Vaccine contaminants and safety


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  • #55194 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Paul, either of us can throw scientific papers at each other. I can throw this one at you:

    https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M18-2101

    Original Research 16 April 2019
    Measles, Mumps, Rubella Vaccination and Autism
    A Nationwide Cohort Study

    Anders Hviid, DrMedSci
    , Jørgen Vinsløv Hansen, PhD
    , Morten Frisch, DrMedSci
    , Mads Melbye, DrMedSci

    Participants:

    657 461 children born in Denmark from 1999 through 31 December 2010, with follow-up from 1 year of age and through 31 August 2013.

    Conclusion:

    The study strongly supports that MMR vaccination does not increase the risk for autism, does not trigger autism in susceptible children, and is not associated with clustering of autism cases after vaccination. It adds to previous studies through significant additional statistical power and by addressing hypotheses of susceptible subgroups and clustering of cases.

    #55195 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    And there are plenty more where that came from.

    I chanced upon it. Iain Orr sent me a link to an article called Are We Born Racist:

    https://www.berkeleywellness.com/article/are-we-born-racist

    There was a link at the bottom of the article about vaccinations, and as I had been commenting here I followed it. One link led to another, and I found that study.

    So you can throw papers at me and call them “embarrassing to my position”, though I don’t really have a position about vaccination except that the scientific consensus is almost certainly a lot closer than any opinion of mine; I admit that I have no expertise about vaccination.

    I do have a position that I think you know a lot less about vaccination than you seem to think. I don’t accept that you “have an interest in the vaccine debate”; I think that you’ve spent a lot of time reading anti-vax websites and exchanging e-mails with anti-vaxxers, some of them quite prominent I expect, and I think you’ve spent hardly any time at all reading scientific studies or examining the academic discussion of them.

    The academic literature is where the real vaccine debate is, and I challenge you; you don’t have any interest in that debate at all, do you?

    This is why I think we should have a discussion about how we should go about investigating things. Because if your answer to every objection is merely “Big Pharma, money, MSM” over and over again, and forever moving the goal posts so that we never investigate how a multitude of studies find no link between MMR and autism, then I say you’re not offering readers science but conspiracy theory, and thereby undermining your readers’ understanding of the scientific process itself.

    #55215 Reply
    SA
    Guest

    Oh how mighty and powerful these antivaxxers are. They have mostly little or no scientific knowledge or training at all, and they can quote their high priests of antivaxx, the Wakefields and the Mikovitss, disgraced former researchers held in high esteem by the movement. They can bombard people who know much more about these topics than them and yet they win every single argument with these tactics. You can never win Clark. Have you not realised that you cannot have a rational discussion where it is a matter of faith?

    #55219 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    SA, we must all of us climb from the fertile, productive plains and foothills – which are the battleground – to the bare and cold high country of thought, where the arduous inhospitality makes allies of us all.

    What becomes of one’s suspicion when no media can be trusted? Knowledge is power, and the public is disempowered, by paywalls, non-disclosure agreements, wholly-owned journals, medical staff’s “ongoing education” by the pharmaceutical industry, complicity and secrecy of regulators, outright government classification, and relentless, confusing, misleading bullshit in the corporate media, endless reams of it.

    Experiments in psychology have repeatedly shown that aggression is a response to the perception of threat. Those we call conspiracy theorists and those that purvey it feel they have to fight, and they are right; there is an ongoing information war. Where they are wrong is that it does not have just two sides; all the commercial entities are competing for profit, and for their very survival, as the bigger companies buy up the small specialised ones, and buy out their generalist competitors.

    This is why I am in XR. It is only XR that clearly states that it is this system that is toxic; that we are not fighting this company or that government, but trying to transform this Toxic System itself, which corrupts every entity, because all have no option but to participate in it.

    I am being robust with Paul – I have to be, for he has fought so long and so hard that he has forgotten how to stop; it’s never safe to stop. But I’m sure he strongly suspects that despite our differences, we share the same goal.

    XR Principle 1: “We have a shared vision of change:
    – Creating a world that is fit for generations to come.”

    #55220 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Paul, come with me. You need a weapons upgrade 😀

    And I don’t trust some of your allies. In fact I don’t trust anyone, and I’m not going to ask you to trust me.

    Nullius in Verba.

    #55265 Reply
    Paul Barbara
    Guest

    @ Clark June 17, 2020 at 19:34
    ‘…I’m not going to ask you to trust me…’
    Smart move, that, anyway.

    #55274 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    But you have been trusting certain parties, and you don’t have the means to check their claims. A lot of the means are in Bad Science. Did you notice that it repeatedly criticises the media?

    #55378 Reply
    Paul Barbara
    Guest

    How the crooks who run Big Pharma got their ‘Blank Cheque’ and ‘No Liability’ legislation through the Senate and Congress, in an almost exact re-run of the Federal Reserve scam in 1913:
    Coronavirus Pt 2: ‘Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste’, Replay
    (Scroll down to the box:
    ‘Rep. Dave Obey (D-WI), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee made the following statement on the floor of the House on December 22, 2005:)

    To circumvent this outrage of the public, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist attached a
    shortened version of the bill to the 2006 Department of Defense Appropriations Bill, HR 2863,
    literally at the eleventh hour, giving sweeping, unprecedented immunity for drug companies.
    Called “Division E—Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act,” Frist’s addendum
    added 40 pages to an existing 423-page bill at 11:20 on Saturday night, December 17, 2005, well after the House Appropriation Committee members had reached final agreement on the defense bill, had signed off, and most had gone home…..’

