the same criticisms in October 2017.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/geoffreykabat/2017/10/23/iarcs-glyphosate-gate-scandal/#1967e36d1abd
The IARC does not attempt to explain how they came to different conclusions from those other agencies.
I also noticed that the IARC classifies very hot beverages such as coffee as a 2A carcinogen like glyphosate.
As far as I know, the IARC hasn’t revised its classification of cell phone radiation as a 2B carcinogen despite the completion of a Danish study that was underway in 2011 which subsequently showed no association between cell phone use and brain cancer.
The IARC also did not mention the meta-analysis performed by Chang and Delzell and published in March 2016.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4866614/
This analysis discusses the IARC results, has multiple sources for various types of cancer analyzed and concludes:
squirrelelite – if this analysis is for my consumption ( since I suggested ‘another’ do thus although he declined) then I thank you for the constructive , critical comments and the references of which one I had already read ( Kabat). It reinforces my present opinion especially the discrepancy between ‘hazard’ and ‘risk’.
Could someone please page Ren?
Read, think, reason, tell us what you really think and believe.
If you do those, we can have an interesting discussion even if we don’t necessarily agree.
I did that research to satisfy my own curiosity.
squirrelelite – since you did the research for your own curiosity are my thanks out of place? I read and am reading, thinking always and doing my best to reason although it seems that my principle of provisional opinion does not satisfy anybody including you. I don’t see how it could be otherwise. You appear to be attempting to force me to’ believe’ something which I do not so that you can have an interesting opposing discussion.Well it would be most difficult for me to play devils advocate with regard the science . There is plenty of other scope for discussion of some of the politics and Monsanto’s role in all this but it is not something I wish to do. I’ll keep reading.Thanks for a courteous reply.
Based on what squirrelite posted, it sounds like IARC is doubling down on its outlier analysis instead of showing interest in reevaluating its recommendations in light of compelling research it “overlooked” the first time.
I had posted a link to Dr. Kabat’s article in Forbes previously. I think the deleted Forbes article squirrelite refers to was written by Henry Miller of ACSH, who didn’t tell Forbes that much of it was supplied by Monsanto. Reuters’ investigative reporting on the other hand (which has resulted in bitter attacks on it by anti-GMOers) is excellent.
I’m afraid though that whatever evidence is presented to Leonard on glyphosate’s safety, he’ll ignore it and/or continue to hint at yet unexplored dangers, while insisting that he’s fence-straddling on principle.
DB – You have it exactly wrong. I am ignoring nothing, but reading all I can on glyphosate and the issues surrounding it. The EHA report at the moment is heavy going. I am not hinting at anything. The evidence,whatever, will speak for itself. I am not fence straddling but have the opinion as yourself , squirrelelite and probably many others that the evidence points to safety. If you wish to believe this is set in stone, so be it You need to be a little open minded ( not completely or ‘it’ may all fall out) to the possibility of changing evidence , to further strengthen the case for safety or diminish it. This principle will hold for most anything you believe at present time. Our knowledge should always have an element of uncertainty in it. The problem is not with what we don’t know but what we think we know that just isn’t so.
I hope this isn’t ‘tone trolling’
FTFY.
QED
The “it’s not settled science” argument, antivax division:
http://www.anh-usa.org/vaccine-science-is-not-settled-a-critical-review-of-the-literature/
Tone trolling defined:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Tone_argument
Narad – Agreed re plausibility but go further – more than just an element but a great deal. You may not like uncertainty as part of scientific knowledge but it’s whole history, in whatever field, illustrates my contention.
You have yet to advance a mechanism of action. Animals don’t have a shikimate pathway.
Narad – mechanism of action of what? Is this some reference to the action of glyphosate on certain plants? If so , since you know of shikimate then you’ll have no trouble with glyphosate in plants. I am so glad to learn of the absence of the shikimate biochemical pathway in animals.
Um, glyphosate’s being a human carcinogen?
Narad – I fail to understand why you persist in asking me for a mechanism of action of glyphosate as a human carcinogen. You cannot attribute to me a view I do not hold if that is your purpose! If this causation was established and a mechanism was worked out , and I was aware of it, then I would refer you to the expert source.
As an aside, you wouldn’t necessarily need to have a mechanism to know whether a treatment was effective or a deleterious effect was apparent, although it’s good science if a mechanism can be established. There are examples with which I can illustrate if you think I am in error.
Re vaccination: lack of it is being cited in a measles outbreak in Ireland:
“The HSE said the continued spread of infection is due to failure to vaccinate. To achieve “herd immunity”, up to 95% of the population must be vaccinated.”
“However, Limerick city and county have been consistently below the target for the past number of years.”
“One measles case is in Co Clare but is linked to the Limerick outbreak.”
“Almost two-thirds of cases are aged between 15 and 40 years “demonstrating that measles is not just an illness of childhood”, the HSE said.”
“Half of those affected have been hospitalised.”
“The outbreak, which began in January, was imported by a patient who had travelled to the Middle East over Christmas.”
https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/measles-outbreak-continues-to-grow-as-25-cases-identified-468616.html
Though maybe we should emphasize the uncertainty of linking preventable disease outbreaks to insufficient vaccination. Scientists may one day find that measles resurgence is actually due to phases of the moon, or glyphosate exposure.
