Blogcritics The critical lens on today's culture & entertainment
The Pathological Optimist, directed by Miranda Bailey, concerns United Kingdom former doctor Andrew Wakefield. Bailey chronicles events in Wakefield’s life. Early on, such events led to a scandal and charges against Andrew Wakefield for fraud. Subsequently, the U.K. medical board removed his license. Nevertheless, with his career destroyed, Wakefield continued to do research and holistic medicine in the United States. As Bailey follows Wakefield and journeys with him, we consider.
How can this mild mannered, highly intelligent individual be a charlatan? Bill Gates excoriated him as a self-dealing opportunist, Bailey reveals in a video clip. Indeed, Gates suggests, Wakefield wished to prove the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella), vaccine dangerous to promote his own vaccine. We wonder. After all Bill Gates’ testimony seems worthy. But whom should we believe? Gates or Wakefield? Of course, Gates. Not so fast. Then Bailey peels back the layers of the story of Andrew Wakefield. After we note the details we understand, Gates may be misled.
Through a fascinating journey, Bailey shadows Wakefield in live clips on the ground. Notably, we see video of him past and present. Furthermore, we see interviews with family, friends, advocates who support his cause. Clearly, Bailey presents the problems Wakefield faced with The Lancet article (U.K. journal). And she lays out the confounding events that got Wakefield’s medical license removed. In particular Bailey chronicles his collision course to clear his name, allegedly smeared and defamed by U.K. journalist Brian Deer. Considering that the truth speaks as an absolute defense against libel (print), slander and defamation, the truth could clear Andrew Wakefield, and damages for the loss of his career and emotional devastation could be collected. However, what if Wakefield cannot speak the truth?
As it would seem, the court silenced Wakefield. An issue with the judge’s relations comes up, Wakefield’s wife discovers. Additionally, Bailey reveals the blow to Wakefield and the family when the case will not be tried in Texas. Will the truth ever come out in a court of law?
Significantly, Wakefield remains involved with MMR issues. It is an irony that the scandal explodes with controversy to this day. Wakefield’s reputation optics in medical circles could not trend any lower. Nevertheless, in Wakefield, supported by family, friends and advocates, Bailey reveals an optimist. When one has “nothing left to lose,” one may be cheerful, and he, Wakefield, will fight on to reveal the truth. Indeed, this truth includes raising questions about the MMR vaccine.
Dr. Wakefield loved research and practicing medicine. As his life appears to languish in chaos and confusion, he remains dogged about the MMR. And he tells Bailey. I will not go away. If nothing meaningful abides with this vaccine issue, why waste one’s time in stubborn persistence? Why attempt to clear one’s name?
Indeed, issues related to the MMR vaccine have persisted for two decades. Emotions run high. And anger and irate retorts swirl, led by chief excoriator journalist Brian Deer and others. To Deer Wakefield appears a fraud, a charlatan, a liar. However, a problem boils up. For Wakefield may have noted vital information and data about the vaccine. Though Bailey touches upon this briefly, the meat of her documentary raises more questions than answers them. As an exploration of the man Andrew Wakefield, who discusses the initial controversy, license removal and defamation, we must decide for ourselves.
Tragically, autism spectrum disorder rates have increased exponentially. Since doctors’ administration of the combined MMR vaccine to children under 15 months, factors remain profound. Proven research by the CDC floated years ago. The CDC assures that the MMR remains completely safe. On the other hand ethnographic evidence, witness testimony, interviews and more indicate the MMR may give rise to autism in some children. Parent after parent, after parent, after parent identify a complete transformation of their child after getting the vaccination. Unfortunately, eye-witness testimony appears inconsequential to the medical industrial complex. Most assuredly, their hard data tells a different story. Yes! The MMR protects.
However, the film VAXXED From Coverup to Catastrophe levels the playing field. Bailey cites this film directed by Andrew Wakefield and produced by Del Bigtree at the conclusion of her documentary. Indeed, in VAXXED, a CDC whistleblower exposes fraud at the CDC. In a frightening admission, the whistleblower states that he and his team “doctored” the MMR safety results. The documentary connects the dots. Indeed, all of what Andrew Wakefield went through in his life and career moves toward the pinnacle moment of making this film. Hopefully, congressional hearings which would take the testimony of this CDC whistleblower may eventually happen. Sadly, autism rates increase when doctors administer the MMR at 15 months. Why won’t the CDC do more research?
Since the initial publication and designation of Wakefield’s fraud (1990s), circumstances changed and cleared a U.K. team member. Hence, one of Wakefield’s colleagues has been vindicated and his license reinstated. Andrew Wakefield has not pursued this path. The board refuses to reinstate Wakefield’s license. Injustice abides.
Bailey’s documentary which attempts an objective approach about Wakefield, raises questions about who this excoriated and vilified “fraudster” is. Has he indeed lied and proven himself a despicable devil? Why does Wakefield continually attempt to clear his name? Wouldn’t any charlatan just “get on with his life?” Why does this former doctor persist in raising questions about the MMR vaccine? Why create a documentary about a whistleblower who exposes corruption at the CDC? It would seem that one looking for money would run out of energy. On the other hand, those with a cause, those seeking justice often don’t stop until the truth comes out.
Because the details remain opaque about how questions began about the vaccine, labeling Wakefield a fraud derails the argument about the MMR. Brian Deer prides himself as the one who exposed Wakefield as a “charlatan.” As a journalist, he will not champion children with autism. However, Wakefield does. Not surprisingly Deer feels he did his job. And what was that? If he inclines to expose fraud and corruption, why not investigate the whistleblower’s allegations of fraud and corruption at the CDC? His lack of interest raises questions about Deer as a champion of truth and justice.
Interestingly, ethical bureaucracies self-police. Unethical ones hide, skew information, cover up negligence and dilatory behavior. However, when the possibility exists of there being a cover-up of data resulting in the damage of children throughout their lives? Such a possibility must be examined by researchers. Surely, one would think independent research and congressional hearings might get to the bottom of this controversy.
Meanwhile, autism rates increase. How long does a child with autism spectrum disorder live? If whistleblowers ever reveal fraud and corruption at the CDC in a congressional hearing, what companies are liable? What heads will roll? Not Andrew Wakefield’s. And that vital truth remains the overarching concern of his life.
You clearly have no appreciation of the lies and fraud foisted by Wakefield. He is a charlatan and a scammer who has brought back–by scaring parents out of vaccinating their children– diseases that have maimed and killed. Wakefield has harmed the public while not preventing a solitary case of autism. The movie should be called “The Pathological Liar”.
I cannot excoriate the content of the film. I can only report on it. If you want to excoriate Andrew Wakefield, I suggest you take out a full page Ad in the NYT and run it for 1 week. You believe he is a liar? Then let him sue you for defamation in NY. lolol The situation is a bit different in NY. It is NOT Texas. Secondly, since TRUTH is an absolute defense, if it is found Andrew Wakefield is telling the truth about the revocation of his teammate’s license being obviated and the license being reinstated, then the question remains, why was the same NOT done with Wakefield. He was the last on that report. There were more prestigious doctors above him also on it and they were not treated the same. So. If you are out to protect the millions of children? Why not start with research into the exponential increase in autism since the MMR has be joined together into 1 vaccine. Andrew Wake field is all for vaccination. He suggests the MMR be given at 3 years, not at 15 months. Secondly, he suggests that the single vaccine for each of those be given. Not the combined vaccine. You do NOT deal with the whistleblower who states that fraud has been committed at the CDC and he was part of the cover-up to skew results of the MMR and make it look like it is COMPLETELY SAFE. Why did this whistleblower come forward? He felt guilt. He felt he was responsible with 5 other team members for destroying the damning results of the MMR. He came forward and was ready to testify before a hearing. The hearing has been stalled. Congress does not want to hold it. Secondly, the whistleblower has been bought off. What I don’t understand is WHY the CDC won’t do further research on this. Allow an independent counsel of scientists with no outside agendas or interests to investigate and put this to bed once and for all. There is too much at stake here. Imagine having a child with autism spectrum disorder. One is a shame. Thousands and thousands? A tragedy. This needs to be resolved. Parents clearly do not want to take the risk with the combined vaccine. They should have a choice. Do the single vaccines, or do the combined MMR at 3 years. What the hell is the problem? They are not against vaccines, THEY ARE FOR THEIR CHILDREN BEING SAFE.
Shut up. Just shut up before you look even dumber than you do. When Wakefield and his cronies go into Minnesota to tell the Somali community not to vaccinate because of his fraudulent research and continued lies–which THEN causes measles outbreaks in that community resulting in a 25% hospitalization rate of those who contracted measles, then I, as a pediatrician and scientist have a moral and ethical requirement to speak up and out against this bullshit he spreads and those who believe him, including idiots like you. I deal with infants with pertussis who are too young to be vaccinated who catch it from older unvaccinated children whose parents were scared out of vaccinating by Wakefield. So I will speak up and call him what he is–a disease-spreading scourge. And you are a tin-foil nutter who needs to learn some science and medicine before spouting your nonsense which further threatens public health.
The Minnesota Somali community largely stopped using the MMR (which is their right) because of their experience and observations. They were seeing an extremely high rate of autism spectrum disorder (a disease they dubbed the “Minnesota Disease” because it was new to them) in their children.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/minneapolis-and-the-somal_b_143967.html
Measles in childhood didn’t require a 25% hospital rate prior to the vaccine. It mostly required rest, vitamin A supplementation (cod liver oil was the recommended source, I understand), fluids, etc. Is measles more dangerous now?
Measles was never less dangerous {Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor}
Measles reportedly improves the health and development of those who get through it, so it might be wiser to learn to help reduce the disease morbidity and mortality in health promoting ways, rather than prevent it temporarily when it is least dangerous with transient immunity leaving us adult mothers unable to protect our infants when they are most vulnerable to harm and also now vulnerable again ourselves, but in the 1960s there were millions of cases of measles that were not recuperated in the hospital. The MMR sometimes spreads measles (mumps and rubella probably) too. We just don’t try to ascertain how much.
That you would propose bringing back one of the most highly contagious viruses known which kills 1 in 1000 and permanently brain damages another 1 in 1000 as well as hospitalizing 1 in 5 tells me you have no humanity and no intelligence about you, which pretty much describes Andrew Wakefield and all who lick his shoes.
I’m assuming you’re quoting the prevaccine U.S. stats taken from about 500,000 reported cases a year, while there were an estimated 3.5 million or more unreported cases every year.
Fuzzy math won’t help us find the most “humane” choice for each individual. We have 1 in 45 children with the encepalopathy called autism in this country, millions more with other NDs. The mean life expectancy for those with autism is 36 years. We also have the highest infant mortality of the “developed” world (if we qualify still). Thousands die every years from “SIDS,” “SUDS, “SUIDS.” Another thousand infants die from asthma each year, about a thousand more as children. We don’t fully know the role of vaccination in other conditions that have mortality such as pediatric cancers. “Humanity” IMO begs that we stop pretending vaccine risks are “vanishingly rare”, but research it, work to either reduce it or find a better course in terms of mortality and morbidity.
If we were debating geology your profound intellectual dishonesty would place you in the category of a flat earther. Or if we were debating physics you would be telling me that gravity doesn’t exist and that people can levitate. instead we’re talking medicine and vaccine science– and as a pediatrician and scientist it’s clear that you as an anonymous poster have absolutely no knowledge about any of this. Right now I’m playing chess with a pigeon (aka you). And you, as the pigeon, don’t understand anything about chess and are simply crapping all over the board and scattering the pieces. There’s no further point in engaging you. But I will do my damndest to thwart the efforts you and your ilk are doing to damage public health.
But science tells us vaccines don’t cause asthma or autism, and that vaccination halves the usual SIDS rate.
I don’t know where you get your misinformation from, but it certainly isn’t from any valid medical source.
Whale.to perhaps?
I’ll just leave these here:
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The same old lazy meme rubbish – I will publish my standard reply:
Re your Philippine study
This study was funded by “Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization” and retrospectively picked a small region in a Philippines with only 85 vaccinated kids born in 1984. Google the study – Guess they didn’t pay the researcher enough money to at least make it look credible. It is a joke. For a start the number of vaccines kids received in 1984 was much less than they receive today. Also wealthy families are far more likely to receive medical care, better education and vaccinations. Malnutrition is rife in the Philippines and poorer families who receive less medical care, poorer education and fewer vaccinations would very likely
score lower in mental tests which is what this vaccine study supposedly shows. Rubbish.
Your KIGGS study
Firstly, even though the sample size was extremely large, the unvaccinated represented a very small fraction of it, 94 children,which makes it impossible to do any meaningful statistics on things such as autism which has a prevalence rate of roughly 1 in 110. Secondly, it is possible that at least some of the children for whom no record of vaccination existed might have still received a vaccine which went unrecorded. Thirdly, a lot of the data was based on a survey, which relied on parent’s memories, thus it is possible that prevalence rates may have been under, or over, reported. Fourthly, the survey did not ask for date of disease onset, therefore some vaccinated children could have gotten sick before being vaccinated and still be included in the vaccinated prevalence data.
Re all your bogus flu studies
The Cochrane Collaboration, the world’s foremost group of unbiased researchers, physicians and scientists, has performed a series of meta-analyses on the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine. In 2014 they found that vaccinating adults against influenza did not affect the number of people hospitalized nor decrease lost work. Cochrane researchers stated that their results might be overly optimistic due to the fact that 24 out of 90 studies were funded by the vaccine manufacturers, which tend to produce results favorable to their product.
According to Dr. Tom Jefferson at the Cochrane Collaboration, it makes little sense to keep vaccinating against seasonal influenza based on the evidence. Jefferson has also endorsed more cost-effective and scientifically-proven means of minimizing the transmission of flu, including regular hand washing and wearing masks. There is also substantial peer-reviewed literature supporting the supplementation of Vitamin D.
Dr. Jefferson’s conclusions are backed by a 2013 article by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine scientist Peter Doshi, PhD, in the British Journal of Medicine. In his article Doshi questions the flu vaccine paradigm stating:
“Closer examination of influenza vaccine policies shows that although proponents employ the rhetoric of science, the studies underlying the policy are often of low quality, and do not substantiate officials’ claims. The vaccine might be less beneficial and less safe than has been claimed, and the threat of influenza appears overstated.”[20]
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-toxic-science-of-flu-vaccines/5554257
Why are you citing it via citing global research if it’s such a crap study?
Shoes?
You are being kind.
I’d say they were aiming at a part of his rear anatomy around a yard or so higher up.
Over the last decade in the United States, the deaths of over 100 children — at the very least — have been linked to receiving a measles vaccine, compared with zero children dying from the disease itself, according to the U.S. government’s own compiled data. Put another way, an American child would have been infinitely more likely to die after receiving a measles shot, percentage-wise, than from getting the actual measles disease in the last ten years.
https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/health-care/item/20132-over-100-measles-vaccine-deaths-zero-measles-deaths-since-04
Wow! This hoax was debunked years ago, and even you eventually admitted it was wrong.
Memory loss, Judith?
Here’s what they were saying about measles in 1759:
“That fatal and never to be forgotten year, 1759, when the Lord sent
the destroying Angel to pass through this place, and removed many of ourfriends into eternity in a short space of time; and not a house exempt, not a family spared from the calamity. So dreadful was it that it made every ear tingle, and every heart bleed; in which time I and my family were exercised with that dreadful disorder, the measles. But by blessed God our lives were spared”.
EPHRAIM HARRIS,
CONONISTCOLONIST AND FARMER, FAIRFIELD, NEW JERSEY.From the book “Vaccinated” by Paul Offit.
Edited to correct typo.
Why would we be interested in this ancient, uninformed, seemingly random quote?
It exemplifies how dangerous measles could be, the previous commenter having questioned its virulence…
You might not be interested in the quote, but those who wish to expand their knowledge about measles would be.
Thanks for your interpretation of the OP’s motives, but obviously I want to hear from them….
As to the quote from some mad Christian of 250 odd years ago, I wouldn’t believe much from that time and am left wondering what a “cononist” might be.
Colonist, I guess
Yes, I think that’s it. It was a typo from the book, I presume.
You heard from me.
I did, but unfortunately you had nothing to say!
Perhaps you missed this: http://disq.us/p/1mss115
British researchers have found that women who had measles, rubella, and mumps as children developed ovarian cancer much less frequently than those who hadn’t. McGowan, “The woman at risk of developing ovarian cancer,” in Gynecological Oncology, no 7, 1979, 325-344.
In a controlled Swiss study of 379 cancer patients, a much lower chance of developing cancer was found in people who had suffered the childhood illnesses.
The risk of cancer, apart from breast cancer, fell by 20% for each childhood illness. Albonico H.U., “Febrile infectious childhood diseases in the history of cancer patients and matched controls,” in Medical Hypotheses, no. 51, 1988, 315-320.
Bluming, A.Z., Ziegler, J.L., The Lancet July 10, 1971; 105-107.
“Regression of Burkitt’s Lymphoma in association with measles infection.”
The Lancet in 1971 published an article with before and after photographs of a boy hospitalized with a large tumor over his right eye caused by Burkitt’s lymphoma. He caught measles while at the hospital, and it effected the complete cure of his cancer without treatment. The tumor began to shrink the day the
measles rash appeared, nine days later he still had a little of the rash, but the tumor was much smaller. By the time the article was published four months later, the boy was in complete remission from the cancer (without treatment).
Bluming A.Z., “Regression of Burkitt’s lymphoma in association with measles infection,” Lancet July 10, 1971; 105-6.
The Lancet, Jan. 16, 1971, G. Pasquinucci, “Possible Efffect of Measles on Leukemia,” 136. A little boy with neuroblastic Burkitt’s lymphoma, with a tumor over his right eye was admitted to the hospital for surgery, got measles at the hospital, and the tumor immediately started to shrink, eventually completely disappearing without any treatment. Photos are published in the article showing how the tumor shrank over time.
Also, S. Gross, “Measles and Leukemia, The Lancet, Feb. 20, 1971, 397-398.
G. Hutchins, Am J Dis Child 1947; 73:242-243. “Observations on the relationship of measles and remissions in the nephrotic syndrome, ”
Blumberg and Cassady, Am J Dis Child 1947; 73: 151-166. “Effect of Measles on the Nephrotic Syndrome.”
Bluming, A.Z., Ziegler, J.L., The Lancet July 10, 1971; 105-107.
“Regression of Burkitt’s Lymphoma in association with measles
infection.”
Judith, measles causes prolonged and significant immunosuppression.
Almost always, that is a very bad thing for people.
Very occasionally this severe immunosuppression can have serendipitous benefits… for instance it can result in the regression of some tumours such as lymphoma. This is so unusual, that isolated cases where this has happened are written up in medical journals.
Believe me, this doesn’t make a good argument for catching measles, or for not vaccinating against it.
It’s not “seemingly random”, as the topic of the conversation, well one topic anyway is. . . measles. In addition, Jens tried to tell us measles has become more dangerous since, well, 1759!
Then Jens would be a wrong about that as they are about everything else on this subject….
It certainly was the right of the Minnesota Somali community to refuse MMR vaccination… they did exactly that after antivaxers lied to them that it caused autism.
Vax rates fell to 40%, and was followed by a large measles outbreak, which sickened and hospitalised a significant proportion of those infected, and left the rest of the community scurrying to catch up on their missed vaccines.
Perhaps the Minnesota Somali community made an understandable mistake, because “experience and observations” is no basis for deciding anything?
Making life changing and, indeed, life threatening decisions based on anything other than actual information, rather than the incorrect notion that correlation equals causation is absurd and dangerous.
There is a good reason the Somali population are refusing vaccines:
2) Minnesota Somali-Americans had a 12% higher rate of autism than white Minnesotans, and more than DOUBLE the autism rate of the general population. http://m.startribune.com/de…
3) Somali-Americans reached out to health officials for help on this disturbing issue, but were blown off and told that there is no problem.
