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How to identify most antivaxxers with a simple question

Here’s a helpful question to determine if someone saying “I’m not antivax” is either fooling themselves or lying.

The question for "I'm not antivax"
Nah. You're antivax.

I’ve been at this blogging thing for nearly 18 years now, with few breaks, none longer than the month that it took me five years ago to move this blog over from its old ScienceBlogs platform to the current, much more amateurish (but completely underway control) WordPress blog. In that time, if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s how to identify an antivaxxer and their tactics and tropes. (Contrary to what antivaxxers like to claim, there’s more to it than “I know one when I see one.”) Normally, I don’t write a lot about what goes on in the comment section of this blog, but recently there was an exchange that provided what I thought to be a “teachable moment.” Specifically, it’s a question to use to counter the claim, “I’m not antivax.”

Lots of antivaxxers assiduously and vociferously deny that they are “antivax.” We’ve all heard variations of such claims, dating back at least to Jenny McCarthy, which generally take the form of, “I’m not antivax; I’m X,” with X being “pro-safe vaccine,” “anti-mandate,” “anti-‘toxins,’” “a vaccine safety advocate,” and any of a number of other alternatives that are not considered as unsavory as being an antivaxxer. So let’s look at an exchange from earlier this week, when a certain antivaxxer in the comments took extreme umbrage at the Star Wars reference in my last post in which I quoted Jedi master Yoda’s warning to Luke Skywalker during The Empire Strikes Back about the Dark Side of the Force

If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan’s apprentice

I was, of course, being facetious, but not entirely. My purpose was to note how “new school” antivaxxers who have come to prominence spreading misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines were more and more buying into very old tropes, up to the point of agreeing with an old school antivaxxer like Del Bigtree when he started repeating old antivax misinformation about the childhood vaccine schedule. Basically, I suggested that being antivax is like the Dark Side in that, once you start down the path of being antivaccine, even if it’s just one vaccine like the COVID-19 vaccine, it won’t be long before you become more generally antivaccine.

This led one commenter to write:

Interesting that Orac quotes Star Wars. He has a bad case of what I call the “Star Wars syndrome” — the idea that your opponents in a controversy are on the “dark side,” while you are on the side of wisdom and light. Lots of people think this way, and most of the time they are wrong. In many, or most, controversies, both extremes are over-simplified and wrong, and the answer is some kind of complex compromise.

Orac sees the good, wise, scientific pro-vaxxers on one side, and the stupid, cruel, unscientific anti-vaxxers on the other side. He has no idea that someone could criticize some vaccines, or the over-use of vaccines, without being an evil anti-vaxxer. He calls mRNA vaccine skeptics eugenicists, because they think it was a mistake to destroy millions of young lives in order to (supposedly) protect people who are sick with easily preventable lifestyle diseases.

We do not know, and we have no way to find out, if these genetically engineered covid vaccines might be detrimental to health. But medical professionals are not allowed to express any concerns, and that censorship alone should make us skeptical. But not Orac. I have never ever seen him express the slightest concern or skepticism regarding any of the covid policies.

And then a bit later:

As usual, you assume everyone is either an extreme anti-vaxxer or an extreme pro-vaxxer. Typical Star Wars good/smart vs evil/stupid thinking. I am not an “anti-vaxxer,” not by any reasonable definition. I think some vaccines, and some prescription drugs, are over-used and harmful. I don’t have blind faith in the drug industry.

This leads to my lesson in three parts on how to identify antivaxxers who deny they are antivax. Here’s part one, my question:

OK, I’ll bite. Which childhood vaccines do you consider safe and effective and therefore recommend for children without a definite medical contraindication?

Regular readers will see the reasonableness of this question. After all, if you’re “not antivaccine”—by any reasonable definition of “antivaxxer,” yet!—then that implies that you’re not opposed to all vaccines, which further implies that there must be at least one vaccine that you consider safe and effective. If you truly are “not antivaccine,” then it should be easy to rattle off one or more vaccines in answer to this question, right?

Wrong. Here’s part two of the lesson, the response:

Which vaccines do I recommend for children? I am not a vaccine expert (and neither is Orac, by the way). I think risks vs benefits should be weighed, but they can’t be since controlled experiments on vaccines are “unethical.” However, natural comparisons could be done, since not all parents get their children vaccinated.

There are vaccines given to newborns who are not at risk for the disease, for example, and no one benefits except the drug companies.

As for the covid mRNA vaccines — early studies by the vaccine makers showed they were safe, of course. After that, there were no control groups, since that would be “unethical.” We do not know how children, or anyone, might be harmed by mRNA vaccines.

But natural comparisons could be done for these also, since not everyone chose to be vaccinated for covid. For example, hospitals could keep records for how many heart attack patients are vaccinated vs unvaccinated, how many vaccines, which vaccines, how many had covid infections, etc. Similarly for other diseases. Why isn’t that being done?

There you have it, strong evidence that this “I’m not antivax” antivaxxer is, in fact, an antivaxxer. Why? Simple. Notice how careful he was to avoid directly answering the question by naming even a single vaccine that he considers sufficiently safe and effective to recommend for general use. Notice further how he then starts parroting common antivax talking points, such as dismissing ethical concerns about trials of vaccines in a rather odd way, saying that “controlled experiments” are “unethical” according to us. On the surface to a medical professional, it sounds like a mess, but if you know antivax lingo the meaning is very clear.

What is likely meant by “controlled experiments” are “randomized, placebo-controlled” experiments.” Of course, randomized placeb0-controlled clinical trial are done all the time with new vaccines. All the COVID-19 vaccine thus far in use underwent large randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials before being granted emergency use authorization (EUA) and then later FDA approval. The same is true for the major childhood vaccines. Thus doing RCTs on vaccines isn’t unethical per se.

So what kind of RCTs of vaccines would be unethical? Longtime readers know that a favorite antivax trope dating back years and years has been to demand a large “vaxxed/unvaxxed” study. Sometimes this call is for a prospective randomized controlled trial of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children to look for differences in the prevalence of autism, autoimmune diseases, and all the other things that antivaxxers have falsely blamed on childhood vaccines. Such a trial would indeed be unethical because it would violate clinical equipoise, the necessary ethical precondition for any RCT that there be genuine uncertainty over which group, control or experimental, would fair better. In the case of such a study, we know which group would fair worse, the group not getting vaccinated, who would be expected to suffer far more from vaccine-preventable diseases. Because for such a trial it would be known in advance who would be harmed (and that it would be not by a little), a vaxxed/unvaxxed RCT of the vaccination schedule could never be ethical. Although antivaxxers don’t concede that such a trial would violate clinical equipoise, they have moved on and now advocate for epidemiological “vaxxed/unvaxxed” study approaches, sometimes doing some seriously awful studies themselves to try to demonstrate that unvaccinated children are healthier.

The rest of the antivaxxer’s response is, of course, a bit of JAQing off, in combination with changing the subject from what the question was about, the childhood vaccination schedule, to COVID-19 vaccines and repeating common anti-COVID-19 vaccination tropes. It’s all concluded with a flourish of conspiracy mongering, in which it’s asked, “Why aren’t these studies that I think are so important not being done?” The implication, of course, is that there’s some sort of cover-up, rather than that the sorts of studies being demanded are far more complex and less helpful than antivaxxers think. However, the pivot to common antivax tropes wasn’t necessary for me to know that this was an antivaxxer. Just the refusal to answer the question with even a single vaccine considered sufficiently safe and effective to generally recommend was enough.

The pivot to antivax tropes did help, though. So did this additional response challenging the characterization of “antivax,” which is part three of the lesson, watching the “I’m not antivax” antivaxxer dig himself in deeper:

I am antivax because I think there should be studies investigating possible harmfulness of the required vaccines? I am antivax because I think drug industry profits should not be the only factor in deciding which and how many vaccines to require? Because I don’t think all vaccines are good and more vaccines are better?

That last straw man about not thinking “all vaccines are good and more vaccines are better,” in particular, could have come from any antivax website or blog going back to 2004, when I first started blogging, and probably well before that. It is a common (and very old) straw man of the position of vaccine advocates. Also, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about antivaxxers, it’s that no study of vaccine adverse events is enough. Maybe there should be studies determining if there’s a correlation between vaccination and getting hit by lightning, too.

A number of responses were spot-on, but I’ll quote this one:

What would you call someone who can only say that we need ‘studies investigating possible harmfulness’, without acknowledging the results we do have from the studies that were conducted? Wanting (more) research into vaccines does not make you ‘anti-vax’. Ignoring the research we have does.

It’s not asking questions that make you an anti-vax’er – it’s not wanting the answer does.

Correct. So does demanding studies of ever more harms from vaccines without considering what we already know.

When I discussed this lesson on Twitter, to my surprise there were some who admonished me for “giving away the secret” of this test. I reassured them that, first, this was never a secret and, second, that there was nothing to fear, mainly because most antivaxxers, even when they know it’s a trap, find it impossible to suggest even one vaccine that they consider sufficiently safe and effective to generally recommend and, for those who actually can, that vaccine is usually the tetanus vaccine. Again, though, anyone who can’t name a single vaccine they consider safe and effective is, at the very least, not provaccine and, far more likely, is antivaccine.

Also, this is far from the only arrow in my quiver or question in my armamentarium. Fear not.

By Orac

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

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

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

To contact Orac: [email protected]

334 replies on “How to identify most antivaxxers with a simple question”

We can’t fully test the long term effects of vaccines because we think we know they have short term benefits (hell let’s assume); to deny those short term benefits (to the control group) would be unethical even if there is a risk of long term complications? That seems like ??? to me or worse (spiraled, nearly circular (‘we know which group would fair worse’ ((but on what time horizon?)) reasoning.

Labeling skeptics with pejorative terms doesn’t resuscitate a failed vaccine program or detail why the magnitude of reported adverse events for Covid vaccines swallows that of decades of other vaccines. It’s not close and it’s not a vast anti-vax conspiracy. As you are probably aware there is far more money on the pro-vax side. Asking for choice is asking for some temperance on the market power of these companies. Else there is no incentive to make them safer. All other products come with these duties. That alone justifies a movement skeptical of vaccines (all vaccines).

Take responsibility for the products or face these movements. There has to be some check on the power of pharmaceutical companies (and by extension the government and academic officials they corrupt) somewhere.

Why do you wear a bike helmet John? Exactly what are you protecting?

Except, the anti-vaxxers have been known to blame cancers, decades after vaccination, on vaccines. If it moves, it woz the vaccines wot dun it.

So, working on your ‘need to know long term effects’ principle. It would potentially take twenty or thirty or more years of following a test group and control group to see if there were any issues.

Of course, if it applies to vaccines then it should apply to all drugs. Remember the right wing complaints about how it takes too long for the CDC/FDA to approve new treatments? Not that I expect consistency…..

I don’t know what ‘anti-vaxxers’ in general believe anymore than I know what all pro-vaxxers believe. I do know that I don’t blame every ailment on vaccines. Nonetheless I think given the covid-19 vaccines generating heart and vascular inflammation there is a reasonable case to be made that 1) those will cause long term side effects and 2) that just because the injury didn’t present clinically doesn’t mean it isn’t lurking. And all of this is because of a system that chose profits over safety and is out of balance re the same. That’s really the bottom line.

Myocarditis is not a long time adverse effect. Can you specify those long term horrors.

You’re not a skeptic, you’re a denialist, and that’s all.

There is no plausibility to the mythical “long term harms”. Without that plausibility, you’re just a conspiracy theorist.

You speak vaccines generally. MMR vaccine has been around long time. Tell long term side effect of it.
You still not get that VAERS reports do not prove causality. Reporting is legally required.
Btw, FDA did release all COVID vaccine data. Any relevations ?

They haven’t. They’ve started releasing them. There are revelations all the time, but probably not much from those documents. I would guess that the contractors doing the clinical trials have a desired outcome and know who signs the checks. Novavax (for which the FDA admitted causality signal re myocarditis) maybe doesn’t pay as much or have as much market power as Pfizer nor as high level connections as Moderna.

The vast majority of myocarditis and periocarditis cases clear up in short order, and there is only correlation evidence, not causation. As the disease causes at least 30x more cases of both and is widely circulating in the population it is difficult to actually identify causation, only correlation.

You forget that trials are double blinded. Contrators do not know who get plaebo.

I would guess that the contractors doing the clinical trials have a desired outcome and know who signs the checks.

And you want people to believe you think about these things? Good lord, that comment is one of your most asinine.

“It means the system in place is not designed to not ensure they are safe and effective. To believe they are because interested parties say so is silly.”

Please stop with these stupid conspiracy theories. There are thousands of scientists not invested monetarily that review research and then there is the financial benefits of finding flaws in your competitors’ research.

Vaccines are very very well studied and continue to be studied for safety and effectiveness. To deny that makes you a seriously ignorant anti-vaxxer.

Until they put their money where their mouth is and open up to tort liability I don’t believe they are safe. Before they remove the mandates I don’t believe they are effective.

Tort liability? They accepted 100% liability when the industry agreed to fund the NVICP program…they pay an excise tax on every single vaccine they manufacture into a system which pays out based on a standard of evidence which is less than what one would face in Civil Court, plus, all of their attorney’s fees are covered by the program as well.

Actually there is non fault compensation, without contigency eees (lawyers just hate this). You can of course sue,even under PREP Act . for willull malfeasance. Things you speak about are efinitely actionable.

@johnlabarge If your beliefs can’t be swayed by credible scientific research then you’re just a worthless liar and a denialist that has anti-social tendencies.

Why do that?

It’s interesting that you don’t actually have any medical/scientific problem with the vaccine. Does that means that no additional medical/scientific data would influence your opinion?
Is it enough for the vaccine manufacturers being sued for you to approve?

It’s an interesting cycle, if more people got vaccinated – we might not need mandates… I wonder if this holds for other public health measures (masks, seat belts, smoking etc.).

Economics and politics are driving the quality of the outputs of the medical establishment. Those need to be fixed to make the system trustworthy again.

Economics and politics are driving the quality of the outputs of the medical establishment.

There’s some cutting-edge vapidity for you.

@ohn labarge You are actually right about politics. SenatorJohnson is pushing his own COVID cures and other Repulicans GBD. Bad.

“This is speculation.”

Stop. Absolutely stop thinking you know ANYTHING about diseases.

Measles is endemic to the US. We have observed direct correlations between low vaccination rates in regions to higher infection rates. This happens with all diseases.

You need to stop yourself and realize that you really don’t know anything about immunology and disease.

“Until they put their money where their mouth is and open up to tort liability I don’t believe they are safe. Before they remove the mandates I don’t believe they are effective.”

So you’re anti-science. Good for you. Why did you come to this page, anti-vaxxer?

” Mandates undermine the market’s ability to eventually land on the answer.”

Oh, you’re a free-market right winger. That explains the anti-science and anti-intellectualism dripping from your comments.

You really have no clue what you’re talking about so you go back to your standard talking points, even thought you know you have zero evidence to back you up.

“If it’s necessary for every skeptic to fully understand immunology to trust the product then you can stop right there.”

No one said that. Why are you so bad at this?

“What I understand is that the system that produces the products is not designed to ensure they are as safe as they can be. ”

That’s your opinion not backed by credible evidence.

“Enter mandates the way or Pharmaceutical companies to not answer to any market force whilst not being accountable for any defects (practically speaking). ”

There it is, you just keep lying about this. You’re a very horrible anti-vaxxer.

But anti-vaccine makes it sound like there is no basis for that opinion. That’s not the case. Indeed I have indicated that pertussis vaccines are probably worth the risk. But the risk we all have now is more than it used to be when I was growing up. The reason is that the pharmaceutical companies have captured the government and regulation bodies necessary to reduce the safety/efficacy requirements. Look at the latest hearing where Novavax was approved even where the FDA admitted causality of myocarditis whilst not admitting such for the other vaccines (because (as you’ll see Pfizer trials hid it)). Not only that the FDA admitted that they don’t know if the vax is effective for the current variant.

But anti-vaccine makes it sound like there is no basis for that opinion.

LOLOL.

Nice moving the goalposts, antivaxxer.

By Post Author

Pretty sure provaxxers take the cake in moving goal posts…

Oh, look, it does a Pee-wee Herman impersonation.

Pfizer trials could not get myocarditis because it is a very rare SAE. It was noticed in postmarketing surveillance, based on VAERS report.
Novavax is not actually yet appoved. You will notice that it is not mRNA vaccine, it is protein subunit vaccine. Should be less dangerous, if one listens you. This is the reason for suggestion.

In Canada, which has all the same vaccines as the US, we have something called Vanessa’s Law that holds pharmaceutical companies responsible for dangerous vaccines to the tune of $5 million/day for every day that they’re in use.

Enforcer is minister of health, not a bunch of trial lawyers. Quite a difference.

Psychologists**, Hornsey and Douglas amongst them, have found that anti-vaxxers share certain personality qualities:
they only trust themselves, mistrust authorities/ governments, overvalue their own abilities, are narcissistic, suspicious/ paranoid, arrogant, believe in conspiracies, don’t recognise expertise, lack social conscience, are selfish, value freedom/ nature/ purity…
Sounds like a nice lot!

Orac’s readers might recall our collective interaction with many who fit achingly well into that profile.

** search results – personality anti-vaxxers

“Orac sees the good, wise, scientific pro-vaxxers on one side, and the stupid, cruel, unscientific anti-vaxxers on the other side.”

I won’t speak for Orac, but after thirty years or so of watching anti-vaccination movements at work, that is exactly what I see. The same is true for guns, abortion, hatred of gay people, white supremacy, claims that Hillary eats babies and a bunch more things that very commonly occur in the same people. Sorry if that makes me an ideologue or something, but that is what I have seen all these years.

There may well be people who only “criticize some vaccines, or the over-use of vaccines”. Indie’s reply to Orac, though, shows they’re not one of them. But then, nor did they actually claim to be. I’m sure Indie thinks they’re very clever, only phrasing things as hypothetical questions, or things Orac supposedly will not acknowledge, without actually clarifying their position. They say, “I think some vaccines, and some prescription drugs, are over-used and harmful.” which turns out to be misleading-though-true, as they clearly don’t think only some vaccines are harmful.

This lawyer-like use of language is evidence that Indie is being grossly disingenuous, i.e. a troll. For another example, we have, “In many, or most, controversies, both extremes are over-simplified and wrong, and the answer is some kind of complex compromise.” Most skeptics will probably identify this as a common fallacy (Middle Ground/Golden Mean/Moderation), but even that’s a fake-out here. Note that Indie does not actually say this is the case with vaccines, as they (of course) have no suggestions for any kind of compromise that is more than a joke.

There may well be people who only “criticize some vaccines, or the over-use of vaccines”.

If there are, they are so incredibly rare that I can’t recall coming across one in the over 15 years I’ve been doing this.

Ditto the “I’m not antivax; I’m anti-mandate” crowd. I suppose it’s theoretically possible to be provaccine but antimandate, but I’m struggling to recall the last time that I’ve encountered one. There’s a reason I like to say, “Scratch an antimandate activist, find an antivaxxer almost every time.”

By Post Author

I can’t think of anyone who has shown up here to aver they’re only against some vaccines who hasn’t turned out to be a manure-spreading troll.

But I’d guess there are, or were, some folks put off the MMR by the autism scare who still opted for other shots e.g. for polio, tetanus etc. I’m also pretty sure there are lots of folks who never questioned childhood vaccines, and only went ‘Dark Side’ ; – ) with the COVID jabs, thanks to Tucker Carlson and it turning into a tribal badge for Trumpism. If they say they’re anti-mandate that may be the major part of it, but they wouldn’t really care unless they thought the jabs might be dangerous. In that, they may be only doubters — no matter how wrongly or irrationally so — rather than the paradigmatic antivaxers who just KNOW the vaccines have some horrible effect.

I guess I’m just thinking people aren’t apt to come here and jostle with the blinking light box unless they’re pretty hard core, so the genuine vax ‘squishes’ are mostly just out living their lives, or posting on FB, or watching YT videos, yadda yadda. So we get the trolls who’ve learned from RFKJ et al that any antivaxer worth their salt must claim to not be an antivaxer.

Antivaxers who deny being antivaccine because they slam only certain vaccines or too many vaccines include well-known antivax pediatricians like Paul Thomas and Bob Sears, as well as people like Kent Heckenlively.

