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AAPS sues for its “right” to promote antivaccine misinformation

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) sues Adam Schiff for the right to promote antivaccine misinformation, accomplishing nothing more than demonstrating that the group is indeed antivaccine.

I haven’t written about the crank medical group disguised as a “professional association,” the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), in a while. When last I wrote about the AAPS, I was noting that Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Tom Price, was a member and that in the very issue that came out around the time that Price was nominated to head HHS the AAPS was laying down some seriously bizarre antivaccine misinformation. It’s an organization that I’ve been decrying for a very, very long time, dating back at least since 2006, when I first described the official journal of the AAPS, the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (JPANDS) as “medical ‘science’ as dubious as it gets.” That’s actually a kind assessment, given that recently JPANDS published an article by arguably the most famous living antivaccine activist, Andrew Wakefield, the man whose crappy 1998 Lancet case series launched not only the modern antivaccine movement but also a thousand quack autism treatments (at least). In it, Wakefield predicted a mass extinction due to vaccines. I kid you not. That’s just how antivaccine AAPS is.

If you read JPANDS for a few issues, you’ll rapidly find that AAPS views doctors as special and “outside of the herd” to the point that it not only tolerates quackery and antivaccine pseudoscience within its ranks, but embraces many forms of pseudoscience.. Indeed, I have found many forms of quackery and medical pseudoscience published in JPANDS over the years, including antivaccine pseudoscience blaming vaccines for autism, including a view that is extreme even among antivaccine activists, namely that the “shaken baby syndrome” is a “misdiagnosis” for vaccine injury; its HIV/AIDS denialism; blaming immigrants for crime and disease; promotion of the pseudoscience claiming that abortion causes breast cancer using some of the most execrable “science” ever; rejection of evidence-based guidelines as an unacceptable affront on the godlike autonomy of physicians; or the way the AAPS rejects even the concept of a scientific consensus about anything. Let’s just put it this way. The AAPS has featured publications by antivaccine mercury militia “scientists” Mark and David Geier and many others. No form of quackery and pseudoscience is too ridiculous for JPANDS—or ever has been.

What prompted me to write about the AAPS again is yet another demonstration of how antivaccine the group is. Specifically, I’m referring to a lawsuit that the AAPS has filed against Adam Schiff over…well, let’s just look at the AAPS press release:

The internet is supposed to provide open access to information to people of different opinions, and algorithms for search engines such as Google were originally designed to rank entries on the basis of traffic to a site. It was democratic in the sense that people voted with their mouse clicks.

Freedom of communication is a threat to oppressors. Communist China has erected the Great Firewall (tinyurl.com/y7allgtb). Google’s secret Project Dragonfly would collect data about people’s searches that could be used for facilitating human-rights abuses, and would purge links to websites prohibited in China (https://tinyurl.com/y9ujjy3g). Because of political pressure, it has reportedly been terminated—for now (tinyurl.com/yatvngmo)—although a shareholder resolution to stop it failed (https://tinyurl.com/y5jz6j8u).

In the U.S., online service providers have broad protections from legal liability for content created by the users of their services, under the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA), which added Section 230 to the Communications Act of 1934. This permits entities like Facebook, Twitter, and Google to publish others’ content without reviewing it for criminality or other potential legal issues. There are concerns that it protects pornography and sex-trafficking.

On Jun 13, 2019, the House Intelligence Committee chaired by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) held a hearing on technology that allows the creation of “fake” videos. At the outset, Schiff challenged the CDA immunity enjoyed by interactive computer services, apparently intending to pressure services such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Twitter to comply with his position on access to information he deems inappropriate for public access.

In early 2019, Schiff contacted leading interactive computer services, including Google, Facebook, and Amazon, to encourage them to de-platform or discredit what Schiff asserted to be inaccurate information on vaccines. He then posted the letters and press release on the House.gov website.

I’ve been writing about this for a while. The rise of social media has facilitated the spread of fake news, conspiracy theories, and pseudoscience, with antivaccine pseudoscience and conspiracy theories being among the most dangerous forms of misinformation and disinformation spread on social media. It’s not a new problem, of course. Back when I started blogging 15 years ago, I not infrequently pointed out that the World Wide Web and blogs had made it possible for anyone to reach a worldwide audience. Little did I know at the time that Google and YouTube search algorithms actually made the problem worse. Google, for instance, did indeed do exactly what AAPS describes in the passage above, ranking how high web pages showed up in its search results mostly—but by no means only—based on popularity, specifically the number of incoming links to that page and the rating of the sources of the incoming links primarily (but, again, by no means only) based on—you guessed it!—the number of incoming links to those sources. Of course, when it comes to accurate scientific information, “democratic” ranking of websites was a failure, which is one reason why Google has recently taken steps to adjust its algorithm to deprioritize low quality information, such as antivaccine pseudoscience, enraging quacks everywhere. (I was particularly amused at how Sayer Ji became so upset that Google now quite appropriately views antivaccine misinformation as akin to Pizzagate conspiracy theories.) Similarly, Facebook has finally realized that its having become an amplifier of fake news and conspiracy theories might be bad for business and has started to deprioritize antivaccine misinformation and outright ban some antivaccine pages.

It amuses me how AAPS has likened private companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and the like deciding that becoming tools to amplify antivaccine misinformation is not good for business—or at least not good for their reputations—to the “Great Firewall” of China, which ruthlessly suppresses dissent and prevents its citizens from accessing, for example, Twitter without the use of VPNs. Similarly, the AAPS is outraged by this:

In response to Schiff’s letter, Amazon removed the popular videos Vaxxed and Shoot ’Em Up: the Truth About Vaccines from its platform for streaming videos, depriving members of the public of convenient access.

Under a policy announced in May 2019, Twitter includes a pro-government disclaimer placed above search results for an AAPS article on vaccine mandates: “Know the Facts. To make sure you get the best information on vaccination, resources are available from the US Department of Health and Human Services.” The implication is that if information is not on a government website, then it is somehow less credible. On Facebook, a search for an AAPS article on vaccines, which previously would lead directly to the AAPS article, now produces search results containing links to the World Health Organization (WHO), the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Visits to the AAPS website have declined significantly since March 2019, both in absolute terms and relative to the decline that would result from a story’s losing its recency.

Now we’re seeing why AAPS is upset. These new policies and procedures implemented by social media companies to hinder the spread of antivaccine misinformation have hit AAPS where it lives. Its quack articles are no longer receiving the traffic in the form of clicks that they once were. But it gets better:

On Aug 9, 2019, Amazon suddenly announced the termination of AAPS, after 10 years’ participation, from the Amazon Associates Program, which by its own description is one of the largest affiliate networks in the world to enable website owners to earn commissions based on their traffic.

I knew it! I knew it! AAPS can’t make money any more from its status as an Amazon Associate, and that’s why it’s suing! As I’ve said time and time again, to antivaxxers, it’s always about the vaccines. Always. But to the leaders of the antivaccine movement (and, AAPS, being unfortunately a physicians’ organization, is a leader in the antivaccine movement) it’s also always about the grift. Always.

If you don’t believe me, just look at the complaint itself:

As set forth in Paragraph 27, infra, in February-March of 2019, AAPS published several articles related to vaccinations which generated significant traffic to the AAPS website. These articles accurately discuss important medical, economic, and legal issues about vaccines, but are not “anti-vaccine” as that phrase is used pejoratively by Defendant Schiff to mean “anti- science” and unscientific.

I presume the AAPS means this issue, but there’s only one article on vaccines in it. It’s Brian Hooker’s incompetent “reanalysis” of the data from a CDC study that produced the “CDC whistleblower” conspiracy theory and formed much of the basis of Andrew Wakefield and Del Bigtree‘s antivaccine propaganda film VAXXED, an article so bad that it was retracted and that (apparently) Hooker couldn’t even get it published in a predatory open access journal, leaving him only the sewer that is JPANDS. Of course, a group that willingly publishes an article by Andrew Wakefield making the ridiculous claim that we’re approaching a global extinction event because the MMR vaccine is selecting for more deadly forms of measles is as antivaccine as can be.

Of course, AAPS, like all antivaccine groups and most antivaxxers, strenuously denies being antivaccine:

AAPS is not “anti-vaccine,” but rather supports informed consent, based on an understanding of the full range of medical, legal, and economic considerations relevant to vaccination and any other medical intervention, which inevitably involves risks as well as benefits. For two decades, AAPS has published informative articles pertaining to vaccination, which continue to draw visitors, even years later.

Schiff creates an arbitrary binary divide, simplistically labeling all speech on vaccinations as either “pro-vaccination” or “anti-vaccination,” with the latter taken to mean “anti-science” or unintelligent and uneducated and thus unworthy of public access.

Ah, yes, the old “I’m not antivaccine; I’m pro-‘informed consent'” trope.

No, no, no, no! AAPS doesn’t support “informed consent.” It supports what I have long referred to as “misinformed consent.” What do I mean by “misinformed consent” (or, as I’ve been calling it more recently, “misinformed refusal“)? Simple. Misinformed refusal is refusal to vaccinate based on misinformation and disinformation. If you believe the misinformation peddled by antivaxxers like those running the AAPS, you’d have a hard time justifying vaccinating your child, because the misinformation they peddle portray vaccines as not only ineffective but dangerous. None of that is true, of course, but if you believe the misinformation the rational response would be to refuse to vaccinate. That’s “misinformed refusal.” In the case of the AAPS, those “informative articles pertaining to vaccination” have been pure antivaccine propaganda. Indeed, if JPANDS has ever published an article showing that vaccines are safe and effective, I’ve yet to find it in its archives.

I’m not a lawyer, but, even so, I strongly suspect that this lawsuit will go nowhere. It is useful, though, in that it provides yet more evidence that AAPS is antivaccine to the core.

By Orac

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

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

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

To contact Orac: [email protected]

235 replies on “AAPS sues for its “right” to promote antivaccine misinformation”

I would need to see the lawsuit; I don’t know what they claimed, so don’t know the chances. I’ll look. But there are some interesting questions here about what does and does not constitute government action that go beyond the antivaccine issue and may be worth litigating. It’s also a chance for legal exploration of who is antivaccine, and I suspect if that goes forward it won’t turn out the way AAPS thinks.

I’ve had MSNBC on in the bg, and I just heard about this…

On Facebook, anti-vaxxers urged a mom not to give her son Tamiflu. He later died.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/facebook-anti-vaxxers-pushed-mom-not-give-her-son-tamiflu-n1131936

What I caught was Ayman Mohyeldin interviewing the reporter, Brandy Zadrozny, during the 11AM EST hour,. She went into more detail than is in the printed story, including how the FB group is run by a social media grifter, how FB is dropping the ball despite their claims to the contrary etc.

I can’t find video of that online, but an earlier interview with Zadrozny (by the perhaps-overly-emotive Stephanie Ruhle) covering some of the same ground is here:
https://www.msnbc.com/stephanie-ruhle/watch/boy-dies-after-anti-vaxxers-urge-mom-not-to-give-him-tamiflu-78307909791

How timely that you mention this. I barely use FB, but was actually looking at a certain bloggers puppies (one adorable one of which needs to be aopted NOW!) and then while scrolling came across this tamiflu “death” thing. I was appalled by the rank ignorance on display–even those who blamed that parents mostly made emotional arguments, rather than offering any factual rebuttal. I kept wondering how all this got on FB is they are doing what they claim? I did my best to counter the worst posts, but it was an uphill battle. I nearly lost it when I got to the post that said, “why bother with Tamiflu when you can just take Osicilli–whatever that duck liver homeopathy flu shit is–I can’t spell it.

(I just noticed I am finally loggid in to WP again–how? I really have no clue)

FB isn’t promoting anti-vax groups anymore, and I think is in fact hiding them from general viewing, but if you already belong to one of those groups then you can still see and post content because FB didn’t close the groups.
There are tons of private groups on FB that only members can see. The change is that the public anti-vax groups are now generally hidden from casual viewing in the feed and maybe also to searching. (I’m not going to go searching for anti-vax groups on FB because I don’t want that crap cluttering up my feed for months.)

Weirdly the last time I saw one of those “hey, here’s a proper website for real info” on FB it was on a post by one of my aunts about sepsis. It was weird because the post went to the real and authentic sepsis awareness website. So clearly the algorithm still needs work.

Good news! I got hundreds of “likes” for my rebuttals! There seems to be some hope.

The admins of a few of the antivax groups she posted on — and they replied to her with non-medical medical advice — are now circulating the conspiracy theory that they know it was someone embedded and that the child is not dead but an actor, etc. They’ve also scrubbed any posting of hers from their pages. They’re really circling the wagons and, as usual, their followers are eating it up.

Stop Mandatory Vaccination? That is Larry Cook’s site. He along with Kennedy were responsible for more than half the anti-vaccine advertisements on facebook. Bunch of grifters the lot of them. No wonder Cook i circling the wagons, this could lead to a drop in income.

Thanks for that, sadmar. MSNBC/ NBC seems against anti-vax. Especially Chris Hayes.

Ms Ruhle asks if a parent could be held liable for the child’s death. I am also interested in whether anti-vaxxers/ woo-meisters could be held partially responsible although I know it might be hard to do so because the parent is an adult etc.

Over the years, I’ve watched many anti-vaxxers/ groups play doctor over the internet ( most famously, The Vaccine Machine facebook- now, it’s more tame, TMR mothers, AoA folk) as well as more established woo-meisters who give medical advice about serious illness ( PRN, NN )
I imagine that they get away with murder** because they know there’s little chance anyone will prosecute them about giving bad advice or that the patient alone ( if an adult is concerned) or the parent ( if it’s a child) is ultimately responsible. No one forces them to follow non-professionals’ BS advice.
.
I just hope that there’s a way they could, at the very least, be shown publicly to be hazardous to health and a menace to society. Misleading mothers for money. The more we expose them the better
.
I notice that Orac is getting attention from both Peter Gotzsche and Richard Gale ( see PRN). His fame grows.

** figuratively and literally

@ Denice Walter

If you have reference to Gotzsche speaking of Orac, I’d be very interested. It seems he still has the support of Ioannidis, and I believe that Ioannidis is a person who has an understanding of what is at stake in this feud.

https://undark.org/2019/12/30/peter-gotzsche-cochrane/

So I’d really want to hear Gotzsche in his own words. (And I’m not familiar with the PRN website, which I find utterly confusing.)

@ FSH68.10:

Gotzsche discuses Orac/ Dr DG in his latest book. The Doctor says he lies about him ( twitter)

PRN is an imbroglio of misinformation and conspiracy mongering. Its head loon has enlisted employees and lawyers to write about sceptics. You need to get into the weeds to find written/ read aloud articles, a day or two ago : the latest insults Dr DG and is by Richard Gale.
The site lists ” latest articles” and sometimes that will get you to the material OR you may have to go to particular “shows” ( Gary Null Show, this week) where you can tune in hear and/ or read the dreck. If you go to “articles/ Wicked Wikipedia” you can find dozens of examples of the principals’ work.
AND it shows how afraid they are of sceptics’ discussions about their Modus Operandi. Over 70 articles.

