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The Israel Ministry of Health cracks down on antivaccine doctors

In response to a massive measles outbreak, the Israel Ministry of Health has decided to crack down on antivaccine doctors. It’s about time, and I only wish we would do the same thing here in the US.

One thing I’ve never been able to understand is how an actual physician can be antivaccine. In particular, I can’t understand how pediatricians can be antivaccine. The science is so overwhelming that vaccines are safe and effective and do not cause autism, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), or any of the other evils for which antivaxers blame vaccines. It is also undeniable that vaccines are the single greatest triumph of preventative medicine ever devised by the human mind and have saved countless humans from morbidity and death from infectious disease. A physician who is antivaccine clearly has a major flaw in his understanding of science, and a physician who acts on his antivaccine views by not recommending vaccinations and/or, even worse, diagnosing children with the fake diagnosis of “vaccine-injury,” “vaccine-induced autism,” etc. and treating them for it are quacks who should not be practicing medicine. That’s why I think the Israel Ministry of Health has the right idea:

Israel’s Health Ministry is considering taking significant steps against eight doctors who encourage their patients not to be vaccinated.

Four of the eight have already been summoned to the Health Ministry for clarifications and the other four are expected to be called in next month. Considering the cases of measles that have broken out in Israel, the Health Ministry has recently decided to ratchet up its fight for vaccinations, including exercising special powers. This has sparked a debate in the medical community around the question of how to protect public health without silencing legitimate minority opinions.

(I’ll quote fairly generously from this Haaretz article because it’s behind a paywall, although I could read it clicking on it from a Facebook link.)

I will admit that the bit about “legitimate minority opinions” irked me. Antivaccine pseudoscience is not a legitimate minority opinion, at least not from a medical perspective. It’s an opinion, but one so divorced from medicine, science, and reality as to have forfeited all right to be taken seriously. However, I’m all for investigating antivaccine doctors, however, particularly if they steer parents away from vaccinating. To me, that’s failing to practice according to the accepted standard of care So are the “treatments” for “vaccine injury” that many of them use as well. Indeed, these treatments are quackery. Any doctor who practices based on antivaccine beliefs should not be practicing medicine.

That’s why I agree wholeheartedly with this:

“As part of your work as a doctor you have made recommendations that go against the vaccination guidelines and even suggest postponing vaccinations,” attorney Eyal Hacco, joint chairman of a Health Ministry committee formed to prevent the public from being misled, wrote to the eight doctors. Hacco informed them that giving such advice, which goes against professional practices in Israel and the rest of the world, could put children, adults and those around them at risk, and that it “misleads the public and endangers health,” Hacco wrote.

I can’t help but note that in New York City is in the middle of its worst measles outbreak in decades. That outbreak is centered in communities of haredi, or ultra-Orthodox Jews, where:

Through the fall, traveler after traveler arrived in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities of New York from areas of Israel and Europe where measles was spreading. They then spent time in homes, schools and shops in communities where too many people were unvaccinated.

Within months, New York State was facing its most severe outbreak of the disease in decades, with 182 cases confirmed by Thursday, almost exclusively among ultra-Orthodox Jews. Health officials in New Jersey have reported 33 measles cases, mostly in Ocean County, driven by similar conditions.

In these communities, it’s reported that many are resistant to cooperating fully with health authorities and reporting promptly when someone falls ill. The outbreak among ultra-Orthodox Jewish enclaves in Brooklyn and other boroughs is related to vaccine hesitancy and antivaccine views in Israel as well. What’s driving the Israel Ministry of Health’s drive to crack down on antivaccine doctors is a major ongoing measles outbreak in Israel, where, not coincidentally, some of those travelers are traveling between New York and Israel. Indeed, last year there were 2,700 cases of measles, with over half the cases being in the Jerusalem region. There have been deaths, as well, such as the death of an 82 year old woman and a toddler infected by his parents. As in New York, the outbreak appears to be centered around in haredi communities.

The reasons why ultra-Orthodox Jews don’t vaccinate in Israel are more complex than in New York, with a shortage of pediatric nurses playing a major role:

But Dr. Hagai Levine, secretary of the Israel Measles Elimination Committee, attributed the outbreak in Israel mostly to a shortage of pediatric nurses and the complicated logistics of raising a large haredi family.

