I’ve written about Arizona as a hotbed of quackery and antivaccine pseudoscience on more occasions than I care to remember. When it comes to “integrative medicine” (better characterized as the “integration” of quackery and pseudoscience with medicine), how could it be otherwise? After all, the godfather of the modern “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) or “integrative medicine” movement, Andrew Weil, is based at the University of Arizona, and it shows, for example, in the embrace of reiki by the University of Arizona Cancer Center and the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health teaming up with naturopathic quacks. (I know, I know, “naturopathic quacks” is probably unnecessarily repetitious. Naturopaths are by definition quacks.) Then there’s the plethoral of antivaccine quacks based in Arizona, such as the “Drs. Wolfson” (a husband-wife team consisting of antivaccine Phoenix cardiologist Dr. Jack Wolfson and his wife, chiropractor Heather Wolfson, who is, of course, not a doctor). Not surprisingly, there’s plenty of legalized quackery in Arizona, including The One Quackery To Rule Them All, homeopathy, even homeopaths and naturopaths treating cancer patients. This brings us to Arizona state Senator Paul Boyer, (R-Phoenix), who’s up to antivaccine mischief:
A state senator wants to mandate that parents be told exactly which ingredients and chemicals are in vaccines before their children are inoculated.
The bill introduced by Sen. Paul Boyer, R-Phoenix, would require that any health professional provide not just the positive effects of vaccinations but also the full list of ingredients and side effects before a vaccine could be administered.
He pointed to a list from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that says vaccines may variously contain phosphate, bovine serum, formaldehyde, fluoride, yeast extracts or human diploid fibroblast cell cultures (cultures of human fetal tissue).
Boyer said he’s not necessarily opposed to vaccinations for children and sidestepped questions of whether he personally believes vaccines are harmful.
First, the observation that Sen. Boyer sidesteps questions on vaccines tells me right away that he’s definitely an antivaxer. If he weren’t, he’d answer the question about whether he believes vaccines are harmful with an emphatic “no,” although a caveat that there are rare serious reactions is also true. Sen. Boyer didn’t say that. He waffled. That’s what antivaxers so.
Antivaxers also say things like this:
But he said there has been an explosion in the number of vaccines that are scheduled to be given to children, going from five in the 1960s to more than 70 now.
This is another common antivaccine bit of exaggeration designed to make it sound as though we’re subjecting children to 70 different shots. It involves counting every antigen in every multivalent vaccine dose given, and even then it’s hard to get up to the number that antivaxers routinely cite.
We also know Sen. Boyer is antivaccine because he invokes a lot of other antivaccine tropes, the first of which is what I like to refer to as the “toxins gambit,” a risibly dumb gambit that seeks to demonize vaccines as being a “toxic soup” of evil based on the scary chemical names and scary-sounding other ingredients that they contain. It’s a gambit that points out, for instance, that there is formaldehyde in vaccines, neglecting to mention that the body makes formaldehyde as a byproduct of metabolism and that an infant’s body contains a lot more formaldehyde than is in any vaccine. I’ve seen it used by Jenny McCarthy, Dr. Jay Gordon, and more antivaccine and antivaccine-adjacent (or antivaccine-adjuvant) people than I can remember. Indeed, Jenny McCarthy led a protest named “Green Our Vaccines,” which assumes the toxins gambit as its very basis; i.e, that vaccines are hopelessly “dirty” and need to be “greened.” Of course, it’s not just formaldehyde. Antivaxers list all the scary-sounding chemicals—just like Sen. Boyer does—even though in the amounts present in vaccines these ingredients are not only not dangerous, but quite safe. It’s the same thing The Food Babe does with foods ingredients, labeling one, for instance, the yoga mat chemical and drops mind-numbingly nonsensical bombs like, “There is just no acceptable level of any chemical to ingest, ever.”
Then there’s the “human fetal parts” gambit, a variant of the “toxins gambit” designed not only to frighten parents in the same way that the “toxins gambit” does, but to bring on board those following a religion that opposes abortion, thus creating an unholy alliance between the antivaccine and anti-abortion movements. Basically, because virus stocks used to make some vaccines are grown in cell lines derived from aborted fetuses and kept in continuous culture for well over 50 years, antivaxers who pull this gambit try to paint this as “aborted fetal parts” being used in vaccines. Never mind that there’s a huge difference between growing viral stocks used to make vaccines in cell lines divorced from their origin by many, many doublings and actually using “fetal parts” in vaccines. Yet, apparently this difference is lost on Sen. Boyer:
“I don’t know that most parents know that bovine extract or animal parts or fetus parts are in certain vaccines,” the legislator said. “And I just think, as a parent, we should know the answer to that.”
The stupid, it burns, and it burns for you, courtesy of Sen. Boyer’s scientific ignorance. He really is a scientific ignoramus, although he’s an unfortunately skilled antivaccine demagogue. One more time: There are no fetal parts in vaccines. There just aren’t. Also, there are no animal parts in vaccines. There just aren’t. As for “bovine extract,” yes, cell lines used to grow up viral stocks are cultured in fetal bovine serum or calf serum. It’s always seemed rather silly to me that this would disgust or frighten people who have far more disgusting contact with cows in terms of eating fast food hamburgers than having vaccines containing tiny residual amounts of bovine serum left over from the manufacturing process.
I also can’t help but note that “informed consent” about “fetal parts in vaccines” is now becoming a favored legislative gambit for antivaccine legislators. My very own thankfully former state senator and representative sponsored a bill very much like this, its key difference being that, instead of focusing on “toxins” and “fetal parts,” it just focused on “fetal parts.” I also point out that vaccines grown from fetal cell lines have prevented billions of cases of infectious disease and prevented millions of deaths. It’s no wonder that even the Catholic Church, about the most anti-abortion of anti-abortion religions, has deemed the use of such vaccines morally acceptable.
If you ever doubt whether the “toxins gambit” is all about demonizing vaccines, ask yourself this: Why aren’t antivaxers like Sen. Boyer just as concerned with minutely listing all the chemical constituents of our food as they are of listing every trace chemical in vaccines?
Next up, Sen. Boyer engages in the “trust parents” gambit:
Boyer said he’s not concerned that providing a list of chemicals in vaccines might work against what the health department is trying to accomplish.
“I think we should trust parents,” he said. “I don’t think anybody should be afraid of more information and what’s in these vaccines we’re giving to our children.”
Of course, my retort is that if Sen. Boyer “trusts parents” so much, why does he put his hands on the scale by providing them with information that is designed to alarm them. What he is peddling is not “informed consent,” as those who’ve dealt with this tactic know:
But former Arizona health director Will Humble said he worries it could lead to fewer parents agreeing to vaccinate their children.
He said parents already are provided with what the CDC has determined they need to know about the vaccines and the side effects, all in a form that is understandable.
Inundating parents with technical information that is not meaningful and potentially confusing won’t help, said Humble, who is executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association. Rather, he said, it will result in doctors having to spend valuable time explaining the technical information instead of talking to parents about things like keeping their children safe at home and in cars.
Exactly. This is what I’ve long called “misinformed consent,” in which parents are inundated with large amounts of potentially frightening but, ultimately, irrelevant information, such as that there are trace amounts of formaldehyde and other chemicals with scary names that are not dangerous in the amounts administered. Another component of “misinformed consent” is to try to terrify them with a large number of rare side effects plus adverse reactions that were observed in clinical trials but, upon investigation, found to be unrelated to the vaccine in such a manner that parents falsely infer that they are risks of the vaccine. This is what I’ve called argument by package insert, and it is a cleverly deceptive way for antivaxers to sound scientific as they frighten parents. What parents don’t know is that package inserts are far more legal than scientific documents, and vaccine manufacturers use them as a CYA strategy.
Humble gets it:
“Where you have ineffective informed consent is when somebody gets something that they don’t understand,” he said.
Humble said a 12-page FDA-approved package insert meant for doctors does nothing to help parents make decisions about the merits of a specific vaccine. Flooding them with data would create unnecessary fears, he said.
It is, as I call it, misinformed consent, and deceiving parents to frighten them out of vaccinating is a feature, not a bug, of misinformed consent, which is what Sen. Boyer’s bill is all about.
Unfortunately, Sen. Boyer is not alone. Regular reader Dr. Christopher Hickle sent me a list of ten vaccine-related bills introduced this legislative session in Arizona, and by far most of them are antivaccine. This list came from the legislative action center of an antivaccine group, the National Vaccine Information Center. I’ve thought of signing up for the NVIC center, but they want my address and too much contact information. Maybe I’ll sign up and use the address of my city’s city hall and a throwaway email address, because in the future I really need to be aware of vaccine-related bills in my state. In the meantime, I rely on Dr. Hickle’s list.
Among the pro-vaccine bills, for instance, there is SB 1201, which would require schools to post vaccination rates on their website. (Naturally, antivaxers oppose it, thus revealing their demands for “transparency” to be one-sided and hypocritical.) Two other bills, HB 5916 and HB 2505, would eliminate nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates or eliminate personal belief exemptions and leave only religious exemptions, respectively. (I’m guessing that in Arizona neither bill has basically a chance of being passed and signed into law.) Among the antivaccine bills one, HB 2472, would allow parents to skip vaccination through “serological proof” of immunity and would require the state to notify parents of available tests. Of course, the NVIC strongly favors Sen. Boyer’s bill.
Arizona is already an antivaccine hotspot, particularly Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix. It’s packed with quacks galore, many of them antivaccine, like “the Drs. Wolfson.” It’s also packed with naturopaths and homeopaths. Now, we have antivaccine legislators trying to make measles great again in Arizona.
Note: Sorry this was so late. It was scheduled to publish at 7 AM, but for some reason it missed it’s scheduled publication time. Because I was in the operating room all morning, I didn’t notice until now. Oh, well…
231 replies on “Antivaccine legislator Sen. Paul Boyer is doing his best to make measles great again in Arizona”
I remember, during my pharmacology undergrad degree, having a closing (and massive) class of pharmacotherapy, in which one lecture after the other listed diseases, their drugs, mechanisms of actions, side effects and interactions. Apart from being a nightmare to memorize, it left me wondering: “why do people ever take these drugs?”. Of course, I knew better than that, but not being a medical training, I was not exposed also to the diseases they treated (I only knew of them and again, their mechanisms more than their clinical effects), so the story was rather one-sided. And that was in a program designed to create new drug researchers! That shows that even for someone who is trained in this, just a list of possible side effects can be scary and misleading.
There is one huge difference between drugs and (most) vaccine ingredients: drugs are supposed to actually influence the body’s chemistry in some way or another — but those vaccine ingredients are not. Most ingredients are present in just high enough concentrations to keep the 0.5 ml of vaccine safe, and don’t do anything in a human body. Some ingredients are leftover traces from the production process, and are even less likely to cause any reaction or harm. E.g. the influenza vaccine may still contain traces of egg protein — but in such small amounts (picograms, IIRC), that even people with a severe egg allergy won’t notice a thing.
Only the vaccine’s actual payload (i.e. the killed or weakened pathogens) will cause a significant response from the body — but that’s the whole idea, after all. Still, this immune response can be harmful, as scientists discovered with the latest dengue vaccine.
Richard, what you say is true but is not my point. I always look for the dose (I’m a pharmacologist after all), but few people do it on principle. They see the word and freak out. Furthermore, even if the dose was there, few actually know what are the recommended levels, or if the levels are scary or not (then add the pharmacokinetics to that…). It’s like a blood work report: without those ranges in brackets, the values would mean nothing to lay people (and even then, sometimes it’s better not to show them as “abnormal” values can be scary even if they mean nothing really).
That’s why such list are misleading, because they don’t contain enough info/contain too much. It doesn’t matter what the effect on the body is (if any).
As a small side note, technically, the antigens delivered are not the only thing causing significant response. There’s often an adjuvant in there as well.
Takiar,
Yes, you do have a point there, and I’ve spent some thought on this before as well. The problem here of course is how to inform the general public properly, i.e. without overloading them with information, but also without giving antivaccine people the opportunity to put their own negative spin on the information (or the lack thereof).
