Autism Blog - Sloppy science – a perfect example of how the anti-vaccine crowd will listen to anything

11 Feb 2011

Author: Kev
Comments: 252

Sloppy science – a perfect example of how the anti-vaccine crowd will listen to anything

Both Age of Autism and David Kirby have recently reported on a new review paper with Age of Autism describing it as ‘pretty interesting’ and David repeating a part of the abstract:

Documented causes of autism include genetic mutations and/or deletions, viral infections, and encephalitis following vaccination.

So, should we all in the skeptic camp be reaching for our humble pie and our knife and fork? Not exactly. Lets take a look at the contents of this paper. Lets start here:

The vaccine organism itself could be a culprit. For example, one hypothesis of the cause of autism is that the pertussis toxin in the DPT vaccine causes a separation of the G-alpha protein from retinoid receptors in genetically at-risk children (Farfel et al., 1999; Megson, 2000). The pertussis toxin creates a chronic autoimmune monocytic infiltration of the gut mucosa lamina propia and may disconnect the G-alpha protein pathways, leaving some G-alphamodulated pathways unopposed. In turn, the non-specific branch of the immune system is turned on and, without retinoid switching, cannot be down regulated.

Wow, blinded with the cool science yet? No, me neither. Go back to line one where it says ‘one hypothesis’. All that follows from that point is mere opinion. There’s no science to back it up.

Another organism of suspect is the live measles virus…

Yeah except its really not. The issues with the Wakefield hypothesis are so many and so thoroughly debunked, it really isn;t worth my time or yours going through them again and again.

There is evidence that Thimerosal (which is 49% ethyl mercury) is indeed harmful. Since the 1930s, Thimerosal has been extensively used as an antibacterial agent in vaccines (Geier et al., 2007). Thimerosal has been implicated as a cause of autism. Not only is every major symptom of autism documented in cases of mercury poisoning but also biological
abnormalities in autism are very similar to the side effects of mercury poisoning itself (Bernard et al., 2001)

Oh dear. Reliance on more thoroughly debunked rubbish in the form of well, anything by the Geier’s and the ridiculous Bernard ‘paper’. I’m happy to go through why these are rubbish but I think I’d be preaching to the converted.

The rest of the paper is a rogues gallery of debunked and fringe science. Helen Ratajczak cites the Geier’s numerous times, DeSoto and Hitlan, Nataf and Rossignol to name but a few. This isn’t a paper so much as an advert for the sort of poor science that was examined in the Autism Omnibus proceedings and roundly rejected by the Special Masters. For goodness sake, she even cites David Ayoub of the Black Helicopter infamy.

When it comes to this paper – handle with extreme caution. Its toxic rubbish.

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252 Responses to “Sloppy science – a perfect example of how the anti-vaccine crowd will listen to anything”

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February 11th, 2011
22:22:53

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Kev, Alltop Autism. Alltop Autism said: Sloppy science – a perfect example of how the anti-vaccine crowd will listen to anything http://bit.ly/ia2As1 [...]
Moderation
February 12th, 2011
00:17:11

Sadly, it appears this person has some legitimate credentials. She appears to be: Helen V. Ratajczak, Ph.D. President, Northeast Chapter, SOT (Society of Toxicology) – some confusion however because, on in the newsletter it appears her name is misspelled as “Heven” once (in her sign off as the president of the chapter), but in the rest of the newsletter she is referred to as Helen. Hopefully, she was just doing literature searches and was not aware of the the status of the researchers she was quoting. I guess what I am say is that I hope she is more lazy than a true believer.
Sullivan
February 12th, 2011
01:13:58

This paper is a total non event. It’s a review. At best, nothing new. At worst, conclusions drawn that shouldn’t be.

It’s a sorry state of affairs that this perks peoples interest.
Science Mom
February 12th, 2011
02:15:50

She also has another review in the same issue: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21299356 I find her employment with IIT Research Institute a bit snicker-worthy as by AoA standards, she is a pharma-shill.
Orange Lantern
February 12th, 2011
03:51:27

You may have missed the best part. The only reference to the claim of “Documented causes of autism include… encephalitis following vaccination” is this: “Child Health Safety. 2010. June 30.”

Is this a government sponsored report? A nonprofit safety organization? Any other legitimate source for a published review article?

No. It’s actually an antivax blog with cherry picked quotes. Seriously.
http://childhealthsafety.wordp.....0vaccines/

I think the Journal of Immunotoxicology could use some new peers.
AWOL
February 12th, 2011
21:24:07

As below folks,lack of articles from your side these days.. Your agenda is to blow holes in everybody who prints Autism ~~vaccines~~link-mmr, Pharma et-al cant print two words supporting its stance with science and scientists…remember guys Deer isnt a scientist!!just a journo pharma shill

Measles in the United Kingdom The “Wakefield Factor”By F. Edward Yazbak MD, FAAP

http://www.ageofautism.com/201......html#more
Shannon
February 12th, 2011
23:12:42

Honestly, without your blog and others like it, I would probably have let this scare me into thinking it’s vaccines that cause autism. Thank you for your blog and for bringing to light good science and helping parents like me understand it.
Stuart Duncan
February 13th, 2011
17:41:22

Yes, someone tweeted it to me, about how it explained so much to her.
I pointed out that it (the article on AoA anyway based on it) had a variation of “could be” or “could result” more than 4 times.

A “review” opinion piece that continually used the word “could” is hardly proof of anything, even if they do put the headline “documented proof of vaccine-autism link” on it.

I’m all for good hard research but I hate it when people use “could be” as a “fact” of anything.
Joseph
February 13th, 2011
18:14:14

Hopefully, she was just doing literature searches and was not aware of the the status of the researchers she was quoting. I guess what I am say is that I hope she is more lazy than a true believer.

So she should’ve considered the reputation of the researchers when evaluating the validity of the research? Somehow, that seems completely wrong to me. There has to be a better way (e.g. reading the papers, or rebuttals of the papers, and realizing they are nonsense.)
passionlessDrone
February 13th, 2011
19:26:07

Man alive, these guys are their own worst enemy and they are just too dumb to see it. Ugh.

– pD
Moderation
February 15th, 2011
01:23:07

Joseph:

A researchers reputation is determined by the quality of their reseach, how others experts in their area have responded to their research and where they publish their research. So it would seem to some degree we are saying the same thing.

As an example, I give you the Greier’s: http://www.chicagotribune.com/.....3359.story, who are referenced in this review paper. Go to pubmed and read some of his “articles” and judge for yourself. There is a point where if you publish enough crap, your reputation will precede you.
Broken Link
February 15th, 2011
13:25:33

Sadly, it appears this person has some legitimate credentials. She appears to be: Helen V. Ratajczak, Ph.D. President, Northeast Chapter, SOT (Society of Toxicology)

She’s 72 years old, according to various public databases. Her quite respectable publishing career lasted from 1976-2001. Since then she’s published only two other papers. One wonders if she has a grandchild with ASD whose parents are active in the anti-vaccine movement. The article contains so many anti-vaccine talking points that it is apparent that the author has been perusing blogs and the Age of Autism. The reference list could not have been assembled by a neutral observer, and certainly not one who relied on pubmed.

The journal itself has a very low impact factor. However, review articles, which is what this purports to be, are quite often effective at increasing the impact factor. It is possible that the editor accepted this one without checking into it carefully.
McD
February 15th, 2011
22:04:44

I have gone over this paper several times now, and although the author claims that “encephalitis following vaccination” is a documented cause of autism, the only supporting evidence in her paper is this:

“The United States Government and Dr. Geberding, Director of Vaccines at Merck & Co., Inc. say that autistic conditions can result from encephalopathy following vaccination (Child Health
Safety, 2010).”

Correct me if I am wrong, but this is just the Poling case?

OK, encephalitis is possibly (not conclusively) implicated in childhood disintegrative disorder – which is similar to autism, and a differential diagnosis is difficult if the CDD happens very young. But in CDD the encephalitis is specifically linked to measles. The organism.

And anybody vulnerable to an attenuated virus in a vaccine is going to be way more vulnerable to the actual disease. Even if the vaccine did trigger Hannah’s condition, leaving her unvaccinated would have been the greater risk.

Encephalitis following vaccination is stunningly rare, especially compared to encephalitis following infectious disease.

This is indeed another case of stripping a statement of all context and over-generalising way beond the evidence.
stanley seigler
February 16th, 2011
04:48:51

[McD say] This is indeed another case of stripping a statement of all context and over-generalizing way beond the evidence.

full disclosure: believe there is no major connection…but is in indeed another and another case of what happens in general.

people pick their sloppy science to defend or oppose…”strip of context and over-generalize beyond the evidence”...eg;

VAX v anti-VAX…ms dawson v ABA…in days of yore: tobacco and asbestos science…lobotomy and refrigerator parent science…

caveat emptor.

stanley seigler
Sullivan
February 16th, 2011
19:56:19

Orange Lantern,

Sorry, this comment got stuck in the spam filter. But, yes, it is very odd. Much as I like blogs, it is very strange for them to use a blog post in that way.

It is also misleading to the reader to cite it in that manner. There is a very low probability that the reader would find the citation.
AWOL
February 16th, 2011
20:11:43

Can Brian only copy and paste these days all other privelages removed by the looks of it?Not a word since the article ,you must be bursting Brian?...

Mc D

Thats right us anti vaccine lot make it all up. I see you dont supply any links to back up your tales?

FWIW adverse reactions are well documented by the makers of the vaccines in the package inserts that “encephalitis following vaccination” is an event..its a pity hardly ever knows such a bit of documentation exists until its to late..

http://www.vaclib.org/chapter/inserts.htm
Thanks fo
Dinah Everett Snyder
February 16th, 2011
22:46:06

Well well, I see the twit ” Science Mom” leaving her comments here too…sigh.

Well,the USA Vaccine Court has conceded many times that vaccines have ” contributed” to ” autism like” symptoms and one has to love their vague rhetoric of ” Mitochondrial dysfunction, exacerbated by vaccine fever and immune stimulation” when granting a compensation in autism regression cases.

This statement is particularly noted in the Hannah Poling case.
Furthermore, in Hannah’s case, “Findings of Entitlement: Damages Decision: MMR vaccine and Thimerosol containing vaccines ( led to) Autism Spectrum Disorder”.

Here is another: this one by the Vaccine Special Master, Gary Golkiewicz, ” The vaccine injured the childs brain, and the symptoms that came with that fall within the broad rubric of autism”.

” Fever plus Mitochondrial Disease Could Be Risk Factors for Autism Regression.” Journal of Child Neurology April 2010 volume 25, 4: pp429-434 first published September 22, 2009

” 4 out of 12 children with Mitochondrial Disease regressed into autism following vaccine induced fever”. Dr. John Shoffer MD et al
Journal of Child Neurology.

Cases of payouts by the Vaccine Court go as far back as 1990, and are broadly labelled as:
” brain disorders” ( 630 payouts) ” seizure disorders” (634)
and many of them involve autism. ( numbers quoted are dated as of beginning of 2010).

Kienan Freeman case: ” Kienan’s seizure disorder and retardation likely were the result of his MMR vaccination”.

Bailey Banks is another where the Vaccine Court conceded to vaccination of MMR as the causal link to his autism diagnosis in the Bailey Banks Decision of Entitlement.

There is a pervasive sense of hostility towards autism and parents of autism spectrum children by the media and mainstream medicine. For good measure I will add the public school system to that list. One has to wonder why? The parents did not choose autism and the children certainly didn’t either!

Instead of throwing stones, labels and discrediting the few who have put forth suggestions and added some dimension to the scope of the causal links, it behoves the medical community and the FDA and CDC to get their proverbial house in order and start looking more closely at answers to the question of autism and its causal links or point of origin themselves.

It would appear that many in the medical establishment are rather good at criticizing and debunking many of the suggested theories, without actually putting forth any effort towards a suggestion of their own.

Dinah Everett Snyder.
AWOL
February 16th, 2011
23:34:37

Dianah

Dr Poul Thorsen was the last that was given millions of dollars by the apparently equally corrupt US Gov ernment Center for Disease Control (CDC) to try to disprove the links between infant vaccination and the explosive growth of child autism.

http://deadlinelive.info/2011/.....-millions/
Chris
February 16th, 2011
23:40:08

Ms. Snyder, neither Bailey Banks nor Hannah Poling have autism. They have other table injuries to the vaccine, which exasperated Miss Poling’s pre-existing (genetically inherited) mitochondrial disorder.

I will warn you that Sully is not as tolerate as Orac to those who use phrases like the twit ” Science Mom”.

I would also remind you that the subject is sloppy science, not legal decisions. If you think lawyers and the legal system is where science and medicine are done, then the next time you require medical care go to the local court house or law office for treatment.
Sullivan
February 16th, 2011
23:49:54

Dinah Everett Snyder,

you don’t need the drama (“sigh”). If you disagree with ScienceMom, a person who has contributed respectfully to the conversation here, all you have to do is point out where you disagree.

Well,the USA Vaccine Court has conceded many times that vaccines have ” contributed” to ” autism like” symptoms and one has to love their vague rhetoric of ” Mitochondrial dysfunction, exacerbated by vaccine fever and immune stimulation” when granting a compensation in autism regression cases.

How many cases do they use this phrase in? Seems like one. A concession. A concession that, by its very nature, doesn’t say anything about causation. How many times does “autism like” appear in decisions? Not really that much. We were told years back that “soon” we would hear about how there was a much higher percentage of vaccine court cases involving autistic kids than would be expected. It never materialized.

Most of what is known about cases involving autism and the vaccine court comes from Kathleen Seidel, who unearthed a number of decisions.

“There is a pervasive sense of hostility towards autism and parents of autism spectrum children by the media and mainstream medicine. ”

I haven’t sensed that. And, yes, I am the parent of an autistic child.

“Furthermore, in Hannah’s case, “Findings of Entitlement: Damages Decision: MMR vaccine and Thimerosol containing vaccines ( led to) Autism Spectrum Disorder”.”

As the one who broke the story of the settlement, I am familiar with the document. Your statement is misleading. The (led to) isn’t in the original document at all. The title of the document is

“MMR Vaccine; Thimerosal Containing
Vaccines; Autism
Spectrum Disorder;
Finding of Entitlement;
Damages Decision Based On
Proffer”

The only time “autism” is mentioned in the body is:

“Respondent has conceded that petitioners are entitled to compensation due to the significant aggravation of Child Doe77’s pre-existing mitochondrial disorder based on an MMR vaccine Table presumptive injury of encephalopathy, which eventually manifested as a chronic encephalopathy with features of autism spectrum disorder and a complex partial seizure disorder as a sequela.”

If you want to claim that “led to” is somehow implied, you would be incorrect. The child was part of the Autism Omnibus, that’s why the word is there. She was supposed to be a test case for the thimerosal portion of the Omnibus, which is why that term is there too. Notice, the concession isn’t about thimerosal. It is a presumed table MMR injury.

In “Panic Virus”, Seth Mnookin tells of his conversation with Jon Poling, Hannah’s father. Dr. Poling discussed how a court concession doesn’t say anything, one way or the other, about causation.

“Cases of payouts by the Vaccine Court go as far back as 1990, and are broadly labelled as:
” brain disorders” ( 630 payouts) ” seizure disorders” (634)
and many of them involve autism. ( numbers quoted are dated as of beginning of 2010).”

How many involve autism? We were told that someone was compiling a number. What happened to that? Many of the vaccine court’s decisions involve the old DPT vaccine and a presumption of injury that was incorrect. Seizures following DPT were removed as a table injury once data came in showing that the link wasn’t real.

It would appear that many in the medical establishment are rather good at criticizing and debunking many of the suggested theories, without actually putting forth any effort towards a suggestion of their own.

If so many bunk theories weren’t created, this wouldn’t be a problem now, would it?
Sullivan
February 17th, 2011
00:01:00

“I will warn you that Sully is not as tolerate as Orac to those who use phrases like the twit ” Science Mom”.”

I take this to mean that Science Mom has given Dinah Everett Snyder some science education over at RI?
AWOL
February 17th, 2011
00:09:15

Sullivan

“Seizures following DPT were removed as a table injury once data came in showing that the link wasn’t real.”

It dosent mean the link is never going to be”real”.

http://vaccinerisk.blogspot.co.....illed.html
Sullivan
February 17th, 2011
00:12:03

AWOL,

actually, it does mean that the link wasn’t real. The table injury created around DPT for seizure disorder was based on incorrect science and much publicity. Your link has nothing to do with that.
AWOL
February 17th, 2011
00:24:38

Sullivan

you say

“Seizures following DPT were removed as a table injury once data came in showing that the link wasn’t real.”

“The table injury created around DPT for seizure disorder was based on incorrect science and much publicity. Your link has nothing to do with that.”

THE JUDGEMENT SAYS ;

The facts of this case can be summarized as follows. Elias received a DTaP vaccine. Within one day, he developed a fever, which led to a complex febrile seizure. Subsequently, Elias developed epilepsy. This fact pattern is commonly seen in the Vaccine Program. See Nance v. Sec’y of Dep’t of Health & Human Servs., No. 06-730V, 2010 WL 3291896, *8 (Fed. Cl. Spec. Mstr. July 30, 2010) (citing cases); Simon v. Sec’y of Dep’t of Health & Humans Servs., No. 05-941V, 2007 WL 1772062 (Fed. Cl. Spec. Mstr. June 1, 2007). Because special masters must base their decisions on both the particular facts and specific expert opinions in a case, a special master is not bound by other special masters’ decisions in different cases; however, although those decisions are not binding, they may be persuasive authority. See Nance, 2010 WL 3291896, at *8. At a post-hearing status conference, I discussed with the parties the applicability of the decision in Simon to this case. In Simon, the special master found that a DTaP vaccination caused a febrile seizure, which caused a child’s epilepsy and subsequent death. The special master found that “on a probability scale, it is reasonable to conclude that where the vaccine is associated with fever and seizure and the seizure is of a complex nature, in the absence of proof of an alternative cause, it is the vaccine that is legally responsible for a subsequent epilepsy and residual sequela.” Simon, 2010 WL 1772062, at *6. Because the record in this case was incomplete as to that theory, I requested additional briefing from the parties after the hearing. The parties agree that the DTaP vaccine can cause a fever, and that a fever sometimes can initiate a seizure. The issues here are whether a vaccine-induced febrile seizure can cause epilepsy, and if it can, whether Elias’s initial febrile seizure caused his epilepsy.
Based on the medical literature and expert opinions submitted in this case, I find that Petitioners have established that, in circumstances like Elias’s, a complex febrile seizure can lead to epilepsy. Further, Petitioners have established a logical sequence of cause and effect showing that Elias’s vaccine-induced complex febrile seizure was a legal cause of his subsequent epilepsy.

I would say you mis-read it?
Sullivan
February 17th, 2011
00:54:07

AWOL,

“I would say you mis-read it?”

No. But you misunderstand the discussion. The DPT vaccine was presumed to cause injury if a seizure occurred within a short period following giving a vaccine. This was based on a study in the early 1980s/late 1970’s, as I recall.

The problem was, that study was wrong. Later studies showed that there was no increased risk of neurological injury for children who had seizures following DPT. So the link for the table injury was removed.

The recent case is about (a) a different vaccine and (b) not a table injury.

Many of the cases paid by the program were paid under an assumption that was later shown to be wrong.
Chris
February 17th, 2011
01:01:21

Sullivan:

I take this to mean that Science Mom has given Dinah Everett Snyder some science education over at RI?

Actually, no. All she has done was ask Ms. Snyder for cites. From what I can see, the education by Science Mom was directed towards Dr. Jay.
sharon
February 17th, 2011
05:50:24

@Dinah, it is astounding to me that after being roundly dismissed, quite rightly, over at RI, you then pop up here for a repeat performance. Clearly your capacity to win friends and influence people is lacking. And before you leap into defense mode, tell me if you are not here to infuence people, then why are you?
Dinah Everett Snyder
February 17th, 2011
09:36:02

Based upon the above it appears that we are arguing(?) the specifics of the semantics of the choices of words in order to asign the liability. See, this is a part of the problem. The complex array of ducking and diving for cover by all the
” interested parties” and the specifics to do with the diagnosis of outcome…..regardless of the table of injury being based upon something later assumed/ agreed/ decided as wrong, doesn’t sit well when viewed through a wide angled lense.

” This paper is a rogue gallery of debunked and fringe science”, this by the way is YOUR opinion.

There are far too many concessions from within the Vaccine Court, the wordings WITHIN the findings and the “special circumstances” and vague remands of ” mitochondrial dysfunction” along with the
( agreed upon) stated association between vaccines and “complex febrile seizures” which ” can lead to ” autism regression” and ” epilepsy” and ” autism like” and ” autism spectrum” to will this issue away on a whim.

Or to demand ” scientific findings or shut up”.

Come on ! There is a problem.

This does not have to be a case of yes or no. Black or White.
Autism is NOT caused by Vaccines. ALL Vaccines are safe.

Is a stroke caused by ONE thing? Is a migraine caused by ONE thing.

IF you eat chocolate then you will get a migraine.

Indeed some people DO get a migraine when they eat chocolate.
Many do not. It is caused by a variety of factors. For a select sub group of people within the “migraine community” or people predisposed to have migraines, chocolate is a trigger.

For a select sub group within the group predisposed towards
” mitochondrial dysfunction” then, could vaccines be the trigger?

For a select sub group within the group pre disposed towards autism, could vaccines have been a trigger?

Well, Wakefield may have thought the MMR had a causal link to autism, others thought differently. Some saw a problem with another vaccine.

There is clear and compelling evidence that something, a complex group of somethings is causing a very distinct percentage of the childhood population to digress/ regress into autism. Be autistic.

The clear and compelling evidence are the children themselves.
The evidence is in the numbers and the breadth of the spectrum of the disorder. This is why it won’t go away. Why it cannot.

“Concession” and ” Autism – like” and ” likely were a result of ( x, y,z) vaccine” and ” autistic behaviour” and ” pre existing ( genetically inherited) mitochondrial dysfunction” ..

See, it strikes me that the next time I need medical attention I should consult a dictionary and a thesaurus and do my damndest to read between the lines of sloppy science meets inept legal brief making out with words synopsied by journalistic malfeance at the direction of said dictionary and thesaurus who in turn were hanging by a thread being recklessly sawed at …

The merry go round is dizzying. Again, the semantics of the specifics, or was that the specifics of the semantics?

” If so many bunk theories weren’t created, then this wouldn’t be a problem, would it now” in fact the bunk theories are the ones that medicine keeps trying to ram down the throats of a validly concerned, questioning public in the face of the questions of all the concessions and special circumstances and pre existing and mitigating and mitochondrial and injury tables word games that reminds the public: in the old days we just called them garbage collectors- now they are called Sanitation Techs.

semantics, is that what billions of dollars and research and years of wiffle waffle have yielded.

I want a refund. They can keep the dictionary, thesaurus, the attorney and the doctor.

Dinah Everett Snyder.
Kev
February 17th, 2011
11:15:46

This does not have to be a case of yes or no. Black or White.
Autism is NOT caused by Vaccines. ALL Vaccines are safe.

Ms Snyder, no one is arguing ALL vaccines are always safe. No one doubts that some people are very occasionally injured by vaccines. However, that is not the same thing as saying ‘therefore vaccines can cause autism’.

The simple black and white fact is that there is no science that supports the idea that vaccines cause or lead to autism.

There are far too many concessions from within the Vaccine Court, the wordings WITHIN the findings and the “special circumstances” and vague remands of ” mitochondrial dysfunction” along with the
( agreed upon) stated association between vaccines and “complex febrile seizures” which ” can lead to ” autism regression” and ” epilepsy” and ” autism like” and ” autism spectrum” to will this issue away on a whim.

This is plain old hair splitting I’m afraid.

1) A vaccine court is not a piece of science
2) The vaccine court is under no obligation to be a gatekeeper of science (although they sometimes do as in the OAP)
3) in your example above, it is the febrile seizure which leads to autism, not the vaccine. The fact that a vaccine might lead to a febrile seizure is simply unfortunate, not a direct causation. You’re saying that the presence of a cutlery shop causes more stabbings.

Ms Snyder – if you want to show that vaccines cause autism then you need to do the science – the onus is on you to show that they do. So far thats not even come close to happening.
Dinah Everett Snyder
February 18th, 2011
01:11:24

@ Kev, I am afraid that it is YOU who are splitting hairs on this.
you say” the fact that a vaccine might lead to febrile seizure is simply unfortunate, not a direct causation”...are we talking the chicken…or the egg here?

I am not sure where you would like to go with your cutlery shop and stabbings point since it is an irrelevant analogy and demeans the topic.

While I agree in part with your #1 point ( above) the vaccine court is the one created as a recourse for parents who have nowhere else to go. The fact that “all” parents of “vaccine damaged” children do not choose to take the issue to that level has less to do with the right to go there than the choice NOT to go there for a variety of reasons: ignorance, lack of resources, a feeling of helplessness in the face of yet more red tape, limited resources OR the resources to deal with the cost involved with regard to their childs specific needs…the reasons are many and the majority of those parents just go on as best they can dealing with it all on their own.
as for your #2 point, ” vaccine court is under no obligation to be a gatekeeper of science” is pretty loaded at best and revolves around several issues, which is beyond the scope of this discussion for now. However, I think that most people will agree that although they deal with the specifics of individual cases, and although gatekeepers are under no obligation to follow the lead as may have been presented or decided pertinent to any other similar cases, the semantics and nature of the beast is highly specific to parents of autistic spectrum children, vaccine damaged children and the related arenas of interest in medicine, law and journalism.

The onus is not on ME to show that vaccines cause autism, but as the parent of an an autism spectrum child, and as a parent with other children, and as a concerned human being, I am entitled to question the arguments and scientific and journalistic gymnastics
with which the population is bombarded, constantly.

Further you state ” The simple Black and White truth is that there is no science that supports the idea that vaccines cause or lead to autism.” I beg to differ, indeed there are many who differ with that opinion and I do not believe that YOU are qualified to make that broad sweeping statement on behalf of the entire Science and Medicine field. You are however entitled to your opinion as am I.

Indeed it is by those very same broad and sweeping Black and White catagorical statements that Science and Medicine have lost their luster and credibility for many.

By all indications there are several differing means or causal ways by which children become autistic, and I don’t believe that those that are truly dedicated to finding the answer would focus exclusively on one issue at the cost or exclussion of ALL others.

But to split hairs on the vaccines may, could, might cause
” autism- like” and then rush into ” but vaccines do not cause autism” sounds at best denialist on your ( on behalf of medicine) part. I do not state that ” vaccines cause autism”, nor do I state that vaccines are bad, fraudulent or dangerous. In the past, and now, I merely say that some vaccines, specifically MMR may have a causal link to some of the autism spectrum disorders that we see. AND, if that is the case, instead of focusing so much attention on ripping apart ONE man ( Wakefield) both personally and professionally it behoves the entire science and medical community to focus more specifically on the issues and debatable questions surrounding the correlations between the causal links of the vaccines and adverse reactions that appear to induce a subset of highly specific breakdowns in some children.

Particularly, if there is such a controversial ” link” with MMR one has to wonder why the pharmaceutical industry has not simply gone back to the individual shots, broken them back down and made them available to parents ( and doctors) who are concerned about the ” possibility of a causal link” instead of focusing so exclusively on “debunking” and ” refuting” the persistant evidence of a specific problem.

In addition there is of course much speculation not only of a vaccine that includes 3 live viruses, but the very nature of one of them. Therefore, why has the pharmaceutical industry not addressed the change in the strain of the virus used prior to the 3 in one, versus the one currently used.

Again, my point is ” far too much energy in all the wrong areas”.

Dinah Everett Snyder
Chris
February 18th, 2011
01:40:37

Ms. Snyder:

Particularly, if there is such a controversial ” link” with MMR one has to wonder why the pharmaceutical industry has not simply gone back to the individual shots,

The reason is that there is no reason to break it up. It has been a successful vaccine since 1971. If you have evidence to the contrary, please present it. Just state the journal, title, date and author of the papers you are citing.
Dinah Everett Snyder
February 19th, 2011
01:21:39

@ sharon: why do you feel that I would need to win friends? Are you and I in a “friendship numbers” competition that I am unaware of? and ” defense mode” ? why do I need defense mode to fuel my surprise at how often I find the bias of oracs minnions peppered all over the web?