“There is nothing explicitly religious causing these outbreaks, and vaccination refusal is rare,” he emphasized.

Levine blamed the Israeli government, saying the number of nurses who provide health care in well-baby clinics, which give vaccinations and track children’s development through age 6, needs to be increased.

“In Jerusalem, where most of the measles cases are occurring, a nurse that used to treat 100 children is now responsible for 200 children. She doesn’t have the time to track down all the children whose vaccinations are overdue,” Levine said.

In Israel, ultra-Orthodox families average eight children and tend to live in close quarters, a perfect situation for the spread of a disease as highly contagious as measles. There are also different sects within haredi society, some of which vaccinate at a high rate, some of which refuse to vaccinate and don’t want any connection with the government. The outbreak is so bad that in November the CDC issued a level 1 travel alert urging travelers to Israel to make sure they are vaccinated with the MMR before traveling there.

In any event, the eight doctors being targeted by the Israel Ministry of Health were identified easily by complaints from other doctors, parents, and organizations that oppose the antivaccine movement based on behavior and social media posts, in other words, the same way you can identify antivaccine doctors here, such as “Dr. Bob” Sears and Dr. Paul Thomas. Who are these doctors? Surprise! Surprise! There be homeopaths here:

The eight doctors are the pediatrician and homeopath Dr. Chaim Rosenthal and his partner in a homeopathic and natural medicine clinic Dr. Nicole Ezrahi; pediatrician and homeopath Dr. Noa Tor-Frenkel; family doctor and homeopath Dr. Liora Uriel; pediatrician Dr. Yiftah Broza and pediatrician Dr. Amir Anisfeld; doctor and homeopath Dr. Boaz Ron; and Dr. Gil Yosef Shahar, the doctor and owner of the Rambam Medical Center.” One of the eight responded in writing to the summons pledging to refrain from further advising people against vaccination.

Dr. Noa Tor-Frenkel? Hmmm. I’ve heard that name before, or at least part of it. Remember Moshe Frenkel? He used to be faculty in the integrative medicine program at M.D. Anderson years back, but now he runs an “integrative oncology” practice in Texas. He was also big into homeopathy, having published during his time at M.D. Anderson a truly awful in vitro study of homeopathy and breast cancer and recently published a howler of an article, Is There a Role for Homeopathy in Cancer Care? Questions and Challenges, to which his answer was yes. I wonder if there’s a relationship.

One of the doctors tried to deny being antivaccine:

Dr. Rosenthal, who came to the ministry with his lawyer, called the atmosphere in the conversation “germane and fair.” Rosenthal said he wanted to make clear that he is not “among the ‘opponents of vaccination’ but rather the ‘cautious’ about vaccinations.” He stated: “I am neither for nor against. But I think that it is a very serious matter to inject babies with these materials and this requires caution. There is no truth here. There is study of the subject and a personal decision. I give my information and experience and I stress in every lecture or web post that it does not conform to the ministry guidelines. I say it is not backed up by research, but by my experience.”

Rosenthal said that he does not publish or disseminate his idea or lead public opinion on the matter. “Some of my lectures were recorded by participants and put on YouTube, and interviews in the media always came from media outlets that approached me; and never on my initiative,” he said.

Yes, this is the old, “I’m not antivaccine, but I say antivaccine things, like, “It is a very serious matter to inject babes with these materials and this requires caution.'” Then he offers what must be the Israeli version of the quack Miranda warning, “My views aren’t supported by science or the Israel Ministry of Health, but I think you should avoid vaccinating anyway based on my anecdotal experience clouded by confirmation bias.”

Of course, I can’t resist getting a dig in here at the Israel Ministry of Health for this:

“The damage that such doctors do is enormous, because their statements are perceived by the public as medically and scientifically valid because they are doctors,” a senior Health Ministry official told Haaretz. “In fact, they are doctors practicing homeopathy and in meetings we had with them they are unable to support their claims scientifically. Our mistake was not taking action against some of them two years ago already.”