    And of course, the crook in the White House (George W. Bush) signed off on it.
    Even Rep. Obey seemed to forget his ‘outrage’ when the House reconvened in January.
    I haven’t had sight of his bank records, but….

    Trust us, we’re Big Pharma – we had 600 lobbyists on the case…

    #55433 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    You’ve changed the subject Paul. You’ve done that over and over again, on this thread, the 9/11 thread, and countless other threads.

    Propagandists’ standard practice: when the evidence is going against you start discussing something else; avoid proceeding to the conclusion because if you admit the fallacy someone might link to it when you’re deploying the same argument upon someone else in future, and this would reveal your essential dishonesty.

    #55449 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Paul, OK, you’ve changed the subject, and I see you’ve been busy posting disinformation from the Swiss Propaganda Research site, and the mods have been busy deleting it.

    As with the “MMR causes autism” hoax, I have strong reasons to accept the half-a-million-dead figure for covid-19 in the UK. and it isn’t because “that’s what it says in the MSM”. You can treat me with respect and show an interest in why I accept that, or you can dismiss me as a brainless dupe, which is what you’ve done so far.

    What’s the point of campaigning against Western wars if you’re going to encourage policies that would kill say 2% of the entire global population? That’s over 150 million people, 150 Iraq invasions, over seven World War Ones. You’re completely undoing your own good work many times over, and all because you trust some highly dubious, completely anonymous site.

    #55477 Reply
    Paul Barbara
    Guest

    @ Clark
    I moved on, because it seemed you were not answering as soon as I found and presented credible evidence for my position, and against your position. Remember? Instead, you go off on a tangent:
    ‘…@ Clark
    You do go on…I did of course reply to you, but as the information was rather embarrassing to your position, you didn’t notice it:
    ‘… A conservative estimate based on the research suggests that at least 69% of individuals with an ASD diagnosis have microglial activation or neuroinflammation. Encephalitis, which is defined as inflammation of the brain, is medical diagnosis code G04.90 in the International Classification of Disease, 10th revision; however, children with an ASD diagnosis are not generally assessed for a possible medical diagnosis of encephalitis. This is unfortunate because if a child with ASD has neuroinflammation, then treating the underlying brain inflammation could lead to improved outcomes..’
    I’m pretty sure you have twigged to the essence of the above information – ‘…at least 69% of individuals with an ASD diagnosis have microglial activation or neuroinflammation. Encephalitis, which is defined as inflammation of the brain, is medical diagnosis code G04.90 in the International Classification of Disease, 10th revision…’. So, as encephalopathy is accepted as a Table disease for Vaccine Court purposes, as it is actually warned as a possible side effect of the MMR vaccine on the informayion leafleyt that comes with the vaccines (but which are rarely given to the parents of the child having the injection), then saying the MMR vaccination cannot cause Encephalopathy/Autism is total rubbish. But still folks parrot it.

    If you expect me to allow you to tell me how to think, or how to put my arguments, I’m afraid your barking up a gum tree.’
    Same still holds.

    #55491 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Yeah, and I asked you how you found that paper, and I didn’t believe your answer. I then showed you a paper that demonstrates that there is no more autism among the MMR vaccinated than among the MMR unvaccinated; it is one of many.

    To you, you’ve landed a punch, that will help you win. To me, there’s something interesting going on, something to be discovered.

    And that’s the difference; my curiosity – your conflict.

    Conflict kills Paul; I shouldn’t have to tell you that. Here’s another question, but “as the answer is rather embarrassing to your position” I fully expect you to ignore it. What happens, how many die or suffer, if you win, but you’re wrong?

    Or are you infallible, like the Pope?

    #55498 Reply
    SA
    Guest

    This is a direct challenge to Paul

    Reporting of half truths by liars and interpreted by ignorant people is a dangerous thing in the internet. Because you need knowledge to debunk this rubbish.

    ‘… A conservative estimate based on the research suggests that at least 69% of individuals with an ASD diagnosis have microglial activation or neuroinflammation. Encephalitis, which is defined as inflammation of the brain, is medical diagnosis code G04.90 in the International Classification of Disease, 10th revision; however, children with an ASD diagnosis are not generally assessed for a possible medical diagnosis of encephalitis. This is unfortunate because if a child with ASD has neuroinflammation, then treating the underlying brain inflammation could lead to improved outcomes..’

    This is of course a quotation , not referenced on this occasion, but obviously from an anti-vaxxer website which sounds plausible but is not.
    “A conservative estimate…” this means nothing, we are not estimating here we need data, is there data to prove this assertion? I doubt it. If so then I need a scientific study not say so to believe this or debate it.