@ chris: Wakefield suggested a CAUSAL link to MMR vaccinations and autism, not I perse…I question the all encompassing “safety” of ” all” vaccines in the face of the staggering numbers ( and rising) of autism ( 1 in 64 in UK..
! in 110 in USA) and before we go this round ( again) let me remind you that I believe in ” safe” vaccines just not blind dogma. Ref http://www.thetruthaboutgardasil.org

The evidence supports a range of possibilities as triggers for the range of ASD.

” Biological assays lend support to the association between measles virus or MMR and autism, whereas epidemiology studies show no association between MMR and autism. Furhter research is needed to clarrify both the mechanics whereby viral infection in early development may lead to autism and the possible involvement of the MMR vaccine.”
Pardo CA, Vargos DL, Zimmerman AW Autistic Disorder and Viral Infection. Journal of Neurology 2005 Immunity, Neuroglia and Neuroinflammation in autism.

Vijendra K Singh et al about his 2001 study,” Furthermore, over 90% of MMR anti body positive autistic sera were also positive for MBP autoantibodies, suggesting a strong association between MMR and CNS autoimmunity in autism stemming from this evidence we suggest that an inappropriate antibody response to MMR, specifically the measles compound thereof, might be related to pathogens of autism”.

Vijendra K Singh, Sheren X Lin, Elizabeth Newel and Courtney Nelson. Journal of Biomedical Science. vol9, Number 4, 359-364 DOI 10.1007/BF 02256592 Abnormal measles-mumps-rubella anti bodies and CNS auto immunity in children with autism. 2001

There are several more but this should suffice for your reading pleasure for now.

Pub Med?
Are you serious? Not all the answers to EVERYTHING are on Pub Med and if that is your only source of reference then you should probably hold onto your day job with both hands…really really tightly. Why is it that you ” Science and Med junkies” for all of your credentials at ” real med and science schools” just fail to see beyond your diplomas? There is a wide wide world out there, full of rather smart people who are willing to question their belief system and loosten up their schemata, may I suggest that you do likewise.

Yours is not an absolute truth, stop presenting it as such.

@ Sulivan: really, you haven’t felt that there is a pervasive sense of hostility towards parents of autistic children and the children themselves? Strange, because you wrote on exactly that. Are you sitting on the fence on this then? The intellectual at odds with the parent? ” Majority of youth w/ mental disorders may not be receiving sufficient services” is your article no?

which you end with: we as a people have to do better. Times are getting tougher…we have to close the gap on inequalities such as this”

I am sorry…what was your point again?
MY point was that there is a sense of hostility towards autism spectrum and the parents of ASD, from schools, medicine and science.

YOU; have no point since each point that you attempt to make is negated by your next ” point”.

I think that I have covered the worthwhile issues as such, for now.

Dinah Everett Snyder.
dinaheverettsnyder@hotmail.com
Chris
February 19th, 2011
05:28:25

Ms. Snyder:

Pardo CA, Vargos DL, Zimmerman AW Autistic Disorder and Viral Infection. Journal of Neurology 2005 Immunity, Neuroglia and Neuroinflammation in autism.

The closest Pardo study I could find does not even mention MMR, and was not in the Journal of Neurology, and does not have the title “Autistic Disorder and Viral Infection.” Where did you get that lousy quote and backwards citation?

The one study by Singh, and it turns out he used lousy PCR results (which was in a Paul Offit book, so there is no reliable link). At least I was able to find that one!

Also it did not show the MMR was worse than the actual diseases: measles, mumps and rubella. Whatever “CNS autoimmunity in autism” is, it is not the same as encephalopathy leading to blindness, deafness, paralysis, mental retardation, autism (from congenital rubella syndrome) and even death from the diseases (about one in a thousand for measles).

What further research did Singh ever get funded in the last ten years? How does the most recent Hornig study affect his getting that funding?

Do try again.

Also to remember the evidence must not include known fraudulent researchers. So nothing from Wakefield is acceptable. And neither are scare sites like “truthaboutgardasil.” Plus, make sure the citations are real. Be safe and actually cut and paste the stuff from PubMed (the Pardo one was really screwed up!). Something like this (which was on the list when I was looking for the Pardo study):
The MMR vaccination and autism controversy in United Kingdom 1998-2005: inevitable community outrage or a failure of risk communication?
Burgess DC, Burgess MA, Leask J.
Vaccine. 2006 May 1;24(18):3921-8. Epub 2006 Mar 3.

Also, remember that the MMR vaccine has been used in the USA since 1971. If you are an American under the age of 41, you may have had it as a toddler. Why was there only an issue after Wakefield’s fraud in 1998? Why not in the 1970s, or even the 1980s (when Barbara Loe Fisher was fanning the flames over the DTP vaccine)?
sharon
February 19th, 2011
05:51:05

@Dinah, I was playing with the title of a famous book. Perhaps you havent heard of Dale Carnegies ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’? Perhaps you are too young? You didn’t answer my question. If you are not here to influence people then why are you?
Science Mom
February 19th, 2011
22:40:28

@ Dinah, This ‘twit’ asked you (rightly so) for citations that you were waving about as proof that Wakefield’s work was replicated. You refused and still do, except to pimp your book as though the asked for citations were of your very own unpublished works.

@ Kev, I am afraid that it is YOU who are splitting hairs on this.
you say” the fact that a vaccine might lead to febrile seizure is simply unfortunate, not a direct causation”...are we talking the chicken…or the egg here?

I am not sure where you would like to go with your cutlery shop and stabbings point since it is an irrelevant analogy and demeans the topic.

Kevin is not splitting hairs; it is you who fail to accept the preponderance of evidence and shift goalposts. Children who have been compensated via vaccine injury compensation schemes all suffered from a physiological injury prior to any neurological diagnosis. It is a far cry from all of the claims of, “my perfectly normal child regressed following X vaccine(s) and now has autism.” Kevin’s analogy was also apt and I daresay, your word salads are what demean the topic by diverting attention from autism aetiology and treatment research, not to mention much needed services for all autistics.

” Biological assays lend support to the association between measles virus or MMR and autism, whereas epidemiology studies show no association between MMR and autism. Furhter research is needed to clarrify both the mechanics whereby viral infection in early development may lead to autism and the possible involvement of the MMR vaccine.”
Pardo CA, Vargos DL, Zimmerman AW Autistic Disorder and Viral Infection. Journal of Neurology 2005 Immunity, Neuroglia and Neuroinflammation in autism.

You wrote a book and this is the sloppy work that you come up with? This is the proper citation: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16401547 as Chris already pointed out and has nothing to do with MMR but rather, pre-natal infections, neurological and immunological abnormalities in autistics.

Vijendra K Singh, Sheren X Lin, Elizabeth Newel and Courtney Nelson. Journal of Biomedical Science. vol9, Number 4, 359-364 DOI 10.1007/BF 02256592 Abnormal measles-mumps-rubella anti bodies and CNS auto immunity in children with autism. 2001

Another dreadfully sloppy citation. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12145534 See how easy it can be? Or are we supposed to just give up and acquiesce to your clearly superior data cherry-picking skills? But more importantly, there are these sections in studies, specifically “Materials and Methods” and “Results” that allow you to assess the quality of the investigation. Sections I find that all anti-vaxx or “vaccine safety advocates” such as yourself are incapable of parsing and/or just plain ignore. In short, Singh’s methods are atrocious and don’t allow the reader to validate his samples, nor his serology methods. His results are also a bit curious as no controls had detectable measles titres even though they were vaccinated. But too bad, Singh doesn’t seem to know that high measles IgG titres are insignificant and that you obviously don’t know that either.

There is a wide wide world out there, full of rather smart people who are willing to question their belief system and loosten up their schemata, may I suggest that you do likewise.

What a boring defence for your sloppy work. You are not of the ‘Enlightened Ones” Dinah; you’re a carbon-copy of so many before you. Adhering to the best available evidence and applying scepticism to dubious claims is what is actually open-minded, simply taking a position that is opposite is not ‘educated’ but is the mistake that people like you will continue to make.
Chris
February 20th, 2011
00:38:44

Thank you, Science Mom, for filling in the gaps of my reply. I only have access to the abstracts.

I recently went to a talk by Tom Sidwell of the Australian Skeptics. His presentation on the daft use of cites by Meryl Dorey was eerily familiar to Ms. Snyder’s use. I found a letter that explains the sloppy citation, and how she cut and pasted them from whale.to. Enjoy!:
http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/avnts3.pdf
Dinah Everett Snyder
February 20th, 2011
12:36:03

Firstly, just to let you know that the site lost my first attempt at a reply, too long perhaps?
So this will be more brief then.

@ Science Mom, hello there, I did not mention my book anywhere on this site, you did.

Further, I don’t claim to be ” enlightened”, do you?

I merely have an issue with broad sweeping gestures of vaccines in general and no, vaccines are not all safe, are they?

I merely question the narrow field of dogma versus keeping an open mind, a wider viewpoint and not being so ever quick to condemn out of hand.

Because I question the safety of vaccines, does that make me anti vaccine? I say no, you say yes, by definition if one questions the safety of a vaccine is one a hater? I say not. I say I am cautious and prudent in my embrace.

There are vaccines I believe in:
tetanus
polio (which is oral too)
hep
flu vaccine…not so much
current flu vaccine? hell no!
Gardasil? based on current information? never!

I have 4 children ( a grandchild) and 3 foster children that have been through my house, all vaccinated tho none on CDC schedule and individual M plus M plus R shots. All paid for out of pocket as health insurance would not pay for ” customized” preference, interesting that they would have covered the full cost otherwise.

Interesting that after Wakefield posed a causal link between MMR and autism the Brits made single shots unavailable, forcing parents to either choose to vaccinate with a 3 in one…or to not vaccinate period.

The fact that a vaccine might lead to a febrile seizure which in turn may cause epilepsy/ autism is… ” unfortunate” ..gosh yes..
Bailey Banks, yes, epilepsy versus autism, mitochondrial dysfunction and pre disposition versus cause and tables…
smacks of sleazy backroom/ courtroom antics by Vaccine Court and special masters and has a feel of the spirit of ethics violations of the grand sort reserved for entry beyond the pearly gates if you catch my drift. Beyond the scope of this, for now.

See, if someone mentions Dr. Wakefield then they are labelled a looney and a Jenny McCarthy paranoia/ scare monger idiot, isn’t that the isssue for you.

He has been made an example of in the grandest way possible, a knee jerk reaction of cause and effect. What has that done for those doctors/ researchers who may be prepared to look beyond the narrow scope of accepted dogma: treatment and options? a specific way of looking at things versus a wider more gracious way or approach. A wide angle lens versus a pin prick of light?

I HAVE an ASD child, although clearly it was not a result of the MMR vaccine ( no 3 in one remember). I had to discover ( on my own) that amino acids would make an ENORMOUS difference, that Folic acid, Selenium and cod/ vit D3 would impact his health for the better. That probiotics would be a godsend.
No doctor or specialist dared to ” go there” at the time.

Further, a gifted child who fell within the ASD realm? are you kidding? no help from doctors, therapy advocates or education resources, and no, it is not a splinter skill.
Too smart to qualify for ANY aid/ resources and too stupid(?) to tie his own shoe laces… see, I CAN say that, because I am his MOTHER !

Me ( and other parents like me) are sick to death of being told to check off a flipping box with yes or no answers for a child that doesn’t fit their neat little ” criteria” of ” gifted” AND
” ASD”. How does one “classify” a child (with a box) who is a chess master and can talk about the universe and grow algae for fuel for his model car…play the guitar ( self taught)and read Shakespeare and quote poetry and yet falls apart at…
never mind, I digress.

An immune compromised child who was a strep carrier had to endure horrific side effects to antibiotic cocktails that left her ever weaker and more underweight, until I treated her with Colloidal Silver topically. 2 years later she has been strep free ( for 2 years) and has recovered her immune function and weight gain puts her within ” normal” range. ( as opposed to skeletal of the past).

Doctors are at risk of losing their license for suggesting
” alternatives” that may be better options for specific cases though they are “immune” should they write a prescription that maims.

And though this is not as such the doctors fault it is a failing.
A failing of Medical School. A failing of FDA and CDC and legislature and ultimately, it is the doctor who sees patients no? So who would the public blame and feel frustarted with?

And, having made such an example of Wakefield there are now ever fewer doctors and researchers willing to detach from the rigors of dogma.

I propose that parents are not so much behind Wakefield as they are ready to embrace someone wwho appears to give a damn and stick his neck out, on the behalf of them and their children and a greater diversity of options and opinion. And while gastro or GI issues are not exclusive to autism, nor are all autistic children plagued by this problem, no doctors wanted to treat within more than standard medications. Why? Because the FDA ( and Codex) claim that foods are inert, good only for calories not medicinal value?

Richard Deth, Prof of Pharmacology, dept of Pharmaceutical Science ( ironic no doubt) Northwestern University had the following to say: ” Wakefield’s identification of gastrointestinal inflammation in autism will remain an important scientific contribution. The magnitude of the effort to discredit him betrays the strong fear that his suggestion of a causal link to vaccination may be correct. It amounts to a public pillorying that frightens others from investigating this contraversial but important issue.”

http://northeastern.edu/news/s...../deth.html

I agree, as do many in the field of medicime and science that I have spoken to, in the USA, UK, India and Southern Africa ( my speciality by the way). Further, a study is underway on this very issue so let us not debate this here. Unless you want to exclussively for yourself that is.
The study is not on Wakefield specifically either but as one of several.

Brian Deer seems intent on hounding Dr. Wakefield to the grave it appears.

Deusberg is another: one of a few dissenters with HIV Aids who was drowned out by the masses of collective thought ( or special, vested interest), although he did manage ( as did others of the same cloth) to go on and be productive in his ( their) respective fields. He is a particularly disarming and enchanting man, tho that is neither here nor there at this time. And has weathered the proverbial storm.

I watched a president of a country be eviccerated and disembowelled over the politics of Aids and watched in horror and dismay as a fragile and overwhelmed healthcare system was hijacked by special interest groups.

And yes, I have held a person with Polio and been through a Leprosy camp and seen them treated with Colloidal Silver and Rooibos Tea. Where have you been?

I have held a child in a Malaria induced coma and watched as she was treated with an Artemisinin tea… oh! tsk ! Of course ! WHO declared Artemisinin the frontline of defense against Malaria, which only allowed for the reclassification of Artemisinin as a drug because as the FDA states: Only a DRUG can treat, alleviate, mitigate, or cure a disease, all else is ….inert ( gag me now)
and therefore, Artemisinin is now being phased out of the public domain because the public cannot self medicate ( why? can we really only treat ourselves with something that has a pamphlet on how to take this medication)????
or is more about patents, and fees, and Research and Development fees to the consumer and govt through the back door?
Watch out curcumin, comfrey and yarrow, the spice doctors are coming for you next, the FDA has already done a good job on “defaming” Colloidal Silver to the public, and based on the sites that some of you frequent the FDA has done a great job on YOU too. For shame

I realize that I have digressed from ” A perfect example…” but it is pertinent to ” Sloppy Science”...

and may help answer the question as to why I am here.

I will submit this now for fear of losing it to, and carry on for another post.

Dinah Everett Snyder
dinaheverettsnyder@hotmail.com
Dinah Everett Snyder
February 20th, 2011
14:06:07
@ Chris
I have not seen the letter at the link you provided before, nor did I get it from the net. The hard copy that I have has the link as I gave it, before. I am curious though, what is whale.to ?

@ Science Mom.. your malice towards me is misdirected though perhaps I should appologize for my knee jerk reaction to you…
sorry then..

@ Sullivan: I still believe that you are riding the fence as evidenced by your flip flop articles…tho I am open to rebuttal.
and I do believe that ASD has been severly impeded by science, medicine AND the public school system, tho I said my piece to you somewhere else I believe.

@ Kev: we are perhaps both hair splitters no? and at whose expense then? pride? yours? mine? or true honest debate outside of vaccine courts and beyond special masters jurisdiction?

Okay, most people realize and are frustrated that Dr. Wakefield has become so ” causal” to autism. By most people I refer to parents of ASD ( I think I speak for a few hundred, whom I know)
as well I speak for those researchers and doctors who are really trying hard to leave no rock unturned in their quest for answers to some of the questions around autism and regression to autism.
Wakefield/ Lancet/ MMR/ autism are such a toxic combo. Both sides are guilty then, as is the press.

Right now there are questions being asked within the UN and affiliated parties as to GMO’s and their link to some of our rising healthcare issues: diabetes, obesity, autoimmune illness, preterm birth rates, specific mortality charts and concerns that although the US is highly vaccinated and has one of the highest if not THE highest per capita healthcare costs globally, the US health is falling in the global assessments and falling below other, less well developed countries.
Interesting that there is a unique form of malnutrition diabetes in Africa, not seen anywhere else ( yet). Not a question nor topic I have raised, rather Gates Foundation, media and UN high ups, flailing to explain.

Specifically I can refer you to these articles that were presented to the public:
” Sins of the Grandfathers” by Sharon Begley. Newsweek Nov 8, 2010
“” Back to the Genetic Future” by Sharon Begley. Newsweek Nov 22, 2010

Specifically these point to the mouse models of the growing cycle of ” bad genes” “inherited” from our grandfathers, influencing grand daughters in ways that were deemed ” impossible” and
” would never happen” ways of even 5 years ago.
Genetics cannot display such uniform changes in evolution along such a linear track in such a short span as two generations,
Or can it?
and what of causes then?
Does it perhaps sound familiar to the current issues of GM deregulation and potential cross contamination, or at the very least…contamination? And what does that say?
No, I am not being coy? I am posing a question of the science minds, please…

Much like the Russian study of rats fed GMO soy products and or GM potatoes, that was ” debunked” to some degree, yet has been redone yet not really deemed ” relevant”....despite clear evidence that major organs were affected and of the infants being weaker with higher mortality than the control groups.

Albert Einstein School of Medicine is studying genes and proteins and a $30 million dollar grant ” Protein Form and Function”.

Now I will ask you to go to the delightful Pubmed and look at the plethora of study material on autism :
specifically: “molecular genetics of autism”
highly specifically then: “Genetics of autism: from genome scans to candidate genes”.

pubmed:11122951 and 14648479 respectively, oh hell just for good measure 11827743
there are multiples of this type for you, on Pubmed.

@ Science Mom: no, not incredibly lazy research, finally sleeping fetal alcohol syndrome 22 day old foster baby asleep in one arm.
With a rather perplexing array of possible other issues.

” carbon copy of so many before me”?
perhaps, to some degree, though a rather well read one who has
- travelled far, seen much, heard more and knows many.
I accept my limitations, they are many, however firm adherance to a highly specific dogma is not one I ascribe to, thankfully.

@Sharon: above * was a lazy book reference too dear, although I hadn’t thought to phrase it as such since I feel perhaps a little beyond English lit class. For all that ye all may slash and burn at my writing here and there.

and so, to you then, why am I here? (shrug), clearly not to make friends it seems?

PS: someone above mentioned that were I under 41 and American I may have received some vaccine or other, to that then: I am well beyond 41 ( thank you! though my coconut oil facials and dead sea scrubs thank all, along with Chorrela, COQ10 and a host of others I cannot recall right now) and I am not American, though I do live here, and have for many years, interspersed with much travel both before and during my tenure in this country.

Dinah Everett Snyder
dinaheverettsnyder@hotmail.com
Dinah Everett Snyder
February 20th, 2011
14:14:04

I realize that my first reply may be lost in the spam folder, hopefully this will be true and it will appear after moderation, along with these 2, if not, then this will suffice.

Dinah Everett Snyder
dinaheverettsnyder@hotmail.com
Chris
February 20th, 2011
16:22:38

Ms. Snyder:

I have not seen the letter at the link you provided before, nor did I get it from the net. The hard copy that I have has the link as I gave it, before. I am curious though, what is whale.to ?

Hard copy of what? Those cites are both less than ten years old, and are easily found on PubMed (if you don’t screw it up). You cannot have a copy of what you claim to be “Pardo CA, Vargos DL, Zimmerman AW Autistic Disorder and Viral Infection. Journal of Neurology 2005 Immunity, Neuroglia and Neuroinflammation in autism”, because it does not exist. Which means it is something else. Where did you get it from?

You said:

PS: someone above mentioned that were I under 41 and American I may have received some vaccine or other, to that then: I am well beyond 41

You obviously did not understand that was alluding to how long the MMR vaccine has been in use. It was introduced in 1971, and anyone born after 1970 would have a good probability of receiving it as a child, like many of the young parents who are refusing to vaccinate their children.

But this does seem to confirm that you are a grandparent who is just learning how to use a computer and the Internet. Noting that you claimed those badly posted citations are on hard copy. Do yourself a favor, enroll some classes at your local community college. Take some basic computer/Internet usage classes, and also some basic science and English courses. That would be a much better use of your time, since all you are doing now is embarrassing yourself with illiterate depths of ignorance.
Dinah Everett Snyder
February 20th, 2011
22:56:06

@ Chris:

” you obviously did not understand that it was alluding to how long the MMR vaccine had been in use”.

On the contrary Chris, mine was a more flippant remark, poking fun at your way of either digging at someone because they are
” too young to know” or if that fails, then ” too old to know” !

I take it that you feel that you hover at some illustrious middle mark then?

Hope that works out for you.

again, @ Chris:
” this does seem to confirm that you are a grandparent”...

your ability to confirm the obvious is astounding, quite a breathtaking feat in fact. most especially since I actually TOLD you that I was a grandparent.

You have now managed to prove beyond a a shadow of doubt the very nature of the limitations with which you, and others like you, struggle. ” this does seem to confirm…”
yes, indeed it does, indeed it does.

Dinah Everett Snyder
dinaheverettsnyder@hotmail.com
Chris
February 20th, 2011
23:16:08

Ms. Snyder:

your ability to confirm the obvious is astounding, quite a breathtaking feat in fact. most especially since I actually TOLD you that I was a grandparent.

I am sorry I missed that in the midst of the broken sentences and rhetoric. I only give your prose the attention it deserves, not much.
Chris
February 20th, 2011
23:40:03

Ms. Snyder, did you answer the question of where you got the citation:
“Pardo CA, Vargos DL, Zimmerman AW Autistic Disorder and Viral Infection. Journal of Neurology 2005 Immunity, Neuroglia and Neuroinflammation in autism” ?

Or did I miss that also? Please tell us where you got that citation.
Dinah Everett Snyder
February 21st, 2011
00:46:07

@ Chris : ” I only give the attention it deserves” ...

how purile!
how immature of you, the great science mind, the great wielder of the English language.

But, since you have actually asked a question : that, along with a handful of others was given to me by a gentleman from Stellenbosch University, at a meeting to discuss how the Vaccine Court has clouded the issue of true culpability, and how the numbers of vaccine damaged children in African countries may be helped despite a glaring lack of resources. Since we know of ” predisposition” then, clearly there are those that should be tested…yet how does one begin to treat a million orphans ( with no hope of background information)who clearly may/ are at risk due to parental HIV status, malaria infection TB exposure…

In the USA we don’t test each child before immunization, do we? It is only AFTER the fact that the issue is raised of ” pre existing” ” mitochondrial dysfunction”....

Yet clearly there is much ( with access via pubmed and many other sources) debate and study on the issue of DNA damage, and how it pre determines, predisposes and sets children, and adults, up for large scale health issues. Methinks that with your highly specific knowledge focused so exclusively in one area that the broader picture would be well beyond your ability as those notions as yet have no clear ” Abstract” for you to cite from your bible Pubmed.FYI: not everything going on in science, medicine and academia is available on pubmed, just to clarrify.

Chris, that may have been harsh but really, knowledge is sometimes based on the sum total of a broad expanse, the sum total of all it’s individual parts, not the preponderance in one small corner.

As an aside, the prospect of DNA damage has ramifications far beyond autism, and autism is merely one miniscule part of a greater problem.

Dinah Everett Snyder
dinaheverettsnyder@hotmail.com
Broken Link
February 21st, 2011
02:47:21

Dinah,

Does the “gentleman from Stellenbosch University” have a name?

Since you seem to be from South Africa, can you explain how the “vaccine court” presumably the “Autism Omnibus” in the USA, has any real relevance (except as a good summary)? The decisions of a court are only local. The preponderance of scientific evidence, on the other hand, is world-wide. That is why Chris keeps asking you to visit pubmed. Yes, really visit it, and not just repeat what others have told you.

We are supposed to be discussing a really terrible “review” article published in a third or fourth tier journal. The connection between DNA damage and vaccines seems peripheral.
Chris
February 21st, 2011
03:08:10

Ms. Snyder, I suspected as much. If the the cite on that piece of paper was so mucked up, we can assume the rest of the bits on the paper are also worthless.

As Broken Link said: could you now stay on topic?
David N. Andrews M. Ed., C. P. S. E.
February 21st, 2011
09:01:48

Look, people… there is no possible good going to come out of trying to talk to the likes of Dinah Everett Snyder… she’s too stupid to learn anything that’s going to change her mind when she’s so obviously wrong.

No point engaging her in sensible discussion: the title of her ‘book’ shows clearly how messed up her thinking is.
sharon
February 21st, 2011
10:23:18

@ David Andrews, yes you are probably correct that no possible good can come from any discussion here with Dinah. It’s just that the snide tone of her comments seem to suggest she does consider herself posessed of an unsual intelligence, and that arrogance is difficult to leave unchallenged.

Unlike JohnFriar Chemist, who kind of bumbles along, or AWOL with his Wakefield obsessed trolling, Dinah comes on her highhorse crusade, and it is mighty tempting to want to knock her off (the highhorse that is).
Dinah Everett Snyder
February 22nd, 2011
02:13:38

@ Broken Link: Thank you, yes the vaccine court and decisions are
” merely local” and ” scientific evidence is worldwide”

True, however the NGO’s and World Bank as well as USA aid packages to Africa often leave Southern African countries without a voice as to WHAT they are getting which makes review of US policies regarding products/ vaccines and their ramifications pertinent to others. Remember that FDA approves these things for use, and while US laws and vaccine court operate locally pharmaceutical companies supply products globally.
There are pharma products not approved for US market that US however purchases with aid money destined for Southern Africa.

This raises questions and concerns ( Retrovirals are high on this list). Watching how vaccine court decides, amongst others, gives the relevant departments in Africa ways of negotiating and dealing with their own policies and in negotiations with pharma and NGO’s.

FDA may be “USA” but their reach is far, aided by their relationship with Codex. Pharmaceutical companies hold up the FDA rulings and policy etc as ” shining examples” or try to justify product by relating their FDA experiences which can be confusing.

As far as study materials, resources are limited and no more so in African countries so they often pool resources and or use other models to discus their own trajectory. Of course this is not unusual in any research dept anywhere, but we are talking of Southern Africa here.
Now, the sheaf of papers or as everyone says ” poor cites” was not meant to be cite worthy,(my bad as I gave them okay) rather it was given as a reference to where things are heading. There is much concern about genetics most esp due to chronic malnutrition over generations as well as the malaria and TB, although HIV Aids raises the issue to, to a lessor degree.

You say the connection between vaccines and DNA damage is peripheral?! However, the issue of mitochondrial dysfunction that is mentioned in vaccine courts as being causal( to autism and regression) as opposed to MMR being causal is the bigger issue, therefore it is relevant, though perhaps not within the frame of this particular ” review” then.

@ Chris:” the rest on the bits of paper are worthless”

perhaps in terms of specific and valuable cites ( for you) but they are extremely relevant in their wording and thrust, no matter the particular critique of methods etc.

NOTE: ” further research is needed to clarify…”

One step at a time ne’?

