It’s hard for me to believe that I’ve now been writing about the antivaccine movement on a regular basis for the last 15 years. The first big splash I made dates back to when the blog was only six months old and I took on the utterly awful article simultaneously published in Rolling Stone and Salon.com, Deadly Immunity. The article was by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and was basically a conspiracy theory that claimed that the CDC “knew” that the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal, which was in several childhood vaccines until 2002, caused autism but that it “covered up” the data showing it at a conference in 2000 held at the Simpsonwood Conference Center near Atlanta. It was the first example I had ever encountered of what I now like to call the “central conspiracy theory of the antivaccine movement,” although now that thimerosal has been gone from vaccines for 18 years it’s been supplanted by the “CDC whistleblower” conspiracy theory (featured in the 2016 conspiracy film disguised as a documentary VAXXED), in which a senior CDC scientist supposedly admitted that the CDC “knew” that vaccines cause autism but manipulated data in one of its studies to cover up the link. Plus ça change…
This leads me to the question of a COVID-19 vaccine. Most scientists with direct knowledge of vaccine development agree that the projections that we’ll have a vaccine for this new coronavirus within 12-18 months (much less by the end of the year, as was recently promised) are incredibly, even unrealistically, optimistic. Although there has been an unprecedented international effort to develop a safe and effective vaccine, as yet we only have candidates, a few of which are at the very beginning of clinical testing. Predictably, as they do during every pandemic and major epidemic, such as H1N1, Ebola, and Zika virus, antivaxxers are spinning conspiracy theories about how the COVID-19 pandemic is a “Plandemic” or a plot to force everyone to be vaccinated, complete with Bill Gates conspiracy theories and claims that there will be microchips in the new COVID-19 vaccine. The conspiracy mongering and pre-emptive push by antivaxxers to discredit a coronavirus vaccine are so blatant that they made the mainstream media last week, for example in this op-ed by Kevin Roose for the New York Times:
The other night, midway through watching a clip from “Plandemic” — a documentary that went viral on social media last week, spreading baseless lies and debunked nonsense about the coronavirus to millions of Americans overnight — I had a terrifying thought:
What if we get a Covid-19 vaccine and half the country refuses to take it?
It occurred to me that all the misinformation we’ve seen so far — the false rumors that 5G cellphone towers fuel the coronavirus, that drinking bleach or injecting UV rays can cure it, that Dr. Anthony Fauci is part of an anti-Trump conspiracy — may be just the warm-up act for a much bigger information war when an effective vaccine becomes available to the public. This war could pit public health officials and politicians against an anti-vaccination movement that floods social media with misinformation, conspiracy theories and propaganda aimed at convincing people that the vaccine is a menace rather than a lifesaving, economy-rescuing miracle.
Scariest of all? It could actually work.
He’s not wrong.
Roose goes on to point out that the antivaccine movement is far better at social media messaging than most public health advocates:
I’ve been following the anti-vaccine community on and off for years, watching its members operate in private Facebook groups and Instagram accounts, and have found that they are much more organized and strategic than many of their critics believe. They are savvy media manipulators, effective communicators and experienced at exploiting the weaknesses of social media platforms. (Just one example: Shortly after Facebook and YouTube began taking down copies of “Plandemic” for violating their rules, I saw people in anti-vaccine groups editing it in subtle ways to evade the platforms’ automated enforcement software and reposting it.)
In short, the anti-vaxxers have been practicing for this. And I’m worried that they will be unusually effective in sowing doubts about a Covid-19 vaccine for several reasons.
I’ve been following the antivaccine movement for even longer, and I know that Roose is correct here. It wasn’t always true, though, that the antivaccine movement was media- and social media-savvy. Indeed, early on I used to make fun of the cluelessness of antivaccine advocates on using blogs (Twitter and Facebook were only in their infancy). Then, when they made their first major forays onto Twitter to try to promote the “CDC whistleblower” antivaccine conspiracy theory, I made fun of the ham-handedness of it all. That was nearly six years ago, and six years have made a big difference. Antivaxxers now have media-savvy con men like Del Bigtree fronting for them, generating content, spreading conspiracy theories, and hyping controversy.
If you want an idea of how much more skilled antivaxxers have become, consider Plandemic, the video featuring disgraced scientist Judy Mikovits and the mother of all COVID-19 conspiracy theories. I’ve said all along that the video going viral was a planned event, and it turns out that I was correct. The ever-astute Anna Merlan discovered that an ex-Google employee and QAnon believer named Zach Vorhies conceived and executed a plan to make the video go viral, and it worked. She also reported that Vorhies has ties to the antivaccine movement, including Del Bigtree and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., having appeared on The Highwire With Del Bigtree as the “Google whistleblower” who, apparently, revealed Google’s nefarious plans to alter its search algorithms to deprioritize antivaccine misinformation. It was Vorhies, in fact, who introduced Mikovits to Mikki Willis, the filmmaker who produced the video and served as her interviewer.
To give you an idea what a disadvantage science communicators are now at, there was a study published in Nature by investigators at George Washington University, Michigan State University, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the University of Miami. The study mapped the conversation about vaccines on Facebook during the 2019 measles outbreaks and compared provaccine pages and groups to antivaccine pages and groups. The authors found a complex landscape involving nearly 100 million users “partitioned into highly dynamic, interconnected clusters across cities, countries, continents and languages.” Key findings included that there were nearly three times as many active antivaccine communities as pro-vaccine communities but that, although the pro-vaccine communities tended to have more followers/members, the antivaccine pages were growing faster.
Here’s where the problem lies. The pro-vaccine groups tended to be peripheral and homogeneous. Of course, it’s kind of hard for them not to be homogeneous, given that the key messages pro-vaccine groups want to promote is that vaccines are safe and effective, they prevent deadly disease, and they do not cause all the health problems attributed to them by antivaccine groups. The antivaccine groups, in contrast, interacted with way more groups. The authors proposed seven reasons why antivaccine misinformation has spread so much:
- Although smaller numerically, antivaccine clusters tend to become more central within the networks mapped compared to provaccine clusters. The antivaccine clusters become entangled with a large number of undecideds, while pro-vaccine clusters tend to be more peripheral, thus remaining ignorant of the conflict and gaining the wrong impression that they are winning.
- Contrary to the view of “undecideds,” it turns out that the undecided individuals are not passive, but active, producing the highest growth of new out-links and becoming entangled with antivaccine clusters.
- Antivaccine individuals form more than twice as many clusters as provaccine individuals, providing a larger number of sites for engagement than provaccine populations and a much better ability for antivaccine networks to be come central.
- Antivaccine clusters aren’t just about vaccines. They provide a number of potentially attractive narratives that “blend topics such as safety concerns, conspiracy theories and alternative health and medicine, and also now the cause and cure of the COVID-19 virus.”
- Antivaccine clusters showed the highest growth during the measles outbreak of 2019, while pro-vaccine clusters showed the lowest growth.
- Medium-sized anti-vaccination clusters grow the most. Whereas larger anti-vaccination clusters take up the attention of the pro-vaccination population, these smaller clusters can expand without being noticed.
- Geography is a favorable factor for the anti-vaccination population. Anti-vaccination clusters either self-locate within cities, states or countries, or remain global.
Roose further adds about the study:
The researchers found that Facebook pages pushing accurate pro-vaccine information were mostly clustered in an insular group, while the anti-vaccine pages treated vaccine resistance as a kind of political campaign, and used different messages to reach different types of undecided “voters.” A page promoting holistic health remedies might start seeding doubts about vaccines among liberal yoga moms, while a page promoting resistance to government-mandated vaccines might appeal to conservatives and libertarians.
This is, of course, the sort of thing that those of us who’ve been following the antivaccine movement have known for a long time, which is one reason why we’ve been so vocal about the links between “integrative medicine” and alternative medicine and antivaccine views.
The depressing theoretical prediction from this modeling is that, if current trends continue, antivaccine support on Facebook will become dominant in a little more than a decade. Obviously, this is just one model, but its findings otherwise are fairly consistent with other research on the spreading of misinformation on social networks.
Unfortunately, as Roose further notes it’s also true that a new coronavirus vaccine, whenever it is developed, will be a perfect target for antivaccine conspiracy theories. For one thing, vaccine candidates are being rushed through development at an unprecedented pace, and vaccine candidates are likely to be fast-tracked through the regulatory approval process. This observation has led even pro-vaccine advocates express concern that, given all the haste, corners might be cut and safety testing might be deficient. Heck, I’ve worried about the same thing, knowing that any serious adverse events showing up later that were missed in the clinical trials leading to approval of the vaccine will be used to discredit not just a coronavirus vaccine, but all vaccines. Antivaxxers will use any such debacle to claim that all vaccines are inadequately tested and therefore unsafe. Moreover, organizations demonized by the antivaccine movement will be the ones promoting the vaccines, organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the CDC, and the World Health Organization, will be at the center of the distribution of any new vaccine. If you know anything about the antivaccine movement, you know that the conspiracy theories will practically write themselves, because the groundwork has already been laid. Various existing conspiracy theories will be combined in different combinations, with new misinformation sprinkled in, to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt about vaccines.
Then, of course, there will be mandates. It’s a virtual certainty that, once a vaccine is approved, it will be added to the list of vaccines required for a child to enter school. It’ll also almost certainly be added to the flu and DTaP vaccines required for most health care workers. It might even be required for international travel. If there’s one thing that antivaxxers are good at, it’s weaponizing “health freedom” and “parental rights” arguments to attract right wing anti-regulation small government conservatives, as I’ve described many times. That’s the reason why the antivaccine movement has increasingly found a home in the Republican Party over the last several years.
One thing’s for sure. Whenever a COVID-19 vaccine is finally approved, there will be a disinformation campaign launched by antivaxxers the likes of which we’ve never seen before. We need to prepare.
336 replies on “The pre-emptive disinformation war against a coronavirus vaccine”
They’re already planning for it.
I will point out that one of the things they’re downplaying/ignoring is that grassroots pro-vaccine organizations are not well funded. ICAN gets over a million dollar a year and has a staff of several people who draw six figures salaries. There are several organizations that have discussed and have resources for strategies to read broader; but they work on a. shoe-string budget. If anyone actually wanted to help, giving money to extend social media outreach to organizations like VYF or VFV would be one way.
This is a problem if true. As long as the antivaxx minority will advocate for little or nothing (apart from a few grifters at the top of the pyramid) and the provax majority will only advocate for salary or an expenses-compensated basis, guess who has the public relations upper hand?
It’s easy to goad the “2+2=5” lunatic fringe into doing…whatever…while the “2+2=4” crowd quietly think to themselves, “well, duh!” Of course there are exceptions, though not enough it seems.
The suburban white bread nature of the core of the antivaccination movement is bolstered by the fact that the one vaccine that is currently required for certain types of travel (yellow fever) is the one I’ve never heard a peep about from anti-vaxxers. I mean, I’m sure it happens, but comare it to the whining about MMR, DTaP or flu vaccines. It’s, at best, a drop in the bucket. Because antivaxxers don’t care about anyone besides themselves.
Any SARS CoV-2 vaccine that is required for international travel should also be required for interstate travel. It’s the only way that we are going to fully reopen the economy without courting disaster.
Well, that should be simple enough to implement. Oh, wait.
“Here’s where the problem lies. The pro-vaccine groups tended to be peripheral and homogeneous. Of course, it’s kind of hard for them not to be homogeneous, given that the key messages pro-vaccine groups want to promote is that vaccines are safe and effective, they prevent deadly disease, and they do not cause all the health problems attributed to them by antivaccine groups.”
How does the key message make pro-vaccine groups homogeneous? Wouldn’t that make anti vaccine groups equally homogeneous?
Provax groups DO include more men than anti vax groups because men are not mothers. More mothers are anti vax because they are the typically the parent most likely to lose their jobs to caregive for vaccine injured children.
Other than that, pro vax groups are very homogeneous. They tend to be urban child-free, because that minimizes the opportunity to experience vaccine injury or God forbid; bury the child a vaccine killed. A small segment are well educated with the bulk being followers who harass parents of disabled children with Karen memes & laugh emojis, having never logged on to pubMed once in their life.
Anti vax groups have more minority members because they suffer a higher rate of vaccine injury & are more isolated from services for their vaccine injured children due to socio-economic status. Something going on with those HLA & IL genes there.
People from other countries, especially places like Israel, Pakistan, Bulgaria & Samoa have joined the ranks of the anti vax because they too suffer higher rates of vaccine injury. They are also more likely to be given really crappy vaccines such as the old DTP.
You are probably unfamiliar with the physician “Othman dpt” AKA Dr-Ahmed Shahen? Tragic situation for this pediatrician and his family.
These reasons & many more are why the provax will always be increasingly homogeneous & unappealing to the general population. Stop vaccine injury and you will stop the anti vax but that can’t happen when the ultimate priority is uptake versus safety. Some of us are charismatic and savvy (I am not) but the main driving force is continuing harm from vaccines. Period.
Followed almost immediately by
and
It’s like The Three Faces of Eve turned upside-down.
How does the key message make pro-vaccine groups homogeneous?
So much for your much bragged about reading comprehension. It’s obvious from context that he’s talking about a homogeneous message, not demographics. You, individually, can’t even keep your own story straight, (vaccines cause autism, no, wait, SIDS, no wait,
vasculitis, no, wait, hair texture change!) so it’s hardly shocking that the message of the antivax movement is all over the place.
“More minorities?” Really?
Funny, because the protests were are currently seeing almost exclusively white.
“Stop vaccine injury and you will stop the anti vax but that can’t happen when the ultimate priority is uptake versus safety.”
Except that won’t happen, because 1) “vaccine injuries” are overblown and more importantly, 2) nothing is ever truly 100% safe, and to argue that we can’t do something until it’s 100% safe is just as good as arguing that we should never do it at all. Ever since 1988 the United States has had a National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in place to deal with these rare events when they do happen. They aren’t 100% safe. And that’s okay; it’s unrealistic to expect them to be 100% safe.
Do you take that tack with seat belts? No, because you’ll get fined if you don’t have seat belts and your insurance rates will go up. We need something similar for vaccinations, since vaccinations are the seat belts for public health. If you don’t have your vaccinations, your premiums should go up and you should be fined, unless you can provide adequate medical reason why you can’t.
Freedom isn’t a suicide pact.
“More mothers are anti vax because they are the typically the parent most likely to lose their jobs to caregive for vaccine injured children.”
This absolutely needs to change, and it just demonstrates how problems like the anti-vaxx movement never have just one cause, and are often the result of a confluence of other problems from other aspects of society. This ties into how our nation is the only nation in the world that doesn’t offer some level of mandated paternal and maternal leave, and how our healthcare/insurance system is absolutely broken.
@ Christine Kincaid
The return of the moron. Sometimes I think what you lack in brains, you make up for in ignorance. First, many of the pro vaccine websites are headed by women/mothers, e.g., Vaccinate Your Family, Moms Who Vax, Nurses Who Jax, etc. Please give valid stats comparing fathers and mothers in supporting vaccines.
As for antivaxxers in other nations, yep, people who lack the basics of the sciences underlying vaccines can be swayed by blogs. Good choice Pakistan where the Taliban murder nurses giving vaccines. Yep, glad to see you and Taliban are in agreement; but their reason is belief that vaccines will sterilize Moslems. As for Samoa, you missed that they had a large outbreak of measles that was ended when New Zealand arrived and began vaccinating.
As for provaccinationists are fairly homogeneous, depends what you mean. If homogeneous means looking at the vast number of studies on vaccine safety. A PubMed search using Vaccines AND Safety got over 10,000 hits. Even adding Placebo AND Randomized got more than 1,000. So, yep, if provaccinationist rely on the science, then they are homogeneous. On the other hand, antivaxxers represent a heterogeneous groups, some not against vaccinations per se; but mandatory government. Others more aligned with paranoid conspiracy theories of scientists lying to further profits of Big Pharma. As I’ve mentioned numerous times, the vaccine safety research has been carried out in numerous different nations with different political, economic, cultural, educational, and historical systems. One has to really be delusional to believe that all these doctors, public health researchers, epidemiologists, and politicians are willing to sacrifice their own nation’s children. And finally, anecdotal information, that is, unscientific. If vaccines did not exist kids would die, kids would suffer from SIDS, etc. If one assumes that, say infants 3 months of age, then somewhere in U.S. a small number will die, period, even without getting vaccinated; but idiots like you subscribe to post hoc ergo prompter hoc, that is, after something, so the something must have caused it. Paul Offit writes in one of his books about a young researcher who took his infant to be vaccinated. There was a long line so he decided to return another day. That night the infant tragically died of SIDS. The researcher said that if he had been vaccinated, it would have been difficult to not blame the vaccine. And, to repeat what I’ve written earlier, SIDS deaths have plummeted since mid 1990s at same time as we’ve added vaccines.
Shit happens. Kids get sick, kids die. Horrible tragedies. And vaccines can cause rare serious adverse reactions; but for every one, looking at the history and current status of vaccine-preventable diseases and for every serious adverse event, the number of lives saved, disabilities prevented, etc. any rational person, I realize this is impossible for you, would choose vaccines.
And the Vaccine Court supports this, only about 1 case in 1 million vaccines. And, as I’ve written before, there are law firms willing to represent families who believe their child was harmed by vaccines because the Vaccine Court pays them reasonable amounts. They have nothing to lose. On the other hand, if one sued the company without overwhelmingly strong evidence, it would take years with only modest chance of winning. The Vaccine Court makes it easy to sue, not only paying lawyers; but witnesses, and to some extent they err on the side of the plaintiff, that is, if a possible adverse event connected to a vaccine, even if not clear was caused in specific instance, they rule in favor of plaintiff and because the serious injuries involve often a lifetime of care, the payouts are quite good, sometimes well over one million dollars and all goes to the plaintiffs, the lawyers don’t take 40% or more. For example, from 2006 thru 2014 there were a total of 3,672 cases which the Court rules in favor of 2,310, about 2/3 of cases. The total number of vaccines given during that time period was 2,532,428,541. You do the math.
I won’t bother to give the links; but you can find lawyers for vaccine court by Googling. You can find ALL the information about the Court, including how easy it is to submit a claim. And you can go to CDC website for Vaccine Information Statement swhich must, by law, be given for each and every vaccine given. The Statements explain the disease, complications, vaccine mild adverse events, rare but serious adverse events, AND HOW TO SUBMIT CLAIM TO VACCINE COURT. And, of course, all the anti vaccination website mention the Court, giving the $4 billion paid out over 32 years, not, of course, the number of cases, the number of total vaccines, and how much average payout was. They are just as dishonest as you.
So, given all of the above, I would hypothesize that the vast majority of families who believe their kids harmed by vaccines did submit a claim.
SO MORON. BELIEVE WHAT YOU WANT.
And again, as often, I suggest you learn about the immune system. A good start is Lauren Sompayrac’s “How the Immune System Works (6th Edition)”
I realize you won’t get it since you “know” more than the rest of us; but others monitoring this exchange of comments might just order it from Amazon.com. If they do, the will be glad they did.
And just to remind you of something I’ve also written before. I have gotten every vaccination I could, even Yellow Fever, Cholera, Plague, Typhoid/Paratyphoid, Smallpox three times, and when they were alive I reminded my grandparents and parents to get their flu shots and pneumococcal shots and all my friends with children to make sure they and their kids got vaccinated. And I’ve NEVER worked for a Pharmaceutical company, nor purchased stock in them. Simply, I have read 100s of books and thousands of articles on history and current status of vaccine-preventable diseases and loved my grandparents, parents, friends, and their children. And I’ve studied research methods, some immunology, some microbiology, infectious diseases, epidemiology, public health etc
So, I look forward to you and Natalie White, your “fraternal moronic twin” popping up again.
@ Joel,
I have never accused you of working for pharma.Thanks for reminding me about that book, I need to order it.
I’m sorry you had to have all those vaccines. I would never have been able to tolerate them, or would have started slipping into Alzheimer’s or another dementia before my 50th birthday. I trust that your memory skills are fine?
This is the only place I have ever seen the poster Natalie White. I do not know her from anywhere else.
@ Kinkaid
I don’t believe a word you say because evidence is just otherwise. It’s just so overwhelming. To add, evidence of your errors is provided (here) far more explicitly and professionally than what you leave in defense of your claims. You are a propagandist to me. Anti-vaxx propaganda kills people in far greater numbers than trained professionals who understand the relevant domains and spend their life to keep people alive and healthy. You do not do that. You promote the death of people by your own ignorance. Why are you here? What have you on ability/professional knowledge to understand the domains involved? It’s just so simple to see the lies.
It’s not even complicated because the evidence is clear, there is far more harm in not taking a vaccine than taking it. That you comment here is interesting to me.
IMHO — You are a sucker looking to find more suckers for hucksters and propagandists. PERIOD.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/17/the-art-of-the-pandemic-how-donald-trump-walked-the-u-s-into-the-covid-19-era/
@ 1000 Links to a Furlong,
If I were “a sucker looking to find more suckers for hucksters and propagandists”(antivax); why WOULD I waste my time posting here?
On the other hand, if I wanted to make a difference, why would I waste my time preaching to an antivax choir? I can’t really tolerate them during COVID anyway
I’m here because there is a small chance that something I say might resonate with somebody.
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge has been addressed recently, so I’m not seeing where the Crisco frosting adds much of anything to your usual routine.
More mothers are anti vax because they are the typically the parent most likely to lose their jobs to caregive for vaccine injured children.
That is so grossly offensive and ignorant on so many levels…
I usualy ignore you, but your screed today just pisses me off coming in the midst of people like you making life more risky than necessary by their similarly misinformed “views”.
Do you really delude yourself into thinking that anyone here will be impressed with anything you say? I am restraining myself from launching into a verbal torrent of abuse because I don’t want to be likeyou and yours.
@ brainmatterz,
I do understand that antivaxers are “making life more risky than necessary by their similarly misinformed “views”.”
They are acting like idiots; holding rallys & actively bullying businesses that require masks, among a lot of other equally stupid things.
I do not condone that sort of behavior. I secured my masks back in January, wore them before they were recommended, pulled my son out of school before they closed & have been practicing social distancing since February.
@Christine
This is the way.
@ Christine Kincaid
You continue to ignore most of what I and others write, namely, that the vast majority of people still support vaccinations, that research around the world supports it. And, I did quite fine with all my vaccinations. In fact, I got many of them in one day walking down a corridor. Many years ago, after the U.S. abolished the draft, to get people to join the armed forces, among other things, they offered a chance to continue with a college education, even aboard Naval ships at sea, PACE (Program for Afloat College Education). For two years I taught undergraduate psychology courses on Naval ships in the Western Pacific. Prior to boarding my first ship, I got smallpox vaccine (3rd time), yellow fever, cholera, plague, typhoid/paratyphoid, dpt, polio, measles and some others. I must admit, both arms were sore and first night aboard ship had a low fever, so went down to corpsman, got two aspirins and fell asleep. Next day I was fine. And so were all the others who got the shots. Only one time since then did a shot bother me, the new shingles vaccine. My arm was sore for over a day and I felt so of out of it; but, having seen my grandparents and parents suffer through shingles, a day’s sore arm, and malaise was well worth it. Something you and all antivaccinationists fail to understand, namely, just how serious many of the vaccine-preventable diseases are.
As a youth, there were a couple of kids in my elementary school with steel braces and crutches, polio. I have know several polio victims in wheel chairs, met a man in late 1980s in an iron lung since early 1950s and several post-polio sufferers, including the older sister of one of my closest friends. I’ve also known families with kids who lost their hearing from measles, etc., etc. So, besides understanding the methodology and the studies that have shown how safe vaccines are, I have seen what they prevent. And when I say “how safe” I don’t mean 100%; but the rare serious adverse reactions, horrible as they are, are minuscule compared to what the actual diseases cause and those who suffer from the rare serious adverse reactions could have suffered from the actual diseases. When our population was half todays, prior to the measles vaccines, up to 500 kids died, 1000 suffered brain damage or loss of hearing, and 50,000 were hospitalized every year. And a million or more suffered anorexia, intense itching, fever, etc for a week.
You just refuse to even consider that what happened to your children might not have been result of vaccines; but your false logical post hoc ergo prompter hoc which I discussed earlier. Your absolute certainty is what really bothers me, that you won’t even consider the possibility. As I wrote, kids tragically die at any age, sometimes completely unexplainable. A good friend of mine got up to make breakfast for his family, they heard a crash, found him on the floor. He died of an aneurysm. He wasn’t old, wasn’t overweight, didn’t smoke, really good guy. And he had NOT had any vaccines in probably six months when he got the flu vaccine. People die, people suffer. I call you a MORON because anyone who believes that they are absolutely right fits the description. I hate to tell you this; but you aren’t a god and don’t have god-like certainty. And the fact that you can’t rebut what I and others write; but just keep repeating your sick tropes makes it even worse.
