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An antivaccine “Thinker” calls for a boycott

There is a perception that strikes me as common enough to be considered “common wisdom” that antivaccine views are much more common on the “left” of the political spectrum than they are on the “right.” I’ve discussed on multiple occasions how this perceived common wisdom is almost certainly wrong, or at least so incomplete as to be, for all intents and purposes, wrong. Frequently, the accusation that the left is antivaccine, usually coupled with the stereotype of the crunchy, affluent, liberal elite living on the coasts being antivaccine, is often thrown back by conservatives stung by justifiable criticism that today’s conservative have a nasty antiscience streak, as evidenced by the prevalence of anthropogenic global climate change denialism, anti-evolution views, and denial of science when it comes to women’s health so common among conservatives. In essence, it’s a tu quoque response, in which conservatives retort, “You have your antiscience fringe, too,” such as antivaccinationists and anti-GMO (genetically modified organisms) nuts.

Unfortunately, as I’ve described on multiple occasions, there is no compelling evidence that antivaccine views are any more prevalent among liberals than they are among conservatives. Indeed, antivaccine beliefs span the political spectrum from left to right and everything in between. On the left, there are antivaccinationists who fall prey to the naturalistic fallacy, believing vaccines to be an affront to nature, plus a distrust of big pharma, while on the right there are antivaccinationists whose antivaccine views derive from “health freedom” beliefs that are often a combination of the naturalistic fallacy with good, old-fashioned libertarian contrariness that leads to an intense belief that the government shouldn’t be able to tell them what to do. “No forced vaccination” easily teams up with conspiracy theories about the government and suspicions about public health efforts, which is why antivaccine views are quite at home among libertarians.

The reason I briefly recapped how there is no strong predilection among liberals or conservatives, compared to each other, to fall for antivaccine views is because the stereotype that antivaccine views are more prevalent on the left serves as the basis of an unintentionally gut-bustingly funny rant from what appears to be the newest member of that wine loving, vaccine hating, coffee klatch of mommy warriors for whom the terms Dunning-Kruger effect and arrogance of ignorance were coined. I’m referring, of course, to the other wretched hive of scum and quackery, the one fueled by a combination of hubris, quackery, and wine, namely the Thinking Moms’ Revolution. In it, an apparently new member of the boozy crew who prefers Belgian ale to wine and going by the ‘nym of Karma, disappointed at finding no support for the antivaccine quackery that provides the raison d’être for TMR, demands that her fellow antivaccine moms Stand Up and Refuse To Be Counted. It’s even part 1, meaning that there’s more hilarity to come. (I can’t wait.) It’s tempting to go for the really obvious joke that Karma’s a bitch, but in reality Karma is really, really hurt that the media, particularly the left wing media, has been so very, very mean to antivaccinationists lately, eventually finding her way to the grandmommy of all liberal publications (or at least one of the most famous), Mother Jones. Karma was not pleased at what she found:

In my quest to find a progressive, non-biased media presence I went to the most notable sources of independent journalism. Mother Jones is a publication with a rich history, referenced on their website ” . . . Award-winning Mother Jones magazine is a project of the non-profit Foundation for National Progress (FNP), founded to educate the American public by investigating and reporting on important social and political issues of our time. The FNP launched Mother Jones magazine in 1976 and MotherJones.com in 1993 to bring uncompromising reporting to a broad national audience.”

Intrigued, I then did a internet search on the terms “Mother Jones vaccines” and was surprised to find a long history of negative posts that, to my dismay, did not provide a balanced, independent discussion on their pages.

Just for yucks, I did the very same search, and indeed what came up consisted mainly of solidly pro-vaccine articles. One of them included the interview with an antivaccine pediatrician in the Bay area called Dr. Stacia Kenet Lansman, which I described in a post just this month. This particular poor excuse for a pediatrician thinks that vaccines are “messing with nature.” Actually, I thought that the article, if anything, was a bit too sympathetic towards Dr. Kenet Lansman. Many of the rest of the articles appeared to share one thing in common, namely Chris Mooney’s name in the byline, either as the author or co-author (although, long before Mooney joined Mother Jones, one other was written by Arthur Allen). In any case, it is a truly welcome development that over the last couple of years, Mother Jones has been generally rational with respect to vaccines, and the “Thinking Mom” named Karma doesn’t like it at all.

Still, she does manage to come up with one rather interesting observation. She heads on over to MJ’s media kit, including this document, this document, and this document. Basically, it indicates that MJ readers are in general educated (90% attended college), pretty affluent, and are into a whole lot of woo:

  • 78% of readers buy organic and natural products
  • 43% of readers prefer using alternative methods of medicine/healing
  • 86% of readers consider healthy eating and good nutrition important
  • 45% of readers shop at natural foods or health store at least once per week
  • 84% use vitamin or mineral supplements
  • 43% prefer alternative medicine/healing over prescription medication
  • 39% use homeopathic/herbal remedies

Now, if there’s one (sort of) not nutty thing that Karma writes about MJ, it’s that she not unreasonable infers from the reader profile above that a lot of MJ readers are likely to be antivaccine like her. Given the known association between interest in “natural health” and “alternative methods of healing” and antivaccine views, it’s not such a leap to make that deduction:

Notice anything unusual? The very demographic that Mother Jones relies heavily on to attract advertising dollars is the same one they disparage on a regular basis on their website that draws 8 million views per month. According to their own research, 40% of their readers have a household income in excess of $75k, 43% prefer alternative medicine, homeopathic treatments and herbal remedies. More than likely, this coveted market share also exercises their vaccine exemption rights and are educated consumers when it comes to health-related matters.

Of course, it might just be possible—likely, even—that the antivaccine fringe that’s fringy enough to read, much less write for, TMR is such a small proportion of MJ’s readership that it doesn’t concern itself overmuch with winning their business. That would be perfectly reasonable, if true. Moreover, perhaps MJ sees part of its mission to educate its readership, even those that might have antivaccine tendencies. Given the mild tone of the articles (this is Chris Mooney, after all, and I’ve gently remonstrated with him before for being a bit to—shall we say?—optimistic about the possibility of building bridges to the antivaccine movement). MJ articles tend to be pro-vaccine these days, but they are about gentle about dealing with the antivaccine movement as you can imagine. Yet, Karma is clutching her pearls for dear life, so much so that she extends her complaints about how the mainstream media portray the antivaccine movement to other sources, such as NPR, TIME, Slate.com, Salon.com, Forbes.com, and Newsweek:

In the interest of keeping things fair and balanced, Mother Jones is not the only example of attracting an educated and desirable readership to draw advertisers only to court controversial blogging tactics that seek to control the flow of information as well as distort it. The list is actually quite long. Think NPR is above these tactics? I wagging fingerdid until I read their “Shots” blog. Financial publications including Forbes and The Wall Street Journal have joined the fray. Slate, Forbes and Salon have latched on to the subject of parents and vaccinations, wagging their collective finger at anyone that disagrees, and their elders, Time and Newsweek, are the grandparents who want an in with the cool kids and their money by upping the ante in regards to outright inflammatory hate speech as evidenced in posts during April 2014.

Hate speech? Seriously? This from someone who identifies with Generation Rescue and Age of Autism, both of which regularly lay down rhetoric far more inflammatory and insulting towards their proclaimed enemies (anyone who opposes them and their desire to demonize vaccines as harmful and a cause of autism). I mean, seriously. AoA, for instance, is a source that Photoshopped the heads of Paul Offit, Steve Novella, and other defenders of science into a painting of a Thanksgiving dinner where the main course was a baby. These are people who regularly deride Dr. Offit as Dr. PrOffit.” These are people who liken the vaccination program to the Holocaust (or the Titanic or the Oklahoma City bombing). Now, that‘s hate speech.

So what’s Karma’s answer? I’m sure we’ll hear more about it in part 2, but for now, she thinks that antivaccinationists like herself should cease to patronize media outlets that criticize the antivaccine movement. That is, of course, her right and the right of antivaccinationists everywhere. (America, dammit!) She also advocates not clicking, sharing, or commenting on such articles. Of course, that would make it a lot more difficult for, say, AoA’s “media editor” Anne Dachel, to get the message out to her flying monkey patrol to fly in and dive bomb the comments of pro-vaccine articles with the poo they fling.

Come to think of it, it might not be so bad if the “Thinkers” succeeded at this. Think of it. No more waves of antivaccine stupid flowing over the comments of pro-science articles about vaccines in online forums and comment threads! Wouldn’t that be awesome. Maybe I shouldn’t be so dismissive of Karma’s effort. After all, it’s incredibly unlikely that there are enough hard core antivaccine activists like Karma and her fellow “Thinkers” that MJ or Salon.com or NPR or Slate.com would miss them, at least from a financial standpoint. There are, however, more than enough to turn the comment threads after widely read pro-science articles into cesspits of pseudoscience and antivaccine quackery. Maybe I should encourage her. I’m sure that Dorit Reiss, lilady, and all the other commenters who have the guts and persistence to wade into those comment threads would be more than happy to apply their skills at combatting the antivaccine movement to other venues, and I wouldn’t mind not feeling obligated to blog about antivaccine pseudoscience so often. Win-win!

By Orac

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

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

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

To contact Orac: [email protected]

659 replies on “An antivaccine “Thinker” calls for a boycott”

This, to me, is rather cheering. It seems that Mother Jones is reinforcing my hypothesis that the educated liberal touchy-feely types are quite happy to turn to alt-med for minor conditions such as a cold or a bit of a scrape on the knee, but when it comes to important decisions, they’re far more likely to let their head overrule their heart and use, y’know, proper medicine such as vaccines.

The loons at TMR haven’t realised that – they’re at the militant end of the alt-med spectrum, and are vastly outweighed by the likes of my mum who’ll put aloe-vera on a minor kitchen burn and try acupuncture for tennis elbow, but insisted on all my vaccinations, and kept (needlessly) checking that my daughter (when younger) was up to date with all her vaccines and medical checkups.

In a way, this is a very good sign. If the “thinking” mothers feel that they now need to boycott certain outlets, then that’s a sign that they are getting weaker and weaker.

Go for it, you drinking-moms-revulsion members. Stand up, chug another bottle of ale/wine/beer or whatever else you oh-so-critical-thinker/drinker types mindlessly brag about on your ridiculous website and then boycott away until your soon-to-be cirrhotic livers show you firsthand what encephalopathy really is.

Indeed Rebecca Fisher; the drinking mums have deluded themselves into believing that a.) being concerned with a healthy lifestyle is mutually exclusive of vaccination (which frankly is part of a healthy lifestyle) and b.) that anyone really gives a toss about their little movement. The irony of them binge drinking whilst consuming organic nosh is lost on them too.

Thanks for the link, bobh. A little while ago, I read the comments in a different pro-vax article and came away feeling that we are doomed as a species because of the cr@p that the anti-vaxxers were posting. The comments on the NY Times article makes me think we might make it after all!

This is, in its own way, beautiful. 1) A wide, WIDE variety of mainstream media across the entire spectrum is calling this BS as what it is. From MJ to Fox News to gossip sites like The Superficial and Jezebel, antivaxxers are getting ripped new ones. 2) It just goes to show how delusional these people are in their isolated groups. They truly think they are a well-represented group. A minority, but a large. NO. They see their own and the pervasive delusion inflates the numbers. Unfortunately, their small numbers are still enough to damage herd immunity.

I also wonder if this “boycott” is in response to the boycott threats given to Chili’s, etc recently. Trying to stir up a bit of pressure. Yeah, ok. Let’s see how quickly this dies.

I find the “data” of people who “should” support anti-vaccination nonsense perplexing actually.
86% of readers consider healthy eating and good nutrition important.
My father’s doctor too seems to think it is important. She is a cardiologist, my father had a hearth attack and should lose weight. She is costanty trying to make him eath healthy. Guess she is going to tell us we shouldn’t vaccinate next.
39% use homeopathic/herbal remedies
I have never used homeopathic in my life, but I do on occasion take a chamomille tea to relax. Guess I should cancell my DTAP boster.
78% of readers buy organic and natural products.
Setting aside the fact that if something exist it is natural by definition, I also prefer organic meat. Gee, I should DEFINITIVELY cancell that boster.
Sarcasm aside, I think that the only two that really may correlate with anti-vax nonsense are:
84% use vitamin or mineral supplements
43% prefer alternative medicine/healing over prescription medication

And I am not entirely sure about the first (there is some good science that supports Vitamin D supplement, for example).

Squaring the MJ demographics with pro science articles is easily achieved if the consumption of woo is concentrated in a category of readers who are not parents. Pro/anti vaccine is largely a position of taken by those who have (or have had) young children. This accords with comment # 1, where as suggested the woo consumption is dillitantery, an attitude which less likely amongst that section of MJ’s audience that is both more financially presssed and reality focussed, by dint of having children.

T. @9 — As our host points out, alt med does include some reasonable ideas (e.g., you should eat healthy foods).

Over the past few months, I’ve noticed changes @ TMR:

– there apppear to be less frequent posts: earlier on, they had assigned a regular weekly schedule to their most prolific TMs ( e.g. Silent Sundays; Ranting Mondays) resulting in daily posts most of the time, now, nearly a week may go by without a new post.
– there are less entries from more of the TMs and more by a fewer number of the adamant.
– MacNeil is less of a presence except when she has activities at her new gig ( with Habakus and Brogan), “Fearless Parent Radio” (@ PRN) to plug or needs to rant for a while
– there are fewer comments on the average- except on recycled posts which include both old ones and new ones.
– Goes ( the Rev), Jameson ( Mamacita), Conroy ( Goddess) seem quite active The first two also appear @ AoA. frequently.

In addition, TMR seems to be less of a presence- so far -at AutismOne. I only see Seggelink ( Thalia Michelle/ Tex) and the Goes listed; they also appeared at the recent Austin Woo-fest. They have 20K @ Facebook. I wonder about book sales of their tome.

HOWEVER they do have a new project:
TeamTMR ( see website) is a non-profit org-; again. Goes ( Mr and Ms) and Conroy work on this as does Ms Karma, who contributed today’s subject ( notice that this is “part 1”).