    “Encephalitis, which is defined as inflammation of the brain, is medical diagnosis code G04.90 in the International Classification of Disease, 10th revision;
    …” NO it is not. G04.09 is
    ICD-10-CM Codes › G00-G99 Diseases of the nervous system › G00-G09 Inflammatory diseases of the central nervous system › Sequelae of inflammatory diseases of central nervous system G09
    Sequelae of inflammatory diseases of central nervous system G09-
    Note
    Category G09 is to be used to indicate conditions whose primary classification is to G00-G08 as the cause of sequelae, themselves classifiable elsewhere. The ‘sequelae’ include conditions specified as residuals.

    Do you know what this means? No I don’t think you do, you just regurgitate pseudo rubbish.
    If you want to look at classifications of encephalitis then you need to look at G-04
    Clinical Information
    “An inflammatory process involving the brain (encephalitis) and meninges (meningitis), most often produced by pathogenic organisms which invade the central nervous system, and occasionally by toxins, autoimmune disorders, and other conditions.”
    and G-05
    ICD-10-CM Coding Rules
    “G05.3 describes the manifestation of an underlying disease, not the disease itself.”

    As to neuroinflammation, you can read all about it here.

    A role for immune responses, involving antigen presentation and immune-response-generating cytokines, in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease was recognized for a decade before the term neuroinflammation came into widespread use [1, 2]. A PubMed search using “neuroinflammation” as the only key word yields some 300 papers, none before 1995 [3]. While some chronic/remitting neurological diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, have long been recognized as inflammatory, the term neuroinflammation has come to denote chronic, CNS-specific, inflammation-like glial responses that do not reproduce the classic characteristics of inflammation in the periphery but that may engender neurodegenerative events; including plaque formation, dystrophic neurite growth, and excessive tau phosphorylation. In this way, neuroinflammation has been implicated in chronic unremitting neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease – diseases that historically have not been thought of as inflammatory diseases. This new understanding has come from rapid advances in the field of microglial and astrocytic neurobiology over the past fifteen to twenty years. These advances have led to the recognition that glia, particularly microglia, respond to tissue insult with a complex array of inflammatory cytokines and actions, and that these actions transcend the historical vision of phagocytosis and structural support that has long been enshrined in the term “reactive gliosis.” Microglia are now recognized as the prime components of an intrinsic brain immune system [4], and as such they have become a main focus in cellular neuroimmunology and therefore in neuroinflammation. This is not the inflammation of the adaptive mammalian immune response, with its array of specialized T-cells and the made-to-order antibodies produced through complex gene rearrangements. This is, instead, the innate immune system, upon which adaptive immunity is built [5].

    As to autism, I urge you to read this paper, a very good start, even if you just read the abstract below:

    Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition of heterogeneous etiology. While it is widely recognized that genetic and environmental factors and their interactions contribute to autism phenotypes, their precise causal mechanisms remain poorly understood. This article reviews our current understanding of environmental risk factors of ASD and their presumed adverse physiological mechanisms. It comprehensively maps the significance of parental age, teratogenic compounds, perinatal risks, medication, smoking and alcohol use, nutrition, vaccination, toxic exposures, as well as the role of extreme psychosocial factors. Further, we consider the role of potential protective factors such as folate and fatty acid intake. Evidence indicates an increased offspring vulnerability to ASD through advanced maternal and paternal age, valproate intake, toxic chemical exposure, maternal diabetes, enhanced steroidogenic activity, immune activation, and possibly altered zinc–copper cycles and treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Epidemiological studies demonstrate no evidence for vaccination posing an autism risk. It is concluded that future research needs to consider categorical autism, broader autism phenotypes, as well as autistic traits, and examine more homogenous autism variants by subgroup stratification. Our understanding of autism etiology could be advanced by research aimed at disentangling the causal and non-causal environmental effects, both founding and moderating, and gene–environment interplay using twin studies, longitudinal and experimental designs. The specificity of many environmental risks for ASD remains unknown and control of multiple confounders has been limited. Further understanding of the critical windows of neurodevelopmental vulnerability and investigating the fit of multiple hit and cumulative risk models are likely promising approaches in enhancing the understanding of role of environmental factors in the etiology of ASD.

    So Paul, I urge you to cut out the crap. If you really have a genuine interest in understanding and helping people with ASD then you have to be open minded enough to at least believe that it is really not at all related to vaccination but due to other important factors, and that there are people out there who are genuinely interested in helping autistic people, but it is not the antivaxxers. If you do not even wish to engage with me and answer this important post by me on whatever basis you choose, then you would have exposed yourself as a sham. In which case I suggest that this forum thread should be closed.

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by modbot.
    #55499 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    SA, the quote is not from an anti-vax site; it’s from the paper Paul linked; it’s on PubMed:

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4717322/

    Paul neglects to tell me how he found that paper from the 6.2 million on PubMed.

    But yes, I’m considering requesting the thread be closed and deleted, because Paul neglects to engage in structured debate. The scientific literature is the place for this sort of discussion, because, apparently, in this public forum censorship is the only way to prevent aggressive promotion of disinformation.