Somali-Americans were found to have double the antibody response to the rubella portion of the MMR. http://newsnetwork.mayoclin…
“In 2013, a report from the University of Minnesota estimated that about in 32 Somali children ages through … had been diagnosed with autism in 2010 …
“ What I hear from Somali families is that the children that are born here are the ones with ASD, not the ones born in African refugee camps. They said [nearly all of them), they rarely or never see ASD in Africa.”
http://rtc.umn.edu/autism/doc/Autism_report.pdf page 10
The lack of vaccination in the Somali community in Minnesota led to a report in The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.2 That paper indicated that most parents in the Somali community refused vaccines because they believed that vaccines caused autism.
When asked why they felt that vaccines cause autism, every single one of the parents reported that they feel that vaccines cause autism ‘because they knew a child who received the MMR vaccine and then got autism.’ One-fifth of the Somali Minnesotan parents had researched the topic themselves ‘and believed that science supports the connection’ between autism and vaccines.”
There is no “believe” he is a liar. It’s a demonstrable fact. He’s been stripped of his license to practice medicine. His Lancet article was disowned by his co authors and eventually retracted. There is a mountain of high quality, peer-reviewed evidence that not one single vaccine has ever been linked to autism.
The so called “CDC whistleblower” didn’t do what Wakefield claims.
Where did you learn journalism? The University of Phoenix online? Because you show no skills of critical thinking. You fell for this lying fraud.
You couldn’t hold a cup of water for Brian Deer, a real journalist who published in real websites that represent real journalism. You were hoodwinked by a fraudster.
Oh Big Guns – we have all the usual pharma toadies but now we have Skeptical Raptor
“I have over 25 years experience in marketing, business development, and product development in the medical products industry, working in a variety of marketing, sales, clinical research, and product development roles with large and small medical products companies. I have also had key executive roles on both the manufacturing and distribution sides of the medical products industry.” I did my post-graduate work in a multi-national pharmaceutical company.”
And your evidence that at least two people here are Pharma Toadies was what again, Judith?
Why would Wakefield recommend waiting until 3 years old to get the MMR when his buddy Hooker’s (now retracted) re-analysis showed the strongest association** in African-American boys vaccinated *later* than the recommended age?
* I use that term loosely since that small subset only consisted of a few boys AND it wasn’t a result that showed up in any other subgroup.
Protecting toddlers and young children from measles is important, since they have a higher rate of complications – including serious and fatal ones, like SSPE.
“Why would Wakefield recommend waiting until 3 years old to get the MMR ” Because he was trying to patent his own single measles vaccine.
Your reply shows that you did not write this review as a disinterested journalist in search of the truth but as propaganda piece by someone who has aleady made up their mind.
Go back to Facebook and leave movie reviews to real journalists
No, Dennis, this is a thoughtful review. The internet is full of propagandistic reviews by biased or bought writers declaring Wakefield to be a fraud.
Wakefield is a fraud. As I stated, that is based on real, indisputable evidence. Wakefield isn’t even a doctor any more. He’s a sad, discredited fool living in Texas so he can avoid prosecution in the UK.
Your Raison d’être is to put the knife into Wakefield and rubbish anything with a wiff vaccine skepticism. You have been doing this for decades.
And your evidence they are bought or biased (as opposed to avoiding false balance) would be what?
Although I broadly agree, please do let me know where these real journalists can be found?
Furthermore, is not a writer of reviews a critic, in this case a blog critic, rather than a journalist?
Parents do have a choice; they can accept medical wisdom or move somewhere else.
” if it is found Andrew Wakefield is telling the truth about the revocation of his teammate’s license being obviated and the license being reinstated, then the question remains, why was the same NOT done with Wakefield.”
You shouldn’t conflate the GMC decisions Against Wakefield and Walker Smith.
The charges were similar in some respects, and different in others.
Simply put, Wakefield’s included charges of unethical practice and dishonesty (found guilty), both men had charges of serious professional misconduct, which included performing unwarranted invasive research experiments on children (found guilty). They were both erased from the medical register.
Walker Smith appealed. His claimed defence was that he was acting in the best medical interests of the children, and did not know he was participating in Wakefield’s research. The judge believed him. That “defence” clearly could never apply to Wakefield.
Why Walker Smith was seemingly so ignorant of what was happening to the kids he was clinically responsible for remains unexplained by him.
Wakefield’s medical defence union advised him they would not support an appeal by him, as it would not be successful. Walker Smith having further incriminated Wakefield, he only looked even more guilty.
Understand now?
Carole, you could have bothered to spend even one hour trying to verify the claims made in the film and you would have then been able to conclude the film is based on false assumptions.
And there is no whistleblower. No one blew any CDC whistles. Thompson told Brian Hooker he disagreed with the study analysis. Hooker undertook a badly done analysis of the study data, which was then retracted from publication. Meantime, Andy and Brian made Vaxxed on the assumption Brian’s analysis was valid. It is not. Brian Hooker blew the whistles, not Thompson.
End of story.
No, Andy is not for children being safe. He wanted to patent his own vaccine, which would have made him a millionaire. That is what this is about. There is no valid reason to split up MMR. None. There is no valid reason to wait on vaccines. None.
That’s the difference between a reviewer and an actual journalist, Kathy. The latter are held to a higher standard. The former can have any old opinion!
Well, then this should be called “Los Angeles film opinion” site! LL
Well, it is called Blogcritics, isn’t that a clue?
We don’t just review films either…
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Maybe they are. You, however, are spreading false information to villify vaccination which makes you an anti-vaxxer. If vaccines are as dangerous as you say, why do you need to invent dangers?
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/409e8cee1ef729c545ede8de5dc1c1c714df7e997726183d93bfb35cf71c2d54.jpg
You’re lying.
“Secondly, the whistleblower has been bought off”
Evidence thereof?
You’ve written a 100% biased review of a “documentary” based on lies and you don’t care at all?
stop calling this liar “Dr. Wakefield”.
his licence was ripped from him because he LIED, made false assertions in that infamous “study” that was entirely a LIE
shame on YOU for supporting a lying liar who lies.
shame on YOU for supporting a position that puts children’s health and lives in danger from PREVENTABLE diseases.
MR Fakefield deserves every abuse he gets. Let that be his HELL.
Outside the box, and perhaps fodder for another article, Andy Wakefield has stated at at least one VaxXed Q&A session that were he to have another child now, he would not vaccinate. After countless interviews with parents, Polly Tommey and the rest of the VaxXed bus crew are now aware that the damage goes well beyond the MMR vaccine. Indeed, to the many who’ve researched and studied the paradigm it’s become apparent that it’s a cruelty, rather than a medical procedure.
So are you admitting that Wakefraud is anti vaccine?
Christopher, have you read my response? I am dealing with a few questions that have been raised. 1) Why won’t there be research accomplished by an INDEPENDENT group of researchers not beholden to big pharma, etc. 2) Why won’t the CDC advocate an option for parents, a choice? Allow parents to have their children take the single mumps, the single measles, the single rubella. 3)Why not hold off until three years on giving children the combined MMR. 4) Why not tell parents before their children are vaccinated that there may be complications with the MMR at 15 months…delay until 3 years. Or tell parents ALLEGEDLY there are problems with the MMR being completely SAFE for EVERY child in Christendom and everywhere on the planet. Allow parents the choice. Let them take the full liability and responsibility. They sign off. That way…they are accountable. Not the CDC, not the doctor, not anyone.
End this controversy, please. I am not referring to you. I mean those who are in control of it. And indeed, the shoddiness at the CDC, whether it be that it allowed such controversy to take place (the Wakefield incidents are just making it worse. You can rail at me. I’m noone. Others are fanning the flames). That was really a mess. If the CDC did commit fraud and tell researchers to ditch the negative results…they handled it badly. Word got out…Even if that is not true, something happened. And retraction and finger pointing to Wakefield is like letting the horse out of the barn and then locking the door. Bad news. Controversy? Bad news.
Maybe it’s because over the years the medical profession and big pharma have proven not worthy to be totally believed as “doing no harm,” and having their patients fully at heart.”
For example please tell drug companies not to list death, stroke, seizures, heart attack as a side effect of the various drugs they advertise on TV. If one has half a brain, one thinks, “How in the devil did that drug get through the pipeline and be OK’d by the FDA? I’ll stick with the disease. Why should I play Russian roulette when the side effect/cure is worse than the disease?”
And when you realize that vaccines do not go through the same rigorous standards as your average drug trials, that is hugely problematic. The CDC and those in the vaccine business have brought this on themselves. It was a time bomb waiting to happen. The CDC and the greedy corporates framed the contents. And even if the time bomb’s trigger was the discredited, defamed, devil, fraud, liar, charlatan Wakefield…I can add cockroach, stink bug, skunk, snake whatever you want to name him or me, the time bomb exploded. Now you are blaming the bomb when there would have been someone somewhere who would have triggered the contradictions/problems/concerns with the vaccine.
The bomb went off. indeed, it is in the best interests of the manufacturer of the MMR to want independent research done. If they are 100% sure of their vaccine, what is the problem? What is all this screaming about with Wakefield. Who cares about him?
it’s the children who matter. The hell with Wakefield. Discrediting him goes for terrible optics. Screaming at these films which have gotten out…and calling me liar, etc., creates bad optics. Calling me a shill is bad optics. It points the finger back at those who rail.
I do not shill for anyone. I am concerned for parents with kids. I have friends with kids, relatives with kids. I am concerned that the medical profession is more concerned with profits than these kids. I am heart broken about it. Sick to my stomach. I so want to believe that doctors and drug companies care for people first. Do you think I enjoy thinking they don’t give two hoots? It is horrible. It is horrible that I have to question and read up. It is so much easier to just assume that the medical profession, drug companies and vaccine companies love me and want me and my kids well, always. Yet, that is not the case. They like their bottom line. They love money. I and my kids are in service of fattening their wallet, not the other way around.
And if it is like this for kids, the most vulnerable, include the elderly. I have had experience with both. I worked in a summer camp for 4 years with kids who had autism and autism spectrum disorder. Those parents and those kids suffered and suffered tremendously. If the MMR exacerbated autism spectrum disorder in 1 child, it is too many. Would you volunteer to be the parent of the child devoted to a lifetime of suffering with this? Well, when it is possibly more than one, when it is two and three and more and there is a possibility that a vaccine may contribute, wouldn’t you think that at the least, doing more research on this has efficacy? I do. None of the “all vaccines are perfect” crowd thinks this. Who are the “all vaccines are perfect” crowd anyway? Who? And who do they shill for?
If Wakefield is indeed a fake as you suggest, then why is their even mention of a whistleblower and fudged results at the CDC? Why was one of his team members in the UK reinstated with his license? Why? Why wasn’t he?
I wish I was never ever made aware of any of this. All should be rosy regarding the CDC. I am heartbroken, heartbroken that medicine has changed since I had my polio vaccines and other shots. Since vaccine court was established in the 1980s, we have been looking at a paradigm shift. I want with all my heart to know that ALL doctors and that ALL drug companies are ethical, care about their clients, are responsive when there are problems and will guarantee they are responsible if there are any, and I mean any difficulties leading to injury and death from their products and practices.
That is not the case. I am sick about it. Sick about it. And heartbroken. I want to say, please CDC, please BIG PHARMA, please medical association, come back to ethics and people over profits and care and concern for patients. Please. But that can never happen. Wakefield, whether a liar a devil a fraud or a hero is who he is. And the pandora’s box has been opened. Not by Wakefield, but by the arrogance of the medical industrial complex to get away with legal homicide in the name of drugs, treatments, devices which will make people “better.”.This was going on long before Wakefield. For good or ill, he exposed an area, vaccines and vaccine court, which was more egregious than regular big pharma. But big pharma prepped the public. That is why vaccine court had to be established. The issues of liability were much greater, hence, the caps on suits, etc. in vaccine court. How generous of them. How protective of their profits. How scurrilous.
The arrogance keeps growing as CEOs and companies accrue money off the backs of the little people who they forbid to protest or question…and when they do like that poor sucker Wakefield? They throw all the PR they can at him to eradicate his career and reputation from existence. And as for the mothers whose kids suffer from autism spectrum disorder and who see the connection between before MMR and after MMR? They are misguided, emotional, wrong, stupid, to be trampled on, discounted, eliminated as accurate, etc., etc.
Lobbyists keep the corporates winning and the little people suffer misery after misery. Wakefield? Whether bad or good there are 1/3 of the population who will be for him because he stands in the mouth of the roaring lion and says, I know who you are and name you for harming folks because you want the money regardless. The snowball effect will only worsen. Vaccines need an apologetics film. A film on Jonas Salk or Louis Pasteur. Bring back purity, sanctity and ethics to doctors who have come up with vaccines.
I wish the CDC would come out and tell the truth if results were skewed. OMG. Make us believe in it again, believe in government agencies again that are connected with big pharma, medicine, etc. But my silly little drug dream will never be in the pipeline. The money that will be lost? CEOs won’t stand for it. So. This will continue.
To repeat and be redundant: Wakefield did not create this problem. Imus and his wife were onto the vaccine thing. As were others. Wakefield found listeners already out there. The problem has been there. The public has been made aware of it. If not for Wakefield, there would have been plenty to take his place, because the medical industry and big pharma does not properly police itself. And if we can see this tip of the iceberg, I can just imagine what is going on underneath.
No wonder a drug comes out and “death,” and “seizures” and “strokes” are a side effect. If you think this is OK all who respond here? Good for you. I am an idiot. I remember a time when doctors cared about patients. I know when the transition happened. And my family, all big readers and questioners of the status quo have questioned and questioned when profits trump people and when the products sold to the little people have no guarantees about doing what they say they will do.
Finally, not only is there a revolving door between lobbyists and big pharma and medical device companies, and those who are at the CDC, the money that is being made is just incredible. And all this has occurred when holding those accountable for errors or skewing research and the like has decreased. This is thanks to Citizens United. This is thanks to vaccine court. This is thanks to corporations going offshore for taxes and not being held accountable. This is thanks to medical corporates using people as guinea pigs and charging them very high prices for the honor of being their guinea pigs. It’s OK if people sign up for being a guinea pig with their eyes open.
It is quite another when the parents who do not know much and are kept in the dark, allow their kids to be used as guinea pigs and then get slapped in the face when their kid leaves the doctor’s office and hours or a day later is different from when he went in, before a vaccine was administered. It is quite different when that same mother is questioned and made to look like an imbecile for raising an issue that maybe a vaccine contributed or caused the change.
Parents of children who have had this happen to their kids? You can imagine what that is like. And when a mother turns to the very people who may have administered the potential poison to her child? No. She is just an illiterate, stupid woman. Yeah, well, thanks to stupid illiterate women, the human race has gotten us this far. And one reason is because they look, see and know their children and question and love and worry. They must not be dismissed. They must be given a choice.
One would think for the benefit of science, all children who allegedly suffered from the MMR with autism spectrum disorder? What happened? Further research should be done. Ethics dictates further research must be done on the MMR. At the very least, parents should be informed before having their kids being given the MMR. They should have the right to choose between giving them that at 15 months or 3 years. They should also be given the right to choose between the single vaccines and/or the combined. Why is this bad? For whom is it bad? Until the controversy is settled, why not do this?
To say the answer is Wakefield is a fake and a fraud does not answer these questions. To say the whistleblower never existed and blew the whistle doesn’t answer these questions. To say there are a bunch of cool-aid drinking mothers who had autistic children all along and were druggies and didn’t see it doesn’t answer the questions. If there are concerns, then answer the concerns with independent research. Children’s healthy lives may be at stake and the expense to the taxpayers of caring for such autistic spectrum disordered children in the future will be off the charts. For that alone it is worth it. The band aid of crying fake, fake, liar, liar, fraud is not enough.
Children are the concern. Parents are the concern. The controversy is not going away unless the original results and admission of guilt is brought out. The CDC’s optics are damaged. Wakefield is background noise. The mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder are a force. That ground swell is going to continue to grow. Optics need to be changed and a better PR firm hired to handle them. The current one isn’t working.
“1) Why won’t there be research accomplished by an INDEPENDENT group of researchers not beholden to big pharma”
As long as antivaxers perpetuate the myth that “every” research group is beholden to Pharma, then you will never get this question answered.
“2) Why won’t the CDC advocate an option for parents, a choice? Allow parents to have their children take the single mumps, the single measles, the single rubella.”
There used to be single measles, and single rubella vaccines. Measles vax rates never exceeded 70%, leaving nearly a third of the population unprotected. Rubella vaccine uptake was patchy. Folk just used to say give it to girls only, as they need it more, and then most of them never got it anyhow (as the huge rubella epidemics and tens of thousands of cases of dead and damaged babies from congenital rubella in the 1960s attests to.
MMR however reached high uptake levels since people appreciated how convenient it was to get a 3 in one shot protecting against potentially serious diseases.
Going back to single vaccines would be a retrograde step. Vaccination levels would never reach into the 90% plus range, and populations would remain prone to regular outbreaks.
The idea of a “choice” is fostered by those who give misleading information about vaccine risks. When people know the rarity of the risks for real, they are quite happy having combination vaccines.
“3)Why not hold off until three years on giving children the combined MMR.”
I answered this one for you before, perhaps you missed it.
First, why delay until after the age of 3? Are you worried by the CDC data reanalysis by Hooker that “showed” an increase in the proportion of African American boys over that age who had autism after MMR?
If you are, rest assured… He found no increase in any other demographic, and in fact his paper was retracted because it was found to be very flawed. So there is no evidence on which to base your desire for any delay.
I have never seen or heard any doctor or medical professional tell parents that MMR is “completely SAFE for EVERY child in Christendom and everywhere on the planet”, so please stop with the strawman…
And please stop saying parents don’t have choice – of course they do. Nobody will force them to vaccinate their children. There may be consequences to their decision, such as inability to gain school entry, but parents will have to work our the best alternative options, in the same way they work out vaccine options and make other decisions in life.
Why hold off until after three to get the MMR vaccine? The tiny group (about 7 kids, I believe) of autistic AA males got the vaccine late. AA males who got the vaccine on time did not have a higher incidence of autism. It is thought that this small group got the vaccine late because they’d been identified as having some developmental concerns and they had to be vaccinated to get into the preschool program. IOW, their autism preceded their vaccination!
Wakefield had nothingto do with this study.
Why not.
Why not? Because more children would be killed and injured by vaccine preventable diseases.
It’s not complicated.
Well, that’s an easy one to answer. Because your child is vulnerable longer. In the MN outbreak this summer, the median age of cases (patients) was 21 months.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/pdfs/mm6627a1.pdf
Why not?
…Same reason that people don’t wait until you are 70 before getting HPV vaccine.
Elaborating, not correcting
IOOW, the autism caused the vaccines via requirements for early intervention and the like and not the other way around.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4366e4467c2d9110291dab5d19a8074c97951528f7c72f59db1e6b00e6399a2b.jpg
Carole – thank you for your balanced review. You know it is good because you have the Big Guns of the pharma cartel – the professionals all here on this page to debunk anything you say.
Carole, all this comment tells us is that you are not a scientist, a medical researcher or even committed to logic and reason as the best way to understand this.
you ‘clearly’ are delusional if you place such untested faith in the ethics and probity of institutions and corporations that have MULTIPLE instances of fraud and malfeasance already charted against them. Who would expect that these already discredited institutions and corporations are now magically telling the truth ? Does this make you a useful fool to these power players… or simply a fool?
[citation please]
On August 27, 2014, CDC scientist William Thompson came out of the shadows and revealed that he had participated in a scientific fraud:
Ten years earlier, he and his co-authors had published a study claiming there was no MMR-vaccine connection to autism. They had omitted vital data which contradicted that finding.
The MMR vaccine was increasing the risk of autism. Thompson knew it. So did his co-authors. They buried that fact.
Before their skewed study was published, Thompson wrote to the head of the CDC, Julie Gerberding, informing her that, at an upcoming conference, he would be “presenting the summary of our results from the Metropolitan Atlanta Autism Case-Control Study [and]…I will have to present several problematic results relating to statistical associations between the receipt of MMR vaccine and autism.”
In other words, Thompson was ready to embarrass the CDC on the MMR vaccine-autism connection. He received no reply from CDC Director Gerberding, and his presentation at the conference was canceled. In 2009, Gerberding left the CDC. She eventually went to work as the president of the vaccine division at Merck.
Merck manufactures the MMR vaccine.