At the same time they point to their limited schedule as “proof” that they’re reasonable folks, they churn out a huge volume of false and misleading antivax tropes, designed to undermine even the few vaccines they pretend to endorse. How many vaccine-hesitatnt parents who believe even a fraction of their nonsense are willing to go for one of those limited childhood schedules, on the grounds that it features a lesser amount of brain and soul-destroying Toxins?

Refusal to list a single vaccine deserving of support is one hallmark of the antivax mindset; the overriding one is blatant dishonesty.

I don’t know about that. What about the possibility of bringing back the smallpox vaccine to prevent Monkeypox? That seems to be a legitimate discussion.

Speaking from 20 years of being a pediatrician, they are rare.

To me the compromise is simple. Freedom from mandate and legal accountability. Until both exist all vaccines are suspect. Doesn’t mean they are all harmful, dangerous or ineffective. It means the system in place is not designed to not ensure they are safe and effective. To believe they are because interested parties say so is silly.

*not designed to ensure. That means it’s up to the public. Mandates undermine the market’s ability to eventually land on the answer.

“Freedom from mandate and legal accountability.”

Mandates are constitutional. They are necessary.

Vaccine manufacturers are legally accountable. I doubt you’ve ever read the regulations and laws surrounding the manufacturing and development of vaccines. The law only says you have to START with the VICP. This is a highly fair system that acknowledges the rare side effect. You have no clue what would happen without the VICP in place.

Ignorance is treatable, but you have to admit you’re ignorant.

Until both exist all vaccines are suspect.

And if both exist, all vaccines are suspect, just with a cast of crank litigators.

It means the system in place is not designed to not ensure they are safe and effective.

That’s a relief.

Indeed. As a thirty-year (amateur) connoiseur of deeply broken people, I regularly observe: if you which to understand and fight today’s antivax movement, you don’t need to know lots about vaccination. Basic understanding of epistemology and ability to work a search engine satisfies most needs. What you do need to learn about is narcissism—narcissistic abuse, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, DARVO, and so on—because therein lies a working explanation as to Why they do it.

Narcissists crave Attention and Power. And that is all they care about. While it is a spectrum disorder, ike psychopaths, full-blown NPDs do not have the neural wiring that makes the rest of us feel empathy, to care for our fellow humans’ wellbeing. However, whereas a psychopath will screw you if they can, a narcissist screws you because they must. Approach a psychopath as you would a great white shark: a natural predator that will eat you if it can, or swim away to find easier prey if it can’t. The narcissist, however, is an unnatural predator, a human vampire. Its nutrition derives from eliminating your own identity and agency, making you cravenly subservient to its needs. Its goal is to feed forever from victims who prostrate themselves willingly to be fed upon.

The basic error that science folks keep making is believing that antivaxxers’ end goal is to eliminate vaccination. It is not—that is merely the convenient hook on which they today hang their shingle; the means to an end. Their true end goal it to prove they are Powerful and to bask in the adulation of peers for successfully demonstrating that Power. Were the antivax movement to eliminate vaccination tomorrow, its members would neither be contented nor disappear; they would simply find a new target and restart the same cycle over, because:

The abuse is the point.

This is the framework in which today’s antivax movement (and also its kissing cousin, the Christian fundamentalist/Trumpist/metastatic GOP) needs to be viewed. A gross over-simplification, but as a starting point to begin modeling and understanding their behavior it is sound. Power trippers from Hell, neurally hardwired to be incapable of caring for anything/anyone except Self, seeking out high-profile vehicles on which to exercise their power. Because the power to destroy a thing is Power.

By fixating on a visible expression such as anti-vax behavior—a symptom, not cause—we become blind men confidently analyzing an elephant by touch. Snake. Fan. Tree. Wall. Rope. But you cannot afford to feel your way blindly when dealing with a psychopath, because it will bite your bloody arms off and not even thank you for the free meal. And you sure as hell cannot do it with a narcissist or, by the time they’ve had their full fill of you, you will be apologizing to them</em for soaking them in your blood, food.

You want to smash the antivax movement with Science? Forget immunology; use psychopathology.

—

“To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy.”—Sun Tzu

Were the antivax movement to eliminate vaccination tomorrow, its members would neither be contented nor disappear; they would simply find a new target and restart the same cycle over

No, Has; I would be good with just the elimination of vaccination! If that happens, I would just disappear in the sunset, and never to be heard from again.

PS: Lately, why are all these blogs and posts just turning into bitch-fests? Isn’t this blog supposed to be a science one? Can we please discuss some science?! How about monkeypox?

This blog is named after ORAC.

If you don’t know what that is, you can Google it. But bitching is involved.

Quoting myself…

Lately, why are all these blogs and posts just turning into bitch-fests?

And, for those paying attention, Covid vaccination was supposed to stop the bitching once and for all. ‘Antivaxxers’ bitched about how vaccines did not live up to their past billing, and provaxxers bitched back that it wasn’t true and that vaccines have always played the knight in shining armour. Since we were talking the past, an unshakeable haze hung over the debate about who was really right.

Along came the Covid pandemic, and Covid vaccination was to settle the debate once and for all. We would vaccinate the world, herd-immunity would ensue, and the ‘antivaxxers’ would be mercilessly banished to shame-dom where they belonged. The bitchfest would terminally end.

Well, we tried vaccinating most of the world, and no herd-immunity. We even tried to prop it up with social distancing, lockdowns, masking, and mandates and still no herd-immunity. Nothing worked!

And, as we now abandon the social distancing, the lockdowns, the masking, and the mandates, the lemmes that drank the kool-aid are left with a bad taste in their mouth from the unsettling thought. The knight in shining armour never showed.

So, what is there to salvage? How do provaxxers deal with the pain? Where do they go from here?

Bitching! Bitching will have to do.

And, yes, we ‘antivaxxers’ will continue to bitch back. Yet, who can fault us for having even more reasons to?!

@Greg

So you’re still to ignorant to understand strawmen logical fallacies. The initial response to the COVID pandemic from scientists was “Coronaviruses are difficult, mutation rates are high and natural immunity wanes quickly, vaccines may not be the solution”. Then mRNA vaccines indicated robust immunity and preventative immunity. It’s not as lengthy as we’d like, but the vaccines are overwhelmingly safe. Few scientists claimed herd immunity would be possible with any coronavirus. It’s just not possible, but with the weakening virus symptom severity we don’t need it, we just need to get pasts the worst variants, hopefully. There is no guarantee that all variants will be weaker than the previous variants, though, so caution is expected and observed in how the health care system is responding.

Your ignorance of this is not evidence of the actual reality to what is happening and documented in peer-reviewed literature.

And, yes, we ‘antivaxxers’ will continue to bitch back. Yet, who can fault us for having even more reasons to?

First, antivaxxers should not be in quote: you are an antivaxxer and anti-science loon, just like labarge and mjd.

Second: we can fault you because your “reasons” for objecting are pure bullshit: you don’t have any facts to support them.

Few scientists claimed herd immunity would be possible with any coronavirus

Is that so?

Biden promised herd immunity…

https://www.fox5dc.com/news/biden-feels-confident-u-s-will-be-well-on-our-way-to-herd-immunity-by-summer

So did Fauci….

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/12/anthony-fauci-offers-a-timeline-for-ending-covid-19-pandemic/

And so did the CDC….

https://thehitc.com/cdc-shifts-pandemic-goals-away-from-achieving-herd-immunity/

Jkanta, why are you attacking me? Is it my fault that way more than just a ‘few’ scientists saw it fit to move the goalposts at halftime when the score was not to their liking?!

Few scientists claimed herd immunity would be possible with any coronavirus

Biden promising herd immunity….

https://www.fox5dc.com/news/biden-feels-confident-u-s-will-be-well-on-our-way-to-herd-immunity-by-summer

Fauci the same…..

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/12/anthony-fauci-offers-a-timeline-for-ending-covid-19-pandemic/

The CDC also did….

https://thehitc.com/cdc-shifts-pandemic-goals-away-from-achieving-herd-immunity/

Jkanta , don’t blame me that far more than a ‘few’ scientists moved the goalposts at halftime when they started hating the score!

Greg is an anti-science anti-intellectual troll, nothing more.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/herd-immunity-and-coronavirus/art-20486808

Herd immunity is also community based. Communities can potentially reach a type of herd immunity where reduced transmission and reduced cases can occur. Full herd immunity for the globe is impossible.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/herd-immunity-and-coronavirus/art-20486808

You’re just a troll, Greg, and that’s why you’re attacked, constantly. FOAD.

@Greg Herd immunity was possible with first variantss. But virus was allowe to sprea, and mutatee. We have higher R0 and we need need highr vaccination rate or herd immunity.

“Moderna is asking the FDA to help pimp its new Omicron specific booster.”

Yes, approval is the same as pimping.

Why are you so ridiculous? Why do you bother coming here? No one really cares what you think except to make fun of your ridiculous and unfounded alternative reality.

Go get an education, do something useful for once in your life.

I can imagine the lemmes [sic ] that drank the kool-aid reading this article

That’s some impressive metaphor fail.

Gather around the campfire provaxxers, this ‘heinous, unrepentant antivaxxer’ has another confession. Get closer; don’t be shy!

Please don’t share this with my ‘antivaxx’ brothers and sisters, but a secret side of me was actually hoping mRNA vaccination would have succeeded. Seriously, who doesn’t love great scientific breakthroughs. There is Crick’s DNA discovery, Einstein’s theories, and so on and so on.

Yet, how things seem to have stalled. Seriously, when was the last great breakthrough in medicine? Instead, we now have 1 in 30 kids with fried brains and as you pick your noses and slobber on yourselves about how they have always been here. Right! We also now have an epidemic 50 and 60 year-olds coming down with dementia and altzheimer and you guys are still clueless. Sperm counts and fertility is down; even life expectancy is sliding.

Had mRNa vaccination proven its mettle, wouldn’t we have had something truly extraordinary to celebrate! Precision medicine at its finest! Maybe even a Nobel for Biontech’s Sahin.

Yet, what did we get? A vaccine that stopped nothing, build nothing, and had to be repeated to lessen its failure. What a sick joke!

With such incompetence, what hope is there that you guys will eventually slay a true monster such as cancer? I am starting to think I would be better off putting my money on a smart African bush-kid stumbling on some plants in the jungle and finding a cure.

@Greg There are many great discoveries after Einstein and Crick.Check Nobel prizes,for a start

‘This is the framework in which today’s antivax movement (and also its kissing cousin, the Christian fundamentalist/Trumpist/metastatic GOP) needs to be viewed.’
Those cousins are doing far more than kissing.
Excellent, excellent comment about narcissism and the excellent point that antivax isn’t really about vaccines, just like marrying your cousin isn’t about love.

@Greg We tried to vaccinate but we did not succeed (to low vaccination rate). This was indeed caused by antivax bitching.

While it certainly exists, fear of needles to the point of interfering with someone’s life is pretty damn rare. I only ever saw one instance in around 30 years of MH practice (yes, I know, anecdote…) and that was eminently treatable, so I got the bairn in question back to some class of normality.

This has little to do with being anti-vax…

My older son was (and still is) terrified of needles, to the point of refusing novacaine for dental work as much as possible (gas instead), yet he got the first Pfizer shot and the booster. The only issues:

He looks incredibly young, and for the first shot he was asked if an adult was with him. He’s 27
For the booster the nurse gave him the shot, then started to fill out his card with the needle still in his arm

He still won’t take shots at his dentist unless absolutely needed, but said he’d get more boosters as needed. Of course, he’s not labarge level stupid.

to the point of refusing novacaine for dental work as much as possible (gas instead)

Oh, I do that.** It’s not fear of needles (although in the gum is a tad creepy); I just don’t like waiting for the procaine or whatever to wear off.

**Me and “the 90-year-old Japanese guys”; I think I’ve told this one before. My dentist’s office is ramshackle enough that he can’t use nitrous oxide — remember, it’s heavier than air.

Murmur writes,

“This has little to do with being anti-vax…”

MJD says,

You may be right, although, researchers find that the nocebo response accounted for 76.0% of systemic adverse events after the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine,

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2788172

Q. Could a nocebo response be induced by some degree of trypanophobia.

It is my belief that trypanophobia plays some part in the psychology of anti-vax.

You are talking about different things there.

I doubt that anyone would argue aboout nocebo and certain post-vax effects. But that isn’t anything to do with being anti-vax, as those folks have been vaccinated.

Then it’s your belief…Care to back that one up with some actual evidence?

A classic part from the anti-vaxxer here is putting a claim into others’ mouths (yours and mine) like “drug industry profits should not be the only factor in deciding which and how many vaccines to require” as if anyone is, or would, suggest doing such a thing. This shows their arguments are both stupid and lazy.

That particular line of “argument” is, either by design or wilful ignorance, not applicable to countries which have a more centralised, planned healthcare system with independent bodies charged with assessing best available evidence and making recommendations for treatments, not to forget professional regulators who will slap you silly and remove your right to practice if you don’t follow said guidelines.

But that’s all horrible socialised medicine…

But it’s a large part of how the system actually works, even if unintended.

So on the one hand the ask is to let the markets decide (markets operate on profit) and on the other hand bIg pHaRmA making profits is a terrible thing.

I’m missing something about the logic of this one. I mean private companies making profit is rather the point of the market right?

No. Big Pharma making profits fairly is not a horrible thing. But when you spend more money to lobbying than any other industry, have a revolving door with regulators and as a result have influence to mandate the public use your products, that’s horrible.

@John laberge Do you known how much Big Pharma spends for lobbying for vaccines ? You certainly have some hard numbers to show to us.

I am not an anti-vaxxer because I do NOT reflexively distrust all vaccines. I am skeptical of the drug industry and I think some of their drugs and vaccines are over-used. An anti-vaxxer would be someone who is opposed to vaccines in general. I am NOT against all drugs — obviously some are useful — and I am NOT against all vaccines.

If I agree with an anti-vaxxer about one vaccine, for example, that means I agree with all anti-vaxxers about every vaccine? No, of course not.

This is hard to do as the entire system presenting these products is corrupt. Also it’s hard to do if vaccines work and are safe as you will not have had the disease, sure, but did the vaccine help with that or not? If we’re talking about the Covid or flu vaccines most likely not. For others who knows? Need data on likelihood of exposure and to be able to say with reasonable certainty that one has been exposed to and did not contract a ‘vaccine preventable disease’ because of the vaccine. Causation works both ways, not just in favor of vaccines.

The pharma companies lobbied the government to curb their liability and lobbied the government to push mandates which the CDC did and Biden tried to do.

The regulators are a revolving door. You don’t think they want or need that high paying job with the pharma company after making peanuts in the public sector? Riight. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/06/28/former-fda-head-gottlieb-joins-pfizer-board/

And Pfizers’s contractors know who pays them: https://jackanapes.substack.com/p/is-subject-12312982-the-key-to-proving?s=r

Yes the entire system re pharma and re much of the US capitalism is absolutely corrupt. How much money does pharma lobby – the most of any industry https://www.investopedia.com/investing/which-industry-spends-most-lobbying-antm-so/.

Incidentally VICP doesn’t cover covid vaccines. The CICP does and gives nearly complete immunity to pharmaceutical companies and the government and rarely pays out.

Yes the system is corrupt, up and down in the USA. Trusting that system with your safety is a fools errand indeed. That’s why we are pushing forward with child boosters while other countries that are less corrupt are not. This should be obvious.

You forget that all foreign governments and universities and doctors are involved. You must repeat your thing with all of them
Apeaking about capitalism, communist countries vaccinate, too.

@johnlabarf
“and lobbied the government to push mandates which the CDC did and Biden tried to do.”

So did scientists from all over the world. Mandates are needed to protect the public. Mandates are Constitutional at the State level and it’s arguable that they are Constitutional at the federal level to protect the people, particularly when we have non-States to protect as well.

Need data on likelihood of exposure and to be able to say with reasonable certainty that one has been exposed to and did not contract a ‘vaccine preventable disease’ because of the vaccine.

This bowl of word salad appears to be nothing but the same old tour pamphlet for hiding in the herd.

You’re alleging that the vaccine is what is preventing the disease. This is speculative w.r.t. causation.

. Reading labarge say need data to is laughable: he’s never indicated he can distinguish between data and unsupported beliefs like his, and since he referred to designed studies as “just someone’s opinion”.

That’s the amusing thing about anti-science loons like him: they say so many stupid things in so many different spots they can’t keep what they’ve said straight.

@john labarge If vaccines do not prevent disease why smallpox disappeared.

You’re alleging that the vaccine is what is preventing the disease. This is speculative w.r.t. causation.

Well, no, I was calling a spade a spade, but if you want to keep the floor open for invisible space monkeys, you’re going to have to work harder.

“The regulators are a revolving door. You don’t think they want or need that high paying job with the pharma company after making peanuts in the public sector?”

You mean the most qualified to do the job? Free market much? Why don’t you try consistency, clown?

Entire system includes oreign governments and all universities and most doctors. There is no whistleblower either. Hardly plausible idea.

There’s also no mechanism proposed to explain how this vast conspiracy the antiaxxers claim exists keeps reserchers, statisticians, and techs around the world quiet.

Of course there’s no evidence for all of the harm they claim the vaccines cause either, but that doesn’t stop their BS.

Fine. You’re not an anti-vaxer. You’re just a disingenuous pandemic promoting putz. What’s in a name. That which we call, or don’t call, antivax, would by any other name still stink.

He acts as though I haven’t seen his type before on many occasions, swearing up and down he’s “not antivaccine” because he “isn’t opposed to vaccines in general,” yet, conveniently enough, apparently unable to list a single vaccine that he is not opposed to.

By Post Author

You are not against vaccines, but you cannot suggest one vaccine that should be used?

When I had my own practice until 2015, my life became so much simpler in 2012 when parents like “IndieRebel” were expelled for continued refusal to vaccinate for no valid medical reason. I felt sorry for your kids, but I got sick of your “oh-so-healthy” unvaccinated children dragging pertussis into my waiting room, exposing unvaccinated newborns to an infection with a 20% death rate for infants. Buh-bye Felicia.

Both my kids have this vaccine and did from the start. We did a slower schedule but pertussis seems a worthwhile vaccine and we all got the vax, even though I still have trust issues with the pharma system. Do you see how pertussis is different than covid?

Pertussis mortality rate (thing you are obsessed) is very similar than COVID’s. But I notice that in this case you accept that other things matter,

Yet you cannot or will not name a single vaccine you consider safe and effective. Nice try.

I’ll bite. If I were a malnourished child or person with a crap immune system and living in a third-world country where epidemics are rampant, I would say yes to most vaccines. Since that’s not me, I will say — hell no!– to all vaccines. Shit! — that makes me an antivaxxer! You got me, Orac!

Ok, ok, now for fun, let’s consider the ultimate question to identify a pro-vaxx shill. If I could ask one, it would be, ‘Do you go out of your way to slam antivaxxers in the most hateful way, and even resorting to cruel insults, in a manner that a typical person would consider pointless, and therein suggesting you have ‘ulterior motives’? Is this not a good question?!

Most things we vaccinate against would return, if we would stop vaccinating, or rather if vaccination rates get under a certain threshold. Look for instance at measles.
So don’t consider yourself immune, because you don’t live in a third world country.

No Jon, it’s not speculation.
When a novel vaccine that protects against a previously not vaccinated against disease is placed on the schedule, after a few years, that disease goes into freefall in the area it’s been introduced to. This has happened in every single country where this has happened, and with every single disease vaccinated against. And when vaccine programs break down, the diseases return.
In Japan, concerns about the safety of the Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis vaccine led to Japanese parents not vaccinating their children. The result was a Pertussis outbreak with multiple fatalities. After the Soviet Union broke down, Diphtheria came back. Syria has seen Polio outbreaks. The U.S. and U.K. have seen measles outbreaks, thanks to the lies of Andrew Wakefield.
Stopping vaccination means the return of vaccine preventable diseases.

No Jon, it’s not speculation.
When a novel vaccine that protects against a previously not vaccinated against disease is placed on the schedule, after a few years, that disease goes into freefall in the area it’s been introduced to.

A perfect example of this, John, is our current mRNA vaccination against Covid. Wait! Never mind!

This has happened in every single country where this has happened, and with every single disease vaccinated against. And when vaccine programs break down, the diseases return.