    I find that very sad in itself, and sadder still for me personally that Paul does not care about my sadness. In the way he treats us, our world would be better if you, I and all others like us were simply dead, for we merely obstruct his path, which he is sure leads to paradise. Or we may meekly conform to his battle-cry, or cease meddling in the world. The choices he will permit us seem to me reminiscent of fascism; indeed, literally Naziism, since I know from personal interaction that Paul will not trust me because he thinks I may be a Jew.

    And this is a Corbyn supporter who sees no anti-Semitism among Corbyn’s supporters.

    #55497 Reply
    Paul Barbara
    Guest

    @ Clark June 22, 2020 at 12:55

    ‘Yeah, and I asked you how you found that paper, and I didn’t believe your answer. I then showed you a paper that demonstrates that there is no more autism among the MMR vaccinated than among the MMR unvaccinated; it is one of many…’

    I’ll cover you’re latest ‘comment’ first: ‘..and I didn’t believe your answer…’ – so you’re calling me a liar. Well, I found it while following other links, as I generally do. I did not say, nor was I intending to put across any idea I had trawled through a host of scientific papers which I mostly wouldn’t understand (that covers the first point below, as well – I have stated as much before. ‘…you’re pretending to scientific expertise that you do not possess…’ is total rubbish). I did say that even I could understand the paper I was trying to get you to acknowledge (minus some scientific words: basically,

    ‘…at least 69% of individuals with an ASD diagnosis have microglial activation or neuroinflammation. Encephalitis, which is defined as inflammation of the brain, is medical diagnosis code G04.90 in the International Classification of Disease, 10th revision; however, children with an ASD diagnosis are not generally assessed for a possible medical diagnosis of encephalitis. This is unfortunate because if a child with ASD has neuroinflammation, then treating the underlying brain inflammation could lead to improved outcomes..’.

    Anybody with any interest in the subject of Autism should be able to understand that, even me.
    You would have noticed if you had followed up the paper that there were a number of Meta-studies (or whatever they are called) of the basic info, which showed it wasn’t just a freak one-off.
    The impact, in my opinion, shatters all the false allegations that the MMR cannot cause Autism or ASD, because the MMR information leaflet admits it CAN cause brain inflammation of encephalitis. The fact that you are studiously ignoring that obvious point indicates it has greatly surprised you, and you have no adequate response, apart from ‘showering me with papers that conclude MMR can’t cause ADS or Autism’ (or words to that effect).
    Now I know that there are oodles of papers out there saying that, but their are Big Pharma and their $billions who fund most of the studies one way or another.
    Why have they not been able to prove the paper/s I referred to are wrong? Because if, as I have repeated time and again, they are right, it blows their assurances of MMR not causing ADS / Autism out of the water.

    You previously commented:

    ‘..Additionally, you’re pretending to scientific expertise that you do not possess. There is absolutely no way that someone who was utterly naive about Dane Wigington’s hoax with the stroboscopic effect has the background knowledge and critical thinking skills necessary to interpret the significance of that paper.
    And I do not believe that you are being openly honest with me. You wrote:

    – “It’s on the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) website; as you will note, I gave the link where I found it above.

    There are 6.2 million papers in that library, PubMed Central. You just “found” it there, did you? I don’t believe you. So again I’m asking you to be honest, and to get down off your high horse and treat me as your equal…’

    You have referred to ‘..Dane Wigington’s hoax with the stroboscopic effect..’ before, and I replied then that I had no idea what you were talking about. I still don’t; I’ve never even heard about it, except from you.

    ‘…There are 6.2 million papers in that library, PubMed Central. You just “found” it there, did you? I don’t believe you. So again I’m asking you to be honest, and to get down off your high horse and treat me as your equal…’

    I ‘just found it there’ by following other links, as I generally do.

    ‘..I don’t believe you. So again I’m asking you to be honest, and to get down off your high horse and treat me as your equal…’

    If I wrote that sort of unjustified ad hominem crap, I’m sure my comment would be deleted.
    You make me out a liar, from your unjustified assumptions that I was trying to mislead you.

    I really would like your opinion (or Dr. Edd’s) of the ‘..over 69%..’ papers.
    Looks like it might be the ‘smoking gun’.

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    #55506 Reply
    SA
    Guest

    Nice one

    “Conflict of Interest Statement
    The authors have been involved in vaccine/biologic litigation. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.”

    But also when you look at this ‘smoking gun’ you find that they quote 16 studies. None of those studies have any statistical power to answer the question asked. The highest study examined 47 cases with 25 controls. Not only not sufficiently powered but also skewed. Of the sixteen studies 13 have 20 or less subjects, and only two have 47 subjects. Two studies are only observational. I wonder how this paper got accepted.

    Then let us look at this

    “RETRACTED ARTICLE: Systematic Assessment of Research on Autism Spectrum Disorder and Mercury Reveals Conflicts of Interest and the Need for Transparency in Autism Research “ with these authors:

    Janet K Kern 1 , David A Geier 2 , Richard C Deth 3 , Lisa K Sykes 4 , Brian S Hooker 5 , James M Love 4 , Geir Bjørklund 6 , Carmen G Chaigneau 4 , Boyd E Haley 7 , Mark R Geier 2

    The reason for the retraction is probably because of conflict of interest!
    And finally, the grand titled “Institute of Chronic Illnesses, Inc.”
    This institute has three employees and Mark Geier is the director and a budget of about $9000 dollars.