Indeed, antivaccine people tend to convert a detailed ingredient list immediately into a chemophobe’s litany, with each ingredient usually preceded by extra scary adjectives — ‘carcinogenic formaldehyde’, ‘neurotoxic aluminum’ etcetera, you know the drill. Merely Including the actual amounts doesn’t really help much, as most people haven’t got a clue what constitutes a dose that actually does something in the body.
But failing to mention most ingredients will of course be spun as ‘hiding important information from the audience’, so there appears no way to do it right.
Perhaps a way to address this is to list each ingredient, and to explicitly mention if it is naturally occurring in the body or in foodstuffs (e.g. formaldehyde, potassium chloride, polysorbate-80), and to also mention explicitly that it is a safe dose. So e.g.
“formaldehyde: 50 mcg maximum (naturally occurring in the body, harmless dose)
neomycin: 25 mcg maximum (harmless dose)
polysorbate-80: 50 mcg maximum (common food ingredient, harmless dose)”
and so on. (I think that ‘harmless’ is better than ‘non-toxic’, as it avoids the negative connotation of the word ‘toxic’.)
But perhaps you have different thoughts on how to describe vaccines or vaccine ingredients in a less ‘scary’ way.
And oh, yes, I know that an adjuvant also triggers a response; I merely left it out for brevity.
@Richard
I think to make the amounts and concentration “dummy proof”, they should be compared to teaspoons in large pool of waters. Of course, the actual amounts are understandable for the scientifically and mathematically inclined, but for normal people, they are a huge problem. My grandmother refuses to do maths with fractions, because they are- and I quote directly- so complicated.
That shows that even for someone who is trained in this, just a list of possible side effects can be scary and misleading.
My nursing students are going through the same thing. They’re walking about with glazed looks trying to absorb everything medications do in the body, and what they need to do as nurses, LOL
The blazing stupid contained under the beautiful copper dome of the Arizona State Capitol is so strong I sometimes wonder if the dome hides a nuclear containment system of some kind.
Perhaps telling people what chemicals are in the air that they breathe, would make them stop breathing? If they are so affraid of nasty sounding chemicals.
Some vaccines may contain water molecules from Julius Caesar’s pee.
Isn’t that the homeopathic remedy for being stabbed?
No, it’s the homeopathic cure for becoming emperor. You’ll notice that we have fewer and fewer of these as his expelled water mixes into the global environment. That is, if correlation equals causation.
The air even contains H 2O. We cannot be too careful.
I have an idea. If these antivaccine people object so strongly against growing viruses for human vaccines in old fetal cell lines and even in bovine serum, why not ask them to volunteer as cultivation medium? Just confirm that they’re not yet vaccinated and put them up in a special quarantine facility, after which they’re infected with the pathogens that would otherwise be grown in the mediums mentioned above (e.g. measles, polio, chickenpox). And by the time the disease has almost run its natural course, and the maximum amount of virus material has been harvested, a new busload of volunteers is admitted for a meet-and-greet (and, most importantly: -infect), to keep the pathogen strains alive and propagating. After another week or so of quarantine, the old group is released, and will no doubt enjoy ‘life-long natural immunity’.
The vaccines that are derived from this procedure can then be labelled as such and offered to anyone with objections to fetal cell lines and bovine or other animal ingredients. Perhaps we can even put the smiling faces of those same volunteers on the label, just the way butchers advertise their products with happily smiling pigs and cows.
And as most of these people argue that those diseases are harmless now anyway, thanks to hygiene and proper nutrition, there should be no shortage of volunteers. If so desired, we can provide them with some extra household cleaner plus mops and buckets for even more hygiene (which may be a good idea anyway, as certain disease symptoms may, erm, ‘interfere’ with overall hygiene). Good food should be no problem at all, although getting those people to ingest it and keep it down might be — they’ll not exactly be feeling well, now will they? But apart from that, what can possibly go wrong?
As an added bonus, our scientists can observe first-hand, up close and continuously what exactly it is that those diseases do, something that has become rather difficult these days, what with most of those diseases being very rare indeed. And, of course afterwards, those volunteers can then happily report that it wasn’t at all bad!
“Just confirm that they’re not yet vaccinated and put them up in a special quarantine facility, after which they’re infected with the pathogens that would otherwise be grown in the mediums mentioned above (e.g. measles, polio, chickenpox).”
Don’t forget rabies. These people hate Dr. Plotkin for using the fetal line cells so much they refuse to use the vaccines he was associated with. One of them is the modern rabies vaccine developed in the late 1960s. One person (who called me a bully) did not even know that rabies is 99% fatal.
Ouch. Now that is something that would really make for a very, very ugly ‘natural infection’ session… But hey, it’s all 100% natural, so it’s Good!
How about a law where homeopaths have to tell their patients exactly what’s in their remedies, noting that it’s scientifically impossible for there to be any of the active ingredient.
+1 !!
+2
And tell them what exactly is used in their remedies. It might do wonders for Oscillococcinum if people would know they had used rotten duck parts to create this.
Here in the Netherlands, the latest amendment to the law on personal health care originally featured a provision very much like this for alternative practitioners:
“Alternative practitioners are required to clearly inform their patients that there is no scientific evidence for the efficacy of the treatments they are offering.”
But somewhere along the way to full implementation, this provision must have fallen by the wayside, as I can’t find a trace of it any more in current legislation nor in the Health Inspectorate’s guidelines. And, of course, there isn’t a single alternative practitioner who actually carries this disclaimer – quite the contrary: more quacks than ever before appear to have slapped the label ‘scientifically proven’ on their bogus treatments, so as to attract more customers and of course increase prices. It’s SCAM as usual, in other words. And unfortunately, there is nothing anyone can do. It is, in effect, legalized fraud with people’s health.
A Dutchy! As an expat living in the Netherlands, I’m blissfully almost unaware of the quacks here (I’ve got enough of them from home and their takedowns from skeptics sites on my Facebook…). I’m painfully aware of the efforts against research in the name of animal protection, however (latest victim, although I don’t know if it’s a Dutch thing: fetal calf serum prices seem to have increased 10-fold… a major blow to cell-based research…). Kraamzorg nurses were my only exposure so far, but the fact that they actively teach crap to new parents was highly concerning for me…
Takiar,
Well, I hope you enjoy your stay here, and yes, we have quacks here a-plenty, as a result of the law on personal healthcare (‘de Wet BIG’) that I already mentioned — this law basically stipulates than “Anyone may provide healthcare”, with only some exceptions for certain interventions (mostly invasive or high-risk procedures). The huge lawmaker’s huge oversight here is that they neglected to define ‘healthcare’ in any way. As a result, quacks can claim to ‘provide healthcare’ (and enjoy all sorts of associated privileges such as a VAT-exempt status) by doing anything imaginable and saying that it will benefit their patients’ health, and even claiming that this is scientifically proven. And even though this is, as I said, nothing short of legalized fraud, there’s not much anyone can do about it. Right now, I estimate that we have almost many quacks (~50,000) as we have actual doctors (~60,000), and that makes me rather sad.
And what’s worse: quite a few of those quacks actively spread antivaccine nonsense to the audience in general and their hapless customers in particular. They’re making money by scaring parents that their children’s ailments are the result of ‘vaccine injury’ (that of course need homeopathic treatment), and a few hundred of these con artists even sell “Homeopathic Prophylaxis”, i.e. useless sugar crumbs in lieu of real vaccines. (Although I did score a small victory over these people by having their dangerous quackery prohibited by a consumer advertising committee, the RCC, although those people cant enforce any sanctions.)
Yes, you observed correctly, we’re a bit unhinged about animal rights, and the shortage of fetal calf serum may well be because less and less pregnant cows end up getting slaughtered. So sorry, can’t help you there, I’m afraid — and luckily, I’m in the less soggy business of biomedical (and other) electronics development. Although there are rather painful shortages in the electronics component market as well.
Yes Richard we have a lot of quacks in The Netherlands. I only have to look at the quacks I know in my hometown. In the old center there is an Ondévit praxis. Next to my vets praxis, there is an acupuncture clinic. Then there is a chiropractor nearby. Even closer to my home, another acupuncturist has started business and there is also a naturopath, who does sound-healing. The pedicure my dad visits, seems also to practice reiki. When she saw my dad had an infected toe, she told him to use honey-salve, something that sounded pretty quacky. When my dad asked his doctor, he said, the pedicure was the expert. I advised my dad to use warm water and soda. It annoys me somewhat the doctor didn’t want to go against the advise of the pedicure.
There is also an active skeptics group in the Netherlands: https://skepsis.nl/english/
I learned about them from the European Skeptics Podcast, the “real ESP.” 😉
(not Dutch, though hubby still has relatives in the Netherlands)
I’ve never kept explicit count of vaccine legislation in Arizona, but this seems like a record number of vaccine bills, most of them anti-vax (as you’ve noted). Other states on the NVIC watch list –Oklahoma and Oregon–have a lot of anti-vax bills this year as well (NVIC supports 6 of 8 both OK and Or). I’d really like to know who is getting to these legislators–is it local AVers (no shortage of them in AZ, OK and OR) or is a national group like NVIC or Physicians for Informed Consent pushing this agenda? A lot of the bills are very similar, so I’d suspect a national player. One thing I fear is likely to happen is that pro-vaccine groups won’t show nearly the organization or drive to lobby against these bills as anti-vaxxers will for them. Once a bill becomes law it’s usually a whole lot harder to reverse it.
I know Washington State has a pro-vax bill submitted that would eliminate PBEs (all non-medical exemptions?) for the measles vaccine. It was submitted this year because there’s an outbreak, but the sponsor (a Republican) submitted the same bill back in 2015 that never got out of committee, at least partly due to the influence of NVIC.
Hopefully this year it will make more progress. I’ve got to go write my rep in support of it.
The measles outbreak in Washington state is now up to 36 cases, with @ 2 more related cases in Oregon. Also there are 2 unrelated cases in Hawaii that were unvaxed kids who traveled from overseas. These numbers per radio news on Tuesday evening.
“Thanks for the measles, Senator Boyer!”
I don’t know that the present outbreak can be attributed to any of his activities, but if he gets his way, some future outbreak can be named after him.
Comes to thinks of it, we should start naming each outbreak for the most-proximate antivaxer who might have had something to do with it. Some of the worst offenders (Mikey the Health Stranger, AOA, Drinking Moms, et.al.) will end up with more than one, so append the year or the name of the city to those.
Looks like Gerg is having an an especially bad flare of his logorrhea for this post–typical for anti-vaxxers when they have nothing to contribute but so desperately need to make noise.
Christopher, are you still here? Did we not agree as a pediatrician your time could be better spent seeing your patients? Come to think of it– for the sake of advancing neurotypicalness, maybe it’s better that you are here slacking.
So you guys are pondering whether there is a sinister agent behind this spike in antivaxx bills?
Aren’t you the ones laughing at the antivaxxers for believing in conspiracies?! Often when a pattern suggests nefarious cause or conspiracy, if we look further, natural factors may still account for it.
The simple truth is, as long as there is no reasonable explanation, outside of vaccination, to explain the dramatic spike in the neurologically impaired kids we now have plaguing our world, time will see the antivaxx sentiment flourish in both numbers and vigor. Sorry Sadmar, your phd aside, this is the simple factor fueling the surge in these antivaxx bills — time!
I imagine the next question you might ask then is what can be done about it? How can vaccines be saved — -as well as kids’ and people’s lives, of course! Well, of course! Is the only hope your ‘fear’ coming true, with diseases such measles striking kids and people down in sufficient numbers, leading to the antivaxxers being appropriately villainized and rejected?
Unfortunately, even here there is no hope. Modern medicine and symple hygiene practices have essentially taken this outcome off the table. As I explained, things do look pretty much hopeless for you guys. You’re in shit, and even trying to get out of it is compounding matters.
“The simple truth is, as long as there is no reasonable explanation, outside of vaccination, to explain the dramatic spike in the neurologically impaired kids we now have plaguing our world…”
Where is your evidenc?. Please post the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that there is a “dramatic spike in the neurologically impaired kids.”