So, if you believe you would slip into dementia or Alzheimer’s before 50 from shots, must mean you realize you have a predisposition to a loss of rationality which you obviously already suffer from, so, perhaps, deep down you realize you aren’t all that rational.
And being in my mid 70s my memory isn’t as good as it used to be, partly just from age and partly from insomnia. Short term memory goes to long term memory while we sleep; but, despite everything, I seem to do a lot better than many. Growing old isn’t for the feint of heart.
@ Joel,
"And, I did quite fine with all my vaccinations."
Many do. Or think they do. I don’t. It’s in the genes.
"You just refuse to even consider that what happened to your children might not
have been result of vaccines; but your false logical post hoc ergo prompter hoc
which I discussed earlier. Your absolute certainty is what really bothers me, that
you won’t even consider the possibility."
Yes I am absolutely certain but I AM becoming increasingly curious as to what would have happened to both myself & my son without vaccines. I recently received my son’s latest blood work results from his Immunologist. He is like me.
He has ZERO antibodies from ANY of his childhood immunizations yet he has never had a vpd. I have never had a vpd & I don’t have any antibodies from my vaccines either. Are we functioning on innate immunity? Cellular?
And no, it’s not herd immunity, in my case. I have been exposed to both Measles & Pertussis on the pediatric units years ago. HepB (yes, different transmission) & Influenza on the adult med/surg floors.
I wonder if people who don’t keep antibodies from vaccines have an increased risk of AE’s from vaccines.
"So, if you believe you would slip into dementia or Alzheimer’s before 50 from
shots, must mean you realize you have a predisposition to a loss of rationality
which you obviously already suffer from, so, perhaps, deep down you realize
you aren’t all that rational."
Yeesh. I am ASD. If vaccines stopped my microglia from pruning synapses when I was a toddler; vaccines will stop my microglia from eating plaques in middle age. That’s what vaccines do to me. What vaccines do NOT do for me; is to form lasting antibodies against vpd’s. And I’m not special; this probably goes for … I dunno; 1 in every 58 people. Just GUESSING.
"And being in my mid 70s my memory isn’t as good as it used to be, partly just
from age and partly from insomnia."
Maybe you are a genetic sleep Martian like me, lol. CRY1 gene variant. Let yourself stay up when you can’t sleep. Don’t fight it. Then sleep in, through the morning, until you feel rested. You will feel better
@Christine, Bullshit You just happened to have just gotten the test results from an immunologist for the over one dozen VPDs we current immunize against? And it just so happens the son you’ve tried to claim is “fully immunized” in the past (I somehow doubt he got his 12 year shots) has never had the flu or rotovirus or any of the diseases which are still easily caught by those who aren’t vaccinated? Thankfully, herd immunity is still strong for many of the worst,
You love to claim all these medical tests, but most of the time, there’s zero reason why you’re doing them, which makes me suspect that you’re using predatory labs to do fishing expeditions, and making shit up to prove your predetermined world view.
@ Terry
Well done, you saved me a comment,, well almost, yep, why would she test for antibodies for VPDs? And, yep, if immunologist did the tests, probably predatory lab. I wonder what their accuracy, e.g. sensitivities and specificities for the various tests are? Or, are they even accredited?
However, there is another possibility, namely, Christine is either delusional or just plain dishonest and NEVER had the tests.
… is one of the myths that ignorant people like you keep pushing.
Yes, vaccine injury, does happen, but it is exceedingly rare.
ANYONE who thinks that they or their child has suffered an injury as a result of vaccination can file a claim with the NVICP – without ANY barrier or financial or personal risk whatsoever, and with a ridiculously low threshold for proof of causality.
The worst that can happen is that a claim is denied – and in that case, plaintiffs can continue to sue for damages in normal courts.
Now, if what ignorant people like you is true (i.e. a relatively high prevalence of vaccine injury), one would expect that with an annual ~3.5 million births in the US, tens of thousands of claims would be filed with with NVICP annually.
Do you know how many claims on average the NVICP receives annually? Let me tell you: just over 600. And in less than 250 of those cases, compensation is awarded – and not because it was proven that vaccination caused of the injury, but because it was deemed possible that it caused said injury.
And the numbers are even far lower on a per-vaccine basis, as Joel A. Harrison already pointed out.
So where are all those thousands upon thousands of children with ‘vaccine injuries’ that ignorant people like you keep claiming pop up all the time? Why don’t all those thousands upon thousands of parents with a ‘vaccine-injured child’ file a claim? Why don’t they even bother to report the ‘vaccine injury’ to VAERS, with an even lower threshold than the NVICP?
So, ignorant one, how do you explain the HUGE discrepancy between your claims and the actual numbers? And please, PLEASE don’t insult our intelligence by coming up with some sort of conspiracy to keep people from filing complaints of to keep things hushed up.
Not exactly. Post-Bruesewitz (speaking of preemption), there is only one path after a claim is denied: review by the court itself, then the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and then SCOTUS, unless one can concoct a theory that doesn’t involve design or warning defect.
@ Richard,
“So, ignorant one, how do you explain the HUGE discrepancy between your claims and the actual numbers? And please, PLEASE don’t insult our intelligence by coming up with some sort of conspiracy to keep people from filing complaints of to keep things hushed up.”
Are you asking me why VAERS is so under reported? And why most of us do not file claims for compensation?
So many people STILL do not know about VAERS. So many other people think the doctor will automatically file the report.
Posters here are saying I am ‘claiming ignorance’ because I didn’t know about VAERS in 1994 but in 2013; only 71% of health care providers knew about VAERS. Out of the 37% of HCP who had identified at least one AE’s; only 17% of those ever reported to VAERS.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23597717/
Vaccine injury is not rare; just rarely reported.There is no conspiracy to keep us from filing complaints or claims. The system is so adversarial most of us can’t. We won’t win, unless the court needs to fill that 1 in 1 million slot to keep with the narrative. Those are usually saved for the grown ups with sore arms who still have their words; our dead & autistic children can’t tell you what happened & you are just fine with this scenario.
Not possible, when “vaccine injury” ACTUALLY means “anything that an antivax zealot can make themselves believe is a vaccine injury, with or without or in direct contradiction to the evidence”, which is everything.
Have you ever seen parents post to social media about the tragic loss of their child, and antivax vultures swoop into the comments to suggest that it was probably “vaccine injury” despite having NO information about the case other than the fact the child passed? Have you seen those same antivax vultures insisting that it was probably “vaccine injury” EVEN THOUGH the cause of death was actually diagnosed by professionals and it was something vaccines couldn’t have caused such as a genetic disorder? Have you seen the vultures accuse parents of being actors and their children of being fictional, merely because the child’s cause of death was a VPD and antivaxxers don’t want those to be regarded as the threat they are?? The idea that such people would stop being antivax merely because reality didn’t support their ideas of vaccine injury being everywhere is laughable. Reality doesn’t play a big part in their decisions NOW.
https://www.whatistheharm.com/uploads/1/1/7/7/117764468/screen-shot-2019-03-17-at-7-47-41-pm_orig.jpg
I think you are right on the money. Antivaxxers will never stop being antivax. Perhaps if every child that is vaxxed turns into the perfect child, with no health issues, being intelligent, have absolutely nothing that isn’t wrong, not being far-sighted, or short-sighted, not becoming gay, or do or are something else their parents don’t agree with, never get ill, then they might stop being antivax. Unles a child get some kind of accident, because that will be the vaccines fault.
Christine likes to try to sound scientific, linking vaccine injury to specific genetic variations (which she always has, no matter what they are), but she also believes every claim of vaccine injury out there without any proof, even if the type of injury is inconsistent with her how purported theories.
@ Antaeus Feldspar:
You are so correct.
I think that belief in anti-vax lore becomes an integral part of their identities so that attacking their “science” becomes imagined a threat to their existence.
As we all know, two types of people support these hypotheses- parents with children who have various problems ( ASDs, IDs, other ) and those who wish to benefit ( selling treatments, books, becoming famous).- they can be both. ( Hooker, Tommey, Heckenlively, Holland, various bloggers etc).
Brian Deer remarked ( on separate occasions; in different words) that these parents:
— may have problems with thinking on their own that show the effect of heredity
— they must cancel out the guilt they feel because, after all, they brought the child to get vaccines so of course, doctors/ SBM, the CDC duped them, are a horde of criminals etc.
It’s not their fault.
It’s a long read but to me it seems to sum it all up.
http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_copybook.htm
Re minority and majority: most of the people who are out speaking online do it for free.
But ICAN, to use one example, has multiple officers who make six figures salaries.
Voices for Vaccines has one person – one – who gets much less. Similarly, VYF has only a few paid people. When the top is underfunded in comparison, it’s harder to, for example, hire PR people, buy billboards, pay to send activists across the country or hire social media experts, etc’.
Those seven points:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_contagion
Ohh, goody! There is a game:
@Terrie: the claim that there is higher racial diversity among anti-vaccine groups is also strange. It’s in line both with data and observation. Their leaders are certainly not diverse.
I think it’s just another variation on how they inflate their numbers. “Look how many people came out to protest this new state law compare to the provax crowd!” While the provaxxers are people who live close by and could get off work, and antivaxxers include people flying in from the other side of the country.
I think with all the unprecedented money being thrown at finding a vaccine, the timeframe should be lessened. The only thing holding things back is the difficulty in making sure every dose has an adequate amount of autism causing ingredients. Mercury, glyphosphates, microchips and of course extra 5G…all takes time.
What, no gluten?
Anti Vaccine groups are growing because vaccine injury rates grow & the priority is vaccine uptake versus safety.
Except, of course, for vaccinations that took place from February 1 2020 through March 31, 2020, when injury reports to VAERS dropped to less than 600, as compared to the same two month period in 2019, when almost 5,000 vaccinations were reported as resulting in an injury. Maybe because vaccination rates dropped significantly themselves.
https://www.aappublications.org/news/2020/05/08/covid19vaccinations050820
(Yes, many injury reports from vaccination dates during the 2 month period in 2020 have not been reported but neither have all the injuries from 2019)
Anti vax groups will always be more diverse than provax groups because the genetic risk for vaccine injury also knows no continental or socioeconomic boundaries. Also other countries are stuck with some particularly dangerous vaccines. You are likely not familiar with Dr. Ahmed Shahen’s campaign against the dpt.
the genetic risk for vaccine injury also knows no continental or socioeconomic boundaries
But the destruction of VPDs is confined to urban childless people according to you?
Hasn’t “begging the question” been explained to you here before?
Well, not everybody can read Arabic like you can, Christine. Why don’t you translate the rest of his profile for everyone?
Unless, of course, you’re just regurgitating something you were fed.
@ Narad,
He posts frequently in English as well. Then there is that little “translate” option too. Works well unless you are trying to translate from Samoan.
Oh, right, I had forgotten all about your personal contacts in Samoa. Thanx.
@ Christine Kincaid
You are STUPID ON STEROIDS. The vast majority of VAERS reports are either for minor reactions, e.g., short time soreness, low grade fever, etc., many completely nuts, e.g., signed by Mickey Mouse or claiming kid broke arm because of vaccine AND a small number for serious adverse events which teams at the CDC immediately investigate. And, as I explained above which you either didn’t read, didn’t understand, or didn’t want to understand, the vast majority of valid cases do submit to Vaccine Court. Read what I wrote above you super MORON!
And VAERS is only one of several sources for post-marketing surveillance of vaccine safety, e.g., Vaccine Safety Datalink.
You find one doctor campaigning against dpt. I can find doctors who are members of KKK, neo-Nazis, drug addicts, alcoholics, etc. Find one or a few of any category of profession or person proves absolutely nothing. Who knows, maybe out of the over one million doctors in U.S. one is member of Flat Earth Society.
In a nation of over 330 million, one can always find groups who believe in just about anything.
I had the same reaction to hearing about the Flat Earth society as I had to hearing about anti-vaccinationists. And anti-fluoridated water folk. “This must be a joke…” and then that brain-crushing disappointment as I realized it wasn’t.
Ah, back in the days when I thought General Ripper was a ridiculously overdone character.
Two different versions of one post are here how weird. The first one didn’t post for over half an hour. Sorry.
Have you ever bothered to read any of those VAERS reports?
Because my personal favorite talks about “139 Deaths from Toxic Vaccines, with no names, dates or locations”
@ Lawrence,
VAERS studies require a team of researchers to weed through the reports. I do understand this.
I filtered for volume of reports for adverse events from reported dates of vaccination from Feb 1 to March 31st 2020, to compare to the volume of reports for the same time period in 2019. I did this after reading the AAP article, wondering if the low vaccine uptake correlated to less AE reports.
Understanding that adverse events from vaccinations given in either 2020 or 2019 may not be reported for another year. Or three. Or ten. Or longer.
My daughter died in 1994 within 24 hours of the DPT. I filed with VAERS in 2017. I used to actually be afraid for retaliation against her pediatrician & even myself.
Your argument is “people are vaccinating less because they’re sheltering at home, so surprisingly, there are less reports to VAERS and that shows something”?
That’s not a good argument. It certainly doesn’t show vaccines are dangerous. If a child has a fall or another unrelated issue after being vaccinated, a doctor may decide to report to VAERS. If there was no vaccine, the doctor will not report to VAERS. Neither situation shows a risk from the vaccine.
And to remind you, as you stated before, your child died from SIDS – possibly related to your choice not to give her oxygen when she needed it – not from a vaccine reaction.
The fact that you decided, 23 years after the fact, to report her death to VAERS is a reflection of your frame of mind – and not a good one – and of how easy it is to manipulate and distort VAERS data. Not of vaccines risks.
@ Lawrence,
I have read hundreds, if not thousands of them. I have seen the discrepancies too.
Is the Erlenmeyer option new at VAERS?
How I laughed when I read this.
There will be fewer VAERS reports when there are fewer vaccinations, because VAERS is reports of events occurring after vaccination.
It is not evidence that there are fewer “vaccine injuries” though. It is just that many of the events that turn up in VAERS will now not be ascribed to vaccines.
Critical thinking. It is a skill worth cultivating.
The DPT vaccine was phased out in the late 1980s – so your daughter didn’t get one in 1994.
Another lie.
@Chritine, this is why no one here can take your claims seriously. The only consistency in your argument is “Vaccines are bad.” You’re holding up a reduction of VAERS reports as somehow meaningful while also claiming that people take years to report. Gotta cover your bases, right? If it’s meaningful, you’re right, and if it’s meaningless, you’re still right.
You’re a textbook example of CONSPIR thinking. Just because you don’t like your life doesn’t mean there’s some mythical perfect life that was taken away from you.
As Orac has pointed out the anti-vaxxers, often are fueled by and promote out of context quotes and information. I, too share doubts and concerns about the “warp speed” development of a vaccine for COVID-19, given the mix of politicians in charge and companies involved. Almost any problems with it are just grist for the mill. Just look at what HHS Secreatary Azar has already said (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-hhs-secretary-alex-azar-300-million-doses-coronavirus-vaccine-face-the-nation/):
Tempered, measured communication by members of this administration seems not to be part of the plan.
As DB pointed out recently, MMR might affect susceptibility/ severity for Covid-19: expect anti-vaxxers to react histrionically when people who fear the virus seek out vaccination/ boosters whilst waiting for the new vaccine.
Two demons are better than one!
@ Denice,
The measles vax (not necessarily the mmr) DOES provide positive non-specific effects against other pathogens. Maybe to covid too. Why would anyone care if adults elect for a voluntary vaccine?
Minions:
People unvaccinated with MMR may be more vulnerable to serious effects of Covid-19 ( yahoo finance; U Cambridge;) protection may be because of the Rubella portion – similar to corona, ( Google MMR and Covid)
Most young kids would be protected because they are* vaccinated with MMR*, Some speculation about low Covid rates amongst highly vaccinated populations- navy people, Samoans ( post recent mass vaccination) younger people.
Vaccinate your kids. And maybe yourself.
IN other news…
Trump has been taking
” a pill a day” of hydroxychloroquine for a week. MSNBC
I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or cheer. May the force (side effects) be with him.
Not the first strongly-opinionated person to go on auto-medication. But that an example he is giving…
If he sticks to just one pill a day, at the lowest dosage (200 mg?), he is unlikely to get adverse effects. Unless he has the right type (or wrong type) of heart condition, I suppose.
Not much likely to get a protective effect, either.
As pointed by someone on another blog, maybe his provider is giving him sugar pills.
Without an effective treatment, it’s vaccination or a crapshoot.
If I had to place a bet, I’d bet that many countries will insist on vaccination before allowing travel to that country, just as all used to require smallpox vaccinations for international travel and those countries where yellow fever is a risk still require yellow fever vaccinations – and I’m sure there are others. Why, for example, would New Zealand or Australia, allow tourists from, say, the US to come in if SARS-CoV2 is still circulating there? Yes, they represent tourist dollars, but they also represent a risk of reintroduction of the virus; and I think that would be regarded as an unacceptable tradeoff.
Within the US, I could see SARS-CoV2 vaccination becoming one of the ones that is required for school attendance; and I could see some employers (e.g. hospitals) requiring it as a condition of employment.
Beyond that it’s hard for me to see any compulsory vaccination.
Would I get vaccinated? You bet. I’ll take my chances with the Bill Gates/5G/microchip/pharma conspiracy any day over the risk of drowning in my own lung secretions
But, you don’t. It seems to be inflammation without fluid building up on the bronchial side of the alveoli; maybe between that layer and the bloodstream there could be fluid, idk — Yet, they don’t seem to feel like they can’t breath nor do they have the elevated reflex to do so. They are being called happy hypoxics and are walk-ins with such low spO2 that organ failure should be emminant. **
**How can this possibly be? Is there some newly activated metabolic pathway to metabolize co2 like some kind of internal scrubber?
I strongly suspect that patient population is a minority, Mitzi.
o.k, some.
https://www.thehealthsite.com/news/happy-hypoxia-a-mysterious-covid-19-symptom-that-has-left-doctors-baffled-742806/
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/why-don-t-some-coronavirus-patients-sense-their-alarmingly-low-oxygen-levels
If it is just an exchange problem in the lungs then how can this be explained? How is it possibly einbahnstraße? Extra flatulence (I like beer)?
I mean, are they sitting around the ICU playing The Stick of Truth together cosplaying on each other every 3 seconds to stay alive?
“Thehealthsite-dot-com”? Heparin? A girl named John (again)?
I don’t find clickbait from Science particularly interesting. What’s the pH, Kenneth? It’s portends to be a remake of The Andromeda Strain.
You should give the baby squeeze.
I am hanging out to get a Gates microchip. I am intrigued abouut what uut is supposed to do. Make me say nice things about Windows perhaps?
A characteristic of most conspiracy theories I run in to is that the proponents have not thought them through to the conclusion. That is where they all fall apart.
I want the vaccine that will modify my DNA. I’m hoping for superpowers.
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-covid-19-vaccine-modify/false-claim-a-covid-19-vaccine-will-genetically-modify-humans-idUSKBN22U2BZ
@EmJay
This new type of vaccine does sound like a different beast — I probably won’t be in the caravan that waylays the first refrigerator truck and procures all the little viles in the dead of night.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/ars-coronavirus-monday-update-may-18/
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/05/15/sciadv.abb5813
I can’t begin to understand any of those words in that A Girl Named John publication. And, in not knowing, I’m not sure I want my genome XORing out ever iterating mutarded stuff, only some of which work.
Messenger RNA vaccines do their thing in the cytosol.
And it just keeps doing that thing until when? The cell just bursts? That just sounds rude.
Ahh. You mean it screws with the virus inside the cell. Still, bless the poor thing’s little heart.
@EmJay: The vaccine will enable you to receive 5G signals without a phone and turn your fingernails into screens to run Windows.
SARS-COV-2? Come on in…. Ah Haa!!!
“Why, for example, would New Zealand or Australia, allow tourists from, say, the US to come in if SARS-CoV2 is still circulating there? Yes, they represent tourist dollars, but they also represent a risk of reintroduction of the virus; and I think that would be regarded as an unacceptable tradeoff.”
Not to mention that I think a fair number of tourists would wat the vaccine anyway, even if it’s a rushed approval and I run a Cutter-style risk. Like you, I would definitely want it before even getting on a plane.
When Trump says “taking it”, he means “licking it once and did not die.” He is not taking it.
@ Dorit,
“Your argument is “people are vaccinating less because they’re sheltering at home, so surprisingly, there are less reports to VAERS and that shows something”?”
Not an argument, just an annoying observation.
And say what about my state of mind? Lol, I wasn’t going to file for compensation … not many people even knew about VAERS in 1994. I didn’t know. It was due time for her to be counted.
@ Dorit, Meaning to say that I wasn’t going to be able to file for compensation for her death 23 years after the fact. I didn’t know the court existed until the early 2000s
Boy, you love to plead ignorance, don’t you?
@ christine kincaid
So, you didn’t know the Court existed. Did you even contact a lawyer? You claim you are a nurse, did you discuss it with any fellow workers? Just one more display of how stupid you are. Anyone I know who thought, I repeat “thought”, their child was harmed by vaccines would have eventually found out about the Court and certainly long before 23 years.
VAERS isn’t a compensation system. It’s a reporting system.
And again, reporting a death unrelated to vaccines 23 years after the fact is simply an example of how easy it is to game VAERS, and how wrong it is to treat its reports the way you are.
“…not many people even knew about VAERS in 1994.”
It is not our fault you did not read the VIS that was given to you, which was also federally required.
Another anti-vax lie. VAERS was very well known – because it was listed on every single VIS, given before every single vaccine (by law) since 1988 at least.
Picture-perfect. Well played, Christine.
@christine you remind me of an RN I mad the misfortune of being on the OB deck with for 16 hours a few years ago. She was all into this baloney, too. Every time we tore her nonsense apart she shifted the goalposts or got on FB for another fallacious attack line. More proof that a little knowledge can be a really REALLY dangerous thing. Another example would be the paramedic we fired for incompetence who was a big time antivaxxer and would annoy anyone within earshot in the ED about how awesome Trump is. When she told some poor patient she “Knows as much as an EM doctor but doesn’t get paid as well” the medical director finally canned her. Thinking like this is a scourge – don’t contribute. You can do better. Learn that you are wrong and why.
Orac said, “…complete with Bill Gates conspiracy theories and claims that there will be microchips in the new COVID-19 vaccine.”
I can’t wait for Antonietta Gatti and Stefano Montanari (https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2017/02/08/nanoparticles-the-new-one-true-cause-of-all-disease/) to scan the eventual COVID-19 vaccine(s) for these “Bill Gates’ microchips” and release their “data and images” of the evil chips/nanobots carrying out their nefarious duties… all while carrying the Microsoft trademark proudly displayed on their shell in atoms of “white alchemical monatomic gold”. /kook
These images are the first thing I’m asking for from RFK,Jr., Dull Bigtwig, Merde-ola, Mikey, et al. when they pull this idiocy out of their asses.
Surely they can afford to have a vaccine sample scanned to prove there are “microchips” in them. It should cost less than one cross country air trip that RFK, Jr. or Dull Bigtwig seem to take constantly in their antisocial anti-vaccine activities.
Anyone wanna’ give odds on any images of chips/nanobots ever being produced?
Oh, I’m sure eventually pictures will be proffered.
Although they may suspiciously look like screenshot of Osmosis Jones. Or maybe the Fantastic Voyage.
”You are likely not familiar with Dr. Ahmed Shahen’s campaign against the dpt.”
In addition to blaming the death of one son on the ”killer DPT drug”, Shahen also thinks DPT, MMR and/or tuberculosis vaccination caused another son’s cerebral palsy. If there’s a coherent mechanism in there, I didn’t hear it in the Al Jazeera story.
“And say what about my state of mind?”
It would take a team of dedicated shrinks at least six months to even issue a preliminary report.
I’ve seen ridiculous posts by Bob Sears and Paul Thomas about how dangerous any SARS-COV-2 vaccine will be (Thomas even postulated a 20% death rate from the vaccine). Very discouraging.
@ Em jay,
“I want the vaccine that will modify my DNA. I’m hoping for superpowers.”
Vaccines already cause superpowers, haven’t you heard?
Just not by modifying DNA. Instead, they “modify” the Microglia, which stop pruning synapses & a couple of years down the road your brain is 10% larger in volume than normal. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you have a lot of those extra synapses for auditory processing & develop absolute pitch.
These superpowers are also known as autistic savantism. But only if you are a toddler. Unfortunately, if you are a grown up, the Microglia don’t eat up the plaque & you wind up with Alzheimer’s.