@ David Andrews: it is worthy of note that NOWHERE on this site did I mention my book, and I challenge you to find the title mentioned anywhere here. Therfore David you have come from oracs site, what? did Chris have to bring in the ” heavy weight” to squash the opposition? See, having googled you I notice that you never seem to have much in the way of thought as a response, rather you make idiotic statements, usually peppered with foul langugae which you seem to think gives substance(?) to your statement (?!). Fail.
FYI: my ” book” is “FDA; CrimesAgainstHumanity: Is FDA the Rogue Militia for Big Medicine and WHY it matters.”
With a teeny small chapter on autism, just to clarrify.
” shows how messed up her thinking is” well David, that just goes to show how small your little world is, doesn’t it?”

A statement only becomes relevant when clarrified with substance, of which you have none.

unlike Broken Link, everyone else has digressed into miniscule nit picking and or personal attacks.Yes, keep on topic, right. Ditto.

Awol has valuable comments too, the rest are just a perpetual slander of the facts and provide a disservice at best.

Now that I have “addressed” my curiosity about the so called
” other side” I am going on to more important things.

@ Chris: what I have said to you is relevant, think on it. Or not.

Pubmed is valuable, but contrary to the opinions here, it is not the begiining and end of all science and medicine and it’s importance is overstated, though as a reference it is invaluable.

And dialogue is only as valuable as the willingness to listen and speak with respect and humility, with eagerness and a goal toward deeper understanding. In this then, everything here is a monumental waste of time.

Dinah Everett Snyder
dinaheverettsnyder@hotmail.com
Chris
February 22nd, 2011
03:39:10

Ms. Snyder, you are both pompous and very off topic. PubMed is only an index, and even some of the stuff it indexes is suspect (like the Homeopathic journals). What you did was get a piece of paper with a horribly mangled cite, which leads us to believe the rest of the stuff on the paper was also mangled, and wrong.

When you have finished digging a hole, it is advisable to put down the shovel and stop digging.
Dinah Everett Snyder
February 22nd, 2011
08:55:57

@ Chris:
” When you have finished digging a hole, it is advisable to put down the shovel and stop digging” !
well of course it is, one needs both hands to place the plant firmly into the hole….

finally, a worthwhile statement from Chris.

Dinah Everett Snyder
dinaheverettsnyder
David N. Andrews M. Ed., C. P. S. E.
February 22nd, 2011
19:12:56

@ DES: blah blah blah blah!
AWOL
February 22nd, 2011
20:55:04

Dinah

Im sure Chris is just on here for entertainment and to give us a laugh…Ive never laughed so much on here

Well done Dinah
Sullivan
February 22nd, 2011
21:04:18

AWOL,

the silly taunts and congrats back and forth add nothing to the discussion. It does make it clear that you are tolling, though.
Sullivan
February 22nd, 2011
21:55:09

I wish I could predict the stock market as well as I can predict the behavior of people like AWOL. Call him/her out as a troll and, bingo, another 4 posts come out in rapid succession. My guess is a little attention thrown towards Dinah would produce similar results.
Sullivan
February 23rd, 2011
19:29:56

Delayed response—I missed this one sent to my email from Dawn:

@Dinah Everett Snyder: so you and I are contemporaries, age-wise. I had
many more vaccines than 3 – DTP X 3, OPV X 3, MMR in 1972 (when my little
sister got the vaccine, the rest of us got it, too), smallpox – of course,
that could have been because my mother is a doctor’s daughter, and my
grandfather was very pro-vaccine, having seen too many children die or have
sequelae of vaccine-preventable diseases. We got every vaccine that went
down the pike that was recommended for US citizens. I have not has such
vaccines as yellow fever or typhoid.

As for autism: since we had family members who today would have been
diagnosed as at least ASD if not autistic today (back then they were either
“just like uncle so-and-so” or “very bright, knows right from wrong, but is
so very naughty” – both are quotes from family letters describing family
members who, at the most, got a smallpox vaccine), I place no credence in
the vaccine-autism claims. I do not claim vaccines are either 100%
effective or 100% safe. Life is not safe. But the vaccines are, in
general, safer than the disease they help prevent. If they were not, they
would not be given, like the smallpox vaccine is no longer given.

Now: please post your references. As on Respectful Insolence you simply
told people that they were in your book, and most of us have no desire to
buy your book, we would like to see your references.
AWOL
February 23rd, 2011
22:19:17

Sullivan its your side that start with the ad-hom always,If we do were banned..if we reply with same were banned from posting..then again no complaints from me none…I carry on doing what I do best..sticking up for the kids destroyed by vaccines and wont stop if its not on here ,its somewhere else…
Når kildekritikken svikter (av ideologiske årsaker) « Skepsisbloggen
March 29th, 2011
16:04:06

[...] sammenhenger uten noen god, empirisk støtte, er det ikke så rart at argumentene kort oppsummeres slik hos Autism blog: The rest of the paper is a rogues gallery of debunked and fringe science. Helen [...]
More embarrassing anti-vaccine reporting from CBS News’s Sharyl Attkisson
March 31st, 2011
22:01:26

[...] This “new scientific review” is a piece titled “Theoretical aspects of autism: causes–a review.” It was written by Helen Ratajczak and appeared in the Journal of Immunotoxicology. I haven’t had time to go through the entire study that Attkisson cites, but this is what I came up with in four minutes and 28 seconds (yes, I timed it).* (After I wrote the rest of this post, Emily Willingham pointed out that it was published more than a month ago; in fact, Huffington Post stalwart David Kirby and anti-vaccine standard-bearer Age of Autism wrote about the study in early February, and Left Brain/Right Brain explained its worthlessness on February 11.) [...]
Dinah Everett Snyder
March 31st, 2011
23:58:41

@Dawn: ” so you and I are contemporaries age-wise….we got every vaccine recommended for Us citizens”.

Well, I don’t know where you got the notion that you and I are contemporaries! You should probably rethink that dear. And while you may have been busy getting ” shot up” with all the US vaccines I was safely tucked away in rural South Africa, getting minimal at best ( or worst, depending upon ones perspective) exposure to the ” latest and greatest” of pharmaceutical
” knowledge and protection”.

@Chris: so which is it then? on the one hand you hyperventilate for the cites, and in the next you dismiss pubmed as an ” index” ( AFTER I had pointed out MY feelings on the matter, at that !)

@ Sharon:while I have empathy for you as an ASD mom, you clearly have NO empathy for someone whose child does not exhibit the SAME symptoms as yours, as if that makes the diagnosis somehow suspect !! For heavens sake, being a closed mind does everyone a disservice and peppering the net with your version of truth does not make it a stone tablet Sharon, but it does obfiscate the issue. If you believe that I am arrogant because I don’t follow your half baked notions and strict adherance to fraudulant science that insists on blind faith of a ” literate few” with enforcement by a grey order of little men in suits, then I am proud to adorn the mantle of ” arrogant” in defiance of such blind adoration of the grey man with the big stick.
Amandla
freedom to the people. Freedom of speech and freedom to think of independent speech instead of being a mouthpiece for ” the stick”. I think you can use your imagination to get where I am going with this stick.

@JL….well done ! but you missed 4! no matter.

Gives Sullivan a chance to come back and place another bet….

last and least @CBS: go and kiss your boss quickly now….
because If I were YOUR boss….
your ass wold be on the sidewalk darlin’.

Dinah Everett Snyder
dinaheverettsnyder@hotmail.com
McD
April 1st, 2011
06:43:20

I sort of lost interest in this when I became convinced that Ms Snyder was a Poe.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe%27s_Law

But I just saw this, and I have to respond!

Ms Snyder said: “There are vaccines I believe in:
...
flu vaccine…not so much
current flu vaccine? hell no!”

What!

I have mentioned this miracle before on other boards (a clever person could probably track down my secret identity through these little crumbs of information):

My severely autistic son was non-verbal as at 5 1/2 years (he could use laboriously rote-learned simple phrases – he was as verbal as a budgie).

We had had an early diagnosis, due mainly to the severity of his symptoms, and started EIBI at the age of two. But although we managed to curb self-injurous behaviors and even won the toilet-training and poo-smearing battle at 5 yo, nothing sank my heart as much as the communication barrier.

Then, we all had our yearly flu shots last year, and the kids had their second booster shots a month later, in the last week of the school holidays. A few days later (I wasn’t counting, it was before school started) my baby came up to me as I was reading something and said

“Come and fix the computer please Mummy!”.

A novel sentence he had never learned or heard before, although he had learned or heard bits in different contexts of course. I can’t adequately describe how I was affected by that one sentence. The technical term is ‘generative recombination’. A significant milestone.

Other sentences followed. To the point that my present post has been repeatedly interupted by requests for playdoh, and for me to read out all the names of the Thomas The Tank Engine Friends on his new poster. I am happy to comply. Nearly a year later, my baby is still very autistic, but is verbal! And not like a budgie. And the future looks so much brighter than it did a year ago.

Following the reasoning of many on the interwebz, I should attribute his significant, life-changing, shift to the medical intervention applied a few days earlier.

The 2010 flu vaccination made my baby talk!
sharon
April 1st, 2011
07:32:26

@McD says “I can’t adequately describe how I was affected by that sentence”. You don’t need to even try. I imagine many of us posting here can understand how profound that moment was. It makes me tear up just thinking about it.
ChildHealthSafety
April 1st, 2011
10:00:32

Vaccine/Autism Denialist Seth Mnookin Caught With Pants Down
http://tinyurl.com/4xxu64g

We wonder what Seth will have to say in answer?

Maybe he will do a Brian and keep quiet?
Dinah Everett Snyder
April 1st, 2011
10:25:35

interesting how Kev erased the previous to next post that submitted duplications of Dr Wakefields GI inflammation study.
For all that ye all so badly wanted to see the duplications of it cited. Tsk tsk Kev old boy, was that an itchy trigger finger or a little denialism from the mainstream?
@McD: I am truly so happy for you, really, I am. Your story is unique, as is your child. My story and child are different, to you and yours, as is the child now suffering seizures from his flu vaccine, up to 100 a day, with a heart condition after a stroke as a reaction from the medications used to TRY and treat his seizures. This is not a simple issue, and by no means do I want to detract from the joy you must be feeling. But it is a conundrum wouldn’t you say?
and Poe? I think not!
Dinah Everett Snyder
dinaheverettsnyder@hotmail.com
Kev
April 1st, 2011
12:33:09

If you posted it on his blog, why have you posted it here?
Julian Frost
April 1st, 2011
13:11:30

Because he’s a troll, Kev.
daedalus2u
April 1st, 2011
16:24:07

McD, acute resolution of autism symptoms with acute immune system activation has been described before. There was a paper on it in Pediatrics by Andrew Zimmerman a few years back. That was a prospective study which I blogged about in the context of nitric oxide physiology.

http://daedalus2u.blogspot.com.....fever.html
Prometheus
April 1st, 2011
21:50:12

Chris asks (and is not answered):

“Ms. Snyder, did you answer the question of where you got the citation: “Pardo CA, Vargos DL, Zimmerman AW Autistic Disorder and Viral Infection. Journal of Neurology 2005 Immunity, Neuroglia and Neuroinflammation in autism”?”

I believe I may have part of the mystery solved. The citation:

Pardo CA, Vargos DL, Zimmerman AW Autistic Disorder and Viral Infection. Journal of Neurology 2005 Immunity, Neuroglia and Neuroinflammation in autism.

is a chimera of two different citations:

Pardo CA, Vargas DL, Zimmerman AW. Immunity, neuroglia and neuroinflammation in autism. International Review of Psychiatry. 2005 Dec;17(6):485-95.

and:

Libbey JE, Sweeten TL, McMahon WM, Fujinami RS. Autistic disorder and viral infections. Journal of Neurovirology. 2005 Feb;11(1):1-10.

The bit that Ms. Snyder quoted was from the latter article, Libbey et al (2005), which is a review article. Would you care to guess whose articles the authors used as the support for that quote (which was in the abstract, BTW)?

You guessed it! None other than AJ Wakefield. In other words, the support for that conclusion was based on bogus publications. I haven’t had the time to go over the rest of Ms. Snyder’s references, but I will if there is an interest.

Sorry for being a bit late with that information; life happens and all that.

Prometheus
Jane
April 2nd, 2011
00:29:01

Her paper points to multiple reasons not just vaccines.
brian
April 2nd, 2011
02:12:46

Prometheus wrote:

The bit that Ms. Snyder quoted was from the latter article, Libbey et al (2005), which is a review article. Would you care to guess whose articles the authors used as the support for that quote (which was in the abstract, BTW)?

You guessed it! None other than AJ Wakefield. In other words, the support for that conclusion was based on bogus publications.

Prometheus, in fairness to Libbey et al. (and contrary to the point that those who selectively quote the abstract are straining to make), the authors note that “numerous groups have not been able to replicate these findings.”
McD
April 2nd, 2011
23:46:06

Wow, circular citations!

The evidence supporting Wakers et al. (1998) is really piling up now, what with Wakers et al (1998, cited in Libbey et al 2005).

We’ll be simply suffocating under all the data soon with the publication of further evidence for the MMR-Autism link this year (Wakers et al., 1998, cited in Libbey et al., 2005, cited in Everett Snyder, 2011)
ChildHealthSafety
April 3rd, 2011
10:25:50

Yep McD, the proof of how corrupt medical publishing has become can be seen from a long list of citations of medical journal papers claimed to be evidence vaccines are safe and do not cause autistic conditions.

Fortunately numerous US Government agencies have confirmed vaccines can cause autistic conditions.

You can read more here:

“Unsafe Vaccines & Corruption In Medical Journal Publishing”
http://tinyurl.com/3znajyo

So Kev and Sullivan, why is your blog called an Autism Blog when it is really an anti-vaccine safety blog.
DES
April 3rd, 2011
11:12:03

@ McD : you are so quick to bite at Dinah Everett Snyder that you neglected to actually go back and refresh yourself on what the premise of this article and discussion is all about.

I want to remind you that I never claimed a hardcore relationship between MMR and vaccines, but you don’t seem to care, you just want to shred me apart. That is too bad, for you and for people who are interested in really talking about the problems of autism and the GI issues that some of those kids have. Yes, some, not all, again I doubt that you care because for you it seems to be about silencing opposition, not looking for answers.

Anyway, here are some cites that support the reality of GI issues in autistic kids then, and if Kev would stop censoring
Dinah Everett Snyder on his sites I would be willing to address your questions,

@ Kev : convenient of you to block me old chap, and then parry and dig at me for not replying…

My book, not even published yet, is generating a buzz, unlike your friend Seth who must be feeling quite humiliated after writing his vapid supposed expose’ on the whole vaccines and autism thing, only to have his complete lack of research integrity exposed, yes, quite humiliating. Some buzz he must be having/ feeling.

cites:
Balzola F,et al. Autistic enterocolitis: confirmation of a new inflammatory bowel disease in an Italian cohort of patients. Gastroenterology. 2005;128: Suppl. 2;A-303 ( Italian replicaton)
McGinnis WR. Mercury and autistic gut disease. Environ Health Perspective 2001:109:A303-4
Nicolov,RN et al Gastrointestinal symptoms in a sample of children with pervasive developmental disorders. J Autism Dev Disord. 2009;39:40-13
Kawashima H et al. Detection and sequencing of measles virus from peripheral mononuclear cells from patients with inflammatory bowel disease and autism. Dig Dis Sci. 2000;45:723-9

The last one is interesting because somewhere else I gave out some cites about the history of measles amongst other things but there was so much word verbage going on that no one went to even try and connect the dots that I laid out for the brains…I was right about pinprick focus, and this is only to the detriment of kids everywhere, because you all are making far too much noise about all the wrong things.

ah yes, the pardo cite….indeed I have already addressed my access to that, and well done on finding all the bits, which I never had to begin with. If any of you recall, I was given that by someone in Stellenbosch, as an aside to a discussion and it’s most interesting that it has gotten so many of you in such a lather for no aparent reason considering all the really juicy cites and much more relevant materials that I have put out into cyber world. You are all turned on by the darndest things if you don’t mind me saying so.

Sifu Amandla
Dinah Everett Snyder
dinaheverettsnyder@hotmail.com
DES
April 3rd, 2011
11:31:37

yes kev, I have been wondering why exactly your blog is called Autism Blog, since you don’t seem to ascribe to the real notion thereof! Further, you seem to block dissenting voices when they get irritated at you, or post cites that you simply cannot argue with. This then is fraudulent journalism, but , as a friend of Seth Mnookin schmookin you are cut from the same cloth no doubt.

Amen
DES
dinaheverettsnyder@hotmail.com
Kev
April 3rd, 2011
11:33:13

Maybe you guys could have a look at the last 10 entries and tell me which ones either aren’t about autism or are about vaccines?
Sullivan
April 3rd, 2011
16:22:53

Funny how people who only comment on vaccine related posts claim this blog is only about vaccines.
Chris
April 3rd, 2011
17:39:16

Ms. Snyder, you are back? Ever plan on answering this question?

Mr. Stone, Mr. Miller and Ms. Snyder, which of the following LBRB posts (cut from the front page) are on vaccines:
On Autism Awareness Day
Release of the IACC Summary of Advances in ASD Research and Updates on Autism Awareness Month Activities
Loving Lampposts video clips
Autism supplement in yesterdays Independent
Sexual abuse allegations by children with neuropsychiatric disorders
Loving Lampposts: synopsis and director’s statement
Loving lampposts
Robert MacNeil returns to PBS NEWSHOUR to report on Autism Today
Wired: iPads Are Not a Miracle for Children With Autism
Social-sexual education in adolescents with behavioral neurogenetic syndromes
Julian Frost
April 3rd, 2011
17:47:02

DES:

yes kev, I have been wondering why exactly your blog is called Autism Blog, since you don’t seem to ascribe to the real notion thereof!

And a perfect example of the “begging the question” fallacy. There is no hard evidence that vaccines cause autism.
stanley seigler
April 3rd, 2011
19:23:37

[LBRB say] Sloppy science… So, should we all in the skeptic camp be reaching for our humble pie and our knife and fork?

[Julian Frost say] There is no hard evidence that vaccines cause autism.

first full disclosure: i am not now and never have been a communist nor an anti VAXer…do not believe VAXs cause autism…but much of the current rhetoric is all too familiar…eg;

“There is no hard evidence that cigarettes cause cancer.”

sloppy science (promotional science, promoted ignorance) is too oft SOP…might consider a piece of humble pie…

stanley seigler
Chris
April 3rd, 2011
20:08:13

“There is no hard evidence that cigarettes cause cancer.”

Bad example. There was plenty of evidence in the 1950s (even noted on page 113 of Offit’s Autism’s False Prophets). What you might remember are the tobacco companies ad campaigns that directly countered the actual data. The book Emperor of All Maladies explains it quite well:

Mukherjee is good on the propaganda campaign waged by the tobacco companies, “the proverbial combination of smoke and mirrors.” As one internal industry report noted in 1969, “Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact.’ ” This episode makes particularly interesting reading to anyone following the current propaganda campaigns against the science of climate change.

The author goes into great detail on the studies showing that tobacco cause cancer. Even one of the British researchers was so compelled by the preliminary surveys, he quit smoking.

Next time you try to throw humble pie, make sure you actually know what you are throwing.
McD
April 3rd, 2011
22:42:55

@ChildHealthSafety, I checked out your link. What a joke. If you weren’t part of an insidious movement happy to cause children unnecessary pain, suffering and death on occasion, in order to score points and feed a manfactroversy for the financial benefit of the lawyers and autism-’experts’ buzzing around the self-licking ice-cream that is the US vaccine court, I would probably laugh.

This paragraph summed up your whole site, really:
“We reproduce here the full list of papers posted on Mnookin’s blog. If you want to see how poor these journal papers are as evidence of anything, check out the CHS article on just one of them – the Honda/Rutter paper.”

Using your own reasoning, I am pre-judging your entire site on the extremely poor logic displayed in this one paragraph, and can safely ignore everything else you have to say.
DES
April 3rd, 2011
22:58:29

@ Chris” Pardo, answer this question, did I miss that”.....
yes Chris, you missed my explanation of where I got THAT….
too busy horsing around with all the one up manship- the LOT of you !
@ Dawn: you and I are NOT contemporaries, by a long shot ( in the arm)I grew up in rural South Africa, the ward of a very distrustful grandmother not prone to believing much from either the medical establishment or govt, and I have my old vaccine card to prove my sheer lack of the regimen, though it was skeletal at best compared to what todays children are expected to roll up their sleeve for.
@ Promethius: Kev is the one responsible for my lack of response thusfar, he has a nasty habit of censoring dissenters…
Have any of you noticed that Helens paper ponts to multiple issues, not just vaccines? just curious…
@McD: “circular citations”...you sort of missed the boat on the context and the thrust of that conversation completely…

Also, Pardo is a moot point, I have already explained that cite, curious that I raised so many other possible avenues of discussion and…were this really truly an “Autism Blog” dedicated in any way, shape or form to autism discussion of any merit, any one of you would have questioned the direction of the other cites I discussed. You did not. Having perused some of Kevs
and Sullivans writings, and comments by Sharon, Chris and the other magnets I can again only conclude my observation that this is fraudulent journalism, focused only on silencing any opposing viewpoint to the strict dogma of mainstream medicine which does a disservice not only to children of autism but to sufferers of cancer, diabetes and autoimmune illness.
You are perpetuators of lies, each of you. But carry on, nobody is really listening to you anymore beyond this narrow blog world. Out there, in the real world, people are listening to those willing to give equal airtime and truly focus on the issues, not the strategic importance of one upmanship as is found here and over at RI….his day too will come, and not a day too soon for the sick and fearful who have been subjected to the slash and burn of cancer treatments.
Now, if you would like a discussion beyond dogma, we may converse, if not…then continue your mindless chatter without me.

Dinah Everett Snyder
dinaheverettsnyder@hotmail.com
ChildHealthSafety
April 4th, 2011
03:20:22

McD April 3rd, 2011 22:42:55 said “I …. can safely ignore everything else you have to say.”

Snore. You picked the papers you say prove your case.

Bit miffed are you that your big list of evidence is shown to be junk science?

We picked an example showing the papers you cite are junk science. Notably, you do not contest that Honda/Rutter is junk science.

But you are not satisfied.

So let’s look an another paper – the Tozzi paper. We took it apart here:-

“US Research Fraud, Tax Dollars And Italian Vaccine Mercury Study”
http://tinyurl.com/d6hljo

Not just junk science but evidence of US CDC fraud. Two examples of junk science and/or CDC fraud aren’t enough for you?

“What a joke.”

Shame you seem to be “part of an insidious movement happy to cause children unnecessary pain, suffering and death”.
McD
April 4th, 2011
03:22:46

I just looked up a few figures for a post on Seth Mnookins’ blog (so a bit of a cross-post), and I would like ChildHealthSafety’s comments on the following:

Since 1999, autism-related claims have made up 67% of vaccine court cases. Before 1999, the percentage was 0.

Since 1988, autism cases have made up 41% of the vaccine-court lawyers’ case-load over-all.

Since 1988, vaccine court has paid out $2,183,595,780.77.

Of that, $48,604,511.80 was paid in attorneys fees for DISMISSED cases alone – a significant proportion of which will have been autism cases. And as payments lag a few years behind hearings, this doesn’t even include the 400-odd dismissed cases in the past two years.

You can see the stats here: http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecom.....report.htm

1) If the vaccine-autism link is so obvious that parents are reliable reporters of the phenomenon, why did no parents report it before 1999?

2) Vaccine-court lawyers and their expert witnesses, like the Griers, are paid whether they win or lose. It is in their best interests to simply churn through cases regardless of the facts. Based on the figures above, autism parents are a significant portion of the vaccine-damage industry’s revenue stream. Do you think it is ethical to misrepresent science and encourage a baseless false belief just to pad out one’s case load at public expense?

3) And, of course, once the parents are invested in the process they will disseminate the false-belief for you. Talk about a self-licking ice-cream alright. Have you declared any COIs on your website CHS? Do you have any links to the vaccine-damage industry?
stanley seigler
April 4th, 2011
03:42:47

[chris say] Bad example

there are no good egs of sloppy science…its just too sloppy…as is too much science…ms dawsons misbehavior of ABAers essay comes close to good…

there is no doubt cigs cause cancer…is there any ANY doubt VAXs cause whatever…

oh/and people are still smoking…cig companies did a fabulous job promoting ignorance with science…and how aboot that big pharma (BP not oil).

BTW re: “throw humble pie”...not throwing “scientific” humble pie just questioning those who worship at the alter of science…

BTWbtw those who worshiped there once said the sun revolved around the flat earth…which should give pause to the current worshippers.

stanley seigler
ChildHealthSafety
April 4th, 2011
03:52:43

McD April 4th, 2011 03:22:46 says: “I just looked up a few figures ….. and I would like ChildHealthSafety’s comments on the following”.

Typical. This is just a game of “Whack-a-mole”. McD’s entire case was knocked out quickly and efficiently. So instead of lying down and dying it is 1) body-swerve and 2) “and now for something completely different”.

No McD. It is time for you to answer. Do you deny numerous US government agencies and officials and the Federal Court have confirmed vaccines cause autistic conditions.

Do you deny Honda/Rutter and Tozzi are junk science.

Simple questions. The answers are known. McD will deny regardless of the proof produced to show s/he is wrong.
Chris
April 4th, 2011
03:53:53

“BTWbtw those who worshiped there once said the sun revolved around the flat earth…which should give pause to the current worshippers.”

Again, a bad example. It has been known since the time of Eratosthenes the this planet is a approximate a sphere, though it took a bit longer to resolve the rotation (that took Copernicus).

Which has what relevance to to vaccines and autism?

I regret that I do no quite understand what you are trying to say. Please try again using standard English grammar and rhetoric.
ChildHealthSafety
April 4th, 2011
04:16:31

“There is no hard evidence that vaccines cause autism.” said Julian Frost April 3rd, 2011 17:47:02.

Glad to see you agree there is evidence even if it is not “hard” enough for you. That is something of a concession from someone on Kev/Sullivan’s blog.
Sullivan
April 4th, 2011
04:59:48

ChildHealthSafety,

do me a favor. Stop using this blog to drive traffic to your blog. Stop trying to make the conversations here about your blog posts. Whatever facts you believe you have proven in your blog can be discussed there. If people chose, as I do, to not read your blog, allow us that right. If our reasons are (a) that your posts are not well written and (b) your logic is often very poor and© your clear biases are painfully obvious, respect that those are valid reasons to not want to participate on your site.

Also, would you be so good as to stop the baiting? Seriously, it gets old. I can’t help it if you either can’t read this blog for accuracy or if you chose to mischaracterize it. I can ask you to take your baiting elsewhere.

I find it highly ironic that you are once again making demands of people. Since you dodge and weave when presented with requests to back up your own illogical statements, you have no standing to make such requests of others.

You have abused the hospitality of this site in the past. I don’t intend to allow you as much leeway this time around. If your goal is to test how far you can go before being asked to leave, just leave now. You can go around the blogosphere and claim bragging rights that I censor you.
McD
April 4th, 2011
06:31:40

OK. Just to humor you, I read that last link.

Surprised? Someone actually read it in detail? Well the first section of it anyway.

Did you not think anyone would bother clicking on the links and spend ages fiddling around with the browser to get the fricking thing at a readable resolution (because you sure made that bloody difficult) so they could, by squinting and peering at it sideways, work out that you
completely, deliberately, misrepresent what is said.

The email in question (crickey you must have had to troll through piles of boring emails to find that something you could almost but not quite twist into ammunition against the study)states:

“The maximum exposure is indeed relatively low if that was the only T containing vaccine used. My estimate would be that you need at least >50 by 3 months OR >100 by 6 months to see an effect if there is one, which you barely make (50 at 2mo and 75 at 4 mo in the UK)”

The table you present from the study clearly shows that the Higher Thimerosal group received 100u at 6 months, from TWO vaccines. The concerns the scientists were discussing during the planning stages of the study were resolved.

Your first lie is when you state “What the US public were not told is that the study was certain to be unable to detect any effect.”

you follow this up with “...the dose applied by the age of 3 months had to be more than 50 millionths of a gramme of mercury AND more than 100 millionths of a gramme by the age of 6 months.”