The Bubonic plague, Spanish Flu, Scarlet Fever, Ebola, Mers, the first Sars are all perfect examples. Wait again! Never mind!

What I am trying to say, John, is it isn’t speculation. It just isn’t!

Influenza is beter eample tthere. It,too mutates fast. Mutations cause the problem.

The Bubonic plague, Spanish Flu, Scarlet Fever, Ebola, Mers, the first Sars are all perfect examples. Wait again! Never mind!

Indeed, never mind.
All these infectious diseases you quote are not vaccinated against. Except for the flu, but anyone knows the flu comes back every year.
Still dishonest as usual, Greg. Feeling challenged by labarge for the title of village idiot?

All these infectious diseases you quote are not vaccinated against.

This, presumably, was his stand-in for a point. (Scarlet fever is a hands-in-pants antivax fave.)

All these infectious diseases you quote are not vaccinated against

Athaic, that was my point. Where are those diseases now?

PS: Thought you would continue hiding after I schooled you on the ‘measles causing immunity amnesia’ blog. Kudos for finding your feet again.

Athaic, that was my point. Where are those diseases now?

Still hanging around. There was an outbreak of Bubonic Plague in the DRC in April. Ebola also had a recent outbreak. Your GOTCHA! wasn’t the gotcha you thought it was.

Still a village idiot, Greg, all your comments are loaded with nonsense.

Biden shouldn’t have mentioned herd immunity, as many scientists at the time were saying it wasn’t realistic.

But your stupid blog is also stupid, which is exactly what you knew would be said to you for posting that inane tripe.

I don’t like you, I have good reasons to not like you, including your anti-social proclivities. You should go away and be with your vapid, ignorant kind.

@ Greg: “Athaic, that was my point. Where are those diseases now?”

Bubonic plague: in every ground squirrel in Western North America. (Why isn’t it a constant plague? Because we’ve substantially improved our homes to keep fleas and lice out, so it doesn’t spread nearly so easily.)

Spanish Flu: influenza is still around, every year. Most years it isn’t as contagious and deadly as the 1918 flu.

Ebola: There are still outbreaks, even this year. It’s a zoonotic disease, so it’s always out there, waiting.

Scarlet fever: treated with antibiotics.

So, they’re all still around. You just haven’t traveled to the places where you could easily catch bubonic plague (visit the Grand Canyon!) or Ebola.

@ Greg

PS: Thought you would continue hiding after I schooled you on the ‘measles causing immunity amnesia’ blog.

Ah! In your dreams, troll.
I am like the man who preferred reading a book rather than talk to you during your daughter’s piano lessons.
At some point, one has to realize you are not worth interacting with.

Actually, I have been occasionally posting comments these past months and you weren’t around all that time.
So i guess you were the one hiding.

Enjoy your empty victory. It’s all you have in your life.

We already know you’re just a troll, Greg. No need to reiterate that fact.

Trolls have a reputation to maintain, so they have to make an occasional appearance.

Measles has a 1% fatality rate AND causes the immune system to “forget” for up to 3 years all the pathogens it knew about. It is still endemic to the US.

Failing to vaccinate would mean signing off on the majority of the newborns being infected and 1% dying with another significant effect having secondary long-term issues and then the side effect of suppressed immunity for years after measles.

And you’re OK with that?

This is why anti-vaxxers are monsters.

And you’re OK with that?

Yes. Yes, they are. Narcissists gonna. In addition to being incapable of empathy, they are also incapable of considering any possibility that they might be wrong, or the harm they could cause to others if they are; and the corpses they leave in their wake (Hi, Samoa!) are always somebody else’s doing.

(Hey, there’s a good reason it’s called personality disorder. If you can call the pretweenage intellectual chicken choke that passes as Gerg a “personality”.)

This is why anti-vaxxers are monsters.

Speaking for myself, given the choice between killing 1% of all children or killing all the antivaxxers responsible, I know which side I’d sign for. Because while I am also a monster, at least I’m an ethical one. Disease perverts who fuck up kids for personal glory and profit belong on the same pyre as pedophile priests, and the whole damned world will be much improved sans both.

Actually people with poor immune system are generally not vaccinated. There is a bad response to vaccines, too.
Have you noticed there have been actual arguments against your position ? Answer these.

??? With a compromised immune system, live vaccines might be somewhat contraindicated, but the protection from vaccinations in general would be even more important than for the general population.

I’ll bite for once. No, it’s not a good question. First of all, you beg the question by asserting a “typical person” would consider an attack on antivaxers “pointless”. I’d say typical people tend to be pretty POed about hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths, but what do I know. Second, we’re not talking about typical people, we’re talking about Orac, and it’s clear that he has plenty of out-in-the-open motive to slam antivaxers with hateful insults. Third, your use of “shill” is undefined — it might have the more specific meaning of ‘spreading false propaganda for material reward’, or the broader meaning of ‘strident advocate’ — in which case your “question” isn’t a question at all, but a tautological assertion — you’re just defining “antivax shill” to your own trolling purpose.

Are we having fun yet?

Anyone who says vaccines are over used is merely showing that they don’t understand even the most basic working of vaccines and the whole point is you need to saturate the population.
I know that and I’m arts, don’t have a single GCSE in science. What is wrong with these people?

Yes, technically by Orac’s definition I am an antivaxxer because I hate all vaccines. Yet, others define antivaxxers as those who hold irrational arguments against vaccines. So, if I hold rational fears about vaccines, for instance, believing that the childhood schedule hasn’t been properly tested, then I am not an antivaxxer, but if I hold irrational fears such as believing that a certain vaccine will turn my skin green and cause me to explode then I am an antivaxxer.

Nah, Greg. That just makes you ignorant and an anti-vaxxer.

If you hate all vaccines, you are already taking an irrational position.

If you cannot understand the silliness of claiming that the vaccine schedule itself needs to be tested, you should not be participating in this conversation to avoid embarrassing yourself further.

If you cannot understand the silliness of claiming that the vaccine schedule itself needs to be tested, you should not be participating in this conversation to avoid embarrassing yourself further.

K, let me take a page out of Bigtree book: other than thimerosal or MMR, link one other study that the CDC is relying on to support its claim that vaccines don’t cause autism.

“link one other study that the CDC is relying on to support its claim that vaccines don’t cause autism.”

Burden of proof is ALWAYS on the positive claimant. You can’t show that autism IS caused or even correlates with vaccination.

Please stop being so stupid with these irrational arguments. You have no scientific evidence and so you’re losing this argument.

@Greg There numerous studies showing that vaccines does not ause autism.
Hviid A. Postlicensure epidemiology of childhood vaccination: the Danish experience. Expert Rev Vaccines. 2006 Oct;5(5):641-9. doi: 10.1586/14760584.5.5.641. PMID: 17181438.

@Greg Another one for you:
Taylor LE, Swerdfeger AL, Eslick GD. Vaccines are not associated with autism: an evidence-based meta-analysis of case-control and cohort studies. Vaccine. 2014 Jun 17;32(29):3623-9. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2014.04.085. Epub 2014 May 9. PMID: 24814559.
Finding this did not take a long time

A meta-analysis of studies. Hhmmnn! Aarno, kindly provide the studies that were reviewed that weren’t about MMR or thimersol, but all other vaccines and their possible correlation with autism. Aarno, thanks so much in advance for your cooperation.

@Greg Metaanalyses is not acceptable ?
Strange that you did forget this one;
Hviid A, Hansen JV, Frisch M, Melbye M. Measles, Mumps, Rubella Vaccination and Autism: A Nationwide Cohort Study. Ann Intern Med. 2019 Apr 16;170(8):513-520. doi: 10.7326/M18-2101. Epub 2019 Mar 5. PMID: 30831578.
One of risk factors for autism was no childhood vaccinations

Strange that you did forget this one;
Hviid A, Hansen JV, Frisch M, Melbye M. Measles, Mumps, Rubella Vaccination and Autism

‘Measles Mumps Rubella Vaccination and Autism.’ Sigh!

All valid Aarno, but I’m sure you aren’t under any impression that data and statistical analysis would do anything to appease greg or the other anti-vaxx clowns who post here? Both of those things are foreign to them.

@Greg Actually read the paper. It does evaluate other vacinattions,too.

And what evidence do you have that some vaccines are overused? And which ones?

You are an anti-vaxxer because you lie about vaccines like this stupid claim:

“It turns out what we were told was not correct — these vaccines don’t prevent you from catching or spreading covid. They just make it less severe for the vaccinated person.”

No evidence, just your stupid opinion.

Meanwhile, in the science world, we conclude they reduce transmission and overall cases:

DOI: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2021.08.060

Again, this is why I hate anti-vaxxers.

You are an anti-vaxxer because you lie about vaccines and because you reject them for yourself.

You are fully anti-vax because you repeat well known lies from the anti-vax cult.

You are basically all-around anti-vax.

Just own it, little one. And learn to admit to yourself that you’re not a scientist and you don’t know diddly about science.

I reassured them that, first, this was never a secret and, second, that there was nothing to fear, mainly because most antivaxxers, even when they know it’s a trap, find it impossible to suggest even one vaccine that they consider sufficiently safe and effective to generally recommend and, for those who actually can, that vaccine is usually the tetanus vaccine.

Indeed, almost all the anti-vaxxers who turn up on this blog fall into this category. They then twist themselves in knots to demonstrate why all the existing vaccines are not safe and/or not effective, despite the massive amount of research showing they are.

I’ve posted at James Lyons-Weiler to tell me one vaccine he would be willing to say was ok for kids to get. [crickets].

Quack Paul Thomas will repeatedly say “I’m not anti-vax” and then turn around and say “No vaccines is safest at all” and also how he’d be fine if his grandchildren are unvaccinated.

Anti-vaxxers are the worst kind of liars.

@ johnlabarge

Despite your continuing ignorance, we have probably 100 years of various studies on vaccines, including longer term; but if you understood immunology and how vaccines work, then you would understand the risk for long-term adverse reactions is basically nil. I won’t say exactly zero because given a population of 7 billion there is always an infinitesimal chance of some rare genetic mutation, epi-genetic events, and/or chemicals that could affect a very few people; but, then again, the same people would also be highly at risk for the diseases the vaccines prevent. Though we do have longer term follow-ups of vaccines, overwhelming evidence from studies has found that if a serious adverse event follows a vaccine it is well within two months. And, MORON, since vaccines either present a killed, severely weakened, or subunit of a microbe, why would this cause long-term problems? Other ingredients; e.g., stabilizers, adjuvants, have short lifetimes and compared to the multitude of chemical and toxics we are exposed to on a daily basis, NADA. Just one example: 11 year follow-up of HPV vaccine, no associated adverse events: Carolina Porras (2020 Dec). Efficacy of the bivalent HPV vaccine against HPV 16/18-associated precancer: long-term follow-up results from the Costa Rica Vaccine Trial. Lancet Oncology; 21(12): 1643-1652. To access article, just cut and paste title into Google search box.

And, as I explained in a previous set of exchanges, vaccines do indirectly contribute to chronic diseases. Quite simply the longer we live the higher the likelihood of developing a chronic disease, so vaccines prolong life, especially of children born with genetic disorders, very low birthweight, premature, etc.; but despite the aforementioned, they still can be productive citizens, scientists, etc and their lives just as worthwhile as anyone else’s.

As I’ve said to you and others, instead of continuously making a fool of yourself, try to learn a little immunology. A good start is an excellent well-written book: Lauren Sompayrac “How the Immune System Works (6th Edition).” Available at Amazon.com.

Not once have you or any of the other antivaxxers given any indication you have even tried to learn the basics of immunology, have read the history of vaccine-preventable diseases, etc.

@ Indie Rebel

You write: “I am skeptical of the drug industry and I think some of their drugs and vaccines are over-used.”

First, as Orac has pointed out several times, you have NEVER mentioned a vaccine or vaccines that you support. More importantly, I don’t trust, nor distrust the drug industry. They provide life-saving drugs, quality-of-life improving drugs, and, of course vaccines; but they have also withheld data, submitted drugs to FDA that were later pulled from market, over 25 past 3 decades. However, the FDA requirements for vaccines are far more stringent than for other drugs AND ALL advanced democracies have their own vaccine safety data. Do you really believe that medical doctors, epidemiologists, public health officials, not only in US; but in nations such as Sweden, Canada, Netherlands, etc. don’t care about the welfare of their nation’s children?

Just with current mRNA Covid vaccines, a search of PubMed found over 700 published safety studies and that doesn’t include reports published by individual nations on their respective national health departments websites. And we now have almost two years of follow-up from first vaccinees.

And, as with others who attack vaccines, you have NEVER given any indication you understand the basics of immunology, so you DON’T understand how vaccines work.

You just keep making a fool of yourself.

If it’s necessary for every skeptic to fully understand immunology to trust the product then you can stop right there. That’s not going to happen. What I understand is that the system that produces the products is not designed to ensure they are as safe as they can be. That is all that is necessary to demand more proof. It’s up to the proponent of the product to prove it’s safe, not up to the user (or it shouldn’t be up to the user). Enter mandates the way or Pharmaceutical companies to not answer to any market force whilst not being accountable for any defects (practically speaking). Fix this and I’ll be ambivalent about vaccines because I’ll have faith in the system. Without this how can anyone believe anything. Indeed there is evidence of Pfizer fudging the covid trials in Argentina.

What I understand is that the system that produces the products is not designed to ensure they are as safe as they can be.

That’s because you’re bone stupid: you have nothing to offer in support of this assertion, no demonstrated knowledge of biologics development or vaccine manufacture, just handwaving about “the system” and failed attempts to slip Augusto “Subject 12312982” Roux into the punch.

Vioxx case was not about trial fraud. Signal was there, but Merck claimed that Vioxx does not cause heart problems, other painkillers protect against them, thus higher incidence in their trial. Contorted logic, sure, but not fraud.

If it’s necessary for every skeptic to fully understand immunology to trust the product…

Nice straw man.

…Pharmaceutical companies to not answer to any market force…

You don’t trust pharmaceutical companies but you trust the market? Seriously? It is sometimes to the market’s advantage to make less than optimal items. As has been pointed out, there are numerous scientists all over the World looking at vaccine safety. That’s a lot safer than blindly trusting the market.

Yeah and if they don’t come to the desired conclusions, they are censored, labeled anti-vaxxed, as evinced here, or worse threatened.

Wrong.
A vaccine against Rotavirus was removed from the schedule after evidence showed an increased risk of intususseption(I know I’ve probably misspelled that). DTP was replaced by DTaP and TDaP over safety concerns.
You know nothing, Jon Labarge.

Yeah and if they don’t come to the desired conclusions, they are censored, labeled anti-vaxxed, as evinced here, or worse threatened.

Censored? The way you say doctors who promote misinformation have licenses revoked (still waiting for you to provide evidence that happens, by the way). Do you have evidence for your claims about scientists?

Nothing like this has happened.Antivax doctors are not censored, they are very noisy. GBD bunch have actually ear of Republican party.

Nothing about “desired conclusions”. You just don’t know how to read research and evaluate credible evidence.

Lies identify denialists and anti-vaxxers. It’s why we know you’re an anti-vaxxer.

What I understand is that the system that produces the products is not designed to ensure they are as safe as they can be

No, you don’t understand that at all — it’s pretty apparent your level of understanding ends with being able to type.

The rest of your comment is pretty vague about how much “proof” would be required to convince you vaccines are safe, but given your history it’s clear that no matter what improvements were made they wouldn’t be enough for you unless the vaccines were 100% effective, which everyone, I will assume even you, as dull as you are about science and statistics, knows isn’t possible.

Your objections aren’t about vaccines not being safe — you just want to be seen as an heroic rebel bucking “the system” — a system you accuse of many awful things without explaining how all of the system’s employees worldwide are kept in line.

Only US has regulation by lawsuits. Thi has not make products more safe.

I’m trying to figure out where Geert Vanden Bossche fits in:
he famously disparaged the use of mRNA Covid vaccines ( because IIRC they would encourage the growth of new, deadlier variants) BUT
it seems that he might have a Covid vaccine of his own on the drawing board that utilises NK cells and that vaccines of this sort might be universal for many viruses.
Could he be the exception that proves the rule?

But he does hang around with standard issue anti-vaxxers.

I have no opinion on which vaccines are necessary or not. If I had children, I would have done my best to find out, but I don’t have children. Since I am not generally against vaccines, I am not an anti-vaxxer.

I have been paying attention to the covid mRNA vaccines since they came out, and I know how they work. I know that the vaccine makers have limited knowledge of the complex life processes these vaccines interact with. These vaccines were promoted before anyone knew how they might affect people. No, millions have not instantly dropped dead from them, but we really do not know the more subtle and long term ways they might damage health.

The covid vaccines were intensely promoted, and all critics were labelled quacks and conspiracy theorists, and all criticism was censored and punished. The censorship alone makes me skeptical.

Some of the most well known mRNA vaccine critics are NOT anti-vaxxers, and some worked all their lives developing vaccines. It is ridiculous to claim that everyone who has concerns about mRNA vaccine technology is an anti-vaxxer.

And yet you still haven’t named a single vaccine that you support.

It makes no sense to use that question as a test. I have never had any reason to find out which vaccines might be necessary. I never had much interest in vaccines before covid, when I started reading about mRNA vaccines. This technology is entirely different from previous vaccine technology. So being skeptical of mRNA vaccines is in no way related to being skeptical about vaccines in general. I am NOT skeptical of vaccines in general.

I am NOT skeptical of vaccines in general.

So when was the last time you had a tetanus booster?

So I will ask you again:
Tetanus shot, yes or no?

Heck, I’ll even make it easier: tetanus shot after stepping on a rusty nail in a farmyard, yes or no?

If you “never had any reason to find out which vaccines might be necessary”, you don’t know what vaccines are unnecessary.

But I could ask another question – what do you still need to know, in order to take a (informed) decision? What piece of information are you missing?

You really don’t see that you’re doing the exact thing Orac describes, do you?

“know that the vaccine makers have limited knowledge of the complex life processes these vaccines interact with.”

I guarantee that they know far, far more than you do though.

To put it bluntly, you probably wouldn’t send a letter to CERN telling them that they’re doing particle physics all wrong but, for some reason, you think this is different.

Blanket statements, given as fact, with no evidence = anti-vaxxer.

I know enough about complex natural systems in general, to know they are recklessly messing with systems they do not understand well. Reckless messing with complex natural system pretty much guarantees unwelcome unforeseen consequences, eventually.

Dunning-Kruger effect, obviously. You heard about the butterfly effect one time and now you think you’re an expert. Sorry, Youtube is not a University.

I doubt you could read and/or evaluate research.

Ah the old Dunning-Kruger all-purpose pseudo-argument. I am a computer scientist and cognitive scientist (retired), and I know enough about biology to understand how mRNA vaccines work.

The most complex software we write is utterly simple compared to the crazy complexity of the processes in cells. People can fool themselves and others into thinking they have it all figured out. They do not.

I am a computer scientist and cognitive scientist (retired)

I do so wish that either or

<

pre> worked properly here.

It is not all proceses of the ell. It is a specific process, mRNA translation, known very long time

I’m calling bullshit right there.

Keep poking it, and the “intelligent universe” blancmange will plop back out.

There is nothing in chemistry, physics and physiology that would negate the existence of energies and fields not yet discovered by mainstream materialist science.

So you’d rather add a second, equally complex system rather than a single, simple system?

You’d rather let your body be filled with viruses or bacteria or fungi or parasites than take a preventative action that makes use of the existing immune system system?

If you think vaccines are “reckless” (they’re not, they’re carefully designed and extensively tested), then wait until you meet some pathogens.

Don’t lie to me about your education, you don’t understand chaos theory or anything else pertaining to science and it’s absolutely obvious to real scientists.

What you’re using is an appeal to ignorance as well as other logical fallacies in place of actual evidence or anything remotely like evidence. You’re just a fear mongering clown that tends to the anti-vax cult message.

Actually human immune system quite well known, and certainly T and B ell activation is.

Just stop. You ARE an anti-vaxxer and so is anyone that has zero plausibility or solid evidence for any cynicism. Just admit to the label and start to wonder why those well educated in science are so ready to identify your kind as anti-vaxxers. You are anti-health and anti-society as well as anti-intellectual.

“Some of the most well known mRNA vaccine critics are NOT anti-vaxxers, and some worked all their lives developing vaccines. It is ridiculous to claim that everyone who has concerns about mRNA vaccine technology is an anti-vaxxer.”