While absolute pitch is more common in autistic people, it’s hardly confined to them, and has existed as long we’ve had consistent pitch systems, a good 100-ish years before modern vaccines. It’s only about that old, because it’s little hard to have absolute pitch when “G” varied by location. Just another example of you making shit up as you go along. You’d blame bad traffic on vaccines if you could figure out how to connect them.
The frequency for A is another thing that’s prompted conspiracy theories in recent years. Some people have decided that A4 should be tuned to 432 hertz, because it’s more in line with the Cosmos and other New Agey sounding things. Not surprisingly though some people have taken this one step further and claim that A4=440 hertz, the modern international standard, was chosen because of some evil Nazi plot.
@ Christine Kincaid
Yep, I’ve heard about the pruning; but the overwhelming research shows it not related to vaccines, in fact, size and structure of brain’s in fetus found main changes first and, perhaps, second trimester, before newborns even vaccinated; but, of course, you jump on anything that confirms your position. Perhaps, you’ve heard of congenital rubella syndrome. In 1965, an epidemic of rubella affected 40,000 pregnant women, resulting in miscarriages, stillborns, deafness, blindness, seizure disorders, mental retardation, and microcephaly (born alive but died shortly thereafter).
Growing up and later in life I’ve known many seniors in their 80s and 90s, all vaccinated AND only one suffered from Alzheimers; but that doesn’t mean the vaccines caused it. First, please give complete reference to peer-reviewed journal articles on “pruning” in later life and Alzheimer’s. And also articles on vaccines, pruning in fetus and infants. And when you do, I will carefully read them, and I will post many more articles refuting them.
You fixate on anything that confirms your hostility to vaccines, don’t actually investigate to see if other research contradicts it AND you refuse to even consider just how many kids and adults would be harmed, hospitalized, handicapped, and dead from vaccine-preventable diseases. Just one, smallpox, would kill every few years about 30% or more of population, leave many blind, and most disfigured with horrible pockmarks, and those surviving would have suffered more than a week of burning of their skin and mucus membranes in mouth and throat, fever, etc. But, the positive is that the Earth wouldn’t be overpopulated, probably 1/3 or less current population, and good chance that neither you nor I would be here.
So, give the references, complete references, e.g. Author’s full name, complete date, title, journal name, journal volume, and, if possible page numbers. I’ll find it.
And when I called Natalie White your “fraternal twin” I wasn’t referring to biological; but same mentality, that is, even when refuted with scientific evidence, you both just adhere to your absolute certainty you are right. Natalie even cited the “Big Picture” probably meaning that one should ignore the evidence and focus on that she KNOWS that vaccines are bad.
@ Joel,
The synapses found overgrown & cross-wired in ‘classic’ (regressive) autism are the learning-based synapses that do not begin to form until age 2
Right. That’s why my 40-something nephew, who is in the military and has had more vaccines than anyone I know, is well on his way to early-onset Alzheimer’s.
Oh, wait. He’s not.
EmJay,
Purely anecdotal. I personally knew 6 people (1 family member, 2 family members of friends & 3 former coworkers) who religiously got their flu shots & developed Alzheimer’s. Two were early onset & four were in their 70’s.
That still means nothing because it’s still just anecdotal. I am referring to the etiology of Alzheimer’s, as immune-mediated. The microglia are not clearing the plaques. Just like autism, as immune-mediated; the microglia are not pruning the synapses.
Autism & Alzheimer’s are multifactorial, immune-mediated, genetic disorders. Microglia are immune cells. Vaccines are immune-mediating.
What environmental factor would YOU add to the multifactorial equation, that is causing the autism & dementia epidemics that were nonexistent just 60 years ago?
Hopefully not “Downwind/Downstream” … Big Tobacco tried to pull that one decades ago.
Alzheimer’s, which was first formalized as a condition in 1906, was non-existent 60 years ago? (That would be 1960 for those not wanting to do the math). Or maybe the seeming increase has to do with people being more likely to live past 65 (and therefore in the standard age cohort for dementia), and that Baby Boomers are now entering that age range. But, nope, gotta be the vaccines, since we all know that vaccines cause everything, right down to the house market bubble.
Each and every vaccine using the exact same method, including crossing the
StyxBBB, right?@ Narad:
Heh.
You are so correct. Always the BBB.
Now if you can jerry rig up something about the microbiome as a connexion, you can present at the next AutismOne.
@ Narad,
Microglia are the immune cells in the brain. Every vaccine impacts the brain.
∗blink∗
Great. Perhaps you could now get around to answering the original fucking question.
CK “Microglia are the immune cells in the brain.”
I know them well. I’m on a few papers characterizing their activation by various factors. I’m dying to hear what word salad you’ll bust out with to describe how an IM shot sets them off.
I don’t have the patience today to educate you about autism or about poliomyelitis, which I had as an infant, and which has dogged me all my life. I didn’t have polio as severe as many, but the sequelae which I did have added to being autistic helped to make me an easy target for bullies and the kind of assholes with nothing better to do than to harass vulnerable people. Some of my childhood and adolescence was great, but about half of that time was walking talking hell on Earth. Don’t tell me how bad vaccines are. Had I been born just a little later I might have been vaccinated, taking one of the targets off my back.
Speaking of the evils of vaccination, heard of any cases of smallpox lately? Do you know that in the American Revolution, the army with mandatory smallpox inoculation beat the army in which it was optional?
And vaccines causing Alzheimer’s disease? Where did you get that one? Out of a schizophrenic’s word salad, maybe? Perhaps you have Alzheimer’s, manifesting in your inability to retain any actual knowledge.
As for “autistic savantism”, I don’t have the time and patience to school you about that. All I can say is to never use it again. It is crude, discriminatory, and dehumanizing, a relic of the thankfully dying past ..
About that. George Washington never had children of his own. It is believed a childhood bout of smallpox rendered him sterile. That may be why he insisted on vaccination.
@ Old Rockin’ Dave
Yep, Washington did order variolation for his troops. Canada can be grateful wasn’t sooner as American attempt to take Canada during Revolutionary War failed because smallpox broke out among colonial troops. However, variolation wasn’t mandatory in British army because smallpox was endemic in Britain and almost all had been exposed. On the other hand, many slaves who fled to British lines and could have helped them succumbed to smallpox.
On the other hand, colonials, at least from Southern Colonies, had been exposed to malaria, not the deadliest serotype, so they had some immunity to, whereas the Brits had none and some historians think played major role in defeat of Brits in Southern Colonies.
@ DB,
? His youngest son was severely disabled by the dpt. His oldest son was killed several years ago at age 16 by a bomb on the Gaza Strip.
Shahin is featured on a Facebook page called “Malaysian Vaccines Exposed” which links to a video about the death of one son, and another son whose cerebral palsy is blamed on “MMR DPT”. Confusingly, the cerebral palsy is separately blamed on BCG vaccination.
The “Malaysian Vaccines Exposed” blog also attacks HPV vaccination and cites antivax luminaries like Leonard Palevsky and Joe Mercola.
Shahin is an all-purpose antivaxer, typically fact-deprived, which is why you’re attracted to his blather.
@ Christine Kincaid
You write: “His youngest son was severely disabled by the dpt.”
I guess you just take his word for it because it confirms what you choose to believe. Let’s for sake of argument assume that his son was one of the minuscule few who did suffer from a severe adverse reaction. How many kids do you think would have suffered from diphtheria, pertussis, or tetanus if no vaccine existed. And his son may have been one of them. Especially the Gaza strip has limited health care, terribly polluted environment, in fact, experts say that within 10 years they won’t have any safe water. And, yes, Israel is guilty of horrendous war crimes and crimes against humanity; but, as usual, one. you accept what he claims AND two. you ignore what would happen without the vaccine. Have you ever even bothered to look at historical statistics for the three diseases, e.g., number suffering, hospitalized, disabled, died? And since our population was less than half of today’s the number would be higher.
I won’t bother to give the stats on injuries from seatbelts; but compared to saving many thousands of lives and preventing many thousands of serious injuries, I prefer to use a seatbelt. I assume you would emphasize those injured and recommend against them?
— David Byrne, True Stories, 1986
I’m sorry, I’m as high as tits on a pterodactyl right now. What blog is this?
For once, Dr Harrison, I have to take exception to one of your posts.”And, yes, Israel is guilty of horrendous war crimes and crimes against humanity”. No, Israel is not guilty of horrendous war crimes. the terrorists who continue to attack them, the supporters of the terrorists who call every day for the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of all Jews everywhere, who teach and promulgate every anti-Semitic awful lie, are the criminals here. If you want to know about atrocities, look up a couple of search terms. Look up the name Preeti Aroyo. Do a search of the name Einat Haran. After the slaughter of the Haran family, Samir Kuntar was lauded as a great hero among the terrorists. I could go on, but it’s much too late at night. I can pile fact upon fact for you until you’re reeling. Is everything that Israelis do wonderful and good? No. Of course not. But Israel has been shown to take greater precautions to prevent civilian casualties in its operations than any other country ever has. Israelis on the whole are disgusted when their fellow citizens commit reprehensible acts, but there is singular difference between Israel and their enemies in that for Israel, cruel and bloody crimes, attacks principally aimed at the slaughter of children, vile racism, none of those are a matter of policy but they are an integral part of the organizations and nations that would destroy Israel, that target Jews everywhere, that call for the destruction of the state of Israel.
Remember this, that if Israel’s enemies were to prevail, that for the third time in a century, hundreds of thousands, even millions, of Jews would become refugees from their murderers and oppressors.
Old Rockin’ Dave, I’m afraid Dr. Harrison is right. The actions of the Israeli Defence Force in the Palestinian Authority territories and the building of Settlements on “annexed” (read “stolen”) land ARE war crimes and akin to apartheid.
Have you dispatched nastygrams to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International?
Julian Frost:The territories are not occupied, because they belong to no nation. After the 1967 war, Jordan renounced its illegal occupation of the West Bank, and there is no Palestinian state to hold sovereignty, which left Israel holding the bag. Egypt illegally held Gaza under military occupation for 19 years. Egypt, Jordan, and the other three states that joined them in invading Israel in 1948 were the obstacle to the creation of an Arab state within the borders of Mandatory Palestine. The so sacred pre-1967 borders are not borders at all, but the 1949 armistice lines. No final agreement has ever been negotiated. There is nothing in international law or the laws of war that prevents Israel from administering the West Bank.
Remember, the Six Day War was the only war in history where the victor sued for peace and the defeated demanded an unconditional surrender.
Now, about that apartheid. Israel didn’t round up the populace of the territories and force them into the West Bank and Gaza – they were already there. Or does it refer to the Arab Israelis? When Jared Kushner’s moronic “peace plan” called for 260,000 Arab citizens of Israel to be summarily transferred to the Palestine Authority, they held angry demonstrations against the idea. A poll taken not too long ago had interesting results. Seven percent identified as Palestinians. Sixty-three percent identified as Israelis. Does that constitute apartheid?
After the 1967 war there was a vacuum. Jordan renounced responsibility and in the 19 years of their illegal occupation left behind no viable institutions. Many Israelis wanted to return Jews to their historic lands, others because they believed God wanted it, and yet others who felt that after three wars and countless pogroms and terror attacks that the Arabs had forfeited their right to it.. Others followed because the standard of living is high. Israel being a parliamentary democracy, no government had enough political power to stop it, only to make halfhearted attempts, even if they had the will. By now, any attempt to roll them back will lead to armed revolt from a substantial minority. All the while, there was no West Bank party or organization to talk to. When every attempt at rapprochement is met with “Death to Israel! Drive the Jews into the sea!”, it’s hard to carry on a discussion. And woe betide the well-intentioned Palestinian who talks peace in public.
I think the settlements were the wrong road to go down, and I think that annexation is an even worse idea, and I think Jared Kushner’s plan might work on whatever planet he was manufactured on, but they don’t listen to me.When I was there, peace was the word on everyone’s lips. Every other popular song seemed to be about “we will have peace”, “peace will come”, “tomorrow there will be peace”. A lot of tomorrows have passed since then, over twenty thousand, and it’s no surprise that a lot of Israelis now say, in effect, to hell with it, if they won’t talk to us, if they won’t meet us partway, if they persist in a culture of death and destruction to Israel and Jews that seems to get worse every year, if the rest of the world sees us as monsters and them as saints and martyrs, then we’ll just do what ‘s in our interests.
It’s not as simple as “Palestinians perfect, Israelis apartheid fascist Nazis monsters”.
Nice bit of propaganda there, ORD, but I’m afraid propagnda is an apt description for your comment.
Firstly, UN Resolution 289 demands the restoration of the pre-1967 borders, which calls into question your assertion that the Egyptians and Jordanians were illegally occupying Israeli territory.
Secondly, and this is key, Israel attacked its neighbours in the Six Day War. Israel was the aggressor.
If your neighbour comes on to your property, beats the shit out of you and takes some of your land, refusing to return it unless you do something for him, your neighbour is in the wrong.
Finally, occupying forces have responsibilities to civilian populations. Israel has consistently and repeatedly violated international law on this, as multiple organisations including Amnesty International have shown.
Israel is the villain here.
@Julian Frost: From Wikipedia – “United Nations Security Council Resolution 289, adopted unanimously on November 23, 1970, following several previous incursions into the Republic of Guinea by Portuguese troops….” I have been in Israel and I have been in Portugal. Take it from me, they are not the same country. I think I know what resolution you had in mind but I can’t be bothered to look it up for you.
It’s still true, the 1949 “border”, the Green Line, is an armistice line. I believe that the border with Egypt is a true border, having been the border between Egypt and the Mandate, and the Jordan River was the true boundary between the Mandate and the Kingdom of Transjordan, as it was called before the annexation.
Gaza and the West Bank were earmarked for the Arab state under partition. Jordan’s illegal annexation was only recognized by the UK and Pakistan, hardly unbiased in the matter. Fact.
Egypt never claimed Gaza as its own territory or annexed it, but kept it under military government. Fact.
They could have helped create that state at any time. What stopped them? Also,tell me something, where did I ever say that Egypt and Jordan were occupying Israeli territory? They were illegally occupying Arab Palestinian territory. Not propaganda. Fact.
Israel was not the aggressor in the Six Day War. Egypt had illegally closed an international waterway to shipping to or from Israel by military force – a casus belli, an act of war. Egypt justified it then by saying that having only an armistice meant that they were still at war. Either way, Israel was perfectly justified in removing that blockade by force. Only after did they say that Israel violated the peace. Fact.
So who was the aggressor again?
Nasser lied to King Hussein to get him to join the war. Jordanian seizure of Government House and bombardment of Israeli Jerusalem followed. Fact.
If one state uses part of its territory to bombard yours, and you seize it to make it stop, it’s not illegal. Fact.
“If your neighbour comes on to your property, beats the shit out of you and takes some of your land, refusing to return it unless you do something for him, your neighbour is in the wrong.” A pathetic and false analogy. If your neighbor blocks your driveway, threatening to shoot anyone who tries to pull into or out of it, and stands in front of it pointing a gun at you and threatening to kill you, and you shoot him, it sounds a lot like self-defense to me. If you wait for him to shoot first, and nobody really expects you to do that, you may die before you can shoot back (To use your analogy, if you then take some of his land and offer to return it if he makes a binding promise not to block your driveway or shoot at you anymore, and he refuses then he’s an idiot.) In any case, international disputes are a lot more complicated than a neighborhood feud, and often harder to resolve. You may have noticed that matters between Israel and Egypt are a lot quieter now that there’s a peace treaty and Egypt has the Sinai back. Also kindly notice that Israel no longer occupies Gaza. Fact.
You might also look into the legality of seizing land in war and of using it as a starting point for peace negotiations.
I have not made any statements of fact that were not fact.
Where can I send you some Shinola?
[…] causing concerns from people who are on the fence about vaccines. Of course, committed anti-vaxxer opinions about new coronavirus vaccines will not be relevant since science is irrelevant to them. Ironically, a former Moderna executive and board member is […]
@ Kinkaid
May 18, 2020 at 9:23 pm
1000 Links to a Furlong
Thought I made my proposition — you are a propagandist and what you do is what propagandists do. A propagandist is someone who says something, at best, slightly factual to change a mind. Propagandists just need a nice message to sell their stuff. Not gonna happen here if you think vaccines are harmful. This makes me really curious. What you continue to promote has been thoroughly debunked like … 100 times now? Probably more. The evidence against your claims is astoundingly strong and validated by people who know more than you. Even worse what you promote is harmful. This is amazing and so gross to me.
What do you mean … might resonate with someone? It has quite a bit but not how you’d like – IMHO. What is resonate?
@ 1000 Links to a Furlong,
No propaganda can not create an idea; only reinforce a pre-existing one.
The evidence against my claims will one day go down like a flaming fireball of Taurid. It is nothing but junk epidemiology. Similar to Big Tobacco’s. The etiological studies are chipping away at it, even while researchers tiptoe around the Big V while confirming immune mediation in SIDS, ASD & Alzheimer’s.
@ christine kincaid
So, you can’t produce any evidence to substantiate your beliefs; but call epidemiology junk. You absolutely stupid dishonest despicable low llfe. I guess you don’t know that it was “junk” epidemiology that provided the overwhelming evidence that smoking led to cancer and heart disease, which, in turn, led to the warnings on tobacco, restrictions on its sale; but, unfortunately, thanks to corrupt bought politicians the tobacco industry still exists; but, I repeat, you low life, it was “junk” epidemiology that provided the overwhelming evidence against tobacco. You are beyond despicable.
And, again, SIDS. How do you explain that the number of SIDS cases plummeted from mid 1990s while vaccines were added? You are beyond sick. Beyond sick!
Are you delusional? I suggest you seek psychiatric help. Seriously, you need help.
You provide no evidence, just your sick delusions. Yep, as I’ve written several times, research carried out in numerous different nations with different histories, cultures, political systems, economic systems, educational systems, all by, according to you, medical doctors, public health researchers, epidemiologist, all willing to sacrifice their own nation’s children.
Yep, all willing to sacrifice their own nations children. YOU ARE SICK SICK SICK!
Y’ounsta fuck? Asking for a friend.
Way to go, CK, you induced in Joel a stroke. You should be so proud.
I was so hoping that Christine Plays Philosophy would be a rich lode, but the switch to meteors has lessened my expectations. Maybe it will all get tied together some day.
@ Kinkaid
May 19, 2020 at 8:34 pm
You are such an entertainer and propagandist! Everyone should bow down to the flaming fireball of Taurid (pure entertainment gold and the new measure of truth)! Please, please hold your breath on your claims. I know by your big walls of sensibility it has to be true because, well, you say so. Truth is right around your corner because it just has to be true! You are the greatest female mind of a generation .. yet unknown since the standards of knowledge and truth are just so unfair. Seems to clear.
Anywho — thank you for the entertainment and exposure to this type of propaganda. Pedal to the metal, keep it up! Just please stop recommending people kill their children as entertainment.
Resonate on you shiny goofball … I bought popcorn just for you.
When you get around to it, say something decent.
Shades of Tim Leary.
Also, hey everybody. I was having a pretty rough go if it for a while (tonnns going on, still quite a bit going on, some genuinely weird stuff happened/is still going on, also had some crazy, some of the typical crash after the crazy, plus some really terrible life stuff), still having rough patches, but starting to do better. (I was hoping the crazy crazy was a one time thing, but honestly with everything I was going through and the year I had, I think even a “normal” person would have cracked at least a little bit, and I have that extra… ahem.
Teaching myself some coding, there’s actually some transcription work available now, able to do some of that, figure I’ll get out on the trail some. Finding some balance between processing stuff and getting sucked into a morass. You know. Typical JP stuff.
Haven’t been around a whole lot just because it’s kind of all Covid all the time, and I can’t really handle too much of that stuff, other than keeping up on recommendations and basic news and so on, and taking appropriate precautions. Hope folks are holding up!
CK: “Microglia are the immune cells in the brain.”
Microglia have an important role in immune regulation in the brain, but they are not “the” immune cells. Ever hear of B and T lymphocytes, myeloid cells, monocytes etc, which also function in the brain?
@ DB,
Yes but ASD & Alzheimer’s result from Microglial dysfunction.
Oh, tell me about their regular function, and how it’s dysregulated by an intramuscular shot. I’m hungry for some word salad.
The only thing to do with the lying antivax troll is to mock without mercy.
@ Tim – Regarding True Stories, a favorite movie of mine, I particularly like this song/scene, even more relevant today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TriaOVgwc1Y
Elsewhere on the disinformation front, everyone’s favorite pro-quackery quarterback, Tom Brady is at it again.
”…while COVID-19 cases continue to grow in Florida and gyms reopen to the public, the new Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback and six-time Super Bowl champ announced he’s selling a non-FDA approved, homeopathic medley of vitamins that allegedly will “activate your immune system.”
Appropriately called “Protect,” the vitamins essentially contain the same ingredients as a $12 pack of Emergency-C, but with more coronavirus-buzzworthy additions like elderberries and larch tree.
Of course, Protect is being co-released under Brady’s TB12 brand and nutrition start-up VitalFit, which his company acquired back in January.
Brady announced the new supplements on Twitter. “PROTECT is our new immunity blend supplement created to support a healthy immune system to help you stay strong,” wrote the quarterback…
But this isn’t anything new for Brady, as CBS Senior Editor Chris Towers pointed out, the QB also once endorsed a sports drink that promoted concussion “protection.””
@ DB,
Anything that “activates the immune-system” should not be sold. COVID is killing by cytokine storm.
@ christine kincaid
You write: “Anything that “activates the immune-system” should not be sold. COVID is killing by cytokine storm.”
Don’t you realize that the actual vaccine-preventable diseases activate the immune system exponentially higher than the killed or severely weakened microbes in a vaccine? That is the entire point of vaccines, to stimulate the immune system just enough to create memory immune cells. Yep, memory immune cells are also created when experiencing the actual microbe; but then kids suffer for a week or more, many hospitalized, many develop permanent disabilities, and some die. So, stimulating memory cells without causing the actual disease is a good thing, except for MORONs like you.
As for cytokine storms; yep, caused by the natural COVID-19.
You are incredibly stupid stupid stupid!
And a reminder, buy Lauren Sompayrac’s book “How the Immune System Works (6th edition). Read it before you continue to show just how ignorant you are on how vaccines work as opposed to the actual microbes.
And read my comments above, over 10,000 studies on vaccine safety and several thousand placebo-controlled. And read about history of measles, smallpox, rubella, etc. Without vaccines, many of us wouldn’t be here, many of those alive would have disabilities, etc. But, for idiots like you, out of sight, out of mind.
Got a broad enough brush there, Christine? The relevant literature I’ve found has all been open-access, and a quick skim suggests that your assertion falls somewhere between speculative and applicable only to a subset of patients.
Oh, and corticosteroids seem to universally be considered a Bad Idea.
@ Tim
No stroke. Walked dog at 5 am briskly one mile. It just pisses me off that Christine Kincaid just keeps repeating tropes that others have refuted, e.g., “junk” epidemiology. Christine’s definition of “junk” is anything that disagrees with her and that she doesn’t understand. In addition, when asked to produce detailed references to back her claims, she doesn’t. I don’t mind people disagreeing with me if they actually enter into a dialogue and I have no problem admitting when I’m wrong if they can produce valid evidence. Despite being well-educated and well-read, I am just one person and there is always the possibility I missed valid research, small possibility; but real.
And while I have no doubt there are dishonest researchers, including epidemiologists, as I’ve written many times, the research on vaccine safety has been carried out in numerous different nations with different histories, cultures, political systems, economic systems, educational systems, so CK and her ilk are basically say that medical doctors, public health researchers, epidemiologist are all willing to sacrifice their nation’s own children. Plus a search of PubMed finds over 10,000 articles using Vaccine AND Safety. Add in “placebo” and still get several thousand, so much for antivaxxers claiming no placebo trials.
As for the profit-motive. Pharmaceutical companies make much more profit on drugs used for daily use, e.g., statins, insulin or to save lives, e.g., chemotherapy. And antivaxxers often support Complementary and Alternative Medicines where the profits are much higher because they aren’t required to get FDA approval costing 100s of millions of dollars for clinical trials, and the FDA doesn’t even check their production facilities. Given that most ingredients are extremely cheap, pure profit. And antivaxxers just don’t understand that everything sold in U.S. is for profit, highly beneficial stuff, in between, and harmful stuff. Go to any supermarket, potato chips vs carrots, candy vs apples, etc. All sold for profit. In fact, I get Trader’s Joe’s Shredded Bite Size Wheat (0 sugar, 0 fat, 5 gm protein, 5 gm fiber), shelf away is equivalent of Kellogg’s Frost Flakes (high sugar, fat, low protein, low fiber); both sold for a profit. So just one more example of stupidity/dishonesty of antivaxxers.