“Well, of course! Is the only hope your ‘fear’ coming true, with diseases such measles striking kids and people down in sufficient numbers, leading to the antivaxxers being appropriately villainized and rejected?”
The count of measles cases in the Portland, Or / Vancouver, WA is now over 36, with all but about four who may or not been vaccinated. Do you have a point?
So exactly where are the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers (not Doshi) that the present American MMR vaccine causes more seizures than measles? By the way one of the cases in Clark County required hospital care, as did the one person in King County who got measles possibly by visiting that part of the state: https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2019/01/vancouver-area-outbreak-linked-to-church-one-more-case-confirmed.html
It seems that your anti-vax ways are very expensive for the taxpayers: https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2019/01/vancouver-area-measles-outbreak-costs-county-187000-so-far.html
Why should we care about what you think. You are an expensive idiot drain on society.
i guess you are speaking about autism ? Do Google Search with query “autism cluster”. Better diagnosis mean better care and more cases.
And perhaps you care to comment autism twin studies ?
No, Greg (or whatever your name really is), things are not hopeless at all. You see, the diseases vaccines prevent don’t give a crap about what you and your verminous anti-vax ilk think. These diseases come roaring back when vaccine rates drop, such as with measles in the NYC and Portland areas. In the end you will lose and vaccine rates will recover once there are enough outbreaks to show the absolute stupidity of anti-vaxxers like you. My anger comes from the harm you do to the children I care for. It’s a shame you can’t be made to endure the suffering of infants to young to be vaccinated who contract diseases like measles, pertussis and meningitis thanks to the innumerable lies told by your ilk in order to scare parents out of vaccinating. You anti-vaxxers haven’t prevented a single case of autism, but you’ve brought a world of hurt to this planet.
Or query “autism prevalence”.
Greg, didn’t we agree that your time is better spent planting trees?
You know, doing something to benefit the planet?
Hmm. I wonder just how “understandable” that info is. Anyway, that’s not a compelling counter-argument – that we should just cede to some government agency’s determination of what we do or don’t need to know. F’rinstance, I myself might have trusted the CDC’s judgement under the Obama administration, but under Trump??
Whenever you tell people, in effect, ‘we insist on hiding this information from you because you’re too stupid to process it correctly’ you’ve dug yourself into a huge argumentative hole. Humble sounds too much like he’s endorsing government censorship. Anyway, no one like to be told they need a nanny, even if they do.
So, what to do? Well, what’s actually wrong with the info disclosures Boyer proposes? They’re incomplete. As Orac says they’re designed to alarm parents. Why would facts be alarming? Because the names of the ingredients, injected into the discussion by themselves, will be read within a completely inappropriate context. So what kind of document would provide truly informed consent on vaccine ingredients? It would be something that clearly explicateslike the proper contexts, like Orac’s post above – not only listing the ingredients, but explaining what they actually are, why they’re there, how small the quantities truly are, and how these things compare with other things kids ingest that are easily understood as benign, along the lines of the ‘hydrogen dioxide gambit’ (though I’m so tired of that it pains me to type the words0.
Sadmar, I’m not 100% sure what you’re asking here, but it sounds like you want all the information that Boyer wants, but written in a “way that is understandable”, as is already provided by CDC.
An important note is that, when writing information for the “average American” it is written at a 7th-8th grade reading level. And most people haven’t taken a single science class since high school (and hoo boy does the quality of that vary!).
So is it even possible to write the document you imagine? In a page? (Because parents are busy.) Or would it be so long and so complicated that everyone gives up, like a EULA?
Yes, Humble’s statement is poorly phrased (or was poorly phrased for him).
What I’m suggesting is a counter-strategy to Boyer, one that does not give the appearance of repressing information. (I say “appearance “because arguably no information is actually being repressed now.) What Boyer wants is disclosure of “the full list of ingredients and side effects before a vaccine could be administered.” Then he cites a scary sounding list of ingredients supposedly derived from the CDC itself “phosphate, bovine serum, formaldehyde, fluoride, yeast extracts or human diploid fibroblast cell cultures”. That’s all negative. We already know the side effect notifications on package inserts for Rx meds aren’t helpful because they don’t really distinguish between the ones only a few users among millions might get vs. the ones an average user might really expect. You can say the misleading thing there is too much information.but it’s really not enough, the absence of some sense of importance based in frequency.
See, it’s telling what Boyer ISN’T asking for. He’s not asking for any explanations of WHY there’s formaldehyde or fluoride or yeast extract in any vaccine or how much of those things (or rather how little) are in there. Yes, you could write that document, as Orac has basically included that in the post above. So, no, it wouldn’t be like a EULA because it would be in plain language. Sure, most patients would chose not to read it, but those that did would be given a reassuringly accurate picture.
But the person we want to give up is Boyer. He claims to want “tranparency” and “informed choice”. Fine. If he suggests patients have to be given a list of ingredients, we insist that has to include accurate comprehensible text on how much of those things are there and why. E.g. something like ‘there’s a wee bit of widgetide in this vaccine, about 100 times less than in an oz. of breast milk, and if we took it out, the vaccine would go bad and wouldn’t reliably protect kids from disease.’ Force Boyer to attach something like that to his bill as an amendment, and I bet he’ll drop the bill altogether – revealing, by-the-by, his real agenda.
You do realize, don’t you, that exactly the sort of resource you propose has long existed on multiple websites, such as the CHOP Vaccine Education Center. A link to this website would provide that resource and a lot more.
https://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center
They even have a handy dandy sheet.
https://media.chop.edu/data/files/pdfs/vaccine-education-center-vaccine-ingredients.pdf
@ Orac
The argument is not about what info is available as a resource. It’s about what the government could or should rmandate as a disclosure. Boyer wants to mandate disclosing a list of ingredients, taken out of context. While it is valid, as Dorit does here, to argue that such a disclosure has already been well-established as unnecessary for medical products in general: “a list of ingredients is not part of what is covered by informed consent for any treatment”, merely opposing Boyer’s proposal with any sort of “don’t disclose” position will raise hackles among the public, and will provide a propaganda coup for the AVs if Boyer’s bill goes down to defeat. He’s engineered this as a win-win. The only way for pro-vax to win here is to focus on what Boyer wants to hide from disclosure: in this case the context of how much of those ingredients are in the vaccines in question, and why they’re there. I am not proposing ‘a resource’. I am proposing a political strategy and tactic.
Boyer wants to “require any health professional [to] provide not just the positive effects of vaccinations but also the full list of ingredients and side effects before a vaccine could be administered.” (my emphasis) The essential effect of this, as you write, would be forcing health professionals to shove anti-vax propaganda down patients throats before immunizations could be given.
But Boyer’s own rhetoric can be turned against him. He says “I don’t think anybody should be afraid of more information and what’s in these vaccines we’re giving to our children.” Well, HE”S afraid of telling the whole truth, which is that none of those scary sounding ingredients are actually scary, and all of them serve a purpose that benefits patients (either in efficacy, or cost of the treatment). So his political opponents should say, ‘fine, let’s give more information about those ingredients’ and propose an info sheet that basically would function as pro-vax or at least anti-anti-vax. This would shift the whole debate to reveal Boyer as the lying liar he actually is. In the end, As I said, if this tactic is done well, I would expect him to withdraw his bill, and no changes would be made to the mandated disclosures. I’d be OK with that, but in a way, wouldn’t the ideal be to require health professionals to distribute material debunking anti-vax tropes?
Chris, here you provide a perfect example of what I mean when I say you guys compound the shit you’re in by trying to get out of it. You attempt to deny the obvious that there has been a dramatic increase in kids with autism, and people start getting suspicious and distrusting. They subsequently learn.not to trust anything you say, ncluding you denying that vaccines cause autism. Oh what a tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive!
FTFY. As was pointed out to you years ago, the diagnostic criteria for autism has widened, awareness of autism has increased, diagnostic substitution means that children are now diagnosed as autistic instead of “retarded”, and many people have oly been diagnosed as autistic in adulthood.
As I said back then, an increase in diagnoses is not the same as an increase in incidence.
An idea to reflect on: Would provaxxers best serve their cause, by reflecting on which of their bullshits are most egregious, and agreeing to shed them?
Your comment assumes facts not in evidence, Greg.
“You attempt to deny the obvious that there has been a dramatic increase in kids with autism,…”
Where is that data? You made the claim, now show us your real evidence. Also, seizures are not exactly autism. You once claimed the MMR causes too many seizures, when you also need to provide the evidence that it happens more than measles.
You are obviously denying science, which makes you a chronic liar.
It’s not obvious, because not true. Simple.
You’re speaking wagering material there Christopher. Consider both the scenarios coming true — will a great influx of cases of a mild rash offset a precipitous drop in the amount of brain damaged kids that we’re currently seeing? You appear to be a smart man, Christopher, so I don’t doubt that you know where I am placing my bet.
Firstly, that “mild rash” is not always that mild. In response to the current outbreaks of Measles, an article written by Roald Dahl is doing the rounds. His eldest daughter Olivia caught Measles, but it passed. Only, it didn’t.
Olivia was killed by Measles Encephalitis.
Secondly, you have been repeatedly notified that autism is not brain damage. Yet you persist in repeating this offensive claim.
Thirdly, and I realise I’m probably talking to a brick wall, but vaccines do NOT cause autism.
I should have noted above that It’s not necessarily the goal of AVs to actually pass this bill, or any like it. They can probably reap more benefit from the propaganda that can be built around the bill going down to defeat. “Why don’t they want you to know? What are they hiding? Big Brother!!” etc. etc. Humble’s responses could be playing into a trap. I wonder what’s up with the reporter singling out Humble as “the voice of the conventional health establishment here” and the selection of quotes to include in the article. Not that I’m suggesting some hidden bias on the subjects of vaccines or chemicals or baby-parts. If there is any distortion there – and there may not be: Humble may be absolutely representative and represented totally accurately in the report – that could come simply from the news bias toward dramatic oppositions.
Just curious. Sometimes do you reflect back on your own verbal diarrhea, and consider that it is so impressive, to the extent that for even a fleeting second even you are inclined to believe it?
I don’t always agree with Sadmar. But you should know that he is not writing for you – he is writing for us. We are trying to have a conversation about how to oppose dangerous nonsense and legislation, and Sadmar is making a contribution to that conversation.
You don’t listen. You’re in above your head. You don’t know what is going on here. Neither Sadmar nor anyone else is trying to impress you. This is not your conversation; you don’t know what we are talking about. We are not trying to persuade you; we are talking about what it would take to counter the influence of bigots like you.
The conversation about whether vaccines are generally harmful is not interesting because it is settled. The conversation about how to combat dangerous silliness is where the real action is – and that does not include you.
I have to agree with sadmar (painful though it is ;)).
The “former Arizona health director” selected to show the “other side” didn’t come off well in the article. Even sympathizing with his viewpoint, it sounded like he was saying “this stuff is too technical for anyone but doctors, so we shouldn’t have to tell parents”. It has a patronizing air.
It would’ve been much better if he’d laid into Boyer’s nonsensical claims about “animal parts” and “fetal parts”, while noting that miniscule amounts of Scary-Sounding Chemicals can be found in practically anything (including water and everyday foods) and that the toxin ploy is a staple of antivaxers (while real toxins are the ones produced by disease organisms).
Of course, the reporter who screwed up with the “tell both sides” angle and didn’t bother to vet any of Boyer’s claims (like the bogus one about 70+ vaccines) is heavily to blame.
I would not characterise the statement “it is too technical for most parents” as patronising. I would characterise it as true.
Perhaps you are right, but does saying it that way advance the goal of vaccine adherence?
We’re talking about politics. It’s not a question of whether the statement is true, but how people will receive the truth in that form. There are other true statements that can be made that will not come off as patronizing. That said, ““this stuff is too technical for anyone but doctors, so we shouldn’t have to tell parents” is false, because Orac, among others has demonstrated it can be explained clearly to lay people.