They’re frikkin’ homeopaths! Of course, they can’t support what they do with science and evidence! Why are homeopaths being allowed to practice? I know, I know, they’re physicians, too, but any physician who is also a homeopath is by definition a quack in my book.

In any event, I’ve discussed doctors who are antivaccine on numerous occasions, and after all these years, I still can’t understand why such doctors exist. True, many of these doctors are not pediatricians, but some are, and they are the ones who provide plausible cover for antivaxers. It’s entirely appropriate for the Israel Ministry of Health to act against them. I just wish state medical boards in the US would do the same thing. Because of the First Amendment, they couldn’t stop these doctors from spewing their antivaccine misinformation, but they damned well could make sure that they don’t practice medicine based on it.

By Orac

Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski.

That this particular surgeon has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 35 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)

DISCLAIMER:: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.

To contact Orac: [email protected]

87 replies on “The Israel Ministry of Health cracks down on antivaccine doctors”

There’s always an anti-vaccine physician at the nidus of these outbreaks, often a pediatrician. Further case in point: Clark County, WA is now has a rapidly growing measles outbreak (up to 22 cases as of yesterday). Who lives but a few miles away from Clark County in neighboring Portland, Oregon? Why none other that Paul Thomas, MD, FAAP, of course.

It’s disgusting that nothing happens to these completely incompetent anti-vax doctors in the US.

There’s also clustering of anti-vaxxers feeding these outbreaks. There was a paper from several years ago that showed (for also up in the NW USA) that a pertussis outbreak spread faster among the unvaccinated than vaccinated. I’m not where I can look it up but will try to post it later.

When I heard the news about Washington state early this week, the case count was up to 36, and a few more in Oregon. Two unrelated ones in Hawaii due to international travel. I didn’t know about the outbreak in NY. As of today (2019 February 02) the count in Washington/Oregon is at 40, so it appears there haven’t been any new ones in the past few days.

So yeah it figures there’s an antivax doc in the mix for the Pacific Northwest outbreak.

I was pondering the item about ultra-Orthodox Jews in NY not letting public health officials in. Apparently some of this is an anti-government attitude with roots in the ultra-Orthodox community’s history in pre-WW2 Germany.

My first reaction was “but the United States isn’t Nazi Germany!”

But on further thought, we’ve seen an outrageous rise in anti-Semitic hate crime in the recent years, and an equally-outrageous flirtation with both overt and partly-concealed racism & anti-Semitism by high public officials.

I would guess that the political developments have been a “trigger” for latent anti-gov paranoia coming from the community’s history. Similar in France where thousands of French Jews each year are emigrating to Israel, citing the rise of anti-Semitism in France. Everyone knows the lesson from Germany: get out with your life while you still can.

And on the third hand, there does seem to be a common thread of anti-gov paranoia among hard fundamentalists in all of the Abrahamic traditions. Some of that also correlates with anti-vax paranoia and sympathetic attitudes toward alt med. What’s up with this? A factor of self-isolation in these communities? Something else?

And since all of these hard-fundamentalist communities have high birth rates (8 children per woman in the ultra-Orthodox enclaves, similar among hard-fundie Christians and Muslims), the prospect of all those kids running around with a vaccination rate as low as 60%, is most-fertile ground for outbreaks to spread like wild fire. Hell, it’s a like an open bucket of gasoline in an indoor smoking area.

So clearly there has to be educational effort within each of these communities.

A year or two ago there was an outbreak in the Somali immigrant community (these folks are Muslim) in (I think it was) Minnesota after some prominent anti-vaxer went through there on a propaganda tour. The result, fairly quickly and predictably, was a measles outbreak, with (if I recall correctly) over 100 cases.

Very quickly a local doctor or public health scientist got in touch with a prominent Imam (Muslim cleric) in the community and they sat down and talked. That Imam got in touch with other Muslim clerics and scholars in the area, and together they reached their communities via their Mosques. Very quickly they put out the word that anti-vax is bad stuff and all the kids need to come in and get immunized.

The result was an immediate substantial uptick in immunizations, to the level needed to maintain community immunity (above 95% for measles). The outbreak was stopped and no new cases have arisen since then.

So yes it can be done successfully. That’s what’s needed in the communities that are presently affected on the West Coast and the East Coast.