If someone lies about vaccines and safety, especially to the public, then they are an anti-vaxxer.

Wear the label proudly, because that’s exactly what you’ve shown yourself to be.

In other words anyone who has any concern about any vaccine and voices that concern publicly is an anti-vaxxer regardless of their support for vaccines in the past. Who needs transparency when you have pejorative labels?

Attacking vaccines without evidence makes you an anti-vaxxer.

Get over it, it’s all you are now, an anti-vaxxer. You lie, you have no evidence and no one cares about your opinion because you can’t support any of it.

“I have no opinion on which vaccines are necessary or not. If I had children, I would have done my best to find out, but I don’t have children. Since I am not generally against vaccines, I am not an anti-vaxxer.”

So, which of the vaccines commonly recommended for adults (may depend on age and circumstances) do you support? You may choose from the following: pneumococcal, HPV, meningococcal, influenza, Hib, MMR, Tdap, varicella, shingles.

Any?

Since you are not an antivaxer it should be easy to pick one or more to recommend.

Don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone in the Antivax Rebels Without A Brain Facebook group.

I have been paying attention to the covid mRNA vaccines since they came out, and I know how they work.

Well, you won’t mind doing everyone the favor, then.

I know that the vaccine makers have limited knowledge of the complex life processes precious bodily fluids these vaccines interact with.

FTFY.

INDIE, It’s a tough crowd here bud.

I am impressed that ORAC made a post about your comments… fuk he never does that.

I tried to articulate myself to no avail couple posts ago, but: I guess:

I’ll try with a different analogy.

WE understand that there is a distribution of thinking on vaccination and Covid?

Which we don’t agree on, and that is fine.

How does this distribution looK? Visualization required…

Maybe a pile of dirt is a better visualization.

Huge Pile. Just got poured from the conveyor. (Very uniform) almost bellish in 3d 🙂

Imagine a bobcat, skidsteer, mini excavator, whatever you may call it… digging at the edges of the hill (fringes)

Vs. the volume of the center of the hill (area under the curve)

AND THEN! a huge Bulldozer moves the hill slightly to one side, which seems to be what happened in this analogy. (skewed) You guys got fuked, While you are very intelligent, you aren’t succeeding.

How much dirt can you move?

you can DIG all you want at the FRINGES, but good luck moving the pile.

YOU need way more money and infrastructure! What do you have?

I hate to say it, but none of what any of us says (including ORAC) has any impact on this hill. its actually all just BLOVIATING.

But it is ENTERTAING so please keep participating

Hey, as long as you are having FUN just keep doing what you are doing.

I don’t want to discredit DISCOURSE, just put it into a realistic perspective.

You AREN’T moving the hill with a skidder…. or a Mini excavator…
Hills are moved by glaciers.

You mean great mindless masses following the path laid out for them? That does indeed sound like the vast majority of anti-vaxxers.

Why do you assume the normal distribution? Why do you think that the distribution isn’t bimodal? Or strongly skewed? (It is strongly skewed, by the way, at least for childhood vaccines.)

Also, if you dig at the edge of a pile of dirt, depending on the shape of the pile and the shape of the hole you are digging, the pile will collapse (this can be dangerous with a literal pile of dirt, which is why people study this kind of thing).

Also, “a pile of dirt” is not a great analogy for human behavior.

All criticism is censored an punished ? Why there there are lots of it around ? Republican party is full of it.

I have thought for some time that another way to tell is to ask them why they aren’t vaccinated.
The reason they give will tell you that they are antivax even if they claim not to be, and not one of the people who can’t have live vaccines because of significantly impaired immune response. If you have a suppressed immune system in reality you leap at all the vaccines you can get.
Basically, if you don’t have the vaccine, you’re antivax even if you don’t want to accept that you are an idiot and mass murderer.

I got the covid vaccines, on the chance that it would prevent me from giving covid to vulnerable people. It turns out what we were told was not correct — these vaccines don’t prevent you from catching or spreading covid. They just make it less severe for the vaccinated person. Therefore, it is ignorant to accuse an unvaccinated person of being a murderer. Unless you are also going to accuse vaccinated people of being murderers.

It turns out what we were told was not correct

It’s like the last of the Hostess Bakery Outlet stores.

If you get the vaccine you REDUCE the risk. If you know that and don’t care enough to get it, you’re a mass murderer.
If you don’t get the vaccine (and take other precautions such as masks, because it’s not gone away) you don’t care about people dying. Simple.

Where you get the idea that vaccines are 100% perfect? This dos not mean that they are 0% effective. Try to find the atual number.Besides tht, avoiding eath is not a “just”.

I think it is possible to be plainly pro-vaccine and yet skeptical, if not downright angry, about the way the top two insulin manufacturers have managed to raise prices in tandem over the last couple of decades. I’ve also learned from listening to investment advisers at the medical center that the big drug companies are not interested in developing something unless it looks like it will be a billion dollar product. It is entirely likely (and, I would suggest, clearly true) that vaccines that are licensed in the U.S. and in Europe are safe and effective, while the major pharmaceutical companies can be rapacious in their lust for money, particularly in the U.S. When the U.S. congress allows Medicare to negotiate prices, we will have evidence that something is changing in this regard.

I think Bob G is arguing that the fact pharma firms have proved to prioritize greed in despicable ways sometimes does not — as antivaxers would have us belief — constitute anything like valid evidence that vaccines may be harmful. If so, that’s not deflection, it’s just an important caveat. The mention of insulin is relevant exactly because it’s NOT a vaccine. It’s something the makers can and do profiteer off of, as are opioids for another example. I.e. both things can be true: pharmas do bad things sometime, and vaccines are safe, proven, and highly effective.

It’s just simple-minded to imagine that all arms of a multinational corporation operate with the same ethos, same procedures etc. One of J&J’s divisions was involved in reprehensible opioid pushing. That’s no reason to distrust Band-Aids or Baby Shampoo. You have to look at the specific economics of a particular product to see if there’s even any potential for profiteering, much less cover-ups of harms. There just isn’t that much margin in childhood vaccines, for example, but they’re valuable to a company like Merck because the demand for them is stable – like an investor having some relatively low-yield bonds in their portfolio to balance the gamble in riskier stocks.

If you can’t acknowledge there are valid criticisms of the pharmas, you lose all credibility, and any claim to the mantle of facts and reason.

@ Indie Rebel

You write: “I have been paying attention to the covid mRNA vaccines since they came out, and I know how they work. I know that the vaccine makers have limited knowledge of the complex life processes these vaccines interact with. These vaccines were promoted before anyone knew how they might affect people.”

A search of PubMed found several 100 thousand articles on mRNA going back to 1960s when it was discovered. Another search found 100s of articles going back to 1990s on research on mRNA vaccines. History reviews of research on adverse events and vaccines show that any serious adverse events occur in less than two months. However, there are numerous vaccine studies looking at follow-ups of 10 years or more. And the current mRNA covid vaccines went through all phases of FDA requirements. Phase 3 had 30,000 to 40,000 volunteers and was not given Emergency Medical Authorization until a minimum of 2 months follow-up was available and now we have follow-ups of over a year and tons of international data; but, given you claimed no experiments have been done on vaccines, you just continue to display your ignorance and/or intellectual dishonesty

Reading through the comments of the anti-vaxxers here, it has struck me how ignorant these people are about the world. They seem to live in an imaginary world where the USA is the only country that exists and their imaginings about how the regulators and pharmaceutical companies operate in the USA are the start and end of their thinking.

Reality is a lot different. There are numerous other countries that make their own decisions about medications. This can mean differences in the childhood vaccination schedule due to differences in perceived risk benefit ratios. Chickenpox vaccination is not on the UK schedule (although it probably should be).

Australia is a country with that dreaded socialised medicine. Pharmaceutical companies have two choices over introducing new products. They can negotiate with the government to get their product on the pharmaceutical benefits scheme, where the government subsidises the treatment, but the company makes less money. Or they can keep it out of the scheme and sell it for whatever they like. Most go for the former, because doctors overwhelmingly prescribe from the PBS. Australia unashamedly encourages childhood vaccination even to the point of mandates, because with socialised medicine it is far more costly for the government to let children catch diseases and then treat them, rather than stopping children getting sick in the first place.

In the same way, COVID-19 vaccines are encouraged, because it is cheaper for the government to have people look after themselves at home, than to treat them in hospital. High rates of vaccination are a key reason why the CFR for COVID-19 in Australia is less than a third of that in the USA.

Although occasionally, this system can throw up some ironies. Remdesivir is currently restricted in Australia to high risk people. This includes anti-vaxxers. Here is an example of anti-vaxxers getting special treatment. Anti-vaxxers who catch COVID-19 get to be treated with the latest in modern medicine, but normal people, like myself, who have been vaccinated get to muddle along at home on their own.

“Reading through the comments of the anti-vaxxers here, it has struck me how ignorant these people are about the world.”

Like, Obligatory, man.

Quite so, Chris.

I’m looking forward to the explanation I asked for earlier about how the UK-ian NICE and professional regulators who do strike folk off registers system works to be sooooooo corrupted.

Disclaimer: I know and worked with folk who wrote NICE guidelines for my old area; I know and worked with folk who wrote other official guidance on how to plan certain sectors of healthcare; I helped write local guidance on certain areas; I contributed to a re-design of some sections of training for paediatricians. Must be corrupt as fuck…

I was just accused of raising a red herring (jkanta) and then pointedly informed that insulin is not a vaccine (rebeccalesses). As someone who has been reading this site and commenting here for well over a decade, I would point to the broad scope of the comments that are allowed and even encouraged. I was merely pointing out that normal, rational people can feel resentment towards a system that costs us thousands of dollars individually, can recognize the central players and their lobbying efforts, and manage to make the connection between the virtuous act of making vaccines and the significantly less virtuous act of profiteering. May I suggest that your remarks represent hypersensitivity. I strongly doubt that the more serious thinkers here would want to suggest that giant corporate entities are without their own issues, or that criticizing the U.S. congress for cooperating with such profiteering should be out of bounds.

And no, it’s not a red herring. It’s just a little off the topic of whether vaccines are safe and effective. What I am pointing out is that the drug companies should be regulated at some level.

By the way, the participants in this discussion have gone to valiant efforts to point out that the vaccine side of the industry is not making the huge profits that other profit centers are. My several Covid shots cost me nothing and probably cost the government maybe $20 each. But the same drugstore that gave me the shots was willing to charge me up to $400 for a box of insulin pens and about the same amount for a 90 day supply of blood pressure pills. So yes, these drugs are safe and effective, but could have been delivered at a tenth of the cost.

My overall point is that the anti-vaccine people are dead wrong and sometimes completely daft, but that argument is not a blanket assertion that everything is right and proper in the way that the United States regulates and markets drugs. Perhaps this blog could take that extra step and start talking about such things.

By the way — and this remark is dedicated to the one who chose to explain the chemical nature of insulin to me — my PhD thesis was on the metabolism of RNA in human cells. I did additional work on how RNA metabolism varies during the cell cycle, both studies being published in peer reviewed journals. I certainly can grasp the essential elements of RNA mediated vaccination. In fact, we use a lipid mediator (Lipofectamine RNAiMax) in getting microRNAs into cells in our current research. I also have. a lot of experience assaying polypeptides (insulin is one of them) using the standard methods such as the western blot, and have numerous publications on those studies. I shouldn’t have to recite my bio sketch to legitimize what was, after all, a rational and factual statement, but it seemed appropriate to respond in this way to the second of the comments.

@ Bob G

Well spoken. And you are absolutely right that what Pharma charges for insulin is outrageous. Most other nations have national healthcare systems that negotiate for each and every drug. They pay amount that covers research costs, etc.; but U.S. has a bought and paid for Congress that allows pharmaceutical companies to milk people. We are the by far most expensive health care system in world, paid for by our taxes, turned over to private sector, with among worst international outcomes; e.g. infant mortality, etc. You might find two papers I wrote of interest, just cut and paste titles in Google:

Harrison (2008 May). Paying More, Getting Less | Dollars & Sense magazine
Harrison (2018 Aug 10). The Case for A Non-Profit Single-Payer Healthcare System | Physicians for a National Health Program.

p.s. so nice to have someone following this blog who really understands RNA.

“My overall point is that the anti-vaccine people are dead wrong and sometimes completely daft, but that argument is not a blanket assertion that everything is right and proper in the way that the United States regulates and markets drugs.”

It’d be a decent point if supporters of vaccination were in favor of giving drug companies a blank check to do whatever they want, but since that’s not the case (and someone who’s read this blog for years should be well aware of frequent critiques of pharma here), your comment came off as a distraction at best, at worst echoing a standard antivax meme – i.e. that we should distrust and avoid vaccines because Big Pharma Bad.

Perhaps less oversensitivity on your part is called for.

Fwiw, I didn’t interpret BobG’s statement you quoted as saying pro-vax folks do offer “a blanket assertion that everything is right and proper in the way that the United States regulates and markets drugs.” Rather, i see an awkwardly phrased observation that the terms of the ‘debate’ are polarized in a way that can make it appear that way. I must add, if pro-science/pro-vax folks buy into these terms that’s a rhetorical win for the antivaxers. The antivax attack on Big Pharma is bait to get you to either defend the pharmas or come close enough to doing so that you can be labeled a pharma shill.

Which becomes a credibility issue because pretty much everyone knows the pharmas have done some sketchy stuff, and there are indeed serious problems with the United States regulates and markets drugs.

I must also note that the whole business of criticizing a comment for “echoing a standard antivax meme” is a composition fallacy on at least two grounds. 1) Because something is true of a part (a trope found in antivax), does not make it true of the whole. And 2) Even though a whole may be false (antivax argumentation) some of its component parts may be true (pharmas do nasty things). More importantly, this last principle is the key to successful propaganda campaigns in ‘open’ or ‘liberal’ societies: tell as much truth as possible around the BS. [Outside of personality cults or total totalitarian control of information, Big Lies tend to break down too easily.]

In short, it’s not useful to try to identify an ideology by any of it’s memes unless those memes are clearly BS, and certainly anti-vaxers offer up plenty of that.

Since any polarized framing of the pharmas works to the antivaxers advantage, it’s important for pro-vax/pro-science folks to be pro-active in avoiding that, and to present a more nuanced, and accurate, analysis. I too am a long-time reader here and at SBM, and while there certainly have been critiques of pharma here, I wouldn’t call them frequent. I can’t remember any specific ones actually. I also don’t recall any discussion of drug marketing, which may be outside the traditional ambit of this blog, but perhaps could use some (or some more) attention. Anyway, I’m arguing that in whatever form it would help the pro-vax cause here to have that more nuanced take on the pharmaceutical industry appear as a more consistent presence.

Whataboutism, which is a bunch of different logical fallacies, depending on how it’s used.

I don’t know why you think your history here would indicate that you should be allowed to throw out red herrings, gaslight and so on.

Another identifying mark of anti-vaxxers:
they don’t recognise expertise about vaccines from scientists, physicians, universities and governmental agencies.
As I wrote above, psychologists studied how anti-vaxxers/ conspiracy believers reject expertise from professionals and instead substitute their own thinking ( and own chosen experts who depart from consensus) as superior.

My question to anti-vaxxers who appear at RI: Can you tell me if your belief/ theory is taught at any accredited university?
So far, no response. Of course, they might venture that all universities are corrupt and therefore wrong.

Only yesterday, Mike Adams’ told us how ” All experts are wrong” as he discussed vaccines, ( the unreality of ) AGW, the economy, Ukraine. education, entertainment and the oncoming failure of just about everything.
Similarly, Gary Null “instructs” his enthralled listeners authoritatively on many subjects including politics, life science, the arts, history, climate change, philosophy, religion, business, social science, economics, psychotherapy, media studies and esoterica.
Del Bigtree, who appears to lack both secondary school** and college/ university records, blithely dismisses standard vaccine science and research results as well as common sense.

Scoffers at RI resemble these ‘professionals’ frequently. Of course, adults may have reasonably good command of diverse areas because of formal studies and personal interests BUT it is extremely difficult to self-instruct in certain scientific topics especially those which incorporate new technologies such as vaccine science. When they depart from consensus on topics like mRNA or immunology, they follow their own interests and disregard material that doesn’t fit into their agenda ( see Katie Wright twitter/ CHD). Every college student may exclaim, “Why do we have to study THAT?” as they regard immense reading lists with seemingly unimportant entries. In their naivete, they fail to see underlying connections or themes as well as salient results.
I’ve noticed that anti-vax autism ‘experts’ – both here and at their dedicated sites- fail to include research about neonatal brain development which is foundational and ever expanding since the 1980s.They also simply disregard vaccine safety studies that proceed around the world.

** he was homeschooled from third grade by his mother and attended non-university based film school briefly as an adult

Denice Walter inappropriately asks,

“My question to anti-vaxxers who appear at RI: Can you tell me if your belief/ theory is taught at any accredited university?”

MJD cordially says,

This pro-vaccine safety advocate (not anti-vaxxer) has a book in the University of Chicago library.

https://catalogtest.lib.uchicago.edu/vufind/Record/11247035

This pro-vaccine safety advocate

a) You spelled “woo loving crank” wrong
b) Having a book in a library doesn’t mean the material is taught

Hope this isn’t a double .

Idw56old:

I have not ever found an accredited university that teaches vaccines-cause-autism and no troll has ever claimed one. I’m sure that some woo-fraught institute of Gaian wisdom might but they usually are not accredited.
HOWEVER Orac and other scientists do examine these “theories” in detail.
A neatly compact source is Gerber and Offit (2009) where they present the three most widely held false scenarios.
— MMR- Wakefield explains how GI inflammation from the vaccine leads to ASD
— Thimerosal- mercury in vaccines causes autism
— Too-many-too-soon- too many vaccines cause autism

All of the theories presented here by anti-vaxxers seem to be variants of these three. The immunological system is overwhelmed by vaccines or Hg poisons neurons or somehow GI problems lead to changes in the brain.

Dangerous Bacon: I have read and respected your comments for years. I would ask you to consider the sum total of my comments on this site over the years. I realize that I am not one of the people who treats this as a community or feels the need to comment several times a week, but Orac is influential in the wider community and represents the ideal of science and honesty. That is all I am asking for in this case. The fact that the anti-vaccine people engage in false attacks on the pharmaceutical industry (all the conspiracy nonsense) does not mean that the industry is either good or bad. The conclusion that the pharmaceutical industry is necessary and, at least mainly, ethical is one part of the argument. The assertion that the overall industry is rapacious when it comes to pricing is a different side of the coin. If Respectful Insolence wants to avoid that point, that would be unfortunate. I would suggest that to do so is to avoid the true complexity of the argument in order to create a unified, but simple front. I don’t think that I should be expected to read every comment on every posting of RI. And even if I did, it would not affect the truth or falsehood of what I say. Finally, I would ask you to reconsider your remark that what I wrote was a distraction. I would tend to disagree, considering that the U.S. spends close to twice as much per capita as some other western nations, and we don’t do any better. But if it is the choice of this blog that the only points that are made are the ones which expose the dishonesty and frank stupidity of the anti-vaccine people, that is your right. But it would unnecessarily limit the scope and reach of this community.

It’s an age-old problem – people weighing in on subjects in which they have interest and expertise, which may not coincide with what others think is important and worthy of their time.

You could write a guest piece on drug company overcharging as it pertains to insulin and other medications and submit it here, over at SBM or other established sites. And I hear that establishing one’s own blog is feasible.

https://www.theblogstarter.com/

If you do start a blog and share your insights on pharma excesses, be prepared for commenters to complain that you are neglecting more important subjects like threats to abortion rights, African famine and runaway climate change.

While the question is a fair question, ‘what vaccine are not safe or effective, or you would not recommend?” or something to that effect.

The opposite side of your coin for the pro vaccine group, the question if your willing to answer is, of the over 80 FDA approved vaccines plus the boosters needed to keep the vaccine working, how many of those 80 would the pro vaccine advocates recommend? By the arguments made here you would necessarily need to take all 80?”

It appears that if you question getting any vaccine, that would label you as an anti-vaxxer, How many people who have posted on this website have gotten the full 5 shots of Anthrax vaccine and the yearly booster or Ebola or Rabies or Yellow Fever? If you haven’t, does that make you anti-vaxxer?