They mean to re-distribute donations they receive to worthy TMs in order to “help families” in the form of biomed, homeopathy, “mainstream” GI doctors and other woo.
TMs may apply even if they are NOT low-income or newbies.
Interesting that they tell us that.

They also sell merchandise – mugs and shirts mostly.
AND there will be an e-book ( not a pages-and-cover book as the first was) involving TMs telling their tales.
So, I suppose there won’t be any more book signings at book stores or at AutismOne, *quel dommage*.

And there is a Mission Statement. But you already guessed that, didn’t you?

Odd thing about these so-called advocacy groups is that in order to stir up interest, they keep re-inventing themselves, kind of like Madonna.

With too much time on my hands, I notice that the Thinking Mom’s Revolution has the following owner:

Helen Conroy, 6140 Towncenter Circle, Naples, FL, 34119

Her linkedin profile states: “If you had asked me a few years ago where my career in financial services was headed, I would have said an SVP position in relationship management which was, really, the next logical step.
Instead, my child was diagnosed with Autism…and that changed everything.
Today I am fortunate enough to be in the position to give back to the community that embraced my family and helped us get on the path to healing.
By day, I am the Director of Development for The Able Academy in Naples, an amazing school and outreach facility for children and families with special needs. My responsibilities include grant-writing, fund raising, PR and community awareness.
After hours, I am the President of The Thinking Moms’ Revolution. This is a group of 24 parents who have written a book about their experiences with Autism (available on Amazon and bn.com), who also run a daily blog.
Autism now effects 1 in 50 school-aged children. 1 in 6 kids have a developmental disability, 1 in 5 have ADD/ADHD, and 1 in 2, some type of chronic illness. The divorce rate of families living with an autism diagnosis is 80%.”

Does anyone know for sure – is TTMR a charity or not?

Denice,
TMs may apply even if they are NOT low-income or newbies.
Interesting that they tell us that.

Maybe I’m over-generalizing, but I have a feeling there aren’t many “low-income” TMs. Low-income parents typically don’t have time to ruminate delusions on Facebook while drinking Jordan Chardonnay and tearing apart MJ articles and talking about whether the Grey Goose they’ll be drinking at the Autism One cocktail parties is organic.

Quoth T. @9: I have never used homeopathic in my life, but I do on occasion take a chamomille tea to relax.

But you don’t (necessarily) drink it to treat a specific condition, which is what most people (presumably including “Karma”) think of as herbal remedies. Since scientific support for the effectiveness of these remedies is ambiguous at best, that kind of thing is definitely in the category of alt med.

I speak as someone who occasionally drinks herbal tea to relax. I’m not treating any specific symptoms either; it’s just sometimes easier to relax with what’s basically a cup of flavored hot water.

Yes, TeamTMR is registered as such. See their website. Brand new, announced on the first of April.

@ AnObservingParty:

TMs often claim to be absolutely flat-out broke because of the high cost of biomed woo, supplements, highly specialised diets et al that they are seen around town in groddy athletic clothing, driving rundown vehicles and eating miserable standard food themselves.

They do have 20K friends but still I wonder who’ll get money.

From TMR’s facebook page:

they’re “partnering” with Candice Foods to produce a healthy trail-mix bar which will debut @ AutismOne, proceeds going to TeamTMR. It’s “GFCFSFCF” etc. Not sure what that second ‘CF’ means- gluten, caseine, soy are others. They also worry about “10 allergies” which are also eliminated.

The Financial Post, a supplement of Canada’s right-wing national newspaper The National Post, has a regular column by Lawrence Solomon which often takes an anti-vaccination stance. Here is his latest:
http://business.financialpost.com/2014/04/16/lawrence-solomon-the-untold-story-of-measles/
Some of our regulars have been giving it to him good in the comments.
He is also an anthropogenic global warming denialist and has some truly unique perspectives on the Middle East situation (i.e. We should invade Iran NOW).
His antivax columns have been reprinted in HuffPo Canada. Funny thing, they haven’t printed his AGW or Middle East sabre-rattling rants as yet. Wonder why.

I don’t get it, really. There’s plenty of belief in nonsense on both ends of the American political spectrum, and both sets of people firmly believe themselves to be in the right, even though the things they believe are readily falsified. So, I have to ask : are a certain percentage of the people just gullible, or is there some other mechanism at work that I’m not aware of ?
I don’t claim to know it all, I’m just throwing out some speculation. Belief in psychics, Alt-Med and other woo seem to contrast with belief in Miracles, climate denial and creationism on the other. Is there yet some hope that these issues can be corrected in time ?

It seems AoA is down again.

Following what Denice pointed out about TMR – how many regular commenters are there on AoA? About a dozen? They’re pretty deluded and vicious, but I don’t see too many of them. I’d look now, but, for the reason noted above, I can’t. Shame. 🙂

DLC,
The issue is trust, not lack of knowledge. the National Science Foundation routinely run a survey about scientific knowledge and belief. They break it down by politicla persuasion as well. In general, they find that the most conservative group tends to be better educated and more knowledgeable. In particular, this group was more knowledgeable about the process of evolution, yet they also were less likely to believe it.

What is likely comes down to is trust. Do they trust the instituions telling them the various information? Look at many of the rants against GMOs. are those rants against the science or are they screeds against evil big business, in particular Monsanto? many of the people opposed to GMOs simply do not trust businesses.

Huh, looks like AoA might be having some technical issues – too bad they are so anti-science or they might actually have someone who understood what was necessary to keep the site live…..

The same radio station that broadcasts Rush Limbaugh around here also carries some of the worst quack medicine infomercials. The one for GHR Platinum sounds like it could have been for Dr. Brinkley’s goat glands, but with the name changed.

I think this has to do with the far left and far right being the tail ends of the IQ curve.

@ Denice,

I have seen those claims, and maybe it’s just because I’m hateful, but it makes me roll my eyes (at them, not you). 1) Being broke because you spent your money on BS is not synonymous with “low-income.” 2) “they are seen around town in groddy athletic clothing”…they might as well have said, “I couldn’t get my gel manicure this week!”

I’m sure there are some low-income TMs, and I’m sure part of my vitriol is because I’m getting more and more hateful towards those groups. But maybe if they took advantage of more services (which aren’t nearly enough, I admit) that provide evidence-based treatment/support options, they wouldn’t be so broke.

T. #9 and Eric Lund #15: Re: Chamomile and herbal teas. Have you tried Teavana’s “Tranquil Dreams”? It’s the night cap at our house.

More years ago than I care to count, a nice Spanish lady advised me to bathe my face in warm chamomile tea to resolve some complexion…er..issues.

It made the bathroom smell nice for several weeks but there was no other appreciable effect.

Thanks, TBruce!

I was having an ongoing “discussion” with Mr Solomon and Emery who asks such intelligent questions as

What happens when the oral Rotavirus vaccine is injected?

Unfortunately, my last two replies disappeared into the internet. I’m ignoring Cia Parker and John Stone.

I’ll try to rewrite those and post them now that my finals are done.

Does anyone have a good link to the CDC’s U.S. measles death numbers? Fortunately they’ve been low for quite a few years. I seem to be having trouble ferreting the actual numbers out at the moment.

And, thanks to lilady and Dorit Reiss who have been making their usual excellent contributions.

So, I have to ask : are a certain percentage of the people just gullible, or is there some other mechanism at work that I’m not aware of ?

There is a certain amount of tribalism involved, and the further you move from the political center, the more intense the tribalism. So if you identify with the American political right, you are more likely to attend a church which insists that the world cannot be more than ~10k years old, and to remain a member in good standing of that church you must at least pretend to subscribe to that belief. Those on the left tend to be distrustful of corporations, as Mike mentioned above. Science based medicine tends to get it from both ends. In the case of vaccines, you have the anti-corporate screeds of the left against Big Pharma, and on the right you have people opposing the HPV vaccine because their worldview requires sex to have bad consequences for those, especially women, who enjoy it.

There is some truth to Mike’s point about trust, but it’s more complicated. On the left, it’s a question of whether you trust any institutions, but on the right it’s more about which institutions (church or university) you trust. And as the great political philosopher Stephen Colbert noted, “Facts have a well-known liberal bias.”

Eric,
It is not necessarily about tribalism in the far right and far left. I thought that the most conservative groupings of people was the most educated and the most liberal groupings of people was the 2nd most educated when surveys break down the US population. The far right and the far left are generally the most knowedgeable and informed. It is the muddled middle that is less well educated and less well informed.

They do have 20K friends but still I wonder who’ll get money.

I noticed yesterday that TMR proper was claiming to expect only $5000 profit from the book.

I agree with T – reading those demographics, and noting “86% of readers consider healthy eating and good nutrition important” – well, they are important, and that’s a science-based conclusion. Similarly, I take calcium and iron supplements because I’m a very active vegetarian female and have tested at the low end of the latter enough that I want to be sure I’m set. But I’ve seen the data and know that routine multivitamin supplementation is throwing my money away.

Or maybe I’m trying to confirmation bias my way out of having to sit in the anti-science section if I sit with the left. 😛

@Mike,

Do you happen to have a link to any such studies? Based off of my admittedly shaky memory, most studies I’ve seen have indicated that the far right is generally not as educated as the far left (how they both compare to the middle, I don’t remember).

That’s not to say that highly educated people are more immune to the allure of far from center ideologies though: as has been noted on this site multiple times, the more educated are often prone to Dunning-Kruger in areas other than their own expertise, and they may be better able to come up with logical sounding arguments to fool both themselves and others into adhering to their belief.

Huh, looks like AoA might be having some technical issues – too bad they are so anti-science or they might actually have someone who understood what was necessary to keep the site live…..

This appears to still be a Typepad problem. The fact that they haven’t successfully dealt with it yet (while claiming that it’s similar to the Basecamp attack, which appears to have been contained in three hours) does not speak well for their prospects going forward.

she thinks that antivaccinationists like herself should cease to patronize media outlets that criticize the antivaccine movement. That is, of course, her right and the right of antivaccinationists everywhere. (America, dammit!) She also advocates not clicking, sharing, or commenting on such articles.

Proof of a cult: block out all sources of information that might contradict the cult party-line.

“y’know, proper medicine such as vaccines.”
Rebecca Fisher
That’s some wacko belief system you have there, what is proper about a vaccine?

“most studies I’ve seen have indicated that the far right is generally not as educated as the far left ” Indigo

Well the far right, take Bush as a benchmark, tend to have been educated to believe all sorts of system crap. Left wing people tend to get over ruled by the gentry into ‘making decisions’
It is all a distraction really, until we have proper placebo, not fake ones, RCT trials between vaccinated populations and non vaccinated populations there is no evidence base for efficacy.

Presently all we can do is look at who is dishing them out, take the last flu pandemic as an example – see a group of mindless idiots dishonestly telling us we are all going to die who conned many governments into paying for woo flu vaccines and make the choice.

It would seem those who chose to ignore these self styled flu gurus were right, it was all bullshit and no one needed any of that ‘proper medicine’.

I choose not to vaccinate because I can see no reason at all to do it. I have two degrees, my wife has one and no one in my family needs to take medicine.

Mike & Indigo_Fire: Remember that there are two distinct groups on the US political right. One consists of people who have done very well under the present system, thank you, and therefore want to keep that system in place. This group is overwhelmingly likely to have been educated at elite universities (not just State U.). The other is essentially the religious right, of which some are educated and others not. The latter group is especially prone to tribalism: their group has been treated as the default for most of US history, but they see and fear that they are in danger of losing that status.

There are plenty of less educated people who identify with the political left, too: people who have largely been left out of the economic system but who do not subscribe to right-wing religious beliefs (this group includes many if not most of the ethnic minorities in this country). I don’t know offhand how things go when you do the breakdown. However, I do recall (but don’t have a link for) a study that indicated that people who are highly educated *and* identify with the political right are most likely to believe that humans have no effect on global climate. Attitudes toward evolution follow a different pattern, because that mostly follows religious beliefs, and the churches that go for young earth creationism tend to be on the right.

I choose not to vaccinate because I can see no reason at all to do it.

And what, precisely, would be a circumstance in which you did?

I have two degrees, my wife has one and no one in my family needs to take medicine.

Speaking of Dunning-Kruger: You may not have to take medicine now. But sooner or later you will get sick (or injured) and will need to do something about it. You may be able to coast off of herd immunity for a while. But sooner or later, that attitude will hurt you. Whooping cough and measles were almost unheard of in this country 20 years ago. But then some people decided they and/or their kids didn’t need the vaccines, and now people get sick and even die of these diseases.

Flu is a bit trickier because those viruses evolve much faster than most. Occasionally the people who produce the vaccines will guess wrong about what strains will be prevalent that season. But it still helps to reduce transmission, especially to people (children and the elderly, plus those with compromised immune systems) who would be hardest hit. Since I have started getting the flu vaccine, I have had occasional colds, but not the flu. Flu is much worse: IIRC you are either afraid that you will die, or afraid that you won’t.

It is all a distraction really, until we have proper placebo, not fake ones, RCT trials between vaccinated populations and non vaccinated populations there is no evidence base for efficacy.

See, e.g., here and here

@ken

And what would the evidence for your assertion be? Since the # of antigens in the whole vaccination schedule is much smaller than the # of antigens that a typical person encounters in a day.

@ #11: Well, yeah. Those ideas didn’t originate with alt-med either. And I’m sure that’s there’s an alt-med group out there that claims that “eating healthy” cures brain cancer. Where “healthy” includes whatever the core originators of that particular alt-med group is trying to sell you.

So, yeah, less “there’s some truth in there!” and more “if you say enough, something is bound to be correct somewhere and somewhere”

I have two degrees, my wife has one and no one in my family needs to take medicine.

I have two degrees too (BSc in Chemistry and an MD), and I can’t understand why no one will take my design for a real keen rocket plane seriously. They keep saying stuff about Aeronautical Engineering , but I say phooey. After all, I have two degrees!

I have two degrees as well. BSc in Biology and MSc in Chemistry.