DB – I wasn’t going to reply but your final paragraph warrants it, being so willfully ignorant for one so highly trained ( I assume as a pathologist). I have tried to say before, that the uncertainties that exist around the whole subject of vaccination are nothing in comparison to that with regards say agricultural chemicals and their known and unknown effects, in spite of a lot being known. There are degrees/spectrum of different types uncertainty in all science ( and all knowledge that tries to explain how the world is or was). We are on permanently shifting ground. Like it or not. Even some of the strongest supported theories are possible to be overturned. See Kuhn on paradigm shifts. Consider Newton and Einstein as an extreme example.Your attempt to link by association my use of ‘uncertainty’ which is based on some philosophy of science and history of science reading with that of the wingnut anti-vaxers’ use, simply because the words and syntax used are the same does you no credit. CONTEXT is everything. As an analogy,
the Nazis organized massive exercise displays and routines to help develop their ‘master’ race. By association we shouldn’t be using the same methods to improve our health and wellbeing because we all know how evil ( if that’s a strong enough description) the Nazis were. Patently a nonsensical argument.
Uh, I think Dangerous Bacon’s last paragraph was intended to be a joke. Having read DB’s posts for years I am confident that they did not mean that piece seriously.
GR is an extremely bad example. For all practical purposes, it languished for some 50 years. I can’t remember the conference that brought theoretical interest back around (including gravitational waves), but I might have the proceedings saved somewhere. I think I was hipped to it at Peter Woit’s joint, in case you want to go hunting for yourself.
JustaTech – I also have now read much of DBs ( and others’) Orac blog entries going back some years and think I now understand the style and temper of what is going on. I respect a ‘colleague’ speaking in defense of another although you know he is more than capable of defending himself and is usually on the offensive with most things. I think you need to re-read the whole of our recent exchanges to see how the argument has evolved and how he is ‘needled’ by my refusal to ‘play the game’ by his dictate. I know I am not the usual ‘opponent’ he faces on this site. In any event I agree with most everything I read here but just occasionally see something that doesn’t ‘look’ right and comment. This of course results in further dialogue and it snowballs.You are correct that there is some intention of jest, but at my expense for which I do not complain since I am on an irreverent blogging site and entered the fray of my own accord. Apart from jest there is also his intent to denigrate and slur me by attempting a similarity of my arguments with those of the dumbo ant-vaxers’. It is this I contest in whatever way I am able.
OK then. I would say that we often have conversations here that don’t involve two people being “opponents” but rather are discussions. (And sometimes we have verbal knock-down drag-out fights, too.)
As a favor, could you please use more paragraph breaks? They make long posts much easier to read and understand. Thanks!
JustaTech – yes there are discusions ; also when an anti-vaxer appears he becomes your opponent. DB has placed me in the position of an opponent because he misunderstands ( along with others) my evolving position.
I am not anticipating writing much more, but if necessary then more paras. it is. I appreciate your civility.
Oh fer Og’s sake.
Leonard, you’re not nearly as unique as you seem to think. We have all encountered numerous tone trolls here and elsewhere (you’ve had an opportunity to check out the definition) as well as commenters who willfully disregard evidence that counters their world view, think others should “prove me wrong” and go on about how Science Wuz Wrong Before. It’s all familiar (in a mildly nauseating sort of way) and heavily associated with antivaxers and other woo devotees.
So if it bugs you being associated with such folk, try different tactics to promote your views.
And yeah, I don’t really think either moon phases or glyphosate cause measles outbreaks. It’s clearly the influence of Cthulhu. R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!
DB – I do not consider myself unique with any comments I make. I am sure you have noticed I am not an original thinker. You attempt to erroneously relate my views to to those of your more irrational contributors and stick a label on me that will help your cause of belittlement. It doesn’t really matter since I know where my sympathies reside even if you don’t.
You have said nothing that counters my view of how science and knowledge grows: you denigrate by association. I am not attempting at all for you or anybody ‘ to prove me wrong’. There is nothing to prove.
If you don’t believe that, say, the study of glyphosate is an ongoing project, as is all knowledge, that’s OK but the EPA report , which you may rightly invoke as the best evidence so far, , says different, and I’ll be guided by those experts.
If you are not persuaded so far by my views,which I consider almost self-evident, and attribute them to some well regarded thinkers and practitioners, then my only revised tactic would be to recommend reading some of the writers I have already mentioned in previous posts to Alain. I have more titles/authors if you wish and I will guide you if you are interested.
I am glad you have worked out to your satisfaction, at last, the cause of measles outbreaks. I personally don’t think it has anything to do with Finnegan’s Wake. We’ll agree to differ.
Narad – I used the Newton -Einstein example of how the most well established theories can change. I am sure if you wanted to you could provide other more suitable examples, that is if you you consider correct my main contentions.
The real problem with widespread use of glyphosate:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10215845355512585&set=gm.1019594828205157&type=3&theater
How many are easily manipulated and paid off? Edward Bernays made us all think that bacon and eggs were a good American breakfast. Yet he did!