Finally, as I’ve pointed out to CK and others post hoc ergo prompter hoc, just because something follows something, doesn’t prove causative. People have had heart attacks after finishing a bowl of cereal, does anyone believe the cereal caused it? Kids die, kids develop disabilities, horrible, tragic, but happens all the time without vaccines. There are even genetic conditions where a child appears to be developing normally and begins to regress, e.g. Rhett’s syndrome. The first Mayor Richard Daley went in to his yearly physical. Doctor pronounced him fine. He had massive heart attack and died in doctor’s office. In 1976 man got flu shot at doctor’s office, had heart attack and died. Newspapers published it. They didn’t investigate to find out he was in very poor health, a heart attack waiting to happen.
CK is just one example of someone who is certain, has god-like certainty, that she/he is right without being able to present compelling evidence, only anecdotes and/or one or two poorly done studies. And not Dunning-Kruger because DK explained science to subjects, they didn’t always change their opinions; but they lowered their certainty of being right. Not antivaccinationists like CK.
I’m not sure who is worse, CK or Natalie White. Maybe we should take a vote????
@ Joel,
Wait, what happened to Michael? I hope he is still here. His brain works differently & I like that, although I admit I haven’t explored his latex hypothesis. And just like SUDEP;
From your previous rant: “And, again, SIDS. How do you explain that the number of SIDS cases plummeted from mid 1990s while vaccines were added? You are beyond sick. Beyond sick!”
Again?? Okay.
SIDS is resulting from post-vaccination seizures in sleep. It is basically SUDEP in an infant. And just like SUDEP; “Back To Sleep” decreases risk of mortality. Stomach sleeping decreases the risk of a massive sympathetic surge during a seizure attack and vagal inhibition.
The rates declined in the 1990s due to the back to sleep campaign, which masked the impact from vaccines. Less infants are dying but more children are surviving with seizure disorders & brain damage.
You can’t just re-imagine the causes of SIDS to fit what you want to blame your daughter’s death on.
No serious experts agrees with you. Here is what they do say: https://www.ncfrp.org/reporting/sidssuid/
Here is a helpful summary from the Sleep Foundation: https://www.sleepfoundation.org/articles/sudden-infant-death-syndrome-and-sleep
Note: it’s not vaccines.
It’s hard to lose a child. Your fight against vaccines that prevent diseases is not going to save children. It is going to set up other families to suffer losses.
Well, hmm.
–Natalie opened my eyes to something (I did not realize that True Stories was out on 1080p BluRay with extra extended scenes even).
–CK totally ghosted me. ?
@ Tim,
I didn’t ghost you, I am right here. What does “Y’ounsta fuck mean”?
She does that. The moment she might have to admit she’s not be honest or she’s wrong, she stops responding.
@ Joel:
” both sold for a profit”
Actually, last year, I found business reports about how adding “organic”, “GMO free” or “gluten free’ ( even for items where the concept was meaningless like “gluten free” salt!) was a way companies could increase prices without doing much else. This has become a huge trend in marketing. Even “organic” skin cream, hair products? SRSLY.
re “who is worse?”
Obviously, CK, because of the level of vehemence, number of posts, investment in pseudoscience, persistence over time, belief despite ( possible) education in SBM..
@ Tim,
What does “Y’ounsta fuck” mean? Google results were interesting.
@ christine kincaid
As usual you ignore what others write when it refutes with logic and science your bogus claims and then focus on some triviality like “What does “Y’ounsta fuck” mean?”
You need psychiatric help! ! !
It is scary weird how these search algorithms can take mis-concatenation, mis-contraction, and slurred southern drawl and yet deliver highly meaningful and relative results.
I had not realized what a prude Google as become these days because it does not work through the vpn (just says you’re a bot). Try this instead:
https://duckduckgo.com/html?q=Y%27ounsta%20fuck
My friend was blackout drunk, though. So there is that.
Here a question for our resident antivaxxers. Name one possible “vaccine injury” put forth by the movement that you think is NOT caused by vaccines. Just one where you go “I agree with all these other possibilities, but that seems far-fetched.”
@ Tim,
Basically most of the perceived ‘reactions’ to the neonatal Vitamin K shot (yes, AV’rs claim vaccine injury from the K).
Also many of the claims for brachial neuritis. More likely the result of poor injection techniques.
You must be gullible as hell if the only thing time you won’t believe a claim of vaccine injury is when there’s no vaccine involved. Though, given the nonsense you’ve tried to pin on vaccines (you kid’s hair texture, even), I suppose I shouldn’t shocked.
”Also many of the claims for brachial neuritis.”
This implies you believe that some upper limb nerve injuries are due to vaccines themselves. What might the mechanism be? Toxins? Cytokine storm? Exposure to DNA from aborted fetal tissue? We anxiously await your learned theories.
@ Terrie,
oops my reply to Tim was for you.
@ Dorit,
“You can’t just re-imagine the causes of SIDS to fit what you want to blame your daughter’s death on.”
Welp, I didn’t mention my daughter in that post. I was replying to Joel’s question about SIDS. He asked me how I would explain that SIDS rates decreased in the 1990s. Isn’t the consensus that back to sleep indeed caused the decrease?
Back to sleep also works for adults with epilepsy. So why did something that works for adults who have seizures work for babies without a seizure disorder? Probably because those babies are having seizures. Why are babies who have never had a seizure, having fatal seizures within 36 hours of immunization (as reported by parents, not the biased epidemiology)?
Maybe because vaccines are causing their seizures? It is already known that post-mortem cytokine profiles after SIDS deaths are atypical compared to profiles after other deaths. The only way to know for sure is to have baseline profiles done prior to immunization & nobody is looking at that. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence … unless nobody bothers to pursue the evidence. That’s worked for a long time but it is nothing to be proud of.
Is 250 years too long for Thomas Bayes to be able to spin in his grave?
Why are babies who have never had a seizure, having fatal seizures within 36 hours of immunization (as reported by parents, not the biased epidemiology)?
Ah, yes, the bias of requiring documentation.
My favourite is the antivax invention of an “encephalitic scream”, which they all seem to know about and faithfully regurge… where the documentation comes down to “well, we’ve all heard other antivaxxers talking about it so it must be real”.
@ christine kincaid
You write: “Maybe because vaccines are causing their seizures? It is already known that post-mortem cytokine profiles after SIDS deaths are atypical compared to profiles after other deaths. The only way to know for sure is to have baseline profiles done prior to immunization & nobody is looking at that. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence … unless nobody bothers to pursue the evidence. That’s worked for a long time but it is nothing to be proud of.”
“It is already known that post-mortem cytokine profiles after SIDS deaths are atypical compared to profiles after other deaths.” Really, any references? As for baseline profiles, are you insane? Yep. Cytokine storms happen when extremely ill, e.g., high fever. In that case, no decent doctor would vaccinate a child since they would probably be hospitalized if so sick. And, though I’m sure just one more thing you don’t understand or refuse to, minor deviations are the norm. For instance, I’ve always been taught that 98.6 F was normal temperature; but mine is almost always 97.6 F. So what? Did you really go to nursing school? Hard to believe!
As for “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence … unless nobody bothers to pursue the evidence.”
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” In other words, no matter how many studies do not find what you believe, NEVER enough for you. Using your approach we would close down ALL scientific research because it will NEVER be enough if people like you in ignorance refuse to accept.
I went to PubMed, typed: “Sudden Infant Death Syndrome” and got 5,218 results hits. But, of course, not enough for you. Then added “AND cytokine” got 104 hits. Skimmed them, found Respiratory Syncytial Virus, not vaccine for, respiratory infection of airways, virus infection, helicobacter pylori, influenza a virus, Also did a couple search with Google Scholar.
Important changes to the schedule between 1995 and 2010 included:
New vaccines: Varicella (chickenpox – 1996), rotavirus (1998-1999; 2006, 2008); hepatitis A (2000); pneumococcal vaccine (2001). (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 2019)
And found one meta-analysis that vaccines significantly reduced the risk of SIDS (Vennemann, 2007).
Note rotavirus, pneumococcal are given at 2 months, the other two later on.
So, despicable moron, as rates of SIDS plummeted, two vaccines were added to the schedule for infants. (CDC, 2020ab)
Oops, I forgot, all of these people, since they disagree with you, are dishonest, not caring about children. Yep, when will you be starting your own religion, given without any valid evidence, you know with your god-like abilities you are right, so everyone else is wrong? Let’s call it the Christine’s Fantasy World Church. I’m sure you can find lots of followers???? Or how bought The Antiscience Church of Morons, Christine Kincaid, Pastor???
References:
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (2019 Dec 18). Vaccine History: Development by Year. Available at: https://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-history/developments-by-year
CDC (2020a Feb 3). Table 1. Recommended Child and Adolescent Immunization Schedule for ages 18 years or younger, United States, 2020. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child-adolescent.html
CDC (2020b Apr 21). Trends in Sudden Unexpected Infant Death by Cause, 1990-2017. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/sids/data.htm#graph
Vennemann et al (2007 Jun 21). Do immunisations reduce the risk for SIDS? A meta-analysis. Vaccine; 25(26); 4875-4879.
@ Terrie,
I’m not gullible. There have been a lot of alleged injuries to vaccines. Sometimes I read something & I think “Hmm, don’t think so ” but I can’t remember a specific allegation.
The obsession with the K shot bugs me & so do the allegations of BR. I’m sure there are others.
Sometimes I read something & I think “Hmm, don’t think so ” but I can’t remember a specific allegation.
Frankly, given your proven history of lying and distortions, I won’t believe it unless you can actually name one. The only criteria you’ve ever shown evidence of using to evaluate claims is “Does this fit my preconceived world view?” Honestly I’m a little shocked you’re not on here telling us vaccines are a risk factor for COVID-19 complications.
She did. https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2020/03/13/covid-19-pandemic-opportunity-for-quackery/?replytocom=424273#respond
@Dorit, sigh Of course she did. Because why let facts get in the way of her agenda?
@ DB,
“This implies you believe that some upper limb nerve injuries are due to vaccines themselves”
Not really. It’s just that stating things in all or nothing language is arrogant sounding.
@ christine kincaid
You write: “It’s just that stating things in all or nothing language is arrogant sounding.”
And that is exactly what you do, automatically know that anything following a vaccine must have been caused by the vaccine, all or none language. And, again, the logical fallacy of Post Hoc Ergo Prompter Hoc.
Thanks for proving you are a friggin arrogant hypocrite! ! !
@ Joel,
Somehow I missed the scientific dialogue in Tim’s post: “Y’ounsta fuck? Asking for a friend.”
@ Christine Kincaid
Once more you ignore something I wrote, namely that you are a hypocrite.
GO TO HELL
@ Tim,
Interesting friend you’ve got there.
Well, he is loyal. Others sometimes consider him my right hand man, poor fellow. A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he’s pissed.
@ Tim,
I’m intrigued … but the video won’t load …
So it does not. My bad. I feel I must tell you that my friend is old, chaste, and — if he would ever do a thorough introspection of his life — queer as a football bat.
I apologize for his antics.
@ Narad,
"Got a broad enough brush there, Christine? The relevant literature I’ve found has all been open-access, and a quick skim suggests that your assertion falls somewhere betweenspeculative and applicable only to a subset of patients.
Oh, and corticosteroids seem to universally be considered a Bad Idea."
Not corticosteroids.
In speaking with an Anesthesiologist who is on the COVID front lines in NJ, he stated: “Cytokine storm is thought to be responsible for the severe lung involvement that causes respiratory distress, forcing us to put people on ventilators.”
He said they are using tocilizumab; an IL6 inhibitor & that he is sure all the IL6 inhibitors are being studied.
Tocilizumab is only used in SEVERE cases and the data are not terribly impressive so far. We’ve used it but it’s impossible to estimate its impact either way. Also, no offense to any of my Gas Man colleagues but they’re not experts on this kind of thing. As an old mentor of mine told a premed all jazzed up to do anesthesia: “Why would you put yourself through all of that trouble to do something a nurse can do?”
The ones in New Jersey seem to field calls from random people in Colorado, though.
RCT is a-coming.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04320615
And yeah, only severe patients.
Inclusion Criteria:
Hospitalized with COVID-19 pneumonia confirmed per WHO criteria (including a positive PCR of any specimen; e.g., respiratory, blood, urine, stool, other bodily fluid) and evidenced by chest X-ray or CT scan
SPO2 </=93% or PaO2/FiO2 <300 mmHg
Was he also Samoan?
@ Narad,
"Was he also Samoan?"
Lol, no. Also:
"I was so hoping that Christine Plays Philosophy would be a rich lode, but the
switch to meteors has lessened my expectations. Maybe it will all get tied
together some day."
Just sparing you from my going all Noam Chomsky.
Taurid Fireballs remind me of today’s ‘vaccine safety’ (oxymoron) science. Huge & glowing, with green gaseous flames licking off of it as it slowly descends & you brace for impact. Only to have it literally disappear in front of your eyes.
Vaccine safety epidemiology is made of the same stuff & it’s all wrong. Done wrong. Just … wrong. It won’t last. have you ever seen a Taurid Fireball? A once in a lifetime sight. I have seen one twice.
FOR ANYONE WITH AN OPEN MIND, I SUGGEST THE FOLLOWING SHORT ARTICLE, ONLY 1 1/2 PAGES, WHICH DISCUSSES THE PROBLEM WITH SPECULATION BEFORE GOOD PEER-REVIEWED RESEARCH IS AVAILABLE. CHRISTINE, DON’T BOTHER, YOU ARE TOO STUPID TO UNDERSTAND IT. Especially quoting the anesthesiologist about cytokine storms. Guess what? I understood this 40 years ago when I read books and articles on the 1918-19 Flu Pandemic and, of course, undergraduate immunology textbooks. And anyone who has really followed the current COVID-19 pandemic more than likely read this as well. As for what they are using, may work, may not work, being studied. Question is: How being studied? Randomized groups?
Paul P Glasziou and Sharon Sanders (2020 May 12). Waste in covid-19 research: A deluge of poor quality research is sabotaging an effective evidence based response. BMJ
Available at: https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/369/bmj.m1847.full.pdf
@Christine Kincaid
So the Mayo Clinic and the Alzheimer’s Association say about 10% of people over 65 will develop Alzheimer’s. About 5-6% of people with Alzheimer’s develop it before 65. What does the current cohort of people with AD have in common? They were born before the childhood vaccine schedule expanded (1996-current).
Yeah, that dog won’t hunt.
Apparently Christine Kincaid knows all of them and they blame vaccines.
@ EmJay,
It’s the flu vaccine.
Well,I’m boned (annual flu vaccine for years).
Your smug confidence not withstanding, dementia in the elderly was certainly prevalent before the flu vaccine. It was called senility. Alzheimer’s Disease was generally reserved for pre-senile dementia. IIRC, this changed about 40 years ago.
So, another reason for the “increase” in Alzheimer’s Disease, in addition to better diagnostic methods and the great increase in the elderly population
You are really scraping the bottom of the excuse barrel.
Less than half of adults in the US get a flu shot each year. Try again.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6428020/
Dementia in the elderly was recognized by the ancient Egyptians and described by the ancient Greeks. More fascinating history in the cited article.
Guess the Egyptians and Greeks should have laid off the flu shots, eh?
The really horrible awful no-good thing about a Covid-19 vaccine is that we are denying sick people treatment and letting nursing home residents croak, all to make Fauci and Gates look good when a vaccine emerges.
No really, that’s the latest take from James Lyons-Weiler on his blog (“Reason. Logic. Compassion. Bullshit.”).
Didja know that the government won’t even let old people drink orange juice for the life-giving vitamin C? It’s twue!
Shockingly, the FTC sent a warning letter to David Brownstein for hawking “Vitamins A, C & D, as well as nutritional IV’s, iodine, ozone and nebulization to support the immune system”.
We must protest these outrages immediately, or at least send $$$ to IPAK so that Health Freedom can be maintained.
Hmm….False positives….https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/tanzania-president-questions-coronavirus-kits-animal-test-200503174100809.html Who would do such a thing? Who benefits from inflated numbers? The CDC? The W.H.O.? Billinda Gates and all the pHARMa whores jockeying for the Convid, oops, I mean Covid vaccine! https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/contamination-at-cdc-lab-delayed-rollout-of-coronavirus-tests/2020/04/18/fd7d3824-7139-11ea-aa80-c2470c6b2034_story.html Has anyone checked the accuracy of the new tests? I certainly hope so. Again, the CDC great at fearmongering and grandstanding, not so good in following their own protocols.
Redfield’s competence has been in question from the moment Trump picked him to lead the CDC, so the series of monumental fuck-ups from that direction were neither a surprise nor the fault of Big Pharma.
@Smut – Oh you mean this Redfield and his fraudulent HIV research? https://time.com/5211143/robert-redfield-cdc-director/
@ Natalie White
Yep, the CDC goofed; but, keep in mind that Trump cut their funding early in his Presidency and they had had their funding cut even before Trump, so they are understaffed. Still, they goofed. However, despite your typical asinine assumption, the majority of reports believe numbers who died from COVID-19 undercounted. If someone dies in home, nursing home, etc. a nasal pharyngeal swap won’t find the virus and doing blood tests and labs cost money and time, something our currently overwhelmed healthcare system doesn’t have. And even if the tests are 98% accurate, all they will do is potentially slow the spread, not stop it because 1 minute after being tested one can become infected and then spread the virus. The only sure route is scientifically validated treatments, perhaps even some preventive drug and eventually a vaccine.
And, I guess you refuse to admit that you were wrong about the Taiwanese study. It didn’t show that a lab could make a coronavirus more virulent, it did the opposite, took a bat corona viruses protein S-spike, attached it to a harmless virus, to see if the bat version could attack cells of other animals and it did. So, one more piece of research that strengthens that SARS-COV-2 wasn’t from Wuhan lab; but from a bat to people, or, perhaps, from a bat to a pangolin to people.
You were wrong and you refuse to admit it. I guess doesn’t fit with your Big Picture. As I wrote earlier, I would hate to have you on a jury. You, as Christine, would make up your mind if suspect was guilty or innocent, the Big Picture, and ignore the evidence, at least the evidence that goes against your Big Picture.
The two of your are despicable. People are dying and you don’t give a shit. And if we lift physical distancing too fast, good chance more will die. What you and others don’t understand who believe either not as serious as it is or that better to just allow people to get it and build up herd immunity, is that more people will die because our health care system will be overwhelmed and people who could have been saved will die. Flattening the curve reduces those needing to be hospitalized, it also allows time to researching possible beneficial treatments, preventatives, and for those who understand immunology, to develop a vaccine.
However, no one can be certain what will happen; but previous pandemics have come in waves. Perhaps, COVID-19, like flu, will partially disappear during the summer and come back with a vengeance or, perhaps, it will just continue. However, you and Christine, two idiots who don’t understand microbiology, don’t understand immunology, don’t understand the history of infectious diseases, especially pandemics, just can’t stop making fools of yourselves.
ADDENDUM
So, after having their funding cut several times, the CDC goofed. Well, idiot, do you have any idea what life would be like without the CDC? Do you have any idea the many positive things they’ve done and keep doing? And if they were fully funded and not sometimes interfered with by politicians, they have many highly qualified, dedicated people who could do even more. Go to hell!
@ Joel,
“The two of your are despicable. People are dying and you don’t give a shit. And if we lift physical distancing too fast, good chance more will die. What you and others don’t understand who believe either not as serious as it is or that better to just allow people to get it and build up herd immunity, is that more people will die because our health care system will be overwhelmed and people who could have been saved will die. Flattening the curve reduces those needing to be hospitalized, it also allows time to researching possible beneficial treatments, preventatives, and for those who understand immunology, to develop a vaccine.”
Now wait a damn minute. Do you have me confused with somebody else?
I don’t want physical distancing lifted too fast. I actually think the reopenings are premature. I pulled my kid out of school BEFORE they closed. I bought my masks in January & was wearing them in February.
You are SO right about flattening the curve & we need to delay, or better yet stagger; the amount of people hitting the ICUs & needing vents. With COVID; infection is probably inevitable but those who get sick later on will have more the benefits of treatment research.
I disagree with the reopenings. It is too soon & I think we are not ready for a second wave while we are struggling with the first.
I don’t know why you would think I believe any differently; I have certainly never stated such.
@Joel – Your excuse for the CDC, understaffed and underfunded? Okay, Joel, whatever lame excuses. Maybe when the CDC first started they were an honorable organization and really made a difference. Now, they are corrupt and a joke!But they sure do look official in their dumb ass, military looking uniforms. So many corporate influences, too many masters to serve through their foundation. https://www.cdcfoundation.org/partner-list/foundations
If there is a switch to bypass cloudflare entirely for now, just do that. This is fucked beyond all recognition. If CF is so great, why still the barebones? Nothing works. just sayin…happy bob from…… not really, this is tim saying it is an overall clusterfuck still.
@ Tim,
“So it does not. My bad. I feel I must tell you that my friend is old, chaste, and — if he would ever do a thorough introspection of his life — queer as a football bat.
I apologize for his antics.”
Hey the last one worked … video I mean. You don’t need to apologize for your friend … tell him hi from me.
@ Roadsterguy,
“Oh, tell me about their regular function, and how it’s dysregulated by an intramuscular shot. I’m hungry for some word salad.”
Um, okay I will try.
Microglia cells ‘regular’ function, is to mediate immune responses in the CNS by acting as macrophages. Microglial activation results in their production of pro-inflammatory cytokines; IL-1, IL-6 & TNF-α. That release is typically intended to protect the CNS tissue from damage but sometimes these cytokines can also be toxic to CNS tissue. Whether or not this is likely to happen would be determined by genetics.
All vaccines also cause IL-1, IL-6, & TNF-α cytokine production.
I think that some of us are genetically predisposed to overreact to the IL-1,, IL-6, and TNF-α cytokines. I think that overreaction is interrupting Microglia cells ability to prune synapses during neurodevelopment & plaque during neurodegeneration.
Why don’t the plain ole pathogens cause this? I don’t know but I BET that those of us who respond atypically to vaccines have a differently developed innate immunity function that handles the pathogen when is encountered in the ‘regular’ way. That IM is not a ‘regular’ way to encounter a pathogen & the contents of that IM shot stimulate the cytokines.
@ Christine Kincaid
You write: “I think . . . I think . . . I think”
No evidence, just what your fantasy world tells you. Who gives a shit what you think? Most of us want science, not the thought processes of a deluded MORON.
And for someone who knows little to nothing about immunology, why would the innate immune system react differently to a vaccine than the natural microbe? Keep in mind that the natural microbe, regardless of genetic variances between people, ALWAYS elicits a stronger immune response than a vaccine. Why? Because the natural microbe is full strength and multiplies exponentially. As I already wrote, what you lack in brains, you make up for in ignorance.
@ Joel,
I can’t take you seriously because as evidenced 5 posts above; you have me confused with somebody else.
@ christine kincaid
Whether I confused you with someone else at some time is beside the point. You wrote: “I think” and I challenged it. Just one more example of how when I do directly address what you write you ignore it. YOU ARE TRULY DISHONEST. And even if I did mistake you for someone else, it was because that someone else is just as stupid and intellectually dishonest as you. Not once have you ever directly responded to what I write with any valid evidence. And, I really don’t care about you or Natalie White, except as examples of much of what is wrong in this world, that is, people incapable of actually thinking, actually investigating, including trying to understand different sides to an argument, people who, despite their ignorance, are absolutely sure they are right. You are despicable. And, I’m sure most people monitoring these exchanges agree.
You said you were going to order Sompayrac’s book “How the Immune System Works (6th Edition)”. Did you???
And, instead of claiming I mistook you so many comments up, quite simple to cut and paste, e.g., May 21, 2020 at 1:06 am
@ christine kincaid
You look for every excuse to avoid addressing what I do write about you, which is direct refutations, often including references, to what you write. Every excuse because you are totally incapable of rationally and scientifically supporting your claims. You are pathetic. But, I really don’t care whether you respond to what I write or not because morons like you, certain you are right, won’t change; but others monitoring this blog will see just what an idiot you are. So, use any excuse you choose.
And I don’t take you as an individual seriously; but you are representing a significant segment of our population, people who don’t understand science, people who, once they’ve formed an opinion, refuse to even consider they are wrong. People who often think and act actually against their own and loved ones best interests because of their close-mindedness.
@ Joel,
Yes. “I think”.
I didn’t say I think the vaccines were making us ‘sicker’ than the natural pathogens are. They are not ‘stronger’ in THAT way.