Outstanding Merck Cases: The first, United States v. Merck & Co., was brought by former Merck scientists alleging, “Merck fraudulently misled the government and omitted, concealed, and adulterated material information regarding the efficacy of its mumps vaccine in violation of the FCA [False Claims Act].”
The second, a class action suit, Chatom Primary Care v. Merck & Co., leans heavily on evidence provided by whistleblowers. The suit contends Merck fraudulently monopolized the mumps market. Those that are involved in the suit – medical practices and doctors – would be able to recover compensation for having been sold an overpriced, monopolized product and a defective one at that, in that the vaccine wasn’t effective. That suit alleged that, “Merck expected outbreaks to occur and, as predicted, that was the case — mumps epidemics occurred in 2006 in a highly vaccinated population and again in 2009-2010).”
The third, a senior CDC scientist, indirectly blew the whistle on Merck as it was really directed at his own actions as well as his CDC colleagues that were part of a 2004 study that involved the MMR vaccine. In this case the claims involve a cover-up of data that showed higher rates of autism in African-American boys after receiving the MMR vaccine.
If the courts side with the whistle blowers, it would represent a moral victory as they repeatedly attempted to stop Merck while still in its employ. Under the False Claims Act, the whistle blowers would receive a share – an estimated 25 percent to 30 percent – of the amount recovered by the government. Previous settlements of this kind have ended in hundreds of millions of dollars and have gone into the billions.
When you have to lie to defend your position, you should probably find a new position
Hmmm … Not all seems well in the ordered universe at Hickie land:
Dr. Hickie is a worthless doctor. Just check on the bulletin boards at the elementary schools in Vail and Rita Ranch! (Acacia) Finally the families are speaking out about his poor character and devious ways! Does he have any idea how many times he has called CPS unnecessarily and the cases were DROPPED!
The real lie is that vaccines and autism are not related. That vaccines can cause brain injury that causes behavior resulting in a diagnoses of autism has been shown time and time again. The Vaccine injury Court had even compensated children for it. The only people who are still saying there’s no connection are either lying or ignorant. Which one are you?
The unvaccinated develop autism at the same rate as the vaccinated so it’s obvious that vaccines don’t cause it.
It’s not complicated. It’s basic math.
Christopher, your government and big pharma supplied kool aid is ready . . .
Christopher, curious if you’ve done any research beyond the mainstream narrative and headline news? Have you seen this movie? watched Vaxxed? Have you watched the hundreds & hundreds of families tell their stories on the Vaxxed bus tour of the US? Have you listened to the doctors & scientists who actually looked at all this evidence, and said ” my god, I was wrong, I knew nothing” ? What do you make of William Thompson? Do you care ?! Or is your mind closed? To those just discovering here for the 1st time, my advice is to do your OWN research, read & look at everything you can, dozens of books, testimonials, documentaries. Then decide, I can almost guarantee, that this guy here knows NOTHING, he’s spewing what he’s heard on the BBC, he’s looked at none of the opposing views. Don’t fall into this trap of ignorance.
Dude, just stop. I’m a pediatrician with a PhD in neuroscience. I’ve done real research and published real papers. I’ve also cared for unvaccinated children who died from meningitis and watched infants too young to be vaccinated fighting for their lives against whooping cough that was spread within the community because of low vaccination rates because of the anti-vaccine nonsense your type spreads. None of the nonsense you’re citing here holds a milligram of weight against the vast body of science and medicine supporting vaccines. If you believe any of the nonsense you spout then you may as well believe gravity doesn’t exist and the Earth is flat. Please go try and convince someone else that you have some intelligence because it’s clear to me you do not.
You don’t appear to understand scientific processes at all, in addition to your odd preference for hearsay rather than information.
Given that, it is quite difficult to take the actual substance of your argument totally seriously.
Why, well, reading the literature is not “doing your own research”, it is just reading the literature. Admirable as that is, you need to include a wide range of divergent sources for it to be meaningful.
You then need to be committed to the evidence rather than other stakeholders, able and willing to believe it rather than the unsubstantiated…
Lots of comments to be made about this, um, “review” – but I think I’ll just stick with this one.
If you want to understand why there hasn’t been a “CDC Whistleblower” Congressional hearing, you might want to read through the actual documents Thompson provided to Rep. Posey (link at the end of this article):
https://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2016/01/04/the-william-thompson-documents-theres-no-whistle-to-blow/
The full statement Thompson made to Posey also emphasizes that, just because an association between the MMR and autism was found in a subgroup in a preliminary analysis, that does not mean that MMR causes autism.
The article itself (and related articles linked in it) includes some very good examples of how Wakefield manipulated interviews and documents in his Vaxxed film. Don’t be surprised – lying liars who lied 20 years ago continue to lie today.
The CDC deviated from the research protocol to cover up significant findings, rather than making precautionary recommendations and performing more in-depth follow-up research. That’s the take-home message of Vaxxed. If the CDC won’t honestly publish any adverse data to vaccination, willing to subject a subset of children to a significant risk, what aspect of the vaccine program can they be trusted with?
You wouldn’t know a research protocol if it knocked on your front door with a sign around it’s neck. All who worship Vaxxed have total ignorance of science. Heck, Brian Hooker couldn’t even get the statistics correct on his “re-analysis” and wound up having his “paper” retracted. How laughable.
The only research fraud we’ve found in the vaccine world is when anti-vaxxxers try to fabricate evidence that’s easily refuted. The CDC didn’t deviate from its protocol. It refused to use tiny numbers to show anything, because tiny numbers are statistically useless. But if you were actually educated in statistics and scientific research you would know this.
But sure. Embrace that retracted Brian Hooker study. Isn’t it ironic that almost every anti-vaccine article gets retracted, even by horrifically terrible predatory journals? That’s laughable if it weren’t so sad.
The only person who changed the protocol was Brian Hooker in his ‘reanalysis’. Because his software balked at generating stats for the AA males subgroup Hooker changed the group from the original 36 months to 31 months. DeStefano didn’t ‘change the protocol’… Hooker did to get the results he was looking for.
scienceblogs. com/insolence/2014/08/22/brian-hooker-proves-andrew-wakefield-wrong-about-vaccines-and-autism/
.
See Table 4 and Hooker’s explanation and admission he changed the protocol to 31 months:
translationalneurodegeneration. biomedcentral. com/articles/10.1186/2047-9158-3-16
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Gee, it seems the only “protocol changer” is Brian Hooker.
Well, that’s alright, isn’t it? As long as he got the result he wanted and could smear the vaccine while he had a case up for award at vaccine court and was dependent on a finding the vaccine caused his child’s autism. /sarcasm
.
BTW – Hooker’s phony conclusion that only late vaccinated AA males were at risk completely undermines Wakefield’s phony conclusions. Hooker’s “paper” refutes Wakefield… but the anti-vaxxers just don’t seem to notice or care.
Nope. Read through the *full* documentation and timeline discussion of the study protocol linked above, instead of the excerpts that Wakefield spoon feeds you through his Vaxxed movie.
There are things Wakefield really wants people to believe, which is why he only shows snippets of documents and tidbits of conversations in his movie. But when you look at *all* the documentation (don’t y’all antivaxxers always yell about “do your own research!”?), it’s pretty clear that he manipulated documents and statements and quotes . . .
OK. Wakefield is a liar, a fraud, a cheat and snake, a lizard a worm. Fine. Just because an association between the MMR and autism was found in a subgroup…does not mean that MMR causes autism. I agree. It also doesn’t mean the MMR doesn’t cause autism. The absence of evidence does not constitute evidence.
Clearly, if parents are concerned and doctors don’t know the potential problems with the MMR, more independent research is needed. If my child had to be the only child that got autism spectrum disorder (I know what autism is like…I worked with kids who were autistic on a range from very severe to less severe in a summer camp) and my child was noticeably different after the MMR, I would have at least wanted the doctor to tell me the risks and what were the possibilities that might happen. There is not 1 child with autism spectrum disorder after the MMR. There are parents on record stating that after their kids had the MMR they changed. It is not 2 kids. It is not 3 kids. It is not 10 kids. It is not 30 kids. It is more, much more. How many kids does this have to happen to before something changes? And trotting out the old fraudster Wakefield and fake VAXXED film and liar, liar comments and bed bug Wakefield comments to gaslight and divert doesn’t help. This is about kids. It’s about the potential dangers of the MMR in some individuals’ minds, especially the parents who had their kids have the MMR and ended up with autism spectrum disorder after.
One question is…why this controversy? All because of one pernicious and persistent snake? Or is something else going on? If one hears the parents of kids with autism spectrum disorder, it is heartbreaking. Are they all nuts?
Shouldn’t parents be told about any risks? If a parent is told, he/she could decide for themselves: to risk my kid getting measles…mild or severe, or risk my kid getting autism spectrum disorder…mild to severe. At least tell me the risks. Let me decide. I will live with the decision. I will be accountable. But to say nothing and then I take my kid home and a day later after vaccination he has been screaming and having fever and etc., he is different? I would be up the wall as many of these parents were. And then being told that it is nothing…that it is at the puncture site and will clear up and doesn’t? Or having the doctor tell me to my face that my child always had autism…a child once perfectly normal (I do know what normal children look like) becomes unresponsive, and all the various manifestations that can occur with autism? That is a brutality. I have lost complete control over the situation. At least let me decide if I want to risk that possibility.
Why is choice not offered? Why aren’t parents told about what has happened to some children? Why isn’t there more research about this possible condition created by the MMR?
Indeed, has anyone monitored the rise in autism spectrum disorder? The increase continues to go up. Is anyone studying these two conditions…vaccinating with the MMR given to a healthy child which after the vaccination becomes increasingly impaired with autism spectrum disorder? This very relationship should be studied with every parent/child who is being given the MMR and who has been given the MMR.
Keep a record to put to bed the controversy once and for all. Say it is 1 in 1000 kids who are vaccinated with MMR and then they happen to afterward get autism spectrum disorder. Then, tell parents of upcoming children to be vaccinated…this can happen, but also weigh what can happen the probabilities and chances of them having a fatal case of measles or mumps or rubella. Let the parents have all the info and let them make the decision. I understand it is not 1 in 1000 who get autism spectrum disorder. I understand the projections for this are very, very discouraging. Check them out online. It is now lower than 1 in 100 children will get autism spectrum disorder. For my generation, well, the paradigm was very different. I remember doctors making house calls.
Part of the problem that has created the controversy is that the medical profession assumes that the parents should give up their kids to all the vaccination regimentation without explaining the repercussion and side effects of the vaccines and their reactions. This is according to witnesses and testimonies of parents who noted the aftereffects of their kids being given the MMR and the doctor’s presumptions that well, this is the way it MUST be. No choice. No information given. That fuels this MMR controversy. This was a hot mess waiting to happen.
If Wakefield is such a horror, why play into this controversy he has nefariously and wickedly created? Do more research; let it be independent with no strings attached and prove all his allegations wrong. Give parents a choice in the meantime between their kids having the vaccines given separately, or the combined MMR after 3 years. Vacate this finger pointing and cockroach, Wakefield, rat Wakefield, stink bug Wakefield blaming.
This is about the parents and the kids. It is about choices. It is about learning the risks. It is about making informed decisions. Is anything 100% safe as the CDC seems to be proclaiming? Everything we put in our bodies can have a reaction. The effects of the combined MMR should be studied. And choices be given.
The vaccine companies have to work for the public who want to be on their side desperately. We want to love the vaccine companies. We want to trust them. But in recent years, the very nature of their circling wagons’ reaction creates rotten optics. How it handled Wakefield and the whistleblower is shoddy and it created controversy. The controversy creates bad optics like there is something that “they” are hiding. Hiding behaviors appear guilty. The fact that vaccines have their own court and do not go through the drug pipeline creates bad optics. The whole situation stinks because whether it is a conspiracy or not, it looks like one. Pathetic.
If upset parents see a relationship between the MMR and their kid getting autism spectrum disorder, (regardless of whether the MMR is the “cause,” or a combination of factors, i.e. the particular kid’s DNA, etc., played a factor with the combined MMR) slamming Wakefield doesn’t help. In vilifying Wakefield, negative news and PR have made Wakefield into a hero. And the terrible thing is, he sounds sincere, ethical, honest, forthright and upfront and appears to be standing in the gap for parents. Also, he has lost everything and still he fights on? Why? Say he is a liar, a fraud, a snake. He’s a tenacious one. Perhaps this devil is nuts? He sounds very sentient, however. Bad optics.
Meanwhile, the CDC team won’t come forward and show their faces. They are not known to the public. They won’t talk about their research in a film. Would they be willing to be part of a panel with parents of autistic kids on one side and them on the other? That might be interesting. Why not? It would show they are not hiding in the dark. It would show they are accountable and not afraid. It would bet better optics as they would be willing to say why they found what they found.
Also, The head of the CDC at the time allegedly became a lobbyist for a pharma company. Bad optics. What is that? There is silence from the other side. There is only a journalist from the UK who spoke up years ago, but didn’t reveal that the team member of Wakefield’s had been reinstated while Wakefield wasn’t? (I didn’t see it if he wrote about it). Wakefield sued him for defamation. Wakefield had no money and sued him. The case couldn’t even be heard because of the venue and the Texas judge. (Texas has medical torte reform-you can only litigate for a capped sum. NY does not. Sue in NY? The outcome might be different.)
Why would a complete fraud, liar, snake, cockroach, rat actually think a journalist defamed him and wrecked his career if the liar was truly convinced he was a fraudster? In a defamation case truth is an absolute defense. Fraud gets the case tossed out. Why did this fraudster risk appearing like the fraud he was? Clearly the snake thinks he’s right. Bad optics. Very bad optics.
Additional problems and bad optics? Parents don’t want to be told their observations are wrong, especially after they have videos of their healthy kids before MMR and their kids with autism spectrum disorder after the MMR. Bad optics. And the optics don’t help that autism spectrum disorder is growing exponentially and not only because the categories have been broadened. I wish that were the case. it isn’t the case of broadening categories. (Even “mild” autism spectrum disorder is a misery for the child and parent.) It is also going to be exponential costs for the healthcare industry. And we will be footing the bill…the middle class and lower classes. Not something any of us want.
All of these factors can be looked up. So the logic/arguments about the MMR whether right or not, create the optics that there is something a foul with the MMR. It doesn’t help that someone came forward to spill the beans and then later retracted and now is set up well with the CDC. Bad optics.
So this terrible optical mismanagement about the MMR with vaccine companies and their agreements with the CDC and vaccine court needs to be fixed so that it looks like the CDC and vaccine companies and vaccine court are trying to amend themselves and insure their good will. Another approach has to be taken because clearly Wakefield cockroach, slime bucket, snake and anyone who dares say, well, let’s look into this? They’re attacked. That attack appears to be a fearful reaction by PR for CDC or vaccine companies or their hirlings. Bad optics.
Enough of the scum bag calling. More research, information given to all pediatricians, amendment by the companies who wish to have good will with parents should occur. The public and parents want to have faith in these companies. What they do is visible. The light is shining on them. When they blame and finger point and vilify it looks bad. Any reaching out is welcome. Their (CDC, PR for CDC and vaccine court and companies, medical industrial complex) reactions to date have fueled the controversy. What a shame when a different approach would have made us fall in love with them just like we did when the Salk polio vaccine was given to every school age child. What a blessing. Vaccine companies were our saviors. Now? Things are different. We don’t need to read reports that the flu vaccine doesn’t work to prevent flu and people get sick from it.
Does that make folks ANTI-VAXXERS???? EWWWWWW. No. It creates controversy. It makes people think, “Why can’t they get this right?” It makes them think, “Why do I take the risk of becoming sicker than I would with the flu?” It makes them think. “I like vaccines. But I hate ones that don’t work and are a danger.” Bad optics. The vaccine court and vaccine companies are fueling their own problems. They should not then finger point their victims for not wanting to be subject to their mistakes. They should just do great research. And if they can’t, then lay off. But I realize that vaccines are money. Vaccines are profits. Well, we know that. And people will decide that they don’t want to be a guinea pig unless the vaccine has a fabulous longitudinal study behind it.
We need more blessings from vaccine companies. Not what many believe is a load of BS. Vaccine court is one of the “blessings” that needs to go. Revolving door movements between companies and CDC needs to go. Ethics? It would be nice for us to believe once again that money does not trump children’s welfare or people’s welfare. Vaccines from cradle to grave? Wow! People are completely turned off to this. Why? I assure you, it is nothing I did. It is all about the reports of side effects and traumas and deaths that have occurred. Not good PR. And frankly, PR will not solve the problem. Excellent, ethical research will. I can only hope.
The unvaccinated develop autism at the same rate as the vaccinated, so it’s obvious that vaccines don’t cause it.
It’s basic math.
Your risk-weighing (autism versus measles) might make some sense . . . if the MMR increased the risk of autism. But it doesn’t, as high-quality studies from around the world show it does not, like this meta-analysis:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X14006367
How much more research do you want? How many more resources do you want used to pursue this “MMR causes autism” hypothesis that has already been tested over and over and over (not to forget the related research showing how the brain differences associated with autism occur in regions of the brain that are developing long before the MMR is administered)?
Plenty of researchers are “monitoring” the increase in autism diagnosis – and they are concluding that much of the increase is due to increased awareness, changes in diagnostic criteria, diagnostic substitutions (fewer children are being labeled as intellectually disabled while more are being labeled as autistic).
Thank you for an informative review and thoughtful discussion of the overarching subject of the autism epidemic!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d56f4f488f1e220bc6804cad4d584e41f16d4033f44663cac4bc165a91b6e447.jpg
Thank you Carole for this thoughtful review, and thank you Jens for your good comments.
“However, what if Wakefield cannot speak the truth?”
That’s exactly the point.
He cannot speak the truth;- he’s a pathological liar, and a proven scientific fraudster.
What if Wakefield cannot speak the truth?
The Autistic community discusses this quite frequently – the answer is AAC.
The simplest form is pretty affordable.
I saw this movie in NYC. I am impressed with the objectivity of Bailey. She made sure to include every damning fact about Wakefield, and invited Deer to participate, which he refused.
Di Tosti’s review above seems to me a fair depiction and description of the film.
She did not invite Deer to participate. He got invited to talk to them about MMR, which he declined because he is very busy and cannot afford to offer his time for free to everyone who asks. He only later found out the film was about Wakefield and wrote, on his website, that he would definitely have participate for free if he had known the true nature of the film. But, the filmmakers deceived Deer. They knew, at the time they first wrote to him, the film was about Wakefield. They had already started shadowing him in Austin TX. They lied to Deer. Very telling.
One more note- the cadre of ardent vaccine defenders Chris Hickie Skeptical Raptor Mike Stevens ignore the Institute of Medicine’s conclusions on the lack of the adequate vaccine safety data. IOM has been saying this since the vaccine schedule was ramped up under the liability free environment created by the Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. Here is a superb piece of coherent research, with over 100 footnotes to NIH, CDC, and IOM reports- that pretty much closes the case :
http://icandecide.com/white-papers/VaccineSafety-Version-1.0-October-2-2017.pdf
That ICAN doc starts out talking about how pharma companies cannot be sued for liability, which is wrong. You have to go thru VICP first, in most cases, but section 300-21aa of NCVIA outlines how and when you can sue. The most famous example of this is Bruesewitz v Wyeth, where the family sued after they lost in VICP and, again, lost.
Then, the doc goes on to imply that vaccine makers are rushing to put vaccines on the market because they have no liability. Paranoid much?
Then, there is paranoia about how vaccines cannot be subjected to (unethical) long-term saline-placebo studies.
Then, we have the tired, old trope that VAERS only captures 1% of actual adverse events (untrue). In reality, VAERS studies routinely demonstrate severe reaction reports are vastly overreported because so many of them are proven not related to the vaccine at all.
The claim that the CDC has not addressed certain studies presupposes those studies are valid. The study which claims 300% increase in autism rate in newborns who got Hepatiis B was a dumpster dive into VAERS reports that has been widely debunked. The study that found 420% more autism in vaccinated is from a study retracted twice for shoddy methods, which include not verifying data.
At this point I am not reading any further because it is clear this ICAN paper is drivel.