Edward Bernays also convinced the general public that we need to add fluoride to our water supply, and it was one of the most sophisticated cons of all time. It created a multi-billion dollar industry and enabled manufacturers to sell this worthless toxic byproduct of aluminum to local municipalities for a profit.
The EPA does not allow you to dump fluoride from industrial production, into the ground, into rivers, creeks, because it is a hazardous waste. However if you re-label it as a product necessary for human health, and that it shows beneficial effects to teeth, feel free to dump hazardous waste into our drinking water. This study from the 1950’s was made by the aluminum industry, and as of today the FDA never approved it. Now we observe, 60% of what is called hazardous waste, from industrial companies, not pharmaceutical grade companies, is dumped into drinking water
Fluoride damages the micro-biome, its already proven so, if someone reads Pubmed, or Journals from the NCBI, they may have an understanding.
It created a multi-billion dollar industry and enabled manufacturers to sell this worthless toxic byproduct of aluminum to local municipalities for a profit.
I realise that “looking like a lazy scuzzy plagiarist” is the least of your concerns. But still, why regurge copy-pasta that you find circulating around the intertubes? Do you think that people won’t notice the contrast between the relatively grammatical material, and your usual gibberish? Is it some kind of Human Centipede cosplay?
Smut Clyde I doubt if you ever did much research on Edward Bernays, look back on the tank of your toilet bowl, they are most likely Archie comic books.Tell me about Edward Bernays in a scholarly fashion, otherwise begone, everyone know’s about Edward Bernays, Smut Clyde
I think you have rose to the height, of all your vapid, and rancid glory. Is this group dedicated to a more intellectual approach?. Why would anyone listen to the clueless, paid-off, knuckleheads rants, of Smut Glory. Does this group want to show me they are a serious open group, that are science based?
Why would this group want to insist to me, they are not shills of the pharmaceutical industry, when bias appears? Is that a scientific method, is that science if it makes you feel more important, or prouder, reduced to the state of rude remarks. Awesome, high five Smut Clyde!! Gleefully point your finger at me Smut Clyde, then incredulously look around in this room for support, of a rude remark. Prance around thinking of how smart you are, that you have the slave-masters approval, yes go and collect a paycheck. When you wake up in the morning, and look into the mirror, what type of man do you see? A sell-out, before mankind’s reality.
This site has no credibility, that is why no balance is here.
Edward Bernays certainly claimed to have made bacon-n-eggs into the US breakfast, because he was a self-promoting blowhard. And there are half-a-hundred clickbait websites plagiarising one another and uncritically retailing that claim, because, well, clickbait websites are about material more than facts.
Regurging what you read on those clickbait websites does demonstrate something about human gullibility, if not necessarily what you intended.
Which do you recommend?
Smut Cycle, actually has the plagiarism of all doctors from the 1950’s; vaccines are good for you. There is no original 2018 thoughts, in this man.
Just this mindless robotic being blathering on, here let them inject you. That is why they chose him, Smart Cycle is the chosen one, of the 1960’s Doctors and the pharmaceutical industry today.
Dude, whoever your dealer is, he’s not selling you the good stuff.
Hardware stores tend to have limited selections.
“Why would anyone listen to the clueless, paid-off, knuckleheads rants, of Smut Glory.”
I’m not sure how one would “listen” to a post unless one’s aural and visual inputs were scrambled by a mind-altering drug – perhaps poor-quality magic mushrooms purchased on Craigslist.
That would explain Stewart’s sentence structure and general incoherence.
Dangerous Bacon, stop eating the bacon, you are a paid shill. Just admit it, someone pay’s you to respond. Good grief, we all see that, Porkhead…sizzle away..
Dangerous Bacon is the main shill of this site, we all know it..
Can anyone expand and state what they know of the micro-biome? Probably not, because the people here all have paid beliefs. We may be all be cajoled to believe in Tinker Bell, however someday, we all have to grow up.
I’ll just leave this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRDKkQxCZ2M
You spent 6 days looking for a subject to change to, and the best you could come up with is fluoridation?
Bernays was also a tobacco shill, but so what?
And still ready to spout claims without even a prima facie case to support them.
Plus ca change!
Squirrelelite – the paper linked to me to read by Chris showed that the author considers the urinary levels are a good biomarker of intake, with calculations made for reabsorption etc. The levels in fact were low and not considered of any meaningful risk.
How much concentration is possible effected by sweating I know not but I am sure the investigators are aware of this possibility yet still consider urinary level a good biomarker.
I suppose the ‘German’ results make be completely anomalous and possibly obtained under severe conditions causing profuse sweating. Again, I know not.
You may be correct in that there is a reducing probability of evidence emerging showing a causative effect between glyphosate and Hodgkins lymphoma. But that doesn’t negate the research that has been indicated by experts that still needs doing, for different reasons, before a more definitive statement other than ‘ unlikely to be causative’ can be uttered.That is not ‘just academic’ it is good science.
Thanks for your considered reply.
As more than 90% of glyphosate is eliminated from the body within 24 h of absorption, detection in urine is a good biomarker of exposure. Given the amount of glyphosate used, it would be surprising if people were not exposed to trace amounts of glyphosate.