IL-1, IL-6 & TNF-α dysregulation is also found in autistic children. The same cytokines that vaccines stimulate.
https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8247/11/2/56/pdf
So, I’d like to solicit replies to an idle speculation: If Christine were a haggis, how would it be built?
I’m Greek & Italian with only a little Scottish. What a weird question.
“Regular way?”
And what would that be, because people have gotten scrapes, cuts, and puncture wounds since the dawn of man.
And when we get scrapes, cuts, and puncture wounds, the pathogens actually do ‘get into the bloodstream,’ which is one of the incorrect bugaboos of the anti-vax crowd.
@ Lawrence,
Sure, which leaves one prone to bacterial infections. The closest analogy of punctures with an injection that have occurred since the “dawn of time” would be more akin to the bite of the Black Widow. Or rattlesnake. Or scorpions, etc …
I note that the speaker is ignoring mosquito bites, needle pricks (people have sewed for a long time) or bee stings.
Yes, if you take a microglial cell and throw activating agents at it in a dish, the lil guy will secrete proinflammatory cytokines. So what does that have to do with an intramuscular injection? Or the price of tea in China, for that matter?
@ Roadsterguy,
How do vaccines administered by IM work to mediate the immune system? How can an immune-mediating agent NOT impact the microglia; which are immune cells in the immune system?
Autism is a multifactorial, immune mediated genetic disorder. The genes loaded the gun, the vaccines pulled the trigger.
Because they’re delivered intramuscularly, doofus, and are taken up by the resident immune cells, which are not – I know this will come as a surprise to you – microglia.
For most of us, the brain is in the head, not the arm.
Before I head out to run errands, get some fresh air w/o a mask and give my business to the establishments not requiring one, I need to finish my rip on the CDC. Speaking of corruption, Fitzgerald, the former CDC director, a dishonorable mention: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/31/cdc-director-resigns-fitzgerald-azar-380680
@ Natalie White
So, once more you do your utmost to discredit the CDC and ignore advice to wear a mask. Brenda Fitzgerald was a Trump appointment and her tenure as director of the CDC was only six months (see below). So, that means the CDC and the many well-educated, well-trained people working there, and the many valuable tasks they have performed over the years, in your eyes, is corrupt because of one, short-lived, Trump appointment and an early problem with testing. As I explained previously; but not completely, even if testing were more accurate, it has to be followed up with tracing as many contacts as possible, and anyone tested positive being has to isolate for two weeks. Well, we have an extreme shortage of people doing tracing and we haven’t imposed isolation for those testing positive in most of the U.S.
And you still haven’t responded to how I pointed out you totally twisted the Taiwanese study.
I realize that you know more than me, Orac, and all the experts; but, for others monitoring this blog (and I accept that modeling can never be 100% accurate; but even if off by 20 or 30%, the numbers are frightening):
ABSTRACT State and local governments imposed social distancing measures in March and April of 2020 to contain the spread of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). These included large event bans, school closures, closures of entertainment venues, gyms, bars, and restaurant dining areas, and shelter-in-place orders (SIPOs). We evaluated the impact of these measures on the growth rate of confirmed COVID-19
cases across US counties between March 1, 2020 and April 27, 2020. An event-study design allowed each policy’s impact on COVID-19 case growth to evolve over time. Adoption of government-imposed social distancing measures reduced the daily growth rate by 5.4 percentage points after 1–5 days, 6.8 after 6–10 days, 8.2 after 11–15 days, and 9.1 after 16–20 days. Holding the amount of voluntary social distancing constant,
these results imply 10 times greater spread by April 27 without SIPOs (10 million cases) and more than 35 times greater spread without any of the four measures (35 million). Our paper illustrates the potential danger of exponential spread in the absence of interventions, providing relevant information to strategies for restarting economic activity. [Charles Courtemanche et al.(2020 Jul), Strong Social Distancing Measures In The United States Reduced The COVID-19 Growth Rate. Health Affairs. Available at: https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/pdf/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00608 ]
“If the United States had begun imposing social distancing measures one week earlier than it did in March, about 36,000 fewer people would have died in the coronavirus outbreak, according to new estimates from Columbia University disease modelers. And if the country had begun locking down cities and limiting social contact on March 1, two weeks earlier than most people started staying home, the vast majority of the nation’s deaths — about 83 percent — would have been avoided, the researchers estimated. Under that scenario, about 54,000 fewer people would have died by early May.” [Glanz (2020 May 21). Slow response called deadly – Modeling shows quick action may have saved 54,000 – San Diego Union-Tribune.
And as I explained before, for those who think it best to just let everyone be exposed, Flattening the Curve does the following: 1) save lives because our hospitals will not be overburdened and more serious cases will be able to be treated; 2) allow development of scientifically validated treatments and, perhaps, preventive drugs; 3) allow time to develop a vaccine. Without Flattening the Curve, the numbers suffering and dying would be much higher, both in the short run and in the long run. So, don’t wear your mask. Maybe you will get COVID-19 and maybe not; but then maybe you will infect someone else or not. I’m sure in your “infinite wisdom” you know not the case. And even if people who get infected stay asymptomatic they can infect others, e.g., young people with asthma, diabetes, older people with comorbities, many many who might survive if protected until we develop treatments, preventatives, and vaccines; but I’m sure, like many protesters, you could care less about them. Just to point out that it is estimated that up to 50% of American population has one or more co-morbidities. I’m sure you and others like you could care less.
From Wikipedia:
Brenda Fitzgerald is an American obstetrician-gynecologist who was the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) between July 2017 and January 2018. Her tenure was one of the shortest in the office’s history, excluding interim appointments. . . In July 2017, Fitzgerald was appointed by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. He was appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services by President Donald Trump and served in that role from February to September 2017.
@Natalie White
Holy Moses on a moped. The CDC is funded by the government. Your link goes to the CDC Foundation. You got it utterly and amazingly wrong.
[Damn this lack of threading! This was supposed to go under your stupid mix-up of the CDC and the CDC Foundation. Doyou even Google?]
@ Natalie White
You write: “@Joel – Your excuse for the CDC, understaffed and underfunded? Okay, Joel, whatever lame excuses. Maybe when the CDC first started they were an honorable organization and really made a difference. Now, they are corrupt and a joke!”
Yep, black and white, typical of morons like you. Please list ALL the things they have done wrong or not done just the past 10 years. I guess you don’t know that most nations of the world still look to them as the premier public health agency. No matter how good the personnel are at a public agency, they have to deal with politicians. Maybe if we established the CDC as independent like the Federal Reserve with a guaranteed budget, it might help; but even the independent Federal Reserve has political appointees. Calling them “corrupt and a joke” just proves what an absolute asshole you are, denigrating many well-educated, dedicated people because you found a few problems. Well, asshole, this is the real world, nothing is perfect, except of course you????
Maybe we should make you head of the CDC, considering your immense knowledge of microbiology, immunology, epidemiology, biostatistics, history of infectious diseases and their current status in the world.
Natalie. Think the CDC sucks so bad? What should we replace it with? What’s your brilliant insight tell you that we can all learn from? What would the new organization look like? How would it be funded? What powers would it have? To whom should they report in our governmental org chart? What science should they pursue and how? Draw it up for us. We’ll listen.
Full disclosure, during my MPH training I did a rotation with CDC Phoenix. You have NO CLUE what kind of a difference those hardworking professionals make every day in people’s lives with regard to so many dimensions of a person’s health. I guess one big Trump donor idiot at the top messing things up means the thousands of others preventing E. coli, cholera, and a myraid of other outbreaks all across the US EVERYDAY are all assholes in a dopey uniform, too.
I’m looking forward to your plans to do better. Let us hear them….
@medicalyeti – CDC needs to be replaced by an agency that cannot be funded through a foundation that receives donations from corporate interests ie…biotech and pHARMa. It is called conflict of interest and that influences the relationship…..regardless of how you or the rest try to explain it away.
https://www.cdcfoundation.org/partner-list/foundations
Good day.
I’m impressed that NW totes missed the Alcoa “connection.”
It occurs to me that the point where Christine burned through my sympathy for her was when she basically declared she didn’t care about any issues faced by special needs families unless the special need was autism. Yet here she is trying to win us over with a story of CP supposed caused by the DPT vaccine. The only thing this case of CP (which is not autism) would have in common with her hypothesis of “synaptic pruning” is “Vaccines are Bad.” Just another way she changes her story from one moment to the next.
@ Terrie,
When did I say I didn’t care about their struggles? Of course I care.
You do not understand much about raising a child with severe autism.
My apologies. I misremembered. While you were generally dismissive of the issues faced by other parents with children with various medical and even terminal conditions as not as big a deal as what you’ve been through, the only time you outright stated you didn’t care was about… CP specifically. But suddenly you think it’s a big deal, because someone blamed vaccines.
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2019/08/13/church-of-scientology-helping-antivaxers-block-sb-276/#comments
I’m supposed to care about a mom who needs help preforming[sic] RANGE OF MOTION when my son has put people in the hospital? IF FUCKING ONLY. Disability-lite.
Why do you care about Shahin when he’s only dealing with “disability-lite”?
@ Joel:
People who adhere to pseudoscience are immune to reason and data so I will present my own personal experiences about the pandemic, leaving out histrionics:
every year I travel to the Bay Area so I was very worried when I heard the stringent measures being taken in mid March, shutting down 6 counties, imagining that they were worse off than my own area outside of [redacted].as the weeks passed, we all witnessed deserted cities, shuttered businesses, army corps building field hospitals, mobile morgues, medical personnel overworked and governors reporting daily to citizens, the air itself was clearer because of less vehicular activity.. Slowly, the figures improved despite a terrifying death toll.
HOWEVER, California never reached the aforesaid levels ( I know that other factors are involved like population density, use of public transportation) because they acted sooner and more completely. Television news shows graphs that illustrate that, indeed, the two areas are improving whilst other regions are NOT.
Closer to home- literally- I try to avoid running into a particular gentleman who lives a few blocks away and works near there as well: I don’t know what to say because he is devastated- he’s a doctor and his brother, also a doctor, died after more than a month in ICU with Covid-19; he took care of seniors in hospital and at a rehab facility, contracting the illness himself.
I now am listening to a woo-meister saying we have “virus mania” and can just eat right take vitamins C/D, exercise, eat vegetables. and meditate to avoid illness. It is “garbage science” ( See PRN.fm today) We don’t need a vaccine. Vaccines kill. Not much to fear from the virus if you’re “healthy”.
-btw- Trump is also a stupid fuck.
…and that’s despite the poor mask wearing technique I see whenever I go out. People just plain not wearing them, people wearing them around their chin, people wearing them on their mouth but not their nose. I’ve learned the good times to go hiking up Sign Hill to not run into groups of people wandering around maskless.
I signed up for a local study to test asymptomatic folk; I’m heading out today for my swab. I hope they expand the study to antibody testing, and I hope to heeeeel they’re using decent assays for both. (The company that I work for has a Dx arm that’s very good, and I have a sense of what an assay looks like when it’s designed for maximum robustness for the end-user. That’s not all of the ones out there, particularly the early ones.)
https://www.facebook.com/TheOther98/photos/a.115969958413991/4441836082494002/
mask hating karen
https://tuckbot.tv/#/watch/gnx4kl
rights check
gonna get sued check
weakining your lungs check
breathing in your own germs check
you are killing your antibodies check
weakining your immune system check
breathing back your own carbon monoxide check
you are gonna git sick in november because you are doing that now check
believes in the virus but it is not what ‘the government’ tells you it is check
98% cure rate check
bill gates check
do your own research check
saw that plandemic video (implied check)
hungry, fat ass sucking in her shorts check (also trashy)
The truth is out there.
@ Denise Walter
I agree, not just reason; but sound science backed with numerous citations, nothing will change their minds, well, almost nothing, perhaps if a loved one is hospitalized for COVID-19, maybe that will change their minds; but maybe not.
I have been a vegetarian since teen years, never smoked, basically never used alcohol (couple tastes), exercise regularly, in good health for my age or even much younger; but I understand the immune system. B-cells and T-cells don’t do anything until confronted with a new invader and the first time it takes them 2 – 3 weeks to rev up to full strength. In many cases, even partial strength takes care of the invader, though we suffer during that period; but some will develop disabilities and some even die. So, as you and I understand, vaccines acquaint the above cells with a potential invader, so, instead of 2 – 3 weeks, they rev up super fast and to a higher level, often so that we don’t even know we’ve been invaded. Nope, they don’t understand this.
Yep, healthy diet and exercise is valuable, gives us resilience; but doesn’t “boost” the immune system. Only so many innate cells at a time coursing through our bodies and the adaptive immune system only activated when confronted with a new invader. And when I suggest they read up on immunology, they balk since their innate intelligence, just like Trump’s is all that is necessary. Yep, he is stupid; but worse, I know people who are less intelligent; but intelligent enough to understand this and ask people who are expert in subject areas. Trump doesn’t listen to science experts. I consider myself reasonably intelligent; but I trust my car mechanic, though did help my dad repair cars when I was a kid. He was a naval fighter pilot mechanic during World War II and could fix just about anything, that is, before cars became computerized.
I left out the origins factor- Covid from European flights over represented in the East which weren’t shut down early. 3 million travelers from Italy etc.
Trump is a stupid fuck.
@ Natalie White,
Can you explain to me the aversion about simple measures such as wearing a mask? I practice distancing & have been wearing masks since before they were recommended. My risk from COVID is low.
-No flu vaccine for 17 years.
-Age 52, not obese, no history of hypertension, diabetes or copd.
-Blood type O (-).
-Acclimated to high altitude.
-genotype G/G on both rs4341 & rs4343; ACE gene.
I mask & distance. I don’t understand the aversion.
If indeed you are O(neg) we could really use your blood donations. You can be a “Hero for Babies” at the Red Cross if you’re also CMV negative. THAT would actually help a lot of infants out. Beats arguing with us…
@ Christine Kincaid
So, we actually agree on something, masks and distancing. How refreshing. But you still find every excuse to avoid trying to defend your position.
Just a little anecdote. I’ve never been good at names. Even as a college student, would get an A in the course; but thank goodness the instructor didn’t have a question, what the authors of the text. When I’m introduced to people, if I get a chance I jot down their names and some identifying aspect. On the other hand, over 50 years ago I could memorize 50 German, French, or Swedish words in very short time and still remember many of them today.
So, use the excuse that I got the names wrong, avoiding that I did, for instance, use an accurate quote from an article, etc. My interest is in what people claim. And as I get older, monitoring/skimming a number of blogs, I sometimes get names wrong. SO WHAT? Doesn’t change the validity of my actual comments. Just one more example of how you live in your own fantasy world.
In any case, glad to hear you use a mask and distancing; but, as usual, you are wrong about vaccines. I’ve been wearing seatbelts since 1969, never been in an accident, so, I guess buckling up was a waste of time. The fact you haven’t had a flu shot just means one of two things: 1) you weren’t exposed or exposed long enough; 2) you may have had flu earlier and had cross-immunity to whatever was going around. I got the 1976 swine flu shot, in fact, a double dose. Well, some research indicates since the vaccine was for an H1N1 flu, that people who got the shot either didn’t get the 2009 pandemic or got a milder version, so, some cross-immunity.
” Sign Hill” !!! Yay!
But clean up your act, hikers!
People are mostly better with masks here- fear, I guess ( they fix the hanging ones if they see people approaching – I was at the world’s most scenic parking lots ** along the river)
** Whole Foods/ Japanese Mall; in competition with Carls’ in Monterey
@ Natalie White
Though the evidence for masks and distancing is strong, for sake of argument let’s say they don’t work all that well. Well, since I can’t be certain of it, since one can be incubating a disease, be asymptomatic, I choose to err on the side of caution, that is, to do whatever might help to protect those around me. Wearing a mask isn’t some horrible thing.
Years ago there was an outbreak of polio among the Amish of Pennsylvania. Despite what Age of Autism claims, they do vaccinate; but at lower rates than general public, in the 80% range compared to 90% range. In any case, when polio broke out part of the reason they readily accepted vaccines was to protect the surrounding non-Amish community. To some extent, alone, they believe it is up to G-d; but they care about others. Not what one hears from some antivaccinationists who state they can only think about their own children.
So, even if it eventually turns out masks and distancing didn’t do all that much, highly unlikely, your actions show you don’t care about anyone but yourself. You are despicable.
@ Medicalyeti,
If I didn’t now have microcytic anemia, I would definitely be donating. I used to donate at two former places of employment; one was a hospital that served as a regional trauma center taking patients from southern Colorado to northern NM & western Kansas. The other was for NICU babies at Children’s in Colorado Springs as I was CMV negative.
I wish I could now but my hemoglobin remains too low.
Yah. Got the smears?
@ christine kincaid
So, besides supporting masks and distancing you have been a blood donor. Maybe, just maybe?, you might have some redeemable features.
I continue to be a blood donor, the not a rare type, A+. My goal is to donate 100 times or more. I am approaching goal. Donated 1st week into pandemic; but now 8 weeks have gone by, time to donate again, and, due to my age, they won’t allow me at blood center. As soon as the open up I will make an appointment.
I don’t know the cause of your microcytic anemia. I doubt if you have lead poisoning. If iron deficiency, as blood donor and vegan, I take two 27 mg iron tablets per day with a vitamin C tablet (vitamin C helps absorption of iron). If not iron deficient, the only other cause I can find is a chronic disease, so, I assume you understand iron deficiency, so my guess, some chronic disease. You need not answer as if you would.
So, though you are wrong about so many things and don’t even try to defend your claims, I was wrong to assume that spiritually you were fraternal twin with Natalie White. She makes you look almost human.
@ Joel – If a person wants/needs to wear a mask, that is their choice. I can choose to shop in an establishment that does not require a mask. I am not ill, however, when breathing my own CO2, especially with the N95 masks, I feel unwell. Hypercapnia? The elastic straps add to the misery and are headache inducing.
I social distance naturally. I guess that needs to be mandated for some.
You crack me up. You’re the same guy who said herpes is ubiquitous. I’m more concerned about your “ubiquitous herpes” than I am of Convid-1984.
Good day Joel may you not live in fear.
I am not ill
It has been revealed that most people are most contagious before having symptoms.
Which is aided, I suspect, by people naturally social distancing from you.
And that is why I wear a full-on, full sized, rolled up, hepa bag on my face because walking in your slipstream is full-on russian roullette.
The covering needs to be worn to catch the majority of ‘droplets’ before they have time to dry up and get alot smaller making the pathogen essentially ‘airborne’ — The whole 6-foot thing is pretty much just hooey, on its’ own.
Ohh! Ohh! A new Q-drop!! (let me get my pen):
Strange that. I’m the opposite. I donated 7 days ago, and I should have been deferred as my blood iron levels were at 18.6 (above 18 and you’re not allowed to donate). They must have needed blood, as they let me donate.
It’s puzzling. Over the last few months, my blood iron levels have been rising, despite the fact I donate, and despite the fact I’ve been eating less meat. Does anyone know what could cause that?
As a hematopathologist, I would like to help you with your question. However, I’m not really clear what an iron level of 18.6 means as regards blood donation. In SI units, this is not a high serum iron. Serum ferritin is actually the best test for monitoring iron levels in blood donors. A ferritin of 18.6 would low. I’m wondering if this is the hemoglobin level in ‘conventional” units. 18.6 would be significantly high, and a reason for rejecting a donation.
There are a multitude of causes of increased serum iron, ferritin or hemoglobin, so I would need to know more about this value. Let me know.
@ Julian,
Do you feel better after donating than you did before? Have you been evaluated for hemochromatosis?
@Christine, do you think we don’t notice how when you’re backed into a corner on your… incorrect statements, let’s say, that you immediately stop engaging and jump to a different thread? So tell me, why do you no longer consider CP to be “disability-lite”?
@TBruce: I’m guessing it’s my haemoglobin levels. How it’s measured is, my finger is pricked and some of my blood is extracted onto a slide, which is placed in a machine that returns a reading. From your comment, haemoglobin is the most likely thing measured, but I can’t say for certain.
@Christine: I don’t feel better after donating, nor have I been evaluated for hemochromatosis.
I’ve been donating for just over 25 years. For a long time, a few hours after donating, I would need to have a lie-down. I haven’t had to do that with my last few donations.
For many years, I took a weekly iron supplement but stopped over a year ago. Is it possible this caused a buildup of iron in my body that’s now being converted into red blood cells?
Also, in September 2018 I began a weight loss program as I was overweight. I’ve now lost a sixth of my bodyweight since then. Could that cause a rise in haemoglobin levels?
@Julian Frost:
Almost certainly that value is hemoglobin. Here are my suggestions:
Your doctor should get your hemoglobin verified by a clinical laboratory, along with a complete blood count (WBC, diff and platelets). Repeat determinations may be necessary to identify a transient elevation.
If high hemoglobin is verified, possible causes include chronic respiratory disease, heavy smoking, EPO use, dehydration, undiagnosed congenital heart conditions, certain rare cancers and polycythemia vera.
Iron overload such as hemochromatosis will not cause a high hemoglobin. Weight loss also would not be responsible.
A verified hemoglobin of this level in our lab prompts a case review and advice to the ordering physician to investigate this further, specifically for polycythemia vera.
I hope you can get it sorted out quickly. Don’t let COVID-19 interfere with this.
For completeness, I also should have added the following to causes of high hemoglobin:
Residence at high altitude
Blood doping (transfusions to deliberately raise the red cell concentration, a banned technique in endurance athletes)
@TBruce, as per your advice, I went to the Medicross Clinic today. The Doctor sent me through to the on site pathology lab and my blood was drawn. I am to come back in three months for a follow up draw. The Doctor commented that the regular donations may have helped. He also instructed me not to donate until after the second test.
W.R.T. the possible causes, I’m a nonsmoker who isn’t taking steroids or EPO, or blood doping. I do live in Gauteng, but I’ve lived here for over 30 years now and this sudden rise is recent.
@Christine Kincaid:
Microcytic anemia needs to be investigated. The most common cause is iron deficiency, either from dietary deficiency of iron or chronic blood loss, which can result from gastrointestinal malignancy, among other causes. Chronic systemic disease can produce a chronic microcytic anemia. Thalassemia minor or other hemoglobinopathies need to be ruled out. These are by far the most common causes, with other more rare causes still possible. Don’t ignore it, or take iron without finding out the cause.
@ TBruce,
Thank you for your reply. The initial problem was a traumatic blood loss (2nd trimester hemorrhagic miscarriage) followed by 10 years of menorrhagia. There was an error in hospital & I was discharged about an hour before my transfusion was ordered. Another error when I was not contacted immediately.
It was bizarrely resolved with a tubal reanastomosis several years ago & several transfusions. My hemoglobin is now up to 11.2 from the 6.8-7.9 I hovered at for about two years.
For some reason, the morphology of my rbc’s continues to be a problem, despite that I feel so much better now.
@Christine:
Elsewhere you mentioned your ancestry as predominately Greek and Italian. Both of these populations have a higher incidence of thalassemia, a hemoglobinopathy that produces microcytosis and a mild,non-significant anemia in a heterozygous person. Something to look into, perhaps.
[…] This latest round of “vaccines = infertility” claims can probably be traced back to a 2018 paper from Gayle DeLong, someone who is not a research scientist or a medical professional. Rather, DeLong wildly misinterpreted American birth rate data to reach her conclusion. And of course, she also published a paper in 2011 claiming vaccines cause autism, another anti-vaccine “study” that was quickly debunked by real medical scientists. So no, anti-vaxxers have no evidence to back their already raging war against any future COVID-19 vaccine. […]
@ Terrie:
I remember that:
it was about Elsa, a Dutch woman I knew as a child and her son who had CP – my friend helped them do exercises. As far as I know, Rolf never really could walk: he was in a stroller/ wheel chair contraption at age 12
he was the first severely disabled child I ever met although another friend’s sister was a disabled young adult. more issues about speech and coordination but could walk..
That was also around the time she poo-pooed the idea of someone’s child dying of whooping cough as “crocodile tears”, was dismissive of the risks of alpha-1, a condition that runs in my family and tried to blame my family’s at least three generation history of dyslexia on vaccines, not to mention the way she’s treated pro-vax special needs parents on this site. She’s a nasty, selfish piece of work who changes her story routinely.
I don’t understand the ‘rebreathing’ concern about masks.
I purchased surgical masks in January in preparation for this & now, learning of a shortage of N95s for those involved in patient care, I am glad I did that & avoided contributing to the PPE shortage. Three weeks ago I injured my back & hip flexors while hiking in the canyon with my son. I made it home just fine, only to have to be carted out of the house on a gurney in the night with an epic, paralyzing muscle spasm.