This is the marketing model for vaccines, as described in the NYT:
“Today, two brand-name vaccines, both with price tags topping $300, are widely advertised on television playing to parents’ fears. “As moms, we send our kids out into the world, full of hope,” says a mother in the ad for Bexsero, sold by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, as her son loads up the car to go off to college. Says another voice: “And we don’t want something like meningitis B getting in their way.”
Vaccine makers are hoping to profit from an ailment that very few people get.”
The mainstream media is now finally starting to take a more critical look at vaccine marketing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/07/business/meningitis-b-vaccines.html
As the entire medical industry in the USA is based on profit, why should drug companies act differently?
Well, who says they do? However, vaccines are not a US-only thing.
Mr. Rose- “the entire medical industry in the USA” except for vaccine makers and manufacturers are subject to the scrutiny of the plaintiff’s bar. The plaintiff’s bar uncovered Merck’s criminal research fraud with Vioxx. The market for vaccines is created by state mandates connected to tax payer funded services such as school attendance. Accordingly- the “drug companies” have an assured market for a medical intervention with no legal liability.
What is a manufacturing defect, Josh?
Mercks deception on Vioxx was uncovered by other doctors deploying pharmacovigilance. Nothing to do with lawyers, until much later.
America is weird though. Here in the UK, there’s a sign up in the pharmacy that says they do flu shots.
.
Ads for pharmaceuticals are not common practice in the world, its a weird American thing. Vaccines are very common though.
And, yes, it’s official that anti-vaxxers like the ones posting here are to blame for driving down vaccine rates that have caused measles outbreaks in the US. You deserve every bit of shame you are given, anti-vaxxers: https://www.sciencealert.com/it-s-official-anti-vaxxers-are-probably-to-blame-for-the-rise-in-measles
Look on the bright side, we get vaccinated and live, they don’t and get sick and die…
Christopher Rose,
You may be interested in the results of this pilot U.S. vaccinated vs. unvaccinated survey:
http://www.oatext.com/pdf/JTS-3-186.pdf
http://www.oatext.com/pdf/JTS-3-187.pdf
If the best evidence you have is retracted material, about uncontrolled surveys of biased groups and funded by anti-vaccine activists, that contradicts what decades of actual science says… then you have no evidence.
I’m not…
If only it worked that way.
More often than not it’s the kids too young to be vaccinated that make up the majority of the victims. Germs don’t care.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/361f8ebdb0425d8e41c6aca75823c9015fd31a426ef6dec1b8c9c57a2ab7f38a.jpg
Which would be fine if it weren’t for the fact that they affect other people.
True, but then again the human race is not, unlike so many others, an endangered species.
Well, there’s that but it would be better if we could do population control the smart way.
I reviewed the film. I am not an anti-vaxxer. I do believe that independent research must be conducted when there are grave questions and when a whistleblower came forward. A whistleblower who worked on the MMR vaccine on a team who all agreed because superiors ordered them to…to scuttle negative research results on the MMR. Skewing those results, the vaccine appeared safe and was given flying colors. Additionally, vaccine court is totally different from courts where one may sue for damages by drugs or medical devices. Thank you Ronald Regan. Check that out. Also, check out what other doctors who are counter to the all hail the MMR vaccine is completely safe. We know what one side is. What are the logical counter arguments? Why did a whistleblower come forward? Why is there a great rise in autism? Why has a hearing not been held about the alleged fraud committed by the CDC? Why, if this alleged fraud a complete sham is there a concerted effort to din, nullify, excoriate, criticise, troll, damn, condemn and label incorrectly, anyone who suggests this should be looked into with more research? Too many questions for my liking. And we are allowed to question, are we not? Or should we just assume the CDC and the medical and drug companies have our best interests at heart? I’m sorry. I believed with my whole heart in the medical and drug companies until countless thousands were injured by them. Countless died. The numbers are hidden. Why? Too many questions. The medical companies and their researchers did shoddy research and the MO is get these drugs passed and people using them by the millions. By the time individuals die are injured, or are permanently impaired, it will be years and years later. Earnings on drug? Billions. Damages on lawsuits which are class action? Lawyers make the money, the people are left with deaths of loved ones, injuries that are permanent, etc., etc. The money recovered is a pittance. If I were a CEO of the vaccines, or drugs? I would say go for it. Push the drugs on the pipelines. Let’s make our billions and let the stupids languish and die and be maimed, etc., until DUH! someone realizes, DUH there is a problem with the drug, device, vaccine, etc. Profits above people. What’s the problem with that? NOTHING. But if it’s you or your child whose life has been destroyed, DUH…that might be problematic. That might then require questioning. But we LOVE money. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it. It trumps life. So this tragic and horrific situation will continue until enough folks with guts and damaged with nothing left to lose, like Andrew Wakefield and the parents with autistic children and others who’ve been damaged, will stand up and say. “No. My life is worth more than your house in the Hamptons and your condos in Paris, Rome, Fiji, La Jolla, etc. 😉 Keep on with your straw arguments and labels. You are a troll. I hope you are getting paid a lot. I am not. I am fueled by the feeling that something is wrong and I support the right to question. The film chronicles a man who devoted his life to questioning, who bucked the system. He may be a liar…but if he is an intentional liar, why does he persist like a “lunatic?” Oh, uh. Maybe he feels that justice and truth are on his side. If that’s the case, then the frauds have a problem…a big problem. Or just let sleeping dogs lie. Like a wise Jewish man said concerning Christ, if there is something to this prophet (Jesus) let him alone. If God is behind him, you are going to bring a ton of trouble on your head. If there is nothing to this, then it will fall quickly and be forgotten. I am not likening Wakefield to Christ. Neither is the filmmaker. She calls him into question with the title. However, on the other hand, if truth is being covered up, it will be revealed. The individuals behind the cover-up will suffer the consequences. But if this is an amoral universe as some believe, help yourself. Those committing the cover-up at the CDC and elsewhere will walk between the raindrops and thousand and hundreds of thousands will be injured. They will have the kids and parents’ suffering on their heads. But who cares. Right?
Lots of false information in this comment. If anyone wants examples, feel free to ask.
You say this all the time – but you never provide any answers because you do not have them.
I ALWAYS do when people ask…
Perhaps you don’t ask because you don’t want to hear the answers.
The whistleblower is much ado about nothing. For three years, this issue has been settled except in the minds of a few people opposed to vaccines. The only person claiming that MMR causes more autism in African American boys is Brian Hooker and his analysis of the study data was so faulty it was retracted from publication. Still, they talk about it in Vaxxed as if it is fact. It is not. In many studies of autism rate by race, there is no indication there are more African American boys with autism than white. Where are the 250% more AA boys, then? They are figments of Andy and Brian’s imaginations. That is why no one is going to subpoena Dr Thompson.
Thompson was not a whistleblower. He had a conversation with Brian Hooker about how he wanted the data in the 2004 study analyzed differently than the rest of the authors. Hooker recorded those convos without permission and Vaxxed was born. Thompson never blew any whistles and continues to work for CDC.
Ronald Reagan may have signed NCVIA into law but he did not write it. And you can sue pharma after you go thru vaccine court. The most famous example of this is Breusewitz V Wyeth where the family sued Wyeth for liability after they went thru vaccine court. Their case want all the way to the Supreme Court. They lost. Section 300-21aa of NCVIA outlines how you can sue pharma after you go thru VICP.
There has been a rise in diagnosis of autism as we have seen a decrease in use of the diagnosis “mental retardation” and we also now diagnose kids with autism who would have simply been called “weird” a generation ago. There is no real rise. It’s diagnosis switch.
There is no cover up. Andy is a fraudster, pure and simple.
You might want to consider using the return key and making paragraphs, in the future. It is very hard to read a huge block of text.
If you are not against vaccines, which ones would you wish your child to have?
Give measles and mumps and rubella separately. Give them at 2 or 3. Or give the combined MMR at 3 yesrs.
And your evidence this helps is what?
Wouldn’t that kill and injure more children?
Is that really what you want?
“Give measles and mumps and rubella separately. Give them at 2 or 3. Or give the combined MMR at 3 yesrs.”
First, thanks for responding, and confirming you have no qualms about any vaccine on the childhood schedule except MMR, as stated above.
Your concerns are misplaced, however.
1. If what Wakefield stated was correct about vaccine strain measles affecting the gut and resulting in changes linked to autism (he wasn’t correct – the positive viral PCRs were later all confirmed as FALSE positives), then this link would apply to single (separate) measles vaccine also.
2. The 3 year option is based purely on Brian Hooker’s analysis of the “whistleblower” CDC data. Hooker had significant conflicts of interest , and the analysis was highly flawed and has been retracted by the publishers.
I trust you would not rely on this type of “evidence”, should you be truly objective.
“The Editor and Publisher regretfully retract the article as there were undeclared competing interests on the part of the author which
compromised the peer review process. Furthermore, post-publication peer review raised concerns about the validity of the methods and statistical analysis, therefore the Editors no longer have confidence in the soundness of the findings.”
I’ve previously called you a liar, Ms. Di Tosti. After reading this comment I see you’re somewhat deranged. So you probably can’t help the lying.
Lay off the anti-vax koolaid.
Typical troll response.
Very articulate response, Dr. Di Tosti; it casts an entirely new light on your false allegations of “exponentially increasing autism rates”.
Ditto my above response until you deal with anything that has been posited.
Are you willing to discuss any of the contents and facts, Tosti?
But I have. Did miss my first comment from yesterday? Here it is again:
“The “the exponential increase in autism” doesn’t really exist. There was a change in the definition of autism, from a debilitating condition to a spectrum of disorders. So cases that are placed on the autism spectrum today would not have been diagnosed as autism before.
“The article repeats this “exponential increase” canard several times without mention of the changes to the definition/diagnostic criteria, which suggests the author has an ax to grind.
“The account of the “CDC whistleblower” is also wrong. Wakefield’s film Vaxxed tried to create a scandal by surreptitiously taping phone conversations with a CDC statistician and then editing portions of the calls out of sequence. The so-called whistleblower, William Thompson, has denounced Vaxxed. He still works at CDC, so there was no sanction against him.
“Wakefield has not had his license restored because he failed to mount a defense in the GMC proceeding. He has also failed to appeal its findings. That’s because he’s guilty as charged.
“Wakefield makes more money as a professional victim than he did as a doctor. That’s the real story.”
Feel free to respond, especially to the diagnosis/definition change.
You are an antivaxer because you clearly believe everything Vaxxed and Wakefield espouses. You’ve bought into all the conspiracies. Sad. And lame.
Troll respinse. Name calling? Ad hominem attacks? Labels? Not arguing the content? That is it. What is all the furor? Asking for more research. Parents are crying out for this. You would deny them? Do not get it.
Are you willing to “argue the content”?
Plenty of people have been calling you out on your content, and you completely ignore them and refuse to correct your mistakes. That may be why they consider you an anti-vaxxer. It’s your own doing, but you can always change!
I don’t see referring to you as an antivaxer as name calling. I merely pointed out that a proper review of this film should have included the actual facts. Yours did not.
I do not know why antivaxers have such furor over anyone who is against Wakefield. Perhaps it is hard for them to see what we see, that he is a dangerous fraud. That would have been a better name for the movie, Dangerous Fraudster.
I cannot fathom why anyone would be crying out for a documentary about Andy. Anyone who is a fan of his already knows his side of the story. The rest of us know the truth and despise him.
Deny them? Andy is all over social media. One thing for sure, he does not deny his fans his presence.
Why you are averse to facts is not a mystery.
What is it with anti-vaxers that they detest that term so much? They’re opposed to vaccination; they should wear it proudly. Maybe to be “anti” anything sounds so negative. So they could say they’re “pro-disease”.
If I thought something was poisoning my [hypothetical] child and other children too then I would be against it and being called against it would result in “Well, yeah, I’m anti-poision I’m also anti-drunk-driving.” And so on.
Carol,
Guess what? Paragraphs are now legal in all 50 states. Use them.
.
And BTW – You are, indeed, anti-vaccine/pro-disease.
You criticize my grammar and label me falsely when hundreds of children are possibly being damaged for life? You think this should not be further researched by an independent group of researchers not beholden to drug companies, et al.? What kind of person are you? Are you a troll?
It’s rather revealing that you respond to someone who criticized your (admittedly painful) grammar, but completely ignore when people detail the false information you’ve promoted. Want examples?
YOU are an anti-vaxxer. You are steeped in it. Be honest and stop lying because no one is fooled by your nonsense.
Don’t blame the victims. Blame the CDC and the team that skewed results. Blame the vaccine court’s unjust response to damage created by vaccines. Blame the millions who have been damaged by drugs pushed through the pipeline on shoddy research. Blame medical device companies responsible for harming patients on quick research that has major problems and yet is greenlighted. Blame companies that make billions over the long haul factoring in lawsuits for deaths and impairements; their bean counters factoring in the tremendous profits that can be made before litigation finally is complete years later. Blame those who in the name of being healers bring death. Over the years, there have been too many injuries and deaths. The public is sick of being used as guinea pigs. Profit is the motive.They know that. This is unconscionable. Just do more research. That is all. Or separate the vaccines as before. Give them singly, not combined. Or give the MMR at 3 years when children are older. Are u a troll?.
Actually I blame YOU, because YOU are one of THOSE working to scare well-meaning parents out of vaccinating their children. YOU are despicable, Carole Di Tosti.
How do you explain the rest of the world?
Trolls use labels like the fascists use labels to demean and destroy. It is a review. If you do not like it, why bother? Why spend your days excoriating me? Go after the CDC whistleblower who states he and his team lied about the dafety results of the MMR.. Argue with him.
Well Carole, it’s already been shown that it was YOU who lied about the safety results of MMR. Even the “CDC Whistleblower” proved you wrong, so according to your own logic, we should be going after you, not him.
To be fair, you went far beyond the scope of a film review, Carole, far beyond, so to claim it is nothing more is hardly being honest…
The UK Government arguably caused MMR vaccine uptake to decline by introducing a faulty version of the shot- containing Urrabe strain mumps- even thought they were warned the vaccine was causing meningitis. That version of the shot was released in Britain and hastily withdrawn after it caused outbreaks of meningitis.
You are presuming that what Andy says in VAxxed is accurate. Did you know that MMR rates have gotten high enough in UK for them to declare native measles eradicated?
Here are the facts about the MMR and Urabe-strain mumps meningitis risk.
https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/165/6/704/63700/Risks-of-Convulsion-and-Aseptic-Meningitis
UK uptake of single measles vaccine was 70% prior to introduction of triple MMR vaccine (Urabe mumps strain).
The uptake of that went up to over 90%, and was 92% when Wakefield’s fraudulent study was published in 1998.
Uptake subsequently dropped to 80%, and in due course, measles, which had been eliminated as an endemic disease in the UK, returned and large outbreaks occurred.
It has taken until this year for the disease to be eliminate noted once again.
PS: FYI, aseptic meningitis complicates between 5 and 10% of all cases of natural mumps. It only complicated around one in 12,000 Urabe MMR vaccine shots.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7a35f90bbeb2d7803924129f113eed8b2ed89a370cc8305b41048a01a0306dfb.jpg
Any discussion of the MMR vaccine is incomplete without disclosing the fact that Merck is currently in federal court defending against allegations of deliberate and systematic research fraud during development of the MMR vaccine. The case has been in federal court since 2010
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/lawrence-solomon/merck-whistleblowers_b_5881914.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/health-vaccine/merck-accused-of-stonewalling-in-mumps-vaccine-antitrust-lawsuit-idUSL1N0YQ0W820150604
Two scientists are accusing Merck of fraud but it has not been proven. If they are proven correct, then the mumps portion of the MMR is 78% effective. If Merck is proven correct, then the mumps portion is 92% effective. Either way, for the consumer, it is still very effective.
In court for 7 years…?
How is the court case going? Has Merck been found guilty?
here’s the latest- Merck cannot answer questions about efficacy of mumps vaccine… but this from 2015….
“(Reuters) – Two former Merck & Co Inc scientists accusing the drugmaker of falsifying tests of its exclusive mumps vaccine said in a court filing on Monday that Merck is refusing to respond to questions about the efficacy of the vaccine.
Attorneys at Constantine Cannon, who represent the scientists, asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Lynne Sitarski of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to compel Merck to respond to their discovery request, which asks the company to give the efficacy of the vaccine as a percentage.
Instead of answering the question, the letter said, Merck has been consistently evasive, using “cut-and-paste” answers saying it cannot run a new clinical trial to determine the current efficacy, and providing only data from 50 years ago.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/health-vaccine/merck-accused-of-stonewalling-in-mumps-vaccine-antitrust-lawsuit-idUSL1N0YQ0W820150604
But what was the finding, Josh?
Thanks.
thank you for your unflinching review of a tough subject.
Translation: Thanks for your uncompromising defense of child-abusing scam artists even when mountains of evidence prove them wrong… from one anti-vaxxer to another.
projecting , mikey?
Why is it you don’t thank others for the true facts about vaccination, rather than the alternative ones, Carole?
A couple of Merck scientists are accusing the company of fudging data. If they are right, mumps portion of MMR is 78% effective. If Merck is right, mumps portion is 92% effective. Either way, very effective.
oh good lord, when the author wrote that Vaxxed levels the playing field, I had to stop reading. This woman took all the claims in Vaxxed and Pathological Optimist as real and did not bother to verify any claims at all. How pathetic. How can you review a documentary and not verify their claims? Good grief.
That is not my job. My job is to review. If u are so hot about verifying details, state that the whistleblower in VAXXED is a liar. You cannot. State that Andrew Wakefield’s colleague in the UK was not reinstated and vindicated. You cannot because he was reinstated. I suggest you shred what alleged fraud he claimed in his initial repoert in the 90s and print it. Then obviate that he never claimed what they said he claimed. All u do here is labek. I did deal with the arguments. And if I had access to the original research done by the whistleblower and his team which they skewed the results, I could read the original and then read the doctored and make sense of it. The team who did the research knows that they committed fraud. The whistleblower says that fraud was committwd. See the film. Hear the whistleblower for yourself. Or produce the doctored research and the original research…or you have no logical argument.
The “whistleblower” never appears in Vaxxed. Didn’t you see it?
The scam artists that have exploited the “whistleblower” definitely are liars, and if you want examples of documented deception, feel free to ask.
Carole Di Tosti says “State that Andrew Wakefield’s colleague in the UK was not reinstated and vindicated.”
Hey Carole- consider this hypothetical.
A guy borrows his brother’s car and robs a convenience store. With camera footage of both the robber and the car, police come and arrest both brothers.
The owner of the car admits that the car belongs to him, and that the person on the video is his brother, but he had no knowledge of his brother’s intent. The police clear this brother of any potential charges.
The guilty brother then says “If my brother is cleared, then I must be innocent too!”
Sound ridiculous? I agree. It’s also ridiculous any time people use the exoneration of Walker-Smith as anything positive about Wakefield. They both faced different charges, and Walker-Smith was exonerated in part because be put the blame squarely on Wakefield.
That is a great analogy. May I borrow and save it?
Sure! Thanks.
Yeah, uh, I’m yoinking this too, in that case.
Or maybe…
Mr A asks Mr B to drive him into town as he wants help to get loads of money out the bank. Mr A goes inside for a few minutes, then comes out and they both drive off.
The police intercept the car and charge them both with bank robbery. Mr A has a briefcase on him stuffed with cash from the vault.
They are both convicted.
Mr B appeals, saying he actually had no idea Mr A intended to rob the bank – he really didn’t have a clue what Mr B had done and that he (Mr A) was just driving the car.
His conviction is overturned.
Mr A, whose lawyers told him he had no grounds for appeal, then says: “If Mr B is cleared, then I must be innocent too!”
*yoink*
Added a bit for A’s appeal.
*yoinks again*
The “whistleblower” never appears in VAXXED…ever wonder why?
I would think a very important part of the job of reviewing a documentary is determining if it is truthful. How will readers know whether they want to see this or not if you don’t review truthfulness?
There is no whistleblower. Dr William Thompson never blew any whistle. They were blown by Andy Wakefield and Brian Hooker.
Dr John Walker-Smith got his medical license back by blaming all the malfeasance on Andy.
Andy is guilty of fraud because he falsified data for the 1998 now-retracted study.