Irrelevant if you’re not exposed to them and you are certainly an antivaxxer if you don’t get available vaccines for diseases you could be exposed to.
Hadn’t you noticed that is the point of Orac’s post???

I am not an antivaxxer because I am not against people getting vaccines if they want to, as long as those vaccines have been proven to have very low risk.

But for most of my life I did not get vaccines, and the only childhood vaccine I remember getting is polio. I never got a flu shot — got the flu once, stayed in bed for a week taking cold medicine, was immune ever since.

I avoid drugs for myself, unless absolutely necessary, but I am not against other people taking drugs, if they really need them. So I am not anti-drug. I am skeptical of the drug industry, and of the over-use of drugs. I believe some widely used drugs are harmful.

I got the covid vaccines because I didn’t want to take a chance on giving covid to a vulnerable elderly person. I had miserable side effects for months after each vaccine. After the first vaccine wore off, I caught covid and stayed in bed for about 4 days.

If there were some truly horrible and very contagious infectious disease going around, and if there was a vaccine for it that had been proven safe, I would get that vaccine. So I am not an anti-vaxxer. As I said, I am skeptical of the drug industry, and that is very different from being against vaccines in general.

I do NOT think mRNA vaccine technology has been proven safe. I think it will be a while before we find out. If I had healthy young kids I would have tried to discourage them from getting covid vaccines.

I never got a flu shot — got the flu once, stayed in bed for a week taking cold medicine, was immune ever since.

You may be in for an unpleasant surprise.

Unpleasant surprise? Oh really? Like having to stay in bed for another week and take cold medicine. HORRORS.

Unpleasant surprise? Oh really? Like having to stay in bed for another week and take cold medicine.

But with the flu. The rest I assume is par for the course.

I am not an antivaxxer because I am not against people getting vaccines if they want to, as long as those vaccines have been proven to have very low risk

You are an antivaxxer because you lie about the dangers of vaccines, lie about the dangers they pose, and lie about the lack of studies and understanding.

Why are you so willing to lie about these things? Tell us: is it a desire to be seen as brave enough to “take a stand against [the imaginary as you present it] big pharma? Is it because of your lack of understanding? Your lack or inability to learn?

Note that these same questions would apply to indierebel, labarge, mjd, and the other clowns here.

Idw56old writes,

“Note that these same questions would apply to indierebel, labarge, mjd, and the other clowns here.”

MJD says,

Why do you always needle me? It’s scary…

Checkout my latest pro-vaccine medical paper and stop the anti-vax rhetoric.

https://wjarr.com/sites/default/files/WJARR-2021-0649.pdf

@ Orac,

I’m using the Jedi mind trick with a slight wave of the hand…Release MJD from auto-moderation.

Your argument is specious and silly.

I did make a list of 13 vaccines from the list of licensed vaccines that most people in the US don’t need (including anthrax, ebola, rabies and yellow fever). For some reason the board software is not allowing me to post it.

Except there isn’t anywhere near 80 diseases vaccinated against on the US schedule (0 to 18). All the rest are ‘as the situation requires’.

I certainly didn’t see rabies on the list. Feel free not to get it, as long as you don’t bite anyone. I believe that yellow fever is required in some countries. I’m sure those countries don’t give a f#£k if you decide not to visit.

There’s a difference between not getting vaccinated because you don’t need to and not getting vaccinated because your vast intelligence has determined that you’ll get cooties.

I thought the whole reason to get a vaccine was to get it prior to exposure, not after you have been exposed. That’s why we give everyone polio/small pox shots, the chances of people getting polio/small pox is exceeding low but we give them as a preventative measure. With the speed of air travel viruses in foreign countries could be in your country with in hours and spread before anyone recognizes it, Covid proved that. It was just luck that the US didn’t have Ebola spread.

Rabies shots and titter test are recommended/required for people working with animals, vets,vet techs,ranchers,cattle producer,farmers,dog groomers. Wild roaming bats,raccoons,skunks etc. that are in your neighborhood all are carriers of rabies,
Obviously your lack of knowledge is showing.

How do you know which vaccine you need? Tomorrow a bio-terrorist could release Anthrax, those of you who didn’t get the vaccine are screwed.
I’ve had all four of the vaccines in the list (with boosters), yet if i decline to get booster shots for covid I am now labeled an anti vaxxer.

if you refuse a flu shot are you an anti-vaxxer as well.

Please list the vaccines most people haven’t taken and still get to be labeled pro-vaccine.

As someone posted on this website. To view the world as black and white is myopic.

Why do you reject the need for boosters?

If you don’t have an evidence based reason, you’re anti-vax. You’re doing it for “feelings” and playing into the anti-vax message.

And stop with smallpox, it’s not endemic, it doesn’t exist in the wild anywhere we even know of. The only people vaccinated are those that are deployed in active military zones where biochemical threats are real.

Polio is still endemic to some regions of the world, the vast majority of developed nations use an inactivated polio vaccine to give a low level of herd immunity to reduce the chances of spread IF a traveler brings it in to a region.

I’m betting your excuse for not getting booster(s) is vapid, at best.

“Rabies shots and titter test are recommended/required for people working with animals, vets,vet techs,ranchers,cattle producer,farmers,dog groomers. Wild roaming bats,raccoons,skunks etc. that are in your neighborhood all are carriers of rabies,
Obviously your lack of knowledge is showing”

I’m in the UK. Rabies is hardly a thing at all here. However, as I said, anything outside your recommended schedule is depending on the situation. Get rabies vaccine if you come into contact with rabies sources. Get yellow fever vaccination if you are likely to be exposed.

It appears that part of your ignorance includes risk assessments too. It’s a combination of ‘severity of impact’ and ‘likelihood of occurrence’. I almost choked on the irony of an anti-vaxxer complaining that the schedule didn’t cover every possible disease risk in the world, including terrorism.

how many of those 80 would the pro vaccine advocates recommend?

This is not just a foolish question, but a dishonest one: dollars to donuts that 26 of those 80-some (I didn’t count) are influenza.

You are an anti-vaxxer that has obviously been on anti-vax blogs and facebook pages to pick up a significant number of anti-vax stupid arguments.

Be proud, wear the label proudly.

“It appears that if you question getting any vaccine, that would label you as an anti-vaxxer,” Yes, questioning of any vaccine recommendation will result in being considered
“anti-vaxxer” category on this site.

@ Beth

You write: “Yes, questioning of any vaccine recommendation will result in being considered “anti-vaxxer” category on this site.”

While I can’t speak for everyone who comments on this site, whether I consider someone anti-vaxxer or not depends on how they comment. If they pose questions, I simply answer them; but if they, as with, for instance, Ginny Stoner, continue to base her position on VAERS regardless of it being explained to her how VAERS works, then, yep, an anti-vaxxer. If she had first time given VAERS data, listened to and understood what Orac, myself, and others wrote, then not an antivaxxer.

We are inundated every day with info, both valid and false, impossible to avoid. However, hopefully the majority of people when the false info well-refuted change their positions.

Take racists. Despite overwhelming scientific studies that range of intelligence, creativity, etc doesn’t differ between races (actually even concept of race not scientific) they refuse to even consider. So, not surprising how antivaxxers think or, better, don’t think.

Yes, questioning of any vaccine recommendation will result in being considered
“anti-vaxxer” category on this site.

“Is that a new perfume?”

“Yes, it’s called ‘Jejune’.”

Blatant dishonesty and JAQing off about vaccines (a Beth specialty) make it plain that someone is antivax.

In your case, Beth, it is you rolling up here spouting anti-vaccine talking points that gets you labelled anti-vaccine. If you stopped doing that, people might start giving you the benefit of the doubt.

Every vaccine has some risk, of course.

Those risks are, for most people, very small, and for diseases that they have any plausible chance of encountering are far outweighed by the risks of the disease.

But for diseases they don’t have a chance of encountering…

Yellow Fever is a great example! It’s spread by mosquito bites. If you are going to be in the areas where mosquitos with the virus are likely to be found, you should get the vaccines because the risks of the shot (tiny) are far outweighed by the risks of the disease (not tiny), but if you are going to only be in areas like say the continental US where there are no known instances of such mosquitos, the risks of the shot (still tiny) outweigh the risks of the disease (negligable) and you should not get the vaccine.

Polio and Measles are spread person to person, so you need the vaccine even in regions where the disease isn’t endemic, but many of these diseases simply do not pose a risk to most people and thus there’s no reason to get the vaccines for them.

Engaging in actual risk-benefit analysis that correctly identifies the risk of vaccines as low-but-not-zero is not being an anti-vaxxer. It is when one claims the risk of a vaccine is far out of line with scientific evidence that one becomes an anti-vaxxer.

@ Kay

You write: “The opposite side of your coin for the pro vaccine group, the question if your willing to answer is, of the over 80 FDA approved vaccines plus the boosters needed to keep the vaccine working, how many of those 80 would the pro vaccine advocates recommend? By the arguments made here you would necessarily need to take all 80?””

NOPE. If you will be traveling, for instance, to an area where yellow fever is prevalent, which I did many years ago, then you would get the yellow fever vaccine. If you are a veterinarian, you get the rabies vaccine. If you travel to regions where Japanese encephalitis is prevalent, you get that vaccine. I won’t go down the list; but you really don’t care. However, if each and every vaccine-preventable disease was prevalent and causing massive hospitalizations, work disruptions, disabilities, deaths, etc. then I wouldn’t hesitate to both get ALL of them and to recommend them.

As for the current schedule of vaccines for kids, when I was a kid I got ALL the childhood diseases; e.g. measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, rotavirus, etc. My mother stayed home as a housewife and could take care of me. She went back to workforce when I entered high school. Fortunately, I got through all fhem with just weeks of unpleasant experiences, no hospitalization, no longer term disabilities; but I knew kids who weren’t as lucky as me. You suffer from the stupidity of “our of sight, out of mind”. If vaccines didn’t exist, our world would be quite different, not in a positive world. So, keep displaying your biased uninformed stupidity.

@ Kay

You write: “I thought the whole reason to get a vaccine was to get it prior to exposure, not after you have been exposed. That’s why we give everyone polio/small pox shots, the chances of people getting polio/small pox is exceeding low but we give them as a preventative measure. With the speed of air travel viruses in foreign countries could be in your country with in hours and spread before anyone recognizes it, Covid proved that. It was just luck that the US didn’t have Ebola spread”

First, some vaccines can still work after exposed, depends on incubation time of microbe. We give rabies vaccine to those bitten by rabid animals and it often works because rabies virus is quite slow in getting into spinal system. And vaccines can alert some parts of immune system that are more delayed, even after exposure, again, depends on microbe.

Ebola requires close contact. In addition, it is not contagious until after it is symptomatic, which then results in vicim basically immobilized. We haven’t given smallpox vaccine to general public for over 40 years; however, if, though highly unlikely, suicidal terrorists got hold of some, infected themselves, then flew to hub airports, we could have literally millions of deaths before we could get most people vaccinated. And two of the three serotypes of polio no longer exist, so current vaccine only contains one serotype. Smallpox and polio only have humans as their reservoir, so once smallpox ended, can’t come from animals. Monkey pox is related; but much less virulent and so far monkey pox has required very close contact. Polio shots could end tomorrow if Taliban didn’t kill vaccinator, as it only still exists in few places in world.

The main point, though, is that the risks from vaccines is extremely low, so even though polio currently in US, vaccine very safe. A few decades ago there was outbreak of polio in Amish community in US. They visited friends and relatives in Canada, who had been visited by fellow religionist from abroad, who passed it on. However, the Amish then got vaccinated. They weren’t forced to.

As long as you continue to display your ignorance of immunology, of how vaccines work, of just how safe they are, you just continue with your moronic bias.

I realize you won’t, but once more, read Lauren Sompayrac’s “How the Immune System Works (6th Edition)’

In other anti-vax news….

( via AoA) Infertility: A Diabolical Agenda, a film by Andy Wakefield and RFK jr will premier today at CHD at 2 pm, EDT**. It uncovers how WHO laced vaccines given to unsuspecting African women with a dangerous hormone, Beta h CG, in order to suppress fertility. Kenya first, then the world!

For some reason, this plot sounds so familiar to me- I wonder why that is?

** Not listed there yet. Is it free or not?

@ Denice Walter

Yep, vaccines given to Africans are for birth control, which, of course, explains why population of Africa has increased with advent of vaccines. Prior to smallpox vaccine campaign by WHO in Africa, smallpox killed, one average about 25% or more of population, left others blind, etc.

Of course, AIDS is now affecting African population, not related, of course, to vaccines.

For some reason, this plot sounds so familiar to me- I wonder why that is?

The Catholic Church got there first. That one’s ancient.

One might nonetheless ask Wakefraud what he has against neonates.

Beta h CG is actually a fertility hormone. Story is based on an experimental birth control method, reating antibodies against it,

Alright, I found something at CHD.TV which sends you to another website, infertllitymovie. It looks like you have to sign up- which I won’t but CHD.TV may have a panel discussion for free at 2:30. So the film is that short?

There is now notification up at CHD’s frontispiece. You still need to sign in.
I don’t have a throw-away Email now I just use an old ( someone else’s) former business
I’m sure we’ll be able to watch it for free soon.
These films are merely adverts for these guy’s orgs/ “charities”.

I didn’t get to view the cinematic/ investigative journalism marvel itself but there were several minute long clips of Andy speaking ( as if we could tolerate any more!) and an hour long panel discussion with Tommey, Holland, Hooker, Northup etc with viewer comments in the sidebar. IOW, nothing much.

It’s like the molded oldies antivax tour! Will the old fans still turn out for the nostalgia, as geriatric NoCal rockers will apparently still head to an Indian casino to catch Styx or Cheap Trick? I wouldn’t expect Andy’s new “joint” to appeal to the new school Tucker-ian antivax crew, as they’ll likely think suppressing fertility in Kenya is a damn fine idea.

I don’t know. Since the rise of new school antivaxxers as a result of COVID-19, most old school antivaxxers like Andy seem to be desperately grasping for relevance. Some have managed the pivot and become influential in this new environment, like Del Bigtree, RFK Jr., Sherri Tenpenny, and some others, but Andrew Wakefield seems not to have made the transition and has drifted into irrelevance. I don’t see that changing much any time soon if his new joint with RFK Jr about the tetanus vaccine supposedly causing mass infertility in Kenya is any indication. (As you said, the new generation of antivaxxers is likely just fine with that.). Talk about not being able to read the room and clinging to past “glories”!

Styx indeed! (I still kind of like Cheap Trick, though, although I wouldn’t go to the casino to catch a show from one of their oldies tours.)

By Post Author

Kay: “Rabies shots and titter test are recommended/required for people working with animals…”

The titter test is an assay to determine how long one can refrain from laughing at Kay’s ludicrous, fact-deprived posts.

Incidentally, if you don’t count varying formulations of a particular vaccine, there are more like 32 different vaccines on the FDA’s approved list, not 80. And most of us aren’t being urged to get vaccinated against dengue, Ebola, anthrax etc.

Antivaxers do love to lie about, excuse me, exaggerate the number of recommended vaccines to try to scare people. Kay missed an opportunity to follow the typical antivaxer pattern of listing total doses to inflate the final number, an omission for which she’s probably kicking herself.

My question still stands….

“Please list the vaccines most people haven’t taken and still get to be labeled pro-vaccine.”

despite the ‘crawfishing” and ‘backsliding’ and ‘only if’ statements of “risk of contracting a virus” and getting sick and dying.

Most of the pro vaccine people who post here have not had all the vaccines approved by the FDA for one reason or another.

here is a website that has the latest information of virus/vaccines/outbreaks. Pro vaccine poster fail to realize that mutated virus can spread in our modern society at the speed of a jet plane, if you are not vaccinate against these viruses you are at risk and don’t even know it but you want to label people who don’t get the 3 boosters of the covid-19 as anti-vaxxers (a derogatory/condescending term). Why is your personal reason for not getting one the 80 or so vaccines any less valid then other person’s reason for not getting Covid or any other vaccine.

outbreaknewstoday.com

There aren’t “80” FDA approved vaccines. So, since you can’t get that number right, the rest of your tired old tropes are just as invalid.

I suppose the FDA could be lying.
fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/vaccines/vaccines-licensed-use-united-states
The flu vaccine does vary from year to year. There are 4 general types and over 100 subtypes

too lazy to type “vaccines approved” ?

Too lazy to actually read the comments?

@ Kay

I have had smallpox vaccine three times; typhoid/paratyphoid, cholera, yellow fever, Salk polio, Sabin polio, Dpt, DtaP, MMR, flu vaccine every year except one since 1971, shingrix vaccine, Hepatitis A and B, pneumococcal, meningitis, plague, and I was volunteer in Moderna phase 3 clinical trial for their mRNA vaccine, then got first booster, then recently volunteered for Moderna phase 2 trial for variant Omicron and/or Delta.

If they succeed in producing a dengue fever vaccine that covers all four variants, I will get it as the aedes egypti mosquito that carries it is now in my county. Why all four variants. Because if get vaccinated for three and infected with fourth, causes a very rare problem called antibody dependent enhancement. Another vaccine I would get is Lyme disease because I sometimes walk my dog up in mountains where Lyme disease exists. There was a Lyme disease vaccine; but it was WRONGLY withdrawn from the market, pressure from idiot antivaxxers like you.

However, I won’t get Anthrax vaccine, Ebola, Japanese encephalitis, rabies, and a few others. If there is a small but reasonable chance I could be exposed to an infectious disease, I will get the vaccine; but not vaccines for something that probability almost nil.

As I’ve written before, morons like you suffer from out-of-sight, out-of-mind. I grew up with polio, fellow kids in hospital with measles, reports of congenital rubella syndrome, etc.; but some of the vaccines I received was because I worked for the US Navy for two years in Western Pacific, spent time in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Philippines, Japan. Wasn’t vaccine at time for Japanese encephalitis or I would have gotten it. Water supply in US safe, so, here no reason for typhoid/paratyphoid.

Bottom line, I understand immunology, microbiology (my name even in acknowledgment of undergraduate text in microbiology for proof-reading and editorial suggestions, epidemiology (educated and trained in), and I have read literally 100s of books on history of vaccine-preventable diseases, so I understand the risk to benefits ratio, even if currently out-of-sight, out-of-mind.

I have been reading up over the past two years of Sars-Cov-2, especially how suddenly in lest than two decades it mutated into three horrific diseases, SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 and given its ability to mutate, reasonable probability it will mutate to highly transmissible and much more virulent. However, even the current vaccines with confer what is called cross-immunity as long as mutations not too extreme/too different, so will protect most against severe disease.

In 1969 I purchase my first car while in grad school. It had lap seatbelts. I automatically put on and required anyone in my car to do the same. Long before public service announcements to get people to buckle up and even longer before became mandatory. I prefer to err on the side of caution and, again, I understand how vaccines work, you don’t. I would love also for them to develop vaccines against streptococcus, acinitobacter, staphylococcus, and several others that are around and do infect and kill 10s of thousands every years.

As with Ginny, Indie Rebel, JohnlaBarge, you just don’t understand immunology, etc. so you continue to show just how STUPID you are.

“There was a Lyme disease vaccine; but it was WRONGLY withdrawn from the market, pressure from idiot antivaxxers like you.”

Do you provide misinformation often?

It was not anti-vaxxer who had the vaccine pulled off the market.

The lead researcher for the lyme disease vaccine issued warning that there were problems with the vaccine that could negatively affect 20-30% of the population.
I hardly think he would be called an anti-vaxxer..

lymedisease.org/members/lyme-times/special-issues/tick-borne-disease/lymerix-lyme-disease-vaccine/

@ Kay

You write: “Pro vaccine poster fail to realize that mutated virus can spread in our modern society at the speed of a jet plane, if you are not vaccinate against these viruses you are at risk.”

Yes and No. Depends on just how different mutations are. In most cases, our t-cells especially have cross-immunity, simply they still recognize mutants, maybe not as well; but enough in most cases to prevent severe sickness for most people; however, booster protects both the few and everyone else from milder illness, etc.

You just don’t know what you are talking about. It isn’t all or none. And I always get the boosters. Why suffer even for a week or 10 days if I can avoid it?

“Why is your personal reason for not getting one the 80 or so vaccines any less valid then other person’s reason for not getting Covid or any other vaccine.”

So….there’s no such thing as stupidity then?