(embarrassing, because I wasn’t in good enough shape to keep up with this kid who bounces up a vertical trail like a mountain goat & I totally overdid it)
I had my mask on before the paramedics walked in the door & made sure everyone else in the house did as well. I stayed masked for the next 7 hours straight, until I was discharged from the ER. It took 5 hours & IV Orphenadrine, Fentanyl & Toradol; before my O2 sats dropped into the 80’s, after I fell asleep, still masked & had to have some O2. And I live at 7,000 ft elevation.
I really don’t understand why a healthy person without COPD, would be afraid of ‘rebreathing’ during a 30 minute masked trip into a grocery store. Even an N95 for a trip to the grocery store would be fine, if that is what you have available. I’ve worn them for longer than that delivering patient care & didn’t keel over, just was hot & sweaty by the time I was done.
@Christine – “I really don’t understand why a healthy person without COPD, would be afraid of ‘rebreathing’ during a 30 minute masked trip into a grocery store.”
Christine, I didn’t express fear over wearing a mask. I said I feel unwell. I’m surprised and disappointed at your totalitarian attitude regarding masks. Your mask wearing experience is yours and does not apply to mine.
Good day.
@ Natalie,
Yeah I get a lot of that reaction from antivaccine groups too. It’s not totalitarian; if you don’t want to wear one; don’t. I do. I did before they were recommended, I mean; it was obvious where this was headed.
I don’t understand the aversion to wearing them but there is one thing that does bother me:
I am a nonresponder to vaccines & I have always told antivaxxers that this is MY responsibility. I don’t want anybody to be pressured intro vaccinating on my behalf, in the name of herd immunity. I have always understood that in the event of an outbreak of a VPD; that my responsibility means that I will mask & self isolate. I would MUCH rather do that then be used as a token example as to why you should vaccinate (you know, the whole “what about those with immune deficiency who can’t vaccinate” gambit?)
Enter corona ... Those same people who thought I was SO amazing for taking
responsibility for my own health, instead of my demanding they sacrifice their
child's brain to a vaccine ... are 'disappointed' in me for now practicing what I
preach. Responsibility; the vax-free way.
That is what is really disappointing. How are we going to have any credibility if we don’t show an understanding of very basic principles of contagion? We look really selfish right now & this is EXACTLY why there WILL be mandates if a vaccine comes out: We look like we can’t be trusted to practice other options because we (not me) threw tantrums over putting a stupid mask on for 15 minutes. We will be the reason mandates will seem necessary.
I don’t appreciate this at all.
@ Terrie,
@Christine, do you think we don’t notice how when you’re backed into a corner on your… incorrect statements, let’s say, that you immediately stop engaging and jump to a different
thread? So tell me, why do you no longer consider CP to be “disability-lite”?
Okay, you know what? I DO remember that now & I shouldn’t have said that. I was so frustrated because I was on here being called a bad parent by people who don’t understand the difference between Asperger’s & SEVERE autism. IIRC; I was accused by the poster PGP of “hating my child”; as if any parent that hated their child would work as hard as I do for him.
I so regret saying that now but the emotions that caused that outburst were related to an observation of a mom of a child with CP that happened to me a few years ago that I was remembering it that day as I misspoke.
She will never know what an impact she had on me, during the 15 minutes she was parked next to me in the handicapped parking spaces in front of King Soopers. I was parked there first, as my son started making his high pitched ‘warning’ sounds that end with the sound of a freight train whistle. The “I am going to explode” sound. He was rocking back & forth & the whole car was wobbling. He wasn’t as big then as he is now; maybe only 200 lbs & 5’10” (he is now 6 foot 5 & 230 lbs) but I knew better than to get him out; he would have bolted over the top of me & into traffic. It wasn’t safe. Had to wait & if that didn’t work I would go home empty handed.
She pulled in next to me in her adapted minivan. The door slid open on its own & there was her child, pretty obviously wheelchair bound with CP, about the same age as my son. She came around, the ramp lowered on it’s own & she wheeled him out as the car put itself back together. They were out of sight & in the store as my son started ramming his head into his window, knocking it off the track.
I tried everything, offering him a snack, a drink, turned the radio off & on, tried deep pressure massage to his skull, sensory distractions, etc … to no avail. I have no clue what set him off. Probably someone had walked down the sidewalk whistling that I hadn’t even noticed. Eventually the other mom came out with her bags & had her son safely secured, right about the time my son sent his iPad into the back of my head with a shriek & I decided “I am DONE”. I left.
I couldn’t comprehend how a society that invented so many gizmos & gadgets that could accommodate a person in a wheelchair; had no answers for my child. I wasn’t asking for a cure … I just needed to buy groceries for dinner. But if you don’t know what is wrong, you don’t know what will help. Deaf people have sign language, blind people have canes, dogs & braille … Parenting a child with CP didn’t mean you couldn’t go to the store but parenting a child with severe autism did.
Okay? Again; I was wrong for saying that & it is awful I was actually feeling that jealous & spiteful. On the upside, my son is now receiving care from a Pediatric Immunologist & has had a marked increase in verbal skills, he is sleeping through the night & his violent outbursts have gone from up to 10 times a day to now only once in over a month. I now ONLY shop at stores who offer Caroline’s Carts & I can wheel him safely down the aisles to shop now too. With his DC Superhero mask on, that he loves.
Wow, that was a really shitty “apology” that just proves me belief that you don’t care about people dealing with other special needs or medical conditions. It’s all about how much harder your life is than everyone else. Thanks for confirming my original comment, I guess?
Yes, the “woe is me,” notpology.
You see, she’s the intrepid hero of her own story. Look at how hard her life is, but despite this, she’s solved the riddle of the causes of autism, so she’s come here to preach to the unrepentant and suffer the slings and arrows of martyrdom.
Whatever helps her sleep at night.
@Lawrence, I went to highschool with a girl whose brother had Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and her whole family combined was not as negative about it as Christine is about her life.
I’m sure her life is challenging and she could use more support. Realistically, much of the U.S. is bad in providing support for special needs family, and we don’t know if the issue is access or choice not to use here.
That’s not a reason to dismiss others’ suffering, and the antivaccine movement isn’t going to help her. Nor is posting here.
I hope she finds a better solution.
@Dorit, I’m sure she could use more support. I don’t know any special needs family or individual who wouldn’t benefit from additional support and accommodations. And no one here has ever dismissed that raising an autistic child is really difficult or that the death of her daughter is anything short of a tragedy. We’ve simply said that vaccines did not cause those issues.
But Christine seems to divide people’s challenges into the “worthy” and “unworthy” based on if the parents blame vaccines, even when they are facing the same outcomes. A child’s death from whooping cough is “crocodile tears” while a child’s death blamed on vaccines gets all her support. It makes it hard for me to have sympathy for her, beyond my general disgust at the way the US fails the disability community in general.
I agree completely.
@ Natalie White
You really are one self-centered stupid piece of s..t. If you don’t wear a mask in a place where others don’t, one or more could be asymptomatically infected, then you could become infected, and you could then infect totally innocent people. While wearing a mask is no guarantee, as I wrote earlier, it may help and people who care about others would choose to err on the side of caution.
And, just for your information, I am not and have not lived in fear since the outbreak of the pandemic. I actually went the first week and donated blood and would again if they allowed me to. Being cautious is not the same thing as living in fear. You are so locked in your self-centered ignorant callous world that you make assumptions about other people.
I also phoned a couple of the food banks if I could come and help; but they asked my age and told me no. But, if allowed to donate blood or work at a food bank, I would wear a mask, though I understand it would not guarantee my safety; but I am NOT hunkered down in fear; but would go out if I could do something for other people. In fact, when I went shopping other day at Costco, I bought some extra food and today dropped it off at a place where they serve 300 people a day. SO GO TO HELL YOU SACK OF S..T!
@ Natalie White
What did I say about herpes? According to studies at least 2/3 of adults have herpes 1; but most don’t even know it. Perhaps with a bad cold they get a cold sore. And according to other studies, about 1/3 of adults have genital herpes, herpes 2, again, a minor occasional inconvenience for most. I have herpes 1; but have only had a couple of times in my life a mouth sore. Have had it since preteen years. So what?
If, as with some historical pandemics, COVID-19 comes back with a vengeance on a second round, I wonder what a moron callous self-centered person like you will say then? As I included in a previous comment, the statistics on deaths from COVID-19 according to several reliable sources are actually undercounted; but, believe what you will. Maybe you won’t get it; but maybe you will be asymptomatic and give it to someone else. I’m sure you could care less. GO TO HELL!
By the way, have you ever donated blood. You are younger than me, so why not volunteer at a food bank?
@ Natalie White
Several times you’ve made it quite clear you don’t believe COVID-19 is as dangerous as portrayed and several times you made it clear that you are against masks. Now, suddenly you write: “I am not ill, however, when breathing my own CO2, especially with the N95 masks, I feel unwell. Hypercapnia? The elastic straps add to the misery and are headache inducing.”
Maybe if you had said this before I might have believed you and even sympathized; but now you lack any credibility.
And, by the way, you still won’t admit you were wrong about the Taiwanese study. Not that I expect you to. After all, the Big Picture for you is you are right and damn any evidence that contradicts your Big Picture.
And, by the way, physical distancing reduces risk; but doesn’t eliminate it. Viruses can travel further, depending on size, if combined with minute traces of mucus,if someone talking forcefully, if someone sneezes or coughs (I sometimes sneeze just from dust; but always make sure in my arm), if there is a breeze, etc. And masks, N-95, only reduce the risk; but combined, though still a risk, lower than separate. And, though N-95 best available, one can make or obtain masks that reduce risk that if infected and asymptomatic one can spread it. Not as well as N-95; but better than nothing and one can use other ways of tying rather than elastic bands. My N-95 mask actually has a one-way opening at my nose so I can breath out the CO2.
But, as I wrote, you lack any credibility and even if true, question is: is mild discomfort more important than risk of being asymptomatic and infecting someone else? In my case, I would accept almost any level of discomfort to protect others. And, by the way, for a day or two after donating blood one has fewer immune cells, so slightly higher risk; but I would still do it.
@Joel – Would be nice to trust the “experts” like Neil Ferguson and his mega-inflated numbers. And then your beloved CDC does this: https://www.livescience.com/cdc-combined-covid-19-diagnostic-and-antibody-tests.html Who is running the show over there? They be runnin’ ’round like chickens with their heads cut off or maybe more like chicken little, “The sky is falling….. again”. LOL!
Has there been any folllow-up on the CDCs faulty tests? Is there still the contamination and false positive problem? Some are saying the numbers are comparable to a bad flu season, however, there is an accuracy problem with the reporting. The CDC does like to do its fantastical extrapolations.
Regarding the mask wearing, if a person talks like daffy duck and sprays spittle everywhere, they should wear a mask. I have to laugh when I see people sitting alone in their car wearing a mask….is it ignorance, laziness, lack of oxygen,CO2 build-up, virtue signaling, a combo? I’m not going to wear a mask and breathe my waste. This is unhealthy! I patron the establishments that don’t require it. I am fortunate to live in an area where everyone is not forced to be in each others personal space. Wish I could move to Sweden. They have a lot more common sense…and have not been driven by hysteria. https://www.thelocal.se/20200514/explained-why-is-sweden-not-recommending-face-masks-to-the-public
Joel, I’m not sure how much soy you are consuming, but you might want to lay off at least the raw soy. My father in law won’t touch it. He says it shrinks the testes and makes men grow boobies. You do seem to be more bitchy these days. Take it easy, okay? I can assure you, the sky is not falling at least not in my neck of the woods. Good day.
Markku Peltonen tweets COVID 19 stats:
https://twitter.com/MarkkuPeltonen
It is mainly Finnish, but some plots are in English. You will notice that death toll in Sweden is multiple times higher than in countries with lockdown (say, Finland).
@Natalie White Have it occurred to you a vaccine will solve your problem ? No need to wear a mask, when the vaccine is available ?
@ christine kincaid
You write: “Maybe you are a genetic sleep Martian like me, lol. CRY1 gene variant. Let yourself stay up when you can’t sleep. Don’t fight it. Then sleep in, through the morning, until you feel rested. You will feel better”
Wow, one more stupid remark. I have researched insomnia and spent two overnighters at sleep lab. First, as we age we lose brain cells; but MRI studies have found that different areas of the brain lose at different rates and the area responsible for sleep loses fastest. Unfortunately, some lose more than others. And my maternal grandfather also in later years suffered from insomnia.
In any case, when I wake in middle of night, go up to urinate, if can’t fall asleep, get up, go to study and read; but, I don’t catch up during day. I do take 15 – 30 minutes rests; but don’t fall asleep, just take slow deep abominable breaths. Helps; but not the same.
And, by the way, I guess you didn’t know that it is during sleep that our brains clear out metabolic waste products such as beta-amyloids and tau, especially during one stage of NREM sleep. I forget which one; but fortunately the overnighters found that I get enough of that stage. So, your worries about Alzheimer’s and dementia maybe come true; but not because of vaccines; but insomnia. Look up the glymphatic system or a great book is Matthew Walker (2017). Why We Sleep. However, I NEVER rely on one source so did thorough search of both PubMed and Google Scholar, downloaded or photocopy at University library over 50 journal articles.
And you write, first quoting me: “”You just refuse to even consider that what happened to your children might not have been result of vaccines; but your false logical post hoc ergo prompter hoc which I discussed earlier. Your absolute certainty is what really bothers me, that you won’t even consider the possibility.”
“Yes I am absolutely certain”
“absolutely certain” Well, thank you G-d, you must be G-d, more likely deluded, because us mere mortals, if we are honest, avoid claiming absolute certainty. So, you’ve proved my point, since you aren’t G-d, you are a MORON!
@ Joel,
Aww, well geez. I just thought the CRY1 gene was interesting. I wasn’t trying to minimize your issues.
@ christine kincaid
And, again, you avoid what I wrote, namely that if you do suffer from insomnia that it could explain brain changes, e.g., potentially Alzheimer’s or dementia. Typical of you and Natalie White, ignore most of what others write.
I recommended a great book on sleep; but I doubt you care and i doubt you will ever purchase and read the book I suggested on the immune system.
@ Old Rockin’ Dave
You write: “For once, Dr Harrison, I have to take exception to one of your posts.”And, yes, Israel is guilty of horrendous war crimes and crimes against humanity”. No, Israel is not guilty of horrendous war crimes. the terrorists who continue to attack them, the supporters of the terrorists who call every day for the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of all Jews everywhere, who teach and promulgate every anti-Semitic awful lie, are the criminals here.”
First, Jews moved into a land that was occupied. During the 1948 war they claimed that Arab radio exhorted Palestinians to leave. We and our allies monitored radio broadcasts, never happened. However, several massacres, not just Deir Yassin were committed against Palestinians. It is also documented that Israeli’s went into other Palestinian villages and threatened them. So, the result was Palestinian civilians flooding the roads, slowing, blocking Arab armies, making the Israeli partitioned part, instead of almost 50 – 50, almost all Jewish, and leaving unoccupied homes. In addition, the Israeli’s confiscated/kept Palestinian bank accounts. International law was quite clear that civilians can flee from conflict zones and MUST, I repeat MUST be allowed to return. So, Israel slowed/blocked roads using innocent civilians, did it by massacres and threats, got lots of homes and bank accounts and began its existence by gross violations of international law.
This is all documented. I don’t like terrorism; but one’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. It is documented that for every civilian Israeli killed by “terrorists” more than 100 Palestinian civilians killed by Israelis. Just one example. During Israeli actions in Gaza the UN brought 100s of children to a school, placed a huge UN sign on the roof. Two armed Palestinians on a motor bike passed the school. An Israeli helicopter fired on them just as they were in front of the school, result dozens of dead innocent children. And I don’t care if they were Jewish, African, Palestinian or Martian, they were innocent dead children and it is impossible that the Israelis didn’t see the UN flag and, thus could have waited a few seconds until the motorbike passed the school. This is just one of many examples.
And Israel has not abided by international law, ever. After the 6 Days War, when they occupied the West Bank, international law was clear they had NO right to use resources like water; yet, they built pipes and piped to Israeli farmers while limiting Palestinian access, they had NO right to build permanent structures; yet, Jewish settlements proliferate and NOW they have decided unilaterally to annex large sections of West Bank. And during recent demonstrations, credible eye witnesses saw Israeli soldiers shoot and kill, for instance, a Palestinian nurse who was several hundred yards away from those throwing rocks.
I’m sorry; but in a long life I’ve learned that Jews are just as capable as anyone else of committing atrocities. In fact, for many years there was a significant percentage of Israeli’s who protested for a secular Palestinian state for all. According to current reports, such demonstrations are met by violent youth gangs and the police don’t intervene.
Finally, after Independence in 1948, Israeli’s brought in Mizrachim, Jews from Yemen and other Arab nations. They placed them in lower standard housing than Ashkenazi Jews and it is documented their intent was to not educate them; but use them as cheap labor. But the final blow is that when babies were born to Mizrachi women between 1948 and 1952, often they were told the infant died and weren’t allow to see him/her. Turns out they were stolen and given to Ashkenazi families, currently estimated over 2000 and to this day, though the parents now dead, siblings can’t get access to the records.
Israel is NOT a Jewish state, it is a betrayal of Judaism. “Be kind to the stranger in your midst for were you NOT strangers in the Land of Israel.
So believe the propaganda. I lived in Israel for six months and met with Jews and Palestinians. In fact, good friends was an Ashkenazi married to a Sephardic Jew and they told me how his family rejected the marriage and how they were discriminated against. She, Yemenite, with masters in social work.
If you even consider yourself open-minded, read what I believe Judaism teaches how to treat non-Jews:
Rabbi Reuven Hammer (2016 Apr 21). The Status of Non-Jews in Jewish Law and Lore Today. Available at: https://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/sites/default/files/public/halakhah/teshuvot/2011-2020/Hammer%20Teshuvah%20Final.pdf
Just one of many articles I have on the subject.
And read:
Thomas Suarez (2016). State of terrorism: How terrorism created modern Israel.
Just one of many books and articles I have.
I’m sure you are aware of Palestinian bombings and attacks and plane hijacking. All true and I am against all of them. I don’t like anyone attacking civilians. However, the first hijacking of a plane was Israeli hijacking of a Syrian civilian aircraft around 1956. And first bombings were by Jews against Palestinians going back to 1930s. And have you heard about the Hebron massacre? Yep, horrible, Palestinian mob attacked and killed around 80 Jews. What you probably don’t know is that many other Jews survived, being hidden by their Palestinian neighbors, risking their own lives and families. And, that up in Jerusalem a Jewish mob attacked and killed over 60 Palestinians including a documented case where one took at infant by its legs and bashed its head against the wall. Makes me sick to my stomach.
So, I actually believe in the Covenant “to be a light unto the nations”, meaning to me a roll model for justice, compassion, etc. And Gideon Levy, a journalist for Ha Aretz, a major Israeli newspaper, wrote an article saying Israeli Jews should wear a Yellow Star since they were acting as a race, not a people living based on a Convenant, thus exactly what the Nazis believed
Everyone wants to believe his/her nation/ethnic group, etc. is more moral, more honest, more . . . than others; but history, psychology, says differently.
Oh, one parting thought. Some genetic studies have found a portion of Palestinians have Jewish genes, thought they converted either forcibly or to improve their chances during the Middle Ages. And some genetic studies have fund that some Israelis don’t have Jewish genes. Fascinating.
Dr Harrison, introducing genetics and discrimination inside Israel, and more of what you said in your post sounds mighty like the hoofbeats not of a zebra, a horse, or even a coconut, but of a Gish Gallop. If you really want to get into internal matters, we could discuss the lack of press freedom in every Arab country; the oppression of religious minorities, or in Syria of the religious majority in every Arab state plus Gaza and the PA; Mahmoud Abbas being in the 18th year of a four year term; deaths of dissidents in confinement in every one of those states; and ’round and ’round we could go. Let’s not, for sake of tempers and the other people who come here to read and comment. I did not bring up hijacking, you did. It was a forcing down, technically not a hijacking, still illegal, but also not a war crime.
The Gazans at the fence were not just “throwing rocks”, but also had guns, knives, firebombs, grenades, and wirecutting tools. The press calling the riots “demonstrations” is more than a little inaccurate. Did the Israeli who shot make a mistake? I don’t know. I haven’t seen yet the results of the Israeli investigation of it. In any case, the deliberate targeting of civilians especially children, is not Israeli policy, but it is a stated aim of every terror, oh, excuse me, I mean “militant” group attacking Israel. Indiscriminate firing, bombarding, or incendiary balloon launching, is a war crime, if it is intentional, and it is. When Hamas fired rockets in the hope of reaching the Dimona nuclear facility, it met the internationally accepted definition of nuclear terrorism. Using human shields is a war crime. Any outcry to punish Hamas leaders for it?
Yet we only hear of Israel being condemned. Of course there are good reasons for this. The first is that victimizing Israel, of Jews anywhere in the world, doesn’t make for a very good “anticolonialist” or “anti-imperialist” narrative, and anti-Semitism doesn’t matter if it doesn’t fit in with your story.
The second is that the world holds Israel to a higher standard than every other state in the world, while expecting little from the Arabs, who apparently have no moral agency in the eyes of many on the left.
Third, the Arabs and their allies have conducted a public relations war like no other, keeping the eyes of the world off the crimes of illegal annexation and occupation elsewhere. Why is there no BDS for Tibet, Cyprus, Western Sahara, Xinjiang,Irian Jaya, Kurdistan, Chechnya, Crimea, Hong Kong, Myanmar? Yet such pillars of freedom as Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Cuba, Iran, Mauretania, and China get to vote to condemn Israel in the Human Rights Council, where condemning Israel is the only permanent item on the agenda.
Fourth, lazy, sloppy, ill-informed, and sometimes biased press coverage tends to give us the chronic narrative of “it all started when Israel fired back”. Claims and figures from such as Hamas are simply stated as fact while Israeli response is always “Israel claimed”.
Don’t believe me? Pay closer attention when you watch or read the news.
@Narad – Hi Cheeky, almost missed your gift. “I’m impressed that NW totes missed the Alcoa “connection.” ” All you have is a smart-ass comment? Guess it’s better to be a smart ass than a dumb ass. Either way you’re still an ass but not a punk-ass bitch like you know who.
Here’s a gift for you. Been thinkin’ ’bout this movie a lot lately. Added some songs to my playlist. Love really is for sale, like everything else. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBQ0cbjFiPo
@ Natalie White
You write: “Joel, I’m not sure how much soy you are consuming, but you might want to lay off at least the raw soy. My father in law won’t touch it. He says it shrinks the testes and makes men grow boobies. You do seem to be more bitchy these days. Take it easy, okay? I can assure you, the sky is not falling at least not in my neck of the woods. Good day.”
First, I could care less about what your father-in-law thinks. As for testy, yep, when I pointed out you were wrong about the Taiwanese study, you ignored it. When I and others pointed out how you see the world in black and white, one short term CDC director and a bad test, all you need. When, I forget his name, someone was accused of something, you assumed guilty to proven innocent. And on and on it goes with vicious dishonest people like you and Christine. And I’m concerned because I have studied pandemics and worry that the worst is yet to come. If it doesn’t, that would be great; but if it does, I don’t expect you to post an apology, an admittance you were wrong.
As for Sweden not wearing masks, you are aware that they have the highest rate of deaths among the Scandinavian nations? As for CO2 buildup, gee, all those people working in hospitals, especially surgeries that last for many hours, must be reason no one survives surgeries??? I don’t like wearing a mask, it is uncomfortable and I certainly wouldn’t attempt jogging with one on, though I’ve seen joggers in my neighborhood wearing one. As for “breathing your waste.” First, when you exhale, it doesn’t vanish, so you do breath some back in and second, CO2 isn’t waste, it is a chemical in the air we breath. Just for fun, I walked briskly one time with mask on for entire mile with my dog, didn’t experience any decrease in energy or problem breathing. I did this at 5 am so no one else on street and didn’t wear glasses, so they didn’t fog up. I wear it when I go, for instance, to Costco, which entails waiting in line 1/2 hr to get in, then 15 minutes shopping, and another 15 minutes to get through cash register and back to my car, all in all about 1 hour.