In medieval Europe, Jews were often blamed for epidemics because their attack rate was lower. Actually, their then-advanced sanitary habits, such as using the ritual baths (and men used them too, and still do) which required a bath to clean the body before entering the hot water of the mikvah.
That makes it ironic that the Hasidim are square at the center of outbreaks today. Unfortunately, they are insular communities that take their cues from the whims of the rebbe that leads them, men deeply steeped in traditional Jewish learning but often ignorant of everything else.
There is an ongoing issue in New York that the yeshivot have not been teaching required subjects like mathematics and English. Students learn very little history and come out not cognizant of the anything outside their own communities. I recall hearing about one such student who could do addition, subtraction, and multiplication, but had never learned division.
Until authorities can convince the rebbes that head the numerous sects, they will continue to sit at the center of preventable public health problems.

Apparently some of this is an anti-government attitude with roots in the ultra-Orthodox community’s history in pre-WW2 Germany.

Bear in mind that, like the Amish, the New York Charedim end formal education with the 8th grade. It’s all breeding and poverty after that, unless a decent scam shows up.

I recall hearing about one such student who could do addition, subtraction, and multiplication, but had never learned division.

My favorite dentist had a similar story, but it was the result of the University of Chicago’s School Mathematics Project curriculum.

Does this mean that Israel is canceling plans to put Yehuda Schoenfeld on a postage stamp?

I googled him and the stamp. His name is spelled without a ‘c’ and no mention of a stamp. As his work is completely without merit and linked with Lucija Tomljenovic, I would hope no stamp is planned. He seems to be trying to reach a Wakefield level of villainy.

Frenkel/Frenkiel is a popular surname of Jewish origin, especially in Central/Eastern Europe (I personally know a family of this name), so I would not be surprised if it was just a coincidence.

Two thoughts:
A. In the U.S., too, doctors who practice homeopathy remain licensed MDs (looking at you, Dr. Toni Bark).
B. In New York, at least, I wonder whether group with strong historical reasons to mistrust government are more vulnerable to conspiracy theories, including anti-vaccine ones. I bet there’s literature somewhere. Maybe I’ll try and look in my non-existent free time.

That makes sense: I believe that there were studies long ago about ( possibly) black people being more likely to advocate external locus of control – that government or other powerful entities- caused problems for them.
Also there may be something about hiv/ aids being a plot by other disadvantaged groups.

I believe that there were studies long ago about ( possibly) black people being more likely to advocate external locus of control

Hell, I got an earful of this just last night when I stopped to grab a Lagunitas after the cat gulag. I have a college friend who engaged with the Farrakharoonies years ago over anti-Semitism and got a weird etymological rant about the meaning of “semi.”

@ Narad:

I think that it was more benignly believing that outside forces interfered with their own personal success – which sometimes isn’t a conspiracy theory BECAUSE it’s true. e.g. I couldn’t vote because bad laws.
Although I know that conspiracy theories abound in all groups

No, it is the cats. The woman who has this setup has gotten in more and more over her head, and she’s simply not getting them homes. I mean, really adoptable cats. I could go on, but not tonight.

I was joking about the stamp.

Though it would be amusing if some small country sought to boost postage stamp sales to collectors by turning out an “Infamous Antivaxers” series.*

*it’s been common in the past for certain nations to produce colorful stamps designed to attract purchases by collectors.

Vaccines are not 100% safe and effective; therefore, vaccine hesitancy on the part of some physicians and pediatricians is inevitable. Such hesitancy demands a clear and concise description of the problem. The ultra-Oracian perspective described herein supports the notion that vaccine hesitancy is a farce.

Oh, please….Nothing in life is 100% foolproof. Your first sentence is not a credible defense of anything. Any practicing physician balances risk against benefit with full knowledge that there may some outliers and freak accidents. That is statistically inevitable. Your last statement that vaccine hesitancy is a farce makes no sense to me.

Michael: Given your stance, may I suggest that you remove ANYTHING that is not 100% safe from your environment? Beginning with oxygen – after Apollo 1 it is proven deadly under some circumstances.
/s
The world will be a much better place.