Note the use of the word AND (my emphasis). Look at the quote from the email. The scientist said OR. You can make a big lie with a little word, and so you go on to apply your now false criteria to the study:

You then state: “Table 1 of the paper shows Italian children received by the age of 3 months two thirds of that minimum amount; no more 37.5 millionths of a gramme. By 4 months they had only three quarters of that minimum: 75 millionths of a gramme and the maximum by six months
was 100 millionths of a gramme, not enough to hit or exceed the threshold needed.”

Liar.

by using AND, you created a false criterion. The kids needed to have reached 50 by 3mo OR 100 by 6mo. They reached 100 by 6mo.

There is nothing wrong with the research design, the intentions and integrity of the scientists concerned are sound.

You have falsely and maliciously misrepresented research in such a way as to deter well-meaning parents from providing adequate medical care to their children.

You are actively committing fraud.

You make me sick.
Sullivan
April 4th, 2011
07:57:33

Dinah Everett Snyder,

just to make things clear: if/when I start to delete your comments, I’ll let you know. Don’t try to make something more out of your comments being held back than is reality—they got sent to the spam queue. There are 1600 comments there right now. I don’t spend a lot of time any more trying to fish comments back out. Ask McD, he had comments in there too.

I barely read your comments, much less take the time to filter them. Sorry to be so blunt, but after reading statements you made elsewhere on the web playing the “I’m going to deny that so and so actually has a diagnosis” I gave up on your integrity.
ChildHealthSafety
April 4th, 2011
09:30:05

Thank you McD for not denying that numerous US government agencies and officials and the Federal Court have confirmed vaccines cause autistic conditions: McD April 4th, 2011 06:31:40.

But then you shower abuse on us – accusing us of lying when what we have said is correct. Your case is wrong [ie whether you use “and” or “or”]: McD April 4th, 2011 06:31:40. In neither age group was the level of mercury/thiomersal dose achieved to observe any measurable effect.

What you call “the scientist” was none other than Robert Verstraeten of the US CDC - whose research resulted in the secret Simpsonwood conference about mercury in vaccines.

He was clear there had to be a dose exceeding 100 microgrammes by 6 months or more than 50 microgrammes by 3 months. None of the age groups in the Tozzi study were above those levels. And there were numerous other confounding factors on top which you do not even mention.

Nothing left to say – end of debate.
ChildHealthSafety
April 4th, 2011
09:38:28

To Sullivan @ April 4th, 2011 04:59:48.

Whenever someone comes here and wins the argument against your POV, the comments from you and others get angrier and angrier. Many have been subjected to repeated and sustained abuse on this blog so don’t try accusing the abused of being the abuser.

We have abused nothing here but anyone can see you and “McD” abusing us particularly in recent comments.

So very clearly, our points made and are proven – nothing left to say – end of debate.
McD
April 4th, 2011
10:58:53

Thankyou ChildHealthSafety for not denying that a virtual conspiracy of vaccine-damage lawyers and ‘expert’witnesses are manipulating parents into acting as vaccine-damage shills through investing them in the outcome of baseless claims with slim to no chance of prevailing against genuine science; and all to ensure to the ongoing padding of vaccine-damage case-loads with publically funded false vaccine-autism cases.

Who is Robert Verstraeten? Do you mean Thomas Verstraeten, the actual author of the initial ESTIMATE for design purposes, at obviously a very early stage, discussed in the emails. The name of the parties to the email is irrelevant, they were clearly discussing research design matters in an open and nonevasive fashion, with a clear intent to produce good science. Hey, why not make available all the emails you must have hauled up. Then we’ll see what sort of people these science wonks are (quite nice people too, I am quite sure)

Are you really trying to claim that because the children reached 100u at 6mo that they did not reach the “>100u at 6mo” ESTIMATED for the study to detect an effect. Do you really think there would have been a whopping change in the results, or the significance if each child had received 101u. An extra 1 millionth of a gramme. What sort of idiots do you take us parents of autistic kids to be, exactly?

Your second paragraph gives it away of course: “In neither age group was the level of mercury/thiomersal dose achieved to observe any measurable effect.”

Sour grapes. The study didn’t find the effects you wanted to see, so you claim they didn’t give enough thimerosal (the logic of this is stunning, given your scare-mongering over thimerisol in any dose, you must have a head full of pretzels).

You are splitting hairs to the nth degree over the amount of 1 millionth of a gramme that you appear to be the only one mandating as necessary over and above the accepted 100u in the first place. You are playing science like a debating game. You are being a fundamentally dishonest arsehole.

And then, whose computer has a frickin key for “equal to or greater”? Like everybody else, Tom would just used the > key in an email between colleagues. If bang-on the number were not sufficient, he would not have then directly used the following phrase “which you barely make (50 at 2mo and 75 at 4 mo in the UK)” If bang-on 50 ‘makes’ >50, then bang on 100 ‘makes’ >100 in this context.

Most of the rest of your so-called ‘critique just warms over the comments the researchers made themselves, on the difficulties of doing this sort of research; and of course your stunning assessment of the two significant differences found in the battery of tests, revealing a profound ignorance of the issues pertaining to multiple testing (which the authors did discuss but you chose to ignore).

Given the blatant dishonesty and sleight-of-hand demonstrated with this one paper, I will not be wasting any of my time on any others. I remind you of your statement:
“If you want to see how poor these journal papers are as evidence of anything, check out the CHS article on just one of them”

Done that. It was evidence of poor reasoning, dishonest arguments, and pathetic misrepresentation of science on the CHS site.
Julian Frost
April 4th, 2011
11:27:09

ChildHealthSafety,
You are committing a fallacy when you say “Glad to see you agree there is evidence even if it is not “hard” enough for you.” Saying that there is no hard evidence of something is not the same as admitting there is evidence. There is no hard evidence that a unicorn runs round the office when nobody is there.
Your points are neither made nor proven. It is not abuse to call you a liar when you have been caught in a lie, as McD has. And if you have to resort to logical fallacies and lies to bolster your argument as you have, then your case is very poor indeed.
Science-Based Medicine » Anti-vaccine propaganda from Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News
April 4th, 2011
12:00:16

[...] The rest of Dr. Ratajczak’s article is a hodge-podge of virtually every anti-vaccine hypothesis, speculation, idea, and brain fart there are mixed with the occasional–and I do mean occasional–grain of scientifically supportable hypotheses regarding autism. The vast majority of what is discussed, however, is pure vaccine pseudoscience. The scientifically unsupported idea that mercury in vaccines causes autism? It’s there. The work of the tag team of Geier père et fils, the same team who came up with the idea of chemical castration as a treatment of autism that “works” because according to them testosterone binds mercury, making it easier to chelate? Copiously cited. True, Ratajczak doesn’t specifically cite the Geiers’ unethical clinical trial testing Lupron as a treatment for “precocious puberty” and autism, but she does cite the “scientific” basis that the Geiers used to justify that trial, as well as a lot of the Geiers’ usual execrable studies linking mercury in vaccines with autism. Mitochondrial dysfunction, which has been co-opted by the anti-vaccine movement as an “explanation” for how vaccines supposedly cause autism? It’s there too. She even cites David Ayoub, who is known for thinking that black helicopters are watching him. In other words, her review is 95% pseudoscientific garbage, maybe 5% reasonable science. On second thought, I’m clearly being generous. [...]
ChildHealthSafety
April 4th, 2011
12:17:15

“It is not abuse to call you a liar when you have been caught in a lie, as McD has.” Julian Frost April 4th, 2011 11:27:09

None of the children covered by the Tozzi paper received the dosage of mercury the CDC knew was needed to measure any effect. That is true and documented and McD knows that.

So who is the liar? Certainly not anyone at CHS.

Thanks for the abuse. You agree it is abuse to call someone a liar who is not. And now you seem to have taken over from McD, who also got it so very wrong.

“Tag” team?
ChildHealthSafety
April 4th, 2011
12:37:46

“Saying that there is no hard evidence of something is not the same as admitting there is evidence.” Julian Frost April 4th, 2011 11:27:09

Yes it is. It implicitly admits there is evidence and that it is not “hard”. Otherwise you would just say “there is no evidence”. You cannot say that of course because there is.

But we also see you are not denying that numerous US government agencies and officials and the Federal Court have confirmed vaccines cause autistic conditions.

And of course that is evidence and it is “hard”.
Julian Frost
April 4th, 2011
12:37:50

I think I’ll just repeat what McD said.
“by using AND, you created a false criterion. The kids needed to have reached 50 by 3mo OR 100 by 6mo. They reached 100 by 6mo.

There is nothing wrong with the research design, the intentions and integrity of the scientists concerned are sound.

You have falsely and maliciously misrepresented research in such a way as to deter well-meaning parents from providing adequate medical care to their children.”
You did lie. And you are now trolling.
ChildHealthSafety
April 4th, 2011
12:46:42

“by using AND, you created a false criterion. The kids needed to have reached 50 by 3mo OR 100 by 6mo. They reached 100 by 6mo.” Julian Frost April 4th, 2011 12:37:50.

Cut the rhetoric and address the facts:-

1) it does not matter whether we used “and” or “or”;

2) in either case none of the doses received by the children concerned exceeded the 50 or 100 microgramme limits respectively by the ages of 3 or 6 months;

3) that is what the CDC knew explicity was necessary in order to be able to measure any effect.

Ergo, no falsely and maliciously misrepresenting of research – just another research fraud by the US Centers for Disease Control. Naturally, we are not suggesting Tozzi knew any of this but the US CDC did know.
ChildHealthSafety
April 4th, 2011
17:24:11

McD makes all sorts of arguments here: April 4th, 2011 10:58:53 to try to get out of the facts:

1) s/he has made accusations of lying when wholly untrue:

2) the levels of exposure to thiomersal in the Tozzi paper were too low for any effect to be measurable.

It is noticeable that McD’s post was made an hour before our last post timed @12:46 but it appears on the blog 3 hours later.

The post also relies on conspiracy theories, which is scraping the bottom of the barrel a tad.
ChildHealthSafety
April 4th, 2011
17:25:57

CORRECTION TO LAST POST:

“McD’s post was made nearly two hours before our last post timed @ 12:46 but it appears on the blog 3 hours later.”
Sullivan
April 4th, 2011
18:34:09

Julian Frost,

You are seeing classic ChildHealthSafety behavior. Read his comments—he’s in this to win arguments. Not to discuss facts. He will never admit to having been caught in a mistake, no matter how obvious it is to all reading. He will just turn around and bait you and claim that he has won some point in a game only he knows about.

Check recent discussions—he asserts that this blog is only about vaccines. Given ample evidence to the contrary, he just ignores it. The current discussion of him misrepresenting information—been there already. He quoted (and misquoted) only those sections of the Wakefield GMC transcripts to make his points. When the full quotes came to light, he just acted as though it never happened.

He can take himself down the path of pseudoscience if he wishes. But he’s promoting it to others. That’s what gets frustrating. And, when no one reads his blog, he takes his junk arguments over here so he can have a battle and win some points in his game. I’m disinclined to allow this to go on very long. As noted above, he’s already abused the hospitality of this site. He thinks LBRB spends too much time on vaccines. The quickest way to change the course is to send him back to his own blog.
Sullivan
April 4th, 2011
18:36:16

““McD’s post was made nearly two hours before our last post timed @ 12:46 but it appears on the blog 3 hours later.” ”

As already noted, he had at least one post in the spam queue. It’s his place to complain about that, not yours.
ChildHealthSafety
April 4th, 2011
18:40:15

What we are seeing here [Sullivan April 4th, 2011 18:34:09] is classic LBRB/Sullivan behaviour.

When your arguments or those who support you fail and they make serious mistakes you fall back on comprehensive irrelevant and wide-ranging attacks on your opponent in the debate and accuse them of making mistakes when they have not.

This approach has the effect of provoking all sorts of responses on irrelevancies and distracting from the issues being debated.

Nice body swerve Sullivan but it just does not work.
Sullivan
April 4th, 2011
18:47:15

ChildHealthSafety,

nothing works with you. We can go around and around (and around and around) all day. It’s all a game to you. Please find somewhere else to play your debate games and “win” your arguments. I’d really rather not play your games.
Sullivan
April 4th, 2011
18:52:38

ChildHealthSafety,

I forgot—you will take any discussion to the n’th degree to try to get the last word in. It gets old. If you have something substantive to say, do so. If not, go to your own blog. You can tell all your online friends you “won” again and got put back into the moderation queue.
Dedj
April 4th, 2011
18:56:21

It was clearly illustrated to CHS where and what his mistake with the Wakefield transcripts was. He was inarguably selectively quoting from the available information to make a point he knew, or should have known, was totally unsupportable in light of the full clinical context. This demonstrates either a high level of dishonesty or an inability to understand the clinical context.

To make it worse for him, he actually changed his arguement over time to include data he had been embarrassed into being unable to deny, yet at no point did he admit to any error or possibility of error.

That he now denies the mistakes (which were proven to have occured with direct references) simply compounds his mistakes, it does not answer the numerous concerns that have been put to him multiple times.

Everyone on this blog recognises the unethical, unprofessional, slightly unhinged and factually false behaviours of Doherty, AWOL, Snyder, Stone et al.

They all blame the reaction to their misbehaviour on everyone but themselves, and try to claim their repeated shoutings of oft-rebutted arguements as somehow some form of winning.

There is only one response to them that is justified: total and absolute banishment from any and all serious discussion about autism or vaccines.
Chris
April 4th, 2011
19:14:44

Dedj:

Everyone on this blog recognises the unethical, unprofessional, slightly unhinged and factually false behaviours of Doherty, AWOL, Snyder, Stone et al.

I suspect that CHS is Clifford Miller. He and Doherty have one thing in common: they are both lawyers.
Dedj
April 4th, 2011
19:24:50

I suspected as much, hencewhy I regard their behaviours as worthy of having them reported to their professional associations.

I will not do this as I am utterly unconvinced that my real world identity will not ‘somehow’ be released to the wrong people, as you cannot make anonymous complaints.

After what happened to ORAC, Rebecca Fisher, Deer and Kim Wombles and many others, I do not regard them as worthy of all the problems the grunt level entities in the vaccine skeptic movement would be willing to cause.

I regard CHS as now and forever a waste of time, I will be unlikely to respond to any further discussion on this topic here or elsewhere.
Sullivan
April 4th, 2011
20:01:42

Chris,

if someone wants to use a pseudonym, let them. Clifford Miller is open about his involvement with the self-styled ChildHealthSafety blog. Otherwise I’d pull the comment.
Chris
April 4th, 2011
20:07:56

I’m okay with that. Sorry.
stanley seigler
April 4th, 2011
21:29:53

[chris say] I regret that I do no quite understand what you are trying to say. Please try again using standard English grammar and rhetoric…Which has what relevance to vaccines and autism?

the relevance is to science. and how science has gotten it wrong…since time immemorial…some 2000 years fr Eratosthenes to Copernicus…

more bad examples how science got it wrong: bettelheims theory; a 9 ft seawall will stop tsunami flooding; a blow out preventer will prevent oil spills, etc, etc…

the rhetoric relavence: “there is no hard evidence cigs cause cancer” is similar to VAX rhetoric: “there is no hard evidence VAXs cause autism”...actually it’s not a bad example of how the tobacco companies denied the effects/deaths with their promotional science…and tobacco is to cancer as VAXes are to autism.

please note as said previously: i am not now and never have been an anti VAXer…do not believe VAXs cause autism…i do believe “hard evidence” is not always hard evidence…perhaps shouldn’t have said anything, as it is a painfully obvious statement.

stanley seigler
ChildHealthSafety
April 4th, 2011
22:12:50

Sullivan you are sensitive about being asked to identify yourself.

Similarly, David Gorski blogged for years as ORAC without identifying himself. Many others do the same, including those who post comments here.

You seem to think you know who posts here as ChildHealthSafety: [your comment here: April 4th, 2011 20:01].

Here is the deal. If you and Chris cannot find anywhere where those who post as ChildHealthSafety have identified themselves openly, do you agree to disclose openly your own identities: who you are, what you do and in which city you live?

Sounds fair to us. How about it?
Sullivan
April 4th, 2011
22:54:21

ChildHealthSafety,

I have made it clear a number of times that I use a pseudonym for privacy. In specific, the privacy of my kid. As you would no doubt know if you read more than just the vaccine related articles here, I don’t discuss details about my family here.

The example of Orac is quite interesting. As you no doubt are aware, a campaign was mounted to get the man behind Orac in trouble with his work over his blogging. The effort involved a piece which attempted to create a false conflict of interest plus an email campaign.

“If you and Chris cannot find anywhere where those who post as ChildHealthSafety have identified themselves ”

How about here. In a piece written by Clifford Miller on the Age of Autism blog, it is stated:
“In a new post on ChildHealthSafety Clifford Miller explores the background to the study and analyses supplementary data supporting an association between vaccination and autism”

I take that as Mr. Miller identifying himself as being a writer for ChildHealthSafety.

If you read my statement, I said, “Clifford Miller is open about his involvement with the self-styled ChildHealthSafety blog. ” The statement is accurate, as noted from the above blog post on the Age of Autism blog. Whether or not Mr. Miller or another member of ChildHealthSafety is posting here (or multiple people under that pseudonym) I can not say. Nor do I really care.
Sullivan
April 4th, 2011
23:02:43

Also, it is worth noting that John Stone has also made it public that he writes for the ChildHealthSafety blog. Here is an example.

Note that it is not just a copy of a post on the Age of Autism blog, but was posted by John Stone himself on ChildHealthSafety “Posted on March 30, 2011 by johndstone ” Mr. Stone has his own username for the blog. Found with a simple google search.

“If you and Chris cannot find anywhere where those who post as ChildHealthSafety have identified themselves openly”

Perhaps you are not familiar with the blog? If so, perhaps you should not be using that pseudonym nor should you be linking back to that blog.
Sullivan
April 4th, 2011
23:29:57

“Sounds fair to us. How about it?”

ChildHealthSafety,

you offered nothing in return for me providing the information where at least two members of your blog have openly disclosed their identities. Having now done so, here’s the deal: no more baiting on this site. No more diverting the conversation to subjects on your blog. No more discussion of who may be behind commenters on this blog.
Chris
April 5th, 2011
00:31:30

Mr. Sigler, the Science Was Wrong Before Fallacy is not appropriate, especially when used with erroneous examples (including the use of engineering failures do to forces they were not designed for). You are welcome to your own beliefs, but not to your own facts. At the present there have been dozens of studies showing no casual relationship between autism and vaccines. so please stop using that particular fallacy until you can back it up with some specific facts on vaccines..
Chris
April 5th, 2011
00:42:39

Mr. Seigler, I apologize for spelling your name wrong.
stanley seigler
April 5th, 2011
03:03:19

psPS

[chris say] especially when used with erroneous examples (including the use of engineering failures do to forces they were not designed for)

science determined the design criteria.

stanley seigler
McD
April 5th, 2011
03:08:47

Mr. Seigler, the tobacco science analogy is particularly wrong in this case as well.

In the original tobacco-science saga, an increasing body of evidence was emerging indicating the significant role of tobacco in a number of cancers. The tobacco industry funded research into genetic (and other) causes for these conditions, and encouraged research (and lots of publicity) which generally cast doubt upon tobacco as a main or sole carcinogen. Eventually the weight of evidence against tobacco was undeniable, but the industry had bought time.

The weight of scientific evidence shows no link between vaccines and autism. There is much stronger evidence for genetic factors and some pre-natal factors and a possible combination of genetic and yet-to-be-discovered environmental factors. If vaccines are involved, their contribution is so minimal that it cannot be detected using very sophisticated epidemiological methods. There simply isn’t any emerging body of research into a vaccine-autism link even remotely comparable to the beginnings of the research into the tobacco-cancer link. And not for want of trying.

In this case the situation is reversed. It is the vaccine-damage laywers and cure-hucksters of the anti-vaccine movement who are marketing doubt.

While big-pharma are not exactly a charming example of corporate charity, they are relatively aloof from the fray. Think about it. Is this really a plot to foist vaccines onto the public for money?

Wouldn’t they make more money out of leaving the diseases in place?

Think of the logic that the tin-foil hat brigade use with cancer – “if they wanted to, they could cure cancer, but they make so much money from the drugs for treating it that they let it persist”. Well, in this case, Evil Big pharma were on the verge of wiping out some diseases that would otherwise be very lucrative for them what with ongoing sales of drugs and anti-biotics and stuff. My nephew was hospitalized with chickenpox last year, the shot is not on the schedule here and the evil bastards charge $70 for it. His hospitalization cost a lot more than $70, my sister was personally out of pocket for hundreds for transportation, food and sundries, and childcare for the other child.

If the bottom line were money, then it makes no sense to get rid of so many diseases, they would be doing themselves out of a job.

(unless, the anti-vax crowd are actually secret deep-cover pharma shills who are trying to prevent the eradication of disease!, cripes, that explains ChildHealthSafety! it is all becoming clear to me now! where’s the tin foil?)

Actually Big-Pharma’s bread is buttered on both sides – most of them have a raft of subsidiary companies flogging off supplements and homeopathic nonsense, some of which is produced under contract for third companies, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it advertised on AoA. Check the fine print on your bottle of sugar pills.

And then, we are expected to believe that big pharma somehow lobbied the government into letting them do themselves out of some profitable business by foisting vaccines on to the kids. It seems to me that big pharma were only to happy to get out of Dodge at the first sign of trouble (do they care if they have to go back to making scads more money treating diseases, not preventing them?), hence Vaccine court was established by government to ensure the availability of vaccines.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp078168

Then they let in the lawyers. The vaccine-autism link was hatched in a UK lawyer’s office long before Wakers saw any patients. And as I noted several posts above, there were no autism claims in vaccine court before Wakers published his paper.

The guys to watch here are the insurance companies. They fund vaccinations, because vaccinations reduce the ongoing cost to the company for that client. You can bet your retirement fund that those guys are not going to pay for their clients to be shot up with substances which will then expose the insurance company to some very very expensive therapy payouts. What are they telling their clients?:
http://www.bcbs.com/news/welln.....-says.html
stanley seigler
April 5th, 2011
04:15:10

the below has disappeared from LBRB…pls advise so i can move on if LBRB thunks it inappropiate

the below
[chris say] Science Was Wrong Before Fallacy is not appropriate…the below has disappeared from LBRB…pls advise so i can move if LBRB thunks it inappropriate

[chris say] Science Was Wrong Before Fallacy is not appropriate…

really…this seems like a true believer’s opine vice fact. you are certainly entitled to your opine as i to mine…doesn’t make either of us right or wrong…ie;

yo link say: “Both their ideas and science may be wrong; but science is highly likely to be far less wrong than they are.” and

“Contrary to what many believe, neither skeptics nor science claim to know the absolute truth on matters. They claim to hold provisional truths: answers that are the best explanation for things at the present time.

i agree with above statements (provisional truths, present time, the operative words)...do you…i have not made up any facts…just recorded events.

have to add “true” science to be less wrong than promotional/sloppy science…sad many true believers and others dont know the difference…they cant acknowledge science is “just less likely” to be wrong…

stanley seigler
ChildHealthSafety
April 5th, 2011
06:23:07

As usual, the question put has not been answered. [Sullivan
April 4th, 2011 @ 22:54, 23:02, 23:29].

The question was “If you and Chris cannot find anywhere where those who post as ChildHealthSafety have identified themselves openly”.

Nowhere is there any statement of who the people are who use that pseudonym. Nowhere is there any list of contributors to ChildHealthSafety. Nowhere has it been disclosed who are the people who post as ChildHealthSafety.

And the double standard from Sullivan:

“I have made it clear a number of times that I use a pseudonym for privacy. In specific, the privacy of my kid.”

So Sullivan chooses not to respect the privacy of others and in particular, the privacy of the children of others.

It is irrelevant that people have openly published articles either under their own names or been identified as contributors to ChildHealthSafety. It is not for Sullivan or anyone else to claim all that is published under the ChildHealthSafety brand or is posted here or anywhere else under that nom de plume is by particular individuals simply because one or two may have chosen to identify themselves on particular occasions for any particular item.

If Sullivan wants to claim he knows who posts as whom, then he should post openly under his own name, identifying himself and so should all the others here who pretend to claim they know who posts under whatever pseudonym. This is particularly the case where people like “McD” pretend to be arbiters of what is and is not valid evidence of anything [and to defame by making patently false accusations of lying just because s/he has lost the argument]. What is their status to do so? What is their standing? No one knows.

Sullivan claims David Gorski was unfairly “outed”. Bearing in mind his financial interests in the drug industry – their money pays his salary – and bearing in mind the often vitriolic nature of what he posts and the personal attacks he makes on named individuals – was that or was that not fair?

Sullivan suggests not – but he does not mind the double standard he sets in so suggesting. Was there a public interest to be served in Gorski’s identity being revealed? Some may say so.

Is Sullivan really a parent concerned for the privacy of his own child? Or is Sullivan someone else who has taken over the running of Kev Leitch’s blog. The latter clearly is the case.

And another question is who pays to run LeftBrainRightBrain? And who has all the time Sullivan has to post articles and comments and review comments of others here. It looks pretty much like a fulltime job.

So Sullivan, there are unanswered questions and by attempting to claim you know the identities of those who post under whatever pseudonym, you should clearly identify yourself too so everyone knows where you stand and who you are.

Isn’t that fair? Yes it is.
stanley seigler
April 5th, 2011
16:28:57

[McD say] the tobacco science analogy is particularly wrong in this case as well.

Don’t think so…the analogy was to question science…promotional science and that even good science can be wrong and may not be forever…not to compare big pharma to the tobacco industry…

I am concerned re promotional science used to prove/disprove positions, whether used by dawson’s autism-ABA folks, the tobacco industry, or pro/con VAXers.

And as said several times I am not an anti-Vaxer and do not believe vaccinations cause autism

That said, agree with your evaluation/opines re the ills of the pro/con VAX movement. thanks.

stanley seigler
Chris
April 5th, 2011
16:38:47

Mr. Seigler:

And as said several times I am not an anti-Vaxer and do not believe vaccinations cause autism.

Than why even comment? Why bother posting things like: “have to add “true” science to be less wrong than promotional/sloppy science…sad many true believers and others dont know the difference…they cant acknowledge science is “just less likely” to be wrong…”

Which is very hard to understand.

You keep posting things you think where “science was wrong before” like it actually matters. But you forget that real science corrects itself, and moves on.

Which is very unlike the folks like CHS, the Age of Autism guys, Kirby and Ratajczak (who seems to think the MMR contained thimerosal at one time, it did not). They are still banging on about thimerosal ten years after all pediatric vaccines were made available without (including influenza!), and some mystery link to the MMR based on one fraudulent study!

Wakefield’s case study of a dozen children did not find a link to either MMR they had received. He has also been found to have severe conflicts of interests and lack of ethics, and is no longer allowed to practice medicine. He was never qualified to treat children in the first place. Yet, his fan club clings on.

Mr. Seigler, science moves on… it is time that you, CHS, Kirby and the rest of you do the same.
Sullivan
April 5th, 2011
17:47:46

ChildHealthSafety,

I see that you wish to play the same games. That time has passed. Read back on what I wrote. Those conditions are not an offer, they are a statement. Mr. Stone and Mr. Miller have made public their participation in the blog you represent. I’ve shown that.

Goodbye.
McD
April 5th, 2011
20:14:23

ChildHealthSafety Said “This is particularly the case where people like “McD” pretend to be arbiters of what is and is not valid evidence of anything [and to defame by making patently false accusations of lying just because s/he has lost the argument]. What is their status to do so? What is their standing? No one knows.”

I am not making arguments from authority, or offering expert opinion based on accumulated experience. So it doesn’t matter who I am or what my day job is. I am the mother of a severely autistic son, which is why I lurk about here on and off.