However, they won’t let me adjust the laser in the photonics lab. I keep pointing out that I have two degrees! I can absolutely twiddle some knobs and push that red button over there and everything will be fine and dandy!

I have two degrees, my wife has one and no one in my family needs to take medicine.

I have two degrees too (BSc in Chemistry and an MD), and I can’t understand why no one will take my design for a real keen rocket plane seriously. They keep saying stuff about Aeronautical Engineering , but I say phooey. After all, I have two degrees!

Given that the assertion seems to be that sheepskins protect against disease, I’m guessing that neither of Johnny’s is in anything involving logic.

There are several issues which are interwoven so rather than disentangle them as I really should, I’ll just make note of what I learned at a few of those elitist universities..
:
intelligence, education and political leanings include an additional socio-economic variable to which Eric Lund alludes-
why is a person a liberal?
– because of work place issues ( trade unionism), espousing feminism, racism, classism or an elitist education, living in an urban locale?
– similarly, why are people conservative? Old Money, Nouveau Riche ( Money), evangelical Christianity, traditionalism, being rural ?
Both span the economic/ educational spectrum.

Length of education and wealth would probably run along similar courses but TYPE of education is an entirely different story:
amongst the ‘educated’: was their college/ university work centred upon business, education, technical, STEM or liberal arts?

The TMs predominantly have university level education; for the most part it focuses on education, liberal arts, business and-
( gulp!) social sciences ( although not the way I studied).

Thus the “highly educated” amongst whom AoA and TMR count themselves are not necessarily well-versed in science, statistics, research and SBM.

Many of them are white, affluent suburbanites who may vote ]left of centre BUT some identifly with libertarian or conservative parties ( the Canary Party, Health Freedom, Mamacita, Sid Offit, the Larson-Blaxill-Issa matrix).

I recall a prof who taught cognitive/ social development ( and went on to bigger and better things: running a well-known institute ) would note that young kids attribute causation about poverty vs wealth to a person’s action or personality ( ‘He’s poor because he’s bad or lazy’) whilst adolescents tend to attribute a person’s economic situation to environmenta/ social causes (‘ He’s poor because he lacked education, opportunity or he grew up in a family which didn’t help him’) sounding more like social scientists..

In other words, he said, kids became more liberal as they grew up and achieved higher levels ( e.g. concrete to formal operations) of sophistication.
See also voting patterns based on affluence and education..

The TMs predominantly have university level education; for the most part it focuses on education, liberal arts, business and-
( gulp!) social sciences

I’m having trouble finding any evidence of postsecondary education for some of them, e.g., DragonSlayer, Cupcake, and Savage.

The Count is a software engineer.

Ok I have to take issue with the comment from Johnny labile. The H1N1 pandemic WAS a pandemic. It WAS a strain that had not been seen before. There definitely were excess deaths associated with H1N1 (and continue to be) particularly in younger persons generally not at as much risk of death, and anyone with underlying comorbidities. Also pregnant women died much more often than in the past. So as a person who worked front line public health epidemiology for that pandemic I would thank you not to characterize us in the fashion that you did. PH has taken a beating over H1N1 long enough. Yes, more people and younger people died. No, they weren’t dropping dead in the streets so most of those deaths went under the radar. But if we had not done anything about it, if we hadn’t scrambled to make vaccine, if we hadn’t increased our surveillance, if we hadn’t tried to educate people, and it HAD turned out to be as bad as 1918 then everyone would have been screaming for the director of CDC’s blood in the streets. ALL flu is bad, very bad. Particularly if you have any comorbidities, are elderly, or pregnant. So take your shot like a big boy and protect your community and yourself instead of spouting nonsense. I stand by our response to H1N1 100%.
Addendum: Given H5N1 and other various permutations percolating in Asia, I would be very careful extrapolating our relatively mild pandemic to any in the future. A truly killer flu (a la 1918) is thought by most working in PH to be a matter of when not if. So I would vaccinate because you never know until its too late whether this is the one to kill you or your loved ones.

@Johnny labile,

That’s some wacko belief system you have there, what is proper about a vaccine?

I’m sure Ms. Fisher will respond for herself, but looking over the definition of proper we find:
– appropriate to the purpose: vaccines are shown to be be effective in substantially reducing the incidence of diseases as well as limiting the effects thereof. Thus I’d say they are appropriate to the purpose of reducing disease.
– strictly belonging or applicable: since vaccines are shown to be effective, they would be the proper way to reduce the incidence of a particular disease.

By contrast, homeopathic remedies would not be considered proper medicine in any sense unless, perhaps, it wore a tie. But then, that would be formal and not necessarily proper.

@Ken – you mean too many antivaccinationists spouting off too soon? Or did you mean something else?

It is all a distraction really, until we have proper placebo, not fake ones

I read that someone compared a proper placebo to a sugar pill and found no differences in effectiveness.

The far right and the far left are generally the most knowedgeable and informed.
Where does the Fox-News audience fit in this polarisation?

In addition to Mother Jones, there are other magazines targeting the crunchy granola crowd that take a science-based view of vaccines – notably the mags run by Rodale Press (i.e. Prevention). Example of the reasonable evidence-based approach that seems to dominate their editorial view:

http://www.rodalenews.com/vaccine-safety-information?page=0,0

Now if we could only convince the powers that be behind Organic Gardening (another Rodale magazine) to stop fearmongering about GMOs…

Will they move on to a new target now that the media is dwelling on a report that SSRI’s in pregnancy may affect the autism rate in males?

@ Narad:

I should say that I got the *impression* that most of them went to u. – it wasn’t explicitly stated in their short bios but in posts. A few are -btw- EFL/ ESL- DragonSlayer is from Malaysia, one is French, another possibly originally from Central America. A few mention work in teaching, school psychology, business, acting (!) and one has a degree in physics. Like AoA, they have mentioned that “surveys find” that anti- vaxxers (…vaccine DISSIDENTS?) are highly educated and affuent.

At any rate, today Ms Karma continues with the second part of her opus in which she proclaims that blogs incite arguments which harm parents so we should disengage because it’s just the mainstream making money etc.

This sounds like the loons I survey:
shut off your television, stop buying things, take your money out of banks, DON’T ENABLE the corporate mainstream: we can make our own world as we like it OURSELVES etc.

What I’m not certain of yet is whether Ostroff has a pseudonym. If so, it would have to be Poppy TMR, Princess TMR, or Money TMR. The last of these is convincingly in New Hampshire and has no separate FB identity (unlike the first two), but it hasn’t quite come together.

^ Oh, and there are only 38 “Rescue Angels” listed in Georgia, but I don’t know whether that list is current.

More research ( from Drexel School of Public Health/ Karolinska Institute) that older mothers- as well as older fathers- increase the risk of autism in children.
And who waits until they are more than 30 to have offspring?

“And who waits until they are more than 30 to have offspring?”

I have a friend who waited until he and his wife were about forty. They both grew up poor and they wanted to be well-enough situated in life that they could properly support their child.

@ LW:

I think that the more usual reason is prolonged education and career establishment as well as second marriages.

I didn’t see anyone else point this out —

In my quest to find a progressive, non-biased media presence …

She wants her information to be unbiased, but to be written with an agenda. Huh?

This is a problem beyond the scope of mere anti-vaccinationism; while it might be confirmation bias, I feel like there’s been an upswing in the use of buzzwords to make arguments intentionally vague or fashionable (and to cudgel opposing arguments by intentionally ignoring their points).

I know there’s been research into frames of reference for a while now, so I know the practice isn’t new, but it just seems to be everywhere I turn on the Internet as of late.

On the left-right divide over vaccinations:

As you know, Orange County, California, is experiencing a measles outbreak. I was chagrinned to learn that my own fairly liberal town, Laguna Beach, had almost 12% of parents claiming personal belief exemptions from vaccinating their children. However, the largest number of unvaccinated kids seem to be in far more conservative and somewhat less wealthy San Clemente. At least in this county, anti-vax sentiment is best predicted by wealth; in fact, the cities which elect Democrats have the highest vaccination rates.

I have to admit, glass of Fronsac from Trader Joe’s in hand, that I do sometimes prefer using alternative methods of medicine/healing, and follow the advice of Dr. Khayyam:

Would you forget a woman, drink red wine;
Would you remember her, then drink red wine!
Is your heart breaking just to see her face?
Gaze deep within this mirror of red wine.

In essence, it’s a tu quoque response, in which conservatives retort, “You have your antiscience fringe, too,” such as antivaccinationists and anti-GMO (genetically modified organisms) nuts.

And fittingly enough, it is a fallacy that anti-GMO sentiment comes from the left:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2013/06/do-liberals-oppose-genetically-modified-organisms-more-than-conservatives/#.U1cgh6IvDEc

It’s a myth promoted by Michael Shermer.

People with left-wing politics aren’t likelier to eat organic food than people on the right, either. Rush Limbaugh just likes to say that they are.

Mark Thorson:
More than I’d trust some random dude who thinks Alliance for Natural Health is a reliable source.

I just took a little gander at the ANH Website.

My brain hurts. DO NOT go there.

@bad jim #67–that festering clump on non-vaccinating parents in San Clemente would be members of the brain-dead-yet-college-degreed cult of Dr Bob Sears–the anti-vaccine pediatrician who wrote the execrable foreword to the drinking mom’s ridiculous book of autism lies.

It’s amazing how it all ties together, following the stink trail from one pile of excrement to the next.

Yes, Mark. Yes, I am. Better than a website that backs up it’s content with this . . .

Use of This Website: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of the Alliance for Natural Health USA (ANH-USA), unless otherwise noted. Information on this website is provided for educational purposes only; it is not intended as a substitute for medical or professional advice of any kind. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of ANH-USA and the natural health community. Reliance upon any such opinion, advice, statement, or other information shall also be at your own risk. Neither ANH-USA, nor any of its respective agents, employees, information providers, or content providers shall be liable to any user or anyone else for any use or misuse of the information, inaccuracy, error, omission, interruption, lack of timeliness, incompleteness, deletion, defect, failure of performance, computer virus, communication line failure, alteration of, or use of any content herein, regardless of cause, or for any damages resulting therefrom.

Reliance on this information shall be at your own risk, indeed.

What I find sadly remarkable about you Orac is you exert the same cherry picking of posters that you accuse all your dissenters of doing. You are a cult in your own lunch time.

The efficacy evidence for vaccination is simply just not there because the dice is loaded – fake placebos, biased cohorts, fiddled efficacy data, the list of woo for vaccination is longer than your nose.

If vaccination was a good idea and it worked there would be no debate or dissent. Like orthodox cancer treatment, of course your baby – it is based on medieval ideas of health and the egos of people like you who are too up themselves to have the humility to comprehend what constitutes a real solution to real problems.

One of my best friends who was diagnosed with lung cancer, prostate, spleen, adrenals last summer has now, according to the oncologist, got rid of 90% of his cancer by changing his diet and doing other ‘unorthodox’ things. He now only has one small shrinking tumor in one lung and his bloods are normal.

Why should not this be investigated without bias and not written off as noise in the data or placebo?

@the craic – Very glad to hear about your friend. Presumably this amazing sounding case study will be written up and published in a respected journal soon. Could you let us know which one, and when please? I’d hate to miss it.

But Craic, Orac doesn’t cherry pick posters, unlike sites like TMR, AoA and the Gianelloni dysfunctional family blog.

Your post being here shows this.

Also, Craic, there are basic things that can be done to shrink tumors that, unfortunately, do not kill them completely. Getting rid of 90% of his cancer is not good enough, and if you understood the nature of cancer, you would understand this. Cancer is the uncontrolled division of abnormal cells in the body. If those remaining 10% of your friend’s cancer is still dividing uncontrollably, the cancer will soon be back to its original presenting size and then grow further.

@The Craic:

The efficacy evidence for vaccination is simply just not there because the dice is loaded – fake placebos, biased cohorts, fiddled efficacy data…

How are the placebos fake? In what way are the cohorts biased? And please provide proof that the efficacy data is fiddled.

If vaccination was a good idea and it worked there would be no debate or dissent.

If evolution was a good idea and it worked there would be no debate or dissent.
If Germ Theory was a good idea and it worked there would be no debate or dissent.
If wearing seatbelts was a good idea and it worked there would be no debate or dissent.
Your argument is weak. Thinking that an idea will be accepted by everyone because it’s good is naive.

First it was Johnny labile with his two degrees, going on about “fake placebos” and efficacy evidence; now The Craic with the miraculously cured friend, also going on about “fake placebos” and evidence for efficacy. It is enough to shake my skepticism about Sheldrake’s morphogenic fields.

Just for the record, Belgian ales ARE better than wine. But hey, even a stopped clock is right twice a day; Karma can’t get everything wrong.

“Fake placebos.” I snorted. Fortunately ice water and also fortunately not over my keyboard.

Hey, Johnny, I have two degrees (BA in Modern Languages and MBA), and I’m giving serious thought to an MA (Military History) after I retire next year.

May I come over and do a health screening on your family? Apparently, I’m qualified.

Johnny, I see that I have two more degrees than you. Mine are even in a biological field. I still don’t pretend I know more than medical doctors or public health experts. Let me guess (wildly)- you’re an engineer of some sort? And consider yourself a Libertarian?

Hmmm… I have 3 degrees, 1 more than johnny boy, ( 2 in a biological field) and looking into getting another one.

I guess, considering that I have more qualifications than johnny that I can say that johnny is an unabashed quack believer and a danger to others.

One of my best friends who was diagnosed with lung cancer, prostate, spleen, adrenals last summer has now, according to the oncologist, got rid of 90% of his cancer by changing his diet and doing other ‘unorthodox’ things. He now only has one small shrinking tumor in one lung and his bloods are normal.

Is the diet and “unorthodox things” the only treatment he’s getting?
It’s entirely possible that chemotherapy alone could produce such a dramatic result, depending on the type of cancer he has. If he is only using diet and “unorthodox things”, this would be worth a case report. It would have to be well-supported, of course, with a biopsy-proven diagnosis, and a listing of all treatments received.

The Craic: “If vaccination was a good idea and it worked there would be no debate or dissent.”