Try this : google or bing

“Science Based Medicine: A Swamp of Medical Buffoonery” by Richard Gale Gary Null Show 2/6/20
printed and audio

If you have reference to Gotzsche speaking of Orac, I’d be very interested. It seems he still has the support of Ioannidis, and I believe that Ioannidis is a person who has an understanding of what is at stake in this feud.

I thought that was a good article. DB posted the link a while back. In my opinion, Gøtzsche is playing a dangerous game and thinks his reputation a a medical firebrand is going to carry him along. He’s wrong on that because he’s courting the worst of the worst pharmacy-conspiracy loons to help prop his new venture up and that’s going to swallow up all of the good work he had previously done. Not to mention overshadow any good work he may do in the future.

See @ Brandy Zadrozny who retweets a video of her appearance with Mr Mohyeldin:

Skeptics may pooh-pooh Freud’s theories of the subconscious and return of the repressed, but how else do you explain AAPS coming up with a journal moniker that sounds like an adult diaper. Alas, it seems that JPANDS leaks the pooh-pooh out into the public.

AAPS used to call it JAPS (Journal of American Physicians and Scientists). I suspect someone told them that’s not a great acronym. ?

I am agape with amazement.
Like, dude.

Even the least-worse thing that could mean (Jewish-American Princess) is still very much intended as a minority insult.

I’m starting to think this organization is not very bright, as well as really mean.

Please stay on top of this; it’s very interesting for sure and, I believe, represents the first solid example of anti-vaxx organisations getting financially hit as a result of search algorithms. AAPS is anti-vaxx and they aren’t fooling anyone but I guess in the legal sense, they might.

Google has never been democratic. Even the idea that the best sites are the most linked sites isn’t really democracy.

Very early on they had to learn to deal with link farms and comment spam (pages full of nothing but links and search terms to get Google’s interest and robo-commenting on bulletin boards for the same purpose.)

Junk links aside they have been heavily weighting searches in favor of certain terms and towards certain destinations for a very long time.

I am also not a lawyer, but I strongly suspect the case is open and shut per Article I Section 6 of the Constitution, “[t]he Senators and Representatives … for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.” They’re suing based on statements made at a committee hearing and letters sent in his official capacity (and posted on House.gov). So, they’re done. The courts can’t consider the suit at all. AAPS could petition the House to expel him, I suppose, but one does rather expect that wouldn’t even get a response.

And that’s without even getting into the fact that the companies in question could simply disregard his requests without consequence, so said letters couldn’t possibly be construed as “coercion” – which seems to be what they’re hanging their hat on to claim impropriety.

Another IANAL here, but it works the other way, too. Amazon et al. are private corporations, not the government, and therefore not Constitutionally obligated to give AAPS a platform. Especially when AAPS are pushing information that they know, or should know, to be false. Since AAPS claim to be an organization of physicians, the “should know” part of that applies.

In the case of Google and social media, I do not see where the vaccine claims AAPS are pushing are being entirely suppressed, either. I’m sure you can still find the articles in question if you search for them with the right keywords; I presume Orac himself does so once in a while, when he is looking for something on which to unload his Respectful Insolence. At most, it’s harder for somebody to blunder across their misinformation.

Sen. Rand Paul’s medical minions are going after Rep. Schiff — one of the House Managers of the Trump Impeachment.

Call me cynical, but I don’t think this is about free speech at all. Or even loss of revenue. This is Rand Paul harassing Adam Schiff.

@EmJay – OK, You’re cynical! And right, also I suspect that their interest in Freedom of Speech is inspired by their loss of revenue.

I’m not a lawyer either, but as far as I can tell the lawsuit relies on a claim that “Dear Facebook, please don’t publish these things” isn’t covered by freedom of speech, which I doubt the courts would give the time of day to even if it wasn’t covered by Article I Section 6. Yet another Freeze Peach claim that they can say anything they want, but other people can’t.

I need to read the lawsuit. But on its face there are two questions here. First, when the letter was sent, was it an act of government? Second, is such a request in any way coercive, because of the power of Congressman Schiff?

There are limits on government interference in speech. The question is whether this touches on them at all.

If AAPS is mad about losing their Amazon Affiliate, why are they suing a Senator and not, well, Amazon? Or Bezos?
That’s what makes it look like nothing but grandstanding to me. The person they are suing has not ability to re-instate their position at Amazon, so even if they win their suit it won’t fix anything.

Utterly tangential, but does anyone else hear the Beastie Boys song “Fight for your right to party” reading the title of this post?

The Beastie Boys probably offer better life advice than AAPS.

I’ve run into antivaxers online who thought Tamiflu was a vaccine.

When corrected, one said Tamiflu might as well be a vaccine, because Big Pharma, or something.

That could explain FBers urging that mom not to give her child Tamiflu, thinking it’s loaded with formaldehyde, aborted babies, DNA etc.

You are giving them too much credit for logic. The posters on the AVN pages frequently used to urge rejection of any pharmaceutical medication at all, including mild painkillers in favour of a variety of complete nonsense including promoting black salve for cancer, both external and internal. These people live in opposite world.

@ Minion Orcs,

"If you believe the misinformation peddled by antivaxxers like those running the AAPS, you’d have a hard time justifying vaccinating your child, because the misinformation they peddle portray vaccines as not only ineffective but dangerous."

Aww. The AAPS doesn’t want to obey your Schriftleitergesetz? How annoying for you.

@ Christine Kincaid

“The AAPS doesn’t want to obey your Schriftleitergesetz?”

Honestly, I’ve read through some of the positions of the AAPS. They are a bunch of authoritarians loons. I’m much more worried about their authoritarianism than their lunacy, and I’d gladly hand over the medical system to witches than to them…

The Nazi card doesn’t go over well with me. Your resorting to it signifies that your position is morally, logically, and factually bankrupt. You are playing your last card in the vain hope you’ll make a five card charlie.
Your resorting to it is ironic in the extreme, considering the organization you are trying to defend. They are nothing but robber baron capitalists and social Darwinists, which is what Nazism.was all about.

Feynman defined one type of fool: one who rejects basic facts of science, that have been tested multiple times. Better fit there, I think

@ DB,

“That could explain FBers urging that mom not to give her child Tamiflu”

No. Maybe it’s because most of us “FBers”, (both pro & antivax) still have children in school, so we are not old enough to have dementia or vaccinated enough to have post flu-vaccine Alzheimer’s & we can REMEMBER such events such as “The Tamiflu Fiasco”?

“Reality must take precedence over public relations as nature can’t be fooled”

Prof R. P. Feynman

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4375804/

No. Maybe it’s because most of us “FBers”, (both pro & antivax) still have children in school, so we are not old enough to have dementia or vaccinated enough to have post flu-vaccine Alzheimer’s & we can REMEMBER such events such as “The Tamiflu Fiasco”?
I noticed you left off the part where the parents medically-neglected the child beyond refusing to use Tamiflu. I guess those facts are inconvenient to your obsession with bashing Big Pharma at any cost. What you have is far worse than dementia.

Reality?

“You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.”
Inigo Montoya

Let me offer a tiny bit of advice, not presuming to speak for our Inspiration of Insolent Ideas. I have noticed that you have posted at RI with several variations or iterations of your name, most recently as “coschristi.” I assume some of the earliest ones were carelessness or forgetfulness and not intentional. However, the comments policy lists among possible offenses”Sock puppeting (commenting under more than one name or pseudonym). This is one of the only offenses that, when detected, will nearly always result in immediate banning with extreme prejudice.” I have been mildly surprised that you have not been warned to stick to one name by our host.

@ coschristi

As I wrote in a previous exchange, I don’t think Tamiflu a wise choice. It may shorten symptoms of flu, if taken in time, by a day or so; but comes with numerous side-effects. But, the child’s death was more likely related to failure to seek appropriate medical help when the symptoms worsened. However, as usual, you are nuts claiming that flu vaccine linked to Alzheimers. Though some mental disorder may explain your unscientific, illogical, STUPID comments.

And antivaxxers telling the parents not to use Tamiflu and the child dying is just an anecdote, something you and other antivaxxers often resort to. However, many antivaxxers subscribe to CAM, basically anecdotal reports NOT based on scientific study and the parents may well be among them.

Having read both Feynman’s autobiography and biography, he would have looked at ALL the evidence, not a few cherry-picked studies. Besides sponsored trials, studies on vaccines have been carried out by researchers in many nations, nations with different cultures, histories, economic systems, political systems, health care systems, and educational systems. I have lived in several, including Sweden and Canada. Only idiots would believe that all these different researchers would ignore dangers, allowing their nations children to be vaccinated, and even their own children.

I am quite confident that Feynman would support vaccines.

I doubt that Feynman was an anti-vaxxer since he lived in the era when many diseases were reduced drastically through vaccination PLUS he knew how to read research.
I imagine that he would not have pooh poohed SBM because surgeries probably gave him additional years of life after being diagnosed with liposarcoma. ( 1978-1988)

@ Christine Kincaid

So, the moron chimes in again. I guess you either didn’t notice or didn’t even try to address how I pointed out that your claim: “vaccine court is careful to adhere to only awarding 1 case for every 1 Million doses. No matter how many cases are filed per any given year they will not deviate from the narrative.” Just one more stupid claim made by you. Though I commented in several exchanges, check out Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPH JANUARY 31, 2020 AT 3:21 PM at: https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2020/01/30/coronavirus-flu-vaccine/

So, you write: “The AAPS doesn’t want to obey your Schriftleitergesetz? How annoying for you.” Well, here we go again, playing the Nazi card: “The Schriftleitergesetz (Editorial Control Law) took effect in Germany, placing the press under the control of the government. All newspaper and magazine editors had to be members of the new “Reich League of the German Press”, which banned non-Aryans as well as people married to non-Aryans.”

So, I guess you support the AAPS. Years ago I read a book by their Executive Director, Jane Orient “Your Doctor is Not In.” A review of the book pointed out that, among other things, Orient was angry she wasn’t reimbursed for attending to a patient. What was left out that she was the last of several doctors to attend to the patient. Perhaps you’ve read how some doctors walk into patient rooms, say hi, glance at the chart, and bill? Do you think this is right? Should Medicare pay doctors and never question?

In any case, the Wikipedia article on the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Membership is around 5,000, that is out of about 1.1 million physicians in the United States. More importantly is their extreme positions, e.g., against Medicare and Medicaid, against almost any holding of doctors to standards, e.g., malpractice, against evidence-based medicine, against HIV causing AIDs, the discredited claim that abortions cause breast cancer, etc. Read the following from WIkipedia. Given just how stupid your comments have been in the past on this blog, I assume that you also are against Medicare, Medicaid, HIV causing AIDS, human activity contributing to global warming, evidence-based medicine (well, of course you are against this as you are against science in general, despite clearly not even understanding the basics of science), etc. Their opposition to the Food and Drug Administration is insane. I suggest you watch a PBS American Experience program entitled “The Poison Squad” which documents people, especially infants and children, dying from foods adulterated with all kinds of chemicals, etc. and how the owners of the industries, the billionaires of that era, could care less and Congress was in their pockets. Profit TRUMPS everything, even human life. Watch the program. Given your stupidity, I’m sure you will consider it lying propaganda and support AAPS in eliminating FDA. I’ve also ordered the book the program is based on.

From Wikipedia. Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.

AAPS is generally recognized as politically conservative or ultra-conservative and its positions are unorthodox and at wide variance with federal health policy.The Washington Post summarized their beliefs as “doctors should be autonomous in treating their patients — with far fewer government rules, medical quality standards, insurance coverage limits and legal penalties when they make mistakes”. It opposed the Social Security Act of 1965 which established Medicare and Medicaid and encouraged member physicians to boycott Medicare and Medicaid. The organization requires its members to sign a “declaration of independence” pledging that they will not work with Medicare, Medicaid, or even private insurance companies.

AAPS opposes mandated evidence-based medicine and practice guidelines, opposes abortion and over-the-counter access to emergency contraception and opposes electronic medical records

In 1975, AAPS went to court to block enforcement of a new Social Security amendment that would monitor the treatment given to Medicare and Medicaid patients

Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons

Advocacy of non-mainstream or scientifically discredited claims

Articles and commentaries published in the journal have argued a number of non-mainstream or scientifically discredited claims, including:

that human activity has not contributed to climate change, and that global warming will be beneficial and thus not a cause for concern;[that HIV does not cause AIDS;
that there is a link between abortion and the risk of breast cancer.
that there are possible links between autism and vaccinations.
that government efforts to encourage smoking cessation and emphasize the addictiveness of nicotine are misguided.

The Journal has also published articles advocating politically and socially conservative policy positions, including:

that the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are unconstitutional;

So I suppose miss Kincaid wouldn’t want the FDA keeping Thalomid from the US market, something that caused real birth defects in Europe.
And yes, Thalomid currently is in use for some serieus illnesses, but not for anxiety, trouble sleeping, “tension”, and morning sickness, as it was originally marketed for as an over the counter product.

@ Renate

Good point. Brand name “thalomid” but many articles refer to as “thalidomide”

At our school there was a girl that suffered the consequences of that drug, This was something that really caused damage, unless the wrong association of vaccines and autism.
Someone else, who suffered from that drug is singer Thomas Quasthoff.

But I suppose miss Kincaid is agains any pharmaceutical product, thinking that everything can be cured by something from nature.
I would say, “Think again miss Kincaid, look at the graves of children who died from ilnesses that now can be prevented by vaccines.”

” Well, here we go again, playing the Nazi card ..”

Which is especially rich considering our host’s history on the internet: he made a name for himself long ago as a debunker of Holocaust denialism and holds that view to this day.
HOWEVER woo-meisters and anti-vaxxers subscribe to a system of myths wherein government-academia-industry-media walk in lockstep ( or goosestep) and only alties intrepidly present the pure, unadulterated Truth.
If this were true, there would be no investigations or fining of companies by the media or government: there are. There would be no debate within the life science community’s research when there obviously is..

People like Ben Goldacre and our host simultaneously criticise alternative medicine and SBM as well as drug companies. Orac has discussed over diagnosis and over treatment many times, drug prices and how medical academia falls for alternative treatments that are not effective but may be financially lucrative. ( see Quackademic medicine)

Calling someone a Nazi shows that a critic lumps together diverse issues such as vaccine mandates to prevent spread of VPDs in public schools with unrestricted medical/ surgical experimentation and the programmed murder of particular populations.
Intelligence and achievement testing – as well as effective language comprehension- demand that the subject make fine differentiations amongst related and unrelated alternatives. If everything a person doesn’t like is an example of Nazism, then, its meaning and history are lost amongst anti-vax prejudice, name calling and mis-education
.
Nazism is not asking parents to vaccinate kids or treating them with meds to prevent illness: it is silencing opposition by any means possible. Anti-vaxxers complain about censorship as they wildly shriek and accuse SBM of malfeasance PUBLICLY on the internet or in orchestrated protests. Scoffers come to RI and call us Nazis, criminals, killers: try that at anti-vax sites.