The problem is in comparing these values to the allowed amount in drinking water. The EU has a tolerance of 0.1 µg/L for glyphosate + AMPA. This is approximately 9,000 times lower than the amount that could pose a health risk if present in water. The fact that some individuals had 5 times or even 10 times the amount allowed in drinking water in their urine is not a health issue. As far as glyphosate risks go, you could quite safely drink this urine.
It is not good science, it is hand waving.
There will indeed be more research; however, there is no known causative mechanism for glyphosate to cause cancer and the largest ever study of those most exposed to glyphosate has found nothing. Animal studies have essentially found nothing significant in rats and only in mice at the highest doses – thousands of times normal human exposure. Calling for more research because you don’t like the results is bias, not good science.
I’ll see Narad’s video and raise it with this:
C’mon man, get it together.
Damn, this is like antique Ollie and Sifl.
Sifl and Olly, my bad. Vlad turned me on to that show (we didn’t have MTV growing up.) A real solace during grad school.
ROCK!
For puppetry, Bill Jackson did some pretty zany stuff (and he’s a really nice guy). I might as well throw in Bill Oddie, OBE, bless his heart, as doing the music for The Goodies, which is equally, charmingly weird.
Chris Preston – You may think that results so far clinch it The teams of experts considering the same evidence think otherwise and are continuing investigation: and this means they are ‘hand waving’ and not practicing good science? Tell them. Fancy wasting all that money! Sounds a ridiculous notion to me.
We are told to take head of the experts because we, all of us, are lacking in certain areas of expertise. When you don’t like what they are doing it’s bad science.-bias. It maybe but we’ll disagree on that one.
I have already, elsewhere, I think to Narad, stated that a mechanism may not be in place before a substance can be judged safe or otherwise or effective as a treatment. There are many examples. I would think it the most common situation.
I take the point about comparing permitted amounts in drinking water with urinary levels although I will not be imbibing any of such liquid even if there are persons who claim this has health benefits.
!
Who exactly are these teams of experts? What specific research are they calling to be done?
However, in this case not only is their no known mechanism, but also the largest ever study of those most exposed has found no link. What are you expecting additional research to do?
Chris Preston – The experts, the existence of whom you seem to question, I will not try to list for you can do that research yourself, but they are those who are assembled by the US Environmental Protection Agency and are responsible for the Glyphosate Issue Paper: Evaluation of Carcinogenic Potential, September 12, 2016. I will quote verbatim a little of what they say and refer you to another section where they say a lot more about further research needed.
This has nothing at all to do with any expectation of mine: it’s those of those drat experts. What a nuisance they are! They do make life uncomfortable for those whose minds are made up.
p139 ‘ A well conducted pharmacokinetic study evaluating the toxicokinetic profile of glyphosate is needed to further investigate the toxicokinetic properties between high and low level dose levels to ensure that inappropriate toxicokinetics is avoided’.
p141 Section 6.7 ‘This analysis integrating multiple lines of evidence highlights the need for mechanistic studies to elucidate the MOA/AOP of glyphosate as well as additional epidemiological studies and updates from the AHS cohort study to further investigate the carcinogenic potential of glyphosate in humans’
‘…..additional research could also be performed to determine whether formulation compounds such as surfactants, influence toxicity of glyphosate formulations’.
There is an extensive research plan for glyphosate and it’s formulations. For much detail and explanation see p141-143 Section 7.0.
The Agricultural Health Study also consider it prudent to continue their extensive studies in collaboration with The National Cancer Institute, The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, The Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
To whom do I give credence: these experts Institutions with their many experts in all the variety of disciplines needed for such complex matters or a botanical scientist who considers this all ‘hand waving’ and poor biased science?
It’s a no-brainer.
Leonard Sugarman why did the EPA find that Glyphosate was a Class C Carcinogenic here in 1985?
https://www3.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/cleared_reviews/csr_PC-103601_4-Mar-85_171.pdf
Why did the EPA back-step.? Political pressure? Where is the ethics to that? Shout the loudest Sugarman!!! This month California has defined Glysophate as a carcinogen.
Have you ever scanned through, VAERS data and look for real world events, that support it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-hbVf0sHWE Watch the video Sugarman, is there anything in this woman’s real world life event, that support the data. Its an 8 minute video. You should make much more than a feeble effort, and accept the totality of the evidence, rather than jump on the bandwagon to support a corporate narrative. How does this woman’s real world event support or deny the VAERS data?
Have we proved that peanuts are harmless? We do know that small trace elements of peanuts will kill a person.
I wonder how many more persons are sensitive to mercury or aluminum? Tell me Sugar-man give me that number, and a reference to it. How about a number that it will not kill, but give a person autism? Trace elements of peanuts are deadly, but trace elements of fluoride, mercury or aluminum are fine?
Why not line us up in a chute, like cattle, and feed everyone peanuts, on a schedule that profits the corporate peanut companies?
Then after peanut allergy deaths, have corporate lawyers blame it on something else.
What is that number? You or I do not know. So why do you blather on like you know?
Mouse studies can provide “suggestive evidence of carcinogenicity” but that only makes it a possible carcinogen.
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/general-info/known-and-probable-human-carcinogens.html
But that doesn’t prove that it is carcinogenic in humans. And the AHS provides strong negative evidence in people directly exposed.
But it’s always fun to watch two of our friendly guest commenters have a little discussion!