The original data has been available for free download since January 2016. Dr Matt Carey analyzed the data, in his blog, and then put it up for free share. In January 2016. Carey is a published autism researcher and phd in physics.
https://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2016/01/04/the-william-thompson-documents-theres-no-whistle-to-blow/
https://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2016/01/06/if-you-want-to-read-the-william-thompson-documents-heres-the-link/
The team in the 2004 study know full well their study is valid and strong. Multiple re-analyses of the data agree with them.
Thompson never said fraud was committed. I’ve seen Vaxxed twice and closely followed the entire issue for 3+ years.
All of this would have been in my review, if I wrote one. I believe it is important to tell readers the facts.
[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
It is not a personal attack to note the author was paid to write this puff piece. In my professional opinion, there’s nothing wrong with paid bloggers / pay per posts per se. It should be disclosed, though.
It is, because you are leaping to conclusions that are wrong, whilst the truth is readily available to you on this site.
If that is your “professional” opinion, someone needs to have a word with you….
Okay. Have at, Christopher.
The Contact Form to Write for Blogcritics is broken. Looks like the Contact Form 7 plugin is missing or I would take this for a test drive.
Other sources have noted that Blog Critics doesn’t pay its writers. That doesn’t stop someone else from paying your authors. Is that correct?
Hey Ivan,
Thanks for the headsup about the form, which I have reported to “the management”.
I’m not heavily involved in the day to day article editing and publishing aspects but am pretty confident that capitalism has not entered the publication process.
I’m also 99% certain that Carole was not paid for her film review so would appreciate it if you could knock it off with the unfounded assertions.
Blogcritics is something of a relatively unique community that is founded upon wanting to do something more (or less, depending on your perspective, lol) than running a business.
I am sure of that because I have been trying to improve the potential to help writers earn a living or part of a living from the site and have got precisely nowhere over a 12 year period…
Okay. I’m equally certain that groups affiliated with Andrew Wakefield, specifically J.B. Handley’s Generation Rescue and Age of Autism pay content marketers for blog posts and pay people to comment on articles such as this. It was advertised on Indeed some time ago.
A follow up question, if I may. Who decides if comments are off or on? I see some posts where comments are off. It seems to me if I was someone paying to start some buzz, I would want to make sure the link to this article stays on your front page as long as possible.
Probably related
Anti-vaxxers have embraced social media. We’re paying for fake news with real lives
https://health.spectator.co.uk/anti-vaxxers-have-embraced-social-media-were-paying-for-fake-news-with-real-lives/
I certainly accept that there is questionable, paid for content in the world, that is beyond debate.
That said, this is not that, unless Carole is really an antivax sleeper who started writing for this site way back and patiently waited for this massive opportunity to change the views of literally millions of people… /sark
The Comments off/on issue is currently the subject of mild debate in BC world.
Our relatively new tech person has independently decided that for security reasons comments should be turned off on articles over two weeks old.
I, as the Comments Editor and sole champion of this modest public space, who single handedly moderates every single comment personally, am opposed to such a silly notion and am trying to get it changed back.
I’m well aware of the “fake news” meme, itself largely bogus of course, but am pretty sure this is not that, it is just own person’s fairly confused opinion as far as I am aware.
mmm… no. The fake news thing is exactly what Team Wakefield did with the #CDCWhistleblower hoax and CNN
That started with a CNN user blog that was misrepresented as an actual news article and went viral on Twitter and Facebook.
As for the antivax sleeper, I’m leaning more toward a conspiracy theorist who every once in a while makes a little coin to fluff a story. It’s no biggie to me; just don’t cry foul when someone calls it for what it is.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/48508e4ea760a07dfe56182081048fa45cc64c6a9a31b9e5fb94ff443bedd625.jpg
Ivan, as it is not the case that anyone here got paid, I’m not crying foul and you’re not calling it for what it is, you are simply wrong, but hey, amuse yourself with the theory by all means…
Of course, Christopher. Thanks for the reply.
I’m amazed that a review could get do much wrong myself, but Hanlon’s Razor.
Never attribute to bad intentions that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Just to clarify.. Van’s comment below was about Carole Di Tosti, and not about you Kathy.
oh, thanks. (embarrassed)
Ms. Di Tosti emphasizes one point that is particularly important: ” Parent after parent, after parent, after parent identify a complete transformation of their child after getting the vaccination. Unfortunately, eye-witness testimony appears inconsequential to the medical industrial complex.”
Johns Hopkins Press published a fascinating issue of Narrative Inquiries in Bioethics Winter 2016 entitled “To Vaccinate or Not.”
Indeed, there are narratives not only of parents describing their experience with the vaccine schedule, but commentary by editors as well.
Dr. Kenneth Hallert’s essay Love, Fear, and a Leap into the Dark describes from a practitioner’s point of view watching a young girl descend into uncontrollable seizures and death after routine childhood immunization.
http://muse.jhu.edu/issue/35716
Behind a paywall, but worth the read.
The unvaccinated develop autism at the same rate as the vaccinated, so it’s obvious the two aren’t related. It’s basic math.
It’s curious that you say “Parent after parent… identify a complete transformation of their child after getting the vaccination.”
That was Brian Hooker’s story too. Then the child’s medical records were opened up and it was revealed that the child was showing signs of autism long before the vaccination, and there was no sudden transformation afterward. In other words, we know that some of these parents are lying, so why are you listening to them?
Also, see the Cedillo case although that reads more like a genuine memory-is-fallible type mistake.
I think it is worth reminding people that the Autism Omnibus was in effect a “class action” suit for all the plaintiffs who claimed that their children “immediately regressed into autism”, or had their lights “go out” supposedly “immediately following vaccination”.
Over 4,000 children or so were included, by extension.
Michelle Cedillo’s case and that of the others in the hearing were selected for the Omnibus suit because they were deemed by the plaintiffs’ legal teams to be the most likely to be successful in showing vaccines had the described effect on them.
They failed to do so, and in Michelle’s case it was proven her regression predated the administration of the vaccine.
Parents were (and still are) using the timing of vaccination to “anchor” a possible cause to the problems they had become aware of. This is just another example of the “post hoc ergo propter hoc” logical fallacy.
Now, we still hear about “parent after parent” making the same hollow claims. That includes the Mazer family.
Well, I can tell you about a few of these parent stories.
Brian Hooker claimed for years his son was autistic immediately after MMR. He took that claim all the way to vaccine court. The court spent more time on his case than I have seen in any other case. There was clear medical evidence that his son showed developmental issues long before the MMR. He lost his case.
Another Vaxxed parent, Sheila Ealey, claimed for years her twin son was made autistic after getting 2 MMR shots. His twin sister got none so she is fine. She filed a VICP claim but could never provide any evidence at all. As in none. The court sent her several notifications, asking her to provide evidence. The case was finally dismissed for lack of evidence.
Michelle Cedillo’s parents claimed she turned autistic immediately after her MMR. The took their claim to VICP but family videos from before the MMR proved she also had developmental delays long before the MMR.
So, time and again, parents miss early warning signs.
And note that even if we grant that none of the parents missed the early warning signs for the sake of the argument*
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/409e8cee1ef729c545ede8de5dc1c1c714df7e997726183d93bfb35cf71c2d54.jpg
*Though there are reasons we shouldn’t.
It is extremely disengenuous of you to imply that issue of MUSE is all about vaccine injury stories. It is not. It is about 50-50 pro-anti. I submitted a story for the issue and it was accepted. I was given permission to reproduce it for my blog.
https://vaccinesworkblog.wordpress.com/2017/05/16/how-a-bout-of-rotavirus-made-me-appreciate-vaccines/
thank you – that was an excellent article
“Preliminary data were collected from June 2006 through October 2009 on 715,000 patients, and 1.4 million doses (of 45 different vaccines) were given to 376,452 individuals. Of these doses, 35,570 possible reactions (2.6 percent of vaccinations) were identified. This is an average of 890 possible events, an average of 1.3 events per clinician, per month. These data were presented at the 2009 AMIA conference.
In addition, ESP:VAERS investigators participated on a panel to explore the perspective of
clinicians, electronic health record (EHR) vendors, the pharmaceutical industry, and the FDA
towards systems that use proactive, automated adverse event reporting.
Adverse events from drugs and vaccines are common, but underreported. Although 25% of
ambulatory patients experience an adverse drug event, less than 0.3% of all adverse drug events
and 1-13% of serious events are reported to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Likewise, fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported.”
https://healthit.ahrq.gov/sites/default/files/docs/publication/r18hs017045-lazarus-final-report-2011.pdf
“an average of 1.3 events per clinician” Wow, that is very low, considering most AEs are for minor reactions. Minor reactions are normal, expected, and not a reason to stop vaxing.
Severe AEs are not underreported to VAERS. Minor ones are, but who cares? They are minor.
IIRC, Moderate ones are underreported and overreported whilst severe ones are overreported.
This is because certain moderate events frighten parents badly enough that they register as severe.
And because so many moderate and severe ones are later prove not caused by vaccines.
That too.
I confess am guilty of multiple counts of failing to report vaccine reactions.
I never bother to run back to the clinic whining about a sore arm for a day after my flu jab, no.
It is true that serious reactions may be under-reported, because they may sometimes not be recognised as being vaccine-related. But the proportion which are reported is directly correlated with the severity of the reaction. This was established in research which followed up passive surveillance reporting. Events like “paralysis” or “convulsions” after vaccines were generally well reported (over 50%), but problems like “rash” tended to be in single figure percentages.
Then there is evidence that needs to be considered about over-reporting or misreporting. One study that showed only 3% of reports to VAERS were established to be definitely due to the vaccine.
“An eminent doctor was celebrating a dramatic victory today after the High Court ruled that a decision to strike him off over the MMR controversy was unlawful.
Professor John Walker-Smith had been found guilty of professional misconduct following accusations of taking part, without ethical approval, in controversial research that caused a global scare by suggesting a link between the MMR vaccine, bowel disease and autism.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/mmr-doctor-john-walker-smith-wins-high-court-appeal-7543114.html
He got his med license back because he blamed it all on Wakie.
“Conclusion
For the reasons given above, both on general issues and the Lancet paper and in relation to individual children, the panel’s overall conclusion that Professor Walker-Smith was guilty of serious professional misconduct was flawed, in two respects: inadequate and superficial reasoning and, in a number of instances, a wrong conclusion. Miss Glynn submits that the materials which I have been invited to consider would support many of the panel’s critical findings; and that I can safely infer that, without saying so, it preferred the evidence of the GMC’s experts, principally Professor Booth, to that given by Professor Walker-Smith and Dr. Murch and by Dr. Miller and Dr. Thomas. Even if it were permissible to perform such an exercise, which I doubt, it would not permit me to rescue the panel’s findings. As I have explained, the medical records provide an equivocal answer to most of the questions which the panel had to decide. The panel had no alternative but to decide whether Professor Walker-Smith had told the truth to it and to his colleagues, contemporaneously. The GMC’s approach to the fundamental issues in the case led it to believe that that was not necessary – an error from which many of the subsequent weaknesses in the panel’s determination flowed. It had to decide what Professor Walker-Smith thought he was doing: if he believed he was undertaking research in the guise of clinical investigation and treatment, he deserved the finding that he had been guilty of serious professional misconduct and the sanction of erasure; if not, he did not, unless, perhaps, his actions fell outside the spectrum of that which would have been considered reasonable medical practice by an academic clinician. Its failure to address and decide that question is an error which goes to the root of its determination.
The panel’s determination cannot stand. I therefore quash it. Miss Glynn, on the basis of sensible instructions, does not invite me to remit it to a fresh Fitness to Practice panel for redetermination. The end result is that the finding of serious professional misconduct and the sanction of erasure are both quashed.
____________________________________________________
Neutral Citation Number: [2012] EWHC 503 (Admin)
Case No: CO/7039/2010
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
07/03/2012
When you’re proven wrong… be sure to spam the thread with a bunch of copy/paste material so it’s harder for people to see that you’re lying.
I will just repost @disqus_Vqd9OqZVm7:disqus ‘s comment from earlier
A guy borrows his brother’s car and robs a convenience store. With camera footage of both the robber and the car, police come and arrest both brothers.
The owner of the car admits that the car belongs to him, and that the person on the video is his brother, but he had no knowledge of his brother’s intent. The police clear this brother of any potential charges.
The guilty brother then says “If my brother is cleared, then I must be innocent too!”
Sound ridiculous? I agree. It’s also ridiculous any time people use the exoneration of Walker-Smith as anything positive about Wakefield. They both faced different charges, and Walker-Smith was exonerated in part because be put the blame squarely on Wakefield.
Same source:
Justice Miting:
“Abstract
Measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccines containing the Urabe strain of mumps were withdrawn in the United Kingdom in 1992 following demonstration of an increased risk of aseptic meningitis 15–35 days after vaccination. Following introduction of a replacement MMR vaccine (Priorix; GlaxoSmithKline, London, United Kingdom) in 1998, active surveillance of aseptic meningitis and convulsion was established to evaluate the risk associated with the new vaccine. No laboratory-confirmed cases of mumps meningitis were detected among children aged 12–23 months after administration of 1.6 million doses of Priorix (upper 95% confidence limit of risk: 1:437,000) in England and Wales. The upper 95% confidence limit excluded the risk found for mumps meningitis with Urabe vaccines (1:143,000 doses). No cases of aseptic meningitis were detected among children aged 12–23 months, who had received over 99,000 doses of Priorix (upper 95% confidence limit of risk: 1:27,000), in a regional database of hospital-admitted cases. This compares with an observed risk of 1:12,400 for Urabe vaccines.”
https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/165/6/704/63700/Risks-of-Convulsion-and-Aseptic-Meningitis
I am pretty sure @disqus_0bT5QNRHDf:disqus posted that wild mumps has an infinitely higher chance of causing aseptic meningitis than this urabe strain. I think there were a couple of cases in Canada and UK looked at them and switched to JL strain. Not a reason to stop vaxing.
Hey, did you know that UK is vaxing so much that they declared native measles eradicated recently?
Yep, Good news (http://www.bbc.com/news/health-41399850). Now we have to somehow kick Wakefield’s sorry disease-spreading ass out of the US.
We don’t want him back though.
.
Maybe deport him to a small unpopulated island in the middle of nowhere, which has no internet access.
do you have any idea how unhinged you sound.
you should watch his talk.
Dr. Andrew Wakefield – The Legacy of Vaccine Injury-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14I9cx3k0DI&t=2207s
you might actually learn something. despite yourself.
real nerds look at everything.
The link doesn’t work.
i’m pretty sure you could find it by title.
If you consult with the experts, you might learn something. If you read peer reviewed research, you might learn something. If you take a class on a topic from an accredited university, you might learn something.
If you watch YouTube videos of scam artists, you’re likely to end up dumber.
blahdiblah!
Dr Andrew Wakefield – The Legacy of Vaccine Injury.
Thanks, I’ll look that up later.
Is it free? #FollowTheMoney
Eliminated*, not “eradicated”…
😉
*No endemic transmission for >12 months.
But we still have had imported cases…
I edited in “native” to my comment. thanks.
Yup, the risks of aseptic meningitis (a mild, self limiting form of meningitis) is around one in 12,000 Urabe strain MMR vaccine doses.
The risk with natural mumps infection is between one in 10 and one in 20…. around 1000 times GREATER.
The “the exponential increase in autism” doesn’t really exist. There was a change in the definition of autism, from a debilitating condition to a spectrum of disorders. So cases that are placed on the autism spectrum today would not have been diagnosed as autism before.
The article repeats this “exponential increase” canard several times without mention of the change definition/diagnostic criteria, which suggests the author has an ax to grind.
The account of the “CDC whistleblower” is also wrong. Wakefield’s film Vaxxed tried to create a scandal by surreptitiously taping phone conversations with a CDC statistician and then editing portions of the calls out of sequence. The so-called whistleblower, William Thompson, has denounced Vaxxed. He still works at CDC, so there was no sanction against him.
Wakefield has not had his license restored because he failed to mount a defense in the GMC proceeding. He has also failed to appeal its findings. That’s because he’s guilty as charged.
Wakefield makes more money as a professional victim than he did as a doctor. That’s the real story.
Yes that the whistleblower retracted his statements. Last year the panel of individuals who discussed VAXXED after the screening at Manhattan Film Festival did say that the whistleblower was paid off and made a deal with the CDC. I don’t know if he still has the original research. But the pressure on him was very great…very, very great.
Ah, the mindset of the conspiracy theorist!
Someone says something that goes against everyone else = That person must be right and everyone else is wrong and trying to suppress the truth = Evidence the conspiracy is true.
That same person said the things attributed to him aren’t true = He must have been silenced/threatened by the people trying to suppress the truth = Evidence the conspiracy is true.
Right, gossip and hearsay means more to the conspiracy theorist than hard evidence does.
You’re dodging my point about your utterly bogus claim of an “exponential increase in autism.” You made that claim three times in your blog post, yet you’re unwilling to defend it.
Does that mean you’ve been bought off?
If the ‘missing’ data proved anything it was that vaccinating African American boys late increased their chances of getting autism, so it’s an argument to vaccinate on time, not to avoid vaccination at all.
Are. you. serious? Please post some evidence that Thompson, who has not spoken in public about this issue for several years now, was “paid off”. H*ll anyone can see the original research. It’s all online. I don’t have a link b/c frankly, I’m not interested. But others here have the links.
Here it is:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jxtr06s5ddc82s7/AADaZvp7yu_daBhbuZwMfQy4a?dl=0
Thanks so much!
Regarding any claims that there is no increase in autism, I highly recommend reading the book ~Denial~ by Olmsted and Blaxill.
See this: “Over the last decade or so, if there’s one thing I’ve learned over all that time covering the anti-vaccine movement, it’s that it’s generates some masters of cherry picking and obfuscation. I’ve also learned that the favored topic of the anti-vaccine movement is to conflate correlation with causation, thus trying to lure readers who might not have a scientific background into confusing correlation with causation. The most infamous example of this technique is, of course, thimerosal in vaccines. Apparent autism incidence has risen considerably since the early 1990s, largely due to expanded diagnostic criteria, diagnostic substitution, and more intensive screening. The vaccine schedule was also expanded during the 1990s, with an increasing use of vaccines containing thimerosal as a preservative. Because thimerosal contains mercury, it provided a convenient “bogeyman ingredient” that anti-vaccine activists could blame for the apparent “autism epidemic.” In 2011 (actually, as early as 2005), it is obvious that mercury in vaccines is not a cause of any sort of “autism epidemic,” given that thimerosal was removed from vaccines by the end of 2001 and autism incidence has not declined. If mercury in vaccines were a major cause of autism, one would expect that removing the thimerosal from vaccine would lead to a rapid decline in autism incidence. We’d even expect that this decrease would be evident within three to five years, given that autism is commonly diagnosed at around age three or four. No matter how the anti-vaccine movement tries to parse, this has not happened.”
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/09/23/mark-blaxill-and-dan-olmsted-polio/
Mercury is still in flu vaccines, though . . . which are promoted like candy . . .
Thanks for exemplifying the behavior described in the text I quoted.
Nope, sorry.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1fcb1603d18e932fad27c48fdb553b465ae80fc4c14b43fc1f3f0ab6e2663f58.jpg
Regarding any claims made by Olmstead and Blaxhill…
I highly recommend fact-checking and comparing what they say with reality.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e728cd38f1cf33c57fc388d62da609cdad4916667f98574841f078b66c0f1985.png
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e53e10ec95cec122a3a70f45ec44cea0a874b0a2fcf2932692272e171ffa6a19.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/979a7591fcb9d270e9da429faad9e056962f7a4c458cd8a346b0384bb30b2c13.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5b36ac48eae0cb7259c89d9827ecb68d1e5eaf59f7c4ac2394e77a7b296d2cee.jpg
See Vaxxed. Discussions of increase in autism and discussion and take recording of CDC whistleblower. See it. I am stating what was in that film. If it is baloney, the film will fade. If it is not baloney, public ground swell will demand hearings and/or demand the vaccines each be given separately. Apparently there is a ground swell of individuals against the combined MMR.
So you’re a shill for Wakefield, telling people to see his films, despite the consequences?
“Apparently there is a ground swell of individuals against the combined MMR.”