@ Denice,

I didn’t call anyone a Nazi. Schriftleitergesetz means Editors Law than only Aryans can work in Journalism. Not just one outlet but all outlets.

That’s what you want. Only pro vaccine journalism. You want an Editors Law.

So you can spread your “Antivaxxers Poison The Wells!” Propaganda

I’ll make an exception to my rule because… Nazism **

If Christine isn’t calling us Nazis then why does she select terminology that originated in that regime like Schriftleitergesetz and Aryans? Why does she need to say it in German? We write in English, mostly.

She has no idea if I am black, white, Christian, Jewish, atheist, gay, straight, trans,Socialist whatever. Or where my families come from or what their histories include. Similarly, she probably doesn’t know this about most other commenters and Orac.as well.

And like other anti-vaxxers ( PRN, AoA) she clings to the illusion that SBM supporters demand absolute control over what is published on paper or on the internet. No, we ask that news*** outlets/ television maintain realistic fact checking and scientific review of research before giving partisans a platform and describing them accurately when their beliefs exceed data. Actually, these days, it’s become more difficult for anti-vaxxers to be featured on network news/ mainstream media and RFK jr has been limited to RT interviews.
Social media is slowly cleaning up its act and labelling pseudoscience as it should have years ago because it became the prime avenue of dissemination of BS.

I hope that other commenters will add their thoughts

** there’s even a logical fallacy Argumentum ad Nazium.

*** you learn how to do this in Journalism 101

Some people speak German. I speak Deutsch. I’ve been known to schprinkle it in mitt mein Anglisch. What’s the huge deal?

The garbage that AAPS purveys might simply be summed up as social Darwinism meets robber baron capitalism.

@ Old Rockin’ Dave

Nicely put! But it’s more than that, their position of HIV/AIDS, Global Warming, Vaccinations, FDA, are a rejection of science. I guess that explains why they don’t want government looking at their medical practices or should I say their alleged medical practices.

Not that I disagree with you on substance, but name-calling is self-defeating. When was the last time you heard of someone being insulted into changing their views?
I’m a little surprised that our fine host didn’t call you out on that.

@ Joel,

Unfortunately that horrible author Brandy Z. got it wrong. That mom did give her child the Tamiflu & the child died.

“We called the doctors. We called the hospital. We gave them the medicine we were instructed to give. We did everything,”

https://www.cernovich.com/4-year-old-colorado-flu-death-nbc-tamiflu/

Also in flu news from Colorado, this same week:

“Denver mother warns parents about Tamiflu after daughter suffers panic attacks, hallucinations”

https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/contact7/denver-mother-warns-parents-about-tamiflu-after-daughter-suffers-panic-attacks-hallucinations?fbclid=IwAR20EZLtFbXCxxkEbS22rX-LkJtrwpCwpWjHAFSSSEDA57jVzd4MmArzxl0

And given that Alzheimer’s is Autism’s neurological & etiological twin; it’s not all that “nuts” to suggest it results from vaccines.

…given that Alzheimer’s is Autism’s neurological & etiological twin…

Citation needed.

…it’s not all that “nuts” to suggest it results from vaccines.

Given that YET ANOTHER large study (650,000 people) looked at if vaccines cause autism and came back as “no correlation”, you lose.

Science gives us a process to try to figure out in cases where one event precedes another if the first event might be causing the second event. First you need to do studies like the ones discussed in this paper. In the Denver mother’s case, there were actually three events.

…1 daughter gets influenza
…2 daughter takes osteltamivir
…3 daughter suffers panic attacks

To find out if this is a correlation or just a coincidence, we gather a lot of cases of events 1, 2, and 3. Then we count and see if event 3 happens more often in cases of 1+2 than it does in just 1 or just 2. We also need to compare with a general population who have neither 1 nor 2.

Studies like that are reviewed in this article.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12325-012-0050-8

A 2008 review by our group concluded that the risk of neuropsychiatric adverse events (NPAEs) in influenza patients was not increased by oseltamivir exposure, and did not identify any mechanism by which oseltamivir or its metabolites could cause or worsen such events

….

A US healthcare claims database analysis showed that the risk of NPAEs in 7,798 oseltamivir-treated patients was no higher than that in 10,411 patients not on antivirals, but a study on oseltamivir and abnormal behavior in Japan was less conclusive. NPAE frequency in oseltamivir-exposed Japanese and Taiwanese children with influenza was the same as in unexposed children. New analysis of the UK General Practice Research Database showed that the relative adjusted risk of NPAEs in influenza patients was 2.18-times higher than in the general population. Other epidemiology studies report frequent occurrence of encephalitis and similar disorders in influenza patients independently of oseltamivir exposure. The new data support the findings of the original assessment. Evidence suggests that influenza-related encephalopathies are caused by influenza-induced inflammatory responses, but more work is needed to confirm the underlying mechanisms.

So getting the flu increases the risk, but taking oseltamivir does not. So the parsimonious explanation is that the panic attacks were probably caused by the fever from the flu, not tamiflu.

But the issue is serious enough to merit further research.

Of course you want it to be about the Tamiflu, and not about how a bunch of antivaxxers told her to ignore the doctor’s recommendation and then, when the child died, declared the whole thing was a set up to make them look bad.

Unfortunately that horrible author Brandy Z. got it wrong. That mom did give her child the Tamiflu & the child died.

“We called the doctors. We called the hospital. We gave them the medicine we were instructed to give. We did everything,”

I’m sure it sucks to know your negligence probably contributed to your own child’s death and the mother said this after she got pilloried in the media. But that’s not what she bragged to the anti-vaxx FB group; she explicitly stated she didn’t fill out the Rx, let alone give it to the child and asked about “alternative” treatments.

Unfortunately that horrible author Brandy Z. got it wrong. That mom did give her child the Tamiflu & the child died.

“We called the doctors. We called the hospital. We gave them the medicine we were instructed to give. We did everything,”

You constantly whinge about studies and how corrupt they are but you unquestioningly accept some news account and bullshit hearsay all the time. You are a raging caricature of how dim and dishonest anti-vaxxers are.

And given that Alzheimer’s is Autism’s neurological & etiological twin; it’s not all that “nuts” to suggest it results from vaccines.

Of course it’s nuts; you pull that out of your arse and prance about as though it’s established fact.

@ScienceMom But that’s not what she bragged to the anti-vaxx FB group; she explicitly stated she didn’t fill out the Rx, let alone give it to the child and asked about “alternative” treatments.
This. I’ve seen multiple screenshots of this particular conversation. Her respondents advised elderberry juice and – wait for it – potato slices in the poor child’s socks.

“Flu hospitalizations (in Ohio) have more than doubled compared to this time last year, state data shows. Ohio’s top health official called the numbers “deeply concerning.”

Ohio influenza hospitalizations reached their highest point of this flu season last week.

Hospitalizations totaled 832 in the state between Jan. 26 and Feb. 1, according to the Ohio Department of Health. That was a 36% increase from the previous week.

Dr. Amy Acton, director of the state health department, called the numbers “deeply concerning.”

Ohio has reported 4,465 flu-related hospitalizations in the 2019-2020 season, according to the state. That’s more than double the 2,160 during the same period a year earlier, state records show…

An 11-year-old girl died from the flu this week in northeastern Ohio’s Lake County. It was the second pediatric death of the flu season. The flu also killed a 16-year-old girl from Cuyahoga County in early January.”

http://dispatch.com/news/20200207/flu-hospitalizations-spike-in-ohio-second-child-dies

Just think, all that serious illness and death could’ve been avoided if the patients had just had access to clean water, good sanitation and elderberry juice.

Heh.
Elderberry is recommended as treatment for colds and flues by Null: it seems his mother- a medical intuitive- offered it exclusively in mid-century West Virginia- for both her own family and the public who sought out her ‘wisdom’. Similar advice courtesy of Kim Rossi on twitter.
Unfortunately, I also see it being sold on the net and in legitimate drug stores

Unfortunately, I also see it being sold on the net and in legitimate drug stores

A quick Pubmed look shows some decent evidence (“grade B”) for influenza in this review. I’m too weary today to try to grok the various HA claims.

There was an article about elderberry by Harriet Hall on the SBM blog recently:

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/elderberry-elixir-for-the-common-cold/

There do seem to be proper studies about elderberries. However, Dr. Hall notes:

We still lack a really good study. I’d like to see one that not only uses the same product and is large, randomized, double-blind, and placebo-controlled; but that relies on objective diagnosis rather than self-reporting of symptoms, and one that recruits the typical purchasers of Sambucol and tests the product as actually used in practice.

@ Dangerous Bacon

One of my all-time favorite movies was Arsenic and Old Lace with Cary Grant. In it, two spinsters served elderly gentlemen elderberry wine laced with arsenic and a pinch of cyanide. Though not relevant, elderberry juice just brought back fond memories. ?

Out of curiosity, I asked someone who has a very good memory for events but is not involved in scepticism when he first heard about anti-vaxxers or their ideas: he said about 15 years ago, he heard Deirdre Imus on her husband’s show.

Before Wakefield, I doubt that anyone except really outlier alt med folk even spoke about it. Younger people don’t know that: Even though I followed altmed and New Agey stuff since the early 1990s, I heard very little except when woo folk issued a blanket ban on all non-natural products ( except vitamins) until the millennium, post -Andy

@ Denice

I must be an outlier as read about antivaxxers 50 years ago when read about history of smallpox. Then in early 1980s there was Barbara Loe Fisher, advisor to CBS documentary, DPT: Vaccine Roulette, and author of a book. The documentary wasn’t a documentary. Several who were interviewed talked about how they were asked same or similar question numerous times and their answers were cut to soundbites. And it basically only discussed negative reports. Despite this, the producer/interviewer, Lea Thompson (not the actress) received an Emmy. Even worse, since then numerous studies have found the association of whole-cell pertussis vaccine with serious adverse reactions grossly exaggerated, based on early anecdotal case reports and brief studies. Compared with pertussis, still much better and it confers stronger and longer lasting immunity compared with acellular pertussis vaccine.

So, I’m an outlier. Oh well.

Well, you are an outlier- so am I.

I meant to the general public, this wasn’t much of an issue presented in the media, in legislatures, social circles as it was after Andy. I know that there was opposition to the earliest vaccines ( it could turn you into a cow! cartoons),BLF. Cutter etc. BUT it wasn’t a common topic : people didn’t freak out and not vaccinate on a grand scale which was reflected in rates of VPDs being very low.

I personally encountered it ( although I read Wakefield when his article was new) in 2001 because my cousin, a smart guy who creates “movie magic’ through editing/ technology, was worried about vaccinating his newborn son But he did so and later commented about it when Wakefield was exposed.

I wasn’t aware that there was an antivaccine movement until 2012. I suspect many in the general public were not. I’m not sure that’s still true after the last five years’ outbreaks, though.

I first got a web-capable computer in 2006 and started following SGU about then. I’ve been reading SBM since it’s creation, so I remember the Jenny McCarthy-led demonstrations from 2008.

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/jenny-mccarthy-jim-carrey-and-green-our-vaccines-anti-vaccine-not-pro-safe-vaccine/

At that time, I was more interested in the creation/ID battles, such as the Expelled pseudo-documentary and Kitzmiller v. Dover.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/six-things-ben-stein-doesnt-want-you-to-know/

I think the widespread availability of high-speed internet and the explosion of smartphones since the introduction of LTE have helped the anti-vaxxers spread their message. For a while the news media were complicit with a lot of false balance, but they have smartened up, especially since the Disneyland outbreak.

And, Denice, I think this quoted section from Darwin in the Sci-Am article I cited is apropos.

our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

The producers of the film did not mention the very next sentences in the book (emphasis added in italics):

The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.

And arguing for fewer vaccines certainly neglects the weak and helpless, who are too young or medically unable to receive the protection of the vaccines themselves.

We can easily see the consequences of that in Samoa and the Congo no matter how much people like Christine try to ignore them or deflect the blame.

@ squirrelelite
@ Chris Preston:

A little about timing.
I read on-line scepticism/ Quackwatch but didn’t write until about 2008. Interestingly, there were topics other than anti-vax which seem to have evaporated ( I wonder why?) like hiv/aids denialism, YEC. I approached from criticisms of New Age, altie psychology and woo.

Social media is the great enabler: did you know that TMR started on facebook amongst a group of college friends? Most of the anti-vaxxers and woo-merchants I survey encourage their followers to spread their crap through facebook, twitter, etc. and to share videos. Over the past 5 years, I think that I notice more facebook, twitter, Instagram, etc icons on their websites.. Mike Adams utilised You Tube until they tossed him so he started Brighteon video sharing and monetising for his followers.
and Null, after being thrown out of several Pacifica stations, started PRN, internet radio, which links into his social media and online store ( what a miasma of disinformation!) Del BIgtree has become quite a presence through his internet television show and massive funding. RFK jr is mostly through the internet.
Thus as mainstream media turned a deaf ear on them, they switched to the internet.and social media.

Many of these prevaricators are up in arms because they are being limited by social media when facebook puts a warning on their groups ( ” read the CDC” ) or when Wikipedia discusses their dodgy credentials or sordid histories. However, based on the decibel count of their shrieking, I imagine that these actions are having an effect: cutting into their viewership and perhaps earnings: this is especially true at PRN which is attacking Wikipedia and SBM nearly every day. What Wikipedia is doing is merely having multiple fact checked real world sources rather than allowing them to use bios as PR campaigns. They don’t like their true backgrounds being published.

I should also point out that antivaccinationists caused lots of deaths in the 19th Century. In the 1880s, for instance, when Switzerland, due to mass vaccination, experience no smallpox deaths, antivaccinationists convinced them to stop vaccinating. In a few years, smallpox deaths skyrocketed. Just one example.

As for the Cutter Incident with polio vaccine in 1955, while some will disagree with me, Jonas Salk is most responsible. He received information from one of his main employees, Julius Youngner, who visited Cutter’s production facility, that the Cutter production facilities were a mess, live virus stored near vaccines, poor quality control, etc., in his enthusiasm and ego to get the vaccine out, he ignored this. So, despite the success of the Salk vaccine, the Cutter incident was a legitimate reason for people to be distrustful. However, it wasn’t the vaccine that was the problem, it was the poor production. One could say the same about almost anything, e.g., e-coli in hamburger. Nothing wrong with hamburger; but if not handled properly another story.

ADDENDUM

I should mention that I was in the 1st cohort to receive the Salk Vaccine and living in San Diego, CA, most got the Cutter Vaccine. So, years later when I read about it, wow, did I dodge a bullet. And since I haven’t suffered from post-polio syndrome, I either got Cutter Vaccine that was successfully killed, much of it was, or another vaccine. What articles and books leave out about the Cutter incident is that, not only around 200 were permanently paralyzed and a few died; but if exposed to a not completely killed virus, some may be among those suffering post-polio syndrome.