The following is from US census data covering most of the 20th century. Can you please tell me why the incidence of measles dropped 90% between 1960 and 1970 in the USA. Some restrictions: do not mention deaths, do not mention any other decade and do not mention any other country. Thank you.

From http://www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/99statab/sec31.pdf
Year…. Rate per 100000 of measles
1912 . . . 310.0
1920 . . . 480.5
1925 . . . 194.3
1930 . . . 340.8
1935 . . . 584.6
1940 . . . 220.7
1945 . . . 110.2
1950 . . . 210.1
1955 . . . 337.9
1960 . . . 245.4
1965 . . . 135.1
1970 . . . . 23.2
1975 . . . . 11.3
1980 . . . . . 5.9
1985 . . . . . 1.2
1990 . . . . .11.2
1991 . . . . . .3.8
1992 . . . . . .0.9
1993 . . . . . .0.1
1994 . . . . . .0.4
1995 . . . . . .0.1
1996 . . . . . .0.2
1997 . . . . . . 0.1

TBruce: “I have two degrees too (BSc in Chemistry and an MD), and I can’t understand why no one will take my design for a real keen rocket plane seriously. They keep saying stuff about Aeronautical Engineering , but I say phooey. After all, I have two degrees!”

Well at least my one degree qualifies me to work on rocket planes.

Denice Walter at 63 – I was 34 when I had my son, my husband was 42. We had a lot of fertility problems. I am in treatment again to have a sibling for him, but that will be my last pregnancy. But yes a lot of studies are showing women routinely waiting until their 30s to start having babies (career, better financial position, etc.) then finding out they have fertility problems and are further delayed in having a child. Not so unusual nowadays.

Well at least my one degree qualifies me to work on rocket planes.

And my TWO don’t? That’s so unfair!

Though, to be fair, TBruce, I would be required to show my work, have it checked by others and actually test everything.

Sound familiar?

Chris, it must be awfully hard for your nearest and dearest to resist making “but it’s not rocket science!” comments around you.

Heh… I recently “it does take a rocket scientist” from a doctor about my pink urine sample when I had a bladder infection.

I sometimes reply, well, yes I am, but it is outside my area of expertise.

the list of woo for vaccination is longer than your nose.

Someone misheard some lyrics from a country and western song?

Eric, what is this ‘herd immunity’ crap, there are no studies on vaccined versus non vaccined to support the myth of ‘herd immunity’ where applied to vaccines.

Why is the only thing you can do when you get sick is use medicine? That assumes that all diseases are deficiencies in medicine!

Where did you learn that.?

Chris, the point you are missing is that you are providing reported cases data, not correlating mortality. Doctor’s are especially biased when it’s their ‘treatment’ under the microscope.

Reported data of cases is notoriously unreliable, especially with a ‘new vaccine’. They change the diagnosis criteria and make it harder to make a clinical diagnosis count, now you need swabs etc.

If you look at mortality from measles between 1960 and 1970 you will see that vaccination made no impact on the natural decline, it actually slows the natural decline and increases mortality and it is clearly obvious on this graph.

http://childhealthsafety.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/0707275measleslog.jpg

Don’t fall into the trap of listening to doctor’s fiddle data! It is a common vaxxy naughty to produce stat lists of numbers and it fooled you into thinking that there was no negative answer to your question.

Clang – was that a belief system collapse I hear

Hey Rebecca, it is happening all the time but when one tells a septic about it they usually respond like a catholic to vacuum denial.

Your sarcasm tells me you are a chemo believer and I hope you never need to go near that.

@Johnny – thank goodness for modern medicine, that we were able to keep people alive at a higher rate from measles complications…..now, please address “incidence” rates, because sanitation has little or nothing to do with preventing airborne diseases from spreading…..

As to your rant about chemo – several of my close friends are alive and well today because of chemo…so I really don’t see your point.

@Johnny – the only belief system in a state of collapse is yours……because ours, on the other hand, has nothing to do about belief and everything about the facts and scientific evidence.

Eric, what is this ‘herd immunity’ crap, there are no studies on vaccine [sic] versus non vaccine [sic] to support the myth of ‘herd immunity’ where applied to vaccines.

“Herd immunity” isn’t mythical but a natural phenomenon directly observed to be operative in living populations — in fact, it can be accurately and predictively modeled mathematically. A few minutes spent on pubmed would have revealed this to you.

That assumes that all diseases are deficiencies in medicine!

Not at all. If you have a bacterial infection and treat it with an antibiotic—for the sake of example, let’s say penicillin—the physician isn’t operating on the assumption that your system is ‘deficient’ in circulating penicillin but capitalizing on penicillin’s demonstrated ability to inhibit the formation of peptidoglycan cross-links in bacterial cell walls, resulting in bacterial death.

If you look at mortality from measles between 1960 and 1970 you will see that vaccination made no impact on the natural decline, it actually slows the natural decline and increases mortality and it is clearly obvious on this graph.

As a vaccine’s primary benefit is the reduced incidence of disease, not simply a reduction in the number of deaths due to that illness, mortality isn’t an appropriate metric to determine efficacy. While the deaths due to measles decreased due to improvements in health care, the numbers of people who contracted measles annually did not decline significantly until the development of vaccines.

By ignoring the fact that people were still becoming ill, requiring hospitalization, and suffering serious adverse consequences of measles infection other than death ( blindness, deafness, mental impairment, etc.) you are arguing the equivalent of “The development of polio vaccines was completely unnecessary, since the invention of the iron lung had already reduced the number of people dying of polio every year.”

@JGC – that’s exactly the same argument that I made recently – that it would be like saying the polio vaccine was unnecessary because of iron lungs…..anti-vax folks are really morons….

Johnny Labile: “Clang – was that a belief system collapse I hear”

Actually, just by posting to the website of known liars, we now know that “clang” you hear is reality hitting the side of your closed mind.

Johnny, why do you portray medicine as correcting a deficiency? With the exception of supplements and hormone replacements and diabetics taking insulin, it isn’t at all. I love JGC’s example about penicillin. Nobody has a penicillin deficiency; you totally don’t need penicillin to live. But strep throat or urinary tract infections make life harder (and in extreme cases, can kill you). But it’s like spraying to get the aphids off of your tomato plants. Your tomatoes don’t suffer from pesticide deficiency; they suffer from being eaten by aphids.

Would you consider that in war anyone has a “bullet deficiency”? Of course not. The point isn’t to make up a deficiency in the enemy, it’s to eliminate their ability to wage war. Likewise with antibiotics and antivirals and antivenins and chemo agents; the objective is not to boost your own forces but to cripple theirs.

But then, if you don’t recognize a germ theory of disease, you might find this difficult to understand. If you think all disease is because of some deficiency, no wonder you misunderstand the objective of medicine.

As far as incidence versus mortality….

When I was four, I spent weeks in the hospital with meningitis. The causative agent was never isolated, but is suspected to have been viral. (Long story. Short version: due to an influenza outbreak, the hospital was severely overloaded and they ended up losing the specimen from my spinal tap. Twice.) It was a horrible two weeks, and that’s the sort of care that allowed the death rate from measles to drop off before vaccination started to reduce the incidence. If you are comfortable risking that sort of a nightmare for your child, well, you’ve got an interesting mindset.

And just for your education here is the data on measles between 1960 and 1981 from the CDC PInk Book Appendix G. Unlike your cute little graph it actually includes “incidence”:

Disease: Measles in the USA
Year__Cases___Deaths
1960__441,703_380
1961__423,919_434
1962__481,530_408
1963__385,156_364
(^^ first vaccine licensed)
1964__458,083_421
1965__261,905_276
1966__204,136_261
1967___62,705__81
1968___22,231__24
1969___25,826__41
1970___47,351__89
1971___75,290__90
(^^^ MMR licensed)
1972___32,275__24
1973___26,690__23
1974___22,690__20
1975___24,374__20
1976___41,126__12
1977___57,245__15
1978___26,871__11
(^^^ Measles Elimination Program started)
1979___13,597___6
1980___13,506__11
1981____2,124___2

So you tell us: “If you look at mortality from measles between 1960 and 1970 you will see that vaccination made no impact on the natural decline, it actually slows the natural decline and increases mortality and it is clearly obvious on this graph.”

It was a bit silly to use data from a country that did not start vaccinating for measles until 1968, and did not even include incidence.

Using American data what I see is the mortality actually declines quite consistently with incidence, and absolutely no increase in mortality. I see that the incidence in 1965 is a little over half of the 1964 numbers, and the mortality is also a bit over half. The 1967 incidence is less than a third of the 1966 incidence, and the corresponding mortality is also about a third.

It seems as more kids were getting vaccinated, the drop in incidence accelerated, with a corresponding drop in mortality. It is just simple math. You might try learning some. Along with learning the difference between morbidity and mortality.

when one tells a septic about it they usually respond like a catholic to vacuum denial

Ah, Johnny Labile with his two degrees, neither of them in English.

If you look at mortality from measles between 1960 and 1970 you will see that vaccination made no impact on the natural decline, it actually slows the natural decline and increases mortality and it is clearly obvious on this graph.

http://childhealthsafety.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/0707275measleslog.jpg

Don’t fall into the trap of listening to doctor’s fiddle data!

Only if you agree not to fall into the trap of credulously trusting some cherry-picked statistics from England and Wales that someone arranged on a graph with maximum misleading suggestiveness and minimum fact/analysis.

Because that’s what you linked to there.

Why is the only thing you can do when you get sick is use medicine? That assumes that all diseases are deficiencies in medicine!

Only if you’re really, really bad at math.

Only if you agree not to fall into the trap of credulously trusting some cherry-picked statistics from England and Wales that someone arranged on a graph with maximum misleading suggestiveness and minimum fact/analysis.

Because that’s what you linked to there.

^^In the event that you missed it in Chris’s response:

What makes it misleading to look at mortality from measles between 1960 and 1970 as shown on that graph as if it proved that vaccination slowed the decline during that decade is:

The UK and Wales didn’t start vaccinating for measles until 1968.

Ann, you will note that in comment #87 I specifically say: “Some restrictions: do not mention deaths, do not mention any other decade and do not mention any other country. ”

The reason is that when I posed that question to one of the guys behind the misleading “childhealthsafety” graphs is because he would bring up the Welsh and English stats. I had to chide John Stone for not knowing neither are part of the United States of America. You’d think that a UK citizen would know that.

Rebecca Fisher
April 23, 2014
@the craic – Very glad to hear about your friend. Presumably this amazing sounding case study will be written up and published in a respected journal soon. Could you let us know which one, and when please? I’d hate to miss it.

Johnny labile
April 28, 2014
Hey Rebecca, it is happening all the time but when one tells a septic about it they usually respond like a catholic to vacuum denial.

Confirmation, as if it were needed, that “the craic” and “johnny labile” are sockpuppets.

@Chris —

Noted!

I was just underlining the point, in hopes that our friend wouldn’t respond like a Catholic to vacuum denial, whatever that means.

What does that mean, by the way?

Eric, what is this ‘herd immunity’ crap, there are no studies on vaccined versus non vaccined to support the myth of ‘herd immunity’ where applied to vaccines.

What part of this and this did you not understand, Monkeyboy?

Ah, that’s what happens when I succumb to an accursed nap. Let’s try this instead.

Un sieste maudit.

I was really asking about the vaccum denial, btw.

I maybe used to have a cat who was in vacuum denial. She hated the vacuum. But other than that, I don’t know what it means.

What makes it misleading to look at mortality from measles between 1960 and 1970 as shown on that graph as if it proved that vaccination slowed the decline during that decade is:

The UK and Wales didn’t start vaccinating for measles until 1968.

Clifford “Graph Boy” Miller (Wakefraud’s “foreign counsel” for a bit) also refuses to his pride and joy.

ann, I have no clue about vacuum denial. Perhaps it is someone who dislikes cleaning up dust bunnies?

Assuming there actually are vacuum deniers (other than cats), why would Catholics, specifically, care one way or the other about them? Is there something about vacuum(s) in Catholicism?

Assuming there actually are vacuum deniers (other than cats), why would Catholics, specifically, care one way or the other about them? Is there something about vacuum(s) in Catholicism?

Johnny could just be living 400-500 years in the past. The Church was totally committed to Aristotelian physics, where the universe was a plenum, with no empty space whatsoever. The possibility of a vacuum was heavily identified with atomism, which was anathema, because it was perceived as promoting random interaction as the origin of everything—once there was nothing but atoms falling through the void until there was an unmotivated “swerve” that caused them all to start colliding and interacting and leading to all the complexity we see today.

Atomism = Atheism was official doctrine for quite a long time, and believing in the possibility of empty space was considered the same thing.

@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge, thank you! I’m always learnng new thngs on RI.

But that would make Catholics (400 years ago) respond positively to vacuum deniers, which seems the opposite of the intended claim.

Lawrence @28
If you’re the same Lawrence posting at Shot of Prevention I think you picked up the iron lung thing from me too (as jgc56) . For the record I can’t recall if I came up with it myself or cribbed it from someone else, but it’s a great go-to response whenever anti-vaxers claim decreasing mortality means MMR isn’t effective or necessary.

The office for national stats is an orthodox source Chris and Ann, sorry it doesn’t agree with your medical bible.

The MMR has always missed the point and why the hell should the public believe the hype about its bull efficacy?
Are Merck still in court over fiddling MMR efficacy results and if it shows they did are you prepared to revise your belief system?

This is a good film on why the Polio vaccine is a fraud, maybe you should get up to speed.

I mean do we really have people who believe any old crap just because a doctor says so? Who says they have any idea what health is? The standard treatment for arthritis is painkillers, no doctor would suggest an audit of the diet!

What do they learn in their training that qualifies them to suggest painkillers – do they have no scientific inquiry?

Ann, there is a difference between a graph compiled from doctors just reporting their anecdotal opinion and the coroner’s office logging cause of death.

Doctors don’t like admitting they are killing people, look at Vioxx which killed 160,000 people world wide from catastrophic heart rupture, just to relieve their arthritis.

I suppose blowing up the heart is a pretty effective painkiller? Quite a side effect to mitigate though.