The natural question is, if you’re not antivaccine, why signal vaccines out? Why not demand parents of children with diabetes get a list of ingredients of insulin? Parents of children who get anything get a list? As you point out, why not put ingredients lists on bananas?
And I would note that a list of ingredients is not part of what is covered by informed consent for any treatment. Risks and benefits, yes. Ingredients, no.
Perhaps it would help to tell that growth medium is food for bacteria and would be food for humans, too. Thus casein, beef broth and yeast extract (last one is eaten in UK as Vegamine).
Aaron, Aarno, Aarno. Bad boy! Vegemite is as Australian as beef pie and Holden cars. Marmite is the inferior (and sweeter) English version.
Shelly, I’ll have to correct you on this. Marmite is the original (and superior) product. Vegemite is the inferior copy.
Sophy: re vegimite vs marmite.
Sacrilege!
Give me peanut butter and jelly, or give me death!
Shelly, with loving kindness and the purest and noblest of intentions I implore you to abjure these Vegemitical Heresies and follow the One, True, Marmite path. In your heart, and tastebuds, you know it is right.
Sophy
Sophy my love. The One Spread to Rule them All, my precious forgives you. Come over to the dark side, you know you want to.
Ah Shelly/Gollum it may be that not all who wander are lost, but I fear that without Marmite, the little Palantir, you are. Don’t look too long on the false lights of Vegemite they will only lead you to the Deadmarshes.
@Greg Did you notice how terrible pharma shrill you are ? Measles should not be prevented, but cured, multiple time. Which i more profitable to Big Pharma ?
Oh — the good old argument that pharma would profit more from treating ‘VPDs’, so everything must be kosher. No! — pharma would profit much more by not losing its shirt — and perhaps a lot more! — than facing the music that they screwed kids, the world over.
My argument was that pharma would profit more by making measles drugs than vaccines. No suits are needed there (besides vaccine suits are are not successful, witness big mercury suit).
BillyJoe: “I would not characterise the statement “it is too technical for most parents” as patronising.”
I agree – but it could easily be taken that way.
Chris Hickie: “These diseases come roaring back when vaccine rates drop, such as with measles in the NYC and Portland areas. In the end you will lose and vaccine rates will recover once there are enough outbreaks to show the absolute stupidity of anti-vaxxers like you.”
Greg and fellow antivaxers live in dread of serious vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks – not because they take the diseases seriously, though. They are much like hard-core gun rights activists dreading the next serious mass shooting for fear that it’ll put significant legislative and regulatory changes over the top. Those “personal belief” vaccine exemptions won’t long survive multiple deaths, cases of brain damage or wholesale jumps in miscarriages and birth defects (i.e. from rubella) that could ensue in upcoming vaccine-preventable disease spikes.
Antivaxers’ other great dread is of more breakthroughs in cancer prevention and treatment through vaccines. Antivaxers can’t even scare their own kind out of getting shingles vaccine (witness the testimonies on AoA, though some complain of real and imagined side effects) – how will they sell avoidance of cures for melanoma and other cancers?
Actually, some of us are actually feeling amused that the effort to whip the public into frenzied hysteria about outbreaks is starting to see diminishing returns. We consider that is a trend that is bound to continue with more outbreaks.
Seriously, will another Disney-like outbreak rally the public, and resulting in another legislative crackdown on us? Or, is all the ‘wolf callings’ revealing that as a one-time coup? Who can deny that things are fast becoming a case of — ‘sit down big fella, you’re embarrassing yourself’?
You say ‘frenzied hysteria’ – I say ‘wanting to protect children from completely unnecessary, deadly risks’.
You say ‘legislative crackdown on us’ – have you been arrested, fired, beat up by the cops, or otherwise injured for your beliefs? If not, it is the use of the word ‘crackdown’ that is a clear sign of hysteria. It is you, not Orac, who is the scared and fearful puppy. I feel sorry for you.
There is one side turning this up to 11, and it’s not my side.
“Us”? Pull the other one. Nobody will pay you any mind in the usual haunts, which is why you are leaving your mucus trail here once again. Tee hee fucking hee.
Just walk away, Gergée.
Slightly OT: I just learned that rubella virus can set up shop inside your eyeball during an infection and stay there for 20 years, replicating, until it causes so much damage that your eye changes color and you go blind! Isn’t that amazing? (Yes, I heard about a single case study, so I don’t know how common it is, but still!)
Not forgetting deafness can be caused by both mumps and maternal rubella. There used to be a School for the Deaf where I grew up that’s long since gone, I used to wonder why..
Being a physician in Arizona is sometimes a challenge – and this Senator is making it more of a challenge. First, what informed consent is and what it is not: informed consent is providing information for people to make as informed a consent as possible with risks and benefits, this is a tenant of our physician ethics. To tell a physician what he/she must to for informed consent is duplicitous. I spend my days doing surgery, so informed consent is in my wheelhouse – I could not imagine what things ill-informed people with an anti-surgery agenda would say. So this legislator wishes to legislate what a doctor must say – and the purpose is not to inform but to frighten patients.
If he is so concerned about these toxic ingredients why not mandate labeling of food, baby formula, other medications? Why vaccines?
I grew up in Alaska in the 1960’s – and saw the lifespan of Alaska Natives double with the introduction of vaccinations and antibiotics. While Dr Wolfson, of Arizona fame, would tell you that if you lived a perfect Paleo lifestyle you would never need vaccines, I point to my relatives. Oh wait, yes, they lived a perfect paleo lifestyle but my dad was raised in an orphanage because most of his family, including, uncles, aunts, cousins, died form influenza, measles, and tuberculosis. He will tell you (he is 94) that when measles came to the orphanage in the next year they had more funerals for TB patients (everyone was exposed). But my ancestors lived perfect paleo – no legumes, no grains, lots of fats, lots of fish – in summer berries – and guess what – at the turn of the century census had 20,000 Alaska Natives today over 140,000. Lifespan in 1954 was 35 – over double today.
I complained to the osteopathic board about Dr. Wolfson, sadly they decided that he had free speech – even though I contended that it was not in the public interest for a licensed physician to speak out about dangers of vaccines. The osteopaths didn’t like it that I mentioned if they wanted to be considered on par with MD’s they needed to prove they were not in the dark ages.
@skeptidoc–Yes, I’ve reported Wolfson 4 times to his board and each time they have not followed their duty under the law. Very sad.
Skepticdoc asks: why not mandate labeling of food, baby formula, other medications? Why vaccines?
1 – There are laws mandating that ingredients of processed food (which includes baby formula) be listed on the packaging. Packaging info for medications contain ingredient lists as well although I don’t know what the law is with regard to prescription medication.
2 – Vaccines are significantly different from food products or other types of medications in being required for school attendance. No one is mandated to purchase baby formula or told their exclusively breast-fed baby can’t go to daycare.
No one is mandated to attend public school. As you have been told several times, there are other options including at home computer instruction from the public school system.
Chris, while it is true that no one is mandated to attend public school, I think the difference of being required to make use of a product in order to attend school or daycare does provide an answer with respect to the question Skepticdoc asked in his post.
“I think the difference of being required to make use of a product …”
Cute. Nice use of vocabulary: “product.” Funny how we are required to use other products like auto insurance in order to drive our cars on public streets, or things like septic tanks and sewer systems as part of living in a community.
Your choice of vocabulary does not negate that vaccines are not mandatory, and it is also not mandatory to send your kids to public/private schools when there are other options.
I seem to recall being required to use a number of products to attend school, such as clothes, toiletries, and buses.
Don’t forget binders, paper, pencils (#2!), and lots of other things. There is usually a series of lists at local office supply stores a week or so before school starts. Some bookstores have lists of books required for some private schools (usually literature or workbooks for several classes).
“Seriously, will another Disney-like outbreak rally the public, and resulting in another legislative crackdown on us?”*
Think of the consequences of a Disneyland-style measles outbreak with several times the number of cases and multiple deaths – yes,antivaxers should be concerned in that instance about an even more profound and widespread “legislative crackdown” on behalf of public health.
*note the reference to “us” – for antivaxers, it’s always about them, never those at greatest risk from vaccine-preventable diseases.
Mostly on topic for anti-vaxx nonsense, but I just saw this over on Not Always Right…
https://notalwaysright.com/she-has-to-live-somewhere-else-but-at-least-she-will-be-living/138678/
(Short version: seventeen year old Australian girl goes to get vaccinated over her very loud anti-vaxx mother’s objections.)
Can I just say that I am amazed how smart and kind and insightful the comments are on that NAR? Like, I am genuinely amazed. Granted, I didn’t read all of them, but that there were and comments in favor of that kid was delightful, and all the kind comments from and to people on the spectrum was really heart warming.
Sometimes I make a post, and it surprises when someone responds to a certain tangent of it, than to its subject. I am not saying this to be critical, in fact, I often welcome it. I find it a good teaching exercise as to how the person is thinking. Just addressing the subject doesn’t always offer this.
RJ, I surmise your post as wishing ‘antivaxxers’ would just calm down. Indeed, I would agree with you that we often take things to ’11’.
RJ, I would also, nevertheless, say, rightfully so. I seriously rack my brain at the greatest atrocities that humanity has commited against each other, and sincerely believe vaccination takes top prize. It takes the prize not so much due to sinister motivation, viciousness, and scale of destruction (although given the numbers, it’s also definitely up there in this regard). It can be considered the worst atrocity because of the profile of the victims.
Also RJ, because a tiny percentage of ‘nutcases’ believe vaccination is the worst atrocity, essentially, in itself, does not refute this.
“I find it a good teaching exercise as to how the person is thinking.” Incredible arrogance combined with ignorance.
“I surmise your post as wishing ‘antivaxxers’ would just calm down.” Again with the meta-projection. In truth I wish they would face reality and put their efforts into actual issues rather than non-existent threats. Anti-vax propaganda makes us stupider, all of us, not just the woo-purveyors.
“scale of destruction” Whoa, from bigoted to actually stupid. The number of people harmed by vaccines is dwarfed by the number of lives saved. It’s like seatbelts; in a very small number of vehicular accidents the seatbelt makes you more likely to die. Dwarfed by the lives saved.
Hysteria! The specimen actually believes vaccines are a crime against humanity, for reals!!! Whoa! Vaccines are not the ‘worst atrocity’ because they are pretty much the opposite of atrocity – massively life-saving medicine. Condescension from below, combined with bigotry and arrogance. The freakly-freak is strong in this one.
Note the ‘meta’ nature of this post – it is said about someone, not to that someone. This really is the craziest post in a long time, and that takes some doing. Mind-numbingly inane. Similar specimen to the ‘thingee’, but somewhat brighter. Waste of brainpower.
Greatest atrocities? Vaccines?
Oh my holy and non-existent g-d!
I beg to differ: just since 1940:
the Siege of Leningrad, N-zi Death Camps, Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima/ Nagasaki, Mao, Viet Nam war, Khmer Rouge and that’s just war related-
how about racism, sexism, homophobia, neglect of people with hiv and the poor? Vast income inequality? AGW?
I know where he gets this stuff.
Q: How many light bulbs does it take to change an anti-vaxxer?
A: Causality.
I’ve always found that the best thing to do when an anti-vaxxer burns out is to light a candle.
Keebler discontinuing Swedish Creme cookies was a worse “atrocity” than vaccination.
The fiends.
What always confuses me is the complaint of too many vaccines. People saw that vaccines worked, and wanted more of them, so researchers found vaccines against more pathogens. If they weren’t successful in the first place, people wouldn’t have wanted more of them!
Sorry if I omitted any atrocities but I had an appointment and couldn’t leave that monstrous statement unanswered.
Greg and others get these ideas from people like those I survey who are endlessly conjuring nightmares in order to increase their following and gain a reputation as a revolutionary, paradigm shifter or dissolver of illusions- even when none exist.. Hyperbole can be a useful tool in rhetoric but it can also become deliberate lying. At PRN.fm vaccination is compared to the Tuskegee study of syphilis which left suffering black men untreated. Adams describes vaccination as a satanic ritual wherein aborted foetal tissue is the medium for sealing a demonic pact. Kim Rossi ( AoA) derides MeToo for dismissing her claims as a mother of “vaccine injured” daughters when “all women should be heard”
Orac has shown how anti-vaxxers compare themselves to victims of the Holocaust, war or crime victims and people who were raped.