Joel A H -after reading the Cutter Incident by Paul Offit and chapter 14, ‘The Cutter Affair’ in Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs’ biography of Jonas Salk I conclude I am one of the ‘some’ who will disagree with you about the main blame for the disaster. To say that Salk’s ego and enthusiasm to get the vaccine, out in spite of Younger’s report to him, is primary is simply a travesty of the truth.

In terms of the general public, I think this is right. My earliest foray into anti-science was the anti-fluoride campaigns of the early 1980s. Creationism was around then as well, but only relevant if you lived in the Deep South, not in the Very Much Deeper South, like me. I would occasionally come across anti-vaxxers, but they were more a rare curiosity and were not impacting on scientific discourse.

The development of new genetic technologies in the mid 1980s led to the anti-GMO movement that is still going strong. Climate Change denial arose in the late 1990s, followed by the 9/11 truthers.

While Wakefield did not start the anti-vaccine movement, he seemed to give it legitimacy in people’s minds. It really started to impact in the 2000s in terms of widespread recognition. The 2000s seemed to be a turning point when conspiracy theorists instead of being laughed at, started to be taken seriously by the press and politicians. There was a long period of the press indulging in false balance, or even outright fear-mongering with opinion pieces. I don’t think it is a coincidence that at the same time newspapers were starting to monetize their space on the internet.

While the internet has made finding information easier for the public, it is very much a two-edged sword. There is no doubt that large actors are actively using the internet to influence people’s opinions. This is just one example https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21645698.2018.1454192 the same can be found for anti-vaxxine information and of course the interference in elections across the western world.

OTOH, New Scientist reports More than half of EU officially bans genetically modified crops

This one cracks me up:

“The Charleston-based spirit [Dixie Vodka] earns the title of gluten-free as it is distilled from non-GMO corn.”

General Ripper, I presume, would approve.

What does non GMO corn have to do with gluten-free?

I’m not completely sure, but if I would want to have gluten-free corn, I would try to geneticly manupulate it, so it wouldn’t contain gluten. If it would be technically possible.

Robert S Mendelsohn MD published Confessions of a Medical Heretic in 1979. This was a piece-o’-crap that was irresponsibly antivaccine, wildly exaggerating the risk of pertussis and other vaccines, and suggesting to his readers that they freeload off vaccine-induced herd immunity, to name a couple of examples. It was unfortunately a best-seller and to my recollection, the first popular promotion of current anti-vax propaganda.

He also died age 62 from a heart attack, plus he had diabetes. Not exactly a glorious example of good health.

I have and read the book when it first came out, 40 years ago. Forgot all about it. Oh well, I’m getting old.

I just pulled it from shelf, looked at index; found immunizations. Skimmed. He writes rubella vaccine is problem, can cause short term arthritis. He didn’t remember 1965 when rubella epidemic caused almost 40,000 cases of miscarriage, stillbirth, congenital rubella syndrome (one or more of deafness, blindness, seizure disorders, mental retardation) or autism or microcephaly, shrunken brain and short life expectancy. After vaccine, nada. So, which would most rational people prefer? A few cases of short-lived arthritis or the aforementioned.

Come on Christine, play up the short term arthritis. We all know you would prefer to avoid even the most trivial of problems at the expense of wild-type microbes causing death, hospitalizations, disabilities, and suffering. Come on Christine. We await your continued idiocies. Of course, now we know that besides your antivaccine position, you seem to agree with a fringe group of doctors who don’t believe HIV causes AIDS, that nicotine addiction is a problem that should not be dealt with, that Medicare and Medicaid should be abolished, that the FDA should be eliminated. So, Christine, perhaps, following their lead, you think we should abolish medical licensing, outlaw malpractice lawsuits, and get the government out of any type of oversight. Right???

I had no idea until I stumbled upon one of our Host’s blogs about an episode of Grey’s Anatomy where a mother brings in her child with measles – she didn’t have him vaccinated because his older brother was autistic & she blamed the vaccine.

The younger son ends up dying. And of course, anti-vaxers lost their shit completely.

Denice- I believe that anti vaccination opponents were around at the very beginning of vaccination history and have followed like groupies, continuously, with their propaganda, every twist and turn of vaccine development since that very beginning.

Of course. Did you ever see the Ehglish cartoons showing vaccinated people turning into cows? They must be from Jenner’s time.
I purely meant that anti-vax became much more widespread and more people became aware of it post-Wakefield.
I have old woo-tomes from the 1960s and 1990s and although they cherish everything natural, vaccines aren’t a major issue. ( Rodale and Naturopathy): food is and avoiding doctors.

A few things happened in the 1990s that may have provided the groundwork for the anti-vax movement:
— widening of the diagnostic criteria for ASDs
— the growth of the internet
— changes in laws like DSHEA that enabled woo merchandising
— Wakefield’s study

Off Topic,

Most of Orac’s minions are aware that I’ve made several requests to write a guest post at RI. Unfortunately, Orac has been silently elusive with a response. In an effort to persuade him, I’m offering a recent mini-review from MJD.

https://www.scireslit.com/Nursing/OJPNC-ID27.pdf

@ Orac,

Clearly, there’s a plethora of respectful insolence in the mini-review.

Judging by previous posts, your problem is not a deficiency of insolence, but a plethora of dumbass.

Try pleading for a guest column over at the Millions of Imaginary Health Freedom Fighters website. Their standards should be low enough.

Dangerous Bacon writes,

Their standards should be low enough.

MJD says,

In parallel, feral pigs provide cheap and lean “Dangerous Bacon.”

@ Orac,

Just respond “No,” and I won’t ask again.

Most of Orac’s minions are aware that I’ve made several requests to write a guest post at RI. Unfortunately, Orac has been silently elusive with a response.

Why, no, no he hasn’t. See here. That’s a direct response, Doucheniak. If I had time, I could probably find more, but dishes await, among a metric asston of other stuff before I pack up for a cat-sitting gig.

No need for a guest post here at some pitiful, obscure blog, then. You have now “extended your potency to all over the world” with a high impact, well respected journal, surely with a larger audience to recognize your keen expertise. You can use the leverage to keep updating your web site creation skills and nothing, absolutely nothing will hold you back. Congratulations. I know I speak for many readers of RI who will miss your posts from the Sealioning Institute, now that your free time is certain to be greatly diminished. Well done, sir. Well done indeed.

@ sirhcton,

Reading between the lines, your RI shines brightly my friend.

@ Michael J. Dochniak

Orac doesn’t allow guest posts, maybe one or two over the past years; but I never noticed them. So, why should you be the exception? You really are arrogant and tiresome.

As for your mini-review. Not relevant and I won’t bother to take the time to even determine if it is any good. Not exactly in one of the most influential journals. James Lyons-Weiler was once a legitimate researcher in genetics with peer-reviewed articles, not any longer. Peter Duesberg discovered first retrovirus which caused sarcomas in chickens. He is a chemist. He then became a strong believer that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, not understanding how HIV works differently as a retrovirus than the one he discovered. The point is that your article says nothing about your position on vaccines, etc. And, given several of your comments, if Orac allowed you to post an article, he might as well allow Lyons-Weiler, etc.

Give it a rest.

If you want to write an article and get it posted on a blog, I suggest Age of Autism.

Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPH writes,

The point is that your article says nothing about your position on vaccines, etc.

MJD says,

Patience Dr. Harrison, in the near future you will be informed of a published document that substantiates MJD’s pro-vaccine proclivities i.e., inactivated vaccines. When inactivated vaccines are part of the solution to inhibiting Stage-IV cancer, then I’ll “rest” as you suggest.

@ Orac,

Thanks for allowing me to go off-topic during a slow weekend of commenting.

“SciRes Literature”? Are they lowlife scamming spamming predatory publishers with no scruples about taking the money of any gullible barmpot who wants to play I’m-a-scientist dress-up games? Let’s ask DH Kaye!
http://flakyj.blogspot.com/2019/03/scires-literature-promises-high.html

Let’s ask Jeffrey Beall!
https://web.archive.org/web/20151024190934/http://scholarlyoa.com:80/2015/10/22/two-new-pay-to-publish-startups-scires-literature-and-gavin-publishers/

Let’s ask me!
http://eusa-riddled.blogspot.com/2017/07/stalking-matilda-stalking-matilda-she.html

@ Smut Clyde,

WTF, some of us have to claw and fight our way into the very exclusive world of science-based medicine. You really piss me off, Smut Clyde. You’re a very bright person who bullies not so fortunate inventors/scientists/lay persons. Congratulations for taking RI to the “nasty” level. I’d gladly place a new idea in a predatory journal if that’s my only option. Yes, desperation is sometimes part of the inventive process.

@ Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPH,

Take my advice, read something you don’t like or agree with sometime.

@ Alain,

Hi!

“I’d gladly place a new idea in a predatory journal if that’s my only option.”

Given your obvious universal ignorance on all things medical and statistical those scum journals are the only places your crap could be published — and even then I can imagine the editors cringing when they see your name.

@ dean,

universal ignorance, scum journals, crap, editors cringing…

Do you comment here just to dump your garbage? You take care of your backyard, and I’ll take care of mine…agreed?

@ Smut Clyde,

WTF, some of us have to claw and fight our way into the very exclusive world of science-based medicine.

Are you under the impression that Smut Clyde’s academic credentials are, say, inherited? Some sort of peerage?

Congratulations for taking RI to the “nasty” level.

Hey, what am I, chopped liver?

@ Narad:

You are not chopped liver BUT..
Truly, I think that you and Clyde are usually much too kindI ‘d like to see you really let loose.
Joel is working on his skills. and getting there.

“Do you comment here just to dump your garbage?”

An accurate description of your ability and the journal you reference is not garbage.

Truly, I think that you and Clyde are usually much too kind– I ‘d like to see you really let loose.

Have you forgotten when Robert Schecter (vaccine machine) used to comment here? Or Greggums? I’d either be scared or will widdle my pants in laughter if those two got any more loose as they were with them.

@ Science Mom:

Scoffers here virtually demand their sharpest barbs. Recent frequent flyers possibly rise to Schecterian or Gergian levels.
So why not? We’ll laugh for days. No fear.

@ sirhcton,

It seems to have something to do with what device I am using. I had just corrected the issue from my laptop but now my PC is down with a power issue, son is using my laptop; I posted from his iPad & it’s coming up “coschristi”.

I am really not trying sock puppetry.

I’ll defend you on this–and this alone. I have to post here with different names (but same picture, so that should clear up accusations of sock-puppeting) befause I can’t sign in half the time no matter what I do. It seems random to me but I’m fairly low-tech–and old.

@ Christine Kincaid

You writes: “@ Denice,
I didn’t call anyone a Nazi. Schriftleitergesetz means Editors Law than only Aryans can work in Journalism. Not just one outlet but all outlets.”

I guess you missed or ignored my comment responding to your comment before Denice’s comment where I wrote:

Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPH FEBRUARY 8, 2020 AT 10:54 AM

So, you write: “The AAPS doesn’t want to obey your Schriftleitergesetz? How annoying for you.” Well, here we go again, playing the Nazi card: “The Schriftleitergesetz (Editorial Control Law) took effect in Germany, placing the press under the control of the government. All newspaper and magazine editors had to be members of the new “Reich League of the German Press”, which banned non-Aryans as well as people married to non-Aryans.”

I guess you are too stupid to understand that the “Reich League of the German Press” was an organization established by Nazi Germany and the entire concept of “aryan” was Nazis. Yes, it existed before; but not politically used as Nazis Germany used. Just how incredibly stupid and/or dishonest (ignoring comments) are you?

And in a previous exchange (christine kincaid FEBRUARY 4, 2020 AT 11:21 AM at: https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2020/01/31/2019-ncov-wuhan-outbreakdue-to-failed-coronavirus-vaccine/#comment-422666 you wrote:

“The Nazis presented “science-based evidence” of their time too. You HAVE forgotten.” Once more you show your lack of understanding of science. Calling something “science-based” doesn’t mean it is. Neither their original methodology was good science nor allowing for independent peer-review existed. As for Jewish, I am 100% and have studied Jewish history, culture, and even lived in Israel for six months. As usual, you are full of s..t.

You also wrote: “But honestly I had been thinking about Joel a lot & how he thinks I am so stupid for believing that adverse reactions to vaccines involve:

“The Genes Loaded The Gun But The Vaccines Pulled The Trigger.”
Yes this is SO amusingly idiotic to many here because:
“Why would the vaccines invoke a more adverse event than the pathogen”?

Yep, why would the vaccine invoked a more adverse event??? How in hell could a killed or attenuated microbe cause a more serious event than the wild-type pathogen? And don’t blame aluminum and other additional ingredients, etc. because in minute amounts and already present in larger amounts in our bodies from environment. In fact, our own bodies create much more formaldehyde as byproduct of metabolism than the trace amounts in vaccines. However, as opposed to you, I don’t rule out that in a minuscule number of humans that some predisposing genes might do this; but the overwhelming history of vaccine-preventable diseases, including mortality and morbidity compared with the overwhelming scientific evidence finds serious adverse events to vaccines are rare.

And you still ignore that I pointed out just one more stupid claim by you that the Vaccine Court was allowed to rule favorably on only one case per million vaccines.

And your twisting perverted false analogy of unvaccinated being a risk to national health with Nazis Germany’s targeting of ethnic/racial groups is just plain sick. Not surprising given your total history of comments. False analogies, claims refuted where you ignore the refutations and just come up with another stupid claim, etc. etc. etc.

You write: “@ Joel,
Unfortunately that horrible author Brandy Z. got it wrong. That mom did give her child the Tamiflu & the child died.

Well, dimwit, so what? As I clearly wrote, I don’t have much faith in Tamiflu, wouldn’t take it myself. Not from fear of serious adverse events, just because have to take within certain period of time from onset and, at best, it shortens symptoms a bit. And, as I also wrote, whether true or false what parents did with kid, just one anecdote, doesn’t prove or disprove anything. However, thanks for focusing on another anecdote, typical unscientific moron.

You write: “And given that Alzheimer’s is Autism’s neurological & etiological twin; it’s not all that “nuts” to suggest it results from vaccines.”

Are you completely daft. Do you even understand how ASD is classified/diagnosed and Alzheimer’s? Are you aware of both autopsies performed on ASD kids and Alzheimers? Are you aware of brain scans, etc? Have they, for instance, found beta amyloid in ASD? Certainly present in Alzheimer. You just get stupider and stupider by the minute. Are you unravelling? Is your hold on reality disappearing into your deluded fantasy world?

@ Joel Harrison

“As for Jewish, I am 100% and have studied Jewish history, culture, and even lived in Israel for six months. As usual, you are full of s..t.”