YouTube is full of people making bad decisions with painful consequences. The fact that the phrase ‘bad decision’ exists, means that not all reasons are equally valid. If you think that not getting vaccinated because you ‘don’t wanna’ is equivalent to can’t get vaccinated because it’s medically contraindicated, then you aren’t worth interacting with.

here is a website that has the latest information of virus/vaccines/outbreaks.
. . . .
outbreaknewstoday.com

Well, Kay, that’s a pretty mangy-looking site, but they do sell mugs.

Flu virus does mutate, and there is still a shot against it. For COVID, boosters still work.

Dr Harrison: I have the immunology book you recommend on my bookshelf. I bought it due to your recommendation, and I’m glad you still recommend it (instead of there being a 7th edition) because I have to read it eventually. Been a little busy with the miRs and so forth.

Dangerous Bacon: At the time I made my first comment on this thread, I had thought that the refutation of the anti-vaccine arguments had long-since been made, not only on this thread but on many, many previous threads. I will offer my own definition of an anti-vaccine person here, which does not go into the exact details of which argument is being used, or whether the person can recommend even one vaccine as being acceptable. I simply recognize the anti-vaccine person as somebody who starts from the conclusion that vaccines are bad, and then types in whatever anti-vaccine arguments he/she feels like, in spite of the fact that these arguments have been refuted already. Often enough, the refutations have been made from more than one aspect, include substantial factual data, and provide strongly believable correlations with their conclusions.

In other words, the anti-vaccine people are classical circular logic believers. The core trait is a need to believe, and the core characteristic is intellectual dishonesty.

I argued regarding the other problem with our health care system — the insane price of some drugs — because this is the top blog regarding medical and pharmaceutical issues. It and its founder are widely quoted in lots of other places.

I will give my last word on my wish to extend the scope of this discussion through my comments on the pricing structure of drugs in the United States. I see this as a failure of the political system. I believe this site has gone after an analogous failure, which is the refusal to regulate the so-called nutritional supplements. It’s no secret that one influential senator from Utah was able to keep that industry free of such regulation (except in the instances where a convincing case is made that something such as ephedra is killing a lot of people). In each case, one or more senators prevented rational approaches to regulating the drug industry. In each case, the result has been unnecessary deaths — in one case it is the ma huang death toll, and in the other it is the people who could have lived longer if they had had timely medical care and affordable prescription drugs. I will remind you that prior to the Affordable Care Act, many Americans went without medical care because they couldn’t afford to have a regular doctor and even if they did get medical advice and prescriptions, some of them rationed their use of drugs due to the cost. The death toll due to these problems has obviously been pretty high.

None of this is a secret, and pointing it out is not to play into the hands of the anti-vaccine people. It is to state the truth and adhere to a policy of telling the truth and avoiding half-truths.

One more point that I think is worth making: It’s not a question of whether the pharmaceutical companies are sometimes unethical or even outright piratical. It’s a question of whether the vaccines work and are pretty safe. We have a system which involves strict governmental regulation, which includes evaluation of clinical trial results — not because pharmaceutical companies are always unethical, but because there have been rare examples of same, and because even the completely unethical can make a mistake every now and then. This blog is obviously in favor of all that regulation when it comes to product quality. We should extend it to regulation of pricing, as every other modern industrial nation already does.

tl;dr: not necessary to overly restrict this to anti-vaxxers. There are plenty of other insane things going on.

@ Indie Rebel

VAERS has received reports of vertigo following mRNA covid vaccines. I fund one published paper; however, the paper also makes clear that the number of reports was too small to determine causation. Not too late for you to submit your experience to VAERS. As I have written over and over, VAERS gives suspicion, then CDC investigates, and, yep, no vaccine 100% safe and CDC reports clearly those adverse events such as myocarditis that it could verify. However, again, I want to make clear one has to balance risk vs benefits. Check out:

Paola Di Mauro et al (2022 Jan 6). Acute Vertigo After COVID-19 Vaccination: Case Series and Literature Review. Frontiers in Medicine; 8. Find by just cutting and pasting

p.s. severe adverse events aren’t always random, if rare, has to be some reason; e.g., genetic predisposition, minor comorbidity, etc. You might want to investigate as could enable you to change/avoid something else that could occur. Keep also in mind that if you reacted to vaccine, you may also have reacted strongly to actual disease.

I had a Moderna vaccine last December, immediately followed by extreme vertigo which gradually decreased over a couple of months. I don’t have it anymore. Same for other covid vaccine side effects I had — most severe immediately following the vaccine, then gradually decreasing over a couple of months. I had J&J about a year ago, and Moderna about 6 months ago. The side effects I had — vertigo, nausea, etc. — were nothing that I had before. And, like I said, they immediately followed each vaccine. And I read reports of others having similar side effects.

Most likely these side effects are under-reported, since we don’t expect MDs to believe us. They will either say it’s a coincidence or imaginary. Who needs to waste time on that?

And I read reports of others having similar side effects.

I’m sure that describe mutually fruitful exchanges.

Reporting SAEs is a legal requirement. It you o dnot report something because it is inplausible, an actual signal could be missed.

@ Kay

80 vaccines? Not really. For instance, one can get the MMR or MMR with Chickenpox. Two different vaccines; but obviously one would not get both. Many vaccines are for water-borne illnesses; e.g., cholera, typhoid. In the US we have quite good safe water, so, unless one is traveling abroad, absolutely not necessary.

Total list of currently available vaccines and vaccines in pipeline can be found at: https://www.who.int/teams/immunization-vaccines-and-biologicals/diseases

25 Currently available; but cholera, Dengue, Japanese encephalitis, malaria, rabies, tick-borne encephalitis, tuberculosis, typhoid, yellow fever not needed in U.S. except rabies for veterinarians. So, only 16 used in US. 15 in pipeline, some extremely important; e.g., escherichia coli, group b streptococcus, herpes, hiv-1, neisseria gonorrhoeae, salmonella, norovirus, respiratory syncytial virus, shigella, group a streptococcus, and, of course, improved influenza vaccines. of course hiv-1, gonorrhoead probably needed only for sexually promiscuous persons; but since at least 25-30% of population have herpes and it can be spread asymptomatically, everyone else is at risk.

So, 80 vs actually 16. Just another example of your either delusional bias and/or believing antivaxxers.

Hey guess who is back “Joel” and his highly intellectual arguments

“You really are NUTS!
EXTREMELY DISHONEST
ABSOLUTE STUPIDITY
“YOU ARE AN EXTREMELY STUPID, INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST PERSON”
MAKING A FOOL OF YOURSELF.
IMMENSE IGNORANCE
You are simply STUPID and DELUSIONAL
STUPIDITY
MORONIC
Just how STUPID are you?
DISHONEST ASSHOLE
You really are an IDIOT
YOU ARE AN EXTREMELY STUPID, INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST EXCUSE FOR A HUMAN BEING.
STUPID, INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST
STUPID MORON
YOU ARE A STUPID FRIGGIN ASSHOLE.
STUPID FRIGGIN ASSHOLE just like you.
STUPID FRIGGIN ASSHOLE
ASSHOLE that you are
ONE SICK ASSHOLE.AND MY DESCRIPTION OF YOU IS VALID
STUPID FRIGGIN ASSHOLE
MORON
You really are NUTS!
EXTREMELY DISHONEST”

I can see now why so many people have changed their minds on vax or no vax based on your erudite, reasonable and well thought out responses.

but getting back to my original post, I ask the flip side of Orac’s question how many pro vaxxers have taken all 80 or so vaccines available in the US and if you haven’t do you get to still call yourselfes pro-vaxxine
fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/vaccines/vaccines-licensed-use-united-states

I ask the flip side of Orac’s question how many pro vaxxers have taken all 80 or so vaccines available in the US

You lose. The rest is left as an exercise for the reader.

IMMENSE IGNORANCE
STUPID and DELUSIONAL
DISHONEST ASSHOLE
IDIOT
MORON
EXTREMELY DISHONEST

Someone should tell Kay that it’s not necessary to use so many capital letters in her CV.

@Kay You missed the point as usual. Tell us how many Flu vacines FDA has approved. Would anyone use all of them ?
I would that you are doubleplus good duckspeaker.

@ Kay

You continue to display just how STUPID you are. There are NOT 80 vaccines in U.S. MMR and MMR plus chicken pox, DPT, DTaP, may be two different formulations; but why would anyone take both. Some vaccines available if one travels abroad. As provaxx as I am, why would I get cholera, typhoid, other water-borne infections when our water system is quite safe. Why would I get yellow fever, and other diseases that don’t exist in U.S. Why would I get rabies? YOU CITE EXCERPTS FROM WHAT I WRITE; BUT LEAVE OUT WHY I LOSE MY TEMPER; NAMELY, THAT NO HOW MANY TIMES I, ORAC, AND OTHERS EXPLAIN HOW WRONG YOUR ARE, NOT JUST EXPLAIN; BUT WITH VALID REFERENCES, YOU JUST IGNORE.

and everything you list above definitely applies to you.

@ Kay

Kay
says:
June 11, 2022 at 4:20 pm
“There was a Lyme disease vaccine; but it was WRONGLY withdrawn from the market, pressure from idiot antivaxxers like you.”
Do you provide misinformation often?
It was not anti-vaxxer who had the vaccine pulled off the market.
The lead researcher for the lyme disease vaccine issued warning that there were problems with the vaccine that could negatively affect 20-30% of the population.
I hardly think he would be called an anti-vaxxer..
lymedisease.org/members/lyme-times/special-issues/tick-borne-disease/lymerix-lyme-disease-vaccine/

“Do I provide misinformation often?” Let’s see! ! !

You write: “The lead researcher for the lyme disease vaccine issued warning that there were problems with the vaccine that could negatively affect 20-30% of the population,” based on quoting from article posted on lymedisease.org:

“Six months before the Lyme disease vaccine’s approval, lead researcher for the Lyme disease vaccine, Dr. Allan Steere, New England Medical Center, Boston, was among the researchers who published results of a “test tube” study that showed that OspA (Outer Surface Protein A of the Lyme bacteria) could cause a “cross-reaction” with a human protein in people positive for the HLA-DR4 gene, which comprised 20–30% of the population (Smith, 2022).” The article was NOT looking at the vaccine; but at possible causes of autoimmune reactions in those actually infected with Lyme Disease (Gross, 1998). I’m sure you are either unaware or refuse to even consider that a vaccine may NOT elicit the same reactions and that actual clinical trials did NOT find such reactions (Feder, 1999; Sikand, 2001; Steere, 1998; Zhao, 2017). See also: The College of Physicians of Philadelphia (2021).

Smith also sent a letter to the FDA which was responded to, including answers to each and every claim/statement she made. I won’t bother cutting and pasting as you can find it online (Department of Health & Human Services, 2002).

So, what does Allen C. Steere say about withdrawal of his vaccine:

“Although several vaccines for Lyme borreliosis are available for use in animals203, human vaccines are not available. A recombinant OspA-based vaccine was marketed in the United States from 1998 to 2002 (REF. 22), but, although safe and efficacious, this was withdrawn from the market. One important reason for this was that Lyme borreliosis advocacy groups, which initially supported the vaccine, became crucial opponents204, leading to the threat of class action lawsuits. Other reasons included vaccine cost, the need for booster vaccinations and the theoretical concern that the vaccine might trigger autoimmune arthritis205. Despite the demand for a protective vaccine for Lyme borreliosis and that vaccination is cost-effective in high-risk endemic areas206, pharmaceutical companies have subsequently been reluctant to test and market human vaccines (Steere, 2017).” His reference 205 refers to another article which states: “Thus, the overall conclusion was that no compelling scientific evidence or biologic plausibility existed supporting the idea that the administration of recombinant OspA to an individual with a given HLA haplotype would increase the risk of an autoimmune arthritis (Poland, 2011).”

An additional paper:

“Even if proved safe and effective, LD vaccines faced regulatory and market challenges because the disease was geographically limited, treatable, and preventable by other means. Pharmaceutical companies nevertheless hoped to appeal to consumers’ desire for protection and control and to their widespread fear of the disease. The LD advocacy community initially supported the vaccines but soon became critical opponents. The vaccines’ success was seen as threatening their central position that LD was chronic, protean, and difficult to treat. The activists’ opposition flipped the vaccines’ social and psychological efficacy. Instead of the vaccines restoring control and reducing fear, demand was undermined by beliefs that the vaccines caused an LD-like syndrome . . . When the VRBPAC met again in 2001 to review the safety and efficacy of LYMErix after more than two years on the market, SKB officials continued to argue that the vaccine was safe.2 There was no evidence of a pattern of serious side effects reported from either the usual adverse event reporting or the HMO surveillance program. . . there was no evidence of autoimmune reactions or treatment-resistant Lyme arthritis. ‘In all those studies the nature and the frequency of the adverse events were similar to the pre-licensure clinical trial experience,” concluded SKB researcher Dr. Kahn (VRBPAC 2001)’.(Aronowitz, 2012).”

And Allen Steere has been verbally and physically threatened by patients and others for his position that chronic lyme disease does NOT exist and that even many people claiming to have lyme disease have been misdiagnosed (Grann 2001).

What about: “Before the LV’s approval, Dr. Patricia Ferrieri of the University of Minnesota, who chaired the FDA advisory panel, chose to summarize the committee’s sentiments: “It’s rare that a vaccine be voted on with such ambivalence and a stack of provisos (Smith, 2022).”

From numerous articles, the ambivalence was not based on vaccine’s safety; but that lyme disease was easily treated with antibiotics, that it was only regional and even then, only proportion exposed, its efficacy at 76% (only after three shots, last one year after 1st), potential need for yearly boosters, its high cost, and a few other concerns. You can read the recommendations by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (1999 Jun 4).

AND SINCE YOU SEEM TO HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING THIS BLOG, PERHAPS ITS SYSTER BLOG ALSO SCIENCE-BASED MEDICINE, an article on Science-Based Medicine which covered much of what is discussed above and adds a final reason to withdraw it from the market: “Because the vaccine was not on the routine recommended vaccine schedule, the protections offered to manufacturers under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) did not apply. NVICP offers compensation to individuals injured by vaccines, and protects manufacturers from frivolous lawsuits (Gavura, 2018).”

What about role of antivaxxers? I’ve got a number of papers that discuss this; but I realize that nothing will change your mind. I actually started following Lyme Disease early 1990s, have several books, and another 30 papers just on Lyme Disease. You didn’t bother to check if the study cited, an in vitro study, was followed up with actual studies in human beings and you apparently are unaware that the main reason that Smith eventually opposed the vaccine is her organization’s belief that Lyme Disease is a chronic, protean, and difficult to treat disease. Her organization refers to a number of doctors offering “alternative” treatments. Keep in mind that so far evidence of chronic Lyme Disease is extremely weak and even then, vaccine would prevent and/or antibiotics would nip in the bud.

So, you find one paper that confirms what you choose to believe, then ask me: “Do you provide misinformation often?” Well, I have almost 100 papers on the Lymerix vaccine, 30 on Lyme Disease, and books and book chapters, including one recently written by Allen C. Steere (2018). I have been following Lyme Disease for about 30 years, including reading other books and papers in library, so don’t possess them.

So THANK YOU FOR REINFORCING WHAT I’VE WRITTEN ABOUT YOU AND OTHER ANTIVAXXERS; QUITE SIMPLY, DON’T UNDERSTAND THE BASICS, DON’T DO YOUR HOMEWORK, AND SIMPLY BASE YOUR POSITION ON ANYTHING THAT CONFIRMS YOUR BIAS WITHOUT QUESTIONING IT.

STUPID AND INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST, THAT’S YOU!

References:

Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (1999 Jun 4). Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. MMWR; 48(RR07): 1-17.

Aronowitz RA (2012). The Rise and Fall of the Lyme Disease Vaccines – A Cautionary Tale for Risk. The Milbank Quarterly; 90(2): 250-277.

The College of Physicians of Philadelphia (2021). The History of the Lyme Disease Vaccine. History of Vaccines.

Department of Health & Human Services (2002 Jan). Letter to Patricia V. Smith. Available at: OCR Document – Lyme Disease Association [just cut & paste]

Feder HM (1999 Nov). Immunogenicity of a recombinant Borrelia burgdorferi outer surface protein A vaccine against Lyme disease in children. Journal of Pediatrics; 135(5): 575-579.

Gavura S (2018 Oct 4). What happened to the Lyme vaccine? Science-Based Medicine

Grann D (2001 Jun 17). Stalking Dr. Steere. The New York Times.

Gross DM . . . Steere AC et al. (1998 Jul 31). ldentification of LFA-1 as a Candidate Autoantigen in Treatment-Resistant Lyme Arthritis. Science; 281: 703-706.

Poland GA (2011). Vaccines against Lyme Disease: What Happened and What Lessons Can We Learn? Clinical Infectious Diseases; 52(Suppl 3): S253-S258.

Sikand VK et al. (2001). Safety and immunogenicity of a recombinant Borrelia burgdorferi outer surface protein A vaccine against lyme disease in healthy children and adolescents/ a randomized controlled trial. Pediatrics; 108(1): 123-128.

Smith P (accessed 2022 Jun 11). How the LYMErix Lyme Disease Vaccine was Pulled from the Market. lymedisease.org

Steere AC et al. (2017 Aug 2). Lyme Borrelliosis. Nature Review Disease Primers; 2.

Steere AC (2018). Chapter 34 in Plotkin’s Vaccines (7th Edition).

Zhao H et al. (2017). Safety, immunogenicity, and efficacy of Borrelia burgdorferiouter surface protein A (OspA) vaccine: A meta-analysis. The Journal of Infection in Developing Countries; 11(1): 1-9.

@ Kay

80 vaccines. Wow!
8 Diphtheria and Tetanus.
3 Haemophilus conjugate
0ver 25 influenza vaccines, half monovalent, half trivalent, at most if monovalent for specific not covered in trivalent, then take two; but not 25.

I am a vegan and blood donor, so I take vitamin supplements, one vitamin b12, one iron tablet, etc. I don’t take several different brands of each vitamin supplement.

JUST HOW STUPID, INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST ARE YOU?

I THINK IT IS OBVIOUS FOR EVERYONE TO SEE.

@ Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPD:

It is obvious.
As you know, I follow alties/ anti-vaxxers and they frequently insult Orac and other sceptics because they do a good job revealing how dodgy altie material is so of course they bitch. You do the same here.

If anyone doubts your ability as an educator or your good judgment in general, they should realise that you publish articles at a SB site and at a newspaper. Few people do.
AND you had the good sense- perhaps prescience- to purchase a home many years ago, in an area where prices have continually skyrocketed. Good luck? I doubt it. Smarts.
( and I’m in a similar situation with some inherited, some not)

@ Denise Walter

NOT RELEVANT TO THIS WEBSITE; BUT AN EXAMPLE OF IRRATIONALITY AND UNFAIR INEQUALITY IN US

Yep, I own my home; but there is one key point that is super important, Prop 13. My property taxes, since I owned my home prior to passage of Prop 13, can only go up max 2% per years; but inflation, especially during 1980s was much higher, so my property tax in inflation-adjusted dollars is actually lower than at the beginning. On the other hand, my next door neighbors, a really nice young couple, both work just to pay off mortgage and their property tax is 10 times mine, essentially to pay for the same city services. If one should become unemployed, ill, something, they would lose their home.

Prop 13 was a response to a legitimate crisis. Previous generations purchased homes on 25 – 30 year mortgages so that when they retired, they would own their homes outright and together with Social Security would have a comfortable retirement. Property values and taxes went up tracking inflation, Consumer Price Index, perhaps 1 or 2% more. However, beginning in 1980s people started to buy property, not to ensure decent retirement; but as investments to turn around for a quick profit. Property values skyrocketed and so did property taxes, so those retired on SSN, which goes up with CPR, soon found their property taxes beyond their means. Prop 13 locks in property taxes based on when home purchased; but skyrocketing price of homes means skyrocketing property taxes, so neighbors, based on when home purchased, can have extremely different property taxes, and, more important, much higher percentage of income.

In addition, commercial property doesn’t get “sold” in same manner, for instance, purchase of shares, so commercial property taxes, on the whole, have NOT increased. Result is that commercial property that at one time was responsible for about half of taxes, now less than 5%. Combined result is that total tax base less and result, at least in San Diego, is decaying infrastructure, etc.