Michael, there are people who CANNOT be immunized due to cancer treatments or are immunosupressed due to age/ treatments/disease. Heard immunity protects them. As someone who once had to tell her pregnant staff member that I may have been exposed her to whooping cough because a nursing student who was working for my roommate was an antivaxer I have no tolerance. And if you are going to ban substances on potential dangers, don’t forget dihydrogenmioxide – nasty stuff that.

Michael, Michael, Michael:

Vaccine hesitancy by trained, educated physicians IS a farce. They should know better. Whilst no one claims that vaccines are “100% safe and effective” – that’s a concept for anti-vaxxers like you- there are very, very small risks which are outweighed substantially by the great benefits OF VACCINATION.

Let me walk you through this:
occasionally, a person will get sick from eating sushi. Someone can get injured during a flight. So should I therefore become sushi-hesitant or plane-hesitant? Probably not unless if I focus on very small risks and EXAGGERATE them in my mind, imagining an inevitable fiasco resultant from these activities. You’re probably more likely to get sick from eating poor quality or past date food from your local market than from sushi in a decent restaurant that follows rules and driving your car is more likely to result in injury than any plane excursion ( except in warzones of course- where I don’t usually travel).
I am less afraid of vaccines than I am of sushi or of planes- neither of which amounts to enough to prevent me from partaking.

Denice Walter writes,

…there are very, very small risks which are outweighed substantially by the great benefits OF VACCINATION.

MJD says,

Hmmm, do you remember that I wrote a book about how vaccines can adversely affect some individuals with an autism spectrum disorder? Preach to the choir all you want Denice Walter; I believe that some individuals have atypical immunity, potentially making very safe and effective vaccines dangerous.

@ Orac,

I am not, and never will be, a “frikkin’ homeopath.” Can I write a guest post sometime soon?

@MJD:

Hmmm, do you remember that I wrote a book about how vaccines can adversely affect some individuals with an autism spectrum disorder?

Oh, gee. I mean, it’s not like you bring it up every change you get. Oh wait.

I believe that some individuals have atypical immunity, potentially making very safe and effective vaccines dangerous.

Throughout history, there have been people who have believed some really dumb fucking shit. If you want people on this site to take you seriously, you bring the evidence here. I am not forking over good money to read your self published tripe.

Can I write a guest post sometime soon?

Fuck.
Off.

MJD, please give us a concrete example of “atypical immunity”. And what test(s) would you recommend to see if someone has it?

@ Len Tukwilla,

An infant’s adaptive immune system may be considered atypical based on the over-expression of memory B-cells and its select productivity of antibodies. Furthermore, the incidence and prevalence of IgE-primed effector cells from said atypicality can produce atopic conditions (e.g., hyper cross-reactivity) that may adversely affect critical stages of neurological development through the degranulation of said effector cells; releasing neurotrophins that henceforth affect neural pruning.

In simplicity, a blood test for atopic conditions during neonatal development could be used to determine if the individual is susceptible to atypical immunity during forced immunity (i.e., vaccinations).

Q. How are Orac’s minions like horses.

A. You can lead them to water, but you can’t make them drink.

It is probably more likely that Orac will allow my semi-feral black cat to write a guest post before he allows MJD.

Hmmm, do you remember that I wrote a book

For certain values of “wrote” and “book,” who couldn’t? Again, if you have nothing to say, say nothing. Put more succinctly, fuck the fuck off.

Do you mean the book that no one has bothered to review?

That hardly narrows it down.

MJD,

“A blood test for atopic conditions during neonatal development…”

That’s pretty vague, Michael. What blood test would that be?

Orac writes,

Don’t encourage him.

MJD responds,

Q. How is a “Vaccine Safety Advocate” like a Dung Beetle.

A. Both are eventually rewarded for their effort.

Len Tukwilla asks,

What blood test would that be?

MJD says,

Blood test for neonates/infants that accurately quantifies the endogenous-neurotransmitter histamine. An over-expression of histamine means no vaccine today!

MJD,

“Blood test for neonates/infants that accurately quantifies the endogenous-neurotransmitter histamine.”

Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

So…a histamine level?