Yes, there is a growing lynch mob, and you aren’t helping.
And like most lynch mobs everywhere, they don’t have opinions which are factually based.
Science works on the basis of evidence, not on the number of people who wish to knock it down.
And what is the basis for this? Why, nothing! There is no evidence that giving these vaccines separately (or not giving some of them at all) will decrease the rate of autism. We have as “Exhibit A” for that Japan. They switched from MMR to MR plus optional mumps, and their autism rates increased. They also had a rubella outbreak with a number of cases of CRS b/c some some parents became fearful of the vaccines, period. That is shameful for a first-world country. They have finally been declared rubella free recently as vaccine rates have improved.
As far as these laughable “recordings” of the CDC “whistleblower” (also laughable) Thompson did not know he was being recorded, was not under oath at the time of the conversations, and no one has heard the tapes other than Hooker and the transcriber. They could translate them all as “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and no one would be the wiser.
“If it is baloney, the film will fade.”
.
It IS baloney. The problem is that there is a large chunk of people who are gullible and believe the things they watch on TV and clickbait articles shared on Facebook without questioning it, but would never read a scientific paper because it is boring and the words are too hard.
.
Do you not think Brian Hooker, the guy who secretly recorded those conversations might not have a motive for doing so. He was in the process of suing because he claimed that vaccines caused his son to be autistic, but was failing miserably because from his son’s medical records, it was obvious that he was missing developmental milestones since birth, and his parents even took him to the doctor 3 weeks after his vaccines, because they thought he had an ear infection…no unusual symptoms reported other than that. Maybe next time he needs money he could put a dead spider or a toenail into some food packaging and then complain to the supermarket. Its way less immoral.
.
How many young African American boys do you think were included in this sample size? It was a number small enough to count on your hands, of course, out of a much larger sample size. It disproves Wakefield’s original study, plus Hooker’s story, but I guess its all they had to go on as it was the only way that the data could be abused into finding a correlation.
.
Also, if youre that worried about the big scary chemicals found in vaccines, putting vaccines all together actually means less exposure to the chemicals youre so worried about. If you were to have the MMR, it would be 1 dose of every chemical found in vaccines, plus three kids of antigens (four if youre getting the MMRV which also protects against chicken pox). If you had measles, mumps and rubella as separate vaccinations, that is three doses of all of the “scary chemicals” plus the three different antigens. Plus that is three doctors visits, which means more time taking the kid to the appointment, which is less convenient, and also three needles instead of one. Nobody likes needles, right?
facebook is great for those neglected protests in italy, and germany.
i am actually crying.
we caused the nuremberg code and now we violate it. so sad for my country.
Facebook has its uses, its just people too often press the share button or copy and paste without fact checking.
how many people/accounts have you studied and why would those be representative of anything?
Spare us the crocodile tears, sabel.
“The number of US children with autism spectrum disorder has soared approximately 30% in the past 2 years, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/274730.php?utm_source=TrendMD&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Medical_News_Today_TrendMD_1
Report is 3 1/2 years old… so not in the past 2 years.
Despite claims to the contrary (based on ignorance or a desire to deliberately deceive), Dr. William Thompson, senior and very pro vaccine vaccine researcher at CDC, has neither denied nor retracted his public press release dated August 27, 2014 which says in part:
“STATEMENT OF WILLIAM W. THOMPSON, Ph.D., REGARDING THE 2004 ARTICLE EXAMINING THE POSSIBILITY OF A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MMR VACCINE AND AUTISM
My name is William Thompson. I am a Senior Scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where I have worked since 1998.
I regret that my coauthors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics. The omitted data suggested that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism. Decisions were made regarding which findings to report after the data were collected, and I believe that the final study protocol was not followed.”
https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20140915220755/http://www.morganverkamp.com/august-27-2014-press-release-statement-of-william-w-thompson-ph-d-regarding-the-2004-article-examining-the-possibility-of-a-relationship-between-mmr-vaccine-and-autism/
Two examples of anti-vaxxers contradicting themselves:
1. Josh Mazer says “based on ignorance or a desire to deliberately deceive”, yet it was fellow anti-vaxxer Di Tosti who made the claim being referenced.
2. If this statement by Thomspon is accurate, then it contradicts the claims by Wakefield in his conspiracy films.
You’re right, it says that in part. Here’s some more:
“I want to be absolutely clear that I believe vaccines have saved and
continue to save countless lives. I would never suggest that any
parent avoid vaccinating children of any race. Vaccines prevent serious
diseases, and the risks associated with their administration are vastly
outweighed by their individual and societal benefits.”
That my friends is the obligatory statement which is a necessary cover to prevent you from being “Wakefielded” Failure to make such a statement could lose you your job and cause you to be hounded by the vaccine cartel.
Snort!
Are you suggesting William Thompson is a liar, Judith?
Why are you so selective in believing only some things he says, but not others?
Thank you for this link!
the evidence of the collapse in confidence is the US vaccine schedule is demonstrated in the increasingly unhinged nonsense the vaccine bots on this discussion board post. because confidence is collapsing, the vax bots must resort to: shaming; name calling; science denialism; and mandates to force a medical intervention on people who are hesitant.
the vaccine bots are clearly defeated by the overwhelming evidence that some unknown subset of kids are grievously injured by the aggressive US vaccine schedule.
people are staying away in droves. not because of Wakefield. because of the availability if authentic science that describes hideous and irreversible vaccine injury.
for example- 1/14,000 healthy kids acquired asceptic meningitis from the defective Urrabe strain mmr shot. over 1000 healthy people acquired narcolepsy from the defective flu shot in 2009-2010.
Thanks for showing that vaccines in the USA are very, very safe!
You did this (unwittingly) by
1. Referencing “dangerous” vaccines that weren’t even given in the USA, and
2. The rates of the noted side effects of these more-dangerous vaccines are way, way lower than the diseases the vaccines prevent.
Which would you prefer Mazer-
0 in 14,000 chance of aseptic meningitis from current MMR vaccine,
1 in 14,000 chance of aseptic meningitis from urabe MMR vaccine, or
1,000 in 14,000 chance of aseptic meningitis from mumps infection?
There you have it- vaccines prevent, according to Mayer, “hideous and irreversible” injuries.
To clarify (for Josh’s benefit)
Urabe strain mumps vaccine was never used in the US
The adjuvanted flu vaccine that allegedly caused narcolepsy in children was never licensed in the US, therefore never given.
You do know that 1 or 2 in every 1000 people who caught measles died of it?
1 in 14000 children got aseptic meningitis from the Urabe strain MMR shot, but aseptic meningitis is less serious than other kinds of meningitis and serious complications are rare.
.
If those 14000 got measles instead, somewhere between 14 and 28 of them would die, 700 of them would get pneumonia, 14 of them would get encephalitis. There’s also the chance that one of them could develop a fatal brain condition called SSPE, about 10 years later, and die. If those 14000 got mumps, 1000 of them would get aseptic meningitis. 14 of them would get encephalitis. If any of them are male and have reached puberty, they could get swollen testicles that can lead to infertility. Rubella is fairly mild though…unless youre exposed to it in pregnancy of course.
.
No need to worry about the Urabe strain MMR though. The MMR vaccine that is around today isn’t that one, its a different kind that does not cause any aseptic meningitis at all.
.
Also note that flu kills more people than that. It actually kills tens of thousands of people a year (the exact number varies each year).
Reposted for emphasis, and in the hope Josh will reply for a change…
(Hat tip to Brian)
Which would you prefer Mazer-
1). 0 in 14,000 chance of aseptic meningitis from current MMR vaccine,
2). 1 in 14,000 chance of aseptic meningitis from urabe MMR vaccine, or
3). 1 in 14 chance of aseptic meningitis from natural mumps infection?
Vaccine fails- get another dose! Only in the liability free world of vaccine salesmanship could such a cruddy, defective product stay on the market. Good luck with your mmr vaccines!
“We retrospectively studied 7 cases of complicated mumps managed during 1 year at the Bordeaux University Hospital. The diagnosis was suggested by the clinical presentation and confirmed using specific RT-PCR.
Results
Five cases of meningitis, 1 of orchitis, and 1 of unilateral hearing impairment were identified. Each of the 7 patients had been previously vaccinated with MMR, 4 had received 2 doses of this vaccine.”
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0399077X14002455
Josh, here is a little question for you.
Some doctors have published a small case series of SEVEN patients who developed complications of mumps infection, despite having been previously vaccinated.
But doctors haven’t bothered reporting case series of mumps in those who have never been vaccinated… if they did there would have been millions of cases.
So Josh, do these facts tell you that cases of complicated mumps despite vaccination is a very unusual phenomenon, deemed so interesting that it merits its own scientific article in a major medical publication, or does it tell you something different?
1 case of unilateral hearing impairment. Do you know that mumps is thought to be the most common cause of unilateral acquired sensorineural deafness in children? Pre-vaccine, it affected many children, as virtually all kids got mumps.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3767776
the mmr vaccine is a shoddy fraud. it does not work. if it was not protected from legal liability by the Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, it would not be in the market in it;’s current form.
“Oddly enough most mumps patients said they had received their two recommended doses of the combined measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, according to the CDC. In Arkansas, the state with the largest outbreak, around 70 percent of the mumps patients self-reported that they were fully vaccinated against mumps, according to the CDC.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/whats-behind-the-2016-mumps-spike-in-the-u-s/
You say the vaccine doesn’t work, but your own source says it works 90-98% of the time.
Which one of you is wrong?
Hmmm…. whom to believe…. a [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor] antivaxer with no medical expertise, or the consensus scientific view of experts on vaccination?
Tough one….
Journal Vaccine reports measles outbreaks among fully vaccinated populations because the defective, cruddy vaccine fails. the term is “vaccine failure.”
“during the 1989–1991 U.S. measles outbreaks 20–40% of the individuals affected had been previously immunized with one to two doses of vaccine. In an October 2011 outbreak in Canada, over 50% of the 98 individuals had received two doses of measles vaccine. The Table shows that this phenomenon continues to play a role in measles outbreaks. Thus, measles outbreaks also occur even among highly vaccinated populations because of primary and secondary vaccine failure, which results in gradually larger pools of susceptible persons and outbreaks once measles is introduced”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3905323/
of course- it doesn’t matter to the vaccine bots or pharma. they get to sell a crappy product to a captive market, and can sneer and laugh all the way to the bank when the thing doesn’t work. the Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 relieves the vaccine pushers from liability when someone gets killed, or hurt, or gets and spreads the disease
Woo hoo! I doubt very many people had two doses of vaccine in 1989-91. In fact, it was that epidemic that caused the recommendation to change from one to two doses. In the measles outbreak of 2011 in Canada, it was one high school where 53% of the cases had two doses of vaccine. For the totality of the outbreak, 80% were unvaccinated.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/101/1/129
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/measles-among-vaccinated-quebec-kids-questioned-1.1086151
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0064072
The majority of people are vaccinated. Vaccines are effective, but not 100%. It will often seem that more people vaccinated got it than didn’t, but that is because the group of unvaccinated people is so small.
.
Lets say there is a big group of people in a room. 1000 people who are vaccinated, and 20 who are not. Someone walks in, spreading measles. 20 vaccinated people catch measles. 15 unvaccinated people catch measles.
.
While it may seem that the vaccinated group is bigger, note that 20 out of 1000 people is only 2%, but 15 out of 20 people is 75%.
.
Also as FallsAngel already said, that epidemic caused the recommendation for two doses, instead of one, making the vaccine even more effective.
Excellent source!
It says that MMR vaccine is 90-98% effective, vaccines don’t cause autism, and that modern disease outbreaks are caused mostly by people who don’t vaccinate.
Josh…. Quite a lot of people struggle even with very simple epidemiology.
Some are even so cognitively defective they think that since some of those involved in car accidents are sober, that this means it is safer to drink drive.
Don’t show everyone you are also similarly afflicted.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/197e793913878211c76a7705a167065a3efce233d790f84d4b39fe8938074d87.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dc4850cb36439b427af8776275b46a114e03b47499afdc46e6e0e544d24bd20b.jpg
FYI, glyphosate has been found as a contaminate in many vaccines, the highest levels in the MMR:
https://www.ecowatch.com/glyphosate-vaccines-1999343362.html
If you are holding a bathroom scale over your head, will it tell you your correct weight?
New research shows the best way to bring anti-vax parents to reason: “So it’s extremely good news that researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign may at last have come up with a way to cut through the misinformation and get the truth across: Don’t just tell parents to vaccinate their children, show them what happens if they don’t.”
http://time.com/3982723/changing-minds-vaccines/
Of course there will always be charlatans trying to harm children, but information protects us against people like Wakefield and Di Tosti.
the best way to encourage people to vaccinate their children is to make a safe product that works as it should and does not use fraudulent science , twisted stats and paid liars to promote them.. that will happen when hell freezes over
We already have a safe product that works as advertised. That’s the reason the US life expectancy at birth has doubled since 1900. But no matter how good science-based immunizations and medicines are, there will always be kooks and frauds who claim they are not good enough.
“Fraudulent science, twisted stats and paid liars”
Please no… We’ve heard enough about Wakefield to last the rest of the year.
Can we focus on something else for a while?
fraudulent science , twisted stats and paid liars
You mean like Andrew Wakefield, Brian Hooker, the Geiers, Christopher Shaw?
What is your evidence of the fraudulent science, twisted stats and paid liars to promote them?
You can find it easily yourself- just start by analysing scientifically the safety studies by the vaccine companies. look at their construct and validity
That’s not how logic works.
I’ve analysed them – what’s your excuse for Gadad et al?
send me the study with full disclosure of Gadad and the et al’s background, coi possiblilties and connections as well as history re vaccines studies. and employment..However if you analyse the safety trials you will see one vaccine compared to another for safety assessment, the weakened pathogen compared to a true placebo not the vaccine and no quantification on the toxicity trials PLUS never one safety study for synergistic toxicity.. try to find one because safety studies cannot be approved without this.. hint this has never been done
1)Gadad et al already has full disclosure which you’d know if you read it – it was funded by safeminds.
2)I’ve analysed the safety trials – see the polio pioneer trials for one. I only need one counter and not a counter-universal
3)Wrong. I’ve seen the quantification on the toxicity trials
4)I’ve also seen safety studies on the synergistic toxicity – there is none.
5)Wrong. Safety studies can be approved on that if they are about some other safety aspect.
6)Read the package inserts
7)Why are you telling me false information – why do you need to do that if vaccines are as dangerous as you say?
8)Again, it’s your job to prove yourself correct.
Lots of false information in this comment.
Unfortunately, none of this stuff works. There’s research showing that the more you give AVs the facts, the more they dig in their heels. Even when their kids die, they blow it off as “nature”.
Here’s a link: https://theconversation.com/throwing-science-at-anti-vaxxers-just-makes-them-more-hardline-37721
“Throwing science at anti-vaxxers just makes them more hardline”
That does seem to be true. Since the anti-vax position is not based on science and data in the first place, science and data don’t matter to these people except as weapons to protect their biases from assault by reality.
All we can do is remind them that refusing to vaccinate does protect their children from the real enemy, the all-natural diseases.
We can also correct misinformation for the lurkers.
More to date info on the two federal lawsuits alleging Merck swindled the government and vaccine buyers by falsifying research data about the mumps portion of the mmr shot. No one could defend this indefensible behavior- right?
“Law360, New York (March 3, 2017, 3:45 PM EST) — The purchasers suing Merck & Co. Inc. for allegedly lying about the efficacy of its mumps inoculation in order to keep competitors from bringing their own versions of the vaccine told a Pennsylvania federal judge Thursday that GlaxoSmithKline, a third party in the suit, is not cooperating with discovery requests. ”
https://www.law360.com/articles/897762/gsk-won-t-produce-docs-in-merck-antitrust-suit-buyers-say
Good luck with your Merck made shingles vaccine! Since they have been so forthright with data about the failing, crappy mumps shot, we can trust them with our lives. Right?
“From contracting shingles as a result of the vaccine all the way to serious personal injuries such as blindness in one eye, individuals who have serious paralysis in their extremities, brain damage, all the way to death.”
https://dailyhornet.com/2017/merck-faces-growing-number-of-zostavax-vaccine-lawsuits/
Those are claims in a possible lawsuit, Josh, and not verified side effects from the vaccine like you pretend they are.
But then I don’t expect antivaxers to know the difference between speculation and fact. All interventions carry some risk. Fortunately the risks of any severe reaction to vaccines is extremely rare, and are greatly outweighed by the benefits.
….Get back to us if and when the court comes to a judgement, will you?
who ya gonna believe ? the vax bots- or former NIH director Bernadine Healy? was Healy an antivaxxer? From fake news site CBS Evening News, Edward R. Murrow award winning journalist reporting:
“According to Healy, when she began researching autism and vaccines she found credible published, peer-reviewed scientific studies that support the idea of an association. That seemed to counter what many of her colleagues had been saying for years. She dug a little deeper and was surprised to find that the government has not embarked upon some of the most basic research that could help answer the question of a link.
The more she dug, she says, the more she came to believe the government and medical establishment were intentionally avoiding the question because they were afraid of the answer.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-open-question-on-vaccines-and-autism/
Maybe you could post some of this “credible, published, peer-reviewed evidence” that Ms. Healey found. Perhaps you should look at this: https://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2009/09/01/dr-bernadine-healy-talks-about-vaccines-and-autismor-does-she/
“My view: She sounds like a politician on a stump speech. She makes her “constituency” think that she made a commitment when, in fact, she never does.
“…in the area of autism, and in the area of vaccines, there are many many questions that need to be answered and they need a broad base of science.”
Does she ever say, “we need to research vaccines as a cause of autism”? No. She doesn’t. She mentions autism and she mentions vaccines, but doesn’t really put them together.
Another statement, in talking about vaccine safety:
“…it is about understanding if something is happening that we need to address in a small subset”
Her words are very imprecise, letting the reader interpret as he/she will.
. . .
Perfect politician speak.” Sort of like Jill Stein, with the dog-whistles.
Your “appeal to authority” re: CBS News is laughable. They’re the outfit that employed the anti-vaxer Sharryl Atkissoff, who subsequently resigned just ahead of being fired. She was so loony she thought a stuck backspace key was a conspiracy against her. They also employed that ditz Katie Couric to give anti-HPV vaccine programs.
the [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor] is citing a blog in response to CBS Evening News and Bernadine Healy! Man, they are really done. Good luck with your vaccines, [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor].
More antivax drivel from Dr. Bernadine Healy, former NIH director, as reported by fake news site US News and World Report (back when they were allowed to do news on vaccines):
“Finally, are certain groups of people especially susceptible to side effects from vaccines, and can we identify them? Youngsters like Hannah Poling, for example, who has an underlying mitochondrial disorder and developed a sudden and dramatic case of regressive autism after receiving nine immunizations, later determined to be the precipitating factor. Other children may have a genetic predisposition to autism, a pre-existing neurological condition worsened by vaccines, or an immune system that is sent into overdrive by too many vaccines, and thus they might deserve special care. This approach challenges the notion that every child must be vaccinated for every pathogen on the government’s schedule with almost no exception, a policy that means some will be sacrificed so the vast majority benefit.”
https://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/heart-to-heart/2009/04/14/the-vaccines-autism-war-dtente-needed
Darn anti vax Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics! How dare they publish data supporting the Lancet 1998 (retracted) hypothesis that ASD kids are suffering with gut issues at a higher rate than the general population! How dare they provide ammunition to the Wakefield supporters!
“Epidemiology of GI Conditions in ASDs
Several studies have assessed the prevalence and types of GI disorders in children with ASDs. The reported prevalence of any GI disorder in children with ASDs ranges from 9% to 91% (see Fig 1), abdominal pain or discomfort ranges from 2% to 41%, constipation from 6% to 45%, diarrhea from 3% to 77%, and persistent diarrhea from 8% to 19%3,9,11–21. Although all the studies have significant methodological limitations, they collectively indicate unusually high rates of GI disorders or certain GI symptoms in children with ASDs and higher rates in all but one study when a control population was used.”
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/130/Supplement_2/S160
When you’re proven wrong, be sure to spam the thread with a bunch of unrelated copy/paste material!