It was only when payouts overtook profit that doctors stopped writing out scripts. You have a lot to learn my girl – a lot to learn.

Problem with US stats Chris is that the US prints stats like it prints money – they aren’t worth a jot. The US medical frat is like one giant Disney park, everyone is obese and dying from cancer, that is US health through and through.

Cancer kills more kids than road traffic accidents in the US, how do they manage that? Over medication and atrophic food is a clue.

Mr. Labile, that is a fine list of excuses you have there. Too bad you don’t have anything more substantial, like actual evidence.

look at Vioxx which killed 160,000 people world wide from catastrophic heart rupture, just to relieve their arthritis.

I suppose blowing up the heart is a pretty effective painkiller?

Have you ever noticed that you’re extraordinarily stupid? “Heart rupture”? How about you go back and address some of the refutations to your other random babblings?

Isn’t there something contradictory about making citing statistics for X numbers of people harmed by Vioxx, but denying the validity of vaccine-related statistics? If “US stats” are unreliable, maybe you shouldn’t be citing any of them.

“I mean do we really have people who believe any old crap just because a doctor says so?”

Yuh, who are them doctors to tell us what’s good for our health? There must be a “B” movie actress or pig farmer somewhere who can give us the real lowdown.*

*There should be an addendum to Scopie’s Law (“Bacon’s Corollary”?) which says that relying solely on a YouTube link in support of a dimwitted post loses you the argument and gets you laughed out of the room.

@johnny

Again, wehre is your evidence for your “assertions”, since you haven’t provided any.

Let’s give you 3 posts to provide some actual sceintific evidence, otherwise we can all assume that you admit that you have been lying the entire time and that you admit that you have no evidence for your assertions.

Oh, and…

Vioxx which killed 160,000 people

You lose again. Go away.

The US medical frat is like one giant Disney park, everyone is obese and dying from cancer, that is US health through and through.

Cancer kills more kids than road traffic accidents in the US, how do they manage that? Over medication and atrophic food is a clue.

I take it you fail to grasp this contradiction.

It was only when payouts overtook profit that doctors stopped writing out scripts.

Trivially false.

You have a lot to learn my girl – a lot to learn.

Bite me.

Dangerous Bacon: ” If “US stats” are unreliable, maybe you shouldn’t be citing any of them.”

Well, he try to use mortality stats from a country that did not start using measles vaccines until 1968 to show that the American incidence of measles did not drop between 1960 and 1970:

If you look at mortality from measles between 1960 and 1970 you will see that vaccination made no impact on the natural decline, it actually slows the natural decline and increases mortality and it is clearly obvious on this graph

It is one of more creative, and very wrong, answers to my question that if vaccines did not work why did the incidence of measles drop 90% between 1960 and 1970 in the USA.

The office for national stats is an orthodox source Chris and Ann, sorry it doesn’t agree with your medical bible.

I don’t know there was a medical bible. But I think you must have mixed me up with someone else.My point was:

No matter how orthodox the stats in a graph are, it can’t show a decade during which vaccination slows down the decline in measles mortality anywhere on earth if that vaccine wasn’t being given there at the time.

That’s all.

Hey! What’s vacuum denial?

PS — I like to think you’re my girl, too.

You have a lot to learn my girl – a lot to learn.

Bite me.

Please don’t talk to my lady that way. She was gently raised.

Before deciding for or against vaccinations we need to be familiar with all facts regarding the particular vaccine. Evidence of public health benefits after high quality immunization campaigns is readily available from the WHO. As I understand the reason why vaccine-derived polio (cVDPV) occurs for example is due to poor sanitation, immune-compromised communities, under- or un- immunized communities. If routine or supplementary immunization campaigns are poorly conducted which is often the case in Africa people will still be left susceptible. The problem is not the vaccine but the implementation programs.

http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/articles/drugs-medical/vioxx-victims-00820.html#.U2VVTlc08dU

Well that nails Vioxx Her Docktor

“The problem is not the vaccine but the implementation programs.” More pro vaccine bull

Another common vaccine cop out is ” Its not the vaccine itself that is lethal, its the process itself”

it really is like shouting “god is dead” in a church here – I mean Nadar that’s some whacky belief system yow got there.

Johnny, you are full of it.

More pro vaccine bull

Except if the vaccines are not properly stored, they become useless. If there aren’t enough, there are gaps in coverage.

Another common vaccine cop out is ” Its not the vaccine itself that is lethal, its the process itself”

Source for this quote, please.

Well that nails Vioxx Her Docktor

What the fυck are you drooling about now? You disgorge a seven-year-old article that has nothing to do with your original claim (and proved wrong just a few months later), which you’re too fυcking stupid to determine the errors in? Here, let me remind you:

look at Vioxx which killed 160,000 people world wide from catastrophic heart rupture

@Julian – I was going to ask the same thing, since I’ve never seen that claim before (or would think anyone – except an anti-vaxer would make it).

everyone is obese and dying from cancer, that is US health through and through.

Yet, as I pointed out on another thread, healthy life expectancy continues to increase in the US; a study in 2008 found that “expected years of life are getting longer, health-related quality of life is improving, and health disparities between population groups are decreasing”. Someone has their facts wrong, and I don’t think it’s the CDC.

IIRC, the number ‘160,000’ was first linked with Vioxx in Topol’s 2004 editorial in the NEJM. Topol extrapolated and dramatised the available results to say that every 10 million prescriptions meant an increased risk of 160,000 heart attacks / strokes (some of them fatal) — of course he didn’t and couldn’t estimate the *actual* increase in the number, because that also depends on the *duration* of each prescription. But various breathless nimrods seized on the number anyway and turned it into a concrete death-toll.

Young Labile’s additional contortion into “catastrophic heart rupture” pales in comparison, just an additional veneer of piffle.

There is a moral here, about never underestimating the willingness of bullsh1t artists to lie about anything you publish.

Cancer kills more kids than road traffic accidents in the US, how do they manage that?

True but misleading.

It used to be the case that road traffic incidents were the leading cause of death in children in the US, but more recently cancer kills about the same number of children as road accidents (each kills around 1,200 each year).

This is not because of an increase in child cancer deaths, which have more than halved since 1975 (from 5 per 100,000 to about 2.2 per 100,000). The main reason is the impressive improvement in road safety we have seen over the past few decades – non-accidental injury killed about 23 per 100,000 children aged 1-14 in 1970, falling to about 3 per 100,000 in 2009, most of this improvement is in road traffic deaths.

@#140

Come on, girlfriend. Have a heart. Please tell me what vacuum denial is.

“non-accidental injury killed about 23 per 100,000 children aged 1-14 in 197”

Did you mean accidental injury?

Did you mean accidental injury?

Oops. You’re quite right, of course. I know the US has a reputation for high homicide rates, but that would be truly alarming!

I came across the huge fall in child deaths from road accidents in the UK a while ago, and it’s interesting it is paralleled in the US. I assume most is due to road safety improvements (seat belts, airbags, vehicle design), a fall in DUI, but I wonder how much is because today’s parents are too afraid to let their children walk to school and play out like children did a few decades ago.

HDB,

Topol extrapolated and dramatised the available results to say that every 10 million prescriptions meant an increased risk of 160,000 heart attacks / strokes (some of them fatal) — of course he didn’t and couldn’t estimate the *actual* increase in the number, because that also depends on the *duration* of each prescription. But various breathless nimrods seized on the number anyway and turned it into a concrete death-toll.

I’m worried about the number of deaths calcium supplements have caused. A high dose of Vioxx taken for long periods may lead to a 73% increase in risk of acute MI, whereas calcium supplements taken alone may lead to 139% increase in risk of acute MI n = 23,980). Since 12% of the US population take calcium supplements (Why US Adults Use Dietary Supplements. Bailey et al. JAMA Internal Medicine) I estimate that they cause at least 30 million heart attacks each year, in Americans alone. Does this mean more than a tenth of Americans’ hearts will literally explode inside their chests because they take a calcium supplement?

More seriously, if you look closely at the Vioxx literature it is far from clear what the cardiovascular risks really are. The VIGOR trial compared patients on Vioxx with patients on Naproxen, which has cardioprotective effects, so it’s hard to say to what extent Vioxx actually increases risk or just doesn’t decrease risk – the elevated risk was for MI and stroke, not deaths. There was also some controversy over some MIs that occurred shortly after the prespecified cutoff date of the VIGOR study. (different cutoff dates for cardiovascular and gastrointestinal side effects confused matters)

Other subsequent studies (such as APPROVe) comparing Vioxx to placebo found no increase in cardiovascular events until the drug had been taken for 18 months but a doubling (more in high doses) in risk of MI or stroke, but not deaths. More recent studies suggest that some other NSAIDs (ibuprofen and diclofenac for example) may have similar side effects; since these are very widely used and available over the counter, the number of cardiovascular events these may (or may not) have caused is incalculable.

The fabricated efficacy studies, while of course a very bad thing, were not evidence used to approve the drug.
I wonder how we determine the acceptable risk of NSAIDs given their extraordinary benefits. My grandmother died after suffering a massive gut bleed due to NSAIDs, but they also enabled her to remain active and mobile for several years despite her arthritis. I suspect she would have been happy with the trade-off, given a choice between a few years traveling the world (she was still going to mathematics conferences in places like Argentina and Russia, on her own, in her 70s), or a few more years of pain and immobility.

I can’t take NSAIDs any more due to salicylate sensitivity (unless I want an asthma attack), and I certainly miss them for sinusitis and for an old shoulder injury – acetaminophen, codeine and even tramadol don’t have the anti-inflammatory effects, and I can tell.

Krebiozen:

I assume most is due to road safety improvements (seat belts, airbags, vehicle design), a fall in DUI, but I wonder how much is because today’s parents are too afraid to let their children walk to school and play out like children did a few decades ago.

I would bet money that seatbelt laws and child restraint laws are by far the biggest contributors to the decline. When I was a little kid, child restraints in cars were pretty much optional. They were recommended, of course, but nobody forced you to get them or to use them. Today, most states allow police officers to pull you over if they suspect anyone in the car is not properly restrained; used to be, even once it was made mandatory, that police officers had to have another reason for pulling you over, like speeding, before they could ticket you for that. And there is no question whatsoever that seat belts and child restraints reduce mortality in car accidents. The accidents still happen, of course, but fewer people are dying in them.

Vehicle safety is probably the next one on the list. Seatbelt or not, accidents are far more survivable now than they were twenty years ago, for people of all ages. You’re more likely to get your car totaled, because the crumple zones, well, crumple, but that’s the car crumpling instead of you. A few years ago, there was a great crash test comparison done by the Institute for Highway Safety, where they slammed together a 1959 Chevy Bel Air and a 2009 Chevy Malibu. Definitely watch the video.

@ Krebiozen:

I couldn’t take aspirin or naproxen ( or codeine for that matter) because of gastic sensitivity BUT I can take ibuprofen with no problems. Go figure.

Re: Vioxx

I also wonder about that. Ibuprofen has some ugly side effects, but it’s incredibly widely used because it *works*. It gives people relief. Sure, we want something better, but “it might possibly increase your risk of heart attack” doesn’t seem to me to be enough reason to pull it, given how it can change the life of someone with chronic pain. What’s the point of not getting a heart attack if it means you’re in bed all the time being miserable? Plus, if it helps people be more active, what affect does *that* have on the heart attack risk? Being inactive increases the risk of obesity and of blood clots and makes it harder to control diseases like asthma; we have to remember that the main users of these drugs are the elderly, and they are a different population than the healthy young volunteers that drug trials are done on, and the risk-benefit equation is very different for them.

Denice,
The only NSAID that has had that effect on me was diclofenac, which I simply couldn’t tolerate, even after food. My mother couldn’t tolerate codeine, which reliably sent her into a nightmarish altered state.

It’s weird how different people react to differently to drugs. I remember in my youth I was at a party where someone had acquired some diethyl ether (popular in some unexpected circles – cocktail recipe here), which had absolutely no effect whatsoever on one of my friends, to her disappointment. One day, no doubt, we will understand these peculiar vagaries in terms of genetics.

“The fabricated efficacy studies, while of course a very bad thing, were not evidence used to approve the drug.” re Vioxx
Thanks for that Kreboizen

Well there is a little gem, if you are a Vioxx believer of course you can overlook fabricated efficacy studies because the drug is soooo exciting. In fact in drug trials any old evidence will do – apparently. Same with vaccine studies, no comparisons with non vaccinated because apparently it is unethical to do this? The reason, apparently vaccines ‘protect’ so not being vaccinated in a study that is trying to prove efficacy is not ethical because you are not ‘protecting’ the group who are not vaccinated. – uh doesn’t that assume that the vaccine works before it is tested?

I suppose if you are a vaccine believer then it’s logical – I mean the bible is the word of god………… so pubmed must be the word of vaccine efficacy?

So considering all the med believer winging here, can you name a country that you can buy Vioxx in right now?

trying to prove efficacy is not ethical because you are not ‘protecting’ the group who are not vaccinated. – uh doesn’t that assume that the vaccine works before it is tested?

If the purpose of the proposed vaxed/unvaxed test were proving the efficacy of the vaccine, then that would be entirely ethical. If the purpose is to prove some side effect that all evidence says is not a result of the vaccination, then it’s not quite so ethical.

Well there is a little gem, if you are a Vioxx believer of course you can overlook fabricated efficacy studies because the drug is soooo exciting.

Since when does a drug is so exciting??

I take a drug based on MDMA and it’s boring as hell. Just let me function well.

Alain

Thanks for that Kreboizen
Well there is a little gem, if you are a Vioxx believer of course you can overlook fabricated efficacy studies because the drug is soooo exciting. In fact in drug trials any old evidence will do – apparently.

I don’t see your point. Vioxx is very effective, there is no doubt about that. The fabricated trials were not part of the evidence used to approve the drug, also not in question. Should an effective drug be canned simply because one individual did wrong? What cardiovascular risks do you think are acceptable in a drug that transforms people’s lives the way Vioxx can?