Please, tell me more!
Rats! I have just cleaned up after dinner, I just don’t feel like getting popcorn. But this is certainly popcorn worthy.
squirrelelite- I suppose you refer to me and Stewart as your ‘friendly guest competitors’. Well I have nothing to discuss with Stewart since I have seen how he responds, or not, to a whole variety of the regular bloggers. Impervious might be an appropriate word to describe his condition. That is a full-blown pathological manifestation of the ‘closed mind’.
I detect, even with my layman’s training, traces of a sub-clinical manifestation of the same defect in some of the more highly intelligent bloggers, including yourself.
My suggestion; see to it before it evolves into something more serious.
Hows that for a bit of fun?
A bit of helpfully intended pedantry: The commentariat are not “bloggers.” Orac is the blogger; we (tinw) are “commenters.”
Are we mammalian? Are rats mammalian?
They are not human. Especially in regards to thalidomide.
You, I’m not so sure about.
https://www.amazon.ca/Aqua-Mira-Aquamira-Water-Treatment/dp/B01EYSEP5E/ref=pd_sbs_200_1?_encoding=UTF8&refRID=1NWPBWKC7NH1E8GEZPJW I suppose the FDA had their head in the sand, for twenty years of water purification tablets? The bleach is dangerous?
The video the link you gave me is not available to me Dangerous Bacon. I wonder why?
This Church is not a Church, they just state they are a Church to get around the FDA. Jesus will heal you!!
That is a statement to get around the FDA. Ha ,ha,ha. Healed when everything else fails.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Xc1eQbfNww They cannot mess with any church , ha,ha,ha,ha.
What in the absolute f*ck? Oh well, entertainment value at least.
Mainstream medicine cannot heal her and she looks to the quacks. Healed for 4 years. Ha,ha,ha,ha. Maybe an illusion of being healed, Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha.
https://www.amazon.ca/Aqua-Mira-Aquamira-Water-Treatment/dp/B01EYSEP5E/ref=pd_sbs_200_1?_encoding=UTF8&refRID=1NWPBWKC7NH1E8GEZPJW Then squeeze lemon juice down your throat , and its dangerous, Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O_Sa8ldM7k Real world stories, listen carefully..
No real world stories allowed here..Lol,lol,lol,lol….
Nothing of the real world allowed here, only clinical trials that are driven by Monsanto Labs are allowed. It does not matter that simple folk, with Non-Hodjkins Lymphoma, what about them?. What about those that hook up the tank and spray the stuff.
One week ago California labelled the stuff as carcinogenic. Since 2015 both IRAC and WHO have labelled it as probably carcinogenic. What about this site, Ha,ha,ha,ha.
[…] Leonard Sugarman on Dr. Paul Thomas: A rising star in the antivaccine movement […]
March 28th, 2018 – I have nothing whatsoever to do with the statement therein about autism neither does it reflect any view, one way or another, I may have about anything else.
This blog was linked to in the more recent blog post, which is what that link comment means. I’m not sure why your name pops up in the excerpt.
Of course, you’ve made it clear that you don’t have opinions or positions anyway, except that you know there is still uncertainty.
It’s pretty weird behavior for a trackback.
squirrelelite – once again you misinterpret what I have written and think. I do have a position, in spite of your prejudgement that you have a closet enemy in the camp.
My position is that guided by the EPA and their revised report of 12 Dec. 2017. And the fact of the call for much more research in different areas of the project (see page145 on) indicates a certain level of uncertainty, which is clearly of your disliking. As Terry Thomas would say-‘hard cheese old chap’.
Consider this sentence in this most authoritative report: ‘A conclusion regarding the association between glyphosate exposure and the risk of NHL cannot be determined based on the available evidence’. Is it any wonder the research continues?
This comprehensive report, which has been peer -reviewed by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP), the 100 pages of their very interesting minutes available for all to read. Cherry-picking just one line of evidence to sustain any view will not do. The issues are very complex and smug retorts should not be convincing to anyone except perhaps the mutual acolytes with whom you reside on this blog.
If you think their is enough certainty regards glyphosate to perhaps justify stopping the ongoing research just get together with your ‘supporters’ and pen a letter to the EPA and all the other collaborating institutions informing them of your considered opinion. I am sure they will be impressed!
So you agree with the EPA,s draft risk assessment
https://www.epa.gov/pesticides/epa-releases-draft-risk-assessments-glyphosate
Which states that
That’s good to know!
There are always areas that are useful to continue researching and the AHS is one of them. It may discover long term risks that we haven’t seen yet or risks associated with other agricultural chemicals.
And the 25 years of data from it have reduced the uncertainty in the cancer risk from glyphosate to a low level.
Trying to demonstrate a cancer risk from the trace amounts found in food and water is hard cheese indeed.
squirrelelite – that’s exactly right regards my opinion: ‘glyphosate is unlikely to be carcinogenic to humans’. And this fits on a scale of probability which is also a measure on a scale of uncertainty to certainty. Does their provisional conclusion strike you as so probable that you have confidence that further research will only strengthen there present conclusion? Well predicting future results with any accuracy is not possible and opinions about those future results is not worth much. Opinions are cheap: science and it’s results are hard won.