Meh! he has been proven adequately ‘right’ so I guess it’s you who will need to eat a bowl of dicks.
does all the time 🙂
YOU would know!
This is well known. However, these GI disorders are not caused by the MMR vaccine.
Kids with ASD have always suffered gut issues.
If you knew anything about autism you’d know that.
Of course, only a stupid idiot would assume that this verifies Wakefield’s notion that MMR causes autism.
I do really enjoy the responses by the vax bots to my posts from main stream media and medical journals. Thank you, vax bots! Every time you attack my posts, you are exposing your intellectual and scientific bankruptcy. Please- cast your pearls on this startling development:
“The startling global resurgence of pertussis, or whooping cough, in recent years can largely be attributed to the immunological failures of acellular vaccines, School of Public Health researchers argue in a new journal article.”
https://www.bu.edu/sph/2017/09/21/resurgence-of-whooping-cough-may-owe-to-vaccines-inability-to-prevent-infections/
What?! Not due to anti vaxxers, but due to a shoddy product, mandated to a captive markets, sold liability free? If my kid dies from your drippy little one snotting his crappy pertussis strain pertussis on my kid, can I sue you?
You can be stupid enough to by this crap- but keep your little asymptomatic disease vector away from my family, please. Keep them outta school.
Giving your kid this defective product that causes harm to others should result in a knock in your door from CPS.
Nice selection bias you are showing there Josh…
If you’d bother to learn anything about pertussis and vaccination, you’d appreciate that although the acellular vaccine is less effective at inducing durable immunity than was the old whole-cell vaccine, it still provides excellent protection against individual infection (around 85% effectiveness) during the crucial stages of infancy, when infection comes with a mortality of up to one in 200 cases.
And you’d know vaccinated kids are 23 times LESS likely to get infected than the deliberately unvaccinated.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19482753
And that even if infection occurs in a vaccinated child, the disease is far milder, and less likely to cause serious harm.
All are excellent reasons to have your child vaccinated, irrespective of whether the current vaccine can halt transmission of the bacterium or not.
It’s great to be king!
bill gates? lol!
The [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor] are completely out of arguments. We are now into name calling. Thank you, [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor] Please, please please keep posting away! Everyone is very interested in what you have to contribute.
“Mike Stevens Josh Mazer • 11 minutes ago
Kids with ASD have always suffered gut issues.
If you knew anything about autism you’d know that.
Of course, only a stupid idiot would assume that this verifies Wakefield’s notion that MMR causes autism.”
Did I call you a name Josh?
I think you’ll find I didn’t… unless you have now decided you are someone who believes in the fraudster Wakefield’s ideas on MMR and autism, in which case you are giving yourself the label of idiot.
Not very nice of you Mike to call Josh an Idiot – I guess when you have no argument you resort to name calling – but it is rather immature..
Wake up will you Judith, I didn’t call him an idiot – he gave himself that label.
To simplify this for you:
Mike: “Only an idiot would think the world is flat.”
Judith: “How dare you call me an idiot!”
You know that pharma shill is name calling, right, Judith? Unless, of course you have evidence. In the latter case, post said evidence and fair enough.
Great info Josh – you realise that every time the [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor] post they only open you up to more great information… if they didn’t dispute you – none of this great information would be out there.
Ironic how Josh’s post accusing me of name-calling had all his abusive personal attacks deleted by the comments editor, isn’t it?
Oh! Now I get it!! You don’t appear to get the difference between opinions, we all have them, and actual information.
Where you are going wrong is arriving at your opinion first rather than looking at the information, all of it, and then coming to a conclusion.
It’s the mental equivalent of putting your outerwear on before your underwear. Once in a while, it’s fun; do it all the time and you are either attention seeking or in need of some kind of therapy yourself.
Belief is your enemy, heck, the enemy of us all…
And hey, if you do it all the time at home, nobody cares. Of course, if you do it in public, someone might have something to say about it. In other words, at least try and confine irrationality to things that only affect you or maybe your family. Vaccination doesn’t fall into either of those categories.
If Joe-Public believes the world is flat…well, fine. I mean, he’swrong but I don’t really care since the chance of harm to anyone other than him on this is basically zero.
Thank you, [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor], for impeaching the credibility of former NIH director Bernadine Healy with………a blog!!!!!! This is just priceless! Please, please please, keep posting- we are all very interested to understand what informs your views- in this case…. a blog!!!!!!!!
“FallsAngel Josh Mazer • an hour ago
Maybe you could post some of this “credible, published, peer-reviewed evidence” that Ms. Healey found. Perhaps you should look at this: https://leftbrainrightbrain..”
As this site is itself a blog and you are commenting on it, that kind of undermines your argument…
Thank you [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor] for taking on Scientific American- that was the trigger for this little gem:
“Mike Stevens Brian • 5 minutes ago
Hmmm…. whom to believe…. a [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor] antivaxer with no medical expertise, or the consensus scientific view of experts on vaccination?
Tough one….”
Here is the article (again) the [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor] disputes
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/whats-behind-the-2016-mumps-spike-in-the-u-s/
Hilarious! Please, please please [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor] keep posting!
Says the [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor] antivaxer with no medical expertise….
Oh, and nice deflection, btw. What Brian had pointed out was that your source (the publication in Vaccine journal) demonstrated that:
It says that MMR vaccine is 90-98% effective, vaccines don’t cause autism, and that modern disease outbreaks are caused mostly by people who don’t vaccinate.
“While more people opting out of vaccination could be behind the increase, scientists have another theory, according to STAT News.
The vaccine is made with a strain of mumps that is no longer seen clinically. In lab tests, it appears that it still provokes an antibody response that protects against today’s version of the disease. But that’s not a sure thing.”
https://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/Vaccines/64202
and we have our corrupt vaccine manufacturers in the spotlight again – much worse shenanigans than Andrew Wakefield but we won’t talk about that…
According to the whistleblowers’ court documents, Merck’s misconduct was far-ranging: It “failed to disclose that its mumps vaccine was not as effective as Merck represented, (ii) used improper testing techniques, (iii) manipulated testing methodology, (iv) abandoned undesirable test results, (v) falsified test data, (vi) failed to adequately investigate and report the diminished efficacy of its mumps vaccine, (vii) falsely verified that each manufacturing lot of mumps vaccine would be as effective as identified in the labeling, (viii) falsely certified the accuracy of applications filed with the FDA, (ix) falsely certified compliance with the terms of the CDC purchase contract, (x) engaged in the fraud and concealment describe herein for the purpose of illegally monopolizing the U.S. market for mumps vaccine, (xi) mislabeled, misbranded, and falsely certified its mumps vaccine, and (xii) engaged in the other acts described herein to conceal the diminished efficacy of the vaccine the government was purchasing.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/lawrence-solomon/merck-whistleblowers_b_5881914.html
Ah, the HuffPo, that top-tier scientific journal. They actually have a rep as being somewhat anti-vax.
What was the verdict on the Merck suit, Judith?
“worse than Andrew Wakefield”
Well, so you claim, but anyone familiar with the extent of the fraud Wakefield perpetrated would disagree.
And recall, these are just unconfirmed allegations by 2 former disaffected employees.
Get back when the court has pronounced its verdict, will you Judith? Perhaps until then stop talking about these vexatious claims as though they are factual, huh?
On another note, I am pleased you finally accept what Wakefield did was fraudulent however.
“While more people opting out of vaccination could be behind the increase, scientists have another theory“
Yes Judith… that’s what scientists do. They don’t rest with the current paradigm, they constantly think of other reasons to explain their observations, and develop new hypotheses to elucidate them. They then test them and draw appropriate conclusions, and if it is necessary to modify the original paradigm, they will do so.
You antivaxers will never grasp science.
It is an anathema to you.
Agreed. And allow me to point out, that usually, in the end, it turns out that increase in VPDs is due to failure to vaccinate, not vaccine failure.
Sorry- I can’t resist when they serve up such soft balls.
[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]: “Mike Stevens Josh Mazer • 3 minutes ago
Josh, here is a little question for you.
Some doctors have published a small case series of SEVEN patients who developed complications of mumps infection, despite having been previously vaccinated.
But doctors haven’t bothered reporting case series of mumps in those who have never been vaccinated… if they did there would have been millions of cases.
So Josh, do these facts tell you that cases of complicated mumps despite vaccination is a very unusual phenomenon, deemed so interesting that it merits its own scientific article in a major medical publication, or does it tell you something different?”
The [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor] has forgotten what Lancet 1998 (Retracted) was- it was a retrospective case series analysis of 11 children who had (probably still have) gut issues and ASD. It was deemed so interesting that it merits its own scientific article in a major medical publication,
Thanks [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
Yup, it clearly “tells you” something different…
..that you haven’t got a clue.
PS: Wakefield’s fraudulent and now retracted study was a case series that would have been interesting, sure.
If it had a word of truth in it….
What did Parent of Child 11 say?
Josh, you keep top posting replies to other people’s posts rather than responding directly to the comment you are referring to.
People might think you were trying not to alert posters to the fact that you have replied to one of their comments, so as to deny them the opportunity of a further response.
That would be truly despicable, and of course you’d never dream of doing that, would you?
You say despicable. I say pathetic.
He’s like that hobo in front of Safeway shouting random crap.
An honest discussion of the mmr shot would include disclosure of exogenous boosting which has resulted in an enormous and costly increased incidence of shingles due to widespread implementation of universal varicella vaccination. Let the vax bots whine about Journal of Pediatric Infectious Diseases being Putin lovin’, anti vaxxin’ numbskulls….
“The United States has traded a dramatic reduction in varicella disease which in the prevaccine era accounted for only 25% of the VZV medical costs (i.e., 75% of VZV medical costs were attributed to cases of HZ) for a disproportional increase in HZ costs associated with increasing HZ incidence among adults with a history of wild-type varicella. It is an unfortunate fact that 20 years after the introduction of the varicella vaccine in the US, healthcare officials are still claiming that the mechanism of exogenous boosting “is not well understood” and “the case for this hypothesis has weakened,” when in reality, the data currently exist to understand this biological mechanism first proposed in 1965 by Dr. Robert Edgar Hope-Simpson.4 “Rather than eliminating varicella in children as promised, routine vaccination against varicella has proven extremely costly and has created continual cycles of treatment and disease.”3”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/gary.goldman.2/comments/
with all the available data indicating the mumps portion of mmr is a shoddy, ineffective, defective, and possibly dangerous intervention- parents giving this product to healthy kids should get a visit from CPS for suspicion of Munchausen by proxy Syndrome
People might wonder why you think MMR vaccine has anything to do with Shingles, Josh.
…But now they will realise you know very little about vaccines, and even less about infections, and cease to wonder.
They also might wonder why you are trying to pass off a comment from a known antivaxer (whose expertise seems to be confined to computer science) about an article in the Journal of Pediatric Infectious Diseases as being an original article in that Journal…
…But now, appreciating you are an antivaxer yourself, they can cease to wonder, as your motivation for lying is patently clear.
Why does the UK government not recommend the chickenpox vaccine Mike – because it recognises that natural chickenpox in the community boosts the immune system of the population and protects against shingles. Why are you constantly trying to shut out the truth I wonder…is it because you have some financial interest?
http://www.nhs.uk/Condition…
Well Judith, according to you all of us in the U.K. are in the pocket of big Pharma, and only make decisions about vaccines that would increase their revenue and we never do anything that goes against their advice.
So when you see that in the UK the JCVI have not recommended universal chickenpox vaccination, that is solid proof that your allegations of Pharma shillery within the medical profession is quite wrong.
Thanks for pointing that out. I trust you won’t accuse us doctors in the UK of being shills again!
Oh, and one major reason they haven’t approved the vaccine? It costs too much.
Actually the UK with a free National Health system is far less in the pocket of big pharma than say America which has tentacles spreading through every system.
Yes, Judith, this is a point I’ve made several times. This is a problem with the followthemoney trope.
Let me show you this point again in meme-form.
You can have an upvote for finally realising it though. Well, that and the fact that you made a comment without resorting to calling anyone a shill.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/95e25c72c9da10f780a72073158784ca3e4b0bcba989270c90d96945733e575a.jpg
Thanks for exonerating me from the usual antivax accusation I am a shill, Judith.
In New Zealand a similar health care system is in operation as to the UK NHS, if I recall. So they should be also independent of Pharma, according to you, unless you are now bizarrely accusing PHARMAC of being stooges for Pharma.
Yet NZ has introduced varicella vaccine into the schedule.
Wonders never cease…
You should be familiar with the history of the evolution of the immunisation programme in NZ, I trust…?
Here is an overview from 1980-2005 which may help you understand the reasons for the introduction of new vaccines, and the modification of the schedule.
See page 73.
https://www.nzma.org.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/17851/Vol-119-No-1236-23-June-2006.pdf
Judith seems far more interested in the immunization program in the US for some reason.
Fascinating as this debate about Chickenpox is, what does it have to do with the MMR vaccine or those who oppose it?
Snort! Shingles has nothing to do with measles, mumps or rubella, neither the diseases nor vaccines.
ETA: Nor does MMR vaccine have anything to do with varicella, AKA chickenpox.
Ehen someone has the chickenpox they gain an immunity to chickenpox amd shingles (same virus). Everytime from then, when tjey are exposex to someone who is xontagious with tje cirus tje in essemxe get a boost to tjeir immunity. In the past, shingles was an disease seen only in elderly population because they were no longer around children who were contagious.
There is an immunity given vy the shot of about 10 urs. Unfortunately, being around someone who just got the shot does not boost your immunity like being around.someone with the actual virus. The shot actually puts the shingles causing virus in your system and then yrs later when immunity is gone and.a stressful.sitiation hallens, the virus becomes active and ypu jave shingles. This lack of boosting the immunity is what has caused shingles to now appear in people younger and younger. Shingles is far more dangerous and painful than chickenpox. Getting some.of thwse chdhood diseases trains the immune system to better deal with othwr exposures like hand foot and mouth. Repeated booster shots have the opposite effect. They train the immune system to become so specialized, it no longer knows how to respind to things like hfm, e coli, etc.
Yeah right. Shingles didn’t exist before the chickenpox vaccine. Oh wait, yes it did.
The chickenpox vaccine is fairly new (22 years now) but it was being given in Japan in the 80s and immunity has not been seen to wear off.
Your immune system doesn’t have to be “trained”. It knows what to do.
ETA: Your last line is beyond ludicrous.
Please educate yourself.
No point attempting to contain the discussion to a tiny fraction of the vaccine argument – Josh has enlarged it and I am finding it quite educational thank you.
That’s because you’re ignorant, Judith. Josh said: “An honest discussion of the mmr shot would include disclosure of
exogenous boosting which has resulted in an enormous and costly
increased incidence of shingles due to widespread implementation of
universal varicella vaccination.” He conflated MMR with varicella vaccine, probably because he thinks varicella vax is a component of MMR.
I am seriously impressed that you find Josh’s remarks “educational”; where are you from and what is your background?
This might help https://www.facebook.com/groups/1198002033544520/permalink/1667456886599030/
Judy Harvey, Boronia, Australia – “Self employed” as an internet commenter.
I had thought it was NZ.
Same difference…!
/ducks
What are yours? Obviously I am not part of the Cartel.
avoiding the question…
I am a part-time NHS specialist in Infectious Diseases.
You know that, Judith.
I was replying to Christopher Rose – not yourself Mike
still avoiding
As I am using my real name I am readily identifiable whereas you are just “Judith” so not so much…
She is an antivaccine campaigner from New Zealand.
She has no medical or other relevant background.
I guess when one knows absolutely nothing about a topic, one can consider any information “educational”, even when it is wrong.
Gary Goldman? You mean the guy that’s listed in The Encyclopedia of American Loons?
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/vaccinations/Pages/chickenpox-vaccine-questions-answers.aspx#routineschedule
Why isn’t the chickenpox vaccination part of the routine childhood immunisation schedule?
There’s a worry that introducing chickenpox vaccination for all children could increase the risk of chickenpox and shingles in adults.
While chickenpox during childhood is unpleasant, the vast majority of children recover quickly and easily. In adults, chickenpox is more severe and the risk of complications increases with age.
If a childhood chickenpox vaccination programme was introduced, people would not catch chickenpox as children because the infection would no longer circulate in areas where the majority of children had been vaccinated.
This would leave unvaccinated children susceptible to contracting chickenpox as adults, when they are more likely to develop a more severe infection or a secondary complication, or in pregnancy, when there is a risk of the infection harming the baby.
We could also see a significant increase in cases of shingles in adults. Being exposed to chickenpox as an adult – for example, through contact with infected children – boosts your immunity to shingles.
If you vaccinate children against chickenpox, you lose this natural boosting, so immunity in adults will drop and more shingles cases will occur.
The UK is one of the few first-world countries that doesn’t use chickenpox vaccine. That theory has never been proven IRL. And anyway, why should kids have to get chickenpox (and some die) to keep old people from getting shingles?
I got shingles at 34 and this was well before the vaccine was available.
It was EXTREMELY rare for a child to die from chickenpox in the pre-vaccine era. Only 20-80 people died out of MILLIONS who got chickenpox each year, and they were mostly immunocompromised adults. The vaccine can also hurt kids. Why should all kids have to get the vaccine when we know some will be permanently paralyzed or suffer other serious adverse events? It goes both ways. https://ecf.cofc.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2010vv0566-82
Oh, no, the number is more like 100 per year. About half were adults who caught chickenpox from their kids. Not all were immunocompromised. Chickenpox is more severe in adults.
Permanent paralysis? Whatever are you talking about?
Edit: An award of the vaccine court based on “the preponderance of evidence”? Surely you know better after posting here all these years.
The antivaxers crow with glee when they find equivocal “evidence” that one child might have suffered a severe varicella vaccine reaction, but remain hardened to the plight of the hundred who died from the infection each year before they could benefit from the protection of vaccination.
Chicken pox used to kill around 100 each year in the USA.
The fact that some were immunosuppressed is irrelevant to the question of vaccination benefits. They need to rely on herd immunity (from vaccination) to protect them from the unvaccinated who spread the disease.
Natural chickenpox reactivates in around 1/3 of adults/eldery persons, and around another 100 die from that each year.
When vaccination of kids has been in place for a few generations, then you will see a cohort emerging of adults who have never had chickenpox, so they will never get shingles.
How many kids have died of chickenpox in the UK in the last 20 years – none…
Judith: “How many kids have died of chickenpox in the UK in the last 20 years – none…”
I haven’t a clue where you get your misinformation from, Judith.
You are either horribly wrong, or maybe deliberately deceitful.
The death toll from chickenpox in the UK averages over 25 per year, most adults, some children (See table below for the deaths in one single 2 year time frame, 1995-7)
http://www.bmj.com/content/323/7321/1091
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c8f4f923a22734848ab051fe7ab892b91bd0ab97f8df2167809b58ecc1ac2ee4.jpg
What does this have to do with Gary Goldman being included in the Encyclopedia of American Loons, Judith?
Obviously the UK government agree with Mr Goldman – you calling him a loon is totally expected because that is what you do – it is in the pharma handbook…
It’s really fascinating how you feel compelled to display your ignorance on a daily basis.
And your evidence that he has access to the pharma handbook is what?
Anyone not open to the truth about this particular scheme by the industry to discredit yet another bit of evidence related to vaxx injury might either be employed by or just stuck in that dark hole:(
This thread is the gift that keeps on giving! Here, [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]- feed on this! Yum! Yum!
“Experts last night said that the true figures for suspected fatalities and serious side effects could be much greater. Dr John Griffin, the former editor of the medical journal Adverse Drug Reactions, said: “For fatalities, it is probably only one in two which gets reported and for other side effects one in 10.”
This means that almost 40 baby deaths could have occurred following jabs between 2001 and 2004, and 8,000 serious adverse reactions.”
From the commie lovin’, anti vaxxin’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3336455/Secret-report-reveals-18-child-deaths-following-vaccinations.html
From your own source:
We know vaccines have potential side effects, but this does not mean that children died as a result of MMR or other jabs.
It may be that someone had an infection before they got a jab, it may be something in their genetic make-up or sometimes there are allergic reactions. But vaccines are extraordinarily safe compared to the diseases they prevent.