I laid out my arguments and showed where you clearly misrepresented the paper you were pretending to analyze. You, on the other hand, are attempting to employ rhetorical sleights of hand to conceal the fact that you are deliberately misleading parents. And simply bouncing up and down repeating the same old falsehoods, trying to shout down the opposition. Science isn’t a game or a varsity debate, and science doesn’t happen in court-rooms.
stanley seigler
April 5th, 2011
22:46:56

LBRB owner pls delete my april 5th, 2011; 21:09:34 post…posted my file by mistake…thanks

stanley seigler
stanley seigler
April 6th, 2011
01:30:18

[chris say] Than why even comment?

why do you…

[chris say] Why bother posting things like: “have to add “true” science to be less wrong than promotional/sloppy science…sad many true believers and others dont know the difference…they cant acknowledge science is “just less likely” to be wrong…”Which is very hard to understand.

Well because it seems there are those who “they cant acknowledge science is “just less likely” to be wrong…which in turn makes it less likely to be right…

[chris say] science was wrong before” like it actually matters. But you forget that real science corrects itself, and moves on

it does actually matter…least we forget history/science repeats its mistakes.

[chris say] science moves on…it is time that you, CHS, Kirby and the rest of you do the same.

ditto for all pro/con VAXers…very little new re the pro/con VAX debate…same old, same old, time worn statements.

stanley seigler
Chris
April 6th, 2011
02:07:21

“it does actually matter…least we forget history/science repeats its mistakes.”

Over 120 Americans died from measles between 1989 and 1991.

The science has been done, the link between vaccines and autism does not exist. It is a dead link… “It’s not pinin’! ‘It’s passed on! This link is no more! It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet its maker! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed it to the perch it’d be pushing up the daisies! Its metabolic processes are now ‘istory! It’s off the twig! It’s kicked the bucket, it’s shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-LINK!! ” (hat-tip to Monty Python and the dead parrot sketch)

Moving on… but will continue to remind you that the diseases are worse than the MMR.
stanley seigler
April 6th, 2011
03:38:06

[chris say] Moving on…but will continue to remind you that the diseases are worse than the MMR…will continue to remind you that the diseases are worse than the MMR.

dont need to be reminded. not sure why you continue to bring up (and remind)...it has never been my opinion vaxes are worse than (or cause autism) the disease…OTOH seems you need to be reminded:

“Contrary to what many believe, neither skeptics nor science claim to know the absolute truth on matters. They claim to hold provisional truths: answers that are the best explanation for things at the present time.”

sadly some do claim to know the absolute truth…do you know anyone like that…

thanks for your link (Science Was Wrong Before Fallacy) that provided the above statement. http://www.ukskeptics.com/arti.....before.php

stanley seigler
sharon
April 6th, 2011
05:13:47

@Chris, that is the best use of a Monty Python skit I have seen in a long time. Bravo, very funny.
Ken
April 6th, 2011
07:10:09

@Chris- You said, “Also, remember that the MMR vaccine has been used in the USA since 1971. If you are an American under the age of 41, you may have had it as a toddler. Why was there only an issue after Wakefield’s fraud in 1998? Why not in the 1970s, or even the 1980s (when Barbara Loe Fisher was fanning the flames over the DTP vaccine)?”

One thing I would like to point out in the cbsnews article covering this story, was this:

“Ratajczak also looks at a factor that hasn’t been widely discussed: human DNA contained in vaccines. That’s right, human DNA. Ratajczak reports that about the same time vaccine makers took most thimerosal out of most vaccines (with the exception of flu shots which still widely contain thimerosal), they began making some vaccines using human tissue. Ratajczak says human tissue is currently used in 23 vaccines. She discusses the increase in autism incidence corresponding with the introduction of human DNA to MMR vaccine, and suggests the two could be linked. Ratajczak also says an additional increased spike in autism occurred in 1995 when chicken pox vaccine was grown in human fetal tissue.

Why could human DNA potentially cause brain damage? The way Ratajczak explained it to me: “Because it’s human DNA and recipients are humans, there’s homologous recombinaltion tiniker. That DNA is incorporated into the host DNA. Now it’s changed, altered self and body kills it. Where is this most expressed? The neurons of the brain. Now you have body killing the brain cells and it’s an ongoing inflammation. It doesn’t stop, it continues through the life of that individual.”

Dr. Strom said he was unaware that human DNA was contained in vaccines but told us, “It does not matter…Even if human DNA were then found in vaccines, it does not mean that they cause autism.” Ratajczak agrees that nobody has proven DNA causes autism; but argues nobody has shown the opposite, and scientifically, the case is still open. ”

So, to me, the most important part of this review is that a RETIRED SENIOR Scientist for a vaccine manufacturer now has the muzzle off (As she indicated in the article), and decides to fill us in on her opinion about Human DNA in the vaccines and its possible role in autism. So to answer your question, the MMR vaccine that you (assuming you are 25 or older..) is not the same vaccine that kids in 1995 and later have recieved because of the addition of Human DNA.

Obviously this is not a scientific fact, but it is a major difference in how the MMR vaccine has changed over the years and happens to coincide with the uptick of autism. It is worth investigating. And….Dr. Strom is a bonehead.
stanley seigler
April 6th, 2011
11:55:06

[sharon say] that is the best use of a Monty Python skit I have seen in a long time. Bravo, very funny.

indeed funny…but not best use of monty p…bares little if any semblance to the issue of: absolute truths v provisional truths”...ie, not a good analogy.

not as funny but more to the point…nietzsche say: “...concluding that in the face of so much that is inexplicable there is no scientific or moral truth.”

stanley seigler
Sullivan
April 6th, 2011
17:54:14

“the most important part of this review is that a RETIRED SENIOR Scientist for a vaccine manufacturer”

If this is the most important part of the review, you must be disappointed. It’s a weak review and there is no insider information implicating vaccines. Did she work on vaccines?

At the risk of being labeled a “bonehead”, could you answer a question for me: hasn’t the Rubella vaccine always been cultured in human cell lines? Wouldn’t that mean that human DNA has been in vaccines since, what, the 1960’s?

From this link:

Rubella virus causes a mild illness in most children, but may severely damage the developing fetus when a pregnant woman becomes infected. The virus that led to the only rubella vaccine available in the United States and that is widely used overseas (Meruvax II, Merck) came from tissues obtained at the time of an abortion performed on a rubella virus-infected mother.5 The abortion was not conducted in order to isolate the virus, but rather because the mother and the fetus were infected with wild rubella virus that posed a risk of major birth defects.67

Since that wild strain of rubella virus (known as RA27/3) was isolated, it has been grown in human fetal diploid cells. There is no need to obtain additional cells from aborted fetuses to sustain the supply of attenuated rubella viruses used to manufacture additional batches of rubella vaccine for the future.

Emphasis added.
Tom
April 6th, 2011
19:24:46

If DNA fragments can so easily incorporate into a host genome, someone should tell gene therapists so they can quit trying to develop effective vectors.
Sullivan
April 6th, 2011
19:54:51

Tom,

Human DNA travels to the brain and causes symptoms of mercury poisoning….no, it travels to the intestines and causes a persistent measles infection which causes a leaky gut which causes autism….And keep in mind, human DNA avoids all other cells except neurons. It is not incorporated into the muscle cells near the injection site.
Dinah Everett Snyder
April 6th, 2011
20:27:18

@Ken: you are correct to be heading down this path of questioning and reasoning, finallY…some sanity here!
Taking this concept of ” gene tinkering” a step further then, the first of the human DNA vaccine recipients are now the parents of the biggest wave of autism spectrum children. Animal studies have clearly shown that even male genetic mutations such as diabetes and obesity due to external factors such as diet, can be passed down and influence second generation daughters(grand daughters) which right up until the actual study had been deemed
” impossible” !

It is then only fair to wonder how an ” actual, deliberate internal” placement of foreign DNA might affect a person, a child. One step further then, THAT child, now grown up, passing on ” damaged/ altered” DNA….along with the maternal portion of
” damaged/altered” DNA….the next generation is exponentially unduly genetically influenced….and so on, and so on, and so forth.

There are no absolute truths in medicine as Science, merely a preponderance of evidence which is based more closely upon the prevailing ” knowledge at that time” than anyone would like to admit. Craig Venter from the Human Genome Project has stated this, adding, ” it is with some sadness and a moribund humility that I am confounded by our own, our very lack of, as it turns out, simple understandings of things to which we have adamently claimed broad and sweeping knowledge in the past, and which we now know that we know oh so very little about after all”.

It is in part the undue pressures and monolithic infrastructure of our modern society that has placed such rigidity upon the questions so as to render any questioning voices as fools or worse.

Dumbed down works equally well in the ghettos as in the halls of pseudo intellectual ” pursuit”. The adherance to the notion of ” absolutes” has no place in Science then, nor Medicine if medicine is to truly benefit the many without doing harm ( to the few?).

I question that notion of ” the few” because MANY are harmed by medicine…, disease mongering by pharma has led to drug induced illness cascades that plague mostly nations that can afford the plethora of pills in the first place.

Another thing: DTP vax has a larger and longer list of table injuries, including death, than MMR vax and children overall are more likely to be ” mildly” sick from DTP or DTaP than from any of the other vaccines.

Dinah Everett Snyder
dinaheverettsnyder@hotmail.com
Sullivan
April 6th, 2011
22:13:26

A few more points…

First off, what increase in autism for kids born in 1995?

Data in this graph are from 2007, the National Children’s Health Survey (NCHS). Kids born in 1995 would be 12 years old. There’s a spike up, but I don’t believe it to be real. Why? Because the prevalence in this survey data goes back down for the 11 year olds (born 1996) and stays lower until 7 year olds (born 2000). During this period of time, uptake in the chicken pox vaccine was increasing. Were the “chicken pox vaccine contains human DNA, therefore it causes autism by some mechanism unknown to modern medicine” theory were to hold, there would be a very different trend.

Chicken pox vaccination was notably higher in minorities (Hispanics and African Americans, especially Hispanics) than in whites. But the reported autism prevalence data are normally lower for minorities. Again, doesn’t fit the model.

Chicken pox vaccine uptake is similar in many states. Notably, New Jersey (with a CDC reported high prevalence) and Alabama (with a CDC reported low prevalence).

So, aside from the lack of biological plausibility, the “human DNA from chicken pox vaccine” hypothesis doesn’t fit the actual data available.
Sullivan
April 6th, 2011
23:56:25

Ken,

“Ratajczak reports that about the same time vaccine makers took most thimerosal out of most vaccines (with the exception of flu shots which still widely contain thimerosal), they began making some vaccines using human tissue. Ratajczak says human tissue is currently used in 23 vaccines. She discusses the increase in autism incidence corresponding with the introduction of human DNA to MMR vaccine, and suggests the two could be linked.”

What did she write in her paper

implication in autism (Ayoub and Yazbak, 2006). Data from a worldwide composite of studies show that an increase in cumulative incidence began about 1988–1990 (McDonald and Paul, 2010). The new version of the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine (i.e., MMR II) that did not contain Thimerosal was introduced in 1979. By 1983, only the new version was available. Autism in the United States spiked dramatically between 1983 and 1990 from 4–5/10,000 to 1/500. In 1988, two doses of MMR II were recommended to immunize those individuals who did not respond to the first injection. A spike of incidence of autism accompanied the addition of the second dose of MMR II. Also, in 1988, MMR II was used in the United Kingdom, which reported a dramatic increase in prevalence of autism to 1/64 (noted above). Canada, Denmark, and Japan also reported dramatic increases in prevalence of autism. It is important to note that unlike the former MMR, the rubella component of MMR II was propagated in a human cell line derived from embryonic lung tissue (Merck and Co., Inc., 2010). The MMR II vaccine is contaminated with human DNA from the cell line. This human DNA could be the cause of the spikes in incidence. An additional increased spike in incidence of autism occurred in 1995 when the chicken pox vaccine was grown in human fetal tissue (Merck and Co., Inc., 2001; Breuer, 2003). The current incidence of autism in the United States, noted above, is approximately 1/100.

OK-

first, the old MMR didn’t contain thimerosal either, did it?

I love the overuse of the dramatic term “spiked”. Not accurately applied at all in this case. Take a look at the figure from the paper she herself cites (McDonald 2010). Not a great paper, in my opinion, but it doesn’t support a “spike” in autism prevalence after the introduction of the human cell line MMR in 1979. Note that the data are for birth year, so the

“Also, in 1988, MMR II was used in the United Kingdom, which reported a dramatic increase in prevalence of autism to 1/64 (noted above)”

And people wonder why the author has been criticized. In 1998 MMR was used in the UK and, 20 years later, the prevalence was reported to be high.

She makes the same mistake that many, including myself, have made: confusing incidence and prevalence.

She fails to note that in Japan, the MMR combination vaccine is no longer given and that people are also avoiding the individual vaccines in large numbers (e.g. 2003, 7 million Japanese school girls were unvaccinated against Rubella)

I am not sure where she gets the “23” vaccines that “currently use” human tissue (nice wording there, isn’t it). The source I checked states that 1 version of rabies, the Hepatitis A vaccine, chicken pox and the rubella vaccine are cultured in human cells.
Dawn
April 7th, 2011
00:28:29

Ah, Helen Ratajczak. The woman who apparently thinks the MMR once contained thimerosal. The woman who is apparently unaware that SINCE THE 1960S the rubella vaccine has been cultured in human tissue. The woman who uses the GEIERS for reference. The woman who would prefer that we go back to the “good old days” when whole families could die from measles, or diptheria.

And Dinah. How nice to see you back. Are you ever going to give us any references besides “buy my book”?
McD
April 7th, 2011
01:23:06

@ken, there are many demographics that have been receiving products with human or animal DNA for some reason or other, in infancy and otherwise, for decades.

Do you know of any correlation between, say, hemophilia and autism?

And as Sullivan points out, Rubella at least has been grown in fetal cells since the 60s. I am also sure that Poliovax, which is also cultured in fetal tissue, has been around for decades as well, but I can’t find a definitive link.

There is also a considerable flaw in your senior whistle-blower’s logic:
As I noted in a little anecdote above, the chickenpox vaccine isn’t on the schedule in NZ.

I checked, and it is also not on the schedule for Japan, the UK, or Denmark. Other countries where there is supposedly an epidemic underway.
http://answers.google.com/answ.....64057.html
http://www.nhs.uk/Planners/vac.....klist.aspx
http://www.sst.dk/publ/Publ200.....07-eng.pdf

oops
David N. Andrews M. Ed., C. P. S. E.
April 7th, 2011
02:36:10

“1) it does not matter whether we used “and” or “or”;”

Anyone who is a lawyer (if it is the lawyer guy) and can actually say – and believe – that is bound to be a shit lawyer!

English language comprehension FAIL!
brian
April 7th, 2011
05:46:33

It is then only fair to wonder how an “actual, deliberate internal” placement of foreign DNA might affect a person, a child … One step further then, THAT child, now grown up, passing on “damaged/altered” DNA … along with the maternal portion of “damaged/altered” DNA … the next generation is exponentially unduly genetically influenced … and so on, and so on, and so forth.

There’s not so much wrong with that statement that couldn’t be remedied by consulting introductory textbooks in genetics, developmental biology, and molecular biology. I happen to have begun research in genetic recombination mechanisms several decades ago, and I’ve been exceptionally interested in techniques related to expressing the genes of one species in other organisms since I first accomplished that back in the early 1980s. None of what you write makes any sense at all to me, but then I suppose that you’re writing for rather different audience.
Ken
April 7th, 2011
06:55:31

@sullivan and others

I certainly understand most of the points you are making and there is some flaws in what she(Ratajczak) stated. My main point was to Chris to just indicate that what I receieved as an MMR is not what kids are now recieving.

I personally would love to hear Ratajczak interviewed and hear what she has to say about her paper and what she actually did a the Pharmaceutical company. She did make it clear that she was muzzled while working there and can now speak. If she was working on vaccines, I want to hear what she has to say.

I’m not sure why she needs to be character assisinated by some of you because you don’t like some of the stuff she had to say. It seems most don’t know anything about her other than this paper and are making sweeping generalities because of it.
Sniffer
April 7th, 2011
11:20:36

Brian
Not exactly correct a link worth a read from 1997

http://www.whale.to/drugs/thalidomide.html
Julian Frost
April 7th, 2011
11:38:10

Sniffer,
You’ve just made a fool of yourself. John Scudamore, the creator of whale.to, believes that dolphins can manipulate gravity and that satanic ley lines burnt him on his backside. In addition, whale.to hosts “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion”, an antisemitic pack of lies that was exposed as fraudulent decades ago.
Scopie’s Law states “In any debate about science or medicine, citing whale.to as a credible source loses you the argument immediately, and gets you laughed out of the forum.” Please consider that before posting garbage from fail boo here.
Sniffer
April 7th, 2011
13:03:06

Julian Frost

Extremely sorry , please accept my apologies I never thought that the messenger was an evil as you purport. One would have thought the subject on Thalidomide content to be more prevalent than the messenger in this discussion?.

What are your thoughts on 2nd generation Thalidomide?
daedalus2u
April 7th, 2011
15:03:10

The idea that human DNA in vaccines somehow, someway, somewhere contributes to autism is nonsense. If there were even a slight effect, infants who receive blood transfusions would all have autism.

If there is a dose-response effect from the human DNA in a few vaccines, then injection of gigantic amounts of human DNA via blood transfusion would be many orders of magnitude higher than the vaccine schedule.

In other words, if zero human DNA in vaccines causes 1 in 5000 autism, trace human DNA in 23 vaccines causes 1 in 100 autism, then bulk human DNA in a blood transfusion (conservatively estimated at 10,000x higher) would cause ~ 1 in 1.01 autism.

The idea is just data-free and science-free scare mongering by someone who doesn’t know what DNA is and doesn’t know how it works. It is just a scary buzz-word to them, something to scare other people who don’t know what DNA is and how it works.
Chris
April 7th, 2011
16:08:33

Ken:

My main point was to Chris to just indicate that what I receieved as an MMR is not what kids are now recieving.

Evidence? Like links to the PubMed articles showing the changes to the MMR vaccine that you had as a child, and that are in use now. In the UK the change in the MMR vaccine in 1992 was in the mumps strain, from Urabe to Jeryl Lynn (the later being the strain that was used in the MMR vaccine since 1971, the name being that of the child the strain was derived from, Maurice Hilleman’s daughter).
Chris
April 7th, 2011
17:13:59

Sniffer, exactly how many babies in the USA were affected by thalidomide? How many laws were created because of what happened?

What does it have to do with Ratajczak sloppy paper?

It is still evidence that science moves on, while folks like Scudamore are stuck in the past.
Science Mom
April 7th, 2011
17:24:33

So, to me, the most important part of this review is that a RETIRED SENIOR Scientist for a vaccine manufacturer now has the muzzle off (As she indicated in the article), and decides to fill us in on her opinion about Human DNA in the vaccines and its possible role in autism. So to answer your question, the MMR vaccine that you (assuming you are 25 or older..) is not the same vaccine that kids in 1995 and later have recieved because of the addition of Human DNA.

An empty appeal to authority. She never worked for a pharmaceutical company, she worked for ITT Research Institute, an independent group who performs independent testing for numerous industries. The rubella and measles vaccine seed strains of the original vaccines were developed using human cell cultures, and then batch grown in chicken and duck cell cultures, they were licensed in 1963 and 1969 respectively. Those were also used in the original MMR licensed in 1971. So there was human, chicken and duck DNA in those. Where was all that autism? Then measles and rubella strains were batch grown using human foetal cell lines to make MMR-II in 1979. Where was all the autism then? As daedalus stated, human blood products are widely used, where is all of this “inflammation” and autism in recipients?

Do you even understand what she is proposing? Do you understand that you don’t just bang random DNA fragments together and get recombination? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to manipulate cells to integrate DNA into their nuclei?
Ken
April 7th, 2011
18:39:16

@Science Mom You said,
“An empty appeal to authority. She never worked for a pharmaceutical company, she worked for ITT Research Institute, an independent group who performs independent testing for numerous industries.”

She worked here: http://www.boehringer-ingelheim.com/

You can easily find this by reviewing her 40 research papers she has authored or participated in on Pubmed.

Where would you come up with this notion that she did not work for a drug company? She currently is RETIRED. Not sure if you caught that part.

You said, “Do you even understand what she is proposing? Do you understand that you don’t just bang random DNA fragments together and get recombination? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to manipulate cells to integrate DNA into their nuclei?”

Do you? She clearly has the credentials to make the statement she did. I don’t claim to be qualified to say she is right or wrong, but clearly you feel like you are qualified. Perhaps you could point me to some of your research papers so I can get a better feel for what you actually know? It certainly makes sense to me that a rapidly developing infant could “bang random DNA fragments together” and Helen seems to think this as well. How many decades ago did our illustrious government “bang together” Spiders and Goat DNA to create spider goats? How about this new “banging” of Human DNA with Cows to create Human Cow Milk in Cows?

Really hard stuff here…
Science Mom
April 7th, 2011
19:39:22

Where would you come up with this notion that she did not work for a drug company? She currently is RETIRED. Not sure if you caught that part.

My apologies, I see she did do a stint at Boehringer after ITT. Yes, I know she is retired and why she feels as though she is free to peddle this rubbish to bad journals.

Do you? She clearly has the credentials to make the statement she did. I don’t claim to be qualified to say she is right or wrong, but clearly you feel like you are qualified.

Credentials alone do not qualify one to make such stupid statements. We do see, after all, people with MDs and PhDs making ludicrous claims everyday. If you are not qualified to parse her statements into what is actually viable, then don’t you think that “right or wrong” is rather important? Yes, I am qualified to call her claims rubbish. Why don’t you tell me on what basis her claims are realistic? Her say-so isn’t enough; extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence after all.

Perhaps you could point me to some of your research papers so I can get a better feel for what you actually know?

Pick up a damned textbook, go take some classes, work in a lab performing molecular genetics experiments; that is what you should be doing. Or not and just mindlessly lap up ridiculous claims because they support you confirmation bias.

It certainly makes sense to me that a rapidly developing infant could “bang random DNA fragments together” and Helen seems to think this as well. How many decades ago did our illustrious government “bang together” Spiders and Goat DNA to create spider goats? How about this new “banging” of Human DNA with Cows to create Human Cow Milk in Cows?

If that makes sense to you then there is no hope for your kind. If you can’t explain the process by which this occurs, then maybe you don’t have the sense you think you do.
Chris
April 7th, 2011
20:25:47

Ken:

Do you? She clearly has the credentials to make the statement she did. I don’t claim to be qualified to say she is right or wrong, but clearly you feel like you are qualified.

So did Wakefield, and look what he did.

Try reading the above article, and then go mosey over to this medical blog written by actual medical doctors and/or researchers. And as Science Mom said: go pick up a book on basic biology and learn about the stuff.
brian
April 7th, 2011
20:58:06

[Ratajczak] clearly has the credentials to make the statement she did.

No, she doesn’t. That’s obvious from both her listed publications and from her ridiculous statements, which reveal her ignorance of an area far removed from her research interests.
Ken
April 7th, 2011
21:54:28

@ Chris You said,

“So did Wakefield, and look what he did. Try reading the above article, and then go mosey over to this medical blog written by actual medical doctors and/or researchers. And as Science Mom said: go pick up a book on basic biology and learn about the stuff.
”

Ya, he didn’t do anything wrong. I’m still trying to figure that one out. He has no more special interest in villifying mmr than Gorski does in preventing Oncology from being discovered as the murderous death cult that it is. My wife had cancer and I would never let this Big Pharma lackey near her. Notice I said…had. I knew enough even 8 years ago that people like Gorski would put her 6 feet under with the barbaric treatments and toxic concoctions he peddles as being based on “science”.

Here is what Gorski thinks is really scientific ‘medicine’ because a study says it works: http://www.newsweek.com/2011/0.....wrong.html

I read his blog post and I have to ask, why is a Medical Doctor qualified to comment on what a Senior Scientist who obviously has worked on the very vaccines he blindly administers? He is a medical doctor who knows what the vaccine inserts tell him, if he even reads them. I am sure that he actually does because he is actively defending them, but most don’t. I also did not come away with a feeling like he convinced me that Helen’s work was bunk. Most of it was just rehashing old studies, I think I and most who actually read it get that. It is basically throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks. The Human DNA angle is kind of new I think. When you combine her hypothosis with the fact that there is a clear relationship between Autism and Mitochondrial Dysfunction, I think it needs to be studied. Especially when you look at the fact that in this disordor of the Mitochondria, the DNA is DAMAGED. Now…does this happen before vaccination or after is what needs to be explored.

To answer your and Science Mom’s assertion, I have taken college level Biology classes and have at least a few dozen hours in an actual laboratory environment. I am not completely blind here. To have it thrown out time and again that this is really “hard” to have Human DNA recombine. Well, where is the study that says these human embryonic stem cell’s in these vaccine conconctions do not recombine in children either with Mitochondrial Dysfunction or that it does not have a role in causing Mitochondrial dysfunction?

Answer: it doesn’t exist and this should be looked at because it is a valid hypothosis.
Sullivan
April 7th, 2011
22:27:14

“Ya, he didn’t do anything wrong. I’m still trying to figure that one out.”

Sorry, but this says a lot. When you figure out what is obvious to the layman, you can then move on to science. Let’s see, just for starters: he performed invasive procedures on disabled children which were not clinically indicated and were not approved by the ethics board of his hospital. Those were to produce data for his litigation-driven research. He didn’t disclose that his work was litigation driven until forced to, much later. He didn’t disclose his financial conflicts of interests. Those COI’s included working as a paid expert for litigation, creating multiple companies to profit from his research and not disclosing this. He buried data that did not support the conclusions he promoted. That data would have hurt his business interests and the litigation he was being funded to assist. He told the press at the press conference for his paper that he had enough data to recommend pulling a vaccine, promoting fear and endangering public health. When asked about how much he was paid, he tried to dodge and when pressed lied and quoted a much smaller amount. When asked by congress how his research was funded he didn’t disclose the facts. He gathered blood samples from non-disabled children without obtaining ethical approval. He ordered clinical procedures even though his position clearly disallowed such work.

I am missing a lot, but that is enough and more to warrant his loss of his job and his license.

“He has no more special interest in villifying mmr…”

Except to repair the damage that he did to his reputation. He had many special interests, undisclosed, when he did vilify MMR 13 years ago.

“To answer your and Science Mom’s assertion, I have taken college level Biology classes and have at least a few dozen hours in an actual laboratory environment. I am not completely blind here.”

You have already demonstrated that the biology discussed here is beyond your abilities. For example:

It certainly makes sense to me that a rapidly developing infant could “bang random DNA fragments together” and Helen seems to think this as well. How many decades ago did our illustrious government “bang together” Spiders and Goat DNA to create spider goats? How about this new “banging” of Human DNA with Cows to create Human Cow Milk in Cows?
Sullivan
April 7th, 2011
22:29:36

Well, where is the study that says these human embryonic stem cell’s in these vaccine conconctions do not recombine in children either with Mitochondrial Dysfunction or that it does not have a role in causing Mitochondrial dysfunction?

Wow. Not in a good way. Wow. Show me a vaccine that has human embryonic stem cells.

I think there is a quote from Abraham Lincoln that applies here. You’d have done better to have remained silent on this subject.
Chris
April 7th, 2011
22:42:10

Ken:

Especially when you look at the fact that in this disordor of the Mitochondria, the DNA is DAMAGED.

Which DNA is damaged? The cell or mitochondria?
sniffer
April 7th, 2011
22:49:54

Ken, is I think speaking in broad-term and is right.

“it doesn’t exist and this should be looked at because it is a valid hypothosis.”

The tricky thing about DNA testing is that, like any kind of medical testing, interpretation of the results is not an exact science. Have you ever had a medical diagnostic procedure performed, then read the pathologist’s report? They often look something like this: “Well, it looks like Mr. Sullivan could have such-and-such disease, but it could also be this other disease, or it may be nothing at all.” In other words, the doctors are taking their best guess as to what might be wrong with you, based on the conditions other people with similar test results have had in the past. Sometimes the doctors are right—sometimes they’re wrong. Sometimes you need more testing, and sometimes the tests never help your doctor devise a treatment.

It needs to be looked at, anyone working in genuine “Science” can see that.I am new to the whole blogging ,sphere and correct me if I am butting in.