Oh boy, do I love that one! I’m getting particularly fed up with the Nazi card being played over and over. In my country, it has become extremely annoying as people got used to play the holocaust denialism card if you do not repeat what they say at their command.

I’m having less and less patience with the Nazi card nowadays. Specifically when it’s being misused and backed up by holocaust denialism laws: The Nazi card backed up by bad faith and the law.

Tired of being accused of wanting to burn or gas part of my extended family.

I should also have mentioned that I have read over dozen books and hundreds of articles on the Holocaust, probably seen most documentaries, etc. Growing up in the 1950s, my family had barbecues. I noticed numbers tattooed on someone’s arm. Asked my parents. So, learned about Holocaust at very early age. Living in Gothenburg, Sweden for almost 10 years, there was a small Jewish community of about 2,000, the majority Holocaust survivors. As a young Jew, several of the families “adopted”, always welcome to Sabbath dinners and other holidays, and to their summer cottages by lake 20 miles inland. And, of course, in Israel I met lots of Holocaust survivors. So, I think I can safely say that my understanding of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust is quite a bit better than Christine’s. Of course, Christine’s understanding of just about anything seems to be from a perverted fantasy world with little anchoring in reality.

In fact, from time to time I still wake up with nightmares, if born different time and place, could have been me and now we have armed neo-Nazis groups in Europe and U.S.

@ F68.10,

I have more faith in you than any others here to understand my reference about the Editors Law.

Here’s a link on the autism/Alzheimer’s thing. It will take some time before vaccines are pinpointed as the etiology of both but they are slowly getting there.

http://article.sapub.org/10.5923.j.ajmms.20170706.07.html

I know you will remember me when that happens.

@Christine Kincaid A citation from the paper:
“The toxic influence of abnormal profuse amounts of Helicobacter pylori-produced colonic ammonia and the elevated serum
ammonia level are constant in both disorders”
Let us say that vaccines were not implicted.

Not even as a trigger? I mean, that’s how they work. With all the lung infections and stuff recently I got paranoid about aspirin because I had chickenpox twice as a kid (something something Reynaud’s something.)

@ Christine Kincaid

Sorry Christine for not replying: I’ve been bashing theocrats on the net lately. I’ll try to have a look at your article, but, hey… I make no promise…

“Here’s a link on the autism/Alzheimer’s thing. ”

Evidently some cranks paid a predatory publisher to put their brainfart on a website and call it a “paper”.
I am slightly impressed by the work it must have taken to pick this particular cherry.

@Christine, did you bother to read the paper? Do you agree that autism can be prevented by colonic purging?

You write: “And given that Alzheimer’s is Autism’s neurological & etiological twin; it’s not all that “nuts” to suggest it results from vaccines.”
Are you completely daft

Not sure if this is “daftness” so much as mendacity dressed up as deliberate willful ignorance.

“Alzheimer’s is Autism’s neurological & etiological twin”

This one is a gem. It needs to be backed up by solid evidence. Really solid. Rock solid. Solid enough to withstand that:

Try Tonyglandil.

It’s not only ethnic, racial groups that where the victims of the nazi’s. Also mentally handicapped where victims and had to die. It was the reason why ‘Die Weisse Rose’ was started. And don’t forget communists and socialists who ended in camps, where they should perform slave-labour till they died.
I’ve read several books about what happened in WW2. Not as much as you, because I I can’t bear it.

My better half spent some time in Germany after leaving school, her neighbours parents were deaf due to childhood measles (I think), during the Nazi regime they had to carry a certificate to show that it wasn’t a birth defect, or they could have ended up as a parcel of ash.

The antivaxxers who are keenest to appropriate the yellow Star-of-David and wrap themselves in the mantle of the White Rose in their fight against state tyranny have also made it quite clear (with names for autists like “zombies” and “werewolves”) that they would have been the most enthusiastic supporters of Aktion-T4.

I guess the philologist fell asleep on the job. “Aryan,” of course, has multiple meanings, linguistically speaking. But such a hair trigger that one hesitates to mention it.

I know the feeling. There’s some kind of really weird extreme projection of anti-Semitism that lands on certain people who really don’t deserve it for some bizarre reason.

ADDENDUM

After a rather thorough search of PubMed and Google scholar I found a couple of papers where beta amyloid was found in a rather small sample of kids with autism and only extremely severe cases. However, this certainly doesn’t present a common etiology. The beta amyloid could have INDEPENDENTLY caused a case of autism to become extreme, just as, for instance, a highly infectious virulent microbe that kills many could kill a few more suffering malnutrition. Two things can happen by chance alone. Lightening does strike twice in the same place. See book: “The Improbability Principle” by David Hand.

And even if eventually one finds some genes that cause a subset of autism, doesn’t mean most cases of autism have beta amyloid, nor a common etiology; but most importantly, NO EVIDENCE THAT BETA AMYLOID associated with vaccines. For Christine, everything and anything must be caused by vaccines.

Hi Joel:

You wrote:

“Why would the vaccines invoke a more adverse event than the pathogen”?

“Yep, why would the vaccine invoked a more adverse event??? How in hell could a killed or attenuated microbe cause a more serious event than the wild-type pathogen? And don’t blame aluminum and other additional ingredients, etc. because in minute amounts and already present in larger amounts in our bodies from environment.”

The answer to your first question is aluminum adjuvant. Al adjuvant persists in the body for years, and therefore can cause chronic inflammation , which can be very injurious to the developing brain and immune system. Natural infections (and live vaccines) do not contain Al adjuvant, so they do not cause persistent inflammation.

There are a couple reasons why your statement about aluminum is incorrect:

1) Al adjuvant is very different from aluminum acquired from food and the environment. For example, the toxicity mechanism and kinetics are different. Al adjuvant is made of solid particles, which remain in the body for years and can travel into the brain. The toxicity of particles depends on many factors such as size, shape, surface chemistry

2) The amount of Al adjuvant received from the CDC schedule is not small. It grearly exceeds the amount of Al that infants receive from foods in the first 6 months.

Oral absorption of ingested aluminum (in the form of soluble Al salts) is about 0.1-0.3%. So, to find exposure level, it is necessary to multiply the ingested amount by 0.3%. Here are the numbers:

Assuming Oral absorption of aluminum is 0.3%.

Over the first 6 months, a baby will absorb (these number are from CHOP):

From milk: 7mg x 0.3% = 21 micrograms (0.021 mg)

From formula: 38mg x 0.3% = 114 micrograms (0.114 mg)

From soy formula: 117mg x 0.3% = 351 micrograms (0.351mg)

Compare that to Al dose from vaccines in the first 6 months:

Birth (Hep B): 74 mcg/kg (250 mcg for 3.4 kg infant)

2 month: 245 mcg/kg (1225 mcg for 5 kg infant)

4 month: 150 mcg/kg (975 mcg for 6.5 kg infant)

6 month: 153 mcg/kg (1225 mcg for 8 kg infant)

Total: 3675 mcg

Vaccines give 3675/21 = 175 times more aluminum than human milk in the first 6 months.

Natural infections (and live vaccines) do not contain Al adjuvant, so they do not cause persistent inflammation.

Oh how you make me almost piss myself laughing at what you don’t know. Never heard of “natural adjuvants” that pathogens have in far greater quantities and far greater pathogenic effects than anything in vaccines? No, of course you haven’t because you are self-“educated”. Are you not familiar with any pathogens that cause persistent inflammation? No, of course you aren’t. And you also don’t know shit about aluminium adjuvants.

@ Michael J. Dochniak (MJD)

You write: “Off Topic,

Most of Orac’s minions are aware that I’ve made several requests to write a guest post at RI. Unfortunately, Orac has been silently elusive with a response. In an effort to persuade him, I’m offering a recent mini-review from MJD.”

After commenting for some time on Respectful Insolence, I guess you missed at the very top.”Guest post policy”, click on, it reads:

“Orac sometimes receives requests from bloggers who want to publish guest posts on Respectful Insolence. The answer is: No. He does not accept unsolicited guest posts. His ego is too great by far to allow another to share his space, barring extraordinary circumstances.

If Orac wants a guest post for Respectful Insolence, he will ask for one from a specific person that he has in mind.”

It’s his blog and he doesn’t want to share, which is his right. Also, given some of your comments, I wouldn’t recommend he deviate from his policy.

@ squirrelelite

Thanks for link to Scientific American article. I also followed for many years the creationism movement, even exchanged e-mails with Eugenie Scott at National Center for Science Education at Berkeley. If you are interested, a great book is: Stephen Jay Gould “The Mismeasure of Man” just one of half dozen books and probably 100 articles I have.

While the internet does, to some extent, enable antivaccinationists, echo chambers, I can assure you, haven’t studied history of antivaccinationists, that they, unfortunately, got their message across long before computers.

Oops! Typo. Last sentence should read “having studied history of . . .”

I loved Mismeasure of Man and am happy to see that someone else has read it! I wish the White Nationalists, et al, would take a look at it.
SJG is sorely missed.

@ Renate

DIe weisse Rose. Yep, Sophie Scholl, her brother, and other members are among my heroes. Another of my heroes is German Protestant Minister and Theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I recently found a biography of him at library book sale, purchased, and it is on my to-read list. Though Jewish, one of my absolute favorite books is Bonhoeffer’s “Cost of Discipleship.” Well worth reading.

Joel A H- Bonhoeffer’s ‘Letters From Prison’, before going to his certain death, are inspiring.

You guys don’t see it do you. You really don’t.

You want another Editor’s Law. It doesn’t matter what it’s about or how right you think you are because someone before you thought they were right too & committed crimes of war in the name of being right.

There are 3 sides, not 2; to every story.

Christine,

No one dictate how and on what subject we do research in biomedical science. NO ONE. That include big pharma or your fµcking editor’s law. NO ONE.

A consensus is not dictatorship. Period.

If you have to go down a slippery slope to get your point, you failed. Are you going to be an armchair psychiatrist labeling anyone guilty of conspiracy without ever looking at yourself in the mirror?

Alain

Why?

She’s going down the slippery slope since forever or something and more than a few time, she cried wolf at massive conspiracy about big tobacco re-editing every dawn epidemiology textbooks since the link between cancer & cigarettes was at an embryonic stage, thus making epidemiology tainted forever. Forever

She made these claims! For real!

Why? I’m genuinely curious as I am failing to see why I’m off the rails.

Alain

Idk, sometimes you have to fall off the rails or go down a slippery slope to get to the point, or the heart of the matter, or something. It’s hard to put into words, it’s more of an image or metaphor. I’m thinking of a wheelchair on ice for some reason.

Got it, now I see your point and did apply the slippery slope argument on some peoples with hardened steel cranium boxes for which, with some exceptions, RI denizens’ cranium box is not made of such extreme materials…

Alain

Way to ignore the side of the story where antivaxxers told a mother to ignore the doctor’s instructions and then, when the child died, declared the child didn’t exist. Your skill at putting up blinders is truly impressive.

@ Christine Kincaid

The moron just keeps popping up. Years ago I met Christine Maggiore, a nice lady who held seminars and wrote a book that HIV didn’t cause AIDS. She gave me a free autographed copy of her book, which I read. She convinced a number of people to forgo their AIDS drugs. All of them died earlier than the would have if they had used their meds. And Maggiore, she died of AIDS, denying to the last that she had AIDS. So, should social media allow people like Maggiore to advice people to forgo meds, to tell people, for instance, with t-cell counts below 200 that they aren’t sick, to tell people to have unprotected sex? Well, of course according to you and AAPS. And how about the alt-right spewing hate about minorities and Jews. Should they also be allowed unfettered on social media? And, again, they have their websites.

While I support in principle free speech, social media is run by private companies. There exists numerous blogs, websites promoting junk science like yours and racism. While some may want them shut down, our laws don’t allow this. I realize that morons like you see the world in black and white, so having numerous blogs isn’t enough, you must have the right to post on every single internet site. Well, too bad. In the real world, things aren’t all or none.

And you did quote the Nazi German term. The fact that you were too stupid to realize it and too dishonest to admit your mistake is just typical of you. Citing Nazi terms is extremely offensive, not just to Jews; but to anyone with a moral conscience. And even the slightest hint that supporting vaccines somehow is being a Nazi is just beyond the pale. You are one of the most despicable excuses for a human being I’ve come across recently.

And, again, no response to my showing your claim that the Vaccine Court has guidelines to rule favorably on only 1 case per million vaccines. You really are both stupid, dishonest, and despicable,

When I first got involved with scepticism on the net, hiv/aids denialism was more much frequent. Fortunately, it has become rather rare because, I suppose, the general public observed how its leading spokespeople died while people with hiv lived increasingly more normal lives thanks to anti-retrovirals. But Maggiore affected many people who suffered ad died including her own daughter. Believe it or not, PRN STILL includes videos/ essays about how they “cured” hiv without meds. Some hiv/ aids denialists moved on to anti-vax.

Social media, as you say, is comprised of private companies who can determine what is or is not, kosher, for them. Do you think that they want to be responsible for mis-information that could lead to illness or death? If I owned a magazine, net or real world, should I allow any article about any topic to be published? No one would. Social media is in a similar position: they allowed all comers FREE access to post material but they drew the line at what they decided is offensive, dangerous or misinforming to the public. Woo-providers and anti-vaxxers used these free services to spread their BS and sometimes, enrich themselves. They cry out for free speech but balk when Wikipedia accurately describes their activities and backgrounds, using its free speech

Despite this new tightening of rules, you still can find anti-vax facebook pages, woo-fraught websites, You Tube instruction and suspect books for sale on Amazon. A few places now have a warning label.

@ Denice

Amazon’s first ban was “Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure.” I wonder if Christine thinks Amazon was wrong banning it. They are now banning some neo-Nazis books, e.g., by David Duke of KKK fame or, should I say, infamy. I’m sure Christine’s absolutist, black and white, view disagrees with Amazon. See New York Times (2020 Feb 10). “Amazon draws the line on Nazi material”.

Worse than Maggiore was/is Peter Duesberg, member of National Academy of Science. I’ve already mentioned him before. A chemist, co-discoverer of first retrovirus which caused sarcoma in chickens. It was a slow acting virus that mutated cells; whereas, HIV takes over production, produces masses of virions that when leaving cell kill it. The cell is one of the stalwarts of our immune system, CD4 T-cells. Duesberg, again, a chemist, didn’t have any understanding of immunology; but much much more status than Maggiore. She really was a nice person, at least, from my two encounters with her. But being nice and being right are not the same thing. I remember at one of her seminars talking with a young man who bragged his t-cell count was below 200 and he was fine. Yep, and a cop who doesn’t wear his kevlar vest can say he has worked 10 years and never an injury. I should have arranged to stay in touch with the young man, though I’m certain it would have been literally a short-lived interaction. Yep, low t-cell count not a problem UNTIL exposed to a microbe, and given we are exposed to thousands of microbe daily, only one virulent one necessary. Of course, Christine and her buddies at AAPS disagree.