Overall, thousands of lives have been saved by childhood immunisation. Smallpox and polio have been eradicated.
I encourage people to read the whole article.
If there is something in genetic make-up that causes adverse reactions then DNA tests need to be performed before the vaccine is given. If having an infection may cause adverse reactions then doctors need to stop insisting that sick children get vaccines and vaccines should never be given at pharmacies or retail environments that do not have the patient’s medical record and where a physician, medical team, and equipment is not present to consider these issues and deal with possible horrific adverse reactions such as seizures.
What if the DNA tests are more dangerous than the vaccines? Who is going to pay for the testing?
They are not.
Doesn’t the consumer always pay, one way or another?
Well, the tests are ill-defined.
One suggestion people often make is that all conditions are screened for prior to vaccination. “DNA testing” doesn’t mean anything as a term. Genetic testing for defined mutations is not helpful (since doctors recommend that even those with the mutations should get vaccinated as it’s better for the child – eg MTFHR polymorphisms – so this is rather pointless).
Then there are tests for things like mitochondrial disorder. To properly look for that, you need a muscle biopsy. And then you definitely are in the territory of the test being more dangerous than a vaccine.
If you would like to pay for a DNA test first, go for it. But do not expect anyone else to pay for it.
Specifically, what “DNA tests” do you suggest, and for what conditions?
I was replying to Brian’s comment that “it may be something in their genetic make-up or sometimes there are
allergic reactions. But vaccines are extraordinarily safe compared to
the diseases they prevent.” The implication being that someone might be damage by vaccines because of their genetic makeup. But never the less vaccines are “extaordinarily” safe. Hence to follow that logic – if something in their genetic makeup may cause an adverse reaction to a vaccine then obviously you would test the infants DNA to make sure they did not have a genetic makeup that would contraindicate a certain or all vaccines. Based on VAERS court awards and other studies that have been done, there seems to be mulitple genetic markers that could result in harm to an infant/child and I do not have a list of all those markers at hand. However, I do remember the MTHFR gene, that 30 to 50% of humans have, that impairs your immune system’s ability to detoxify heavy metals and other poisons in vaccines and for sure these infants/children/people should not have vaccines. As to vaccines being extraordinarily safe. Maybe Brian can explain why the Supreme Court in 2011, in Bruesewitz v Wyeth, ruled that “Vaccines are an unavoidably unsafe product.” FYI the Webster dictionary defines unsafe as “dangerous/perilous.”
By golly, in Bruesewitz v Wyeth, the Supreme Court rejected the claim that vaccines are unavoidably unsafe.
If the supreme court actually said that maybe we could explain it. But that hasn’t happened yet
If in doubt, don’t vaccinate, and there’s plenty of doubt, so why do it? Your child could die or be permanently damaged and neither outcome leads to a bright future. The human race has got on quite well for a few years without vaccines and now, suddenly, we’re all vaccine-deficient! No mate, sorry, no thanks.
“If in doubt, don’t vaccinate” is terrible advice, and will lead to the unnecessary death and suffering of children.
Are you willing to accept a 20% child mortality rate? Because that’s the price natural immunity demands.
Man I feel so sorry for your children.
How about “if in doubt, trust your medical professional”. that seems way less crazy.
“The human race has got on quite well for a few years without vaccines”
Bob, I’d just leave you with 2 snippets of information.
1). In the 20th century alone, there were more than 300,000,000 deaths from smallpox. That’s 300 million. Not a typo.
2). It is calculated that over 17 million lives have been saved since 2000 thanks to measles vaccination.
http://www.who.int/about/bugs_drugs_smoke_chapter_1_smallpox.pdf
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2015/measles-vaccination/en/
Oh, and a little article on the impact of vaccines in the US from 1900-1999.
https://www.cdc.gov/Mmwr/Preview/Mmwrhtml/00056803.htm
If you want more examples, please ask.
Ah yes – the mandatory phrase at the end of every finding that vaccines cause death and severe illness.
“Overall, thousands of lives have been saved by childhood immunisation” – it is the protection from
being Wakefielded and losing your career and worse.
and all that correlation!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/979a7591fcb9d270e9da429faad9e056962f7a4c458cd8a346b0384bb30b2c13.jpg
Which is more likely, Judith?
The UK government paid once to hire Wakefield
Then when vaccines were revealed as the Culprit, they paid off 10 of 12 co-authors (paying twice, three times, four times, five times, six times, seven times, eight times, nine times, ten times, eleven times, twelve times, thirteen times) to retract their paper
Paying once more for the then-chief-editor to renounce the paper (fourteen times)
Then they pay again because of all the new autism cases (fifteen times) because of how a public healthcare system works
Then they pay off the GMC (This is the sixteenth time they’ve paid someone)
Then they have to pay once more for all the new autism cases (seventeenth time)
Then they pay off three separate libel judges (eighteen, nineteen, twenty)
And all of that just so they can pay a twenty-first time because of how public health system works
OR
Wakefield was a)wrong or b) a fraud.
#FollowTheMoney
Although the Telegraph is a hate filled rag, I got past my revulsion at visiting such an unattractive source and read the article you link to.
Firstly, I noticed that it was 11 years old, so it is hardly likely to be up to date.
Secondly, it quite clearly states:-
“Medics raised the alarm under the MHRA “yellow card” warning system, set up to monitor suspected adverse drug reactions. Although making such a report does not prove that vaccination caused death or injury, it means that doctors fear it may have played a part.
Their reports were considered by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which concluded that no significant safety issues were identified.”
It concluded
“Prof Peter Openshaw, a leading immunologist from Imperial College London, said parents should not be alarmed by the report’s findings.
“A lot of vaccine reactions are just inexplicable,” he said. “It may be that someone had an infection before they got a jab, it may be something in their genetic make-up or sometimes there are allergic reactions. But vaccines are extraordinarily safe compared to the diseases they prevent.”
Overall, thousands of lives have been saved by childhood immunisation. Smallpox and polio have been eradicated.
A spokesman from the Department of Health said: “Immunisation programmes are regularly reviewed to ensure that all children have the best possible protection.”
Given that, it is hard to understand either the glee or the importance you impart to the article…
I’m in the UK. I recall this little episode quite well.
When investigated, all the so called “vaccine” deaths turned out to be nothing of the sort. They were unverified anecdotes. Cause of death was usually due to an entirely coincidental event. For example, one child died of one strain of meningococcal meningitis some time after being vaccinated against a quite different strain, with no medical reason to connect the 2 quite disparate events.
I accept side effects in general are under-reported.
But deliberately lying about child deaths in order to manufacture specious reasons to scare people away from vaccination is despicable behaviour.
aaaaamen
To clarify – the deaths were those recorded by the UK version of VAERS (the MHRA “yellow card” system), another passive reporting system which encourages everyone to report adverse events that follow a vaccination or a medical treatment, even if they don’t suspect the medical intervention is directly responsible.
They found on further examination that the alleged link to vaccine was either unprovable, or coincidental, with the death being due to another cause.
4 years before Lancet 1998, the antivax commies at the Institute of Medicine were trolling with their made up nonsense. Shame on them!
“The committee found that the evidence favored acceptance of a causal relation between diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and Guillain-Barré syndrome and brachial neuritis, between measles vaccine and anaphylaxis, between oral polio vaccine and Guillain-Barré syndrome, and between unconjugated Hib vaccine and susceptibility to Hib disease. The committee found that the evidence established causality between diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and anaphylaxis, between measles vaccine and death from measles vaccine-strain viral infection, between measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and thrombocytopenia and anaphylaxis, between oral polio vaccine and poliomyelitis and death from polio vaccine-strain viral infection, and between hepatitis B vaccine and anaphylaxis.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8182813
Do you believe what the report says, Josh Mazer?
Keep your tin foil hat on Brian
Judith says “Put your tin foil hat on Brian”
How about you take yours off?
We don’t wear foil. Don’t you know aluminum is toxic?
…when exceeding the threshold for toxicity, of course.
1)At what dose is it toxic?
2)How does it compare to the product in question?
3)Is it in the product in question In your answer, remember that compounds act differently to elements because they are different to elements*
If you don’t answer these three very simple questions then either a)you are clueless or b)you are deliberately trying to scare us – either way, I would advise lurkers against taking medical advice from you.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1fcb1603d18e932fad27c48fdb553b465ae80fc4c14b43fc1f3f0ab6e2663f58.jpg
*Simple fact. No value/safety statement attached or implied.
Oh we’re gonna go with that logic, ok. Well water is toxic too they should ban it
He was being snarky?
“COMMENT. The authors cite 3 previous reports of rubella postvaccinal transverse myelitis. They caution that antibody status be checked before immunization and only the required vaccine be used. My mentors, WG Wyllie and Randolph K Byers, were convinced of the potential neurological complications of immunization. My own clinical bias, though based on case studies, is in agreement with their views and teachings. Today, the tendency is to minimize the dangers of vaccines as only temporally related, probably coincidental, and unproven by statistics. It was Thomas Carlyle who said “one can prove anything with figures.” The tragic consequence of a seemingly simple and innocuous injection in a young person on the threshold of a new life and occupation as an immigrant to the US, as reported above, should be a reason for pause and moderation of the enthusiasm of some for universal immunization, including the new varicella vaccine.”
https://www.pediatricneurologybriefs.com/articles/10.15844/pedneurbriefs-9-9-1/
Hot of the press! Good information makes for good informed medical consent, which even the ever present vax pimps allege they favor.
“There is no evidence that the measles vaccine causes less death or permanent disability than measles. The vaccine package insert raises questions about safety testing for cancer, genetic mutations, and impaired fertility. Although VAERS tracks some adverse events, it is too inaccurate to measure against the risk of measles. Clinical trials do not have the ability to detect less common adverse reactions, and epidemiological studies are limited by the effects of chance and possible confounders. Safety studies of the measles vaccine are particularly lacking in statistical power. A review of more than 60 measles vaccine studies conducted for the Cochrane Library states, “The design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies, both pre- and post-marketing, are largely inadequate.”10 Because permanent sequalae (aftereffects) from measles, especially in individuals with normal levels of vitamin A, are so rare,1 the level of accuracy of the research studies available is insufficient to prove that the vaccine causes less death or permanent injury than measles.”
https://physiciansforinformedconsent.org/measles/vrs/
Good luck with your vaccines!
Thank you Josh – there is much evidence for the benefits of getting mild measles:
Lack of vitamin A and poor nutrition has been acknowledged by WHO as a causitive factor in in severe measles cases. Adequate Vitamin A and good nutrition results in mild measles which can have a positive effect on children’s health.
Low mortality after mild measles infection compared to uninfected children in rural West Africa.
Conclusion: When measles infection is mild, clinical measles has no long-term excess mortality and may be associated with better overall survival than no clinical measles infection. Sub-clinical measles is common among immunised children and is not associated with excess mortality.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12443670
“When measles infection is mild…”
Well then.
Feeling flat today Brian – no argument to put up?
Lol. You made my argument for me!
Thanks it was easy
I’d concentrate on trying to come up with your own arguments if I were you, trust me, you really need some, or even one!
you should check out judith’s profile. if the above isn’t anything to you. interesting you should side with the commenter with nothing to say.
Oh, Judith’s profile is a huge trove of nonsense! In it, you’ll find her repeating the same debunked anti-vaccine talking points and pro-disease propaganda going back several years!
Finding a rational argument, on the other hand, is near impossible.
Touché.
“Sub-clinical measles is common among immunised children and is not associated with excess mortality.”
Because…. …Vaccination!
[Doh!]
Pro-disease child abusers
What is your evidence that at least two people here are “vaccine pimps”?
Unfortunately, this article is tainted because the organisation that produced it is not committed to facts, but to dogma.
Unproven dogmas are never helpful in any sphere, they are just a way for people to be manipulated.
“Unfortunately, this article is tainted because the organisation that produced it is not committed to facts, but to dogma”- this may be true- but imo the same can said for medical groups that push “one size fits all” vaccination policy. I prefer to make medical decisions in private, in consultation with my doc.
Medicine by fiat is something you only used to see in other countries- like China’s one family, one kids policy.
Prejudice, not bias but actual prejudice, is the enemy of humanity.
With infectious diseases, the calculation is more complicated.
Although I have a strong bias towards individual freedom and liberty, there are times when “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” and we need to accept that, even when it goes against our personal grain.
Last time I read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, there were written to protect the “blessings of liberty” for individuals, not for the benefit of society or the needs of many. That logic was long ago rebuked and rejected when Captain Dudley and Mate Stephens were convicted of murder when Richard Parker was sacrificed so others in a lifeboat could survive.
I’m pretty sure that altruism wins when it comes to public health issues. And rightfully so
It’s not a good idea to take advice from a con man. It’s even dumber to take advice from a team of con men.
Here’s some trivia for you- Among that group, how many have had their “research” retracted as fraudulent?
[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
Here is the link the very informative PIC measles vaccine safety statement, collated with data directly from CDC and IOM:
https://physiciansforinformedconsent.org/measles/vrs/
Good luck with your vaccines.
You are the one who is getting your posts deleted by the comments editor for abusive personal attacks, Josh….
[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
Thanks for that. A neat list of every lying trope promulgated by the antivaxxers.
This is an example of why non partisan, patient centric groups such as Physicians for Informed Consent are necessary. Qualified medical professionals within the system who have the courage to speak out when they see unethical activities. Bureaucracies such as CDC cannot be trusted to police themselves…
“WASHINGTON — A government-sponsored study of two measles vaccines, begun in 1989 during a major U.S. epidemic and conducted on nearly 1,500 minority infants in Los Angeles, failed to disclose to parents that one of the vaccines was experimental, federal health officials said Sunday.”
http://articles.latimes.com/1996-06-17/news/mn-15871_1_measles-vaccine
Josh, your comment would be interesting if it hadn’t started with the words “This is an example of why non partisan, patient centric groups such as Physicians for Informed Consent are necessary.”
That is not what PfIC is or does. From its own about page it starts off by saying “The mission of Physicians for Informed Consent is to unite doctors for informed consent in vaccination, and educate the public on infectious disease, the immune system, and informed consent.”
That, of course, is its big lie. It’s like faithists and their “god” argument in that regard.
The truth is just a little further down: “This organization is dedicated to all the parents and legal guardians in California who lost their parental rights on June 30, 2015, when SB277 was signed into law and removed the personal belief and religious exemptions to childhood vaccination for both private and public school attendances.”
It is a campaigning organisation and thus by definition it can not be “non partisan”, any more than the NRA is.
actually, you are completely correct, thank you for correcting my error, and for your thoughtful comment. I agree PIC is a political organization and by definition partisan.
I am an equal opportunity sceptic, Josh, and really thank you for accepting my independently verifiable observation.
Actually, politically does not necessarily mean partisan. Many local elected offices such as a sheriff or judge, are political but nonpartisan. Physicians for Informed Consent, state their purpose in their name. Respect for the universally recognized right to informed consent is not partisan, by any stretch of the imagination.
PFiC is not partisan in the sense of supporting a party, but it is partisan in the sense of dedicated to lobbying for repeal of a law. They’re not a 501(c)(3).
“To the Editor:
Re “Inoculated Against Facts,” by Paul A. Offit (Op-Ed, March 31):
Our daughter, Hannah, developed normally until receiving nine vaccines at once. She immediately developed a fever and encephalopathy, deteriorating into what was diagnosed, based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or D.S.M. IV, as autism.
The federal government, not an “unusual court,” made the concession. The decision wasn’t “careless,” as your subheading called it. It was based on a thorough review of Hannah’s records by Health and Human Services doctors.
The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program does rely on a “preponderance of evidence” standard, which Hannah’s case met. It doesn’t necessarily compensate families “quickly, generously and fairly.” We filed our claim six years ago, pain and suffering are capped at $250,000, and Hannah has yet to receive compensation.
Dr. Offit’s assertion that “even five vaccines at once would not place an unusually high burden on a child’s immune system” is theory and risky practice for a toddler’s developing brain. No one knows if Hannah’s mitochondrial dysfunction existed before receiving vaccines. Dr. Offit’s claim that Hannah had “already weakened cells” is unfounded.
We support a safe vaccination program against critical infectious diseases. We need straight facts, serious science and speedy answers on these important issues. Jon Poling
Terry Poling
Athens, Ga., April 3, 2008”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/05/opinion/l05autism.html
Paul Offit has received at least 30 million and probably much more from his royalty interests in vaccines. Hardly an unbiased actor.
The problem with Andrew Wakefield is his persistent blaming of the MMR vaccine and smearing legitimate researchers to clear his own name. The man is a scientific fraud. That’s not even in dispute.
In the words of Anderson Cooper, “If your study is a lie, your book is a lie.” Well, so is his newest video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6kOxkPJfRM
“Total opposite from what every other reviewer saw in the film.”
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d032c3a6a52605f4f1373b15b241f70eb9991a16b8bb54e044c5f79ee8e80885.jpg
h/t notorious autism denier J.B. Handley.
Here is another review of The Pathological Optimist:
http://www.smobserved.com/story/2017/10/09/news/the-father-of-the-anti-vaccine-movement%2c-andrew-wakefield%2c-answers-questions-in-new-film/3149.html
It is being reported that Brian Deer himself filed the formal complaint with the GMC that lead to Wakefield being wakefielded. So the journalist created a story and then proceeded to cover it? Apparently Deer flat out lied when asked point blank if he had filed the complaint, and only admitted it after he was undeniably outed. Sounds vaguely unethical…..
“Brian Deer filed formal complaints with the General Medical Council (GMC) against Dr. Wakefield and Professor John Walker-Smith while obtaining an agreement of secrecy that he would not be named as the complainant. By maintaining secrecy about his interest in prosecuting the doctors –he was enabled to continue reporting on the GMC hearing as if he were an objective, independent journalist. The public was deceived.”
http://ahrp.org/significant-shadowy-financial-conflicts-of-interest-behind-persecution-of-andrew-wakefield/
you’re really standing up for wakefield?
anyone who has investigated independently would True hero!
You’d rather trust a random stranger who you have no idea how intelligent they are than a professional who literally dedicated their lives to know the information and actually practice medicine?
no never I trust my own investigation and I am a professional thank you ..
oh so you’re an MD?
professional what?
Do you realize how many children are dead because of Wakefield?
Anyone who has independently investigated this knows the number is quite high.
Do you really want to make the argument that only the people who agree with you are investigating independently?
Josh, you seem to be studiously avoiding the difficult questions (well, they are pretty simple really, but they seem difficult for you) in favour of regurgitating top post antivaccine spam.
Perhaps you could take a moment to answer this (3rd time of trying):
It will genuinely only take a moment. All you have to do is write down 1, 2, or 3.
Which would you prefer-
1). A zero in 14,000 chance of aseptic meningitis from current MMR vaccine,
2). A one in 14,000 chance of aseptic meningitis from urabe MMR vaccine, or
3). A one in 14 chance of aseptic meningitis from natural mumps infection?
I would like to offer a service to all who want to push vaccine poison on everyone. I volunteer to give all available vaccines on the market to them all at once. We will see how they feel about vaccines then. The vaccines killed one baby in my family 2days after injection. One other child in my family has Autism from them and another has other neurological disorder. These people are using the vaccines to make money and depopulate the planet.
Francis Gettys says “These people are using the vaccines to depopulate the planet.”
1915 – Pertussis vaccine introduced – World population = 1,800,000,000
1955 – Polio vaccine introduced – World population = 2,780,000,000
1963 – Measles vaccine introduced – World population = 3,210,000,000
1981 – Hep B vaccine introduced – World population = 4,530,000,000
1995 – Varicella vaccine introduced – World population = 5,700,000,000
2017 – World population today = 7,600,000,000
Worst. Depopulation. Scheme. Ever!
come on now that’s just ridiculous
1)What is your evidence that anything in vaccines is poisonous to humans at dosage levels achievable by routine childhood vaccination?
2a)What is your evidence that the vaccines killed one baby in the family i.e. that there was causative link?
2b)What is your evidence that one child in the family has autism from them – evidence for the causative link please
2c)What is the evidence of the causative link for the other neurological disorder?
3)What is your evidence of using the vaccines to make money and depopulate the planet
3b)How do you explain universal healthcare countries or Cuba?