It bothers me how many somewhat educated adults fall prey to these machinations: I hear call-ins for advice (PRN) or comments asking for help ( AoA, TMR). Some followers thank the mis-informers for saving them.
Truthfully, most people who believe in the huge increase in the number of ASDs don’t understand two major factors:
diagnostic changes AND ( never forget) de-institutionalisation of people with IDs, SMIs and ASDs. A recent UK study showed large numbers of undiagnosed ( probably AS) middle-aged and older adults living in society and the number of ID diagnoses dropped precipitously as ASDs increased. Many people with serious issues like those described by some anti-vax advocates would not have been living at home 40 years ago. They would have been in institutions.
I attended a grammar school which had a classroom in the basement for teenaged boys who were taught craft skills: today they would be in more mainstreamed situations. The county seat had a school for kids more severe issues.
I don’t know if there is any way to verify it, but I’ll bet that many people diagnosed with schizophrenia, manic-depression, ‘feeble-mindedness’ and many other conditions form during the high tide of psychiatric institutionalization (20’s-70’s) were in fact autistic or ashbie.
Harriet Hall wrote an article about this ( 1-1-19) on Science Based Medicine, mentioning James Laidler ( a parent people should read).
Somewhere else, there are figures that show a rise in one diagnosis and a fall in the other.
What do people who deal with kids all the time have to say about the supposed rise in autism? Surely people who have been school teachers for a few decades must be noticing if the rise is real and large as is claimed by some of the anti-vaxxers.
I’ve often wondered if part of the change in diagnostic rate is due to diagnosticians erring on the side of a positive diagnosis because it puts kids in better positions for special help at public expense, even if the diagnosis isn’t really “correct.”
This might help..
https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article224309595.html
As I said, using a bigger lie (no real increase in autism) to protect a big lie (vaccines don’t cause autism) is a poor strategy. If anything, it exposes the big lie.
There is certainly more awareness than there was even 20 years ago.
But I recently saw a mention that some doctors will tweak a marginal diagnosis to check off the autistic or ASD box so the child can qualify for assistance.
Doug, read this article and watch the video also…
https://www.ageofautism.com/2018/03/californias-senator-richard-pan-publicly-denies-any-increase-in-autism.html
Another problem with bigger lie, denying the autism epidemic? It hurts autistic kids!
https://www.ageofautism.com/2018/03/californias-senator-richard-pan-publicly-denies-any-increase-in-autism.html
Age of Autism, Greg? You linked to an article on “Age of Autism”?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
I think we need a variation on Scopie’s Law for sites like Age of Autism.
Doug, here are also numbers from the US Department of Education, showing trends in special education since the late 70s to 2016. Three things stand out for me.
Disabled students numbers are up, almost doubling over the period.
Autism cases went from zero in the 70s and 80s to showing a significant increase onwards
Learning disability also increased significantly over the period
Intellectual disability decreased significantly over the period.
And the conclusions that I would form…
There has been a real increase in autism
Autism in the past (especially 70s and 80s) was misdiagnosed as ID
With the real increase with autism, it presently is still being misdiagnosed, but mainly as LD. (Although ADHD was not referenced, I would also say this is another target of misdiagnosis).
And, my ultimate ‘antivaxx’ takeaway?
Vaccines are F’ing kids up in such profound ways, that we’re having a tough time figuring it out.
https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=64
Again, Greg, increased awareness is an explanation. And here’s supporting evidence:
“In 1990” and “schools”. Further:
In other words, it became worthwhile for people who would previously been undiagnosed to be diagnosed.
Source:https://adata.org/learn-about-ada
Greg, what federal law was passed in 1975? Where were the kids that were not allowed to attend school because before 1975?
Also, where are the autism statistics which shows how many are on level 1, 2 and 3?
Julian, I was thinking more along the line of what was passed in 1975, initially titled ” Education for All Handicapped Children Act”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individuals_with_Disabilities_Education_Act
I hesitated to put this clip up as it is by Dr Samuel Katz and I suspect mentioning his name in anti vaccine circles would likely induce hysteria, but it’s a good summary of exactly what measles is and why it is much more than a nuisance.
https://youtu.be/ad_zjxsFUec
@Greg If vaccines are greater atrocity than Gulag, why great mercury trial in Vaccine Court returned nothing.?
Do you know how serious disease measles is ? Care to post some data about this ?
I notice that it is still autism. You have not yet commented autism twin research. Autism is hereditary. Do Google Scholar query with “autism twin”.
Better diagnosis have an effect. Query “autism prevalence”.
And last, can you comment Geier, whose business is to castrate children ? Are you perhaps Geier shrill ?
Denice and Aarno, vaccines caused autism can be seen as the worst atrocity if we consider two premises — autism is more devastating than those listed atrocities and, second, vaccines cause it.
On the first premise, autism is right up there on a devastation scale, harming 10s, if not 100s of millions worlwide. As a disability, it often inflicts its victims with debilitating health, with many enduring excruciating physical and psychological pain. The fact that, on average, the autistic person’s lifespan is halved by the disabilitiy, can be seen as it killing just as ruthlessly as the other atrocities. Worst still, the disability is particularly pernicious, choosing children as its main victims.
In terms of destructiveness, autism ravages communities just as much as the other atrocities. We’re talking broken families, broken schools, and insiduos lost employment and productivity. Its associated cost to society is pegged at over 200 billions annually, in the US alone. Clearly, autism satisfies the first premise as being just as devastatinging, and on many counts, much more than the other listed atrocities.
On the second premise of vaccines causing autism, I suppose that’s what being debated. Still, if in the most insane universe the ‘nutjobs’ antivaxxers are correct, and vaccines do indeed cause autism, both premises would be satisfied. Indeed vaccines caused autism could then be seen as one of the worse atrocities to ravage humankind — if not the worst!
The only response I’m going to make is to state that you vastly exaggerate both the numbers of autistics on the severe end of the spectrum, and the impact on their families.
You seem to be getting your information on autism from “Autism every Day”.
So autism is more “devastating” than being burnt by nuclear fires or napalm, hacked to pieces, imprisoned, shot, frozen, starved, tortured, gassed, being hung, losing limbs, suffering and dying. Autism is more a disability than that of veteran who loses limbs or sight? Autism is worse than being a survivor of a nuclear bomb or Chernobyl? Or living in poverty for a lifetime?
There’s a reason the media no longer gives your groups much airtime: you deny history and live in a fantasy.
Did our really read papers you mentioned earlier ? Vaccines do not cause autism, it is genetic.
Relevant Google Scholar searches:
“vaccine autism” and “autism twin”.
Better diagnosis effect: “autism prevelance”.
And mercury trial before Vaccine Court returned exactly nothing. And there you need only a plausible, nothing more. Nothing like that was available.
Your ranting does not prove anything, try an argument instead.
Slavery, colonial oppression, religious oppression, apartheid, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, the witch-hunts and inquisition, the historic (and in some countries) continuing treatment of the mentally ill, domestic violence, the treatment of the LGBT community. These are just the ones where the victims are for the most part guilty of simply being, and some have lasted millenia.
Greg doesn’t know shit and routinely proves it with every posting here.
And another article from Bored Panda:
Anti-Vaxx Mom Asks How To Protect Her Unvaccinated 3-Year-Old From The Measles Outbreak, Internet Delivers
Julian, just curious, what is the difference between these two scenarios?
Julian responding to an AoA article that Greg linked….
Age of Autism, Greg? You linked to an article on “Age of Autism”?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
I think we need a variation on Scopie’s Law for sites like Age of Autism.
An AoA commenter responding to Julian linking one of Orac’s blogs…
I don’t know if Julian bothers to comment at AoA, but I think he would just state his argument and use a primary source to support it rather than a secondary source like RI.
Julian doesn’t have your propensity for avoiding direct questions.
Julian hasn’t made nearly as many comments as you have on the last few blogs and his comments have a point.
Bored Panda is not a primary source, but Julian knows the readers here will find it of interest.
You, n the other hand, persist in your misconceptions that YouTube videos are scientific evidence and that AoA is a credible source about autism and vaccines.
Consider that I was asking about a hypothetical scenario, you still haven’t really answered the question. Julian too.
“you still haven’t really answered the question.”
Something you excel at avoiding. I have asked you several times on the relative risk between vaccines and the diseases, especially measles. You obviously do not understand science enough to even know how to do that properly.
You also failed to provide the data for this claim: “You attempt to deny the obvious that there has been a dramatic increase in kids with autism,…”
By the way, the answer needs to also contain the percentages of those with level 1, level 2 and level 3 as defined by DSM V. Make sure you do that. It would help you understand that autism is not just one thing, but lots of things. Just be glad I am not asking you to break them down by genetic sequence: http://spark-sf.s3.amazonaws.com/SPARK_gene_list.pdf
I have never commented at AoA. I used to read it, though.
Orac backs his claims up with evidence. AoA doesn’t, or the few times I read stuff there, they didn’t. They start from the premise that vaccines cause autism, and make claims ffrom there.
Every researcher must disclose conflicts of interest. If they are payed by Big Pharma you would know.
As for Orac’s blog, my guess is that he do not want children die because of preventable diseases, which is very doctorish thing.
And who pays AoA ? Compound pharmacies ? Do Google search “compound pharmacy autism”.
Funny thing Greg how the pro-disease anti-vaxxers at AoA won’t let us post there yet Orac lets you post here. Of what are the AoA group afraid? Only the truth that vaccines don’t cause autism.
Many times I’ve seen antivaxers and woo enthusiasts deriding links to websites including, RI, Skeptical Raptor, Wikipedia etc. as supposedly negating whatever point the linker was making. It doesn’t matter how logical and evidence-based the articles are (including numerous references to quality scientific literature), The game is to avoid discussing and having to refute uncomfortable facts by attacking the source.
While AoA, NaturalNews, collective-evolution.com etc. are founts of unverifiable anecdotes. conspiracy theorizing and horribly bad science, it’s still necessary to refute whatever nonsense they post with evidence, and only then point out what wretched sources they are.
Did you hear that, Julian? Guilty as charged! You’ve been found guilty of peddling malicious ad-homs. Thank you sir, Mr Bacon!
Denice, seems like your metric for worst atrocities touches on physical cruelty. Still, would you say one person being.hacked to death is worse than giving 100s of millions brain damage? We need to consider other things than cruelty and gruesomeness . These things include suffering, scale of devastation, and costs to society.
“…than giving 100s of millions brain damage…”
Which is what measles, mumps, rubella, Hib, etc used to do before vaccines. Where is your evidence that the vaccines cause harm greater than the diseases?
100s of millions?
You don’t know how to read what is not explicitly stated:
ALL surviving victims of war and hate suffer psychologically as well as physically- sometimes silently- as do their families and their societies.
The children who were labelled as ‘MR’/ other dx 50 years ago lived in institutions all over the world which cost society as well.
They had terrible lives. You discount them as non-existent as do Ann Dachel and AoA. That’s where your large numbers were-
hidden away in storage like warehouse goods, not people.
Not all people with ASDs are on the lower functioning end of the scale. Your ideas are biased because you based your material on AoA and similar sources. At least two people who comment frequently at RI have AS
-btw- autism is not brain damage.
I would have more success addressing the dining room table than you, Greg.
I should add:
Chris mentions a 1975 law:
is it any coincidence that 1975 is only 3 years after most news sources gave details about conditions at Willowbrook State School in SI, NY?
Youngsters, outsiders and non-psychologists/ educators might g–gle the name.
This wasn’t only happening in NY, -btw-.
See also a short story,Told in the Drooling Ward by Jack London, 1910. The facility is still there, Glen Ellen, CA.
But vaccines do cause autism, it is genetic. Give an argument againt this.