Same with vaccine studies, no comparisons with non vaccinated because apparently it is unethical to do this? […] – uh doesn’t that assume that the vaccine works before it is tested?

Which vaccines have been initially marketed without placebo-controlled trials? I’m having trouble finding any. I can find 4 placebo-controlled studies of MMR: Bloom 1975 (PMID: 1151553); Lerman 1981; Peltola 1986 (PMID: 2871241); Schwarz 1975 (PMID: 128287). For Gardasil I found a number of placebo-controlled trials, for example this one.

The reason, apparently vaccines ‘protect’ so not being vaccinated in a study that is trying to prove efficacy is not ethical because you are not ‘protecting’ the group who are not vaccinated.

Once you have a vaccine that you know is effective, of course it would be unethical to withhold it from a control group. You would be putting your subjects’ health or even their lives at risk unnecessarily. What do you suggest?

Also:

I suppose if you are a vaccine believer then it’s logical – I mean the bible is the word of god………… so pubmed must be the word of vaccine efficacy?

Pubmed is simply an index of journal articles, some more reliable than others. I do put more faith in a well-designed peer-reviewed study published in a reputable journal than I do lunatics I come across ranting about vaccine dangers on the internet. That’s partly because I know the research I have been involved with has been honestly carried out, reported and published. Why should I distrust peer-reviewed vaccine studies published in medical journals?

If you don’t believe journals, what about the huge fall in measles, mumps and rubella incidence since MMR was introduced? What about the fall in incidence of chicken pox in the US (routine vaccination) but not in the UK (no routine vaccination)?

So considering all the med believer winging here, can you name a country that you can buy Vioxx in right now?

No, but again I fail to see your point. Merck voluntarily withdrew the drug. Both the FDA and the Canadian approval agency voted in favor of its reintroduction, with the Canadian board voting 11-1 and questioning whether cardiovascular effects are common to all selective COX-2 inhibitors.

It seems likely that Vioxx will be reintroduced to the market eventually. Personally I think it’s a good drug that has been unfairly demonized.

Sorry, I’m having trouble with link-closing tags recently.

Johnny Labile.

I’m not kidding. You said:

they usually respond like a catholic to vacuum denial

I want to know what it means.

What’s vacuum denial?

So considering all the med believer winging here, can you name a country that you can buy Vioxx in right now?

It was withdrawn by the manufacturer, genius. So, here’s a relevant question in return:

Can you explain, in your own words, a good reason why it should not be returned to market with more stringent prescribing guidelines?

no comparisons with non vaccinated because apparently it is unethical to do this? The reason, apparently vaccines ‘protect’ so not being vaccinated in a study that is trying to prove efficacy is not ethical because you are not ‘protecting’ the group who are not vaccinated. – uh doesn’t that assume that the vaccine works before it is tested?

Johnny probably doesn’t realize, he’s actually committing the very act he’s accusing us of.

Each trial must be conducted according to the best knowledge we have, at the time we have it.

Sometimes we do test a vaccine by comparing “a group that gets the vaccine” against “a group that gets no vaccine”. Does that happen often? No, it doesn’t. It only happens when we don’t already have a vaccine for the disease and we really don’t know whether the vaccine we hope will be our first will provide greater protection than an unvaccinated person would have.

If we do have an existing vaccine, then yes, it is profoundly unethical to say “Yes, we do have a vaccine that passed its own safety and efficacy trials and represents the best protection we know of against this disease. However, if you’re in the control group, we won’t give you any protection at all. Why? Well, because some wanker out there has a profound distrust of vaccines, and he thinks that, instead of testing a new vaccine against the best existing vaccine, we should test each vaccine against absolutely nothing, just in case all of our previously collected data indicating the efficacy of vaccines was wrong.”

Johnny accuses us of assuming the efficacy of vaccines, without having the evidence to back that view. It’s actually just the reverse; Johnny wants a lack of efficacy of vaccines to be assumed, over and over again, in every single trial, even when the evidence completely contradicts that view.

@Kreb

It’s weird how different people react to differently to drugs.

On the two occasions that I snorted cocaine, I had no reaction whatsoever although others did.

It is interesting that anus Feldspar obviously has a vaccine belief system all cranked up.
Tell us why vaccines are not tested against real placebos – usually it is another vaccine or the adjunct in the vaccine.

All those fiddled efficacy studies too, all allowable under vaccine belief but rather naughty.

That complete bull about knowing they are ‘safe’ too, it is pushing the boundaries of ‘safe’ to bendy proportions.

Herd immunity is another medical urban myth, oft quoted like some psalm. The only herd immunity studies ever done were with natural immunity, not vaccines. It is all hype to suggest injecting kids with cellular detritus infers ‘health’.

Like calling fast food – food, immunisation doesn’t immunise anything.

Oh, maybe I am wrong. Immunisation immunises rational thinking, I mean injecting aluminum salts into kids to make vaccines work better?

Oh, maybe I am wrong. Immunisation immunises rational thinking, I mean injecting aluminum salts into kids to make vaccines work better?

This is why no one can take Johnny seriously (well, it’s one of several reasons). He wants to have it both ways. He wants to say “You stupid vaccine-supporters! You don’t have cold, hard facts showing that vaccines work! All you have is airy hypothesizing about what should work! Those airy hypotheses are nothing, next to cold, hard fact!”

But then he wants to turn around and utterly discount matters on which the cold, hard facts are known and are in favor of the vaccine supporters – matters such as the fact that adjuvants enhance immune response and make vaccines work better – and discount them just because he sneers. “You stupid vaccine-supporters! You only have cold, hard facts showing that vaccines work! Those cold, hard facts are nothing, next to my airy hypothesizing about why they shouldn’t work!”

@Johnny Labile – I am no expert, but I was able in a rather short search to find serious studies showing that aluminum adjuvants improve immune response to vaccines. I am thus confused by what you mean by

I mean injecting aluminum salts into kids to make vaccines work better?

Yes, apparently they do.

Tell us why vaccines are not tested against real placebos – usually it is another vaccine or the adjunct in the vaccine….

Herd immunity is another medical urban myth, oft quoted like some psalm. The only herd immunity studies ever done were with natural immunity, not vaccines.

Both of these “points” have already been directly shown to you to be false.

Oh, maybe I am wrong. Immunisation immunises rational thinking,

You mean like simply repeating the same thing over and over even though you’ve been unequivocally, trivially shown to be wrong?

Johnny Labile: “Herd immunity is another medical urban myth, oft quoted like some psalm. The only herd immunity studies ever done were with natural immunity, not vaccines.”

Citations? Though we won’t expect anything but silly excuses, like what you and friends did with my question in Comment #87.

Just for your information, England and Wales are not in the USA, and there is a difference between mortality and morbidity. One difference was I did not want one of them mentioned.

Johnny Labile (my mind sees labia) clearly doesn’t know what Rhinderpest is. So much for your canards Johnny.

Tell us why vaccines are not tested against real placebos

Johnny clearly hasn’t looked at the research, either. If he had, he would have found that several of the newer vaccines approved within recent years have been tested against saline, as well as against placebos consisting of everything but the antigen. And, if he understood clinical trial design, he would understand why the adjuvanted placebo is an important comparator.

@Science Mom —

I think mood lability. But I think lots of things can be labile. Chemicals and what have you.
__________________

I don’t understand why I’m getting the silent treatment wrt vacuum denial. BTW. It’s an innocent question. I really want to know.

Johnny Labile (my mind sees labia)

1. Sujet à glisser, à tomber, manquer.
 Mémoire labile, mémoire faible qui manque souvent au besoin.
  FURETIÉRE, Factums, t. II, p. 318: Elles [de mauvaises poésies] se répandaient dans des oreilles populaires, et n’étaient reçues que dans des mémoires labiles et de vrais tonneaux percés, en sorte qu’elles tombaient dans l’oubli

Like calling fast food – food, immunisation doesn’t immunise anything.

And yet, whole generations of students survived on fast food and ramen.
And yet, plenty of private businesses do nothing but inject rabbits, goats and horses with vaccines suspensions of molecules and sell the obtained antibodies.

Johnny Labile,

Tell us why vaccines are not tested against real placebos – usually it is another vaccine or the adjunct in the vaccine.

Sometimes, but how else can you distinguish between any reactions to the antibodies in the vaccine and reactions to the adjuvant? Most adjuvants have been in use for more than half a century and have a proven safety profile. How would using this kind of placebo interfere with efficacy studies anyway? Are you suggesting that the aluminum adjuvant placebo in the Gardasil trial I cited above, for example, was responsible for its effect?

When administered to subjects who had not been previously exposed to either HPV-16 or HPV-18, the prophylactic HPV vaccine was highly effective (98%) in preventing HPV-16–related and HPV-18–related cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2 or 3 and adenocarcinoma in situ.

That’s one amazing placebo!

All those fiddled efficacy studies too, all allowable under vaccine belief but rather naughty.

What “fiddled efficacy studies” are you referring to? Are you suggesting the Gardasil trial I mentioned is fraudulent? Would you care to explain what evidence you have for such a claim? How are these studies “naughty”? Is it because they break the imaginary rules you came across on an antivaccine website somewhere?

That complete bull about knowing they are ‘safe’ too, it is pushing the boundaries of ‘safe’ to bendy proportions.

You mean a placebo-controlled clinical trial on thousands of people that finds no difference in side effects between a placebo and a vaccine, like the Gardasil trial is somehow invalid? That the post-marketing surveillance of millions of people finding no evidence of vaccine reactions is somehow bogus? I find it hard to conceive any better ways of assuring vaccine safety. I assume you have a better way, do share.

Herd immunity is another medical urban myth, oft quoted like some psalm. The only herd immunity studies ever done were with natural immunity, not vaccines.

That’s not true. There have been many studies on herd immunity done with vaccinated people. It doesn’t matter what the source of immunity is, whether natural immunity, induced by vaccines or by wearing a biohazard suit, herd immunity still functions. How could it not? It’s a very simple concept, that if Fred is immune to measles he can’t catch it from Mary and give it to George.

Anyone who claims that herd immunity is a myth cannot possibly understand the concept. It’s like claiming that only rain will prevent the spread of a forest fire, and that artificial water cannot make a firebreak.

It is all hype to suggest injecting kids with cellular detritus infers ‘health’.

“Cellular detritus”? Sounds awful, until you look at what is in vaccines and realize that the hype is from people like you. Me, I’m full of cellular detritus, it’s my main ingredient.

Like calling fast food – food, immunisation doesn’t immunise anything.

What a very silly claim. If immunization doesn’t immunize anything, why do children in the UK still get chicken pox and children in the US generally don’t? Why has chicken pox incidence fallen by more than 90% in the US since the vaccine was introduced, but hasn’t changed in the UK. There are a hundred other pieces of evidence I could refer to.

I mean injecting aluminum salts into kids to make vaccines work better?

It’s amazing how well that works, meaning the vaccine can contain less of that “cellular debris” you are so concerned about. The amount of aluminum absorbed into the bloodstream from a vaccine is less than that absorbed from food. Did you know that a dose of aluminum antacid may contain 5,000 times as much aluminum as there is in any vaccine? That even a child with poor kidney function could easily excrete the aluminum from a vaccine, just as they do the aluminum they absorb from food?

Me, I’m full of cellular detritus, it’s my main ingredient.

Me, I’m just a lawnmower, you can tell by the way I walk.

@sheepmilker —

Nice.

There was a lovely little uninflected Bowie snippet somewhere in something Orac quoted the other day, too. (Chiropractors; spine out of place; “Suffragette City.” )

The great thing about herd immunity is that it protects you even if you don’t believe in it.

sheepmilker, you’re wasting your time here – there’s a future for you in the fire escape trade.

” “You stupid vaccine-supporters! You only have cold, hard facts showing that vaccines work! Anus feldspar

Well we don’t do we, last years vaccine failure was whooping cough, highest uptake of vaccine ever coinciding with the highest outbreaks ever. Way over the mythical levels for herd immunity in the US too.

This year its ‘primary mumps vaccine failure’ in the US.

Most years it’s primary flu vaccine failure, even says inside the packet of Fluval ” there are no rigorous trials to show that Flulaval or should I say Flulol, will prevent you getting influenza”.

Hardly rigorous hard facts, excuse the alliteration.

” As I understand the reason why vaccine-derived polio (cVDPV) occurs for example is due to poor sanitation, immune-compromised communities, under- or un- immunized communities” from South Africa

Well here is more vaccine failure mythology, you understand nothing. The clue is in the title, vaccine derived which is now known as Bill Gates variant Polio.

@Johnny – having just read the Insert for Flulaval – I can say, without a shadow of doubt, that you are lying.

“Just for your information, England and Wales are not in the USA, and there is a difference between mortality and morbidity. One difference was I did not want one of them mentioned.” Christ

Of course you didn’t want it mentioned, the fact that you quoted doctor notifications as a source of totally biased data as opposed to coroner’s death results which are harder to fiddle, is typical of vaccine psuedo science.

It is what we have come to expect, smoke screens, appeals to emotion and straw men – all in the normal vocabulary of the Septic thinker

“-as well as against placebos consisting of everything but the antigen. And, if he understood clinical trial design, he would understand why the adjuvanted placebo is an important comparator.” Turd

Of course everything but the atigen as a comparitor is very very important. If both groups get meningitis they can rule it out of the Antigen group!

It is like testing grape shot agaiinst bird shot and excluding the mortality in both groups! Thanks for opening that up.

“The great thing about herd immunity is that it protects you even if you don’t believe in it.” Dangerous bullshit

This protection shit medical myth, how about the primary vaccine failure of whooping cough and mumps in the US then, it didn’t even protect those who had the vaccine!

@ Labile

What are you talking about? You are not making sense.

“like the Gardasil trial is somehow invalid? That the post-marketing surveillance of millions of people finding no evidence of vaccine reactions is somehow bogus?”
Kreb cycle

Not true at all. One year after the first cohort given Gadasil, of the recipients who had pre vaccine swabbed positive for HPV before being given the vaccine it was found that the cervical cancer rate had gone up by 44%.

Nowhere has this preswabbing been continued, I suppose that’s market forces.