And, yep, I am aware of CDC combining antibody tests and antigen tests. I don’t agree with it. However, not being done in all other nations and doesn’t diminish that the number of deaths over the seasonal baseline (a measure of deaths at same time of year for past five years) is far in excess. As for the antibody test, there are far more accurate ones being used and one that isn’t. But as I wrote and you ignored, even a good test requires contact tracing (something we are short of personnel) and, if positive, isolation for two weeks, again, not being done here. And dimwit, more and more is coming out on just how nasty the COVID-19 is. Just yesterday, read:
Lenny Bernstein et al. (2020 May 21). Pulmonary Vascular Endothelialitis, Thrombosis, and Angiogenesis in Covid-19. New England Journal of Medicine. Available at: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2015432?query=featured_home
And despite not mandating masks, I would love to move back to Sweden where I lived for 10 years. I only came home because my grandfather died and my family needed me. To some extent I sacrificed my happiness for my family and I don’t regret, just that once my mother passed away it was too late to move back to Sweden. And you forget that in Sweden even with COVID-19 they get top quality care and it doesn’t cost. Their murder rate is 1/5th that of U.S. and, though a nation of 8 million, over the past couple of decades they have taken in 900,000 refugees from Middle East and Africa. Far more humanitarian country than U.S.
And screw your “Good day.” I won’t have a good day as long as people are suffering and dying from COVID-19.
As I’ve written numerous times, I could be wrong and hope I am, as peoples well-being is more important to me than being right. However, if I am wrong, I base my position on over 40 years of studying epidemiology, microbiology, immunology, history and current status of infectious diseases and not relying on a few papers. Currently, I have downloaded over 500 papers on Corona viruses and SARS-COV- 2, read over 100 and skimmed the others and I’ve been reviewing history of pandemics. I’ve got a half dozen books and 100 articles on flu pandemic of 1918-19.
But you and Christine won’t even consider being wrong. That is the difference between scientists and idiots like you. In science, nothing is ever completely settled and a good scientist is always open to new knowledge, so, as I’ve written before, I don’t have g-d like certainty; but you and Christine do. If I’m wrong, I’d be delighted; but if you I doubt we’ll hear from you, just as you refuse to admit you were wrong about the Taiwanese study. Again, if I’m wrong, GREAT; but if you are wrong, not only you put yourself at risk; but others as well. I choose to err on the side of caution.
@ Terrie:
I wonder if support were available if she would even consider it?
If her son indeed has all of the problems she relates, hasn’t he already been seen by social services/ educational services which just might offer solutions and something for parents as well?
There are various free support groups for medical and mental conditions offered by municipalities, counties and hospitals. Some include education for families
HOWEVER if you know everything, how could anyone help you? Aren’t all of the experts wrong, insisting upon vaccines as being safe and autism as being prenatally determined?
Being an overly devoted parent can be an enticing role to be enacted instead of considering what is the best avenue for addressing ASDs. .
@ Denice,
Leave it to you to not recognize that we are in the middle of a pandemic, meaning none of us are getting the few services that had are available. No therapy, no respite, no district based services; nothing.
I am far more worried for my peers (other moms of severe-needs children) than I am for myself. We have been having a great time hiking every day & my son’s functioning has improved under the care of a Pediatric Immunologist. This almost didn’t happen … there was a cancellation & I was able to get him to the doctor (a drive to Denver) before everything closed & switched to telemed.
And you are wrong; there is no consensus that autism develops prenatally. There are studies that suggest it but there are studies that refute it as well.
@Christine, leave it to you to ignore that people responded to your complaints about parenting your son with recommendations to seek out services for a good year before anyone coined the term COVID 19.
Hey, I bet that mom of a CP child you were so bitter about would cry at the idea of taking her kid on a daily hike, instead of having to plan and call ahead anytime they want to go somewhere to make sure their kid isn’t going to be stuck sitting by the car. But, hey, it’s just “disability-lite.” (You never claimed you didn’t think that. Just that you shouldn’t have said it. Yeah, we noticed).
@ christine kincaid
You write: “And you are wrong; there is no consensus that autism develops prenatally. There are studies that suggest it but there are studies that refute it as well.”
Well, finally you actually admit that there are studies going both ways. Fair enough. So, you admit that you might not be right. That’s a major change for you. Only future research will give us more info; but, when it comes to vaccines, the evidence is overwhelming that they don’t contribute to autism. And, NO, doesn’t make sense that immune system would react to vaccines worse than to the vaccine-preventable diseases.
As for synaptic pruning, learning pruning doesn’t begin after 2; but starts early on, and, yes, continues past 2; but, again, no evidence worth talking about that vaccines affect cytokines differently than natural microbes and given that on a daily basis children are exposed to up to 3,000 microbes that their immune systems deal with, including eliciting cytokines, up to 3,000 full strength microbes, makes no sense what you “think.”
I suggest you actually listen to yourself, “There are studies that suggest it but there are studies that refute it as well” and maybe you will come off as a reasonable person???
@Denice, I think she’d turn down any services that don’t validate her views that autism is vaccine damage. It’s fascinating to me to compare how she talks about parenting her son with how younger autistic parents talk about parenting their autistic children. Christine is all about her own comfort, while they’re all about their children’s comfort. I know of at least one who would never think of taking her son to the grocery store. Not because, as I’m sure Christine would love to claim, it’s too hard or she want to “hide away” her son’s autism, but because grocery stores are sensory hell holes, and it would be cruel to take him there, when he’s still developing the needed coping skills to help him safely navigate such an environment.
Christine loves to talk about her son’s bad days, and how hard they are for her or the people around him if he lashes out, but I’ve rarely seen her talk about how hard those days are for her son. I think once she talked about how he tries to be good, but that’s it. To hear her talk about it, his moods and behaviors seem to come out of nowhere and she’s helpless to do anything about them. Maybe it’s different in her day to day life, but that’s the reality of how she talks here.
I’ll break my own rule and respond to her; ONCE
No one ever said that services had to be acquired NOW: you’ve been involved with treatment/ special ed/ doctors/ therapists etc for more than a decade. You’ve been carrying on at RI for a long time. No one offered assistance to you? Or advised you?
Yet you persist.
Show us sources that show that autism is NOT predominantly prenatal in origin
We’ll wait..
@ Denice,
To be clear I am referring to classic regressive autism. Not Dravets with autism, or Retts with Autism or Fragile X with autism, etc, etc,etc.
I tried to find what test can determine if a fetus is autistic but there are not any. There are studies that have found evidence to propose theories but none of them have led to anything definitive. The genes ‘associated’ with autism number in over 300 & plenty of children have those variants yet are not autistic.
What we DO know, is that none of the diagnostic features or neuroanatomical changes in the brain that ARE consistent with autism; are present at birth.
“Taken together, behavioral research indicates that the defining diagnostic features of autism are not present at 6 months of age, but begin to unfold in the second year of life and consolidate between 18 and 36 months.
One of the most consistent findings from early studies of brain development in ASD has been that head size is normal at birth, but by 2 to 3 years of age, brain size is significantly enlarged. For example, a retrospective head circumference and prospective brain imaging study found indirect evidence that brain enlargement was not present at birth but emerged at the end of the first and second year of life”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5789210/
Christine and Natalie need a flag to wave as they march through these threads.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10163692985390207&set=p.10163692985390207&type=3&theater
@ DB,
I understand that epidemiology cannot be used to prove causation, only correlation … Unless there is supporting etiological evidence.
Although vaccines have not shown to be correlated to SIDS & ASD; there is still NO scientific consensus as to the etiology, or cause; of both SIDS & ASD; that can support that lack of correlation & elevate it to a proof of a lack of causation.
Correlation, I have heard; does not equal causation. Your epidemiology cannot be used as PROOF that vaccines are not causing SIDS & ASD.
When a different etiology, other than vaccines, PROVES by consensus, what causes SIDS & ASD; you will have met that burden of proof.
But the etiology of SIDS & ASD has not been agreed upon yet, has it?
Prone sleeping is correlated with SIDS but it is not causation. Babies are still dying from SIDS on their backs.
Over 300 genetic variants are correlated with ASD but that’s not causation either. Some children have none or a few of those variants & regress into severe autism. Other children have many of those variants & will not be diagnosed with autism.
“We don’t know for sure yet what causes SIDS but we do know for sure it’s not the vaccines” … Is a counterintuitive thing to say. You can’t know for sure what is not causing something until you know for sure what is.
Your blindspot is so large that you wouldn’t see one of those 400 ton dump trucks if it parked on your living room.
“Doesn’t necessarily” equal causation.
Since there is no other evidence that vaccines and SIDS are related, it can be effectively ruled out as a cause.
The equivalence she’s drawing – and that I’ve also seen from antivaccine activist Dr. Lyons-Weiler – is incorrect.
Correlation is not enough to show causation, but it is a necessary condition in showing it. If there’s no correlation, you cannot, in fact, claim causation.
If eating ice cream correlated with more shark attacks, you can’t from that alone conclude that I’ve cream causes shark attacks. But you may ask the question (and conclude no). But if eating ice cream isn’t correlated with more shark attacks, you don’t even have a basis to ask the question.
@ Christine Kincaid
You write: “I understand that epidemiology cannot be used to prove causation, only correlation … Unless there is supporting etiological evidence. . . Correlation, I have heard; does not equal causation. Your epidemiology cannot be used as PROOF that vaccines are not causing SIDS & ASD.”
Wrong as usual. First, science doesn’t “prove” things, only confirms hypotheses. Proof is a term used for formal logic. What does it mean to confirm something? One creates an hypothesis, designs research, and gets a result. And when you write: “elevate it to a proof of a lack of causation.” What you are claiming is we can’t prove something doesn’t exist. Well, we have a law of gravity; but I can’t, by logic or formal science, prove that somewhere on the planet Earth due to some configuration of known or unknown cosmic forces that the law of gravity doesn’t work. You can’t scientifically ever prove a negative.
However, the phrase “correlation isn’t causation” only applies to simple bivariate correlations. An oft used example is correlation of higher birth rate in rural France with number of storks. If one designs an epidemiological study, for instance, a cohort study looking at kids vaccinated and not-vaccinated, then follows them, the result is not a “corrrelation”. If one then combines numerous epidemiological studies, with various designs, and on different populations, e.g., different nations, and they all find the same result, then one hasn’t “proved” it; but one has a high degree of confidence in the results.
Just more proof, yes PROOF, that you don’t understand what you are talking about. However, if you actually were to study the Philosophy of Science (basically how we decide something scientifically valid), you would understand that science does not give absolutes, that all criteria for deciding how to interpret a result are flawed; but combining several criteria gives us confidence; but not absolute confidence.
So, no we can NEVER prove the null that vaccines don’t cause SIDS and/or ASD; but we know that two new vaccines were added at the same time that SIDS plummeted and we know that SIDS occurs in an age range regardless of whether a child was recently vaccinated or not. And from history we can find cases of SIDS going back over 100 years. Few, because medical records weren’t kept. And as for ASD, the overwhelming research says no. But, since you are ABSOLUTELY certain vaccines caused your family problems, you are in the realm of theology, not science.
By the way, a linear regression analysis with y – depend variable and x – independent variable is just an algebraic transformation of a bivariate correlation. So, it depends on how one designs the study; but the math is essentially the same. And for a multivariate linear regression, just an algebraic transformation of a partial correlation. In other words, it is the design of the study that determines if seen as a correlation or “causal” analysis.
Bottom line, what you choose to believe, what you think, is not science, is nothing more than your biased unscientific, illogical need to see the world in black and white, to have some sort of certainty. Well, “certainty” is something religions offer, not science; but, I repeat, first one cannot ever prove the null hypothesis, prove a negative; but epidemiological designs/studies, when more and more are done, do provide a high degree, not absolute, certainty.
And you write: ““We don’t know for sure yet what causes SIDS but we do know for sure it’s not the vaccines” … Is a counterintuitive thing to say. You can’t know for sure what is not causing something until you know for sure what is.”
No, we don’t know “for sure”; but with a high degree of confidence. If we used your approach, we would be not only sheltering in place physically; but mentally as well. We do know with a high degree of certainty, not absolute, that vaccines save lives, prevent suffering and disability. Just look at history of smallpox, polio, rubella, measles, etc. And we know, not with absolute certainty, that the risk of severe adverse events from vaccines, while real, is minuscule compared to their benefits. And since one can’t know in advance which child will suffer from a severe adverse events and also if the diseases was rampant that the same child would not suffer from the disease, any rational person, looking at what we know would opt for vaccines. Smallpox killed 30% or more, the vaccine 1 or 2 per million. So, if smallpox was to breakout today, widespread, good chance, since no current treatment, U.S. could lose up to 100 million people and many more blinded. If we vaccinated everyone, risk of up to 600 deaths. 100 million vs 600 and many of those 600 would have died from the disease.
And I repeat for umpteenth time, you don’t even understand immunology. I suggested a good starting book.
If you really want to understand why science doesn’t deal in absolutes and why we have criteria for determining causality, not in absolute terms, but to make decisions, I suggest (note I took THREE graduate level courses in Philosophy of Science and own many more books and articles than below):
Merwyn Susser (1973). Causal Thinking in the Health Sciences: Concepts and Strategies in Epidemiology. [my favorites book. used copies available at amazon.com and many university libraries have it]
Kenneth J Rothman and Sander Greenland 1998). Chapter 2: Causation and Causal Inference (pages 7 – 28) in Modern Epidemiology (Second Edition). {short but excellent chapter in excellent book]
David J. Hand (2014). The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day. [explains and gives many examples of how things we think are rare, e.g. lightening striking twice in same place, aren’t, fun book to read]
Christopher P. Toumey (1996). Conjuring Science: Scientific Symbols and Cultural Meanings in American Life. [explains how people use scientific terms without understanding what they really mean, fascinating short book]
Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, Amos Tversky (1982). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases.
Donald Campbell (1988). Methodology and Epistemiology for Social Sciences: Selected Papers.
I also suggest you learn about Logical Fallacies:
Wikipedia: List of fallacies
Wikipedia: Post hoc ergo prompter hoc
Also websites:
The Skeptic’s Dictionary at: http://www.skepdic.com
Logically Fallacious at: https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/search
@ Natalie White
You write: “@Joel – Would be nice to trust the “experts” like Neil Ferguson and his mega-inflated numbers. And then your beloved CDC does this: https://www.livescience.com/cdc-combined-covid-19-diagnostic-and-antibody-tests.html Who is running the show over there? They be runnin’ ’round like chickens with their heads cut off or maybe more like chicken little, “The sky is falling….. again”. LOL!”
So, let’s look at the article you linked to:
According to the article: “The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and several state health departments have been reporting COVID-19 diagnostic tests and antibody tests as one grand tally, rather than keeping their results separate . . . Namely, combining the numbers could make America’s diagnostic testing capabilities and testing rates appear higher than they actually are . . . Reporting all the positive results together, as one number, could skew our understanding of how many new COVID-19 cases emerge over time — a crucial metric to help control outbreaks as states begin reopening . . . Combining these two signals makes the data difficult to interpret and could be misleading to the public.
You have made it clear that you believe the risk, e.g., deaths, from COVID-19 is exaggerated. So you don’t understand that combining the diagnostic tests and antibody tests actually helps your case.
Let me just make up some numbers as an example.
Imagine a community with 100,000 residents. During two months of COVID-19, 500 die. Now imagine that diagnostic tests find 20,000 infected, so, one could use this as a denominator and compute 500/20,000, 2.5% deaths. However, what if also found that another 20,000 had antibodies, combined 40,000, so 500/40,000 and, voila, the case fatality rate is 1.25%. This isn’t exactly how the stats used; but gives an analogy.
On the other hand, as the article explains, by combining the two, we don’t really know if the virus is increasing, stable, or decreasing. Though it would be best to separate the two, the question is, what percentage of the total is from antibody tests? My guess, given they are more expensive and time-consuming, that they contribute a smaller percentage to the total.
In any case, combining does tell us the total at any one time who were or are infected. Which gives an indication how contagious the virus is.
So, the combined number minimally indicates the virus not as deadly. Though numerous studies, e.g., clots in small blood vessels, damage to heart and other internal organs finds it more dangerous than flu. And as I’ve previously pointed out, most believe deaths underreported. I realize that you and others could care less if someone, especially a senior with comorbidities dies; but they might have lived several years or more and for their loved ones, wives, siblings, friends, children, grandchildren, friends, life is precious and no matter how much time we have with loved ones, it is never enough. So, if the virus just shortens that time, for many of us, that is horribly undesirable. I’m sure not for you and your ilk.
So, you go from what is probably, given antibody tests smaller percentage of total, to your typical hysterical grossly exaggerated black and white outlook on world. And, miss that it actually slightly reduces one way of looking at case-fatality rates, which is what you want, that virus not as deadly.
And, if I’m right, though I agree they should not combine, if I’m right that antibody tests smaller percentage of total, then, though flawed, still gives reasonable indication of whether virus in a community is increasing, stable, or decreasing.
Though I’m NOT a genius like you, the CDC has said it will in a short time separate the two. So, we’ll see just what percentage is testing and what percentage is antibody labs. In either case, even if turns out 50-50, still means virus out there and people at risk. Of course, as you’ve made absolutely clear, you could care less if you spread the virus to others. While I choose to air on the side of caution.
I intend Monday to phone blood bank to see if they will allow me to donate. If so, I will be placing myself at a minimal risk, both at Blood Bank and for a couple of days after as my immune cells will be slightly diminished. They say that one donation can save up to 3 lives, so I will take the risk, my life vs 3. Difference between me and you. I’ll let you know if they allow me to donate next week or I will phone every week until they do.
@ Lawrence,
“Since there is no other evidence that vaccines and SIDS are related, it can be effectively ruled out as a cause”.
But there is evidence. Thousands of claims from parents may be anecdotal but this means the anecdotal evidence continues to defy the epidemiology. A consensus achieved as to a cause that is not related to vaccines is the only way to rule out vaccines, in light of the anecdotal evidence.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of epidemiology. Anecdotal reports do not mean causation; it’s the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. The only way one can find a potential indication for causality is to do the proper epidemiology to see if there is a detectable association between vaccination and SIDS. There isn’t. The studies have been done. In fact, if anything, the studies suggest that vaccination might be protective against SIDS.
@ Orac,
Thanks for your reply. I did not mean to state that anecdotes equal causation, only that anecdotal evidence should be counted as a complement to formal research evidence.
Since the anecdotal reports continue to defy the epidemiology, wouldn’t that call into question if the epidemiology, has indeed, been conducted ‘properly’?
Yet that question has yet to be entertained & I’m sorry, I know I sound like a broken record; but we do not have pre & post vaccination cytokine profiles done on babies who succumb to SIDS.
According to this study: “Cytokines modify neuronal function. Dysfunction in vital centers is reported in sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The authors detected high neuronal interleukin (IL)-1beta immunoreactivity in the arcuate and dorsal vagal nuclei in SIDS.”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14610131/
And IL-1 is one of the cytokines vaccines are KNOWN to cause activation of. Hold that epidemiology … Baseline, pre-vaccination cytokine profiles seem to be what is actually needed.
If those profiles were determined to be abnormal before vaccination, then it might be considered that vaccines were not causative for that SIDS death but maybe an underlying pre-existing condition was to blame. A condition unrelated to the vaccine.
Lots of people claiming the world is flat isn’t evidence either.
@ Dorit,
I only learned of Dr. Lyons-Weiler this year & have watched exactly one of his video presentations. It was regarding COVID. I am not aware of his statements regarding SIDS.
“But if eating ice cream isn’t correlated with more shark attacks, you don’t even have a basis to ask the question.”
No, you don’t have to ask the question because there is a known cause for shark attacks. Sharks attack humans because they are carnivores & humans are meat. The known cause would support the lack of correlation.
A. You missed the point. If there’s no correlation, there’s no basis to claim causation. It negates a link.
B. Your example is also wrong. Sharks are carnivores, but humans are not their natural prey. I’m fact, shark attacks on humans are rare. So there is a question: what cause sharks to attack humans when it does happen?
Not all things correlated with shark attacks will be relevant answers. Things that are not correlated, however, are not even in the running, you don’t even have to consider plausibility.
Bullshit….most shark attacks are sharks mistaking humans for other prey.
<
blockquote>Sharks attack humans because they are carnivores & humans are meat.
And yet, few humans end up inside sharks after such attacks* (and the ones that do are in there thinking “did I leave the stove on?” or “screw thySelf, I’m still not going to Niniva!”). Sharks mostly** ‘attack’ humans because they are looking/acting like seals (sheeple of the sea) and then move on when they get a whiff of all the neoprene and copper tan.
Some sharks do go into a frenzy when Chad goes swimming out to the second bar with his girlfriend who is menstrating. Dolphins sometimes come to the rescue and scare the sharks away by yelling at them.
*Sure, some might be left floating a bit funny after the attack, let us call them Bob, but the lower half is usually still spit out by the shark as it is yucky to them.
**Then there are bull sharks. They do it for the sport, like cats, but usually don’t clean their plate either.
@ christine kincaid
You write: “anecdotal evidence should be counted as a complement to formal research evidence. Since the anecdotal reports continue to defy the epidemiology, wouldn’t that call into question if the epidemiology, has indeed, been conducted ‘properly’?”
Not even close. The epidemiological evidence goes back decades and has been reviewed/critiqued replicated. Maybe if one or two small studies in the beginning contradicted anecdotal evidence, maybe, but not likely, then would call for more studies; but the more studies have happened. You call epidemiology “junk” without even the basic understanding of epidemiological methods and, as I explained above and gave a list of readings, a basic understanding of how one draws “causal” conclusions. You don’t even understand that one can’t prove a negative.
Though a poor analogy, overwhelming evidence, including genetics has found NO differences between so-called races, an artificial construct, in range of IQs and abilities and morals, e.g., criminality. All can be explained by environment, social economic factors, education, prenatal and postnatal care, etc. Yet, we still have rabid racists in the United States. Far too many, some in positions of power. And despite overwhelming evidence that, for instance, Moslems in the United States are decent good honest citizens, we still have many who are anti-Moslem. The fact that some aren’t good, one can find same of any group. Prior to 9/11 worse terrorist deed was Oklahoma City 1995. Perpetrators were white Christian Americans, not Moslems and the overwhelming vast majority of mass murders are committed by White Christians in U.S.; so, should we believe that White Christians are terrorists/mass murderers? Linking two factors, ethnic group or religion and murder is no better than linking vaccines and ASD. In a world of billions of people, odds are that two variables will happen together is quite large; but kids die from SIDS without being vaccinated, as I wrote, even recorded hundred years ago and further back and kids develop ASD. What you and your moronic ilk don’t understand is that the definition of ASD has changed, the awareness, funding, etc has changed and, though not a perfect negative correlation, as the cases of ASD has gone up, the cases of mental retardation have gone down and even further back, what was once called childhood schizophrenia is often now ASD. And Aspergers wasn’t even added until 1994; but men in their 60s and 70s then found out they had Asbergers. Since you already said your are absolutely positive your kids problems stem from vaccines, nothing will ever change your mind, you will just keep repeating variants on the same theme.
You don’t sound like a broken record, you sound like someone who has made up their minds, ignores what others write, ignores referred to literature, and just sticks to your rigid belief system. All that anecdotal evidence can do is, if it even makes any sense, lead to development of hypotheses and research; but, I repeat, already done. And the fact that we don’t know for certain the causes, yep, causes for ASD (not one disorder but a collection of related but distinctly different disorders that could easily have different causes, or SIDS), the research clearly shows what doesn’t cause it,
By the way, there are, and not just one or two, families who believe their child’s ASD was caused by being possessed and have actually tried exorcisms. Sounds like a reasonable explanation to me?? And you keep ignoring post hoc ergo prompter hoc.
Read what I wrote above, get the book on immunology and read some of my other suggested readings and shut up. You sound like a mental patient who is certain he is Jesus Christ or someone else and even if one held up a picture and looked in the mirror, seeing don’t look alike, wouldn’t change belief.
@ christine kincaid
You write: “And IL-1 is one of the cytokines vaccines are KNOWN to cause activation of. Hold that epidemiology … Baseline, pre-vaccination cytokine profiles seem to be what is actually needed.”
I’ve already commented that kids are exposed to up to 3,000 potentially harmful microbes on a daily basis which the immune system deals with, so why would one or a few killed and/or severely weakened microbes cause a IL-1 to act any differently. Makes no sense except in your sick mind.
As for baseline, pre-vaccination profile, it would fluctuate almost constantly as each kid is being exposed to different microbes, so we might do the profile just as their immune system was successfully dealing with some microbes without even any symptoms. It would also cost a fortune. You continue to show ABSOLUTE IGNORANCE of how our immune systems work and, thus, how vaccines work. I have given oversimplified explanations in the past; but you ignore them.
So, it isn’t you are wrong that angers me; but that you are either incredibly stupid and/or dishonest in that you refuse to even consider what people write and just keep on going.
By the way, I guess you haven’t seen what I wrote about your stupid comment on Type O blood and plasmodium falciparum? Just another example of you commenting out of ignorance.