I should also point out when in the late 1990s the anti HIV causes AIDS, there already were electron microscopic photos of HIV entering cells and the cells destruction as they exited. Oh well, according to them and, probably, Christine, faked photos, just like the faked photos of the moon landing. ?

What is most disconcerting is if people’s lives and welfare weren’t at stake, people like Christine would be amusing, examples of irrationality, combined with delusions of grandeur (knowing they are right). Not the Dunning-Kruger effect because their experiments found that when they taught the basics, people didn’t necessarily change their opinion; but did lower their level of confidence. With Christine and her ilk, the more you show her wrong, the more certain she becomes.

Dorit Rubenstein Reiss has a discussion about Facebook, “Facebook mass banning – reasonable response to anti-vaccine attacks” (2020 Feb 9) at:

https://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/mass-banning-reasonable-response-anti-vaccine-facebook-attacks/

@ Joel

“Amazon’s first ban was “Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure.” I wonder if Christine thinks Amazon was wrong banning it.”

I do not believe Amazon was wrong banning it, and from what I’ve read about it, it does seem that it crosses the line more than once… However, there should be conditions under which one ought to have access to such books. Because the point of view of pedophiles is not something one should endorse, but there is no point not understanding what they think.

But hey, if you want access to pedophile books that are much worse than this one, you can buy them from a bookstore. This story hit the news recently in France

Quote from the article: “For more than forty years, the man has declined in his books, like on television, his taste for teenage girls under 15 and for sex tourism with little boys in Asia. Without anyone being offended in the literary and journalistic environment. He also receives public money for his work because it “undoubtedly contributed to the influence of French-language literature,” according to the National Book Center.”

Nothing more needs to be said… Compared to this, Phillip Greaves’s book is a non-event.

There are also people who freak out over Lolita, without seaming to understanding that the point is not to sympathize with the antagonist.

@ Christine Kincaid

You write: “It doesn’t matter what it’s about or how right you think you are because someone before you thought they were right too & committed crimes of war in the name of being right.”

Wow, talking about an insane slippery slope. Yep, we have speed laws and law against drunken driving, wrong, because next step to stop driving altogether. And the hypocrisy of antivaccinationists who attack pro-vaccinationist; but, what else is new. Yep, because I don’t want social media to promote unprotected sex based on HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, because I don’t want social media allowing neo-nazis racism, etc. yep, next move is to start a war. So, any disagreement about what type of discourse should be allowed on “PRIVATE” social media automatically translates in Nazis, war, war crimes, etc.

I think it great that the hospital you are in allows, as part of your therapy, access to computers; but you really should stay on your meds.

As for “There are 3 sides, not 2; to every story.” Yep, in your case the third side is the delusional one.

You are just a—-loon. Galileo was only right because he was ACTUALLY right. That’s the difference you just cannot grasp.

@ braimatterz

Technically, Galileo was a fraud. Given the parallax measurements he had at the time, he should have sided on the geoheliocentric model of Tycho Brahe.

Actually he said that stars are very remote, and that is why one cannot detect parallax. He was right, of course.

@ Aarno

So he had parallax data that conflicted with his view, dismissed it by an argument of wilful ignorance, sticked to his preconceived idea for ideological reasons instead of admitting that Tycho Brahe’s model also fitted the data, and centuries later we celebrate the fact that he was right by accident?

That’s called a fraud. Though admittedly science wasn’t that mature at the time.

So he had parallax data that conflicted with his view….

No. Parallax wasn’t observed until the 1800s.

@ Narad

Parallax was estimated by Simon Marius. I believe in Mundus Iovialis.

It has been argued that Galileo also had the data to estimate parallax.

Both measurements supported Tycho-Brahe’s system. Simon Marius acknowledged that, while Galileo didn’t.

@F68.10 It was not willful ignorance. Actually, one of predictions of heliocentric model was that stars are remote.

There are 3 sides, not 2; to every story.

This calls for massed sackbuts sad trombones.

Christine- you know that freedom for everyone can never be absolute. One persons freedom can often disrupt another’s. So if the freedom to say what you wish about your imagined harms from vaccination conflict with the freedom of, say, children to enjoy good health from scientifically proven medical interventions then society has to make decisions about this conflict . So called ‘Editors Law’ would not seem out of place if it can safeguard children from the effects of, to be kind, dangerous misinformation.

Any medical people have anything to say about prazosin vis-a-vis smoking and drinking? There’s also Topamax, but I know about the kidney stuff, that’s all fine. Stuff like that seems to go along with PTSD.

No wonder I can’t sleep, the moon’s “a million degrees.” Yeah, it’s one of those nights.

There is a connection between Alzheimer’s and autism,but once again,as with the autism-cancer connection,it’s genes,not vaccines.
https://www.beingpatient.com/alzheimers-and-autism/

Amyloid-beta and autism
https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/molecular-mechanisms-alzheimers-protein-linked-to-autism/

As someone who has recovred greatly from autism that was verbal,but low functioning,due to treatable,genetic immune disease,I will say that autism shares many features with Alzheimer’s,as far as cognition and memory.

@ Robert Kulp

They did find amyloid-beta in a small sample of kids with ASD. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that all or even most with ASD have amyloid-beta. You are right that the vast science so far continues to find genetics plays the major role and that brain changes predate vaccinations, even birth, so in utero.

It is also quite possible that the genes related to autism and cancer doesn’t mean they “cross-react”. Lightening does strike twice in the same place and random chance can bring two separate sets of genes together. It is also possible that some cancers in ASD relate to life-style, e.g., diet.

And even if some minority of ASD has amyloid-beta, doesn’t necessarily mean common etiology with Alzheimers and certainly not any evidence that vaccines involved. Christine is, in some ways, amusing. I can’t wait for her to claim vaccines are responsible for adolescent violence and just about everything else. In fact, she probably believes that without vaccines we would all live healthy lives, dying peacefully at 100 or so.

@ Joel,

“And even if some minority of ASD has amyloid-beta, doesn’t necessarily mean common etiology with Alzheimers and certainly not any evidence that vaccines involved. Christine is, in some ways, amusing. I can’t wait for her to claim vaccines are responsible for adolescent violence and just about everything else. In fact, she probably believes that without vaccines we would all live healthy lives, dying peacefully at 100 or so.”

Erm, not exactly.

But you can add Schizophrenia to ASD & Alzheimer’s that is also increasingly being found to have a similar etiology; meaning that Genes + an atypical immune response has disabled the Microglia cells that are responsible for synaptic pruning.

In Schizophrenia, this immune-response seems to hyper-stimulate the Microglia while in ASD & Alzheimer’s it seems to put them to sleep.

Since you criticize every paper I cite because it “Didn’t say anything about VACCINES …!”

(Ignoring that I am talking about IMMUNE MEDIATION vs vaccines & that it’s not my fault that vaccines are immune MEDIATING & that you apparently flunked the dot-to-dot assignments in Kindergarten)

… Here is a picture. To simplify that for you: https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(16)30587-6.pdf

As far as adolescent violence is concerned? There is a profound acceleration of aggression & violence during puberty in these kids who sustain neurological damage from “THE IMMUNE-RESPONSE WHICH WE ARE LOATHE TO CONSIDER MAY HAVE RESULTED FROM IMMUNE-MEDIATING VACCINES”.

But no, even still; that would not be enough to account for extreme mass violence. My best guess is that results from medicating adolescents with vaccine-injured brains with prescription psychotropics. Namely antidepressants & anti-psychotics.

Cue the drum roll for the inevitable … “Christine you are so STUPID!”

@Christine, if you’re claiming it’s about immune mediation, why did you provide an article that talked about H. Pylori as the common cause of autism and Alzheimers?

(Ignoring that I am talking about IMMUNE MEDIATION vs vaccines & that it’s not my fault that vaccines are immune MEDIATING & that you apparently flunked the dot-to-dot assignments in Kindergarten)

When you’re a hammer, everything’s a nail. Ya know Christine, you kind of failed insulting someone else’s intelligence with this. Not surprising given how much self-awareness you lack. By the by, are you going to retract your statement about Mom of the Year medically-neglecting her child? You know her post public-flaying statement that she did give the child Tamiflu and got him medical attention?

But you can add Schizophrenia to ASD & Alzheimer’s that is also increasingly being found to have a similar etiology; meaning that Genes + an atypical immune response has disabled the Microglia cells that are responsible for synaptic pruning.

Alzheimer’s? Synaptic pruning? A girl named John?

@ Roger Kulp,

“As someone who has recovred greatly from autism that was verbal,but low functioning,due to treatable,genetic immune disease,I will say that autism shares many features with Alzheimer’s,as far as cognition and memory”

Thank you. Is my statement that “The genes loaded the gun but immune-responses pulled the trigger” flawed? Is there a better way of understanding it?

@ Michael J. Dochniak (MJD)

Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPH writes,

The point is that your article says nothing about your position on vaccines, etc.

MJD says,

Patience Dr. Harrison, in the near future you will be informed of a published document that substantiates MJD’s pro-vaccine proclivities i.e., inactivated vaccines. When inactivated vaccines are part of the solution to inhibiting Stage-IV cancer, then I’ll “rest” as you suggest.

And you still miss the main point that Orac doesn’t want guest posts, so, regardless of what you write, why should he single you out? Plus, I’m sure that your vaccine must be in a container not contaminated with latex rubber.?

Whatever your opinion on anything, basically, you have NO credibility, except in your own mind. By the way, what are your credentials? Not just degrees; but from which universities?

ADDENDUM

Wow! One specific use for a vaccine meets with your approval. On a scale of 1 to 10 for credibility, you get a minus 10.

@ Joel:

You might enjoy MJD’s linked in profile which lists his various accomplishments: degree, jobs, writing, patents.

@ Denise

I’m not signed up for “linked in” and won’t. However, did find a page with his patents, insulation and paints. Obviously makes him an expert on vaccines, autism, etc.?

Maybe you can cut and paste what is on “linked in” into a comment?

@ Joel:

I’m not connected to linked in, facebook or anything else so I just search ( bing) for ” Michael J. Dochniak Linked in” and get the page. I find everything this way- I type exactly as I think it.
Anyway, it states his education, U Wisconsin, BA in psych/ chemistry**, industry jobs (latex), special ed, y mucho mas– just as you’d suspect- florid descriptions of his weighty tomes.

** you’d think that someone with that set of interests might create party drugs in his spare time

Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPH writes,

Obviously makes him an expert on vaccines, autism, etc.?

MJD says,

I know you’re an expert at analyzing data i.e., epidemiologist. I respect that…

Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPH writes,

By the way, what are your credentials? Not just degrees; but from which universities?

MJD says,

It’s what one does after university that matters e.g., patents, medical papers, books, products, science blog participation etc… I use my real name so such information is easily searched Although, kudo’s for reading and responding to my RI comments.

@ Orac,

Have some mercy, when a minion bullies me with natural rubber latex I’m helpless to respond.

@ Michael J. Dochniak

I didn’t see any patents besides insulation and paints, irrelevant to this blog. As for books, found a site with free downloads of “books” by you. If any other books, so what? People write books about being possessed, alien abductions, etc. anyone can write a book. As for your science blog participation, I wouldn’t exactly call it credible. And, I don’t give a shit since it is Orac’s blog and he doesn’t want guest articles. I’m sure if he wanted he could find much more accomplished and credible people than you. Drop it, you are just making a fool of yourself.

Have some mercy, when a minion bullies me with natural rubber latex I’m helpless to respond.

Michael, why exactly are you here? And do you understand that you are here of your own free will?

Science Mom asks,

Michael, why exactly are you here?

MJD’s response,

Orac is an amazing read and some of his minions are cool e.g., Alain.

Orac is an amazing read and some of his minions are cool e.g., Alain.

Orac’s house, Orac’s rules. Please stop whingeing incessantly about a guest post (you’ll never get one), your moderation status (well-earned) and how you are treated (you do say some really foolish things). If you cease banging on about the first two, you may find the third will get better.

@ Christine Kincaid

You just seem to get stupider and stupider by the minute. You write: “Christine Kincaid FEBRUARY 9, 2020 AT 10:44 PM

@ F68.10,

I have more faith in you than any others here to understand my reference about the Editors Law.

Here’s a link on the autism/Alzheimer’s thing. It will take some time before vaccines are pinpointed as the etiology of both but they are slowly getting there.

http://article.sapub.org/10.5923.j.ajmms.20170706.07.html

I know you will remember me when that happens.”

As Arno responded: “Aarno Syvänen FEBRUARY 10, 2020 AT 12:44 AM
@Christine Kincaid A citation from the paper:
“The toxic influence of abnormal profuse amounts of Helicobacter pylori-produced colonic ammonia and the elevated serum
ammonia level are constant in both disorders”
Let us say that vaccines were not implicted.”

Do you know what helicobacter pylori is? As Arno wrote, “vaccines are not implicated.” Besides, one more example of how you find one article and twist what is says to fit your rigid delusional ideology. And, NO, vaccines are NOT being pinpointed as the etiology of both, except in your rigid fantasy world. Get back on your meds or, if your not on any, seek help and get some.

Posting that article was Christine in a microcosm. She literally sees everything through her very narrow worldview, and shapes things to match, with no comprehension of what’s actually there. It’s why I won’t trust anything she claims without a citation. And, of course, most of her claims, she has no proof for. For instance, she claims to have every genetic variant she thinks “prove” her claim that vaccines cause autism. She probably got her raw dna data from some company and is using web sites like SNPedia to try and figure it out, an activity she is grossly unqualified for, and which does nothing more than feed her confirmation bias.

At this point, I believe she has a child who has autism. That’s about all I believe in her story.

@ Terrie:

Agreed. Too many stories.

Interestingly, anti-vaxxers like to compare autism to other conditions that are neurological or of the immune system. Katie Wright tweets various studies about MS, Parkinson’s, strokes etc as if these will reveal something about ASDs. Others pick Schizophrenia or Alzheimer’s. Conrick is another “researcher” ( AoA)

Actually, Schizophrenia is also predominantly genetic, begins in utero and has nothing to do with vaccines ( see Schizophrenia.com /causation) but there are brain structural differences that show it is NOT the same as autism. Also it makes its appearance in young adults, not 2 year olds, although there are earlier hints of its presence in both conditions. I used to be involved with a group that provided education about SMI.

What anti-vaxxers miss- because of selective inattention- is that researchers have been studying these issues and know a great deal about the development of the brain that contradicts most anti-vax theories . There are imaging labs like LONI, researchers like Eric Courchesne and research groups dedicated solely to SMI. None of this is new. Anti-vaxxers just avoid it because it cancels out the chief tenet of their religion : if ASDs start in utero and are detectable prior to most vaccines ( as early indicators show) their beliefs are voided out.

@Denice, they don’t seem to believe that genetic pleiotropy (the ability of one gene to impact multiple systems) exists. If a gene causes immune variation and autism, then, to them, the autism MUST be caused by the immune variations, even if they can’t give a mechanism for how.