Way to go, science!
Ken
April 7th, 2011
22:52:51

@sullivan You wrote:

“Wow. Not in a good way. Wow. Show me a vaccine that has human embryonic stem cells.

I think there is a quote from Abraham Lincoln that applies here. You’d have done better to have remained silent on this subject.”

Sorry, I mispoke on the “stem cell” part. Human Cell line derived from Embryonic lung tissue, as taken from Helen’s paper.

“It is important to note that unlike the former MMR, the rubella component of MMR II was propagated in a human cell line derived from embryonic lung tissue (Merck and Co., Inc., 2010). The MMR II vaccine is contaminated with human DNA from the cell line. This human DNA could be the cause of the spikes in incidence. An additional increased spike in incidence of autism occurred in 1995 when the chicken pox vaccine was grown in human fetal tissue (Merck and Co., Inc., 2001; Breuer, 2003).”
Ken
April 7th, 2011
23:06:00

@chris You said,
“Which DNA is damaged? The cell or mitochondria?”

The mitochondria. Here is a good write up about it:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/re.....161521.htm
Ken
April 8th, 2011
00:12:42

@sullivan

“Sorry, but this says a lot. When you figure out what is obvious to the layman, you can then move on to science. Let’s see, just for starters: he performed invasive procedures on disabled children which were not clinically indicated and were not approved by the ethics board of his hospital.”

They were all clinically indicated. Wakefield based all of his findings and procedures based off of them. How did Brian Deer get hold of private clinical records for these patients is the better question?

“Those were to produce data for his litigation-driven research. He didn’t disclose that his work was litigation driven until forced to, much later.”

He was in legal proceedings with the GMC. He couldn’t talk about anything during this time. What does litigation have to do with his findings?

“He didn’t disclose his financial conflicts of interests. Those COI’s included working as a paid expert for litigation, creating multiple companies to profit from his research and not disclosing this.”

Ok, I’m actually going to be a paid expert in a legal case in my industry I work in. I wouldn’t take the position if I didn’t agree with the side of the arguement and I certainly wouldn’t purger myself in the court of law to make a few bucks. This is absurd. You do realize you are basing all of what you know on what Brian Deer has ‘uncovered’, correct? You do know that he was also being funded by the vaccine manufactuer’s, correct? You also realize that his boss took a high level position at one of the vaccine manufacturer’s, correct? You also realize that the BMJ took Deer’s analysis as gospel and didn’t look into any of his allegations, correct?

“He buried data that did not support the conclusions he promoted. That data would have hurt his business interests and the litigation he was being funded to assist. He told the press at the press conference for his paper that he had enough data to recommend pulling a vaccine, promoting fear and endangering public health.”

I have not seen anything other than Deer’s allegations of ‘changing’ data that he did this. In addition, that ‘change’ was based off of Deer’s inability to understand the data he was looking at. Keep in mind, there was a WHOLE TEAM of respected doctors and scientist that worked on this with Wakefield. It wasn’t just him. How exactly do you explain his findings being replicated in multiple countries?

“When asked about how much he was paid, he tried to dodge and when pressed lied and quoted a much smaller amount. When asked by congress how his research was funded he didn’t disclose the facts.”

He lied about how much he was paid to conduct a study. Wow…he is a horrible person.

“He gathered blood samples from non-disabled children without obtaining ethical approval. He ordered clinical procedures even though his position clearly disallowed such work.”

He had parental consent and not one parent, regardless of what Deer alleges, has complained or had issuew with the testing that Wakefield and his team performed. IF you have evidence to the contrary, I would like to see it.
McD
April 8th, 2011
00:22:47

@Sniffer, while not rejecting the possibility of second generation thalidomide effects off-hand, I do think that there has been sufficient research, by people trying to find such a link, to find one if it actually existed.
http://www.thalidomide.ca/caus.....h-defects/

The thing is, that in any batch of embryos, including those in the thalidomide effected sample, a small number will have had deformities due to other causes anyway, some of which may be heritable. So, sad anecdotes like that reported in your link are virtually guaranteed whether there are second generation effects are present or not.

A second point is that there is no plausible relationship between thalidomide – a teratogen, and whatever vaccines are supposed to do to an infant (I’m buggered of I can keep up with the moving target that is the theoretical causal mechanism in the vaccines-autism link). It was at least plausible that thalidomide could also be a mutagen and have an effect on germline cells (cells which potentially contribute to the sperm and egg), at a very very early stage of embryonic development (the germ line isolates quite early on). However, research turned up no such mutagenic effect for thalidomide.

Now if you were going to look at inter-generational effects, a better example would be diethylstilbestrol, or DES. This drug, taken by pregnant women had subsequent effects on their female offspring, and there are emerging reports of second generation effects of the daughters of the women exposed in utero, which are still under investigation (with second generation effects reported in a number of animal studies):
http://www.cancer.gov/cancerto.....t/Risk/DES

So research is ongoing, and in this case some interesting stuff is coming out. Not that DES is a mutagen, but that it may change methylation patterns which effect how the DNA is expressed, and that altered methylation patterns may be passed on to children. But once again, exposure to the substance occurred prenatally, at a time when germline cells are vulnerable.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19299448
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21458804
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20399890

There are some fascinating things happening with epigenetics these days, and your retired senior whistleblower seems to be oblivious to them. In a paper looking at ‘theoretical aspects of autism’, she has just blown the lot off, in favor of warming up half-baked crack-pot ideas from anti-vax websites.

Cripes, she even comes up with this pearler: “Strikingly different from autism, which affects boys more than girls, Rett syndrome is almost exclusively seen in girls (Van Acker et al., 2005)”

Well. That depends on when you look. It afflicts boys and girls equally, the poor wee lads don’t survive for very long after birth. But what a strange thing to write, unqualified, in a discussion of genetic causes?

In fact, the final sentences of her ‘genetics’ discussion are just very strange, given her supposed stature:
Another reason to discount an overall genetic cause is that autism is now considered an epidemic and there is no such thing as a genetic epidemic (Jepson, 2007a). To date, there has not been one single gene found to be responsible for autism. Other phenomena may cause mutations in genes or alter gene expression, with the end result being autism.”

More what you would expect from an undergrad making too much use of google.

There have been occasions in the past where an ailing researcher has been asked to sign off on a paper that they probably would not have supported otherwise. Has this woman given any interviews?
Sullivan
April 8th, 2011
00:29:04

He was in legal proceedings with the GMC. He couldn’t talk about anything during this time. What does litigation have to do with his findings?

Ken,

he started working as a paid expert for the MMR litigation in the UK in the mid-late 1990’s. He wasn’t involved with the GMC until over 10 years later. Second, “what does this have to do with his findings” isn’t the position you took. You stated that he didn’t do anything wrong. That is clearly not the case.

“I have not seen anything other than Deer’s allegations of ‘changing’ data that he did this.”

Then you should read the Autism Omnibus Proceedings transcripts. In specific, read when Nicholas Chadwick spoke. He was a grad student working for Andrew Wakefield during the MMR research at the Royal Free. He found that the tissue samples from the children in the program were negative for measles virus. Mr. Wakefield hid those results.

“Keep in mind, there was a WHOLE TEAM of respected doctors and scientist that worked on this with Wakefield. ”

Most of whom retracted the interpretation placed on the results.

“He lied about how much he was paid to conduct a study. Wow…he is a horrible person.”

He was paid as an expert witness for ongoing litigation. That is a major conflict of interest. Again, I will point you to your statement that Wakefield did nothing wrong. It is a false statement, even with whatever efforts you make to downplay what he did.

He had parental consent and not one parent, regardless of what Deer alleges, has complained or had issuew with the testing that Wakefield and his team performed. IF you have evidence to the contrary, I would like to see it.

A parent can not make informed consent if the researcher is not informing them of the details. When a researcher says, “will you participate in this study” and hides the fact that he never tried to get ethical approval for that, he is lying to the subjects.

You don’t get it at all—Wakefield needed to get his projects approved by an ethics panel before starting. With the blood samples he never got ethics approval. With the tissue samples for the autistic kids he started before he got approval.

Your statement that Wakefield did no wrong is false. Multiply false. Mr. Wakfield is guilty of multiple ethical violations. He lost his license and his job and he is lucky that is all that happened.
Sullivan
April 8th, 2011
00:33:10

“The mitochondria. Here is a good write up about it:”

Good, at least you know that little factoid. Now, what sort of DNA is present (if/when it is present at all) in a vaccine? Nuclear or mitochondrial? If nDNA, how does this combine with mDNA?

Much more to the point, what quantity of human DNA is in the vaccine with the most DNA? Tell us the mechanism whereby this small number of DNA (or fragments more likely) cause damage on millions or billions of mitochondrial DNA.
Sullivan
April 8th, 2011
00:35:52

“This human DNA could be the cause of the spikes in incidence. An additional increased spike in incidence of autism occurred in 1995 when the chicken pox vaccine was grown in human fetal tissue (Merck and Co., Inc., 2001; Breuer, 2003).” ”

And, yet, there is no spike in incidence in the data she relies upon. Neither is there a spike from 1979 when the human-cell cultured rubella vaccine went into use, nor in 1995 when the chicken pox vaccine was put into use.

Her hypothesis is wrong. Plain and simple. It isn’t biologically plausible (nor even well fleshed out). It isn’t supported by the epidemiological data.
Chris
April 8th, 2011
02:02:55

Sullivan:

Tell us the mechanism whereby this small number of DNA (or fragments more likely) cause damage on millions or billions of mitochondrial DNA.

Ken, also tell us how it can damage the mitochondrial DNA without affecting the cell DNA.

Sniffer, exactly how many American babies were affected by thalidomide? What processes did that affect? How was a Dr. Kesley involved? And what does it have to do with vaccines?
Science Mom
April 8th, 2011
14:38:08

I read his blog post and I have to ask, why is a Medical Doctor qualified to comment on what a Senior Scientist who obviously has worked on the very vaccines he blindly administers? He is a medical doctor who knows what the vaccine inserts tell him, if he even reads them. I am sure that he actually does because he is actively defending them, but most don’t.

@ Ken, Dr. Gorski is also a PhD scientist, in addition to an MD who has his own research laboratory. He doesn’t administer vaccines and knows considerably more about them than what is in the package inserts. And yet he still defends them.

I also did not come away with a feeling like he convinced me that Helen’s work was bunk. Most of it was just rehashing old studies, I think I and most who actually read it get that. It is basically throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks.

You aren’t convinced because a.) you don’t understand enough genetics and b.) you don’t want to be convinced otherwise, you have already made up your mind. His argument is valid and correct, Ratajczak’s is not and is just pure hand-waving.

The Human DNA angle is kind of new I think. When you combine her hypothosis with the fact that there is a clear relationship between Autism and Mitochondrial Dysfunction, I think it needs to be studied. Especially when you look at the fact that in this disordor of the Mitochondria, the DNA is DAMAGED. Now…does this happen before vaccination or after is what needs to be explored.

How is the DNA in mitochondrial disorders “damaged”? Mito disorders are being studied by the way. Ratajczak is so far off the mark, there is simply no sense in pursuing her angle; enough money has been wasted debunking vaccine-autism myths.

To answer your and Science Mom’s assertion, I have taken college level Biology classes and have at least a few dozen hours in an actual laboratory environment. I am not completely blind here.

And yet you continue to refuse to tell me how this magical DNA recombination occurs. If you believe it, then you should have given it some thought and can explain how it happens.

To have it thrown out time and again that this is really “hard” to have Human DNA recombine. Well, where is the study that says these human embryonic stem cell’s in these vaccine conconctions do not recombine in children either with Mitochondrial Dysfunction or that it does not have a role in causing Mitochondrial dysfunction?

This statement, right here, demonstrates that you don’t have a clue of what is actually in a vaccine, anything about mito disorders and genetics.
David N. Andrews M. Ed., C. P. S. E.
April 8th, 2011
17:12:49

Just in case you missed it, Ken, I’ll put it to you clearly: Science Mom just owned your arse. Try to argue with her again, and she’ll most likely rip it off of you and use it as a frisby for dogs in the local park.

Just to let you know why it might be better to keep schtum when you don’t exactly know what it is you’re talking about!
Sullivan
April 8th, 2011
19:49:04

“I read his blog post and I have to ask, why is a Medical Doctor qualified to comment on what a Senior Scientist who obviously has worked on the very vaccines he blindly administers?”

Why doesn’t this sort of logic get applied to, say, people criticizing Paul Offit? That aside, can someone show me where this “Senior Scientist” worked on any vaccines? One company listed as one of her workplaces had animal vaccines as part of the product line.

My guess is that Dr. Gorski meets the minimum requirements set forth previously in this discussion for discussing the topic: a couple of college biology classes and a few hours of time in a research laboratory.
sniffer
April 9th, 2011
00:30:17

Moderators ,the bloggers on here are taking time to construct discussion and are met with vile hostility from a few .Would the moderator please remove the culprits they are obvious to everyone and seem to demonstrate a dis-like to open discussion offering nothing constructive to the discussions’.

Thalidomide and Autism
Of a population of 100 Swedish thalidomide embryopathy cases, at least four met full criteria for DSM-III-R autistic disorder and ICD-10 childhood autism. Thalidomide embryopathy of the kind encountered in these cases affects fetal development early in pregnancy, probably on days 20 to 24 after conception. It is argued that the possible association of thalidomide embryopathy with autism may shed some light on the issue of which neural circuitries may be involved in autism pathogenesis.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8157157

it is also being prescribed to ADHD juveniles.
http://www.chem.yale.edu/~chem.....omide.html

, Mc D “DES” is in the same block with , Premarin, thalidomide, and Vioxx, to name a few, were all FDA-approved but are now known to be associated with increased risks of cancer, blood clots, birth defects, and heart disease and many more I dont need a snipet on DES thanks its a diffrent view point completly.

Despite all the clinical evidence to the contrary as I provided in my last article , British health authorities such as the Medical Research Council maintain that the vast bulk of evidence from laboratory and animal tests is against thalidomide having any genetic effects. Which is what you would expect from an organisation mostly funded by the manufacturers of Thalidomide and other Pharma products.

http://www.politicolnews.com/n.....rmed-baby/

The American babies who died from T, its anyone`s guess as most died before they were born,and many died before the were even registered ,sorry Chris I cannot answer your questions,extremely appreciated if you could inform me of this.
Ken
April 9th, 2011
01:02:05

@sullivan You said,

“Then you should read the Autism Omnibus Proceedings transcripts. In specific, read when Nicholas Chadwick spoke. He was a grad student working for Andrew Wakefield during the MMR research at the Royal Free. He found that the tissue samples from the children in the program were negative for measles virus. Mr. Wakefield hid those results.”

Umm, Mr. Wakefield didn’t hide the results, he put absolutely no weight in his analysis because a) he was a “junior doctor” (his words and you also just stated that he was a grad student) and b) Walker Smith (one of the most respected pediatric gastroenterologists in the world) did a CLINICAL evaluation with a colonoscopy and found that the RECTUM was clearly inflamed. He agreed that the Colon was not inflamed but the Rectum was and was clearly an inflamed bowel as a result. Are you suggesting that Walker Smith is not qualified to overule a Junior doctor or is not qualified to make a Clinical evaluation of a child who clearly needed it?

““Keep in mind, there was a WHOLE TEAM of respected doctors and scientist that worked on this with Wakefield. ””

And they retracted because they were going to have their careers ruined if they stayed in what was clearly a witchunt. Whether correct or not, they got the message, Wakefield took the bullet. Pretty simple really…

“A parent can not make informed consent if the researcher is not informing them of the details. When a researcher says, “will you participate in this study” and hides the fact that he never tried to get ethical approval for that, he is lying to the subjects.

You don’t get it at all—Wakefield needed to get his projects approved by an ethics panel before starting. With the blood samples he never got ethics approval. With the tissue samples for the autistic kids he started before he got approval.

Your statement that Wakefield did no wrong is false. Multiply false. Mr. Wakfield is guilty of multiple ethical violations. He lost his license and his job and he is lucky that is all that happened.”

You believe everything that the little schill Deer says don’t you? What you and Deer seem to not understand was every colonoscopy performed was by a referral by that Child’s doctor to go to Walker Smith and were clinically indicated. Tests that are clinically indicated do NOT require ethical permission to be performed. This was not some experimental treatment or abuse of children. It was Deer’s opinion that this was the case. He has no idea and I am surprised that you believe this story so vehemently.
Ken
April 9th, 2011
01:09:15

@David N. Andrews M. Ed., C. P. S. E.

I got owned because she said I am wrong and Helen is wrong but her hero is correct? Great. I’m sorry I can’t answer a question to something that has never been studied.

Carry on your cheerleader role…
Ken
April 9th, 2011
01:12:05

I just find it comical that you guys completely dismiss what doesn’t fit into your little pubmed worlds. Need I point out AGAIN that the world you live in is fake: http://www.newsweek.com/2011/0.....wrong.html
Ken
April 9th, 2011
01:25:37

@Sullivan You said,

“Why doesn’t this sort of logic get applied to, say, people criticizing Paul Offit? That aside, can someone show me where this “Senior Scientist” worked on any vaccines? One company listed as one of her workplaces had animal vaccines as part of the product line.”

Because Paul “For Profit” Offit makes money everytime someone is injected with Pig Virus contaminated Rotavirus vaccine. It is amazing to me that you are trying to crucify Wakefield for his affiliations but Offit is the Messiah. Unreal. Also, anyone who says an infant/child can be injected with 100k vaccines in one day “Safely” does not have any idea what they are talking about. Period.

“My guess is that Dr. Gorski meets the minimum requirements set forth previously in this discussion for discussing the topic: a couple of college biology classes and a few hours of time in a research laboratory.”

I stand corrected on Gorski’s qualifications. He still made a weak debunking of Helen’s review though. I just don’t take things like, this researcher for this paper “see’s black helicopter’s” or this paper is not good as good debunking….

Those are his opinions
sharon
April 9th, 2011
01:33:26

The old, I live in the ‘real world’ and you don’t fall back line. You are running out of puff when you start to go down that track Ken. Next you’ll be telling people to ‘get a life’.
Ken
April 9th, 2011
01:58:03

@Sharon

It was just a comment, I just wanted to post a link to a story about how most medical studies are wrong. I thought it may bring some pause to the holier than thou attitude of some. I guess not.

I also had quite a few more “puffs” after I posted that…
Chris
April 9th, 2011
02:04:25

Sniffer:

The American babies who died from T, its anyone`s guess as most died before they were born,and many died before the were even registered ,sorry Chris I cannot answer your questions,extremely appreciated if you could inform me of this.

Bzzzzzt… wrong! The question was “Sniffer, exactly how many American babies were affected by thalidomide?” I did not ask about deaths. It is obvious you have not got a clue, nor to the significance of the question (Dr. Kelsey was a hint you seemed to have missed).

There were very few who were affected*. They were usually children of servicemen who were stationed in Europe, or a very few who got the free samples from the doctors. I really do suggest you look up the reason that Dr. Frances Kelsey received the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service from President John Kennedy. Read up on how that changed pharmaceutical approval procedures world wide.

In the future you get your medical information from places other than John Scudamore’s whale.to site and any site that starts with the word “political”.

*From Note #32 of Chapter Two of Dangerous Pregnancies: Mothers, Disabilities and Abortion in Modern America by Leslie Reagan: depending on the source the numbers range from 16 to 40 in the USA, and between 5000 to 8000 in Europe. By the way, it is a book on how things changed with the rubella epidemic of the early 1960s. For a flavor of the book (and I do not recommend it to anyone, it is an academic snoozer, with a bit too much speculation) read her article: Rashes, Rights, and Wrongs in the Hospital and in the Courtroom: German Measles, Abortion, and Malpractice before Roe and Doe.
sharon
April 9th, 2011
02:06:46

@ken, surely you see how the assertion of yourself living in the ‘real’ world and others with whom you disagree not, despite the fact we all inhabit the same planet, and none on this thread exhibit any clear signs of psychosis (though David N Andrews may challnege me on that point) is poorly considered at best?
Chris
April 9th, 2011
02:35:43

Sniffer:

thalidomide, and Vioxx, to name a few, were all FDA-approved

Was that true in the 1960s? Think very hard, and do tell us about Dr. Kelsey and thalidomide.
daedalus2u
April 9th, 2011
02:36:28

sniffer, Thalidomide does cause autism, but it doesn’t need to cause any genetic damage to do so. Thalidomide is a nitric oxide synthase inhibitor. It disrupts neurodevelopment and other developmental pathways.

Nitric oxide pathways are highly involved in neurodevelopment. The other things that cause autism, valproate, phenyltoin, and other antiepileptics also have effects on nitric oxide pathways. Those drugs also affect neural tube closure (which requires NO and NOS signaling). Probably anything that adversely affects neural tube closure could lead to autism if the exposure happens at a certain stage of neurodevelopment in utero.

Maternal stress causes autism. Autism is a property of a phenotype, not a genotype. I think that essentially every human genotype can support an autism phenotype. It simply depends on the trajectory of neurodevelopment. Most (99.999+) of that happens in utero when the brain goes from zero cells to ~10^11.
Science Mom
April 9th, 2011
02:51:56

I got owned because she said I am wrong and Helen is wrong but her hero is correct? Great. I’m sorry I can’t answer a question to something that has never been studied.

No, you got p’wnd because you are unable to support how Ratajczak’s claims could be biologically plausible. It doesn’t need to be specifically studied because the answers to that are known. Pick up a genetics textbook and do some reading by real experts how DNA recombination works and under what conditions this can be manipulated. Before you start caterwauling how “science doesn’t have all the answers”, yes, however, there are some assertions, like Ratajczak’s that are so stupid out of the gate, they don’t deserve any further examination.

I just find it comical that you guys completely dismiss what doesn’t fit into your little pubmed worlds. Need I point out AGAIN that the world you live in is fake:

Operative word Ken is “story”; an opinion piece. If PubMed is such a ruse, then why do you and your ilk toil so hard to legitimise your crusade with the very science you sneer at? That is comical. Do you really think that you are so enlightened that none of us could possibly know the problems with the industry? With public health policies? Really Ken? You can’t even recognise a really shitty review and you really think you are going to edumacate us on what is really wrong with the pharmaceutical industry? You give yourself way too much credit.
Dedj
April 9th, 2011
03:34:02

“It was Deer’s opinion that this was the case”

Later proven to be almost 100% correct in front of the highest relevant authourity after an extensive hearing with full scope for input from Wakefield.

It was found that several of the children had no reason for the clinical tests within their refferals, that the barrage of tests was similar to the point of being operationally the same as the research protocol and not any etablished clinical protocol, that Wakefield personally ordered tests with the stated exclusive intent of generatng research findings only, amongst many other things.

Wakefield had full opportunity to present his case effectively and he appears to have deliberatly refrained from doing so in order to include his defence in his book. Wakefield willingly put his supporters through needless expense and wasted effort just to have enough material to put in his book. This is so unspeakably callous and unethical that it would be worthy or reporting him to the GMC for this behaviour alone had he not already been struck off.
Sullivan
April 9th, 2011
03:34:10

Ken,

“Because Paul “For Profit” Offit makes money everytime someone is injected with Pig Virus contaminated Rotavirus vaccine.”

First the minor points: the rotavirus vaccine is an oral vaccine. It is not injected. One might think that a person linking to a “vaccinerisk” blog might now that. Second, Dr. Offit has sold his rights to his invention. He no longer makes any money of Rotateq. More importantly, Dr. Offit has been upfront about his involvement with vaccine production. Mr. Wakefield lied about his involvement with MMR litigants. Also, Dr. Offit’s science has proven sound. Mr. Wakefield’s research was wrong. Lastly, I check what Dr. Offit says, I do not take him as a “Messiah”.

“Also, anyone who says an infant/child can be injected with 100k vaccines in one day “Safely” does not have any idea what they are talking about. Period.”

Once again, you are showing ignorance. Have you read what Dr. Offit wrote? He stated that a person has the ability to mount an immunological defense against the challenges posed by the antigens in 100,000 vaccines. He did not say that one could be injected with 100,000 vaccines. Do you understand the difference? It doesn’t seem as though you do.

The interesting thing about the “review” article that is being discussed is the way she inserted her own opinions into it. The “DNA causes autism” hypothesis is not cited as being from another paper. It is something she put into the paper. It is not a review, but poorly formed opinion.

I do apologize for the rather harsh response you got on this site. I do not apologize for people pointing out, repeatedly, that you don’t even understand the basics of the arguments you create. Time and again you have shown that you don’t really understand the subject.
Science Mom
April 9th, 2011
04:32:31

I stand corrected on Gorski’s qualifications. He still made a weak debunking of Helen’s review though. I just don’t take things like, this researcher for this paper “see’s black helicopter’s” or this paper is not good as good debunking….

What was weak about his debunking of her claims? He actually put it into fairly easy-to-understand language. What exactly do you have a problem with?

Those are his opinions

Umm, no; that’s basic genetics fact.
Sullivan
April 9th, 2011
04:43:31

Science Mom:

could I get a judgment call? The DNA hypothesis in the “review” appears to me to be not part of a “review” but her own analysis (such as it is) inserted into a review. As such, isn’t this rather inappropriate? She’s basically taking the opportunity of a pseudo-review to promote her own ideas, using incredibly weak support from the data she does cite.
Ken
April 9th, 2011
05:03:00

@Sullivan You said,
“First the minor points: the rotavirus vaccine is an oral vaccine. It is not injected. One might think that a person linking to a “vaccinerisk” blog might now that. Second, Dr. Offit has sold his rights to his invention. He no longer makes any money of Rotateq. More importantly, Dr. Offit has been upfront about his involvement with vaccine production. Mr. Wakefield lied about his involvement with MMR litigants. Also, Dr. Offit’s science has proven sound. Mr. Wakefield’s research was wrong. Lastly, I check what Dr. Offit says, I do not take him as a “Messiah”.”

Touche’! I honestly never realized it was an oral vaccine. My kids have never recieved it and I never could get past the Intestinal twisting, contamination with Pig Virus, and the fact that this vaccine ‘sheds’ and perpetuates the disease. Is that better? My ‘risk’ site points out things like I just commented on, not so much the delivery mechanism. I leave that to pubmed head’s! :)

Ok, so because Offit got an amount that Offit said “it’s like winning the lottery.”, makes it ok for him to comment? I don’t want to hear it from someone who profitted greatly from a vaccine that maimed and injured 10’s of thousands of infants and perhaps did more yet untold damage from its contamination with Pig Virus. I just don’t have much use for him nor can I compare him to someone who ethically did nothing wrong.

“Once again, you are showing ignorance. Have you read what Dr. Offit wrote? He stated that a person has the ability to mount an immunological defense against the challenges posed by the antigens in 100,000 vaccines. He did not say that one could be injected with 100,000 vaccines. Do you understand the difference? It doesn’t seem as though you do.”

I do realize the difference. I don’t have much confidence in 100,000 antigens either as we add the varricela virus to MMR and it doubles the number of seizures but this is where I got the 100,000 ‘vaccines’ from: http://www.newsweek.com/2008/1.....field.html

I love the insults though. I’m not perfect…I make mistakes, often I am posting from memory….but I do have a basis for what I am saying.

“The interesting thing about the “review” article that is being discussed is the way she inserted her own opinions into it. The “DNA causes autism” hypothesis is not cited as being from another paper. It is something she put into the paper. It is not a review, but poorly formed opinion.”

I don’t disagree that it is a review of previous hypothesis’ and she added her opinion. I think where we differ is the holier than thou attitude that she has no idea what she is talking about. Most here, including me, don’t know anything about her. I personally am intrigued and want to know why she thinks what she thinks before I cast her into the nutball category. I am of the belief that she probably has access to information, having worked on vaccines, that is not available to the public.

“I do apologize for the rather harsh response you got on this site. I do not apologize for people pointing out, repeatedly, that you don’t even understand the basics of the arguments you create. Time and again you have shown that you don’t really understand the subject.”