@ Old Rockin Dave
Reading your replies to Julian Frost, you either didn’t read what I wrote or dishonestly ignore it. See: Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPHsays:
May 22, 2020 at 11:04 am
The UN partitioned Palestine, giving Jews part of it and the Palestinians another part. The fact that Jordan occupied the Palestinian part doesn’t change the fact that it belonged to them by international law. Theodore Moron was the top expert in Israel foreign ministry during the 6 Day War. In a secret memo that has come to light, he wrote:
From the point of view of international law, the key provision is the one that appears in
the last paragraph of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Israel, of course, is a party to
this Convention. The paragraph stipulates as follows:
“The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population
into the territory it occupies”.
He goes on in more detail. It is fascinating how Israel owes its existence to the UN; but ignores anything from the UN that doesn’t fit it, even international accords which it has agreed to. As for Jews again will be murdered. They are European intruders, they caused the Palestinian refugee problem, they initiated the 6 Day War. Yep, Nasser did some provocative moves; but many experts believe the Israelis used it as an excuse. And, by the way, there was a temporary truce that the Israelis broke in moving troops towards the Golan Heights. There was an American spy ship, The USS Liberty, in international waters, clearly flying a large American flag. The Israelis were afraid their troop movements during the truce would be detected, so Israeli war planes and attack helicopters sank the USS Liberty. I repeat it was in international waters, clearly flying an American flag. When attacked the USS Liberty contacted the nearby American fleet and fighter planes were launched to go to its defense; but Washington ordered the planes return to the carrier. Even worse, American sailors in the water in life vests were machine gunned by Israeli helicopters, a clear war crime. Israel later claimed they thought it was an Egyptian ship. Its profile didn’t even look close to any Egyptian ship and, again, it has clearly a large American flag displayed. Why did Washington order the recall of American warplanes going to the defense of an American ship? And, again, it was a war crime to machine gun men in the water. Years ago I met several survivors of the USS Liberty and read two different books.
I grew up knowing Holocaust victims. When young my parents would have barbecues and I noticed numbers of some forearms. I asked my parents and they try to explain. Later, living in Sweden for 10 years, there was a small Jewish community, most sole survivors of the Holocaust, several adopted me as a young Jewish student. I always had a home to go to for seder, etc. I have read many books and articles on the Holocaust, seen almost all documentaries, and have suffered nightmares off and on my entire life. And I lived in Israel fo six months. But the Holocaust doesn’t justify by any means what Jews are doing to the Palestinians. I don’t like religion fanatics, including Islamic Jihad, Hamas, etc.; but feel equally about ultra-Orthodox Jews. Perhaps you don’t remember how Baruch Goldstein went into a mosque and murdered dozens of Palestinians while they were praying. He was finally beaten to death and his gravesite was visited often by Jews in his honor. Yep, honor a man who kills unarmed people at prayer.
As I wrote in my previous comment, for every innocent civilian killed by Palestinians, Israelis Jews have killed 100 or more Palestinians, including children.
Read the document on how Jews are supposed to treat non-Jews. Israel is not a Jewish state; but a betrayal of the Covenant.
And I would be happy to supply you with more readings.
For instance, Folke Bernadotte, a Swedish nobel man, risked his life during the end months of World War II, to go to Berlin and negotiate the release of over 1,000 Jews which he transported by bus with a huge red cross on its roof. I met some of the Jews he saved. He was asked by the UN to go as a mediator to Israel in 1948. He refused body guards because he had made it clear he would seek a just peace and when in Jewish territory he felt safe since they knew he had risked his life to save Jews. There was a young Jewish French lieutenant riding with him in the front seat. The car stopped so he could go into the back seat and thank Bernadotte for saving his wife’s life. Just then Israelis walked up to the car and killed Bernadotte and the Jewish French lieutenant. They had been order to do this by their leader, Menachem Begin who didn’t want a peaceful settlement; but all of Palestine. Read Kati Marton (1994). A Death in Jerusalem: The Assassination by Jewish Extremists of the First Arab/Israeli Peacemaker. Keep in mind that this Jewish “Extremist” became Prime Minister of Israel. In fact, three of Israel’s Prime Ministers were TERRORISTS, Begin, Shamir, and Sharon. As a young lieutenant, Ariel Sharon crossed into Jordan looking for terrorists. He found none, came to a village, no terrorists and massacred every man, woman, and child.
During the 1948 war there was a kibbutz in the Negev. For decades they had had excellent relationships with nearby Bedouin village, attended each others weddings, kids played together, etc. When irregular Arab armies were approaching, the Bedouins hid the entire kibbutzniks in their village. Had they been discovered, they would have lost their lives. After the war, the new state of Israel decided no arabs in the Negev as they posed a “security risk”, so they ordered the removal of the Bedouins. The kibbutzniks protested, how could people who had been their friends for decades, who risked their lives be a security risk; but to no avail. The Bedouins were forcibly removed, not given land elsewhere.
Three other books out of my collection of probably 30 or more, plus 100s of articles:
Benny Morris (1987) The birth of the Palestinian refugee problem, 1947-1949. Due to threats and pressure, even though he was already Likud, he wrote a revised version, read the original.
Tom Segev (1999). One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate.
Shlomo Sand’s “The Invention of the State of Israel” He makes a compelling case that most of Jewish history did not emphasize being a physical nation.
The Holocaust DOES NOT JUSTIFY HOW ISRAELI JEWS TREATED AND ARE TREATING PALESTINIANS. Read also Shlomo Sand’s “The Invention of the State of Israel” He makes a compelling case that most of Jewish history did not emphasize being a physical nation.
Your defense of Israel is no better than neo-Nazis who defend Hitler. Hitler was an evil racist and the State of Israel is a racist state. What’s more, its beginning, though never lived up to, claimed all would be treated equally. Now, 70 years later, Netanyahu has removed even this pretense. So, in this respect, though he is an evil man, Israel is finally being honest, a racist state, and NOT A JEWISH STATE IF JEWISH MEANS HONORING THE COVENANT.
@ Joel,
I am still learning but I agree with everything you wrote there.
I was totally clueless until I ‘met’ Dr Ahmed Shahen on social media last year. He is Palestinian. He sent me links regarding the Balfour Declaration. Very interesting.
Since the anecdotal reports continue to defy the epidemiology, wouldn’t that call into question if the epidemiology, has indeed, been conducted ‘properly’?
Not in the slightest. I’m not sure you understand one of the basic principles of science. It’s very easy to fool yourself. Science does not exist to validate your perceptions, but to test them. Human brains are designed to see things that might be there, because running away from what might be a tiger, even if it turns out to be just an odd pattern of light, is much better for survival than not doing anything until you’re sure it’s a tiger, and you know it because it’s chewing on your leg. We have testing methods that help us determine “Are there really tigers or are we running away from light?” What you’re doing after we’ve shown that most “tigers” are just odd patterns of light is yelling “But people are reporting seeing tigers, so there must be tigers! How can you say tigers don’t exist?”
CK: “Since the anecdotal reports continue to defy the epidemiology, wouldn’t that call into question if the epidemiology, has indeed, been conducted ‘properly’?”
There are tons of anecdotal reports that EMFs have made people seriously ill, and that chemtrails have done the same thing. Do you think those people have debunked the epidemiology (not to mention successfully defying the lack of any rational basis for their beliefs)?
You must believe in the horrors of chemtrails, otherwise you’re denying the validity of their experiences. For shame.
Once again – there are online courses aimed at developing one’s critical thinking capacity. You should take one. Or several.
@Christine KIncaid
The name of the paper you referred was “Distinct Cytokine Profile in SIDS Brain: A Common Denominator in a Multifactorial Syndrome?”
So authors were speculating and considered SIDS multifactorial. They wrote about vagus which a different thing than brainstem.
Joel sounds like a broken record because you are one . Every pathogen attack will cause IL 1 release, because it is a part of activation of the immune system. I would agree that you should read an immunology textbook.
@ Aarno,
Yes many pathogens cause IL-1 release & are encountered on a daily basis. So we should have a baseline of normal, day to day cytokine profiles.
Are vaccine’s causing an abnormal increase, is what I want to know. As in within 36 hours, as related to SIDS.
That should be easy enough. Hop to designing how to get it done and somehow make use of the findings.
@ christine kincaid
You get stupider by the day. Cytokines will fluctuate numerous times during the day as a kid’s immune system deals with various microbes. And also from day to day. So, what do you propose, doing blood tests on infants 5 – 6 times a day for several weeks? How many parents do you know who would volunteer their infants to such a study? And how many infants would be needed to ensure getting a representative sample of infants? And, once again, there is no biological or even logical reason that a vaccine should have any different effect on cytokines than all the normal microbes that an infant is being exposed to. You just keep fantasizing to fill your sick need to blame vaccines.
You need psychiatric help? Really, I’m not joking.
@Christine, you are very wide of the mark with your correlation-causation remarks.
There are three types of correlation-causation mistakes made. The first is to assume that A causes B, when in reality B causes A. The second is to assume that A causes B, when in reality some other factor C is causing both A and B. And the third is to assume that two randomly correlated things have a causation. The website “Spurious Correlations” has dozens of examples.
I don’t know if Dorit chose her example deliberately, but there is actually a correlation between ice cream consumption and shark attacks. In summer, there is more swimming (and thus more shark attacks) and more ice cream eaten, but the causation here is summer, not the ice cream or the shark attacks.
How is this germane? Well, all the evidence so far points to the correlation between MMR vaccination and autism to be temporally based. All the evidence so far says MMR is not a cause of autism, just that the symptoms of autism become recognisable around the time the MMR is administered.
You also wrote:
Well, people HAVE pursued the evidence. Multiple studies looking at whether vaccines cause autism have been done. Enough for a meta-analysis of over 14 million subjects. The result? No correlation.
There comes a point where absence of evidence HAS to be taken as evidence of absence. And when it comes to MMR and autism, we have reached that point. I understand you want answers, but you will not find them chasing the “vaccines cause autism” phantom.
@ Julian,
I’m actually not thinking that the MMR is the problem & that is the vaccine the ASD studies focus on.
I think it has been blamed due to unfortunate timing on the schedule with when symptoms emerge. I think the dtap is the problem, as well as that the 4th dtap is being given many times concurrent with the 1st MMR (in the US at least)
@Christine:
I went to Google Scholar and searched “dtap vaccines and autism”. Over 2000 hits. Some were by the Geiers, but one from August 2013.
Your hypothesis fails. Please stop moving the goalposts.
@ christine kincaid
You “think”. Yikes. And when the overwhelming evidence is against MMR and Dtap, just list all the vaccines. When you run out of them, start over with MMR. You will NEVER understand the basics, e.g., can’t prove a negative, Post Hoc Ergo Prompter Hoc, etc. At least get the book: Lauren Sompayrac. “How the Immune System Works (6th Edition). And read it slowly and carefully. Maybe, just may, but I doubt it, you might learn something.
@ Christine Kincaid
Someone found a correlation between increase in cell phone use and ASD. Someone else found a correlation between increase eating of organic foods and ASD. I could go on. And, I have explained and you ignore that you can’t prove a negative, so, no matter how many studies show no relationship, one can’t “prove” there isn’t one. Science just doesn’t work that way. And everyone responding to Christine, it is a waste of time as you already stated she is absolutely certain she is right. And Julian, your explanation of various correlations is correct; but as I explained above, correlations are just algebraic transformations of linear regression equations, so, it is how the study is designed that determines if one simply has a correlation or not. If one designs the study properly with y dependent variable and x independent variable then one can discuss “causation”.
@ Terrie:
You’re right: she can’t benefit from education for emotional reasons. So many of us have presented research or material that shows how unlikely a scenario her views are, she only persists or finds a new wrinkle
…..( Autism isn’t initiated after birth although it may show up then: it is set up, programmed, if you will, much earlier. A person is never born being 6′ tall but the blue print for that stature is present prior to birth genetically although it may be somewhat malleable by environmental events pre and postnatally. Similarly, conditions like Schizophrenia have a strong genetic component which can be affected by prenatal events further even though
symptoms may not be seen until a person is a young adult although perhaps precursors may be observed earlier. No one suddenly gets Schizophrenia at age 18 like a bad cold. With autism, we also find genetics and influences from maternal infection, use of meds like valproic acid and lower levels of particular vitamins, for mothers who are overweight or live in areas with air pollution, as well as mothers who have immunological conditions. .In addition, early indicators of autism can be observed in infants such as gaze and other actions that are discernible such as movement patterns seen in videos. ( see Cedillo) We know that the brain develops areas that are implicated in autism before birth although development continues beyond. Researchers like Courchesne have been studying this for over 30 years and other researchers now can even separate types of such as Asperger’s from more severe forms based on interfacial proportions so subtle computer analysis is necessary: the face and brain develop in tandem.)…..
All of this has been catalogued and pointed out here repeatedly.
NO ONE with a reasonable background in medicine, psychology or education buys into the vaccines-autism belief system because it has been invalidated on multiple fronts such as lack of association of vaccines and autism and all of the many topics I mentioned.
A few years ago, I tried to talk sense to Jake, like CK, he knew better. That hasn’t worked out so well for him has it? I won’t waste my time on her because as Orac says, debating cranks makes them think they’re on the same level as we are. I DO however write for fellow/ sister minions as well as for lurkers and know that most of us like you, Joel, Julia, Dorit and others do the same.
Some people are beyond help.
Yep, I don’t want anyone falling for her “woo is me” narcissistic narrative. It’s not good for her. It’s not good for her son. It’s not good for other autistic people. It’s not good for neurotypical people. It’s not good for people with other types of disabilities. The only things to benefit are her martyr complex and the pocketbooks of the quacks and predatory labs she seeks out to validate her views.
@ Terrie & @ Denice,
Aww; you are both so mean ?
@Christine, Hey, we’re not the ones who have been dismissive of children who have died from VPDs, or the struggles of anyone dealing with disabilities that aren’t “severe autism” including terminal conditions. We’re not the ones who have portrayed your son as a potential killer, who is a burden on his mother, and has no relationship with his siblings or father or extended family or community. And if you don’t like that image, maybe you should reconsider how you talk about your kid or other people.
A chilling warning from an Arizona naturopath:
“The new vaccine will also contain nanochip powders, particles or gel based technology that merges with your DNA. Not a “chip” you could easily cut out. The merging of human and AI. There are patents about how this works and binds to your DNA. It will be complete control. It can override your DNA, manipulate and control it. Like the loss of free will, self control and loss of spirit/soul. It is also compatible with 5G technology for screening and monitoring. Gates also has a patent for digital currency in conjunction with the AI technology that will be in the human body. This is an agenda for total human control.”
‘This isn’t sitting so well with me. How ya’ll feel?’
http://facebook.com/shanna.bayrd
Itchy. And they ride up in the crotch.
https://youtu.be/XBNwPNS9XCQ?t=58
@ Dangerous Bacon
Simple solution, wear tin foil under your hat. ?
Sometimes I don’t know whether to just burst out laughing or in tears at the utter insanity of some people; but, what is more frightening is not what one or a few people put on blogs; but just how many others believe it., including, sometimes, the most powerful man/idiot in the world, our President.
How is the digital currency involved, I’m intrigued. Maybe now we’ll really know how much a human could fetch, by the pound.
A tag in question would be RFID tag. It is one a shop assistant removes from clothes after you have paid. It is to big to be injected and does certainly not combine with DNA.
I do not doubt that Bayrd could be that stupid (if one thinks that homeopathy works …), but she may be drumming conspiracy theory business.
@ Terrie,
You mean this kid of mine who is so loved by his community & siblings, paras, therapists & teachers? You seem so bitter. And lonely.
@Christine, Again, our impression of your son is nothing more than a reflection of how you speak of him. We’ve never met the kid. So if it’s inaccurate, whose fault is that? You’ve mentioned in the past that you believe he might be hyperlexic. I really hope you’re wrong, because that would mean he could read and understand what you’ve written about him here. No kid should discover his mom is talking about him like he’s a burden she’d rather someone else have to deal with.
@ Terrie,
And honestly, I’m not here to talk about my autistic son or my daughter who died within 24 hours of a vaccine.
I’m here to learn about COVID & to hear the criticism of my thoughts on vaccines, SIDS & ASD. Even the most snarky, condescending replies, if they are science based, are informative. If you want to resort to personal attacks at least talk some science at the same time.
For example, Joel insults me constantly but I appreciate that he provides so many sources to refute me at the same time. It might seem like I don’t listen but I am.
@ Christine Kincaid
You write: “For example, Joel insults me constantly but I appreciate that he provides so many sources to refute me at the same time. It might seem like I don’t listen but I am.”
I started to insult you because I got no indication you paid attention to what I wrote. You just keep repeating yourself. You don’t seem to understand Post Hoc Ergo Prompter Hoc or that one can’t prove a negative. Post Hoc Ergo Prompter Hoc – “your daughter died 24 within 24 hours of a vaccine.” So, you said you are “absolutely” certain the vaccine caused her death. Unfortunately, tragically kids die, so, your daughter may have died, without any warning, without the vaccine. Or, in a very rare, extremely rare situation, she may have had a genetic defect so that anything, not just a vaccine, but mild food poisoning, a cold, a minor bacterial infection, anything could have killed her. In any case, since your are “absolutely” sure, nothing will even get you to consider other alternatives. As for SIDS, ASD, etc. I’ve explained and you ignore that no matter how many research studies carried out, one can NEVER “prove” no relationship and so, regardless of how many studies, you will NEVER accept them, thus, you live in a fantasy world, devoid of any reality testing.
And I explained that it would be almost impossible to do a cytokine analysis on individual kids. One would have to take blood samples several times daily for several weeks as they would fluctuate. How many parents would allow this? In addition, there is no medical reason that the innate immune system would react differently to a vaccine than a live full strength microbe which kids are exposed to up to 3,000 daily. Nope, not the adjuvants either. Get the book by Lauren Sompayrac “How the Immune System Works (6th Ed). You just keep grasping on straws because you want to blame vaccines. I wonder who you would have blamed if vaccines didn’t exist and your kid died or became handicapped from one of the many childhood diseases than vaccines prevent? Or, how about congenital rubella syndrome?
So, yep, I insult you because you are incapable of even accepting that you could be wrong, knowing that you are absolutely right, which is not what any mere human is capable of, you just keep repeating yourself, or come up with variants, basically the same thing.
And I commented on your comment of Type O blood and plasmodium falciparum; but no response. Your comment was meaningless. I could also recommend a half dozen books on history of malaria. I have well over 100 books on histories of various infectious diseases, e.g., smallpox, plague, malaria, measles, yellow fever, cholera, tuberculosis, etc.
Actually, your daughter died because you stopped her external oxygen supply. This should be obvious to everybody
@ Aarno,
What? Are you saying …Really? I wasn’t co-sleeping & my daughter was both placed on & then found on; her back. Why would you say such a thing?
I think he’s referring to this:
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2017/06/02/how-stigmatized-are-undervaccinated-children-and-their-parents/#comment-12138
“in 1994 my 5th child & that time my only daughter passed away in her sleep at the age of 3 months & 26 days. I was the one who found her. I tried so hard to revive her; it took 4 grown men to pull her out of my arms because I just could not stop trying to do CPR. When I followed the ambulance to the ER & the doctor walked out, looked at me & said “I’m sorry …” I heard a girl screaming & didn’t even realize it was me.
The following days (months) were a blur; some sort of traumatic amnesia took hold but twice, BOTH of the Grandmothers asked me “Didn’t they get their shots that day?”
I remember actually feeling very offended that they asked this. There were SO many other factors potentially at play: PROM at 24 weeks followed by 6 weeks inpatient, premature c-sec for Chorioamnionitis (30weeks) followed by 2 months in NICU then discharged home on O2. In fact, that very day her O2 had been D/C’d & that’s what had been nagging at me. Not the immunizations. I remember biting my tounge & answering “Yes, they did but this was SIDS”.
”Even the most snarky, condescending replies, if they are science based, are informative.”
And yet not a single informative, evidence-based response seems to have had the slightest impact on your knowledge base and beliefs. You just keep repeating the same glurge.
Complaints about insults and condescension* are odd coming from someone who just sniped at another poster for being “bitter” and “lonely”.
*another classic in this genre involves telling someone who disagrees with you that they need a “hug”.
Not only that, but she did so in response to my repeating her own narrative back to her. I think we can safely say self-awareness is not her strength. Though, she’s right. Her words do sound bitter and lonely. It would be funny if it weren’t for the fact that’s she’s exploiting her kid for her misery porn.
I posed this question/comment to her back in January and got no reply.
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2020/01/30/coronavirus-flu-vaccine/#comment-428401
I saw I asked a couple questions of Natalie also with no reply.
@ Squirrelelite,
I’m assuming you mean this:
“For instance, you said “I know vaccines are dangerous.” That is only your
opinion unless backed up by evidence. So please quantify how dangerous they
are in terms of risk per so many doses of what serious effect from the vaccine.
Then provide a published study that supports that conclusion.”
… because the link actually took me to an exchange with MJD about ‘being human’.
I can only answer that the evidence based on the research that has been funded & published; does not support my claim.
@christine,
Good to hear from you.
I hope your son and the rest of your family had a good weekend and are doing well.
And thanks for your acknowledgement. I try to look at data both pro and con and make the best decision I can based on them. I’ve spent a lot of time picking over Aaby’s studies, for instance.
Today I picked up an elderly cousin of mine and drove her to her house to get her mail. We both wore masks and I explained the limited protection provided by masks. But we both wore them to protect her and potentially the other people living in her apartment building. The relative advantage of a mask is small but every little bit helps with a disease like Covid-19. She will now be in a two week quarantine.
Here is my full comment:
FWIW, two months later as of March 31, there were 1990 hospitalizations for influenza in Dallas County for the entire flu season (9/18/19-3/21/20) with a few more weeks yet to come.There were 19 deaths.That was for about 27 weeks.
JHU reports 8998 cases of Covid-19 and 211 deaths as of May 21. That works out to a 2.3% CFR for confirmed cases.
So, the odds already show that getting the influenza vaccine is much safer than getting the flu. And Covid-19 is a much more dangerous disease than influenza. Although senior citizens like my cousin are most at risk, a high school senior girl from near where I live was one of the ones who died from it.
And if an approved Covid-19 vaccine is equivalent in safety to the recent flu vaccines, I would have no hesitation in getting it for myself and my wfe.
@ Dorit,
Thank you for the clarification.
The Arizona naturopath who declared that a Covid-19 vaccine will merge with your DNA as part of an “agenda for total human control” is battling back on Facebook. Latest revelation: “”Have you heard of germ THEORY? it’s just a theory.”
Arizona has a “Naturopathic Physician Medical Board”, whose announced mission is to protect the public.
No doubt they’ll be launching an investigation into this naturopath real soon. Mm-hmm.
Before or after Microsoft finally releases the software for those tracking nanochips? /sarc
https://enacademic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/531843
@ squirrelelite,
Thanks, we did have a good weekend. Took some good walks when it wasn’t raining, lol. I also thank you for looking at Aaby’s work in depth. I really value his contributions. I believe him regarding the positive non-specific effects of the measles vaccine; he actually had a lot to do with me changing my opinion on the MMR.
I completely agree that COVID is more dangerous than the flu. I think I bought the last box of surgical masks in my city in January, for $4/box of 20. The medical supply store said that a Chinese American had bought out their entire stock to send home to China. That was ominous sounding to me. Now they are selling for $50/box of 20. Insane.
The first time I used them was on the 1st of February when I took my son in for a throat culture. We practiced beforehand so my son could get used to them. The unit clerks actually snickered at me & told me ‘those don’t protect against corona’. I said “He’s autistic & sick & doesn’t remember to cover his mouth when he coughs; we wore these for YOU” & they apologized.
I didn’t know at the time that by then; every single person from my daughters travel group to Italy had fallen ill. One girl was hospitalized while still in Italy with a fever & difficulty breathing. Flu was negative. They returned on the 11th, I saw her on the 16th & by the first week of February, my son & I were sick. My antibody test two weeks ago was negative. But then again, my antibody tests for everything are always negative. Even after being vaccinated, they are negative, so who knows. My daughter needs to take one but she is 23 & immortal, like we all are at that age.
I do know that the DOD study that was the topic on that other post was studying the flu vaccine/viral interference/coronavirus; not COVID-19. The research was being done over the 2017-2018 flu season, obviously; it wasn’t studying COVID. I hope the viral interference factor isn’t factoring in with COVID. Australia makes me wonder; their cases/deaths are so low but their flu season (& flu shot ‘season’) is just starting now.
I do hope your cousin fares well during her quarantine!
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