The research program planned is somewhat more extensive than your cherry picking about cancer and trace amounts in food and water. There is much technical discussion throughout the documents ( and there are more) I have mentioned so far and they highlight many areas of varying quality of the range of studies so far examined and point to areas of agreed necessary research. This may enhance the confidence in the safety of glyphosate and the reverse is also possible.
I am content to await further study results ( if I’m still alive) without forming a stronger opinion than is justified by the science.
You may do otherwise , and if you do I believe that to be a very common error indeed.
Um, how is this “scale of probability” calibrated?
Just for fun, let’s parse this out.
I’d also very much like to know how you measure that scale of uncertainty. Scientific research always has a range of uncertainty based on measurement accuracy and statistics of the data, but that is in whatever units are being studied. I haven’t heard of a study comparable to the AHS that does show a cancer risk for glyphosate and I follow a couple GMO forums so I think I would have seen one mentioned.
The provisional conclusion question has “gotcha” written all over it. Whose conclusion? The EPA didn’t use that terminology in my link. And that’s an example of behavior 1 from my March 16 comment.
Predicting future results depends on what is being studied. The James Webb Space Telescope may discover some real surprises, but I doubt if future Higgs boson measurements will give a mass more than a tiny fraction different from the two experiments already done. A future Ebola vaccine may not be as effective as the current measles shot, but I hope it will be much better than our current flu shots. But the results statement is phrased to be vague so the uncertainty can be large.
P2. The research program sentence is a good example of why I was trained in the Air Force not to use passive voice. It’s too easy to drop the subject. Research (into what?) planned (by whom?) And the term cherry picking is usually used to describe selecting results that you like, not choosing subjects for future research (unless you’re Exley). And neither Stewart nor Leonard has cited research on a large population of humans that contradicts the AHS.
I also look forward to future research but would like to see accepting the results of that research and letting humanity around the world benefit not be healed up by people going on and on about “I just don’t know. It’s still uncertain.”
And that argument is a version of the Nirvana fallacy. It demands 100% safety with absolute certainty before using a vaccine or a safer herbicide.
The scientific approach is to do a thorough risk benefit analysis and choose accordingly.
But 125 GeV is unnatural! Things must be where they are decided to belong. Or something.
Narad- thanks for that clarification. Very impressive.
“Have we proved that peanuts are harmless?”
Lucy does exhibit a trace of sadism.
Leonard: “Cherry-picking just one line of evidence to sustain any view will not do.”
Well, bravo I say.
Who is squirrelelite to be cherry-picking the EPA’s conclusion of lack of evidence of glyphosate carcinogenicity from its report of 12/17, and citing the slender thread of decades of research, the findings of health and agricultural agencies here and abroad and the results of NIH’s 2017 Agricultural Health Survey? That’s mighty thin broth!
Next she’ll be telling us about “overwhelming” evidence that vaccines are effective and safe, and that aspartame, water fluoridation, GMOs, amalgam fillings etc. are also safe and have significant benefits. Spare us the extensive record of research supporting such statements, we’ve got Uncertainty to contend with.
No, we must use the infinite time and money available for research to keep on going until we get the conclusions so many people want. If you don’t keep asking questions, how will you get the right answers?
Which brings me to a proposal I’m sure all of us can get behind – establishing the JAQ-Off Institute of Applied Research to bring all Brave Maverick Researchers under one roof, to keep the flame of uncertainty alive until it singes the corporate complacency that enables all of these toxic products. Imagine Seralini, Stephanie Seneff, Andrew Wakefield and the Ramazzini Foundation all working together, while asking questions!
I’m sure Leonard will want to make a generous contribution to JOIAR.
DB – I thought I wouldn’t respond to any of your comments again once you had invoked James Joyces’ writing to explain , what was it – the origin of measles? Now I do appreciate your humor but I am more appreciative of Dick Emery and Tommy Cooper and will return to them for laughs
All studies are somewhat biased.Who would show up before their boss, and give the boss, results they do not like. Why would any boss listen to them, if it hurt their corporations profit. They would probably fire you, and keep going until they get the results that they want. Keep on firing researchers until they found a researcher, that found the results that they wanted. The researcher is no longer important, its only the results that they want, Galileo addressed this over 500 years ago.
A business man cannot tell a scientist on how nature should behave, in order to profit the businessman the most.
A scientist cannot do that.
It should be doctors wanting to heal, micro-biologists, research scientists those that are curious, and wanting to learn that should sit as CEO’s and on the board of directors of any pharmaceutical company. Martin Shkreli was not that smart, that’s quite common in the medical industry, hire businessmen that squeeze everything to profit the corporation the most. They are not scientists, but place incredible pressure on scientists, to write something or state something is a fact, that is in defiance of nature.
That is not science. The third biggest killer behind heart disease and cancer is the healthcare community. It is a fact…
You are now getting tedious. We’ve seen this claim before. Supporting evidence required.
Um, Stewart, I have told a boss who unilaterally made an extremely stupid decision that she was, basically, an embodiment of the Peter Principle, and the previous boss sided with me (and Spivak). You, on the other hand, seem unlikely to be capable of competently writing any sort of English-language memo at all, much less a sharply worded one with a bit of explanatory frosting for purposes of decorum.