No, i understand the subject, its just that people here LOVE to latch on anything remotely wrong with a statement and then ignore everything else. It is quite the tactic. Again, I threw the Mitochondrial DNA out there as an EXAMPLE as to why it is intigueing to hear Helen’s theory on Human DNA. It then gets twisted into show me how this is possible and I have have no idea what I’m talking about. It is silly. Shoot me becuase I didn’t realize Rotavirus vaccine was oral…doesn’t change the argument…
Ken
April 9th, 2011
05:13:31

@Sullivan You wrote,

“Science Mom:

could I get a judgment call? The DNA hypothesis in the “review” appears to me to be not part of a “review” but her own analysis (such as it is) inserted into a review. As such, isn’t this rather inappropriate? She’s basically taking the opportunity of a pseudo-review to promote her own ideas, using incredibly weak support from the data she does cite.”

I agree, this is exactly what she is doing and it is what I stated in one of my first posts on the subject. She may know something that everyone else doesn’t. She says in the CBS article that she was muzzled while working for the drug company. Maybe it is a conspiracy theory but to me it is an easter egg put into a rather boring review. She put it there for a reason and I want to hear more about why she thinks this.
sharon
April 9th, 2011
05:24:08

@Ken, I’ll quickly add that I do not “LOVE to latch on anything remotely wrong with a statement”. Therefore I will withold my thoughts about the inappropriate use of the word love in the above context. My point in bringing to attention your ‘real’ world comment was to serve as a warning that hyperbolic or thoughtless statements will not serve you in this forum. Tired cliche’s dent your credibility as much as misinformed opinions.
Sullivan
April 9th, 2011
05:52:40

Ken,

It isn’t that your statements are “remotely” wrong. The are frequently very wrong. You repeatedly show a distinct lack of scientific knowledge and understanding.
Sullivan
April 9th, 2011
05:57:15

Ken,

I don’t know if this comes as news to you, but she has an email address. If you want to know if she has some special knowledge, ask her.

All you are doing here is demonstrating once again that vaccine skeptics often work from ignorance.

If I was in to the debate for debate sake, you’d still be dull as your arguments are so poorly formed.
Dedj
April 9th, 2011
06:00:16

“She may know something that everyone else doesn’t.”

Something that even the people who work on gene theory in autism don’t know? How likely is that?

Something that even the people who work on viral theory in autism don’t know? How likely is that?

Something that would be front and centre for mutliple teams of multiple experts in multiple countries (and it’s not even a novel or new theory) and somehow it’s been overlooked by all bar a singular retired person who was apparently never an expert in any of the relevant fields? How likely is that?

Not very, one would have thought.
Ken
April 9th, 2011
06:14:45

@Science Mom and Sharon

Ah…now I see why the venom is coming out. After seeing your respective blogs, i see that I am a 180 from your views on vaccination. I mean, with a post like ‘There is no mercury in Vaccines’ on one, and ‘Pertusis outbreaks are being caused by pockets of unvaccinated’ on the other, i can see how we differ.

I’ll just bow out as this is going to be incredibly fruitless for both sides because neither of us are going to change our minds.
Dedj
April 9th, 2011
06:24:56

“Ah…now I see why the venom is coming out.”

Do not complain of having your views distorted whilst disorting and trying to invalidate others.

Otherwise, yes, it is clear that no one will benefit from you being here.
sharon
April 9th, 2011
08:00:41

@Ken, thanks for the visit to my blog. Maybe you learnt something?
Chris
April 9th, 2011
08:34:25

Ken:

I mean, with a post like ‘There is no mercury in Vaccines’ on one,

Why would stating a fact be an indictment? The required pediatric vaccines have been available without thimerosal for a decade. Almost half the influenza vaccines have no thimerosal.

If you have an issue with this data, then go and ask why this message went out asking for “old vaccines”:
http://onibasu.com/archives/am/27456.html

Please do tell us how 2001 is less than a decade ago.

Then come back with actual documentation of the amount of thimerosal in vaccines, which is freely available on several websites. Just make sure you don’t cherry pick the information claiming Company A’s DTaP has a trace of thimerosal, while neglecting that it is available from both Company B and Company C without thimerosal.

(I noticed that both Sniffer and Ken are upset about the posts here, but I don’t see “venom” or “hostility.” What I see are questions being asked, and corrections to opinions posed by those who complain. If you don’t like the attitude here, then in the future post with actual data and evidence, from reliable sources.)
sharon
April 9th, 2011
09:27:43

@Chris said “I don’t see “venom” or “hostility”. Quite, I was going more for smarmy than hostile. I get so fed up listening to the same silly arguments. Directly under the post about Mercury on my blog is another about love. A far more complex and interesting concept to explore. Why can’t these anti vaxers just move on, or just keep to themselves? Drives me bonkers.
David N. Andrews M. Ed., C. P. S. E.
April 9th, 2011
14:45:25

“I got owned because she said I am wrong and Helen is wrong but her hero is correct? Great. I’m sorry I can’t answer a question to something that has never been studied.

Carry on your cheerleader role…”

No.

You got owned because you opened your pathetic wee gob on a topic that you evidently were clueless about.

You said: “I have to ask, why is a Medical Doctor qualified to comment on what a Senior Scientist who obviously has worked on the very vaccines he blindly administers? He is a medical doctor who knows what the vaccine inserts tell him, if he even reads them.”

She said: “Dr. Gorski is also a PhD scientist, in addition to an MD who has his own research laboratory. He doesn’t administer vaccines and knows considerably more about them than what is in the package inserts.”

This is where she owned your scrawny little arse. Stop being pathetic: learn something properly, or piss off and leave the discussion to people who know what’s going on.

DES vomited and this came out: “@ David Andrews: it is worthy of note that NOWHERE on this site did I mention my book, and I challenge you to find the title mentioned anywhere here. Therfore David you have come from oracs site, what? did Chris have to bring in the ” heavy weight” to squash the opposition? See, having googled you I notice that you never seem to have much in the way of thought as a response, rather you make idiotic statements, usually peppered with foul langugae which you seem to think gives substance(?) to your statement (?!). Fail.”

1- I did not say that you had mentioned your book on this site, so your challenge is pointless. minus 150 for irrelevance.

2- no, I haven’t ‘come across from Orac’s site’ ... I’m a regular reader and commenter here (as, obviously, you must know if you can make a statement like “I notice that you never seem to have much in the way of thought as a response, rather you make idiotic statements, usually peppered with foul langugae which you seem to think gives substance(?) to your statement (?!)”; ergo – minus 2,000 for total lack of observance.

3- “usually peppered with foul langugae which you seem to think gives substance(?) to your statement (?!)” ... OMFG, where to start here … well, no I don’t think that foul language ‘gives substance’. I use it to show extreme irritation at the presence of people who are obviously too stupid to have any business discussing anything here (like, for example, you!). minus 300,000 for misattribution, with further penalty of 50,000 for stupidity-showing punctuation and an additional penalty of 90,000 for not even being bothered to check your spelling!

4- more inobservancy shit: you didn’t do such a good google ‘research’ thing if all you got was me swearing at fuckwits; I dare say there’s many places on this blog and others where I have shown my ability to contribute very significantly to the discussion under way at the time… minus 900,000 for being too stupid to have picked up on those comments!

Reason why I swear a lot: the people I do it to are basically too stupid to hold a rational discussion with, because they cannot be bothered to learn anything from the discussion. So there’s no point in discussing anything with them. You are one such person. Plus, of late I’ve been working with my ex-wife on some important educational materials regarding Facilitated Communication, which is – despite its popularity – a ‘method’ that is riddled with problems and piss-poor research being used to support it (even when the good quality research has demonstrated it to be total bollocks!). So, I’ve not had the time – and nor have I had the inclination – to be teacher to people like you and Ken and OneQueerFuckwit/AWankerOnLeave (and many others just like you).

Totalling up your points:

-1,342,150 … that’s a lot of points to owe an assessment, DES … demonstrates a clear rationality FAIL!

Get a life and stop bugging the shit out of us!
Science Mom
April 9th, 2011
14:49:25

Science Mom:

could I get a judgment call? The DNA hypothesis in the “review” appears to me to be not part of a “review” but her own analysis (such as it is) inserted into a review. As such, isn’t this rather inappropriate? She’s basically taking the opportunity of a pseudo-review to promote her own ideas, using incredibly weak support from the data she does cite.

She is absolutely opining. Even if there was some “secret data”, she would be obligated to cite that, e.g. “unpublished data” with a citation in the literature cited section for the source. It is inappropriate and I can just about guarantee that this is a vanity piece and not a proper solicited, expert review. In other words, she wrote it, submitted it, paid the fee and got it published.
Sullivan
April 9th, 2011
15:13:30

Dedj,

Of course she knows things others don’t. She knows what she had for breakfast, for example.

Similar to what you point out: it’s a big stretch from “she may know things others don’t” to “she knows things which are counter to well established science”

The proposition that her DNA hypothesis comes from work she was “muzzled” from disclosing doesn’t hold water.

“hi, I’m Helen. I have this revolutionary idea of biology. I know a way that you can inject fragments of human DNA into a muscle and they will travel to the brain and incorporate themselves into the DNA of brain cells. I thought about patenting this and making a huge amount of money. Of course I would have written it up for Science or Nature. And there’s that whole shaking hands with the king of Sweden and accepting the Nobel Prize.

But I thought, why not just disclose this in a paragraph of an obscure review article?”
Science Mom
April 9th, 2011
15:31:16

Touche’! I honestly never realized it was an oral vaccine. My kids have never recieved it and I never could get past the Intestinal twisting, contamination with Pig Virus, and the fact that this vaccine ‘sheds’ and perpetuates the disease. Is that better? My ‘risk’ site points out things like I just commented on, not so much the delivery mechanism. I leave that to pubmed head’s! :)

And once again, you demonstrate your stunning ignorance of vaccines and vaccine issues. There was no “pig virus” found in the vaccines and furthermore, no infectious virus in the cell lines. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21093497 PCV does not cause disease in humans and ~70% of us have antibody to PCVs just from eating pork products. Rotavirus vaccine shedding does not perpetuate the disease. Getting facts straight should be an objective of yours if you are going to comment on them, apparently it isn’t.

As others have stated, there is no venom, just intolerance for ignorantly arrogant fools who can’t even get basic facts straight.
Ken
April 9th, 2011
18:29:33

@Science Mom You Said,

“And once again, you demonstrate your stunning ignorance of vaccines and vaccine issues. There was no “pig virus” found in the vaccines and furthermore, no infectious virus in the cell lines. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21093497 PCV does not cause disease in humans and ~70% of us have antibody to PCVs just from eating pork products. Rotavirus vaccine shedding does not perpetuate the disease. Getting facts straight should be an objective of yours if you are going to comment on them, apparently it isn’t.

As others have stated, there is no venom, just intolerance for ignorantly arrogant fools who can’t even get basic facts straight.”

I know I wasn’t going to comment anymore, but I can’t let this comment go unchecked.

Are you serious? A Porcine CircoVIRUS is not a VIRUS? Seriously? Maybe this is a test to see if I will actually comment…i hope it was.

I also understand that when the Rotateq vaccine was RECALLED they said there was no harm or evidence of harm to humans. They always say that but their actions speak louder than their words. Your ignorance is amazing to think that the billions and billions of dollars made by this toxic concoction would be allowed to be affected negatively. It was a big step to just recall the vaccine.

Are you sure about the live rotavirus shedding not perpetuating the disease? I mean, aside from the numerous evil anecdotal stories i have heard, here is a blurb from medscape:

*”Viral shedding has been demonstrated in the stool samples of 0.3-8.9% of patients receiving rotavirus vaccine. Shedding has been documented as early as 1 day after immunization and as late as 15 days after a dose. As a result, families should be aware of the potential risk to close contacts who are immunocompromised.”*

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/549275

If it doesn’t “perpetuate the disease” then what is the potential risk to the immunocompromised? Can’t wait to hear this one…
Ken
April 9th, 2011
18:39:25

@Chris You said,

“Why would stating a fact be an indictment? The required pediatric vaccines have been available without thimerosal for a decade. Almost half the influenza vaccines have no thimerosal.

If you have an issue with this data, then go and ask why this message went out asking for “old vaccines”:
http://onibasu.com/archives/am/27456.html”;

Chris, I never said they weren’t greatly reduced. I am saying that there is still mercury in vaccines ‘trace’ amounts that are less than/equal to .3 ug mercury per dose. This is an irrefutable fact and the Tripedia insert for DTaP says this.

“Then come back with actual documentation of the amount of thimerosal in vaccines, which is freely available on several websites. Just make sure you don’t cherry pick the information claiming Company A’s DTaP has a trace of thimerosal, while neglecting that it is available from both Company B and Company C without thimerosal.”

Yes it is and I didn’t say that it wasn’t greatly reduced or had ‘free’ versions. I simply mentioned an article title that sounded idiotic. A blanket statement that “There is no mercury in vaccines” is just flat out wrong. IF it would have said “There is no Mercury in SOME vaccines” I would have not said a word.
Chris
April 9th, 2011
18:57:05

Ken:

This is an irrefutable fact and the Tripedia insert for DTaP says this.

What about the other two DTaP vaccines?

Did you miss where I said “Just make sure you don’t cherry pick the information claiming Company A’s DTaP has a trace of thimerosal, while neglecting that it is available from both Company B and Company C without thimerosal.”

Because you just did that. Even though you copied and pasted the words, it looks like you did not really read them

Again, all required pediatric vaccines are available in thimerosal-free formations. Pointing out that one of the three DTaP versions has a trace amount does not change that statement. Also, please point out where I said “There is no mercury in vaccines”, because I don’t remember saying that.

You are working on a slippery slope if you are playing semantics. Especially using a phrase different than the one I used.
Science Mom
April 9th, 2011
18:59:39

Are you serious? A Porcine CircoVIRUS is not a VIRUS? Seriously? Maybe this is a test to see if I will actually comment…i hope it was.

You seem to have a great deal of difficulty with anything related to DNA so let me help you out. There were fragments of PCV 1 and 2 found at very low copy numbers in the vaccines. NOT VIRUS.

I also understand that when the Rotateq vaccine was RECALLED they said there was no harm or evidence of harm to humans. They always say that but their actions speak louder than their words. Your ignorance is amazing to think that the billions and billions of dollars made by this toxic concoction would be allowed to be affected negatively. It was a big step to just recall the vaccine.

Wrong again. A rotavirus vaccine was recalled, specifically Rotashield, for its association with increased risk of intussusception in recipients. Note that it was recalled as a result of VAERS reporting. Also note, that “tens of thousands” of maimed children have not occurred.

Are you sure about the live rotavirus shedding not perpetuating the disease? I mean, aside from the numerous evil anecdotal stories i have heard, here is a blurb from medscape:

*”Viral shedding has been demonstrated in the stool samples of 0.3-8.9% of patients receiving rotavirus vaccine. Shedding has been documented as early as 1 day after immunization and as late as 15 days after a dose. As a result, families should be aware of the potential risk to close contacts who are immunocompromised.”*

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/549275

If it doesn’t “perpetuate the disease” then what is the potential risk to the immunocompromised? Can’t wait to hear this one…

Do you know the definition of “perpetuate”? Particularly as it pertains to how you are implicating? No, it’s obvious you don’t. Perpetuating the disease means that it becomes established in a susceptible population and is continually transmitted. The rotavirus vaccine strains are very self-limiting even if transmission to an immunocompromised recipient occurs.
Chris
April 9th, 2011
19:13:16

Ken:

I mean, with a post like ‘There is no mercury in Vaccines’ on one,

That post is not on Sharon’s blog but is There Is No Mercury in Vaccines. I suggest you read it. You may have noticed I never refer to the “mercury in vaccines”, but very specifically refer to the “thimerosal in vaccines.” Do you get the difference?

Again, you are arguing semantics. Try now to argue with some actual facts.
Science Mom
April 9th, 2011
19:35:10

I know I wasn’t going to comment anymore, but I can’t let this comment go unchecked.

Considering what an ass of yourself you make by trying to rebut my evidence, you really should think about sitting on your hands. Or not and I get to reveal yet another arrogantly ignorant anti-vaxxer “education”.
Ken
April 9th, 2011
19:41:32

@Chris

“That post is not on Sharon’s blog but is There Is No Mercury in Vaccines. I suggest you read it. You may have noticed I never refer to the “mercury in vaccines”, but very specifically refer to the “thimerosal in vaccines.” Do you get the difference?

Again, you are arguing semantics. Try now to argue with some actual facts.”

Ok, so now I understand why you are so sensative to my comments on that particular article. You wrote it, that explains the repeated calling out of me based on a passing comment. I totally get that Thimerosal is ROUGHLY 50% ethyl-mercury(FACT). I totally get that…do you? You seem to try and hide behind that fact that this mercury basee preservative is called Thimerosal. It doesn’t matter what it is called, it has mercury in it(FACT).

I’m not the one arguing semantics, you are. By trying to cherry pick that there are certain formulations that do not contain Thimerosol is completely ignoring the fact that there are vaccines that do have varrying amounts of Thirmerosol(FACT). Please understand that I cannot understand my simple statement that to say “There is No Mercury in Vaccines” is plain WRONG! I can’t make it any simpilar than that.
Chris
April 9th, 2011
19:42:48

Science Mom:

Or not and I get to reveal yet another arrogantly ignorant anti-vaxxer “education”.

Exactly. I am waiting for Sniffer to come back and tell how Dr. Kelsey actually approved thalidomide in the USA. That would be amusing.

(by the way, the FDA did finally approve thalidomide for some very specific conditions like multiple myeloma and Hanson’s Disease (leprosy), but only in the last two decades and never for pregnant women)
Ken
April 9th, 2011
20:05:44

@Science Mom

“You seem to have a great deal of difficulty with anything related to DNA so let me help you out. There were fragments of PCV 1 and 2 found at very low copy numbers in the vaccines. NOT VIRUS.”

And you seem to get hung up on trivial matters. Here is a link to the FDA that says they found PCV 1 (VIRUS, me correct) in Rotarix and PCV 1 and 2 (DNA, you correct, but I could care less if it is a virus or DNA, I don’t want either) in Rotateq: http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBl.....205547.htm

Excerpt from FDA: “Within the last two months, FDA became aware of the presence PCV1 in Rotarix and DNA from PCV1 and PCV2 in RotaTeq.”

“Wrong again. A rotavirus vaccine was recalled, specifically Rotashield, for its association with increased risk of intussusception in recipients. Note that it was recalled as a result of VAERS reporting. Also note, that “tens of thousands” of maimed children have not occurred.”

Let’s not pretend that I am not keenly aware of the Rotashield recall and the FACT that they could not hide behind that one, it was maiming infants and there was no denying it. This “Harmless” Pig VIRUS surely was/or will cause something. You can bet money on it! My point was they don’t recall vaccines for willy nilly things, thanks for making my point!

My “tens of thousands” quote is an opinion based on the fact that 1 million Americans alone were vaccinated with the Rotashield Vaccine and even in the clinical trials of this vaccine, it demonstrated an intussusception rate 30 times higher than expected. Now, if it is able to damage intestines to the point where they can twist or telescope inwardly into another, it probably caused quite a few cases of other Gastro issues, no?
Ken
April 9th, 2011
20:11:37

@Science Mom

“Considering what an ass of yourself you make by trying to rebut my evidence, you really should think about sitting on your hands. Or not and I get to reveal yet another arrogantly ignorant anti-vaxxer “education”.”

I think you better go back and review the discussion between us.
I have been arguing areas that are very low on my level of importance to this point. (Vaccines/Autism, Wakefield, DNA). When we start getting into all of the areas that Vaccines harm or are ineffective, I can be here all day.
Chris
April 9th, 2011
20:38:22

Ken:

When we start getting into all of the areas that Vaccines harm or are ineffective, I can be here all day.

That should be interesting. I have been asking for the actual evidence that the MMR vaccine is more dangerous than measles, mumps and rubella, and how the DTaP is riskier than diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis for ages. It would be nice if someone finally answered with actual science, and not merely repeating the falsehoods perpetuated on sites like AgeofAutism, NaturalNews package inserts or even CBS news. And it would be nice to see studies that are not cherry picked and/or misrepresented.
sniffer
April 9th, 2011
21:00:44

Chris
How do I answer you, one who seems to correct bloggers with scorn and venom. So hopefully, without receiving further scorn from you and obviously your fellow supporters (no offence meant to anyone else) my view for debate only pleasssse.

My sincere apologies, Dr Kelsey was such an insignificant name ,I couldn’t be bothered in answering you about someone who had so little to do with Thalidomide injury .America also had near to zero involvement ,because America at the time was better regulated and wasn’t so slipshod, lackadaisical and had a better regulatory system.

“In the future you get your medical information from places other than John Scudamore’s whale.to site and any site that starts with the word “political”.

Again I am confused as to your reference to John Scudamore and Whale ,I only mentioned that site once for a story that I could have got from several sites. You and your supporters seem pathological when anyone mentions Whale ,and parallels’ Blackadders Sense and Senility “Don’t mention Mac Beth”.

The word political ,search me I can`t find why anyone would have a problem with that.

Paramount you miss the discussion in your blinding outrage and offer no comment on the Thalidomide 2nd generation victims’, do you have a view point on this please.

Your copy and paste of Dangerous Pregnancies Mothers, one book I have never perused. I read lots of reviews in my line of work and concerning the writer Leslie Regan I find her work technically correct but lacks depth.

Daedelus
I agree with you that the synopsis on neural tube closure. Until science can detect which mothers ,children will not be able to tolerate thalidomide and may I add drugs and vaccines, should we be mandating their widespread use for all children?I say nay.

If you are a parent with a vaccine-injured child, your answer may differ from that of a parent who does not have a vaccine-injured child. I cannot stop thinking about what caused the immune reaction in Pardo’s 2004 study.

Then I read that Deer’s and other “studies” have shown that vaccines do not cause autism. After taking many logic courses, I know that this is faulty reasoning. We supposedly do not know what causes autism. If this is the case, how do we know that vaccines do not cause autism? This does not make logical sense. More relevantly, there are plenty of well-established science theories that as you have done explain the systems in our bodies that are affected by say,vaccines. There are plenty of well-educated people with letters after their names who can explain the systems that are affected by the toxins in our environment. People are still studying the effect of the combination of vaccines and the toxins in our environment on the systems in our bodies.. the book is far from closure again I will no doubt be piled with scorn for my above view.
Again I have yet to discuss with anyone 2nd generation Thalidomide,Thalidomide in ADHD..and the sense and science of this any takers ,please refrain from argumentum ad hominem
Chris
April 9th, 2011
21:37:24

Sniffer:

My sincere apologies, Dr Kelsey was such an insignificant name ,I couldn’t be bothered in answering you about someone who had so little to do with Thalidomide injury .

So you never even bothered to look her up? She was the reason that thalidomide was never approved by the FDA, even though she was under tremendous pressure by the American distributor of that drug (and they still gave free samples to doctors, a practice that is now illegal—- can you guess why?).

So you think she won the highest civilian award in this country for nothing?

Also, as far as the book: how am I supposed to cut and paste from an actual copy of the book? I held it and gave a synopsis of the data. Your comment about depth is laughable, she is a legal historian.

What you are trying to do is dig out from the hole you created by parroting the old and tired “thalidomide and Vioxx” portion of the “science was wrong before” that you read on a news article. Like the on being discussed here:

Science has been wrong before. She used Vioxx and Thalidomide as examples. Never mind that Thalidomide was never approved in the U.S. at the time of all the birth defects (it’s approved now to treat multiple myeloma), and in fact was an example of the FDA doing its job.

As far as John Scudamore: look up Scopie’s Law.

You just pasted one story about one person affected by a drug that was sold with lax regulatory oversight. It never occurred to you that thalidomide was never approved for use in the USA, and because of what it did in Europe caused regulatory laws to be changed. The only thing it has to do with vaccines is that they are tested extensively before being approved. The opposite of what you what to mean.

Considering your lack of knowledge about its history, the next time you bring up thalidomide, provide evidence that can be found in a medical school library. Not a news story about someone born about fifty years ago.
Science Mom
April 9th, 2011
21:42:11

I think you better go back and review the discussion between us.

I don’t have to, that is why I quote, so there are no mistakes as to what I am responding to.

I have been arguing areas that are very low on my level of importance to this point. (Vaccines/Autism, Wakefield, DNA). When we start getting into all of the areas that Vaccines harm or are ineffective, I can be here all day.

Oh this is bloody rich, in other words, you are making demonstrably false statements but it doesn’t matter because you don’t care much for the topics, even though you are the one who raised the spectre of plausibility and accuracy. And, watch out when you get into a topic that you know even less about, why you could go on endlessly I’m sure.

One of the problems I have with people like you Ken is how intellectually bankrupt you are. Not only do you repeatedly make ignorantly, patently false statements, but you don’t have the integrity to take a step back and evaluate your actual level of knowledge on the subject and maybe realise how out of your depth you are. Nope, you just keep blazing cluelessly ahead, shifting goalposts, making lame excuses and trying to dredge up anything that you think will support your position, rather than the other way around, which is to formulate a solid position based upon the evidence.
sniffer
April 9th, 2011
22:13:15

Chris,

I have more to do with the damage that is around us today. I take nothing away from Dr Kelsey she is held up by many and has been awarded an award for something that hasn’t happened great. I am more concerned with the thousand `s around the world today and more appearing all the time ,” Don’t mention Whale moment” so I found this for you elsewhere http://www.pnc.com.au/~cafmr/o.....alid2.html

Real people below Chris ,alive just now born within the past 6 years with the same horrendous injuries.

http://www.thalidomideuk.com/w.....domide.htm

Please don`t get annoyed Chris, just sad stories of real people horrendously damaged ,100% avoidable.

Lets pray for them.
daedalus2u
April 10th, 2011
02:09:44

sniffer, you seem to not understand the timing of neural tube closure. It happens very early in the first trimester. If the neural tube closes properly, the fetus can develop a normal neurvous system. If the neural tube does not close properly, it cannot. Neural tube closure only has do do with exposures at the time of closure. Vaccines given years later can have no effect.

A viral illness during pregnancy can have adverse fetal effects, which is why it is important for women to be sure of their vaccination status, and catching up on their vaccines before they become pregnant so that exposure to viral infection in utero can’t happen.
Chris
April 10th, 2011
04:13:36

Sniffer, the dependence on animal testing was exactly why Dr. Kelsey refused to license thalidomide in the USA. Your absolute refusal to understand that the FDA actually did its job goes beyond bias confirmation and is bordering on willful ignorance.

The first site seems to be using cherry picking, and diversionary tactics. They did not mention that it was not approved in the USA, only saying:

Over twenty years later, on July 19, 1983, a headline in the New York Times revealed: “Physical and Mental Disabilities in Newborns Doubled in 25 Years”. More recently, the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation, an organisation responsible for monitoring birth defects, reveals that every year more than a quarter million babies (1 in 12) are born with birth defects in the United States.

Which implies it is drugs, but it depends more on news reports, and not even giving the March of Dimes cite for us to check on what it really says. The reason for birth defects could be that premature babies, including some very tiny babies, tend to live instead of die. As it turns out, prematurity is now a major focus of the March of Dimes. The first website is lying through omission.

Do tell the people who run the second link to get a better web designer. It is horrible (and I thought the March of Dimes website was annoying!). And again, I cannot find evidence that children have been born recently due to the use of thalidomide for leprosy or cancer. I did find on this page a statement that:

We Do Not want the drug banned in countries where the pharmaceutical suppliers have involved European thalidomide survivors groups with the guidelines. Thalidomide UK believes that we should work towards licensing the drug, which would prevent it being easily available over the internet and would stop pharmaceutical companies supplying the drug with the side effect warnings being displayed on a little piece of paper that includes small print.

Did you even read that website? Granted it is very difficult to do (white text on a blue background covered in white dots!). But I did see this page on the brands. Looking at the USA it says “1958 – December 1961 as samples only and clinical trials.” The free samples were not approved, it was down under the counter. Which is what I have been telling you all along.

I never found the link to the teratogenic births in the last decade. Could you be more specific?