You wrote a book? Wow. That puts you in the august company of such luminaries as Ayn Rand, Richard M. Nixon, L. Ron Hubbard, and Adolf Hitler, all of whom sold far more copies than you ever could.
Writing a book does not mean that there is anything worth reading in it.
Anyone can write a book. Dan Brown writes books. Hell, I’m writing a book, and sight unseen I know which of us is the better writer.
Q: What’s the difference between MJD and a dung beetle?
A: 2 IQ points.

Just a small correction

Yiftah Broza isn’t a pediatrician. He has an MD and isn’t board-certified in any medical discipline. I understand that since the hearings, he alone has decided to cease advertising himself as a provider of “personalized vaccine schedules” as some of the others mentioned do – a la Bob Sears, only in person and for a lot more moolah. Usually vaccines will be started very late, spread out or omitted completely. I’ve heard the schedules are not really personalized either, but hey, several hundred Shekels is a small price to pay for feeling special, I guess. Rosenthal is also known for selling “homeopathic vaccines” that need to be re-administered once a month, for even greater personal gain.

I hope this ongoing measles outbreak serves to take further, practical steps against our local charlatans. A new law is also in the works in the Knesset to make vaccine refusal more painful (mostly financially) for parents with unvaccinated children in the school system.

estherar, how nice to “see” you here. Interesting info. Even if Rosenthal ceases to advertise himself as a “provider of personalised vaccine schedules”, what is to stop him from continuing the practise since he already has the reputation and word-of-mouth advertising?

Hi SM 🙂

I would guess these doctors already get most of their business by word of mouth (or at least, word of social media). The current hearings are meant (I hope) to send a message that if they’re going to be flaunting their MDs to do business, then their actions will be judged by how closely their recommendations adhere to standard medical practice.

And if they don’t, an MD (as opposed to just a lay homeopath or other alternative practitioner) can be brought to disciplinary action for this unless they have a very good, science-based reason to recommend otherwise. Which we know they don’t, of course.

Except “herd immunity” is now called “community immunity”.
Apparently humans are not cattle (except for anti-vaxxers)

They took the batteries out of the I-phones and left them to die in the cold kitchen drawer

— Netanyahoo, probably

well orac what do i see here??more disharmony than normal??? the in & out word being used more often bring down the standard of the blog .with prolonged frustrations of idea’s & debate looming loudly ….hmmm has the vaxers&quackers debate gone past its used by date & your good site could look ahead to other medical issues of the day & give this no winners subject a spell??? cheers from oz..happy bob

I’m sorry but your post doesn’t make much sense in English. Perhaps you might want to consider posting in your native language.

megsaint…does not make sense to u…??..& u would know??ha ha …cheers happy bob..

Let’s be honest “happy bob”, we’re here because Orac is the Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) of science-blog writing. Keep up the good work, Orac!

Bob, the punctuation bank has called and you are seriously overdrawn on your punctuation. The bank request prompt repayment of all spare question marks and periods. The debt officer recommends limiting yourself to a single punctuation mark per sentence to prevent this overdraft from re-occurring.

‘happy bob”, where did you learn to write? Your word salad, disregard for capitalization, haphazard punctuation, and apparent lack of any effort at logical composition make Donald Trump’s tweets look like Demosthenes’ speeches by comparison.
I always thought that it was the Scarecrow was the one in Oz that lacked a brain, but I see I was mistaken.,

Even with good grammar, punctuation and appropriate use of capital letters, Bob’s ramblings would remain largely incoherent.

He could start his own blog and call it “brain droppings from down under cheers ha ha”.

What if bob, MJD, vinu and other antivax cranks collaborated on a guest post at RI?

It could turn out to be the greatest literary achievement since “Naked Came The Stranger”.

@ DB:

Even better, they could create their own blog.
Or submit posts to AoA, TMR or Jake’s pile of rubbish,

It would be better than eating a “Dangerous Bacon,” lettuce, and tomato sandwich. 🙂

Seriously, I’d be glad to collaborate on an RI guest post in the spirit of vaccine safety. Orac, what say you?

MJD, why are you obsessed with writing a guest post? Will you let Orac write a guest chapter in your next venture into writing pre-remaindered literature?

Since Dangerous Bacon hasn’t said it, I will say it for him: :”Eat me.”

ha ha ..well said mr bacon….literary achievement ah ?? fantastic….h.b.8.