Debating you guys this long, finally the Freudian-slip that I was looking for. Now lets go home and shovel snow or cut the grass, depending on your locale.
Oh — and this is after we sue pharma’s pants off, of course!
Sorry for obvious typo. I of course meant that that vaccines do not cause autism, it is genetic. Greg, give a single argument against this statement.
The absolute petulance! Julian, come closer. No, closer. Now how many fingers am I holding up? Good — two!
Now read my lips. The freaking ship has sailed on denying a true increase with autism. Even the high priest of vaccinology, Offit, is conceding that — albeit he is chalking it up to older parents having kids.
Orac, I need your help over here. Can you interrupt your huddle with Skeptical Raptor as you plan your next vaccine blog, and help me get through to him! Please advise him that autism has increased.
Autism diagnoses have increased. Do Google Scholar search with query “autism prevalence” and comment these papers. And give an argument that autism is not a genetic condition.
When and where has Offit conceded that? Link to his quote. The full quote, so I know it’s not taken out of context.
Secondly, let’s say for argument’s sake that the actual autism rate has increased. Again, the link between vaccines and autism has been investigated to the point that there is a 2012 meta-analysis looking at over 14 million people. It found no link between vaccines and autism.
If vaccines had been responsible for even a minority of cases of autism, that meta-analysis would have discovered it. it didn’t.
Offit admitting to a true increase in this interview. ..
It’s around the mark where he starts discussing Trump having an autistic son because he was an older dad…
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=%23&ved=2ahUKEwi9pKSm7ZjgAhXGoYMKHbIlDiUQwqsBMAF6BAgLEAU&usg=AOvVaw0VTJzWxrN8ZFOD4xbU2nov
All I see when I click that link is a blank page. So, Greg, you have absolutely nothing.
Many centuries ago when a priest experienced a crisis of faith they would sometimes seek a remedy in continuous prayer (I believe! I believe! I believe!) while they voluntary submitted to being repeatedly lashed on their bare backs, or other forms of abuse such as wearing thorns and going days without food or water. Guilt and the desire to be in accord with their chosen community often led them to seek this remedial abuse. Sometimes it may have even worked. Or at least it signaled to others that they were at least making the attempt.
I have the feeling that some anti-vaxxers visit RI for the same reason.
Always amusing when antivaxers and/or wooists proclaim that evidence-based medicine and science in general are some sort of religion, seeing that their own beliefs are heavily faith-based.
Even more of a knee-slapper when an antivaxer who links to Age of Autism refers to Paul Offit as a “high priest of vaccinology”.*
*AoA once explained its practice of censoring opposing viewpoints by comparing its antivax followers to adherents of a religion (apparently, barring skeptics from the temple is a righteous thing to do).
You sound sour. Ok, I will throw you a bone: You like to see yourselves as science people.
PS: With this post I am done for this thread.
Well, Gerg, Orac has and MD and a PhD and I have an MD and a PhD. Our PhD’s are in science. We have published research in peer-reviewed journals. Others posting here are published scientists as well. Where is your science background Greg? A 4th grade science fair project perhaps?
Chris, let’s try this again..
https://www.google.com/search?q=offit+zdogg+barron+trump&oq=offit+zdogg+barron+trump&aqs=chrome..69i57.13340j0j4&client=ms-android-rogers-ca&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
I’ve seen the original video, It is telling that you are not linking to the actual video, because you lose context (and the crazy folks banging on the window):
Also, due to your incompetence with posting links it did bring up this apology:
https://twitter.com/drpauloffit/status/1053288571912650752?lang=en
By the way older parents is a valid reason for de novo mutations, it just points more to genetic reasons. It has nothing to do with vaccines. Also, most of the other links were anti-science folks making a mountain out of molehill as they clutch their pearls.
(I know why there are problems with how you copy links that screws things up, there is a solution but I don’t think you would understand it)
I said I would flounce, but you pulled me back in, Chris. I could care less about Offit diagnosing Barron as autistic. Seems like you’re the one trying to change the channel.
What is undeniable is him admitting to a real increase.
With his admission out of the way Chris, maybe you guys should consider toiling your next lie. ‘Yeah — there has been an increase, but it’s older folks having kids — not vaccines! — yeah!’
Also Chris, just curious, seems like you and Julian were caught off guard. Didn’t Offit give you guys a heads-up, by sending out a company memo that he was about to make such a stunning admission? So frustrating when the higher-ups not keep everyone in the loop — isn’t it Chris?!
An increase in what level of autism as defined by DSM V?
Yes, there is an increase in diagnoses, but not in actual numbers of people on the spectrum. In 1991 I was told my non-verbal three year old was definitely not autistic by a neurologist because he smiled and laughed (though often not appropriately). Now fast forward twenty some years and he gets a diagnosis of autism level 2 as defined by DSM V.
What changed, Greg? Same person with many of the same behaviors, except after ten years of speech therapy he does speak, but it is not quite fluid, and the best way to accommodate him is to listen patiently and not interrupt.
“‘Yeah — there has been an increase, but it’s older folks having kids — not vaccines! — yeah!’”
Straw man argument. Go watch the video I posted. It has cartoons, which will help you understand the science.
“Didn’t Offit give you guys a heads-up, by sending out a company memo that he was about to make such a stunning admission?”
Why? I saw nothing of what you are describing. We are not the ones clutching our pearls over one mistake, for which he apologized. Perhaps because I actually took a college level biology course, which why I know that age can increase the possibility of trisomy 21: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/145554.php
Go have a fit elsewhere. Though you are an excellent example of the type of fractured thinking described in this paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795361830340X
Since you seem to understand videos more than words, you should actually watch this presentation:
I do so enjoy a pratfall at the end of the day.
This has been a total chuckle fest as he demonstrates his total ineptitude.
Hey Greg,
I have high functioning autism. It’s not a disaster, it’s the way that I am. It gives me challenges and it gives me amazing gifts that you neuroboring people can only wish you had. Some autistics have greater health issues, but so do non-autistics. We’re all on a spectrum. I’m sorry you are so prejudiced as to believe that I am damaged. I was born this way and I like who I am. I don’t need to spend my time trolling online and insulting people as being less than. I am not less than you. I am different. So shut the fuck up about us because I’m tired of reading and being hurt by your insults.
“I’m sorry you are so prejudiced as to believe that I am damaged.”
That is because he is ableist. Thank you, Ellie, for joining this thread. I really love the the term “neuroboring.” I am so stealing that.
I equate Greg to some racist folk who deny themselves the pleasure of meeting and having conversations with some really interesting people because of their preconceived ideas. Not only do they deny themselves of some great stories, but also awesome food experiences (sorry, I am in the midst of planning to make a stew based in East Indian influences). This denial of trying to even explore other cultures is why I kind of pity the white supremacist in this interview, who is really an under-educated idiot: http://www.merseysideskeptics.org.uk/2019/01/be-reasonable-episode-057-jared-taylor/
My kid has taught me so much, and because of him I have met some incredible people on the spectrum, and those not on the spectrum but with other stories.
Well said Ellie. You took the words right out of my mouth.
Your righ Ellie.
Don’t know wether I am a bit on the autistic side. Some do think so, I don’t really want to know. I had problems in my youth and my parents went to specialised social workers with me. Never got the diagnosis autism, but well, that was almost 50 years ago. I had problems making friends and could have a bad temper. I got some kind of diagnosis, but it one I can’t find nowadays. I suppose the diagnosis has changed.
Greg: Didn’t Offit give you guys a heads-up, by sending out a company memo that he was about to make such a stunning admission?”
Chris: Why? I saw nothing of what you are describing
At around the 17:55 mark of video, ZDOGG asks Offit about claims of an autism epidemic. Offit responds, saying there is greater awareness. He follows-up by saying parents are also having kids later, and mentioning that his parents also had him when they were older. He finishes around the 18:20 mark conceding there has been a real increase, but also adding it has nothing to do with vaccines.
Chris, I believe you asked me to provide citations justifying my claim of a real increase with autism. I consider you should make the same request of Offit.
Reflecting, I find it interesting that Offit was responding after ZDOGG brought up the autism epidemic. Offit did not say there has been a real increase with autism, but it was small and not indicative of an epidemic. He never denied the epidemic.
Funny thing is that you seem believe everything Offit says is true. He may be wrong, you know.
To start discussion read some papers in this matter. Google Scholar query “autism prevalence”. And remember that authors must disclose conflicts of interest. If big pharma pays, he or she must tell.
You fool… there has been an increase in diagnoses, not an actual increase in incidence. That is what the “greater awareness” bit was about. So what changed between my kid not being autistic as a three year old, yet a bit over twenty years being diagnosed with autism level 2? Explain.
“…but it was small and not indicative of an epidemic. He never denied the epidemic.”
Do you even read what you write?
Something to ponder….
Currently in the US, autism cases are over 2 percent of the population. Generalizing this figure to the rest of the world, that would give us 140 million cases. Even if we assume that the rate is higher in the US and go with a 1 percent figure, the actual the rate that is being suggested, we would still have 70 million worldwide cases.
Consider also that I have only discussed autism as a vaccine injury. Vaccines are also suspected as playing a role with ADHD. In the US alone, 1 in 10 kids are now diagnosed with ADHD. Could you imagine how many worldwide ADHD cases there are if we were to generalize this rate? And surely this will bring more protest, but what about SIDs, diabetes, cancer, allergies, learning disability, and so on?
If you will, subtract the savings that are being achieved by vaccinating against mostly harmless diseases that were well on their way out anyway, before the introduction of mass vaccination (and thereby screwing up true herd immunity), but I stand by my ‘sacrilegious’ assessment that vaccination is one of the worse atrocity in the history of humankind –if not the worst!
subtract the savings that are being achieved by vaccinating against mostly harmless diseases that were well on their way out anyway, before the introduction of mass vaccination (and thereby screwing up true herd immunity)
You really couldn’t reason your way out of a soggy takeout container, could you?
^Where the blockquote should be is obvious, I hope.
“If you will, subtract the savings that are being achieved by vaccinating against mostly harmless diseases that were well on their way out anyway, before the introduction of mass vaccination…”
And it is stupid stuff like that I ask the questions you never answered. You never provided the PubMed indexed studies by reputable researchers that the MMR causes more harm than vaccines. Then he is still parroting that the incidence of diseases went down before the vaccines.
Yet, I gave him the US Census measles data over five years ago: https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2013/06/20/i-dont-make-assumptions-about-vaccines-and-peoples-motives/#comment-386902
He has never answered it, he just does a dance around. He is a prime example of the lies by the anti-science crowd.
And has no horse in this race. He’s just a hanger-on, I presume when not slaving away at Tim Hortons and proudly not washing his hands after using the bathroom.
I also imagine him dumping his garbage in a random ravine and not bothering keeping up the maintenance on his septic system.
“mostly harmless diseases that were well on their way out anyway”
It’s bogus claims like these that sink antivaxers time and again.
https://medium.com/@visualvaccines/graphic-proof-that-vaccines-work-with-sources-61c199429c8c
https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2013/02/19/a-graphic-that-drives-home-how-vaccines-have-changed-our-world/#486986d73302
I’m reminded of Holocaust deniers*, who keep repeating the same vile and easily refuted nonsense in the hope that someday people will accept it. Not going to happen.
*Justifiable hyperbole in response to someone who wants us to think that vaccination is the “worst atrocity” ever.
Well there are people who seem to accept the ideas of Holocaust deniers. In Great Brittain I think 5% doesn’t believe the Holocaust did happen and 8% thinks it is exagerated.
Gerg, in your own words, please explain, in detail, what the fuck “true herd immunity” is supposed to mean. I expect an understanding of SEIR models to be in evidence, rather than your tee-hee-heeing a bucket of your own shit (or somebody else’s; maybe you’re a collector — I can see “The Silence of the Gergs” on the horizon, although casting will be difficult) onto your gumby head.
@ Narad: **
I notice that Greg has moved over to another post, asking for instruction. I wonder why?
At any rate, he didn’t seem to respond to my depiction of historical conditions for people with ID/ other dx years ago.