In the future stick to PubMed citations. I used the terms “thalidomide teratogenicity case report” in PubMed and came up with eight papers. The only one that seemed to involve real children was this:
Pediatrics. 1999 Apr;103(4):e44.
Thalidomide in children undergoing bone marrow transplantation: series at a single institution and review of the literature.
Mehta P, Kedar A, Graham-Pole J, Skoda-Smith S, Wingard JR.

Also, do tell us how many thalidomide babies were born in the last decade compared to those with Congenital Rubella Syndrome (according to the CDC Pink Book Appendix G there were at least ten cases of CRS in the USA since 2001). Provide a real reference (like a case report).

Now please explain to us again how much more dangerous vaccines are versus the diseases. Remembering that thalidomide was never approved for use in the USA, it was used in Europe for pregnant women fifty years ago, it is only now approved for certain conditions and all pediatric vaccines have been available without thimerosal for a decade.
Chris
April 10th, 2011
04:26:03

I should add, Sniffer, are you also fighting the use of the acne medication, Accutane? It is also teratogenic, and is probably prescribed more often than thalidomide.
sniffer
April 10th, 2011
20:39:28

Dear daedalus2u
The cause of NTDs is not known. Scientists believe that there are genetic, environmental, and nutritional components. However, according to the March of Dimes, the parents of about 95% of babies born with NTDs do not have a family history of these disorders. Some seizure medications, such as Valproic acid, have been associated with an increased risk, as have certain diseases in the mother, such as diabetes. Risk can be reduced but not eliminated by ensuring that the mother has adequate folate/folic acid at the time of conception the book remains open very much like the problem in the neural tube fusing process .

Dear Chris
I have no wish prevaricate, antagonise your tortured mind and, I hearby unreservedly state that The American system in place at that time, stopped Thalidomide thorough the actions of Dr Kelsey.

“The first site seems to be using cherry picking, and diversionary tactics. They did not mention that it was not approved in the USA, only saying:”

A bit tiresome and banner waving Chris ,no diversionary tactics.Try and get out of the everybody is against us mentality I am not, just here to have a civil debate.

“Which implies it is drugs, but it depends more on news reports, and not even giving the March of Dimes cite for us to check on what it really says. The reason for birth defects could be that premature babies, including some very tiny babies, tend to live instead of die. As it turns out, prematurity is now a major focus of the March of Dimes. The first website is lying through omission.”

Chris , if you think the site lies complain .The owners of the site are very open to opinion based on past experience when contacting them. I certainly don’t read it as a lying organisation.If you look at any of the pictures do the pictures lie ,tricks of the camera flipper`s etc, Chris?

“Do tell the people who run the second link to get a better web designer. It is horrible (and I thought the March of Dimes website was annoying!). “

Well I mean,it is under construction it states that when you browse. I fail to see why anyone would need to tell them to change the site ,unless of course you are just being bloody minded.

“And again, I cannot find evidence that children have been born recently due to the use of thalidomide for leprosy or cancer”

On the site I gave you Chris,left hand side you must have over looked it Freddie Musena Fund.

http://www.thalidomideuk.com/freddiemusena.htm

Plenty more below from, WHO ,
http://apps.who.int/medicinedo.....45e/4.html
“Today, a large number of thalidomide babies continue to be born each year16-18 possibly reflecting regulatory insufficiency and widespread use under inadequate supervision. In Brazil, which has more than 1000 registered thalidomide victims, the last officially known case was born in 199519,20. There is evidence that second generation babies with similar deformities are being born to thalidomide victims21,22”

Your remaining posting is outlandish, I say, or has been answered above.

I also note that you did not share a prayer for the victims, or feel any compassion
Chris
April 10th, 2011
22:24:32

Comment has gone into the ether. Short version:

Sniffer, please explain what thalidomide has to do with vaccines? How are regulations in Kenya and the USA equivalent?

Please show us that the MMR is more dangerous than measles, mumps and rubella.

I would also like to post some quotes from you:

Moderators ,the bloggers on here are taking time to construct discussion and are met with vile hostility from a few .Would the moderator please remove the culprits they are obvious to everyone and seem to demonstrate a dis-like to open discussion offering nothing constructive to the discussions’.

And later:

I have no wish prevaricate, antagonise your tortured mind

and

Your remaining posting is outlandish, I say, or has been answered above.

Pot, meet kettle.
sniffer
April 10th, 2011
22:57:21

Dear Chris

You are extremely belligerent, who is debating vaccines, thalidomide autism, mmr ,measles, mumps ,rubella Kenya and god almighty the USA (sorry God) all in one breath/post? I have only included replies as requested .

My observations of your writing and my replies are written after exasperation and provocation on here. Your totally un quantified to try and turn the situation round when you are a perpetrator.

If you are so stuck as you obviously showed, you couldn’t read the web site I directed to you before . I feel from your English ,you were in a loud-mouthed ,blind rage when I was merely only looking for civilised debate.
Autism and Thalidomide link ..?is this the dark alley your trying to lead me up ?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8157157

Chris, a coherent rational reply without the cheap ridicule please.

Yours Sincerely

Sniffer
Chris
April 10th, 2011
23:24:13

I wrote: “Sniffer, please explain what thalidomide has to do with vaccines?”

Answering with “look it causes autism!” does not answer that question.

Okay, so thalidomide, like rubella can cause autism. It happened fifty years ago affecting 10000 kids, 40 or less in the USA. At that same time Congenital Rubella Syndrome, which is also a known cause of autism, affected 20000 children just in the USA. From the Rubella Chapter of the CDC Pink Book:

A rubella epidemic in the United States in 1964–1965 resulted in 12.5 million cases of rubella infection and about 20,000 newborns with CRS. The estimated cost of the epidemic was $840 million. This does not include the emotional toll on the families involved.

The UK deafblind group, Sense, was originally called “The Rubella Group” for a reason. It would be interesting to see their reaction if you tried to tell them to concentrate on thalidomide instead of one of the things they do: encourage uptake of the MMR vaccine.

The title of this article is: “Sloppy science – a perfect example of how the anti-vaccine crowd will listen to anything.” Do not get upset that I have been trying to keep you on topic.

Thalidomide is not a vaccine. The MMR is a vaccine. Thalidomide is off topic, the MMR is on topic. Thalidomide is not in common use, and a person knows when they are taking it. The sloppy science around vaccines means that rubella can still stealthily affect babies (a child with rubella is infectious before symptoms, and can infect a fetus before the mother even knows she is pregnant).

If you wish to continue a discussion, I suggest you make it relevant to vaccines, and only use actual verifiable documents (similar to the WHO link). Thank you.
sniffer
April 10th, 2011
23:58:39

Dear Chris

“I wrote: “Sniffer, please explain what thalidomide has to do with vaccines?”
Answering with “look it causes autism!” does not answer that question.”

Your arguing with yourself Chris ,I have not said Thalidomide causes autism .

“Okay, so thalidomide, like rubella can cause autism. It happened fifty years ago affecting 10000 kids, 40 or less in the USA. At that same time Congenital Rubella Syndrome, which is also a known cause of autism, affected 20000 children just in the USA. From the Rubella Chapter of the CDC Pink Book:
A rubella epidemic in the United States in 1964–1965 resulted in 12.5 million cases of rubella infection and about 20,000 newborns with CRS. The estimated cost of the epidemic was $840 million. This does not include the emotional toll on the families involved.”

That is your take Chris,not mine and a copy and paste from the CDC .

“The UK deafblind group, Sense, was originally called “The Rubella Group” for a reason. It would be interesting to see their reaction if you tried to tell them to concentrate on thalidomide instead of one of the things they do: encourage uptake of the MMR vaccine.”

Again your debate is off at a tangent from what I have debated.

“The title of this article is: “Sloppy science – a perfect example of how the anti-vaccine crowd will listen to anything.
Do not get upset that I have been trying to keep you on topic.”

Oh!right ,so its becoming clear I am, an anti-vaccine-ator-exterminator alien type form?

“Thalidomide is not a vaccine. The MMR is a vaccine.”

Well no ,argument from me on that one !!

“Thalidomide is off topic, the MMR is on topic. “

Not to me ,I`m interested in Thalidomide.

“Thalidomide is not in common use,”

It is Chris very wrong again..look up Brazil .

“and a person knows when they are taking it.”

Is that so, what is Swahili, for Thalidomide?Thalidomide is only sold in English lettering.

” The sloppy science around vaccines means that rubella can still stealthily affect babies (a child with rubella is infectious before symptoms, and can infect a fetus before the mother even knows she is pregnant).”

Sorry I have not debated Rubella , this is inflammatory.

If you wish to continue a discussion, I suggest you make it relevant to vaccines, and only use actual verifiable documents (similar to the WHO link)

Chris ,why would anyone believe one organisation .As humans we compare ,that is what has made us the species of dominance (the healthy ones anyway) Do you shop only in Walmart?

. Thank you.

My pleasure

Sincerely

Sniffer
Chris
April 11th, 2011
00:38:09

Sniffer: “I have not said Thalidomide causes autism .”

Sniffer: “Autism and Thalidomide link ..?is this the dark alley your trying to lead me up ?” Followed by a link to a paper linking thalidomide to autism (a second time).

Please stay on topic. It does not matter if thalidomide is interesting to you, it is off topic to this article. Thalidomide has nothing to do with vaccines other than strengthening the pharmaceutical safety laws in the USA and Europe.
Chris
April 11th, 2011
00:43:45

Thalidomide is off topic for this article. Please stop derailing the discussion and stay on topic. Thank you.
daedalus2u
April 11th, 2011
01:57:16

Chris, it is kind of on topic ;) sniffer’s blind acceptance is an example of the very low level of sloppy pseudoscience that anti-vax advocates are drawn to and then accept without question. There is no increase in the incidence of birth defects in the children of thalidomide victims. There is no credible mechanism for thalidomide to cause second generation effects. It is pseudoscience and/or fraud generated and disseminated to scam people. Just like all the other anti-vax “research” and “information”.

http://www.thalidomide.ca/caus.....h-defects/

An authoritative link that was trivial to find.

The anti-vax advocates don’t have any data, they don’t have any science, all they have are their feelings that somehow, someway vaccines are bad. They are trying to compel reality to conform to their feelings, rather than the other way around.

They are left with trying to randomly find stuff that they think supports their position, a position that they don’t have the capacity to understand even the basics of. If they had the capacity to understand science, they would have abandoned their anti-vax position a long time ago. They can either stay on topic with nonsense, or go off topic with slightly less nonsense. Since they can’t tell what is nonsense and what is not, nonsense is all you are going to get from them.
Chris
April 11th, 2011
02:54:49

Thanks, daedalu2u!

Reading the link, and this sentence made me giggle: “The first mechanism can be excluded, since Lamarckism has long since been abandoned by scientists. ”
Sniffer
April 11th, 2011
11:06:35

“Chris, it is kind of on topic ;) sniffer’s blind acceptance is an example of the very low level of sloppy pseudoscience that anti-vax advocates are drawn to and then accept without question. There is no increase in the incidence of birth defects in the children of thalidomide victims. There is no credible mechanism for thalidomide to cause second generation effects. It is pseudoscience and/or fraud generated and disseminated to scam people. Just like all the other anti-vax “research” and “information”.”

Dear daedalus2u,

Thank you for pointing that relationship Autism/Thalidomide to Chris.
Many moons ago, the general public would have had a problem disproving your un –proven claims above ,but at a click of said, mouse they are easily shown up to be banner waving,unfounded denialist lies.

As written to Chris, the photo’s don’t lie of the 2nd generation babies showing flipper’s instead of hands and arms .Maybe your of the same ilk as Chris, and believe that the photos are trickery and the web sites of flidder`s are lies?written by liars,posted by liars thats what you and Chris believe seemingly ?

The rest of your blog is farcical,but not funny in any way,1 in 12 babies born here, in the US have a disability right,(March Of Dimes) .
If you and Chris are to believed lies ,all lies you would like to believe the damage isn’t that bad easies your troubled and tortured conscience ,obviously.Then why , what, about the photos of the thalidomide 2nd generation ? the camera is lying as well ,silly us? and to think the camera is telling the truth your anti-vaccine-ator–exterm-inatory-alien-life-form to be verbally abused and shot down on site .

I came on lbrb for civil debate on a site that allegedly supports Autism and disabilities( I have yet to see this) .When one starts to post you then find that the main posters are so twisted with denial,and vehemently deny that these dis-abled people exist in the first place?

The thinkers know diffrent..

Yours

Sincerely

Sniffer
Chris
April 11th, 2011
16:14:15

Sniffer, thalidomide is off topic. Please stop derailing the discussion to your own pet interest. If you wish to have a discussion on thalidomide do on your own blog.
sharon
April 11th, 2011
23:50:19

“a site that allegedly supports Autism and disabilites…(I have yet to see this.) None are so blind as those that will not see.

@sniffer, may I ask what your interest in Autism is?
McD
April 12th, 2011
08:23:41

Crickey dick!

After wading through the posts above, I suggest that maybe RBLB should invest in one of those screening programs that ensure the poster is, in fact, human, and not some sort of chatbot. Generally I don’t like them, because they do confuse me a wee bit, and I suspect they may be more confusing for people further along the spectrum than I. But, I seriously suspect sniffer is a chatbot, and maybe those ‘find the number’ tests are useful after all.

What do you make of this – on “Brian Deer: Stomping at the Savoy” sniffer made this post:
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co......ent-156502

Then on this thread sniffer makes this comment:
“Then I read that Deer’s and other “studies” have shown that vaccines do not cause autism. After taking many logic courses, ...[blah blah blah]....

Sniffer hasn’t a blind clue who Brian Deer is. And probably hasn’t a blind clue about thalidomide, vaccines or autism. Sniffer is just wasting bandwidth recycling stuff from other sites, and chopping up material from posters here with material from other sites (particularly large, sea-going mammal-type sites – lets see if the sniffer-bot picks up that reference out of context). Verbiage on ‘logic’ and ‘reason’ is pretty standard output from basic chatbots.

Hey sniffer,
1)What is the base rate of limb deformities in the population?
2)What is the rate of limb deformities among the children of thalidomide victims?
(Hint: the photos in either case look pretty similar! Photos, like anecdotes, have nothing to do with causation)
sniffer
April 12th, 2011
09:16:44

I stop posting concerning thalidomide and then the goading starts moderator you see this ? Mc D your so clever, (others tell the truth), You extrapolate to everybody without using the terms or words, Thalidomide,Whale, using only WHO web sites as all other sites are banned even the official thalidomide UK is to be banned and branded as liars (Chris criteria). Pro-disabled bloggers my granny would turn in her grave.
David N. Andrews M. Ed., C. P. S. E.
April 12th, 2011
13:43:03

Chris: “may I ask what your interest in Autism is?”

My guess is that sniffer doesn’t have an interest in autism. And, given that said person has already posted without actually answering your question, I’m willing to assert that I’m right in this matter. And if you were being rhetorical with your question, on the basis that you yourself think that sniffer has no interest in autism, I’m asserting that you are also right.
David N. Andrews M. Ed., C. P. S. E.
April 12th, 2011
14:26:24

sniffer,

This blog is about autism. This article is about sloppy science being used by the anti-vaccine lot to scare people into refusing vaccination – which will them weaken herd immunity to the diseases from which the vaccine helps to reduce the risks of infection and outbreak.

Thalidomide is not a vaccine. It has no role in autism. In that sense, it is very much off-topic here.

Thalidomide was administered initially as an anti-emetic and sedative during pregnancy; it had been found safe for use on the basis of rat testing and, indeed, was safe for use. In rats. But it turned out to be unsafe in humans. This was because of the fact that there are two stereo-isomers of the molecule, neither of which was problematic to the rats, but one of which problematic to humans. The ‘safe’ isomer is, however, susceptible to mutation into the unsafe one inside the human body.

The limb malformations associated with thalidomide are known as phocomelia, and it is known that there is a genetic component to phocomelia. I’m reminded of McD’s question to you, which you still have not answered!

Hey sniffer,
1)What is the base rate of limb deformities in the population?
2)What is the rate of limb deformities among the children of thalidomide victims?
(Hint: the photos in either case look pretty similar! Photos, like anecdotes, have nothing to do with causation)

Still not answering that? Evidently you have no sensible research skills.

Do us all a favour, sniffer: fuck off out of here, and get a life, and – if you must blog on thalidomide issues (in and of itself, not a bad thing to blog about) – blog on your own blog!
Chris
April 12th, 2011
16:36:26

David:

Chris: “may I ask what your interest in Autism is?”

Actually, Sharon asked that question.
Chris
April 12th, 2011
16:50:05

McD:

1)What is the base rate of limb deformities in the population?

A student speech therapist working with my younger son was born without one hand. Apparently it just happened, without any use of any drug. My son asked me why she only had one hand, and all I could think of was that it is very hard to make a baby. When all those parts are coming together, sometimes something can go wrong.

I am convinced Sniffer did not want to discuss his pet interest. He came in here blazing, and when countered with evidence that his facts were lacking he went into defense mode. He is not open minded enough to actually learn anything, least of all what constitutes real evidence. I’m sorry but the “official” thalidomide UK website is just as valid as Age of Autism. It seems they are also zealots like many of the anti-vax crowd (like Ken above).
Sniffer
April 12th, 2011
19:57:33

Dear All,

Daedelus has the whole world population in a sentence(excluding the regulars on here).
“The anti-vax advocates don’t have any data, they don’t have any science, all they have are their feelings that somehow, someway vaccines are bad.”

Sharon just now is interested in Autism .
@sniffer, may I ask what your interest in Autism is?”

Chris doesn’t know whether he’s Arfur or Marfur.
“Sniffer, thalidomide is off topic”
follows with
“I am convinced Sniffer did not want to discuss his pet interest.”

Make yer! mind up lad!!

McD Wants a reply-ish.

David N. Andrews M. Ed., C. P. S. E.
Just wants me to F++K OFF
“Do us all a favour, sniffer: fuck off out of here, and get a life, and – if you must blog on thalidomide issues (in and of itself, not a bad thing to blog about) – blog on your own blog!”

Dammed if do comment,dammed if don`t .I have no wish to be goaded ,or to annoy anyone on here.So I shall reply and then let you nice,charming people ,pick up where you left off with all the other bl-o-ge—r`s but, where are they? I am the only one on here for days??all been f+++ed off no doubt?(Davids lingo)

Sorry I will leave you guys to have a chat and whether you want me to reply..do let me know..unitl then.

Sincerely

Sniffer
Chris
April 12th, 2011
20:46:28

Sniffer, you did not want to have a discussion. You wanted a soap box to stand on and shout to us all. You had no intention of learning nor in engaging in civil discourse, which is what is how a discussion is defined.

Perhaps someday you will have an open mind to ideas beyond your narrow focus. Only then will you know and understand how to have a discussion.
Dedj
April 12th, 2011
20:54:42

“I stop posting concerning thalidomide and then the goading starts moderator you see this ?”

“Dammed if do comment,dammed if don`t .”

See, here’s the thing: you were expressly told thalidomide was off topic. Your response was to talk about thalidomide. You then went on to deny talking about thalidomide in your response.

You then went on the slate and disparage this site and many of the commentators, which has been the only consistant behaviour to run throughout your posts. You then cried to the moderator and called foul when people were a bit nasty back.

You either have an amazing lack of insight or you are behaving this way deliberatly. Either way, please get lost and stop wasting our time.
Sniffer
April 12th, 2011
21:53:58

Dear Chris,

I could copy and paste your above remark to any one of your supporters, the self-proclaimed pro-dis-abled bloggers.

Dedj
The fact is that not a poster on this blog here has the stomach to look at the babies born with flippers(Thalidomiders use this term not me), have they? Just to close to the quick, really brings it home to you all the damage your “un-tested as safe” lethal drugs can do.

Copied from David`s post before he blew it!!
FWIW David,Thalidomide is also officially guilty of causing Peripheral neuropathy..isn`t Autism along those lines as well? Some asked from me..

Hey sniffer,
1)What is the base rate of limb deformities in the population?
2)What is the rate of limb deformities among the children of thalidomide victims?
(Hint: the photos in either case look pretty similar! Photos, like anecdotes, have nothing to do with causation)
http://www.acpoc.org/library/1988_01_008.asp
“The United States, Canada, and the UK have no mandatory reporting of most birth anomalies. As a result it is often impossible for researchers and clinicians to determine the incidence of a particular condition. The data provided by clinics and from various birth defect monitoring programs are not sufficient to specify the incidence of a given category of birth defects. By combining information from several sources, it has been possible to arrive at a reasonable estimate of the incidence of congenital limb deficiencies.”

Its not all drugs,two for one Autism link on this one

http://ecochildsplay.com/2009/.....aste-dump/

Over £1 million have been spent already on defense in a case brought against a UK council by families of kids born with webbed hands, or without fingers altogether, even though toxicology experts say that the rate of abnormality in Corby runs 10 times as high as the national average.

Many more stories, that probably Chris will refer to as lies ..we just cant ask WHO Chris ,do they mention Corby??who?

Sincerely
Sniffer
Dedj
April 12th, 2011
23:43:04

“Dedj
The fact is that not a poster on this blog here has the stomach to look at the babies born with flippers(Thalidomiders use this term not me), have they? Just to close to the quick, really brings it home to you all the damage your “un-tested as safe” lethal drugs can do.”

First up, no one has indicated that they are generally uninterested in thalidomide, just that you haven’t shown it has any relevance to the pre-existing discussion. I’m sure I’m not the only person with past or present associates (and/or clients) with limb deformities, and I’m sure I’m not the only person utterly unperturbed by Cerrie Burnell being on CBBC, or Alison Lapper getting a spot on a Trafalgar plinth.

You are making claims about people that portray them in a bad light and are doing so without any evidence.

Secondly, it was indicated to you that the FDA never actually approved thalidomide due to safety concerns, and that you had no effective knowledge of the fundamental key player in that chapter.

This lack of knowledge indicates that you are only interested in this subject as far as it can be used as a weapon, and your screams of ‘look at the children!’ derive fron a desire to portray others negatively against yourself and thus is an attempt to gain validity through superior morality, all in order to support a pre-existing anti-mainstream bias.

Third, none of us here deny that drugs can and do cause deleterious effects. This is precisely why we want stringent controls and oversight.

You, however, appear to be stuck in the 1960’s, and you tripped up big time on that too.

I have no idea where you think you’re going with the Corby link. I have yet to hear of any case of autism being linked to the clean-up, despite personally knowing a number of people with possibly linked limb deformities. Having lived there during the full duration of the excavation, I would be very interested in where you got the Corby-autism link from as your link does not mention it.

You appear to be proving the sentiment in the opening post. You have thrown a rag-bag of items together in the desperate hope that something will stick.
sharon
April 13th, 2011
00:01:13

Sniffer say “Sharon just now is interested in Autism?” I’m not sure how you came to that conclusion. I live with Autism day in and day out.
I did ask what your interest in Autism is as I am genuinely curious. I am always interested in what motivates people. AS you probably know most people posting on this site either have an ASD or love and care about others living on the Spectrum. I wonder if that is your experience too? Not that you have to be either to comment here of course, just an interest in Autism is enough. So I am asking again what your interest in Autism is?
McD
April 13th, 2011
00:45:31

Sniffer, the Corby case has absolutely nothing to do with Autism or Thalidomide, or even vaccines. Although it does represent some progress in the area of environmental responsibility from a legal point of view – it adds absolutely nothing to the discussion. You are just dredging up drek, suspiciously like a chatbot.

What I do find interesting about your link though is that the Corby case involves dioxins and heavy metals (e.g. cadmium, lead and chromium) causing limb defects. These are some of the usual suspects in developmental disorders and ASDs, which are conspicuous by their absence in the Corby case.
Corby case in more detail on Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.....waste_case

And do you think this guy was a first or second generation thalidomide victim?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Buchinger
David N. Andrews M. Ed., C. P. S. E.
April 14th, 2011
00:38:12

Chris & Sharon … I beg your collective pardons … was busy with a number of lovely things to do (sorting out references for a text for publication as a course manual for Finnish professionals).
A Scientist
April 22nd, 2011
17:56:17

It takes only a quick cursory glance at this blog and its regular commenters to realise that this has no relevance to scientific discourse. Ad-hominem attacks prove nothing, regardless of who is making them about whom.

This blog seems to be setting up a strawman semblance of the article in question, by implying that vaccinations are the only subject of the work, and even then seems to overlook most of the references in suggesting that there is only one to support that particular claim.

Nevertheless, it would be far more productive to investigate all those causes that do have strong data behind them, rather than to waste what appears to have been many hours of various people’s lives childishly attacking proponents of the most controversial theory.
Chris
April 22nd, 2011
18:35:45

A Scientist: Do you have a point?

Though I do agree that Dr. Ratajczak cherry picked what data she was going to list, and ignored more recent research.
daedalus2u
April 22nd, 2011
22:48:23

Yes; a scientist’s point is to do what he says (don’t use ad hominem arguments) not what he does (use ad hominem arguments). ;)
Anti-vaccine propaganda from Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News | Health Articles
October 5th, 2011
10:54:12

[...] The rest of Dr. Ratajczak’s article is a hodge-podge of virtually every anti-vaccine hypothesis, speculation, idea, and brain fart there are mixed with the occasional–and I do mean occasional–grain of scientifically supportable hypotheses regarding autism. The vast majority of what is discussed, however, is pure vaccine pseudoscience. The scientifically unsupported idea that mercury in vaccines causes autism? It’s there. The work of the tag team of Geier père et fils, the same team who came up with the idea of chemical castration as a treatment of autism that “works” because according to them testosterone binds mercury, making it easier to chelate? Copiously cited. True, Ratajczak doesn’t specifically cite the Geiers’ unethical clinical trial testing Lupron as a treatment for “precocious puberty” and autism, but she does cite the “scientific” basis that the Geiers used to justify that trial, as well as a lot of the Geiers’ usual execrable studies linking mercury in vaccines with autism. Mitochondrial dysfunction, which has been co-opted by the anti-vaccine movement as an “explanation” for how vaccines supposedly cause autism? It’s there too. She even cites David Ayoub, who is known for thinking that black helicopters are watching him. In other words, her review is 95% pseudoscientific garbage, maybe 5% reasonable science. On second thought, I’m clearly being generous. [...]
Vaccinarea, encefalopatia si autismul | Nostrabrucanus
October 13th, 2011
22:07:05

[...] Evident, scepticii sunt pe pozitie desi realitatea este ca stiinta si oamenii de stiinta au fost de nenumarate ori fata in fata cu evidentele si nu au fost in stare sa vada dincolo de limitarile paradigmei in care inoata. Este o chestie interesanta si cu paradigmele astea; iti impun nu numai solutiile dar si modul de a pune problemele. Orice persoana pune problema altfel decat “da voie paradigma” este automat eretic. Thomas Kuhn ( cel care a definit pe larg distinctia paradigma si efectele sale inclusiv in lumea stiintifica) mentiona adesea cazul descoperirii planetei Uranus. Ei bine, Uranus fusese observat de cel putin 17 ori de diferiti astronomi; toate astea se intamplau in perioada 1690 – 1782. Credinta preponderenta era ca luminile de pe cer sunt stele, dar observatiile legate de ceea ce mai tarziu a fost numit planeta Uranus nu aveau sens daca era considerata stea. Apoi Sir Herschel a venit cu o noua perceptie – “steaua”este o planeta pe orbita! Si totul a devenit clar! La fel a fost si A. Wegener si teoria lui “ridicola”cu deriva continentelor si provenienta dintr-un singur continent, la fel a fost si cu super-conductorii de temperaturi ridicate sau laserele, la fel se intampla acum cu perceptia legata de efectele adverse ale vaccinarilor dar si cu perceptia legata de influenta mintii individuale si colective asupra modelarii realitatii, chiar daca studiile arata ca aceasta influenta exista si este clara, dincolo de orice dubiu probabilistic si chiar daca in rapoartele guvernelor ( de exemplu SUA in timpul administratiei Reagan) este clara aceasta influenta si mai mult, este considerata un pericol – “recunoasterea generala a gradului de interconectare a mintilor ar putea avea implicatii imense sociale si politice pentru aceasta natiune si pentru intreaga lume”. ( vezi cartea “The roots of consciousness” J. Mishlove 1993). [...]