Finally, Prop 13 includes requirement of 2/3 vote to change. Is this democratic? I think not. Basically, one generation undermines future generations.

So, was there an alternative? Yep. Since property taxes no longer tracked closely property values and income, should have passed monthly fee of, say, $100 (indexed to inflation) for each home, apartment, etc to city and a city income tax. Quite simply people would be taxed based on their actual incomes, not some inflationary value of a home that they are living in. Commercial properties should have been taxed in some other way to ensure they pay their fair share. Perhaps, increased sales tax on non-essential items (e.g., food, children’s clothes), etc.

Prop 13 is just another example of how our alleged democracy creates irrational inequalities and why our infrastructure that was once the envy of the world has crumbled. When I walk my dog, I have to be careful of cracked/broken sidewalks and streets, inadequate street lighting, etc.

We have some of the highest property taxes** in the country BUT a few steps have helped:
… lower income residents can get a rebate each year
… people get their tax rates frozen at age 65
… rates of increase were capped with some exceptions
… because many homes weren’t re-evaluated for 30 years or more and newly purchased homes were taxed at new higher values, some towns were forced into re-assessing all homes. My town waited until the recession to get lower values: I did alright because it is not a large building: I have valuable land that is barely taxed.
— the state assists lower income areas with schools and other services
— rural areas have a farm exception to allow elderly/ legacy farmers to remain with lower taxes OF COURSE some rich people bought old farms and planted a few acres, raised a few sheep to take advantage of the law

** 20K is not a rarity

DB

“Someone should tell Kay that it’s not necessary to use so many capital letters in her CV.”

You are back to reading comprehension issues that you appear to have quite frequently.
The items i listed were just cut and pasted from Joel’s post, the capitalization were his.

Joel to your idea that there are only 25 or so vaccines (which you cite MMR or MMR with chicken pox) well the MMR is a combination of 3 vaccines.If you add chicken pox that makes it a 4 vaccines in one shot.
As to your reference to flu vaccines making up 26, the flu vaccine is different every year based on the CDC best guess as to which of the over 100 strains will be the prevalent type of flu. So a flu shot that you got in 2010 is a different flu vaccine from the one you will get for 2022-23 flu year.

And talk about thread jacking…..

You are back to reading comprehension issues that you appear to have quite frequently.

There are not “80 or so” vaccines available in the U.S.

@ Kay

Let’s go down the list: https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/vaccines/vaccines-licensed-use-united-states

2 BCG Live
2 COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA
2 Diphtheria & Tetanus Toxoids & Acellular Pertussis Vaccine Adsorbed
2 Diphtheria and Tetanus Toxoids and Acellular Pertussis Adsorbed and Inactivated Poliovirus Vaccine
2 Haemophilus b Conjugate Vaccine (Tetanus Toxoid Conjugate)
2 Hepatitis A
3 Hepatitis B (conjugate)
4 Influenza A (H1N1) 2009 Monovalent Vaccine
2 Meningococcal Group B Vaccine
2 Rabies Vaccine
2 Tetanus Toxoid, Reduced Diphtheria Toxoid and Acellular Pertussis Vaccine, Adsorbed

And for instance MMR and MMR and Varicella {obviously if some gets the latter, the won’t then get the former. And, as I explained, we have safe water, so why get vaccinated for waterborne infections? We don’t have Yellow Fever in US, so why get vaccinated for it?

Yep, a new flu vaccine every year; but MORON, the list you gave is simply that several companies manufacture the same shots. ARE YOU THAT STUPID? YEP! ! !

And, yep, ALL the cusswords you included in the list I did use; but ASSHOLE that you are, I wrote detailed comments, some hundreds of words, with one or two cusswords and you totally ignore what I wrote and try to make it sound like all I did was cuss. You really are a stupid dishonest friggin ASSHOLE. Too stupid to actually address my comments; but, at least almost everyone who follows this blog knows what I am saying is true.

AND BY THE WAY YOU FRIGGIN ASSHOLE, YOU IGNORED THAT I TOTALLY REFUTED YOUR CLAIM I GAVE FALSE INFO ON WITHDRAWAL OF THE LYME DISEASE VACCINE. JUST ONE MORE EXAMPLE OF WHAT A STUPID, DISHONEST, FRIGGING ASSHOLE YOU ARE.

Notice, this time I devoted far more space to my accurate descriptions of you.

It’s become clear that “Kay” is actually a bot that failed AI.

It has a superficial ability to interact with human beings, but gives itself away through gross defects in language, interpretive skills and nuance.

@ Kay West

I went back and broke down vaccines such as MMR, into three vaccines; but only those needed in U.S. Maybe off by one; but total count 26; but one, zoster given to old people. Still not 80 and only some given to children, the others to teenagers, etc. So what? Despite your biased ignorant beliefs vaccines have been tested for effectiveness and safety, much higher standards than other pharmaceuticals, their safety monitored by many different nations, and, despite your ignorance, we have knowledge of vaccines safety and effectiveness going back many decades.

And I have friends who are diabetics and have to use needle twice daily, so big deal to get one flu vaccine yearly, etc.

As I’ve pointed out over and over, you have not given any indication you understand immunology, microbiology, epidemiology, nor that you have delved into history of the various vaccine-preventable diseases. As I wrote earlier, before measles vaccine, when we had half current population, about 50,000 kids were hospitalized every year, 500 died, and 500 with various permanent disabilities; e.g., blindness. And polio was actually on the rise. And congenital rubella syndrome. Find it above earlier comment.

KEEP MAKING A FOOL OF YOURSELF. THAT’S WHAT YOU ARE GOOD AT.

@ Kay

And you stated the provacciners should get ALL shots; well, I do get flu shot every years, Got Covid mRNA two shots, then two boosters, got shingles vaccine, etc. so, I am pro vaccines and I got every one that is needed in US and as I wrote above, when I worked for US Navy in Western Pacific got a ton of shots; e.g., yellow fever, etc. So, I am certainly not a hypocrite and, as I wrote, there are a number of vaccines I would love to get when they become available; e.g., streptoccocus progenies, staphylococcus aureus, west nile, enterococcus, escherichi O157 H7, shigella, acinetobacter pylori, and several others. I do understand microbiology and know the stats on various diseases. Some only risk when in hospitals or clinics; but sooner or later we all end up in hospitals and no matter how good they sanitize, impossible to end all risk

And when my grandparents and parents were alive I phoned them to remind them to get various vaccines, including flu, and I am confident they did. So, provaxxer that I am, I made sure the people I loved most got vaccinated.

Vaccines Licensed for Use in the United States

fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/vaccines/vaccines-licensed-use-united-states

this is the second time I have had to post this, does your search engine NOT work, copy….paste….enter

But I suppose they could be lying

this is the second time I have had to post this, does your search engine NOT work, copy….paste….enter

You seem to have a problem with keeping up with the comments.

Here’s a simple exercise: Go locate a dose of TT.

Jesus Christ.

@ Kay

THAT IS THE WEBSITE I USED. YOU REALLY ARE A FRIGGIN DISHONEST ASSHOLE.

However, I guess if you want to count one flu shot per year, then, yep, probably in a lifetime will get 80 shots. Wow! live to be 80 and get total of 80 vaccines. Again, I understand immunology, microbiology, infectious diseases, epidemiology, etc. You don’t. Your opinions, not backed with any valid scientific reasoning are worse than worthless.

AND AGAIN, YOU REFUSE TO APOLOGIZE FOR CLAIMING I LIED ABOUT REASON FOR WITHDRAWAL OF LYME DISEASE VACCINE. AS I EXPLAINED, ASSHOLE, I’VE BEEN FOLLOWING LYME DISEASE FOR OVER 30 YEARS, HAVE READ LOTS OF PAPERS ON IT AND SEVERAL BOOKS. MY EXPLANATION ABOVE INCLUDES A VALID REFERENCE LIST, NOT ONE OR TWO.

Now, it’s time to walk my dog. I really shouldn’t waste my time commenting since the vast majority following this blog are open-minded intelligent people and the few like you will probably never change, regardless of how strong, backed with references, my comments are.

Your mentality doesn’t differ from anti-semites, racists, islamophobes, QAnon believers, people who believe Trump won the election, etc. All, more or less, closed-minded, nothing will change their mind. Maybe topics differ; but mentality the same.

And second time, you missed the point. You spoke about using all licensed vaccines,which implies that there are 80 types of vaccines-Would anyone use all approved flu vaccines ?

@ Denice Walter

Yep, we have both among highest property taxes and some programs to help some people; but, as I explained, Prop 13 resulted in commerical property paying much less. And property taxes used to track inflation and income increases; but don’t any longer. So, yep, we have complicated programs that help some; but we also have crumbling infrastructure. I don’t know what it is like where you live; but in San Diego we have broken/cracked sidewalks and streets. In fact, on several occasions people I knew from Sweden were staying at a hotel for a conference here. I drove them around town. They were appalled, basically asking if this was a third world nation. As I suggested, we should have some reasonable per household fee, then get the rest from city income taxes.

And federally we have the most complicated income tax system in the world. Last time I looked, over 80,000 pages. When I lived in Canada and Sweden did my own taxes, quite easy. I don’t trust IRS, so I have professional do my taxes, despite a very low income (lived in five different nations and moved home to take care of my mother. In fact, if I didn’t own my home, my SSN wouldn’t even cover a studio apartment in my neighborhood).

And our taxes go (20008) to bailing out corrupt banks and instead of prison, bonuses. We could have taken over banks, prosecuted those guilty, run banks for a couple of years and then sell to private investors; but our Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, was a Wall Street insider and essentially subsidized crime. We spend way more on military than needed, including new tank and new fighter plane that leaders of military testified before Congress they neither needed nor wanted. We spend a fortune of prisons with 10s of thousands totally innocent and many more given draconian sentences for minor offenses, including, as far as I can find out, the only for-profit prison system in world. And we have the by far most expensive health care system in world, paid for by taxes, then turned over to for-profit sector with worst outcomes in advanced world; e.g., infant mortality, etc.

So, we have tax revolt. Unfair, complicated taxes. And a lot of our taxes go to a few corporations, not to our benefit.

@ Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPH:

Actually, the sidewalks aren’t all that bad. And electrical lines/ substations keep getting repaired/ updated. The actual streets would be terrible except that snow/ salt treatment creates large potholes which are repaired but often badly. Federal assistance repaired a highway that always floods and re-routed the river that overflows there ( post 2008 crash project).Many of our highway bridges are in poor condition according to a national report.
Storms wreak havoc on the shoreline and beaches.

HOWEVER visiting N. Cal, I notice that there are some rather awful roads without the snow/ salt spread excuse we have. 101 is supposed to be repaired with added lanes some day. Not to mention landslides and burnt areas. And narrow lanes zigzagging across mountainous areas but hey, it’s California!– part of its charm I suppose.

DB
you just displayed your superficial ability to interact with humans, as you didn’t address my post that showed it was Joel who was using capitals in his post not mine.

NARAD

“You seem to have a problem with keeping up with the comments.”

I have no control over the website and how soon after I submit to actually post my comments, I would presume that my comments are placed in moderation before they are posted.

Joel
“THAT IS THE WEBSITE I USED. YOU REALLY ARE A FRIGGIN DISHONEST ASSHOLE.”

See response to Narad

“getting back to my original post, I ask the flip side of Orac’s question how many pro vaxxers have taken all 80 or so vaccines available in the US and if you haven’t do you get to still call yourselfes pro-vaxxine”

You all tap dance around the question, because there are available vaccines that you haven’t got.

Joel, if I would have posted something about taxes, Orac would have banned me for thread-jacking.

You all tap dance around the question, because there are available vaccines that you haven’t got.

Kay, you refuse to acknowledge that your premise is a crock of shit but still manage to pretend to declare victory no matter how many times it’s pointed out to you.

Again, approved doesn’t mean available, and “available” doesn’t mean that one can saunter into the local Vax’Я’Us and demand an anthrax vaccine with a side of BCG. (I note that you completely ignored this issue with respect to TT.)

You’re not just dishonest, you’re lazy, stupid dishonest.

@ Kay

First, I probably should NOT have posted comment on taxes; but just another example of your STUPID DISHONESTY, avoiding other comments that I wrote in response to yours. And I doubt Orac would have banned you for threadjacking. He could simply delete the comment and I would have easily accepted that.

You write: ““getting back to my original post, I ask the flip side of Orac’s question how many pro vaxxers have taken all 80 or so vaccines available in the US and if you haven’t do you get to still call yourselfes pro-vaxxine” You all tap dance around the question, because there are available vaccines that you haven’t got.”

You STUPID DISHONEST FRIGGIN ASSHOLE. You ignore everything I wrote about why in US we don’t get several listed vaccines; e.g., cholera, anthrax, etc. There are available antibiotics also; but I don’t get them for the common cold or any other viral infection; but they are available and I’m sure I could find a doctor willing to give them. YOU REALLY ARE A STUPID DISHONEST FRIGGIN ASSHOLE.

And you continue to avoid that you asked of me: “Do you provide misinformation often?” which I responded to, making it clear that what I said about the first Lyme Disease vaccine was correct. You are too DISHONEST to actually respond to what I write; but can cut and paste my descriptions of you based on your DISHONEST avoidance of any actual dialogue. I’m sure you won’t answer; but are you under a psychiatrist or psychologists care? I’m serious as your are MENTALLY SICK

Kay
says:
June 11, 2022 at 4:20 pm
“There was a Lyme disease vaccine; but it was WRONGLY withdrawn from the market, pressure from idiot antivaxxers like you.”
Do you provide misinformation often?
It was not anti-vaxxer who had the vaccine pulled off the market.
The lead researcher for the lyme disease vaccine issued warning that there were problems with the vaccine that could negatively affect 20-30% of the population.
I hardly think he would be called an anti-vaxxer..
lymedisease.org/members/lyme-times/special-issues/tick-borne-disease/lymerix-lyme-disease-vaccine/

“Do I provide misinformation often?” Let’s see! ! !

You write: “The lead researcher for the lyme disease vaccine issued warning that there were problems with the vaccine that could negatively affect 20-30% of the population,” based on quoting from article posted on lymedisease.org:

“Six months before the Lyme disease vaccine’s approval, lead researcher for the Lyme disease vaccine, Dr. Allan Steere, New England Medical Center, Boston, was among the researchers who published results of a “test tube” study that showed that OspA (Outer Surface Protein A of the Lyme bacteria) could cause a “cross-reaction” with a human protein in people positive for the HLA-DR4 gene, which comprised 20–30% of the population (Smith, 2022).” The article was NOT looking at the vaccine; but at possible causes of autoimmune reactions in those actually infected with Lyme Disease (Gross, 1998). I’m sure you are either unaware or refuse to even consider that a vaccine may NOT elicit the same reactions and that actual clinical trials did NOT find such reactions (Feder, 1999; Sikand, 2001; Steere, 1998; Zhao, 2017). See also: The College of Physicians of Philadelphia (2021).

Smith also sent a letter to the FDA which was responded to, including answers to each and every claim/statement she made. I won’t bother cutting and pasting as you can find it online (Department of Health & Human Services, 2002).

So, what does Allen C. Steere say about withdrawal of his vaccine:

“Although several vaccines for Lyme borreliosis are available for use in animals203, human vaccines are not available. A recombinant OspA-based vaccine was marketed in the United States from 1998 to 2002 (REF. 22), but, although safe and efficacious, this was withdrawn from the market. One important reason for this was that Lyme borreliosis advocacy groups, which initially supported the vaccine, became crucial opponents204, leading to the threat of class action lawsuits. Other reasons included vaccine cost, the need for booster vaccinations and the theoretical concern that the vaccine might trigger autoimmune arthritis205. Despite the demand for a protective vaccine for Lyme borreliosis and that vaccination is cost-effective in high-risk endemic areas206, pharmaceutical companies have subsequently been reluctant to test and market human vaccines (Steere, 2017).” His reference 205 refers to another article which states: “Thus, the overall conclusion was that no compelling scientific evidence or biologic plausibility existed supporting the idea that the administration of recombinant OspA to an individual with a given HLA haplotype would increase the risk of an autoimmune arthritis (Poland, 2011).”

An additional paper:

“Even if proved safe and effective, LD vaccines faced regulatory and market challenges because the disease was geographically limited, treatable, and preventable by other means. Pharmaceutical companies nevertheless hoped to appeal to consumers’ desire for protection and control and to their widespread fear of the disease. The LD advocacy community initially supported the vaccines but soon became critical opponents. The vaccines’ success was seen as threatening their central position that LD was chronic, protean, and difficult to treat. The activists’ opposition flipped the vaccines’ social and psychological efficacy. Instead of the vaccines restoring control and reducing fear, demand was undermined by beliefs that the vaccines caused an LD-like syndrome . . . When the VRBPAC met again in 2001 to review the safety and efficacy of LYMErix after more than two years on the market, SKB officials continued to argue that the vaccine was safe.2 There was no evidence of a pattern of serious side effects reported from either the usual adverse event reporting or the HMO surveillance program. . . there was no evidence of autoimmune reactions or treatment-resistant Lyme arthritis. ‘In all those studies the nature and the frequency of the adverse events were similar to the pre-licensure clinical trial experience,” concluded SKB researcher Dr. Kahn (VRBPAC 2001)’.(Aronowitz, 2012).”

And Allen Steere has been verbally and physically threatened by patients and others for his position that chronic lyme disease does NOT exist and that even many people claiming to have lyme disease have been misdiagnosed (Grann 2001).

What about: “Before the LV’s approval, Dr. Patricia Ferrieri of the University of Minnesota, who chaired the FDA advisory panel, chose to summarize the committee’s sentiments: “It’s rare that a vaccine be voted on with such ambivalence and a stack of provisos (Smith, 2022).”

From numerous articles, the ambivalence was not based on vaccine’s safety; but that lyme disease was easily treated with antibiotics, that it was only regional and even then, only proportion exposed, its efficacy at 76% (only after three shots, last one year after 1st), potential need for yearly boosters, its high cost, and a few other concerns. You can read the recommendations by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (1999 Jun 4).

AND SINCE YOU SEEM TO HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING THIS BLOG, PERHAPS ITS SYSTER BLOG ALSO SCIENCE-BASED MEDICINE, an article on Science-Based Medicine which covered much of what is discussed above and adds a final reason to withdraw it from the market: “Because the vaccine was not on the routine recommended vaccine schedule, the protections offered to manufacturers under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) did not apply. NVICP offers compensation to individuals injured by vaccines, and protects manufacturers from frivolous lawsuits (Gavura, 2018).”

What about role of antivaxxers? I’ve got a number of papers that discuss this; but I realize that nothing will change your mind. I actually started following Lyme Disease early 1990s, have several books, and another 30 papers just on Lyme Disease. You didn’t bother to check if the study cited, an in vitro study, was followed up with actual studies in human beings and you apparently are unaware that the main reason that Smith eventually opposed the vaccine is her organization’s belief that Lyme Disease is a chronic, protean, and difficult to treat disease. Her organization refers to a number of doctors offering “alternative” treatments. Keep in mind that so far evidence of chronic Lyme Disease is extremely weak and even then, vaccine would prevent and/or antibiotics would nip in the bud.

So, you find one paper that confirms what you choose to believe, then ask me: “Do you provide misinformation often?” Well, I have almost 100 papers on the Lymerix vaccine, 30 on Lyme Disease, and books and book chapters, including one recently written by Allen C. Steere (2018). I have been following Lyme Disease for about 30 years, including reading other books and papers in library, so don’t possess them.

So THANK YOU FOR REINFORCING WHAT I’VE WRITTEN ABOUT YOU AND OTHER ANTIVAXXERS; QUITE SIMPLY, DON’T UNDERSTAND THE BASICS, DON’T DO YOUR HOMEWORK, AND SIMPLY BASE YOUR POSITION ON ANYTHING THAT CONFIRMS YOUR BIAS WITHOUT QUESTIONING IT.

STUPID AND INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST, THAT’S YOU!

References:

Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (1999 Jun 4). Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. MMWR; 48(RR07): 1-17.

Aronowitz RA (2012). The Rise and Fall of the Lyme Disease Vaccines – A Cautionary Tale for Risk. The Milbank Quarterly; 90(2): 250-277.

The College of Physicians of Philadelphia (2021). The History of the Lyme Disease Vaccine. History of Vaccines.