At AoA, Ann Dachel repetitiously asks, ” Where are all the older people with autism?” or says there was virtually no autism. Schools didn’t have to deal with them like they do now.
In truth, I could ask, ” Where are all the modern day people who are similar to the inhabitants of institutions?” How come there are no huge institutions like that any more called “developmental” or “training” schools?
Without naming names, contributors and commenters at AoA/ TMR describe family members with autism who have great difficulties with everyday/ self care tasks, school work, interaction, speech and safety. Recently, aggression has been discussed in the context of parents using self-defense to protect themselves. A writer there can teach it. I can’t obviously diagnose anyone but I would venture that many of these children/ adults would NOT have lived at home years ago. Now Dachel is old enough to know better and was trained as a teacher.
I hear similar nonsense at PRN and NN. Some one over 70 would know about this unless if they lived in a bubble, so I assume that there is deliberate obfuscation. Someone over 50 may know about it because of films- even fiction. They can’t pretend that no kids had serious issues like ID, low fxing ASD, “childhood schizophrenia”
** I am glad to see that you have survived the cold and hope that the cats are alright.
Thanks, but they’re never going to be alright as long as they’re just being warehoused. Two minutes of affection a day is just heart-rending on both sides. “Hey, where are you going? Please?” Now the damn fool woman is taking friendlies to animal control and hoping for the best. And I had to cajole some doxycyline out of my ENT because I’ve been tasked with socializing three feral kittens and she hasn’t gotten around to separate out the maybes from the tough customer.
And I have to go visit my dad for at least two weeks. I am deeply worried, given the state things were in after the last time.
Actually, it is McD’s today. They have any-size $1 coffee. I do alternate between the two though. I also do try to wash my hands after the bathroom — albeit, with the cold, waiting on a blowdryer can get rather arduous. Forgot the late-night host who has a ‘thank-you’ segment, where he reflectively penned a thank-you note to the blowdryer for teaching him the beauty of using his shirt-tail to dry his hands. Always amusingly reflect on that during such episodes.
Don’t bother, the stain will never come off your hands.
“Out, out, damned spot!…”
Macbeth! I also remember the scene where Macbeth mourned that he was so steeped in blood that the only escape was to kill some more. Thinking of it — is this not the pickle you guys are in?
Absolutely not, Greg. You see, we have hard evidence of the deaths caused by vaccine preventable diseases and hard proof that vaccination sent them into freefall, lowering deaths. You, on the other hand, have claims of all sorts of harms caused by vaccination, but when pressed to supply evidence, your side falls back on argument by assertion, dubious claims of harms that are medically implausible (ADHD; OCD; autism), claims of harms that have been disproven by large scale studies (SIDS; allergies), and statements about “vaccine damaged” victims that you are seldom (if ever) able to back up.
https://www.gocomics.com/scenes-from-a-multiverse/2019/02/01
All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten the stench of your groveling for attention, Gerg.
Boyer is dumber than a pile of rocks. All vaccine ingredient info is publicly available, and has been for many years.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/B/excipient-table-2.pdf
(gasp) You trust what the CDC says??!?!?!?!?
Prenatal rubella causes birth defects and miscarriages. Prenatal rubella is prevented by vaccination. Did you include that in your ‘calculation’?
Also, since when is ADHD a terrible thing like cancer? Are you for real?
In other anti-vax news..
Natural News is drumming up support for VAXXED II: they have raised 50K USD already and want 100K for a summer release.
I guess Elle MacPherson isn’t footing the bill entirely.
“Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.”
Expect more like Boyer. It’s infuriating, and as the generation of social media consumers raised on Ritalin becomes the voting body his ilk will be even more common. This is roughly why we were designed as a republic with limited “elitist” voting rights: Democracies historically destroyed themselves quickly, Republics slowly.
@Greg you seems to believe that repeating a thing endlesly makes it true. So I would repeat myself, too. Give a single argument that autism is not genetic. Rant wont do, give us a single argument.
As for measles, do you know number of people killed by it ? Here is stat:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6276384
Estimate is millions without vaccines.
Broken link perhap this works:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC/6276384
Also broken. Try this.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6276384/
Aarno, as facetious as this may sound, here is one: Because clinicians are still relying on figuring out how many hours a day little-Johnny spends lining up toy-trains than relying on a blood test to diagnose him with autism.
Now kindly go back to the other thread, and provide me with some appropriate anologies for this peptides-cancer cure therapy. Hey — I kept my end of the deal!
Genetic testing is not that simple, Greg.
Apparently it is for simpletons.
^ “Anologies” was a nicely characteristic touch, though.
Oh, and you’ve already gotten one, shithead. I imagine that it’s a tad too advanced for you to grasp, just like the fucking review paper I provided for you. Sod off.
Interesting thing is when one speaks about autism epidemic, diagnoses are very good and when one speak about twin studies they are very bad. Is this the party line ? Perhaps doctors should consult each other ? Autism twin studies show 90 % concordance between monozygotic twins, and i read a paper with females have 100 % concordance and males 80%. Difference between sexes is difficult to explain by environmental causes. Care to comment that ?
These papers have a pretty smeared-out distribution, as I recall. Too tired to look for a review.
^ Here we go.
No, Wiley isn’t going to bother editing your prose. “From 5-1%,” indeed. Table 1 didn’t have to be set landscape, and the typesetting of equation (2) is a frank abomination.
IF? 6.486.
I see it irks many here that I claimed vaccination and its associated injuries is one of the worst atrocity known to mankind. Let’s reexamine the metrics that I am using then to make this claim. As I stated, I am considering atrocities for their severity of pain and suffering, scale of victimization, and devastation to the community or society.
Let’s consider two atrocities that some here have pointed out are much worse than vaccination and compare them to vaccination and its associated injuries. Let’s also rate these three atrocities on those three metrics assigning 1-mild, 2-moderate, and 3-severe.
First up, let’s consider sexism. On the index of pain and suffering, sexism deserves a 1-mild. Not to underrate women’s suffering but compared to the other atrocities, we are not dealing with extreme physical cruelty. Women’s sufferings are more of an oppressive nature with rights and privileges denied. On the metric of scale of victimization, of course we should give sexism a 3-severe with potentially half of the world’s population impacted. As to the costs to the community wrought by sexism, I consider the grade is 1-mild. Indeed society pays a price for sexism but relative to the other atrocities, sexism doesn’t devastate the community as much.
Next up, let’s take the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. On the index of pain and suffering, there is no question here that we’re
dealing with a 3-severe.. With those bombings we’re dealing with the gruesomeness of victims vaporized or burned to death, and the hundred of thousands left injured and maimed. For scale of victimization, I would give those bombing a 2-moderate. Total deaths for the two city is estimated on the high end of over 250,000, and considering all the others harmed and injured will likely only give us low millions. No doubt this is terrible, but not as severe as other atrocities. On the index of devastation to society, again, I would give those bombings a 2-moderate. Those bombings affected just 2 cities, and even if it is reasoned that it was all of Japan that is still only one country.
Now, let’s consider vaccination and its associated injuries. On the metric of pain and suffer, the grade should be a 2-moderate. Here we’re not dealing with deaths and carnage like the Japanese bombings, but it does involve real physical suffering unlike sexism. Consider that autistic individuals often suffer with severe health issues and extreme shortened lifespans. For scale of victimization, the score should be a 3-severe. I mentioned worldwide autism cases alone are likely in the 100s of millions, and this is not counting other vaccine injuries (ADHD, diabetes, cancer, SIDs, LD, allergies, and so on). On the metric of cost and devastation to the community, vaccine injuries firmly rank 3-severe. I mentioned in the US alone autism is pegged at over 200 billions annually!
Tallying the grades for these three atrocities, we have sexism with a grade of 5, the Japanese bombings with 6, and vaccination and its associated injuries at 8. Indeed many here may deny that the mentioned vaccine injuries are real, but if we accept them as such there is no denying that vaccination is one of the worst atrocity. Save for the Great Wars, its hard to imagine other atrocities worse than vaccination, possibly scoring 3 on all indexes.
Some here may also now protest, suggesting we should also subtract the benefits of vaccination. Indeed, I also earlier suggested this. Setting aside the argument that the benefits are vastly over exaggerated, but should we really subtract them? By comparison, consider that the Great Wars are known for the economic booms that followed them, and, in fact, some would argue that we would never have achieved our current economic prosperity without them. Consider how the Great Wars also helped women’s liberation by permitting them to enter the workforce. Seen this way, did the Great Wars not also do their part in combating sexism? Shouldn’t these benefits be subtracted from the Great Wars and making them less atrocious? Obviously the answer is no.
Whatever fallout benefits there are from an atrocity do not make it less so. Whatever benefits are achieved from vaccination do not make it less of an atrocity.
Well, what grade 2 suffering would you attach to vaccinations? And no, not autism, because that isn’t vaccine related.
On the other hand, there is more than enough grade 2 suffering and probably even grade 3 suffering, connected to vaccine preventable diseases. At least I hope you consider death or brain-damage (real brain-damage, not autism, which isn’t brain-damage) as grade 3 suffering.
Read again and you will find all your points were addressed or at least acknowledged.
Once again, you assume every autistic is severely affected..
As you have been told repeatedly, vaccines do not cause autism.
You lose.
WHO estimates that 200 million women and girls have undergone female genital mutilation which has“ no health benefits” https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/fgm/prevalence/en/. It is estimated that 40 million people worldwide are currently enslaved and 15 million are living in forced marriages. Finally there are an estimated 68.5 million forcibly displaced people around the world. The combined suffering of just these three groups is barely calculable.
Your calculations are based on dubious science and anecdotal reports. My personal belief is that if the anti vaccine movement had the hard, properly researched evidence to back up their claims it would be everywhere. The 24 hour news cycle would have a field day with evidence that millions of people have been harmed by vaccines.
Just can’t stick the flounce..
Shelly, you have a point that women in third-world countries suffer more severely than those in the developed world. I suppose when I made my grade, I was considering the plight of Western women who are mainly oppresed, not physically abused.
Let’s give sexism a 2-moderate then on the index of severity of suffering. Sexism will now score 7 overall out of 9 on my atrocity scale. This is still less than vaccination and its associated injuries at 8.
Another question Shelly, are you a feminist? Do you agree with AoA that covering up vaccine injuries is a sexist matter, since women are the overwhelming majority left having to mop it up?
Where is your proof that this is occurring?
Greg
Female genital mutilation, forced marriage and enslavement aren’t sexism in the same way that psychotic depression isn’t being a bit sad.
I don’t know if you made that statement to bait or not, so I’ll let it through to the keeper.
If you care for someone with a disability (and Ellie F and others here will tell you, being neuro atypical isn’t necessary a disability) gender plays no role and all carers need to be better supported than they are at the moment, AoA if this is their claim, is being disingenuous.
” “…covering up vaccine injuries…”
Where is your proof that this is occurring?”
Do you see any? No. Therefore they are being covered up.
Notice that you res uume ranting. Vaccines do not cause any things you mentioned. Give us an argument instead. Like, that autism is not genetic. Bad diagnosis is not acceptable.
I see it irks many here that I claimed vaccination and its associated injuries is one of the worst atrocity known to mankind. Let’s reexamine the metrics that I am using then to make this claim. As I stated, I am considering atrocities for their severity of pain and suffering, scale of victimization, and devastation to the community or society.
Let’s consider two atrocities that some have pointed out are much worse than vaccination and compare them to vaccination and its associated injuries. Let’s also rate these three atrocities on those three metrics assigning 1-mild, 2-moderate, and 3-severe.
First up, let’s consider sexism. On the index of pain and suffering, sexism deserves a 1-mild. Not to underrate women’s suffering but compared to the other atrocities, we are not dealing with extreme physical cruelty. Women’s sufferings are more of an oppressive nature with rights and privileges denied. On the metric of scale of victimization, of course we should give sexism a 3-severe with potentially half of the world’s population impacted. As to the costs to the community wrought by sexism, I consider the grade is 1-mild. Indeed society pays a price for sexism but relative to the other atrocities, sexism doesn’t devastate the community as much.