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    #55507 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    “Now I know that there are oodles of papers out there saying that, but their are Big Pharma and their $billions who fund most of the studies one way or another.”

    So you approve of scientific evidence when it confirms your existing faith, but straight back to conspiracy theory when scientific evidence goes against it.

    Huh.

    “The fact that you are studiously ignoring that obvious point indicates it has greatly surprised you, and you have no adequate response, apart from ‘showering me with papers that conclude MMR can’t cause ADS or Autism’”

    I am surprised neither one way nor the other, because I realise I’m no specialist in either brain inflammation or autism. But neither are YOU, Paul. In fact you have not demonstrated any ability to reason scientifically at all. Instead you work a ratchet – cherry-picked science that advances your goal, and conspiracy theory “big pharma fund lots of stuff” when the science points the other way. With dogged application of this technique anyone and “prove” anything. It’s exactly what Professor Patrick Holford was exposed as doing in Bad Science.

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by modbot.
    #55508 Reply
    SA
    Guest

    OK there is probably some evidence that neuroinflammation has a role to play in some psychiatric disorder but this does not mean that

    1. We know how to treat these disorders with anti-inflammatory drugs but are not doing so.
    2. That because in rare cases vaccines cause encephalitis, that autism is caused mainly by vaccines.

    In fact there it is much more likely that absence of vaccines predisposing to maternal infection with these common viruses is actually more likely to lead to foetal neuroinflammation. It is of course well known that rubella (german measles) can cause serious foetal damage in pregnant women oftenl leading to miscarriage. Catholic bishops should be up in arms encouraging women of child bearing age to be vaccinated.

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by modbot.
    #55509 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    SA, be fair; it’s a review paper, summarising the research of I think six other papers.

    I advise against “conflict of interest” approach, because that’s the same technique as conspiracy theory. Always look at evidence rather than scientists. Something’s amiss here, and we don’t know what it is yet. But the evidence and reasoning are to be found, somewhere.

    #55510 Reply
    SA
    Guest

    As we all in here probably know, not all science is the absolute truth, and papers do get published that perhaps shouldn’t and I am sure ‘Bad Science’ addresses this question. Findings are confirmed AND REFUTED OR RETRACTED But the formula that Paul uses is simple:
    Pick a scientific paper that I agree with and believe blindly in everything the paper I agree with says. The rest is all big pharma lies.

    #55511 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    We should review what we actually have here.

    Paul has shown us I think two court cases where damages were awarded for brain inflammation for two different vaccines.

    That paper says there should be more research to see if vaccination causes brain inflammation, and it postulates a link between brain inflammation and autism.

    All of that may have been followed up.

    #55512 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    To follow up properly we’d have to read the whole review paper, and all the papers it was based on, to see if it properly reflects those papers. But there’s no way Paul has done that because:

    “..the formula that Paul uses is simple: Pick a scientific paper that I agree with and believe blindly in everything the paper I agree with says. The rest is all big pharma lies.”

    Precisely. We can spend hours checking out that paper; meanwhile Paul is on the covid-19 thread spreading another form of lethal disinformation.

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    #55513 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Citing a paper like that one is basically a clever way of cheating. It’s like filibustering; a massive time eater. But crucially, Paul doesn’t know he’s been set up to cheat. He just gets the link from an anti-vax site and accepts it in good faith. Paul is someone who can’t even tell that Dane Wigington is a charlatan.

    #55517 Reply
    SA
    Guest

    And Paul does not have the courage of his convictions to answer me. He hides. What hope do we have of being believed if someone who claims to be progressive and anti imperialist, HIDES from answering a fellow anti imperialist just because I am telling the truth and know more about the subject than he does. Come on Paul be courageous, defend your reputation.

    #55525 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    SA, sorry, I was replying too quickly without reading your comments thoroughly enough; I see you’d already dealt with most of the issues I’d raised. To be fair to myself, also some of our comments crossed.

    With such small samples and the conflict of interest statement, Paul’s cited paper does look particularly weak, especially since it’s up against broad studies with samples of hundreds of thousands.

    #55530 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Paul, it would be nice to be able to turn to you for the following, and as it is you that raised the matter, it is you that I should turn to, but you have consistently demonstrated contempt for the scientific process, so I shall turn to SA.

    #55536 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    SA, PubMed has a list of eighteen citations of the article “Relevance of Neuroinflammation and Encephalitis in Autism”. I don’t yet know how many support or criticise it, but it shows that this issue has not been ignored by the scientific community.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4717322/citedby/

    The other article was retracted by the journal’s editors; here’s the retraction notice:

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5705728/

    The editors indeed cited inadequate declaration of conflicts of interest, but I’m more interested in this bit:

    “Furthermore, the article itself contains a number of errors, and mistakes of various types that raise concerns about the validity of the conclusion. As a result, this article is being retracted by the editors without the agreement of the authors.”

    I’ve had a fish around but I haven’t found any discussion as to what the errors are. Any idea where I should look?