“It could turn out to be the greatest literary achievement since “Naked Came The Stranger””.
“Naked Came the Stranger” had some entertainment value, much of it from the fact that it was written by a group of actual writers trying to write as badly as possible.
This clutter of nimrods doesn’t have to make an effort.

Surely MDs who are antivaccine should have their licenses invalidated? For malpractice, not adhering to the standards of care? I can hardly think of anything a pediatrician or family doctor could do to a child that is more commonly likely to injure it, than advise against vaccination.

If a surgeon didn’t believe in the germ theory of disease, and advised patients that they should refuse all sterilization procedures before surgery, would that surgeon be allowed to perform operations in non-sterile conditions? Would their license as an MD not be pulled?

Then at least these quacks could not list MD after their names.

CBC radio just reported the death of a 3-yr old from, apparently, complications following the flu. She was in Gatineau Québec and was evacutated to Montreal’s Children’s Hospital with temperature of 40 degrees

She had not received the flu vaccination.

Nice to see that the Israeli Ministry of Health has decorative hibiscus plantings.

Remember, hibiscus tea is good for what ails you.

Remember, hibiscus tea is good for what ails you.
Oh no! we’ve lost Dangerous Bacon. The next thing we know DB will be advocating reiki!

yes its like fishing on here throw the line out &reel them in .take the bait folks ..ha ha.. cheers happy bob from oz

what happened here??yes cast the line out& reel them in ..they always take the bait..ha ha ..cheers happy bob from oz

opps a double banger ??????????????????????????????????cheers too ..m..j..d.. & all …h/b

Did you forget to take your medications today????????????????????????????????????????????????jeers

Simply put, you can’t practice science base medicine if you reject science based medicine, AV Dr’s should lose their licence it’s as simple as that.

Quantity of information is an important feature of any communication. Claude Shannon invented an entire field to formalize the study of information theory. One of the key metrics of any sequence of symbols is the quantity of information it contains. The more predictable a symbol’s appearance in a sequence the less information the sequence contains since there is, in essence, little value in transmitting it at all. Conversely, the less predictable each symbol the greater the information content. In light of this mode of analysis I hereby nominate robert’s comments as having greater information content (and therefore entropy) than that of any other RI commenter, including those of this humble short alphabetic sequence. It’s true that I have striven to do better by means of poetry but even these have fallen far short of the master’s missives. I remain in awe of his down under prowess.

Did we all notice that Dr. Rosenthal said “There is no truth here”?
Do you think he walks out the window of a 5th story apartment? Or is gravity a “truth” he is willing to concede?

As Zen master Rudy Giuliani reminds us, “The truth isn’t the truth.”

“Or is gravity a “truth” he is willing to concede?”

It’s not “settled science”, ’cause nothing is ever settled.

Okay, i have a confession to make. My uncle once removed is a doctor, and he recently became a homeopath.
On one hand, it is a betrayal of “family values”, on the other hand he is very happy with things. The way he talks about it, every time a worried person with a common cold comes in wanting antibiotics, he simply gives them a homeopathic remedy. They go home feeling happy with him, and he gets rid of the antibiotics discussion.

@ Orac,
The Anti-vaxxer Chris Exley published a new paper

Aluminium in Brain Tissue in Multiple Sclerosis.

He again uses brain tissue without controls – the same as the paper Aluminium in Brain Tissue in Autism.

Again no control brains.

And again the work was sponsored by the hard core anti-vaxxer CMSRI Institute of the Dwoskin Family Foundation,

and again the authors declare no conflicts of interest.

And C Exley is in the scientific advisory board of the CMSRI.org together with Yehuda Shoenfeld an Anti-Vaxxer from Israel

https://www.cmsri.org/about/scientific-advisory-board/

here is the link to the paper:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30126209

Who keeps giving this guy access to these brains? They’re precious material and it is disrespectful of the donors to just hand out bits to people pushing agendas rather than people doing real science.
I’m not familiar with that Journal, is it on the up-and-up, or is it of low quality?

Here in Australia, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, which includes both the medical and nursing boards is taking steps against anti vaccine practitioners. Small steps so far but welcome

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