Department of Health & Human Services (2002 Jan). Letter to Patricia V. Smith. Available at: OCR Document – Lyme Disease Association [just cut & paste]

Feder HM (1999 Nov). Immunogenicity of a recombinant Borrelia burgdorferi outer surface protein A vaccine against Lyme disease in children. Journal of Pediatrics; 135(5): 575-579.

Gavura S (2018 Oct 4). What happened to the Lyme vaccine? Science-Based Medicine

Grann D (2001 Jun 17). Stalking Dr. Steere. The New York Times.

Gross DM . . . Steere AC et al. (1998 Jul 31). ldentification of LFA-1 as a Candidate Autoantigen in Treatment-Resistant Lyme Arthritis. Science; 281: 703-706.

Poland GA (2011). Vaccines against Lyme Disease: What Happened and What Lessons Can We Learn? Clinical Infectious Diseases; 52(Suppl 3): S253-S258.

Sikand VK et al. (2001). Safety and immunogenicity of a recombinant Borrelia burgdorferi outer surface protein A vaccine against lyme disease in healthy children and adolescents/ a randomized controlled trial. Pediatrics; 108(1): 123-128.

Smith P (accessed 2022 Jun 11). How the LYMErix Lyme Disease Vaccine was Pulled from the Market. lymedisease.org

Steere AC et al. (2017 Aug 2). Lyme Borrelliosis. Nature Review Disease Primers; 2.

Steere AC (2018). Chapter 34 in Plotkin’s Vaccines (7th Edition).

Zhao H et al. (2017). Safety, immunogenicity, and efficacy of Borrelia burgdorferiouter surface protein A (OspA) vaccine: A meta-analysis. The Journal of Infection in Developing Countries; 11(1): 1-9.

Narad
All the listed vaccine ARE available, I continued to get my Anthrax booster for 6 years. But your are partly correct you can’t just walk in but for the pro all vaccine, that you COULD get those vaccines. It really isn’t that difficult.
What was your question about tetanus, I get one every 5 year and a rabies every 2.
It is a very logical question to ask the pro vaccine (it only applies to covid-19) what vaccines don’t they have? I have in all probability, got more vaccines then most posters here, but now that I refuse to get the 2 or more boosters I am labeled as anti vaxxer.

Joel

“And I doubt Orac would have banned you for threadjacking. He could simply delete the comment and I would have easily accepted that.”

The topic was “Bill Maher: Antivax transphobe or transphobic antivaxxer? You be the judge”

my question was at 7:48 pm

Orac says:
May 26, 2022 at 3:52 pm
One might think that Kay is attempting a threadjacking.

Just sayin’. (And, yes, this is a warning.)

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/guest-posts/

@ Kay

YOU STUPID DISHONEST SACK OF SHIT. STILL IGNORING HOW I CLEARLY REFUTED YOUR CLAIM I LIED ABOUT LYME DISEASE VACCINE. I admitted was mistake to post comments on taxes, so what??? Just another example of how you are intellectually incapable of actually refuting anything I write about vaccines, etc and you avoid even trying.

AND EVEN IF YOU CAN GET THE VACCINES, DOESN’T PROVE ANYTHING. i can get penicillin. I can get insulin. But even as a believer in both, why would i get them if not needed. YOU STUPID SACK OF SHIT, WHY WOULD ANYONE WHO IS NOT TRAVELING ABROAD GET YELLOW FEVER, CHOLERA, ETC???

I EAGERLY AWAIT COVID VACCINES FOR VARIANT OMICRON AND DELTA WHICH SHOULD BE AVAILABLE BY LATE AUGUST. AND I WILL BE GETTING FLU VACCINE, PROBABLY EARLY OCTOBER.

GO TO HELL

@ Kay

You write addressing Narad: “It is a very logical question to ask the pro vaccine (it only applies to covid-19) what vaccines don’t they have? I have in all probability, gott more vaccines then most posters here, but now that I refuse to get the 2 or more boosters I am labeled as anti vaxxer.”

Well, I’ve gotten way more vaccines than you; but wonder why you got anthrax and rabies. Do you work for a vet? Why? Please explain.

As for COVID, i have already written that I’ve gotten both Moderna mRNA vaccines, then both boosters and look forward to getting vaccine for variants Omicron and Delta.

And if it is only COVID boosters that you refuse, not others, great, except for whatever reasons you have for not getting them are WRONG. Before I volunteered for the Moderna Phase 3 clinical trial I refreshed everything I knew about mRNA and did search on PubMed and read around 100 articles, including ones on earlier mRNA vaccine development. And over the past two years I have probably read or skimmed 1,000 papers on COVID-19, follow-ups on vaccine, PubMed, CDC, WHO, Swedish Health Authority, UK, Canada.

You found on CDC report of more cases of myocarditis from vaccine than normal in population; but there was a later report, prior to your posting, so you should have seen it, that found far more cases of myocarditis from actual virus and also that most vaccine-induced ones recovered within reasonable period of time, whereas those from actual virus were far worse. [Shimabukuro (2022 Jun 7). Update on myocarditis following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination. Available at: https://www.fda.gov/media/159007/download

I have a hypothesis that I’ve run by several people. Myocarditis isn’t random; but like others health problems, occurs in rare group of people with certain genetic predisposition or some other health-related problem. So, those who got it from vaccine, had they been exposed to actual virus, would have also gotten it. However, the vaccine caused a milder case and protected them from a worse case of myocarditis if they had first been exposed to the actual virus. In any case, the CDC, despite what you and others choose to believe, did look into VAERS reports of myocarditis, investigated and gave an honest report, most in young people, between 50 and 100 cases per million vaccines.

Just an hypothesis; but, based on what I know about “vulnerabilities” in people, a reasonable hypothesis.

And if I were young, knowing what I do, and had choice of extremely small risk of myocarditis or risk of severe covid, I would have opted for the vaccine.

Narad
All the listed vaccine ARE available

This is getting rather dull, and (appropriately) you started it. Show me a TT.

Kay: “I get…a rabies (vaccination) every 2 (years).

It needs to be more often in your case.

Seriously, what’s up with this? You live with other rabid antivaxers?

That vaccine costs something like $500 a pop if insurance ain’t payin’

“Well, I’ve gotten way more vaccines than you; but wonder why you got anthrax and rabies. Do you work for a vet? Why? Please explain.”

I spent 32 years in military/reserves. Anthrax is one, kept getting booster after retiring, not hard to get, 5 shot initial and booster every year, so no you haven’t got more vaccines then I have.

Family owns a ranch, ride horses, deal with cattle,sheep,dogs and cats. Most farmers/rancher get rabies shots as foxes,wolves,raccoons,coyotes etc, carry rabies, which is transmitted to livestock then to humans, about 60,000 people die from rabies every year.

your wanting to take delta and omicron is admirable but those vaccines are already outdated by newer omicron and delta variants.

You posted at one time that I saw the world as black and white, I believe it the pro vaccine group that sees the world as black and white but only in terms of vaccination that they themselves have taken and no room for nuanced response.

@ Kay

You write: “your wanting to take delta and omicron is admirable but those vaccines are already outdated by newer omicron and delta variants.”

NOPE, not outdated. Yep, new variants are slightly different; but, especially t-cells will still recognize them. You just don’t understand immunology. And antibodies will quickly slightly change to deal with them, called somatic hypermutation or affinity maturation.

And you still haven’t admitted you were wrong accusing me of lying about Lyme Disease Vaccine. And you still refuse to accept that just because a vaccine is approved doesn’t mean everyone needs or should get it, again, for instance, cholera, a waterborne disease, etc.

And Dangerous Bacon is absolutely correct that “pre-exposure rabies vaccine prophylaxis is NOT routinely recommended for farmers and ranchers.”

“The time period between contracting the disease and the start of symptoms is usually one to three months but can vary from less than one week to more than one year . . .Immunizing people before they are exposed is recommended for those at high risk, including those who work with bats or who spend prolonged periods in areas of the world where rabies is common.[1] In people who have been exposed to rabies, the rabies vaccine and sometimes rabies immunoglobulin are effective in preventing the disease if the person receives the treatment before the start of rabies symptoms (Wikipedia. Rabies).”

Quite simply, rabies has a very long incubation period, even if less than one week, highly unusual, getting the vaccine within 2 – 3 days will do the job.

Dangerous Bacon, as I’ve said before, as a non-religious Jew you are my favorite Kosher pork. ?

Quite simply, rabies has a very long incubation period, even if less than one week, highly unusual, getting the vaccine within 2 – 3 days will do the job.

Ah, yes, the ABC Movie of the Week. Not just Trilogy of Terror, but also George Kennedy’s having contracted rabies from a skunk in A Cry in the Wilderness. Makes me thirsty just to think about.

@ Kay

I forgot to also mention that even the current mRNA covid vaccines still confer protection, not as much; but most protected against severe disease, hospitalization, and death; but can become infected, even experience, for instance, mild flu-like symptoms. So, again, the immune system is flexible to some extent.

Though people are still being hospitalized and even dying from current variants, most reported cases basically just mean a nasal swab, etc. found covid viruses; however, we have numerous microbes in and on our bodies that are held in check and destroyed as long as our immune systems still function, so, being infected with a virus doesn’t mean getting sick, etc.

While I am glad to hear you, for the most part, do get vaccines, that is not the impression you’ve given over the past few months. Maybe my memory isn’t serving me well?

Dangerous Bacon, anyone else who has been following this blog for several months, am I right that Kay gave impression over past few months that she was against most vaccines???

Pre-exposure rabies vaccine prophylaxis is NOT routinely recommended for farmers and ranchers. Even in occupations where risk is seen as high enough for rabies vaccination prior to suspected exposure (veterinarians and certain animal handlers*, for instance), automatically getting rabies shots every two years is not advised.

http://cdc.gov/rabies/prevention/pre-exposure_vaccinations.html

It’s hard to conceive of a logical reason for retired military personnel to have routinely continued to get anthrax vaccinations.

And yet Kay the Bot weirdly thinks that pro-vaccination folks should be getting these and rest of those fantasized “80 available” vaccines lest they be considered hypocritical.

Aside from its professed enthusiasm for rabies and anthrax vaccines, are there any immunizations on the recommended adult schedule that Kay the Bot supports and thinks others should get? (for instance, influenza, pneumococcal vaccine, shingles etc.)? Remember, it’s insufficient to cite any vaccines you got previously, i.e. as a condition of employment – what counts is what you could bring yourself to recommend now.

*”People who frequently do at least one of the following: handle bats, have contact with bats, enter high-density bat environments like caves, or perform animal necropsies” – CDC. No mention of hanging out with batshit-crazy antivaxers, a known risk factor for mental disease.

DB
You must be a city type person, and have limited contact with animals in the wild.
Rancher and farmer vaccinate their livestock with rabies vaccines as a preventative measure (the DOA requires certification of vaccination), am guessing your have never seen a cow with rabies die, its always fatal and can be transmitted to humans. the herd has to be quarantined. And we would prefer to plan ahead and get the rabies shot.

I wouldn’t call you anti vax if you didn’t get a rabies shot or any other shot.To paraphrase Joel “the world is not black and white’

By your own CDC chart
The people who routinely handle bat are class 1
Vets are class 2
Farmer and rancher are class 3, city folks like yourself are class 5.
Rabies is found frequently in wild dead animals in the midwest and anthrax is always a threat.

As to continuation of anthrax, I received my first in 1998-99 as a reservist, continued until I retired in 2003, after retirement I continued as the war in Iraq continued, until I was no longer stop loss’d.

“Remember, it’s insufficient to cite any vaccines you got previously, i.e. as a condition of employment – what counts is what you could bring yourself to recommend now.” again, logic dictates, you ask the opposite side to a question and has that yet to be answered, what vaccines wouldn’t you get and still be labeled pro vaccine?

So Joel, DB said all those shots that you got before covid don’t count as pro or anti vax. So you will have to start from the “cartoons” artificial start point.

Couldn’t answer the question about which vaccines it would recommend – classic antivax dodge.

Kay bot:

“By your own CDC chart…Farmer and rancher are class 3”

From the CDC chart:

“This group (class 3) includes:

“Most veterinarians, veterinary technicians, animal control officers, wildlife biologists, rehabilitators, trappers, and spelunkers (cave explorers)
Certain travelers to regions outside of the United States where rabies in dogs is commonly found”

Nothing there about farmers and ranchers. You may be confusing yourself with a spelunker, given the many times you’ve pulled misinformation out of your cave-like posterior.

DB
“Couldn’t answer the question about which vaccines it would recommend – classic antivax dodge.”

As I posed in my original post the logical question is the flip side of the question, which vaccines wouldn’t you take/recommend and still call yourself pro vax.

Our family ranching operation handles over 5,000 cattle and at times 300-500 sheep, plus the usual farm animals dog, cats etc.
We can interact with more animals then a vet, we turn calves, we stitch cows, neuter bulls, do our own artificial insemination, ear tag etc our vet is at least 2 hours away. Most farmers and ranchers are in the same mode, we get cuts, scrapes. A trip to the doctor for us is not like your trip to the doctor. You question why we would get rabies vaccines but don’t question hospital workers getting covid vaccines.

As I stated because I won’t get the two boosters (which don’t appear to work so well, Fauci 2 shots 2 boosters still got it), I am labeled an anti-vaxxer.

@kay

but you lied and said

Farmer and rancher are class 3

earlier before ignoring that in your followup post.

I am labeled an anti-vaxxer.

because of the repeated misinformation you push

@ Kay

You continue to ignore what I write. Fauci is infected with Covid and has mild symptoms. He is 81 years old. Do you really think he would only have mild symptoms if he had not been vaccinated and gotten the two boosters? Not all or none.

And, since I don’t trust you, I’ve asked others following this blog if during the past months you explained you did get many vaccines, just not covid booster because my view of you is you portrayed yourself as an anti-vaxxer.

You write: “So Joel, DB said all those shots that you got before covid don’t count as pro or anti vax”

In the beginning I can understand some people’s reluctance to get the mRNA covid vaccines. Confused by Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed” and his both downplaying, off and on, the seriousness of the pandemic and even FDA Emergency Usage Authorization; but any open-minded people by six months after EUA could have found vaccines went through ALL required FDA phases, even published in New England Journal of Medicine end of December 2020 and tons of longer term follow-up data. Unfortunately, antivaxxers continue to play up VAERS reports despite explanations on CDC, FDA, here by Orac, comments by me and others, which, in turn influence people.

So, COVID vaccine, for first half year or so, doesn’t determine if someone is pro or con vaccines.

“You question why we would get rabies vaccines but don’t question hospital workers getting covid vaccines.”

I question all of your misinformation, including the false statement that the CDC recommends rabies vaccination for farmers and ranchers, never mind their getting rabies shots every two years.

Hospital workers get Covid-19 vaccines for good science-based reasons – to protect themselves, their families and patients.

And you’re still ducking the question of what vaccines you support and recommend, a classic antivaxer tactic (they also frequently cite vaccines they and/or their family supposedly received in the past, presumably before they became vociferously antivaccine), And they almost invariably gripe, like you, about how they are “labeled” antivaxers, while churning out antivax propaganda non-stop.

Yep, vaccines are not 100% perfect. Typical antivax “reasoning” would be: If it is not 100% effective, it is 0% effective. There are many numbers between.
Btw, do you vaccinate your animals ?

Ok I was accused of being Tony Hillar and now a russian bot, I wish you would all get together and come of a consensus.

DB you left out this part of your group 3 explanation,

“People who interact with, or are at higher risk to interact, WITH MAMMALS OTHER THAN BATS THAT COULD BECOME RABID, for a period longer than three years after they receive PrEP.”

ksre.k-state.edu/news/stories/2015/12/cattle-rabies122315.html

“In Kansas the past two years, cattle have been the most common domestic species we’ve diagnosed with rabies,” said Gregg Hanzlicek”
and since this article was sent out it has gotten worse.

DB and Narad need to brush up on reading skills.

“Hospital workers get Covid-19 vaccines for good science-based reasons – to protect themselves, their families and patients.”

But the covid jab doesn’t do any of those things. You can still get the virus and you can still spread the virus.

I provided a list of approved vaccines. Of those vaccines which booster has remained the same formulation as the original vaccine.

You don’t get to pick and choose which vaccines you will take, then label yourself pro-vaccine or someone who has picked different vaccines as anti-vaccine.

As Joel said everything is not black and white.

DB and Narad need to brush up on reading skills.

Ironically, I haven’t said a thing about rabies other than praising the MOTW, Ms. Reading Comprehension.

“Ok I was accused of being Tony Hillar and now a russian bot, I wish you would all get together and come of a consensus.”

I believe that you’re an Irish bot.

“DB you left out this part of your group 3 explanation”

Nope, I listed the entire CDC group 3 criteria, which does NOT include farmers and ranchers as individuals recommended for routine rabies vaccination. You lied about that.

Your latest link talks about the possibility of Kansas cattle producers getting rabies vaccine prophylaxis for some of their cows – not themselves.

Whether or not you got some vaccines inappropriately in the past, you are clearly antivaccine now, as evidenced by your continually bleating out antivax tropes, while refusing to cite a single recommended vaccine that you support.

You’re an antivaxer and your attempted gotcha backfired – own it.

Oh, and no one called you a Russian bot. There’s strong evidence you’re a bot based on extremely poor communication skills, unfamiliarity with nuance and inability to interact rationally with humans, but the nationality of your bot-dom is irrelevant.

Are animal vaccins 100% perfect ? You still use them, it seems. it ia not that someone can get COVID, it is the percentage of vaccinated people getting it.

@ Kay

I did say not everything is in black and white. How nice that you sometimes quote me; but it wasn’t black and white when you accused me of lying about the Lyme Disease Vaccine and I backed my position with numerous quotes and references; but, of course, didn’t really expect you to ever admit you were wrong and apologize.

And, once more, to the best of my memory, until this past week, your comments gave impression you were antivaxxers. You didn’t earlier list which vaccines you had gotten and did you really get the first two mRNA shots?

OMG people here have reading problems

“Btw, do you vaccinate your animals ?”
my statement at 11:58 “the DOA requires certification of vaccination” I don’t know how much clearer I could post it, the DOA (department of ag) will not let you sell you animals unless a vet has certified that they have been vaccinated.

Medical Yete
“That vaccine costs something like $500 a pop if insurance ain’t payin’”

How much would you be paying for Covid (or for that matter any vaccine) if the government or an insurance company wasn’t paying.

DB

“unfamiliarity with nuance”

You are the one who claims absolutes and no room for nuance (if you don’t get this vaccine or all 4 shots you are an anti vaxxer), I agree with Joel, not everything is black and white.

If any of you pro vaxxers went to college and took Logic class, and deductive reasoning requires that if you put forth a premise you must argue for the opposite premise be untrue, I just posted the opposite premise.

If any of you pro vaxxers went to college and took Logic class, and deductive reasoning requires that if you put forth a premise you must argue for the opposite premise be untrue

Could you rephrase that in first-order predicate calculus? (The Logic Book is what the philosophy students got stuck with. Kay also seems to be confusing logic with rhetoric, but whatever.)

Mathematicians would call that indirect proof. First I learned was that diret proof is better (problem with tertium non datur.

“You are the one who claims absolutes and no room for nuance (if you don’t get this vaccine or all 4 shots you are an anti vaxxer)”

Nope, never said any such thing. What I did say was that someone who consistently spews antivax rhetoric and refuses to name a single recommended vaccine they can support is an antivaxer. You qualify on both counts.

“OMG people here have reading problems”

Antivaxer, heal thyself.

How much would you be paying for Covid (or for that matter any vaccine) if the government or an insurance company wasn’t paying.

Here’s a table of supply costs of COVID vaccines as negotiated between the EU and the vaccine suppliers. The prices are mostly only in Euro, but the most expensive is Moderna at USD18/dose. No doubt the cost charged to the patient would be higher if the supply of the vaccines were not subsidised by the supplying government, but the vaccines themselves aren’t hugely expensive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deployment_of_COVID-19_vaccines#Cost

You follow mandates when animals are involved, but not when humans are ? Perhaps USDA know something health authorities o not.

@ Kay

You are so incredibly dishonest. Quote me when it suits you; but ignore most of what I write. Again, I don’t recollect until recently your saying anything positive about vaccines AND you continue to avoid apologizing for calling me a liar regarding Lyme Disease Vaccine.

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