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by modbot.
    #55546 Reply
    Paul Barbara
    Guest

    @ Clark
    You seem to be looking into that link I gave. Anything you come up with I will try to follow up.
    You seem to blow hot and cold; one comment you have a reasonable tone, the next is threatening or abusive.
    Let me make a few things clear. I believe Craig and his Moderators are perfectly capable of policing this Blog, and don’t need Deputy Dogs or vigilantes backing them up.

    [ Mod: Indeed we are empowered to moderate discussions, Paul, and there is a case to answer here. You may have noticed that you’ve been premoderated for the last few days, due to your continuing dilation and distraction. The reply below about the use of mercury in medicine serves as further evidence of that phenomenon.

    Your previous contributions are under review with regard to adherence to the commenting guidelines. As you’ve posted more than 6,400 comments over the years, along with hundreds of forum replies, the process will take some time to complete, at which point we’ll highlight issues of concern in the blog support forum and decide whether further intervention is required. In the meantime, kindly refrain from submitting further public comments to this blog. ]


    If I am told by them I cannot post on vaccine matters, I shall obviously desist.

    [ Mod: Kindly desist from posting further comments about vaccines (or indeed any other topic) which involve allegations of widespread conspiracy. Thank you for your co-operation. ]


    Re SA, I already told him I would not respond to him due to his hostile and threatening posts – Hell is likely to freeze over before I relent on that.
    If you, Clark, continue to threaten me and pile on the ad hominems, I shall cease responding to you as well. I hope it doesn’t come to that. Peace and Truth.

    #55547 Reply
    Paul Barbara
    Guest

    E1012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — Extensions of Remarks May 21, 2003

    MERCURY IN MEDICINE—TAKING UNNECESSARY RISKS I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
    ‘…FDA will allow a product to present more of a risk when its potential benefit is great—especially for products used to treat serious, life-threatening conditions.’’ This argument—that the known risks of infectious diseases outweigh a potential risk of neurological damage from exposure to thimerosal in vaccines, is one that has continuously been presented to the Committee by government officials. FDA officials have stressed that any possible risk from thimerosal was theoretical: that no proof of harm existed. Upon a thorough review of the scientific literature and internal documents from government and industry, the Committee did in fact find evidence that thimerosal posed a risk. The possible risk for harm from either low dose chronic or one time high level (bolus dose) exposure to thimerosal is not ‘‘theoretical,’’ but very real and documented in the medical literature. Congress has long been concerned about the human exposure to mercury through medical applications. As a result of these concerns, in 1997, Congress instructed the FDA to evaluate the human exposure to mercury through drugs and foods. Through this Congressionally mandated evaluation, the FDA realized that the amount of ethylmercury infants were exposed to in the first six months of life through their mandatory vaccinations exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) limit for a closely associated compound methylmercury. The FDA and other Federal agencies determined that in the absence of a specific standard for ethylmercury, the limits for ingested methylmercury should be used for injected ethylmercury. The Institute of Medicine, in 2000, evaluated the EPA’s methylmercury standard and determined that based upon scientific data that it, rather than the FDA’s, was the scientifically validated safe exposure standard. Rather than acting aggressively to remove thimerosal from children’s vaccines, the FDA and other agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) adopted an incremental approach that allowed children to continue to be exposed to ethylmercury from vaccines for more than two additional years. In fact, in 2001, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) refused even to express a preference for thimerosal-free vaccines, despite the fact that thimerosal had been removed from almost every childhood vaccine produced for use in the United States. On three occasions in the last 15 years, changes have been made to vaccine policies to reduce the risk of serious adverse effects. First, a transition from oral polio vaccine to injected polio was accomplished in the United States to reduce the transmission of vaccine-induced polio. Second, an acellular pertussis vaccine was developed and a transition from DTP to DTaP was accomplished to reduce the risk of pertussis—induced seizures in children. And third, when the Rotashield vaccine for rotavirus was linked to a serious bowel condition (intersucception), it was removed from the U.S. market. Ethylmercury has been largely removed from every major childhood vaccine manufactured for use in the United States, except the influenza vaccine, which continues to contain trace amounts. This success, however, does not change the fact that millions of American children were exposed to levels of mercury through vaccines that exceeded comparable federal guidelines. Many parents, and a growing number of scientists, believe that this mercury exposure may have contributed to the explosive growth in autism spectrum disorders, and neurological and behavioral disorders that this country has experienced…’

    From that excerpt from a report to Congress, it is clear that Mercury is dangerous, and the CDC has played around dangerously with children’s lives, and that the mercury/Autism/ASD link is certainly not settled.
    You know yourself the majority of ‘Scientific Papers’ are financed in one way or another by Big Pharma, and the bias in them is to be expected (as Ben Goldacre might say).
    It happened with cigarettes, lead, mercury, Bisphenol A etc. A number of chemicals banned in Europe are still allowed in the US, thanks to the Corporations lobbyists.
    In the case of vaccines, the government is also backing the same horse as Big Pharma, and mostly backed also by the MSM (you explained how there was a time the MSM backed the dissidents).