Exactly.
Omissions like that lead me t believe that anti-vaxxers selectively edit what they “study” to exclude non-confirming material. Also they glom on to things that may be vaguely related as being “proof” for their own pet ideas.
Self-education – unless it is highly sophisticated and informed by scientific consensus- is often just this skipping around to things that sound appropriate as if they were a playlist of songs.

Even some of their “experts” hold highly unrealistic beliefs that make me think that their educational backgrounds leave much to be desired, Most famously, Wakefield- just how did vaccine lead to changes in the brain and GI anyway? Or woo: how does Mercola explain how tanning beds DON’T cause skin cancer? They’re doctors- not anti-vax moms- they should know better.

Terrie

At this point, I believe she has a child who has autism. That’s about all I believe in her story.

Christine has 11 children. Surely one of them’s bound to be autistic and I do remember reading that she’s on the spectrum as well…

Alain

@ F68.10

Yep, completely banning books does pose a problem. If legitimate scholars want to study something, e.g., pedophilia, alt-right hate groups, then their written materials should be available: however, anything on Amazon is available to anyone, thus, the aforementioned could exacerbate things. Such books, pamphlets, etc. can be found on the internet, so, may take slightly more effort; but they are still available.

@ Joel Harrison

I do agree with your view. In my opinion, there should be a select class of books (and not an ever expanding list of banned books…) that should be available only in local libraries. Without the government watching over your reading material…

I do not think however that we will have the political maturity to get near this situation anytime soon.

@ F68.10

Just remembered when was visiting Germanymany years ago that Mein Kampf existed in libraries; but not available to most readers, needed special permit. An example of a book available to legitimate scholars; but not to the general public.

I should mention that I have a copy and read it many years ago. Really twisted; but actually a few interesting insights into mass psychology.

@ Joel Harrison

I won’t go into the discussion on Mein Kampf here… Just a point, nonetheless: I do not want books to be restricted only to legitimate scholars. (Mein Kampf in Germany being arguably an exception to that statement). Locking the discussion away from the general public into only the hands of scholars is not something I’d consider a good thing. Restricting some documents to libraries is merely a way of not putting everything on display at the mere cost of a click: You’d need to do some effort to gain access, but you shouldn’t be asked to be of the right intellectual pedigree.

Given the way I battled to get access to my own medical records, and given the way some medical documents were withheld from me in court (I do not even believe these documents exist, though my case against the hospital did formally depend on their existence, which I’m expected to believe on faith according to both court and hospital), among other things, I’m 99% against restricting information to qualified professionals only. The asymmetry of information in our societies is paradoxically severely increasing: everything seems available on the net, but the reality is that access to crucial information is not that easy at all, even for journalists.

The fact that it’s almost cost-free to distribute information doesn’t mean that it’s cost-free to produce it. And valuable information doesn’t make it to the general public easily enough to my taste.

Mein Kampf is a very specific example, also because the way it was prevented from being reprinted in Germany is pretty much unique. After the war, the copyright was inherited by the state of Bavaria, they simply refused permission for reprints until the text entered public domain.

@ F68.10

In the United States, by law, one has a right to ones own medical records. This is quite different from allowing the public to access to how-to books on pedophilia or books that attempt to arouse hatred and violence. You are confusing the two.

We also have a Freedom of Information Law in U.S. which, unfortunately, isn’t adhered to; but it involves public access to government documents and actions. Unfortunately, our government doesn’t comply often by labelling many things as confidential, that is, dangerous to our nations security, or supplying the requested documents with most text redacted in black. in most cases an outright lie; but, again, though wrong to withhold so much, this is different from how-to books on pedophilia and books clearly attempting to arouse hate, etc.

@ Joel Harrison

“In the United States, by law, one has a right to ones own medical records. This is quite different from allowing the public to access to how-to books on pedophilia or books that attempt to arouse hatred and violence. You are confusing the two.”

I am not: I understand the impulse of professionals to keep data and texts of their domain somewhat under their control and away from bothersome criticism of the public. That can take many forms, some not so subtle, and some quite subtle.

In France, access to medical records has been granted only 2002 by Bernard Kouchner. Thankfully, it was retroactive. But medical institutions can restrict diffusion of the records to only doctors if they feel the patient should not have access to the records (fourth paragraph). They thus keep a layer of control this way. Also had to contend with a parent who believes that I am that person’s patient by birth, and who threatened a lawsuit because the hospital hadn’t blackened all the bullshit that person spouted on me (end of first paragraph, perfect to hide factitious disorders)…

I know what “control of information” means. I’m highly oversensitive to it… Some people say that medicine without consent nor secret is veterinary medicine. No kidding.

“Unfortunately, our government doesn’t comply often by labelling many things as confidential, that is, dangerous to our nations security, or supplying the requested documents with most text redacted in black.”

Well at least they do respond. Not so in my country… They do not bother that much.

@ F68.10

You still seem to be missing the point, that is, your personal medical records and what your government is doing is quite different from allowing people in general to read books like Mein Kamp, books written by pedophiles, by racists, etc. These should NOT be easily accessed by the general public. Do you understand the difference?

By the way, if anyone else is following this discussion, the Democrats often are just as bad as the Republicans at thwarting the Freedom of Information Act and not protecting whistleblowers.

@ Joel Harrison

“Do you understand the difference?”

I do. I do not believe however that you understand how these type of issues cross-fertilize each other in public discourse in quite a number of insane ways. But we can choose to talk past each other if we wish. I’m fine with that, as long as the Nazi card doesn’t get played too easily. Just note that you tied the knot yourself: “An example of a book available to legitimate scholars; but not to the general public.”. I simply had to explain what I believed was wrong with this attitude and the conversation got deadlocked. It’s that simple.

“These should NOT be easily accessed by the general public.”

And I can tell you they are nowadays anyway. Want to shut down hate speech? Try running after Dieudonné in my country. Banning hate speech will only carry us so far on this matter. Other actions are needed because I see the backlash coming rather fast: people are being fed up being compared to Nazis, and that includes both the neo-nazis and people like myself who just try to have honest conversations on topics that have nothing to do whatsoever with The Joos, WW2 or whatever. Want to talk of end of life and Peter Singer’s arguments? Bam! You’re a nazi! And two lines down the road, you’re a holocaust denier. It has become so systematic that it will not end well.

Just checked: Mein Kampf is being reedited in France this year.

@ Beth

I do too, though I do not share the same advice as Joel on modalities under which to restrict access.

Put simply, there are a lot of “cognitive biases” (cough, cough, cough…) in that text, and it would be flat wrong to claim that humanity has grown out of these. People can fall for very dubious arguments. Check for instance the moment Hitler went full-blown antisemitic. It’s described rather explicitly and straightforwardly by Hitler himself in that book. Now look at the world around you, look back at the “argument”, look again at the world around you, and you can legitimately get scared if you get that text in anyone’s hands.

Moreover, deeper than Mein Kampf, the jewish conspiracy theory that went mainstream in the 19th century, right down into the minds of politicians of the time, such as Kaiser Wilhelm, is not dead. And likely won’t really die any time soon.

There is a public cognitive market to manage. WW2 made it clear that people do not think that straight that easily, including the higher strata of society, importantly. Unfortunately…

@F68.10 – You think Mein Kampf should be banned because the ideas in it are too dangerous for society? Am I understanding you correctly? I’m not familiar with the text, nor do I plan to read it, but I do have trepidation about making it legal to declare some ideas to be too dangerous to be allowed. China is currently working hard to implement such controls. I’d hate to see that behavior emulated by the more liberal democratic societies we live in.

@ Beth

Comparisons with China is wholly inadequate. I want to restrict access to Mein Kampf: Available from public libraries to the lay public, but not on the net.

Modalities of course depends on a country’s tradition when it comes to freedom of speech. So I’m not making a blanket statement or any kind of fatwa for the US.

Bottom line: we should come to terms with the jewish conspiracy theory before being bolder with diffusion of Mein Kampf.

Basic idea: if people want pornography, fine, they should be able to get it. However, there’s no point putting giant plasma screens with the kinkiest porn scenes just in front of kindergartens. The same applies to Mein Kampf in my mind.

I want to restrict some mediums by which people get access to info. And simultaneously enhance access to data people want to keep private. Sounds like a nice deal to me: wanna restrict free speech? Disclose data first!

Modalities of course depends on a country’s tradition when it comes to freedom of speech. So I’m not making a blanket statement or any kind of fatwa for the US.

General warning: DO NOT CLICK THE LINK UNLESS YOU HAVE A FIRM GRIP ON YOURSELF.

Well, we (tinw) already have U.S. v. Stevens.

@ Narad

Your link made me giggle severely. Does that count as firm grip over myself?

But, yes, when free speech is pointless, as in that case, it is pointless. It doesn’t bring information to the table other than proof that some people are beyond any form of salvation. Which we already knew.

Do not know how they even had the nerve to bring forth such a case…

Your link made me giggle severely. Does that count as firm grip over myself?

I haven’t had any coffee yet, but I think that you likely understand that visualizing the subject matter could be upsetting to some people.

@ Narad

I do understand that: the world would be a very sad and frightening place if everyone shared my psychological makeup.

Perhaps the different viewpoint on Mein Kampf has something to do with being on the continent where the author of this book was responsible of killing 6 million Jews and millions of other people who were considered a burden to society, or just less human or in the way of the ideology, that was spread in Mein Kampf.
Do I want it banned completely? No, but I think some restrictions might be desirable, just like we don’t spread pornography under minors.

Amazing how consistently conservatives misinterpret freedom of speech as conferring freedom to grift.

@ Christine Kincaid

You write: “As far as adolescent violence is concerned? There is a profound acceleration of aggression & violence during puberty in these kids who sustain neurological damage from “THE IMMUNE-RESPONSE WHICH WE ARE LOATHE TO CONSIDER MAY HAVE RESULTED FROM IMMUNE-MEDIATING VACCINES”.

I guess you’ve never come across the literature that finds lead levels associated with adolescent violence. Following banning of lead in gasoline as lead levels dropped in kids so did violence. Once again, you ignore other possibilities, its always the vaccines.

And there are actually numerous other hypothesis with some data of other causes of violence; but, all are wrong because it has to be vaccines. You friggin moron!

@ Christine Kincaid

You write: “But you can add Schizophrenia to ASD & Alzheimer’s that is also increasingly being found to have a similar etiology; meaning that Genes + an atypical immune response has disabled the Microglia cells that are responsible for synaptic pruning.”

And you link to a paper: Beggs (2016 May 19). Microglia in Disease. From the paper:

“Autism Syndrome Disorders
A deficit in microglia/complement-mediated synaptic pruning MAY BE [my emphasis] fundamental to the cognitive effects associated with autism syndrome disorders (ASDs) (Voineagu et al.,
2011). Decreased C4 leading to reduced synaptic pruning in early life, mediated through reduced C3 synaptic tagging, IS IMPLICATED [my emphasis] in ASD-like behaviors (Estes and McAllister,
2015). Furthermore, mice deficient in the CX3CR1, a chemokine receptor expressed in the brain exclusively by microglia, have increased densities of immature synapses in the cortex and deficits in functional connectivity.”

So, moron, you interpret MAY BE and IS IMPLICATED in ASD-like behaviors, LIKE not ASD as conclusive. And an experiment in mice. You really are super stupid. Two papers that basically hypothesize. And if you actually understood immunology you would know that our immune systems are always doing something, so our immune system is almost always involved in something; but what sets it off is another story. There is NOTHING in killed or attenuated microbes that could possibly do as much damage as full strength microbes and the ingredients in vaccines, e.g., aluminum, formaldehyde, etc. are minuscule compared to the amounts already in our bodies, aluminum from the environment (including breast milk and formula) and formaldehyde from our own bodies metabolism. Yep, as Paracelsus says “the dose makes the poison” but adding trace amount of substances to what already in our bodies certainly doesn’t increase dosage in any way, shape, or form.

Again, why not admit you were wrong about Vaccine Court having guideline of ruling favorably in one case per million vaccines? Friggin dishonest low life! And how about the link between Alzheimers and ASD, helicobacter pylori?

I really wish, as in an episode of the 1960s series Star Trek, that I could transport you to a parallel universe where everything was the same, technology, medicine, except vaccines had never been invented. Oh, everything wouldn’t be the same, e.g., the population would probably be 1/3 of this planets, there would be masses of blind, deaf, mentally defective, and disabled people, etc. And the current diagnostic categories for ASD would also exist; but there would be fewer of them because they also are often even more vulnerable to diseases. Then and only then would you, maybe, understand just how STUPID YOU ARE

@ Joel

“I really wish, as in an episode of the 1960s series Star Trek, that I could transport you to a parallel universe where everything was the same, technology, medicine, except vaccines had never been invented. Oh, everything wouldn’t be the same, e.g., the population would probably be 1/3 of this planets, there would be masses of blind, deaf, mentally defective, and disabled people, etc. And the current diagnostic categories for ASD would also exist; but there would be fewer of them because they also are often even more vulnerable to diseases.”

I believe that this Paradise on Earth still exists in a select few places. You may even have the added bonus of human trafficking of disabled children, for instance in Tamil Nadu. [DO NOT CLICK on the link if you have any faith in humanity: it’s a disturbing excerpt from a mind-bending yet excellent movie from that part of the world… namely Naan Kadavul]

But now that they too have eaten the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, immunisation is taking hold over there too, and this little disease-friendly corner Paradise may be lost forever…

https://www.gavi.org/news/media-room/kerala-and-tamil-nadu-become-first-indian-states-introduce-pentavalent-vaccine

@ Leonard Sugarman

First, I don’t blame Salk alone; but he did play a role. Salk was a lab rat, that is, excellent at running a lab. He was successful in finding there were three strains/serotypes of polio. However, he fought against having placebo controlled double-blinded randomized clinical trials of the vaccine. He wanted to give it to 2nd graders and use 1st and 3rd graders as controls. In the end, about 800,000 kids were in this group and 800,000 in the placebo-controlled double-blind randomized groups. As a lab rat, expert in doing laboratory stuff, Salk had little to no understanding of research, of public health, nor mass production of vaccines. He was out of his league; but blinded by the success of the clinical trial, determined mainly by the placebo-controlled double-blinded randomized clinical trials that he was against and his becoming a celebrity. I have also read Offit’s book and have, probably, 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, chapters from other books, etc.

Two books, even good ones as Offit’s, don’t always give all angles.

ADDENDUM

One last point. Salk decided to use the most virulent strain of serotype 1, which, it turns out was more difficult to kill with formaline. The Swedes developed their own version of the vaccine without input from Salk and used a weaker strain of serotype 1 as well as a more accurate estimate of the time it took to kill all three. Their vaccine NEVER had any problems. So, Salk chose the wrong strain and used a killing curve estimate that was wrong.