Well here is more vaccine failure mythology, you understand nothing. The clue is in the title, vaccine derived which is now known as Bill Gates variant Polio.

It is in the “title,” but not the part that you picked. Sound it out: cVDPV.

Johnny Liar:

Well we don’t do we, last years vaccine failure was whooping cough, highest uptake of vaccine ever coinciding with the highest outbreaks ever. Way over the mythical levels for herd immunity in the US too.

Citation needed for uptake and for herd immunity levels.
@190:

the fact that you quoted doctor notifications as a source of totally biased data as opposed to coroner’s death results which are harder to fiddle

Evidence that doctor notifications are biased, please.
@192:

This protection shit medical myth, how about the primary vaccine failure of whooping cough and mumps in the US then, it didn’t even protect those who had the vaccine!

Given that most of the victims were unvaccinated or too young to get the vaccine, you are lying.
@194:

One year after the first cohort given Gadasil, of the recipients who had pre vaccine swabbed positive for HPV before being given the vaccine it was found that the cervical cancer rate had gone up by 44%.

Citation needed for this. Oh, and nothing from Tomljenovic or Shaw.

You stupid vaccine-supporters! You only have cold, hard facts showing that vaccines work!

Well we don’t do we, last years vaccine failure was whooping cough, highest uptake of vaccine ever coinciding with the highest outbreaks ever. Way over the mythical levels for herd immunity in the US too.

“Daisuke Matsuzaka was supposed to be a really great pitcher, when he got signed by the Red Sox. But then his actual performance wasn’t all that great. Therefore, there is no evidence that there are any good pitchers anywhere in baseball.

It’s the exact same logic.

Johnny Labile:

Not true at all. One year after the first cohort given Gadasil, of the recipients who had pre vaccine swabbed positive for HPV before being given the vaccine it was found that the cervical cancer rate had gone up by 44%.

Soooo….preventing HPV infection doesn’t help if you already have HPV infection? Is that what you’re saying? Because seriously, that just looks like you’re confirming that HPV causes cervical cancer.

Well we don’t do we, last years vaccine failure was whooping cough, highest uptake of vaccine ever coinciding with the highest outbreaks ever.

Reported pertussis incidence was down in 2013, Johnnycake.

Johnny Labile –

Vacuum denial or GTFO.

I’m the wrong Johnny, but I’ll take a crack at it.

Back in the day, Aristotle thought a vacuum couldn’t exist. He had a bit of flawed reasoning behind it, but said ‘Nature abhors a vacuum’.

The Catholic Church, in its first 1700 years or so, believed Aristotle had it all correct. Besides, if God is everywhere, you can’t have a space where there is nothing.

In 1644 Torricelli went and actually made a vacuum by inventing the barometer. As you can imagine, this caused several others to start investigating and experimenting, until finally the evidence was overwhelming.

I don’t think the Cathloics still (officially) believe Aristotle was right as far as vacuums go, but I dunno when they changed their minds.

Let’s look at the 2012 Washington outbreak:

Valid vaccination history was available for 1,829 of 2,006 (91.2%) patients aged 3 months–19 years. Overall, 758 of 1,000 (75.8%) patients aged 3 months–10 years were up-to-date with the childhood diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and acellular pertussis (DTaP) doses. Receipt of Tdap was documented in 97 of 225 (43.1%) patients aged 11–12 years and in 466 of 604 (77.2%) patients aged 13–19 years. Estimated DTaP coverage in Washington among children aged 19–35 months was 93.2% for ≥3 doses and 81.9% for ≥4 doses in 2010; Tdap coverage in adolescents aged 13–17 years was estimated at 70.6% (3)….

Given the high transmissibility of B. pertussis, a proportion of vaccinated persons remains susceptible and can become infected during a pertussis outbreak. Unvaccinated children have at least an eightfold greater risk for pertussis than children fully vaccinated with DTaP (7). However, because in most of the cases the patients were vaccinated, the 4.5% of Washington school children who were exempted from vaccination during 2011–2012 represented only a small proportion of those at risk for pertussis in the state. Although vaccinated children can develop pertussis, they are less infectious, have milder symptoms and shorter illness duration, and are at reduced risk for severe outcomes, including hospitalization (8–10).

Let’s also consider a revised real-world estimate for ‘R₀’ (there’s a lower estimate in PLoS One from 2012, but it’s not clear to me how well the European matrices generalize) of 10.6. The crudest estimate for the herd-protection threshold is (1 – 1/10.6)/E, where E is the proportion protected by the vaccine. This is the second source of uncertainty, and it’s substantial.

What it obviously means, though, again subject to the caveat that this is a crude estimate, is that interruption of sustained transmission is impossible unless 9.6/10.6E < 1, or E > 90.6%.

For convenience (and open access), let’s take Baxter et al.’s 64% for Tdap and bump it up a little (PMID 23873919; see Fig. 3), say, to 80%, to try to capture the DTaP population. This is not failure of the herd effect, it is a statement that pertussis is not currently eradicable.

doctor notifications as a source of totally biased data as opposed to coroner’s death results which are harder to fiddle

Letme get this straight.
Doctors will misreport cases, while the patient is still around to complain, but will feel constrained to tell the true when the patient is in no more shape to contradict the report.
No, because, in my country, the doctor issuing the certificate of death was often the primary care doctor.

Anyway, if we are talking about some bureaucrat shifting numbers from one Excel cell to another, how is it more difficult with mortality compared to number of sick people?

how about the primary vaccine failure of whooping cough and mumps in the US then, it didn’t even protect those who had the vaccine!

Pertussis is so obviously not primary failure that I wonder whether you know what the phrase actually means. All signs are that mumps isn’t either.

One year after the first cohort given Gadasil, of the recipients who had pre vaccine swabbed positive for HPV before being given the vaccine it was found that the cervical cancer rate had gone up by 44%.

Citation needed for this.

This is usually cited as “according to FDA documents” by the usual cranks. The first thing to note is that the assertion directly contradicts its companion, that it’s impossible to know whether HPV vaccination has prevented any cancers.

This was a bit of a pain in the ass to find (you’re welcome, Johnnycakes), but the claim traces back to here (PDF; p. 13)…

[I need more links.]

Erm, there are two working links in the foregoing. Anyway,

… and, directly, here (PDF; p. 8). That is, to Sin Hang Lee.

Johnny Labile: “Of course you didn’t want it mentioned, the fact that you quoted doctor notifications as a source of totally biased data as opposed to coroner’s death results which are harder to fiddle, is typical of vaccine psuedo science”

Where did I mention “doctor notifications”? I clearly used census data, and provided the link to the very long pdf of a review of American census data from the 20th century.

Why don’t you just answer my question of why the rate of measles incidence in the USA dropped 90% between 1960 and 1970? Measles has been a reportable disease in the USA for most of that century, and if a child was diagnosed by a doctor, the medical office was required by to notify the local health authorities. The cases that were missed were those where the parents did not take the child in for medical care.

Mr. Labile, you have made many claims, but you can’t seem to back them up.

Measles has been a reportable disease in the USA for most of that century, and if a child was diagnosed by a doctor, the medical office was required by to notify the local health authorities.

Measles became notifiable to the Public Health Service in 1912, but that was a recommendation. To this day, there’s no requirement to report to the CDC. Meaningfully quantifying this might require a tedious survey of the legislative history of all 50 states. Irritatingly, this is incomplete.

Thanks for the clarification, Narad. It does point to the difficulties in quantifying incidence of any disease.

It still doesn’t excuse Labile’s posting mortality rates from another country in response the the drop of morbidity between 1960 and 1970 in the USA.

It does point to the difficulties in quantifying incidence of any disease.

We do know to a moral certainty that U.S. measles incidence was grossly underreported in the 1950s, which is why it sprang to mind.

@The only poster named Johnny who matters, in re#201:

Much obliged. Pax vobiscum.

Narad: “We do know to a moral certainty that U.S. measles incidence was grossly underreported in the 1950s, which is why it sprang to mind.”

There are some studies that were performed to see the affect of the vaccines in the 1960s. Here are a pair I found that was to see the effect of the new measles vaccine on a predicted measles epidemic in one county:

Mass measles immunization in Los Angeles County

Measles epidemiology and vaccine use in Los Angeles County, 1963 and 1966

Those paper directly contradict Mr. Labile’s comment “The only herd immunity studies ever done were with natural immunity, not vaccines.”

Labile *could* be a genuinely confused loon, but his initial use of sockpuppets makes that charitable interpretation unlikely, so we’re left with “time-wasting troll”.

All those fiddled efficacy studies too, all allowable under vaccine belief but rather naughty.

That complete bull about knowing they are ‘safe’ too, it is pushing the boundaries of ‘safe’ to bendy proportions.

Hey, Johnnycakes, do you by any chance believe that “rabies” deaths are caused by fear?

Those paper directly contradict Mr. Labile’s comment “The only herd immunity studies ever done were with natural immunity, not vaccines.”

I remain fond of the more recent Japanese experience with immunizing schoolchildren against influenza and generating a big honking signal among the elderly.

I think we have a hit.

The style is certainly familiar, down to the “pseudo septic scientists”.

The style is certainly familiar, down to the “pseudo septic scientists”.

I’m calling it.

Here: “It is what we have come to expect, smoke screens, appeals to emotion and straw men – all in the normal vocabulary of the Septic thinker”

There: “It interests me that the septic smokescreen descends everytime there is an opportunity to discuss something of interest. Is this just ant science or ignorance JJ?”

In another thread, the sockpuppet troll alternates between ‘mythbuster’ and ‘spiniker’.

He forgot the “homologous recombinaltion.”

spiniker said,
August 23, 2013 at 1:16 pm
you are pro vaccine therefore it’s impossible, like a vacuum, god tells us it doesn’t exist – but it does – burn them. All hail bar-med.

Who would have guessed it! Labile / the craic / mythbuster / spiniker is also a paediatrician!

Add “jenson.”

In other words, it is a troll that is possibly living in his parents’ basement. Random amusement is all he provides.

a troll that is possibly living in his parents’ basement

Who tends to accuse his targets of playing too much X-box. Projection? One can but speculate.

“ukeidding.”
Also ‘pebbles’ within the same thread. He really should see someone about that multiple-personality problem.

Ernsty and ‘Humpty’ within a single thread. He seems to stalk J.Jones.
Glancing again at that thread, he uses the additional nyms “Ernstymate” and “consultant” to agree with himself.

Doesn’t Orac ban sock puppets?

Sure does. IP check on aisles Narad and HDB please.

Sure does. IP check on aisles Narad and HDB please.
Harumph.

Goodness me, there is a Philip Hills running the Hope Osteopathic Clinic. I didn’t see that coming.

Sarah007 (Feb 12, 2012):
In the immune response the percentage of ‘aquired immunity’ is about 2%. The other 98% of our reaction to any ‘disease process’ is non specific. That is fever, Diahorreah, vomiting, sweating.

Hope Osteopathic Clinic (Jan 7 2013):
“Only 2% of your total immunity is ‘acquired’ the other 98% is fever, vomiting, diarrhoea, sweating” Pasteur institute.

Do I win a prize?

OK, I should have looked upthread. Still claiming 2nd prize.

Narad @205: so the claim Mr Labile made is a distortion of what the research actually says?
And our commenter is a sockpuppeter whose real name is Philip Hills?
I’m quite impressed with your research skills.

Let’s just say that there is a spectacularly prolific sockpuppeting troll who was initially infesting a couple of UK skeptic blogs back in 2009, popping up to defend chiropractice and osteopathy whenever they were criticised, and has since been expanding his operations, although cycling through a short distinctive list of obsessions. And that someone at the Hope Osteopathic & Homeopathic Clinic has recently posted an update to the clinic’s FB page repeating many of those obsessions, word-for-word, including the same spelling mistakes

Over the years the troll has kept making the same bullsh1t claims, ignoring every well-intended attempt to correct his factual errors. His grammar has deteriorated and his insults have become more scatological. In some comment threads he has spawned half-a-dozen identities to bolster his opinions. He betrays a disturbing fondness for stalking female bloggers and introducing sexual connotations when he insults them.

He used to comment at RI under various sockpuppets (most notably ‘sarah007’) but has been sticking to other haunts since early 2013, when he called for a fatwa against Orac and had to be reminded of the RI ‘No-death-threats’ policy. Only to recently return. Therapy would not go amiss.

And that someone at the Hope Osteopathic & Homeopathic Clinic has recently posted an update to the clinic’s FB page repeating many of those obsessions….

There is zero question in my mind that that’s Philip Hills. I wonder how that Rotary–polio eradication axis is panning out for him.

“Treating a wide range of health problems, with Classical osteopathy. These include … Pregnancy; SPD; Babies….”

The “Proud owner of a Jaguar” part of his profile certainly explains why the various sockpuppets so often fall back on mechanic / garage analogies!

the first line of ‘treatment’ is […] like taking your car to a garage with a knocking noise and being given ear plugs

When I pointed out the excellent safety profile of Gardasil and the huge post-marketing surveillance program looking, in vain, for the slightest sign of any significant vaccine-related reactions, Labile retorted:

Not true at all. One year after the first cohort given Gadasil, of the recipients who had pre vaccine swabbed positive for HPV before being given the vaccine it was found that the cervical cancer rate had gone up by 44%.

That’s a blatant falsehood, based on some odd results in a single trial that hasn’t been replicated despite other studies doing the same thing (see the link Narad provided). Gardasil is a remarkably safe and effective vaccine that prevents HPV infection, prevents cervical hyperplasia, prevents cervical cancer and will save thousands of lives and incalculable misery. Why would anyone want to spread lies about a medical breakthrough like this?

The other ‘Labile’ lie that really annoys me is the claim that, “India has a strange surge in children with paralysis” (from a FB comment). No it hasn’t. As part of the final push to eradicate polio once and for all there is an active surveillance program looking for all cases of acute flaccid paralysis to make sure they are not due to polio. It isn’t surprising that when teams of investigators go from village to village asking if anyone is paralyzed, they will find more cases than were reported previously.