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by modbot.
    • This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by modbot.
    • This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by modbot.
    #55549 Reply
    SA
    Guest

    Clark
    We are both contributing to the longevity and length of this wild goose chase of a ‘discussion’. I have finally resolved not to contribute any more, even though discussion with you has been interesting and fruitful. But I find that this has been such a huge diversion from what we should be spending our time on. So now we are researching neuroinflammation! Leave that to the specialists and let us concentrate on the governments serious incompetence in everything they are doing.
    The answers in any case are summed up from this article from 2010

    #55566 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    PAUL, YOUR ARGUMENT TECHNIQUE IS AGGRESSIVE AND I OBJECT.

    I am merely one person, and I cannot cope with an onslaught that you need only copy and paste from the formidable anti-vax publicity organisation.

    [ Mod: Paul has been advised to desist from submitting further contributions (see the inline moderation notice above). His commenting history is currently under review and issues of concern will be posted in the blog support forum in due course. ]

    #55681 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Node’s going to be livid with me.

    #55687 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Paul, I’m sorry it came to this, and I’m sorry you can’t reply. You wrote:

    “You seem to blow hot and cold…”

    If you want to understand where I’m coming from, read your copy of Bad Science until you understand it. Yes, there are important issues of corruption and distortion in medical science, but no, just dismissing counter-arguments with “Big pharma, government buddies, MSM” and then changing the subject yet again does not address it.

    After you’ve understood Bad Science you’ll be ready for Bad Pharma to learn how medical corruption is really done, and it’s a fascinating story. This book started a parliamentary review, I think, but there is still much work to be done.

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by modbot.
    #55847 Reply
    Dr Edd
    Guest

    Clark, I agree that the factual arguments should stand on their own without recourse to the motives of the researchers. However, it seems Paul doesn’t quite understand the science, so he’s choosing his side based on motives. He tries to undermine the claims of the medical and scientific professions who are confident that vaccines (with or without the thimerosal/ethylmercury preservative) do not cause autism, by alleging that they’re swayed by financial incentives. Their ethics are being bought off by Big Pharma, according to Paul, and they’re prepared to mislead and endanger the public on that basis. Of course that view implies a wide-ranging conspiracy of fraud, malpractice, silence and cover-up. Well, if that’s the line Paul wishes to pursue, it would be even-handed to examine the motives on the other side of the debate as well.

    We’re aware there are a few bad eggs who bend the rules for their own purposes: Andrew Wakefield is perhaps the most prominent example. As it happens, the authors of the paper Paul cited earlier – “Relevance of Neuroinflammation and Encephalitis in Autism” – are equally disreputable. The head of the research team, Dr Mark Geier, was struck off for numerous misdemeanours including professional misconduct, hazardous negligence, incompetence and misrepresenting areas of expertise. That’s not mere subjective opinion: those are words from the actual court rulings.

    In the mid-2000s, riding the wave of concerns about thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative, Maryland doctor Mark Geier and his son, David, began to promote a theory that a pathological interaction between mercury and testosterone explained many symptoms of autism. That claim came after the Geiers published a few studies suggesting a link between thimerosal and autism—studies that the Institute of Medicine characterized as having “serious methodological flaws.” Despite that review, the Geiers proceeded with their controversial work. They established an unapproved treatment that involved daily injections of leuprolide (Lupron) , a drug used to treat prostate cancer and to chemically castrate sex offenders. In children, the drug is approved only to treat precocious puberty, a rare condition in which puberty begins before the age of 8 years. Side effects in kids can include bone and heart damage. Leuprolide also carries a risk of exacerbating seizure disorders, a condition commonly associated with autism. The Geiers sometimes paired those injections with chemical chelation, a risky treatment for patients with heavy metal poisoning. To peddle their treatments to parents and insurance companies at a cost upward of $5000 a month, the Geiers improperly diagnosed children with precocious puberty—without performing the necessary diagnostic tests. They also misled parents into believing that the regimen was approved to treat autism, according to a 2011 investigation by the Maryland Board of Physicians. The board revoked Mark Geier’s state medical license, saying his practice “far exceeds his qualifications and expertise,” and other states followed suit. His son, who holds only a Bachelor of Arts degree, was charged with practicing medicine without a license.

    The Wikipedia page on Mark Geier doesn’t mince words:

    Mark R. Geier (born 1948 in Washington, D.C., U.S.) is an American former physician and controversial sometime professional witness who testified in more than 90 cases regarding allegations of injury or illness caused by vaccines.[2][3] Since 2011, Geier’s medical license has been suspended or revoked in every state in which he was licensed over concerns about his autism treatments and his misrepresentation of his credentials to the Maryland Board of Health, where he falsely claimed to be a board-certified geneticist and epidemiologist.[4]

    Mark and his son, David Geier, are frequently cited by proponents of the now-discredited claim that vaccines cause autism. Geier’s credibility as an expert witness has been questioned in 10 court cases.[5] In 2003, a judge ruled that Geier presented himself as an expert witness in “areas for which he has no training, expertise and experience.”[2] In other cases in which Geier has testified, judges have labeled his testimony “intellectually dishonest,” “not reliable” and “wholly unqualified.”[2] Another judge wrote that Geier “may be clever, but he is not credible.”[6]