And, yes, others were to blame as well, e.g., Secretary of Health, Oveta Culp Hobby, and others.

ADDENDUM 2

On Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs’ webpage it states: “His polio vaccine all but eradicated a crippling disease from the face of the earth.”

The Salk Vaccine was 70% effective against Serotype 1, 90% effective against Serotypes 2 and 3. The Sabin oral attenuated vaccine was basically 99% effective against all three; but incurred a half dozen cases caused by the vaccine. Polio continued to plague the world until the Sabin vaccine in 1962. So, yes, Salk vaccine reduced the number of cases; “all but eradicated” not even close. In addition, it needed boosters, while the oral vaccine conferred long term to life immunity. In the developing world it was the oral vaccine that eliminated polio, not the Salk. And in the U.S. we switched to a new killed vaccine that also was 99% effective against all three strains; but not until 1990s. In Sweden, their killed vaccine eliminated polio, starting late 1950s.

And Salk was against the oral Sabin vaccine. Golly gee!

So, Salk vaccine was a major step forward; but his biographer that you read shows on her webpage a inaccurate bias.

@ Christine Kinman

Yep, microglia play a role in brain modeling and, in some individuals, they work inefficiently, in others too much. Do you understand genetics at all? Genes don’t act all at once. Even in completely healthy individuals, they activate at different times. Just look how different parts of body and brain develop in utero. Have you heard of Rett Syndrome, a genetic disorder that becomes apparent towards end of 1st year of life, regardless of environmental input, yep, a loaded gun that pulls it owns trigger. And research has found around half a dozen such preprogrammed genes responsible for developmental problems as well as gene arrays. In addition research has found that if fetus exposed to phthalates during window of development, autism develops. And we know that lead causes brain damage, including impulse control problems.violence in adolescents. For your information, neither phthalates nor lead are in vaccines. And we now have over 80,000 chemicals released into our environment since World War II. In other words, the developing fetus can be exposed to numerous substances that elicit immune responses and this continues post-birth when brain still developing; but, for you, all of this irrelevant, it is vaccines.

You find/cherry pick articles that confirm your rigid ideology and ignore the mass, much larger number that refute it. And even some of the articles you use, you misread, e.g., what the hell does helicobacter pylori in ASD and Alzheimers have to do with vaccines? And you add schizophrenics. You don’t apparently know that accounts from even the middle ages describe people who today would be diagnosed with schizophrenia and that modern psychiatry with its diagnosis only began in later 19th century.

I hate the gun metaphor. The idea that having genetics that lead to disability is a “loaded gun” suggests that having a disability makes you the victim of an act of violence, a figure of pity. “Oh, but they can’t [insert arbitrary measure of what it means to be human here].” So what? Take any random person off the street. I promise you, there are tons of things they can’t do. When we’re serious about the wellbeing of everyone, we work from what they can do. The gun metaphor is just another bit of ableist nonsense from the antivaxxers.

Agreed. It also ties into the storyline that someone ( SBM, doctors, the government, pharma) is criminally implicated in “destroying” their children:
they need people to blame for their children’s disabilities because abstractions like chance, probability, genetics, risk are most likely beyond their ability to comprehend
I read twitter accounts of a few prominent anti-vax mothers where this tendency to blame is obvious.
See @ KImRossi1111, @ KatieWr31413491, @ GingerTaylor, others

@ Terrie

I agree, which is why I also support universal health care so that pregnant women get quality prenatal care and kids get quality medical care; but I also support programs designed to provide decent housing, decent schooling, etc. and to build on whatever level children are at to reach whatever their potential is and a society that values each and every life, not for its accomplishments or wealth; but the intrinsic worth and dignity of all human beings. Unfortunately American politics, at least from some, is aimed at polarizing our nation. A good strategy for the corporations and billionaires, namely, divide and conquer, that is, get groups that should allie themselves against the 1% and our bought and paid for Congress, to go against each other. Just to be clear, the 1983 Savings and Loan scandal was not brought on by undocumented aliens nor refugees, the 1999 dot.com crisis, not brought on by them, and the 2008 implosion that could have literally destroyed our economy, not brought on by them; but those responsible still going strong. Divide and conquer, an old strategy and many people too stupid to see through it.

@ Joel Harrison

“I agree, which is why I also support universal health care so that pregnant women get quality prenatal care and kids get quality medical care.”

I do too. But there are two problems that need to be addressed with universal health care.

First one: Financial accountability. Universal health care should not IMO do away with health insurance companies for that reason. However, severe constraints on their behaviour should be legislatively imposed to guarantee universal healthcare. For instance Switzerland forces people to subscribe individually to health insurance and forces insurance companies to accept anyone. Among many other regulations. That’s not stupid.

Second one: independence of health institutions, courts and State. Otherwise, no criticism can manifest itself through the judicial system. In my country, physicians have battled backed against many forms of legal responsabilities and hence liabilities. Argument: malpractice insurance would be too costly for physicians, and hence in the end for patients and State. If medicine goes “socialised”, this kind of avoidance of responsibility must be stringently called out.

These two points aside, I share your view on the matter.

@ F68.10

The Swiss health care system is the 2nd most expensive in the world after the United States. Regardless of how regulated such a system is, it adds administrative complexity, profits, and much higher salaries to insurance executives WITHOUT conferring any additional benefit to members. Even the French health care system, though often ranked the best in the world, allowing choice of doctors, hospitals, etc. has unnecessary administrative costs, partly historical. You have three major health insurers, e.g., railroad workers, that cover over 90% of population, then smaller ones. Basically, same rates and same coverage. Then you have copays and deductibles covered by another group of insurance companies, again, basically say premiums, etc. The premiums come out of paycheck. If unemployed, government picks up premiums. Then you have various medical groups who negotiate yearly with the various companies, not even just one group representing all family practitioners. Somehow it works; but if there were one single-payer insurance, the administrative savings could go to actual health care. French doctors are actually underpaid, as opposed to American doctors who often gouge insurance companies. However, doctors in France get a free education, much lower debt, and they know in advance what to expect, so those going into medicine in France doing it because they want to practice medicine. While many in U.S. also do this, many also choose specialties or locations to max income.

As for responsibility, malpractice insurance is less where healthcare covered; but one can still sue if medical care cause injury or death. In Sweden, with socialized medicine, they have lawsuits, and patients can receive awards when valid malpractice occurs. It is a separate independent body that one turns to. Same in a number of other nations.

You are basically wrong on both points.

By the way, I’ve lived in five different nations, including Sweden and Canada, have audited graduate courses in Health Economics and have been following international comparative studies for many many years.

@ Joel Harrison

The swiss system is massively expensive, no doubt. But anything is crazy expensive over there… I believe there are other issues that explain that cost than health insurance companies per se. But basic point: everyone is covered, subsidies are important and the social system is working. Good point: you’re never denied access to healthcare or social services. Bad point: yeah, they can drown you in debt by paying for you no matter what. Far from perfect, I agree.

When it comes to malpractice in France, it’s incredibly hard to sue, and a massive show of bad faith the whole board accross. And I do not consider it a good thing that only a handful of cases of forced sterilisation made it to the European Court of Human Rights. If administrative courts were not set up in a way as to cover up almost anything, we wouldn’t have such shameful cases:

https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/fre?i=001-111246#{“itemid”:[“001-111246”]}

As to malpractice insurance, I’ve witnessed my family of doctors bitching over it for ages, and not for very good reasons… Some physicians in my family have only recently started recognising that it may be a good idea to hold hospitals a bit more accountable. I guess a few decades of seeing some things getting messed up might eventually bring people to recognise that you do not learn everything in med school…

And yes, physicians in France are underpaid. General practitioners specifically. And it’s hard not to blame the way the State wishes to control everything for that.

@ F68.10

And France ignored warnings about HIV contamination of blood, resulting in all hemophiliacs getting AIDs. Same in United States. One difference, France openly admitted and paid out large compensations, Not the U.S. See book: Douglas Starr “Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce.”

You seem to be expressing mostly your interpretation of personal experiences. Every system will have some problems. I look at the overall statistics and France does much better than many other countries.

As for prenatal care, in Sweden, for instance, it is free and top quality, In fact, Sweden ranks second highest in low infant mortality, inspite of having a large number of immigrants and refugees. The U.S. ranks at the bottom on almost every international comparison; but cost twice as much. In France, if in a larger city, one can usually get an appointment with a top specialist in a couple of days. In U.S. have to get often referral, go through insurance company, and it can be months. When I lived in Sweden maybe took a couple of weeks. One can always point to outliers however.

And Sweden was first nation to recognize that Down Syndrome kids could reach low normal and developed programs to help them achieve whatever they were capable of. And Down Syndrome also often include hip dysplasia and holes in heart, all treated at highest level and free.

I suggest you contact World Health Organization and request copy of:

Sandier et al (2004). France: Systèm de santé en transition. European Observatory on Health Systems and Politics. Yes, with help of dictionary I can read French., though as the years go by forget more and more.

Paul Dutton (2007). Differential Diagnosis: A Comparative History of Health Care Problems and Solutions in the United States and France. ILR Press.

Victor G. Rodwin (2006). Universal Health Insurance in France: How Sustainable? Essays on the French Health Care System.

and I could direct you to a few websites that contain many international comparisons of access, outcomes, etc.

I have more books also.

One last thing. You are worried about government involvement in health care; but ignore how private, especially for-profit companies are involved. If designed properly, with transparency, government is far better than for-profit companies. First and foremost if everyone in the same system, even politicians, likely they won’t stand for substandard care, etc. Despite the bad publicity, which involves getting enrolled, our Veterans Administration Hospital system ranks at top in actually care, including continuity of care, and it is a socialized system, not non-profit universal single-payer system. Socialized because facilities owned by government and medical staff salaried employees.

@ Joel Harrison

“First and foremost if everyone in the same system, even politicians, likely they won’t stand for substandard care, etc.”

That’s an illusion. Even in France, where you could arguably talk of socialized medicine, there always have been legal loopholes allowing politicians and wealthy individuals to ride a fast track and reach Big Professors because They’re Worth It…

By the way, I’ve lived in five different nations, including Sweden and Canada, have audited graduate courses in Health Economics and have been following international comparative studies for many many years.

You don’t say.

@ Joel Harrison

Yes. There are personal aspects in what I claim: sorry: cannot deny what I’ve seen overtime.

You can have both private or public systems that are well fonctioning. On paper. In practice, the devil is in the details. What I claim is not that I am frightened of government interference. What I am frightened is lack of accountability and transparency. Whether private or public, no solution is bullet proof.

But a well designed legal framework can maintain separate roles between public and private entities while functioning like a universal health care system. Switzerland has that framework. On paper, but still, it’s there. Most issues with the swiss system have to do with the fact that Switzerland is an overall rightwing country to the core (which is fine with me overall…). But not with the legal arrangements and architecture principles that have been made on a federal level: these are sensible. On paper…

As for the french case, I’m merely highlighting items that are problematic and that state involvement has been mostly unwilling to address. It wouldn’t cross my mind to have a privatisation Big Bang! But quite a few legislative changes do cross my mind… And it wouldn’t hurt to think of such aspects when engineering things like universal health care in places like the US. Though US citizens have a “passion to sue”, so I’m not that worried, in the end.

Speaking of vaccine misinformation, a recent article in The Independent belongs in the Hall of Shame of bad reporting.

To summarize: it notes public health officials’ concern about progress against cervical cancer in the U.K. “stalling”, and pairs that news with the Rees et al study which questioned the positive conclusions of HPV vaccine clinical trials. The article thereby suggests that cervical cancer rates aren’t declining because the vaccine is ineffective.

The reporter evidently didn’t bother to 1) ascertain whether recent cases of cervical cancer occurred in unvaccinated or vaccinated individuals, 2) learn that the typically long latent period between HPV infection and invasive cancer means that it may take quite some time for cancer rates to fall after significant vaccine uptake occurs, or 3) investigate what has happened in other countries since release of HPV vaccines (markedly declining rates of HPV infection, far fewer new diagnoses of high grade dysplasias (precancers) and even declining cervical cancer rates.

Truly poor journalism, Independent.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cervical-cancer-screening-hpv-vaccination-young-women-a9295291.html

C. Do basic math and realize that the 25-29 group in which there is reported an increase is not the vaccine cohort.

@ F68.10

I wrote: “First and foremost if everyone in the same system, even politicians, likely they won’t stand for substandard care, etc.”

You wrote: “That’s an illusion. Even in France, where you could arguably talk of socialized medicine, there always have been legal loopholes allowing politicians and wealthy individuals to ride a fast track and reach Big Professors because They’re Worth It…”

Yep, there is NO system where a few will not get better treatment; but even if some of the more powerful politicians and wealthy manage, the vast majority, even politicians will notice that relatives, loved ones, friends are not getting quality care. In addition, if hospitals, as in U.S., when run for-profit, have worse hospital-based infections, etc., even those receiving priority and best care are at risk.

This discussion has gone far enough. I’ve got other things to do. I’ve been a member of Physicians for a National Health Plan in U.S. for over 30 years. I’ve studied the issue. Regardless of some experiences in other nations, we are the only health system, mainly paid for by taxpayers (approximately 65% of total costs); yet designed not to benefit people; but to make a profit. Over 30% of monies goes, not to healthcare; but to unnecessary administration, profits, and sky high salaries.

The amount Americans pay through taxes for health care matches the amount of any other nation that covers everyone at a high quality of care; yet, we have 1/3 of our population either uninsured or underinsured, others delayed by bureaucrats in getting needed care, many bankruptcies, etc. And businesses have to pay exorbitant premiums to insure their employees, monies that could go to research, innovation, paying employees better, etc. And with all this, we rank bottom on everything from infant mortality, life-expectancy to quality of life with chronic conditions such as diabetes.

Anyway, France differs from many other nations, even in national sport. In U.S. its baseball and football, Sweden ice hockey, etc. in France the national sport is “faire une manifestation”.?

[…] Regular readers are probably familiar with an organization known as the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) and its journal, the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (JPANDS). Basically, AAPS is a far right-wing/libertarian advocacy organization disguised as a medical professional society. When I first discovered this group, I noted that it was pretty much a fusion of a John Birch Society-like right wing group with a medical society and that it trafficked in the most vile antivaccine misinformation (e.g., that shaken baby syndrome is a “misdiagnosis” for vaccine injury and Andrew Wakefield’s recent claim that the measles vaccine will result in a mass extinction of humans), anti-immigrant fear-mongering, climate science denial, blaming breast cancer on abortion using execrable “science,” and more, such as the claim that radiation from the Fukushima reactor breach is good for you. The AAPS views doctors as some sort of mythical brave mavericks outside the herd whose godlike total autonomy must never be infringed by the government or anything else and rejects even the concept of a scientific consensus about anything. (Donald Trump’s first Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price, is a member of AAPS.) Earlier this year, it’s even sued to protect its “right” to promote antivaccine misinformation. […]

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