Narad, the government is here to help you, along with all the corporate institutions. There are over 50,000 American females that are homeless, that have fought in the war in Iraq. Follow the narrative Narad, what about these women, and much more these men?
Tell me the narrative, I have no decorum for voicing this?
Galileo addressed this over 500 years ago.
Not bad for a dude who wasn’t born until 1564.
Why anyone believe in a corporate body, that dictates how you should think? Because I was not born in 1564?
That is quite brilliant. Let the corporate bodies, state they are proud of us, though 99% of them, think otherwise (They believe we are all suck-hole’s to the current power structure), This is the switch, 98.7% of them state they are proud of you, This is your destiny. Walk on to the stage with the exultant loud clapping, and possibly a paycheck.
Clear headed individuals have disregarded this, as a bias, paid or not..
sqirrelelite – Most of the measurements and assessments of the extensive research reviewed by the EPA and others used statistical methods applying probability scales and significant criteria. After all that work the best they have come up with is ‘highly unlikely’. No numerical scale at all- and how could there be with so much converging and diverging lines of evidence? Now if you still disagree that that phrase indicates a level of uncertainty or less than a probability of one then we will have to agree to differ.
If the sentence I quoted from the EPA report- ‘A conclusion regarding the association between glyphosate exposure and risk of NHL cannot be determined based on the available evidence’ is a statement of the truth , then you shouldn’t be disappointed or surprised that you are not able to find evidence of this association on the AHS website since you know of the close collaboration between the EPA and AHS. Is it any surprise that the AHS are continuing their studies?
The hypothesis ( and many others) is being put to the test- and this is not to satisfy anyone whatever answer would suit their interests, except the ‘safety’ or otherwise of glyphosate in all it’s permutations. This is a public health issue not a game.
I don’t understand your ‘gotcha’ point so won’t try to parse it.
Predicting future results is in the realm of testing hypotheses. If the test, which should be able to make the hypothesis incorrect in principle, does not make wrong the proposal in the hypothesis then we have more confidence in that hypothesis. The EPA and their collaborators have formulated many new hypotheses which they are planning to test. Read the EPA report, it’s peer review and the answers EPA have given to the comments of the peer review. Their plans and problems are laid bare.
As I’ve said- if you don’t agree that they should continue then write to them. I would hope DB would help with the letter since his logic is impeccable.
Because their is inbuilt uncertainty, in all human explanatory knowledge about the world, does not negate one bit that a certain amount of knowledge, even with it’s uncertainty, can have great utility as seen by the world around us including medical science.
I have no argument against risk benefit analysis. How could I? The uncertainty and risk benefit analysis was on everybody’s mind when Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine was to be tested in the 1954 trial. If you doubt this then read ‘Patenting the Sun’ by Jane S Smith.
No one with knowledge of medical science expects 100% certainty. It’s a straw man argument.
The only way I can clarify the position and outlook I take is to recommend one book that had a great influence on my thinking. That is ‘Conjecture and Refutation. by Karl Popper. Perhaps also’ Induction and Intuition in Scientific Thought’ by Peter Medawar.
It has nothing to do with the likes of Stewart or the many woomasters whom Orac repeatedly exposes for their nonsense.
That’s not how it works. You now own this poorly chosen turn of phrase.
Leonard Sugarman, why would any man state what you said, I have nothing to do with the likes of Stewart or the many woomasters whom Orac repeatedly exposes for their nonsense. Leonard they have exposed you as a coward, I see that Leonard, this group has nothing to do with you along with myself, prop your back up, join me or join them, that is it.
Timely letter to the editor of the Wall St. Journal today, from a California official defending the state’s glyphosate-causes-cancer position. The writer leans heavily on the discredited IARC report, predictably ignoring the great body of contrary evidence (but that ain’t cherry-pickin’, no sir).
Coincidentally, a court decision in California reported in today’s news requires coffee sellers to include cancer warnings. Jeez, no morning joe, no Roundup…what fun things are left to do in the Golden State? Next they’ll be insisting that surfers are exposed to unacceptable cancer risks from the trace chemicals found in seawater.
I was going to link to Joe Jackson’s “Everything Gives You Cancer” but found this equally appropriate.
*Leonard is to Stewart as Dan Steinberg is to Mike Adams. Both profess to be appalled by their loonier brethren, but actually have quite a bit in common.
DB- I detect that my observation of sub-clinical pathology of the closed mind in some of the mutual acolyte commenters ( thanks Narad ) on this blog is already worsening and that of course includes your illustrious self. It appears that you are attempting to infect me with the same malady. You can’t since I am mentally vaccinated with some very clear thinkers and the immunity is substantial. I won’t say lifelong because dementia may arrive.Oh dear, all that uncertainty. It’s so inconvenient.
Narad – and I am seriously worried about a phrase you think poor or whatever that I now own
Criminal acts mean the board of directors acted like criminals.
“It was the largest health care fraud settlement and the largest criminal fine of any kind ever.”
Fraud and trying to rip off the customers. Pure charlatans, acupuncture, snake-oil salesmen, apricot pits, Bextra, Geodon, Zyvox and Lyrica. Time to contact Steve Barret over at QuackWatch, and fill him in on these snake-oil salesmen and charlatans.