    Geier’s scientific work has also been criticized; when the Institute of Medicine reviewed vaccine safety in 2004, it dismissed Geier’s work as seriously flawed, “uninterpretable”, and marred by incorrect use of scientific terms.[2] In 2003, the American Academy of Pediatrics criticized one of Geier’s studies, which claimed a link between vaccines and autism, as containing “numerous conceptual and scientific flaws, omissions of fact, inaccuracies, and misstatements.”[7] In January 2007, a paper by the Geiers was retracted by the journal Autoimmunity Reviews.[3] New Scientist reported that the supposed institutional review board (IRB) that Geier claimed approved his experiments with autistic children was located at Geier’s business address and included Geier, his son and wife, a business partner of Geier’s, and a plaintiff’s lawyer involved in vaccine litigation,[8] and the Maryland State Board of Physicians referred to it as a “sham IRB” that did not meet the requirements of state or federal law.[4]

    There’s more detail about the suspension of his licences in an article entitled “Mark Geier: Not a Leg to Stand On“:

    Dr. Geier, through his Institute of Chronic Illness and Genetic Centers of America, misdiagnosed autistic children with precocious puberty so he could claim that he was using Lupron on label, rather than for an unapproved, experimental indication (i.e., autism). This also allowed him to bill insurance companies for the lupron. His actions got him into hot water with various state medical boards, starting with his medical license in Maryland being suspended on April 27, 2011. Since then, one by one, 11 of his 12 medical licenses were suspended, an application for a thirteenth license in Ohio was denied, and some of those suspensions became complete revocations. The last actions I wrote about were the revocation of his license in Missouri and suspension of his Illinois license. At the time, the only state left in which Dr. Geier could practice was Hawaii.
    As of April 11, 2013, that is no longer the case.

    David Geier (his son and co-author), who was also charged over the same affair, was convicted of practising medicine without an appropriate licence (he only had a BA degree in Biology). The co-author Janet Kern is an employee at Geier’s private institute, which operates from a residential suburb between Baltimore and Washington. You can read an investigation into their misdemeanours by Brian Deer – the same journalist who exposed Andrew Wakefield: “What Makes an Expert?” (BMJ, 2007).

    Geier’s malpractices managed to extract large medical insurance payouts for the benefit of his own business (and his own bank balance). If anyone has been swayed into manipulating medical research for a profit motive, Paul, it’s the authors of the very paper you rely on. Well done for rooting out another disingenuous quack – to set alongside Andrew Wakefield, Loretta Bolgan and Judy Mikowitz – whose malfeasance was confirmed by judicial rulings. Yet somehow you cast the allegations of corruption at the mainstream industry-wide consensus. It really beggars belief.

    It seems to me that you lose the “motives” round with a swift technical K.O. But let’s put that aside and focus on the issues.

    Several of Geier’s published articles were retracted due to serious flaws and misrepresentations. The Harpocrates article outlines an underlying confusion between methylmercury (a neurotoxin, commonly found in seafood) and ethylmercury (used in thimerosal, easily flushed out of the body). Moreover, the causal theory implodes with the simple observation that the incidence of autism in the US continued to increase after thimerosal (and thus, ethylmercury) was completely removed from regular vaccines in 2001. I’ll conclude with an up-to-date summary from “Epidemiological controversies in autism”, published in January this year:

    Claims that childhood vaccines fuelled an epidemic of autism were widely publicised in the late 1990s. One “theory” incriminated the measles component of the triple measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, the second one implicated thimerosal (ethylmercury) received through other childhood vaccines. However, trends in rates of ASD were shown to be uncorrelated to trends in uptake of MMR or thimerosal-containing vaccines [8]. Controlled observational studies (case-control and cohort studies) equally failed to show increased risk of ASD in individual children exposed to MMR or thimerosal-containing vaccines in various doses [9]. Thimerosal was removed from vaccine production in the early 2000s, with no effect of autism trends. Younger siblings of children with ASD also have no raised risk of ASD after immunisations [10]. Remarkably, no study has ever supported a risk association of autism with vaccines, and as shown in meta-analyses and systematic reviews [9], the convergence of negative findings across investigators, study designs, samples and countries has been impressive. Further claims were made that the risk could be confined to a small, vulnerable, subgroup that epidemiological studies would not be capable to detect. Systematic search for this hypothetical subgroup (defined by regression, onset immediately after MMR shot, co-occurrence of gastrointestinal symptoms and inflammation, and abnormal persistence of measles virus in the gut wall) failed to validate its existence [11–13].

    There is a wealth of scientific literature on this topic (although I note you have already discounted it with an allegation that it’s all funded by Big Pharma).

    Paul, debating with you is like fighting the Black Knight from Monty Python’s Holy Grail: he loses a limb with every strike but battles on regardless.

    “You’ve no arms left”
    – “It’s only a flesh wound. Have at you!”
    “What are you going to do, bleed on me?”
    – “I’ll bite your legs off! I’m invincible!”
    “You’re a loony!”.

    Like Mark Geier, you have no legs left to stand on, Paul.

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