Next up, let’s take the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. On the index of pain and suffering, there is no question here that we’re
dealing with a 3-severe.. With those bombings we’re dealing with the gruesomeness of victims vaporized or burned to death, and the hundred of thousands left injured and maimed. For scale of victimization, I would give those bombing a 2-moderate. Total deaths for the two city is estimated on the high end of over 250,000, and considering all the others harmed and injured will likely only give us low millions. No doubt this is terrible, but not as severe as other atrocities. On the index of devastation to society, again, I would give those bombings a 2-moderate. Those bombings affected just 2 cities, and even if it is reasoned that it was all of Japan that is still only one country.
Now, let’s consider vaccination and its associated injuries. On the metric of pain and suffer, the grade should be a 2-moderate. Here we’re not dealing with deaths and carnage like the Japanese bombings, but it does involve real physical suffering unlike sexism. Consider that autistic individuals often suffer with severe health issues and extreme shortened lifespans. For scale of victimization, the score should be a 3-severe. I mentioned worldwide autism cases alone are likely in the 100s of millions, and this is not counting other vaccine injuries (ADHD, diabetes, cancer, SIDs, LD, allergies, and so on). On the metric of cost and devastation to the community, vaccine injuries firmly rank 3-severe. I mentioned in the US alone autism is pegged at over 200 billions annually!
Tallying the grades for these three atrocities, we have sexism with a grade of 5, the Japanese bombings with 7, and vaccination and its associated injuries at 8. Indeed many here may deny that the mentioned vaccine injuries are real, but if we accept them as such there is no denying that vaccination is one of the worst atrocity. Save for the Great Wars, its hard to imagine other atrocities worse than vaccination, possibly scoring 3 on all indexes.
Some here may also now protest, suggesting we should also subtract the benefits of vaccination. Indeed, I also earlier suggested this. Setting aside the argument that benefits are vastly over exaggerated, but should we really subtract them? By comparison, consider that the Great Wars are known for the economic booms that followed them, and, in fact, some would argue that we would never have achieved our current economic prosperity without them. Consider how the Great Wars also helped women’s liberation by permitting them to enter the workforce. Seen this way, did the Great Wars not also do their part in combating sexism? Shouldn’t these benefits be subtracted from the Great Wars and making them less atrocious? Obviously the answer is no.
Whatever fallout benefits there are from an atrocity do not make it less so. Whatever benefits are achieved from vaccination do not make it less of an atrocity.
Guys, sorry for the double post. I thought there was a timeout and the first one wasn’t posted.
Still can’t stick the flounce. Blah blah blah… and not any evidence at all. There still not real evidence from you that the MMR vaccine causes more seizures than measles, or that any vaccine causes more harm than the diseases. Even after five year you have not given a valid reason why in the USA reported measles incidence dropped 90% between 1960 and 1970.
“I mentioned worldwide autism cases alone are likely in the 100s of millions, and this is not counting other vaccine injuries (ADHD, diabetes, cancer, SIDs, LD, allergies, and so on).”
You mentioning it does not make it true. In fact, it is a lie. Please go away and stop lying.
Actually, that last post was really itching me, and I had to get it out. Now that I have, I oonsider nothing more needs to be said here. I am gone for good. You might catch me though on the thread about finding a cure for cancer (or ‘cancers’ if that will ward off another of Narad’s cryptic insults).
PS: Narad, in fairness, you really should ship me your codebook.
Please go away and stop lying.
In your case, it’s readily available.
^Although your take on The Garden of Earthly Delights would doubtlessly be fascinating. Guernica is in a building adjoining the Prado, if memory serves correctly (which it may well not).
You’re an educated, wordly man Gerg, after all. Broaden your horizons.
Now it is even cancers. Do you really think that vaccines every diseae known to man ? What cancer you have in your mind ?
… that you are as dumb as a stump.
Well, I’ll address Lurkers because no one can get through to Greg.
First of all, you can’t arbitrarily assign levels of “SUFFERING” and “COST” to horrific events. Someone else might assign other levels or even deny the existence of some of the categories : sometimes incorrectly ( Holocaust Denial) or realistically ( Autism Epidemic). There are ACTUAL historians and scientists ( medically oriented as well as sociologists/ social psychologists, economists) who do address these issues but I doubt that any of them give “scores” either verbally or numerically.
Secondly, where are there data that even suggests the possibility of recent widespread, worldwide autism?
ALL of the material that is discussed endlessly at RI hints that ASDs are not a new phenomenon but are newly labelled and acknowledged as a condition that may have been called something else in the past. They are sometimes a function of better educational resources ( special education services) and increased monitoring/ testing in particular locales. A few of us mentioned institutional care in the past for severely affected children ( where are latter day equivalents of those children now?) and ASD labels as a way to get help for kids in schools. I’ve even heard it suggested that the ASD label may make parents feel better than a label of MR/ ID that was used in the past for some affected children.
As Chris’ Washington state video illustrates, hereditary evidence is being catalogued which even includes physiognomic data ( photos of genetically related facial proportion differences/ head size) as well as specific genetic details concerning de novo variation, down to minute differences.
Silly professional, Gerg doesn’t have “levels,” he has metrics.
“First of all, you can’t arbitrarily assign levels of “SUFFERING” and “COST” to horrific events.”
Well, to be fair, it’s not arbitrary.
He has a result he wants to prove and jworks backwards from there, generating enough nonsensical verbiage until he’s created (in his head) the slam dunk, proven case
Vaccination is the worst thing evah.
And don’t get me started on puppies and ice cream. 🙁
According UCLA Newsroom, 1-30-2019, new research in RNA editing may help explain what goes on in ASDs. See work by Xiao and Tran; Geschwind as well.
Also they estimate about 24 million people with ASDs worldwide. Not hundreds of millions. But what do they know?
[…] Antivaccine legislator Sen. Paul Boyer is doing his best to make measles great again in Arizona January 29, 2019 […]
Hah!
You’ll get a kick out of
DHMO.org
the “Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division” home page
An example of Poe’s law?
Actually sexism grades 6 on the atrocity scale. Degree of suffering-2, scale of victimization-3, and cost to society-1.
Shelly, I respectfully disagree. Genital mutilation, forced marriage and enslavement, less pay for women, sexual harassment, and others are all forms of sexism. At their root is the sexist attitude that women are ‘lesser’. Women are not as smart, not as worthy, not as deserving… It’s ok to abuse them because their pain and suffering matters less.
As I alluded to, this is the same attitude that is involved in the vaccine injuries cover-up. The mothers complaining about their kids’ dreadful reactions to vaccines shouldn’t be believed.
They’re being too ’emotional’ and are likely mistaken. Consider the fun that is had here at the expense of the ‘Drinking Moms Revolution’. As well, its ok if it’s predominantly moms who are left picking up the pieces after such injuries. That’s what moms do, they care for their kids and including their adult disabled ones.
Perhaps the saddest, most ironic thing of all this is those that on other occasions are the first and loudest to call-out such sexism are its biggest participant where protecting vaccines is concerned. We are considering those who ordinarily pride themselves as as big social justice champions. We are considering the folks here. It’s incredible how vaccines can flip people!
“cover up”
Typical. You have no hard evidence that vaccine injuries are as common as you say they are. So of course, there must be a conspiracy to cover them up. Tell me Greg, do you believe that an alien spaceship crash landed at Roswell?
I really need to hang a picture of a dining-room table somewhere.
You have no hard evidence that vaccine injuries are as common as you say they are. So of course, there must be a conspiracy to cover them up
Julian, what do you think is behind the push to ban parents from sharing their kids’ vaccine injuries on YouTube and Facebook. Do you really think it’s all about protecting the public from dangerous vaccine misinformation?
@Shelly
Shelly, I read you as a social justice champion. We’ve also established that you’re a feminist that will firmly stand against all forms of sexism — except maybe not the ones involved in vaccine injuries coverup as discussed. Hey — I guess credit should be given for being willing to fight most battles! Shelly, as a social justice champion are you also against censorship? How do you feel about this push to block ‘dangerous vaccine misinformation’ on You Tube and Facebook?
https://amp.theguardian.com/media/2019/feb/01/facebook-youtube-anti-vaccination-misinformation-social-media?CMP=share_btn_fb&__twitter_impression=true
I was unaware that there was any such ban in force.
The problem with conspiracy theories is that almost always, for the conspiracy to work, groups or people who would be hurt by the conspiracy would have to be a part of it.
Medical Insurers and cover providers insist on vaccination. In fact, I get awarded points by my insurer for getting the flu vaccine. They have these people called actuaries who investigate these things. If vaccines were causing all the problems you insist they are, the actuaries would have detected them. So:
Either the Medical Aids are in on the conspiracy, or there is no conspiracy.
You should read about Cedillo case before Vaccine Court. If this is best evidence of vaccine injury, you are in trouble.
If you really care about autistic people, you should campaign for better services for them.
Greg,
Yes my statement about sexism was badly worded. I should have said that something like “infibulation while based (sometimes) in sexist beliefs, cause a level of suffering for which applying the word ‘sexist’ seems far to mild.”
I subscribe to a form of feminism which believes in equal treatment in equal circumstances and respect for the difference of others. If you want to claim inequality due to your sex, have evidence to back it up, show that men who claim vaccines cause autism are automatically accorded more respect that women, and even then all you will prove is that people respect a man’s opinion over a woman’s. You will have proved nothing about ASD.
Furthermore I read some of the Twitter posts by Kim Rossi and her dismissal of anyone who doesn’t believe that vaccines caused their child’s autism certainly doesn’t mesh with any feminists principles I want to subscribe to.
Look, I know that the opinions of just about everyone who comments on this site will probably only ever be changed by the production of irrefutable evidence to the contrary by those who disagree with them. I just can’t see any of the evidence for not vaccinating being more sound than the evidence for vaccinating.
Greg
Not a social justice champion, not even sure I know what that means. I explained earlier that I believe in a fair go for all.
Your beliefs, my beliefs aren’t going to change anything, people will continue to remain pro or anti vaccine. The only battle I fight is for the rights of the frail elderly, particularly thoes with dementing illnesses. That one I’ll fight to the bitter end.
Greg I’m tired, I don’t want to save the world, I can’t.
I’ll leave you with a Non Sequitor cartoon that I love.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS7RXkooq631nyKy3YPd8ST-ZX6UqbZBi9mrL9VdNgh7Adfir5Yn18lyIoo0Q
@ Shelly:
Actually, I think that mothers receive special consideration in anti-vax society- automatic respect. In fact , many of their leaders are women ( Loe Fisher, McCarthy, the Thinking MOMS Revolution, Habakus, Rossi) . Their problem with “sexism” is when they proselytise outside of their safe havens – and although I can’t give you numbers, I would guess that men like Wakefield, Blaxill, Hooker, Bigtree are equally ridiculed and “censored”.
About “censorship”:
is it really censorship when a company like facebook, twitter or youtube decides that it doesn’t want scientifically INvalidated material on their free platforms? I think that they may also “censor” other material that they think endangers the public- like certain instructions about homemade guns and bombs ( Mike Adams even created a new video service to showcase his rejected videos). When you use their services, you have to play with their rules.
It’s easy for anyone to cry “sexism” or “misogyny” so I’d add, do sceptics and SBM people give Andy an easy time?
I think that the mockery is proportional to the degree of misinformation and its reach.
So Shelly, you’re just here willy-nilly sharing your pro-vaccine beliefs without an agenda, without any hope of influencing anyone? Why even bother then? Shelly, please understand that I don’t mean this so much as an insult but as a statement of fact: You’re a fraud!
Right back atcha, Gerg: You are a nothing, Gerg. Never done nuthin but aspire to the court of King Asshole.
PS: Narad I am finally done for good on this thread. If I ever return, then I deserve whatever cryptic, ‘wtf are you talking about’ inspiring beatdown that you dish out.
Buh-bye, and don’t let the door hit you on your arse on your way out.
Problem is that you never gave us an argument, you just rant (to be fair you gave one bad one). If you return, try argument.