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/business/03health.html
Its still quality health care, because they beat out cancer and heart diseases. They did not win the number one title, which says something that is still positive for the health care industry.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/medical-errors-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-america.html
A news report claiming that Medical Error is the third leading cause of death is not proof.
It was a news report about a John Hopkins University study, but absolutely Julian the study was probably flawed, what does John Hopkins know? Regardless of the fact that there is a John Hopkins Hospital and a John Hopkins medical school, I would be very skeptical of that study. Accusations and criminal charges against the pharmaceutical companies regardless of the fact that they readily paid the fines for fraud. We should be very skeptical of the governments motives for these criminal charges against the scientific community. I agree Julian.
Not exactly, but the press release that it’s regurgitating failed to provide an important little detail. The trivial task of finding the paper itself is left as an exercise for the reader.
For starters, you can read more about this “study” here:
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2016/05/16/do-medical-errors-really-kill-a-quarter-of-a-million-people-a-year-in-the-us/
Makary didn’t really do an original study. He pulled numbers from various studies that used different methodologies and counting of events to look at slightly different questions.
And the 400,000 number came from a study that simply counted adverse events. It didn’t even try to distinguish which ones were even potentially preventable, much less which ones were truly due to human error.
And hospitals around the country are putting a lot if effort into finding ways to systematically reduce those errors and save lives.
None of which shows that either vaccination or glyphosate causes autism (or cancer.)
A study by government regulators, say it may have led to 27,000 deaths, but what do government regulators know? How do they know that for sure, especially people from the FDA?
We all know that only pharmaceuticals can heal, because that is really good information, that they tell us. If people do not agree to go along with what they tell us, they are stupid. Pharmaceutical based science is the only science.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6192603/ns/health-arthritis/t/report-vioxx-linked-thousands-deaths/#.Wr7al-jwaUk
Vioxx is not a vaccine.
Absolutely Julian, it is just another product of the pharmaceutical industry.
And it’s regrettable that it’s no longer on the market despite, IIRC, its still being FDA approved.
What are these Brits, saying that happened back in 2010? Really? Sleeping pills may have been associated with 320,000 to 507,000 deaths in the US.? This study obviously displays not very good science, and no doubt flawed studies. There was no double-blind placebo controlled studies, the gold standard of the scientific method, so I am not buying their false real world studies, and speculation. I do not care about all their references, end of discussion, they do not know anything, they are closed minded. I hope that people here are not so close minded as these Brits, and whole-heartedly agree with me.
http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000850
Thank you for finally and fully confirming that you are unable to read a paper. Protip: California and Wyoming are not in the UK.
Head office
BMJ,
BMA House,
Tavistock Square,
London WC1H 9JR,
United Kingdom.
They published it, yes American scientists wrote it.
these Brits, saying that happened back in 2010?
Be fair to Stewart. The point of trolling is to maximise the amount of time wasted by other, smarter people, while minimising the time one wastes oneself. If he were to spend any time reading papers before regurging the links he’s copied from some other barmpot, let alone understanding them, it would be contrary to the entire trolling ethos
I have a sneaking suspicion that he’s actually trying to stage this performance as a one-man show. I think I’ve been fair. In any event, observing pratfalls doesn’t consume much time.
Clearly another exaggerated study, and they are not even a newspaper, 440,000 deaths from a science based approach?
They should be going after the real criminals those quacks who support good nutrition, this not even science.
There has never been no double-blind placebo controlled studies, the gold standard of the scientific method, about carrots, red beets, legumes, or other fruits vegetables or fish, so I am not buying their outspoken quackery.
https://journals.lww.com/journalpatientsafety/Fulltext/2013/09000/A_New,_Evidence_based_Estimate_of_Patient_Harms.2.aspx
See above.
^ Oh, right. Please copy and paste the sentence from that paper that explains exactly how the magic number was extrapolated.
Yes Narad, I agree, when Vioxx was first marketed, no double blind placebo controlled trials were completed as to its efficacy, for rheumatoid arthritis, but whatever comes out from a pharmaceutical company is science, we all know that. Why should they have to prove anything, they are a science company, not even the government gets that. They pleaded guilty to criminal charges and agreed to pay $4.85 billion for deaths and injuries from Vioxx. and clinical trials later showed it doubled the risk of heart attack , stroke and death, its a shame they pulled it from the market. But yes , hooray its coming back!!
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/business/merck-agrees-to-pay-950-million-in-vioxx-case.html
Please further figure out how to put a reply in the correct place and what apostrophes are for.
Narad, everyone knows Vioxx was a disaster , it killed more than the Vietnam War,
https://www.forbes.com/2005/08/19/merck-vioxx-graham_cx_mh_0819graham.html#6fe05adb5698
An estimate is not proof.
“Some dude pulled a number out of his butt” is not especially persuasive.
The weakest remark ever…
Oh, Stewart, you don’t give yourself enough credit:
I will also note that you failed to respond to this. You can’t read, you can’t write, you can’t think, and you’re a coward. Clap, clap, clappity-clap.
^ Rats. The second link is around the word “this.”
https://www.forbes.com/2005/08/19/merck-vioxx-graham_cx_mh_0819graham.html#6fe05adb5698
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