These “extra” cases are due to other enteroviruses and to other causes such as snakebite and car accidents (which anyone who has visited India will know are all-too frequent). India has not seen a case of VAPP since 2010. And that’s at a time when anyone with symptoms even remotely resembling polio are being tested for it.

I can only assume that anyone repeating this lie is aware that it is not true, and that they are being wilfuly dishonest, especially when it is clearly part of a body of lies designed to persuade parents not to vaccine their children. Which I think is despicable.

Goodness me, there is a Philip Hills running the Hope Osteopathic Clinic. I didn’t see that coming.

That alleged “Clinic” is just a few miles from my current location in east London. I am deeply depressed to find a source of such mind-boggling ignorance in my locale. It seems that ‘Johnny Labile’ and his colleagues have uncritically swallowed all the most inane and insane fabricated nonsense about conventional and alternative medicine that is liberally squirted all over the interwebz. Perhaps losing all one’s critical faculties is a side effect of “cosmetic acupuncture”.

India has not seen a case of VAPP since 2010.

Those are VDPV numbers. The last VAPP report that I’m aware of is from 1999. The best one can do, as far as I’m aware, is reckon from the estimated risk, because there doesn’t appear to be actual surveillance.

Harumph. My comment on the troll’s Gardasil obsession has vanished into a spambucket. It must have included a few banned words.

My point, FWIW, is that some people of a trolly disposition do not handle it well when they think everything they say is sheltered by anonymity.

@Narad,
I confess the terminology still confuses me, either it is inconsistent or my brain is. VAPP = para;ysis, VDPV = virus derived from the vaccine cVDPV = circulating polio from the vaccine strain. Is that right?

Bottom line – paralytic polio from the OPV is exceedingly rare, 1 case for every 4 million doses administered on average by this account (PDF)).

HDB,

It must have included a few banned words.

It’s hard to resist the temptation in the face of such incandescent nonsense.

It helps to have a glossary of those acronyms from the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

Thanks lilady. I know what the acronyms stand for, its their use that sometimes confuses me. I had assumed that the WHO use of the categories ‘total confirmed polio’ and ‘wild-virus confirmed polio’ was to distinguish between wild and vaccine-derived polio, but I think I was mistaken. The reference Narad gave states that:

Identification of wild virus confirms “polio” but all other cases including VAPP are classified as “non-polio”. Finding vaccine-derived virus in cases of AFP does not prove VAPP, as it may be a mere passenger infection.

So it seems that simple surveillance cannot distinguish between AFP caused by the vaccine virus and AFP due to other causes. It takes a study like this one to estimate the incidence of VAPP. For this study:

VAPP was defined as occurring in AFP cases if there was residual weakness 60 days after the onset of paralysis, if vaccine-related poliovirus was isolated from any stool sample, and if no wild poliovirus was
isolated from any stool sample. […] There is no standard case definition of VAPP.

I don’t really see how they can rule out another cause of AFP in these cases. What if an OPV recipient contracted a different enterovirus, for example, and that caused the AFP? They would still have vaccine virus in their stools, and would be classified as VAPP, wouldn’t they?

It must have included a few banned words.
It’s hard to resist the temptation in the face of such incandescent nonsense.

No obvious oaths were used. I was just observing that sockpuppet-dude’s perseveration on the “Gardasil / 44%-increase” story provides one of the sets of search terms for zeroing in on his various avatars and incarnations.

Part of me wants to notify his clients and Rotary-club colleagues and warn them of his on-line skeeziness, but my other personalities are thinking “Hey, he’s an osteopathy / acupuncture grifter; it’s not like he’s pretending to be a decent human being.”

“@Johnny – having just read the Insert for Flulaval – I can say, without a shadow of doubt, that you are lying.” lawrence of the Kazi.

Here is a picture of the insert I have

http://www.whale.to/v/flulaval_vaccine7.html

And here is an extract pointing out for all you vaccine believers that antibodies don’t protect because there is no correlation between levels and protection.

Clinical pharmacology
307 – Specific levels of HI antibody titres post vaccination with inactivated influenza vaccines have not been correlated with protection from influenza but the antibody titres have been used as a measure of vaccine effictivness.

Whale.to?! WHALE.TO?!?!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!
I hereby invoke Scopie’s Law. “In any discussion about medicine or science, citing whale.to as a credible source loses you the argument immediately, and gets you laughed out of the forum.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi Julian
If one photocopies the leaflet and it says ‘no rigorous trials have demonstrated that Flulaval vaccine works why does who flags that up matter?

Maybe we should have jerk’s law, any jerk who believes medical peer review over facts is one.
The 307 quote was not from whale, it was from a general search.

Looks like Julian is a vaccine believer

Okay then, if the insert is valid (and not “adjusted”) you should have no problem finding it on a trustworthy website.

Looks like Julian is a vaccine believer

Why yes I am. You say that as if it’s a bad thing.

Hey, Labile/mythbuster/whatever, go click on herr doktor bimler’s link on trollery. You’ve been found out.

Flulaval started out as an accelerated approval in 2006 for people 18 and older. (Note that Philip Hill, chickenshіt douchebag, also failed to concern himself with wondering where section 14 is.)

It’s all sitting in the regulatory history, particularly the 2011 and 2013 “summary basis” items.

@Narad: so the insert on Whale.to was “edited”. Can’t say I’m surprised, but nice work.

The 307 quote was not from whale, it was from a general search.

This seems quite unlikely, as no combination of text subsets actually turns it up in that form. It’s of little consequence, as you seem to be not only under the impression that it applies beyond a narrow context, but also that it says something that it doesn’t. Here’s some help:

Specific levels of HI antibody titres post vaccination with inactivated influenza vaccines have not been correlated with protection from influenza

Let’s pick a random U.S. version (PDF):

“A specific post-vaccination hemagglutination-inhibition (HI) antibody titer has not been correlated with protection from H5N1 influenza illness; however, HI titers have been used as a measure of influenza vaccine activity. In some human challenge studies with other influenza viruses, antibody titers of ≥1:40 have been associated with protection from influenza illness in up to 50% of subjects.[8,9]”

([8] PMID 15163501; [9] PMID 4509641)

Of course, the fact is that for a seasonal vaccine, titers aren’t particularly important, actual effectiveness is.

I can’t believe Philip Hills aka Labile came back here with a sloppy whale.to reference especially after being exposed as a creepy, scientifically-illiterate quack.

Perhaps he thought he could salvage one item and pretend the rest of the ass-stomping didn’t happen for long enough to start all over again.

Looks like drinking at the Osteopathy Clinic started early yesterday.
Mr Essex Osteopath has a history of making up quotations and then attributing them to authorities (flu-jab packaging; the Pasteur Institute; Sabin; the FDA). Is this typical of the level of intellectual honesty in the profession?

Is this typical of the level of intellectual honesty in the profession?

Rhetorical question?

Just a reminder that osteopaths in the USA did get their act together and go through the same licensing as MDs. Please do not confuse them with osteopaths outside of North America.

osteopaths in the USA did get their act together and go through the same licensing as MDs
Thanks. I came across a number of other osteopath / chiropractor Facebok pages circulating the same antivaxx piffle as the Hope Osteopathy Clinic Johnny Labile, but they were all UK-based.

It was one effect of the Flexner Report. The other was the closing of many homeopathic hospitals (though the name “Hahnemann” is used in the hospital name for Drexel’s medical school).

One image burned in my brain is the last time my son was in an emergency department at a teaching hospital and the family medicine resident assigned to him had the initials “DO” after his name. Because here in the USA they are real doctors!

Maybe we should have jerk’s law, any jerk who believes medical peer review over facts is one.

I would love to know how one establishes “facts” about vaccines or any other medical interventions without using peer-reviewed science. My personal feeling is that people who reject medical science, invent their own “facts” or uncritically swallow dangerous nonsense from whale.to, and refuse to face reality in the face of overwhelming evidence are far worse than jerks.

would love to know how one establishes “facts” about vaccines or any other medical interventions without using peer-reviewed science. My personal feeling is that people who reject medical science, invent their own “facts” or uncritically swallow dangerous nonsense from whale.to, and refuse to face reality in the face of overwhelming evidence are far worse than jerks.

QFT.

I would love to know how one establishes “facts” about vaccines or any other medical interventions without using peer-reviewed science.

I think it’s:

Step One: Find something/anything on the internet that confirms your preexisting beliefs.

Step Two: Accept it as gospel, uncritically.

Step Three: Call all things that contradict it fantasy and/or propaganda.

Step Four: Accuse those who disagree with you of doing what you’re doing.

____________________

But I defer to Johnny Labile.

http://www.drugs.com/pro/flulaval.html

You Gotta be a vaccine believer to not find this:

“Indications and Usage for Flulaval

Flulaval® is indicated for active immunization of adults (18 years of age and older) against influenza disease caused by influenza virus subtypes A and type B contained in the vaccine.

This indication is based on immune response elicited by Flulaval, and there have been no controlled trials demonstrating a decrease in influenza disease after vaccination with Flulaval [see Clinical Studies (14)].”

I can hear all those septics in the thread puking in their coffee – touche

Johnny Labile, you are a liar.

[T]here have been no controlled trials demonstrating a decrease in influenza disease after vaccination with Flulaval

I clicked through to the link Narad supplied in #281. I then did a word search for “controlled”.

Efficacy Trial in Children: The efficacy of FLULAVAL QUADRIVALENT was evaluated in Study 5, a randomized, observer-blind, non-influenza vaccine-controlled study conducted in 3 countries in Asia, 3 in Latin America, and 2 in the Middle East/Europe during the
295 2010-2011 influenza season.

Verdict?

Vaccine efficacy for FLULAVAL QUADRIVALENT met the pre-defined criterion of >30%
323 for the lower limit of the 2-sided 95% CI

For adults:

Efficacy Trial in Adults: The efficacy of FLULAVAL was evaluated in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study conducted in the United States during the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 influenza seasons (Study 3).

The verdict?

Non-inferiority of FLULAVAL to the comparator vaccine was established for all 6 co-primary endpoints.

The only thing we’re puking our drinks over is your sheer mendacity.

so the insert on Whale.to was “edited”

I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!

Johnny, you *do* realize, don’t you, that a controlled study to determine whether it prevents influenza infection would require deliberately exposing patients to influenza? Including those in your control group, who would then be reasonably expected to contract a potentially deadly disease?

Krebiozen: “My personal feeling is that people who reject medical science, invent their own “facts” or uncritically swallow dangerous nonsense from whale.to, and refuse to face reality in the face of overwhelming evidence are far worse than jerks.”

They are obnoxious delusional trolls, just like Labile/mythbuster/sarah001 has aptly demonstrated over the past few years.

I can hear all those septics in the thread puking in their coffee

You might have had better luck achieving that if you had just supplied this.

” “My personal feeling is that people who reject medical science,…………….” Chris the soothsayer

Where is the science in medicine? Most of it is voodoo, flu vaccine is a great example of medical woo. Cochraine does a 96 season study of the efficacy of flu vaccine and tests the top 10 claims.

No 1 is “flu vaccine halves winter deaths” Cochraine tested this anecdote and found that only 10% of winter deaths are attributable to ‘flu like illness’. It concluded that to halve winter deaths the flu vaccine would have to have an impact on road traffic accidents!

As for saying that it’s ok for the Flulaval leaflet to say that there are no rigorous trials to show it works and cauliflower tells us it’s unethical to test it, well surely if you believe the contagion theory of flu we all are exposed.

I have never had a flu vaccine and have never had flu. I am going to invent a potion for walking on water and then put inside “never known to work as testing it puts people at risk of drowning” If that’s good enough for vaccine woo then surely it’s good enough for any sales talk.

Like saying steroid cream is ‘treatment’ for eczema, all it does is reverse transport metabolites into extra cellular space, that’s why when you stop using it the medical term is ‘exacerbation’. What a con

Next you will be telling us that the genetic determinability of disease is a science and it will get even sillier.

Milkmaids, cowpox smallpox, little gingerbread houses….

You might have had better luck achieving that if you had just supplied this.

Perhaps Philip Hills would be so kind as to explain how fruits and vegetables have no sugar in them. And also how they will cure one of “passing frequent wind”.

Next you will be telling us that the genetic determinability of disease is a science and it will get even sillier.

Tell that to my friend with Sickle Cell…

Seriously though, do you believe that there are diseases that are purely genetic? Do you believe that there are diseases caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors?

Perhaps Philip Hills would be so kind as to explain how fruits and vegetables have no sugar in them. And also how they will cure one of “passing frequent wind”.

And “urination”. I’ve been plagued with this my whole life. Several times a day, sometimes even at night. You don’t know how embarassing it is having to ask where the john is whenever the need arises.

The “What Are the Effects of Fasting?” entry is particularly curious (although I appreciate the nod to Herbert Shelton). It’s just plagiarized from here, but that itself is obviously really plagiarized, with Keki Sidhwa being given credit for something that was obviously written in the 1960s.

High ethical standards over at the British Institute of Osteopathy, it seems.

Hah! It is Shelton. I’m not going to bother tracking down the precise issue; he was forever reusing his own material.

Before spending the last 13 years of his life bedridden, of course.

well surely if you believe the contagion theory of flu we all are exposed

My G-d, you’re dense. Do I have to go dig out the relevant calculation?

In the meantime, I’m sure everyone would be fascinated in your replacement for “the contagion theory of flu,” for about 45 seconds at least.

Like saying steroid cream is ‘treatment’ for eczema, all it does is reverse transport metabolites into extra cellular space

Script here.

Johnny:

As for saying that it’s ok for the Flulaval leaflet to say that there are no rigorous trials to show it works and cauliflower tells us it’s unethical to test it, well surely if you believe the contagion theory of flu we all are exposed.

But it *does* show trials demonstrating it works in producing the desired immune reaction. That may not be the standard of proof *you* want, but it’s enough for most people — that is, people who accept germ theory. I suppose if you don’t believe in germ theory it might not be proof enough for you. But the insert is quite clear on specifically what proof they have, so I don’t think you can claim it’s misleading. Not without indicting your own reading comprehension.

Meanwhile, by saying that you had to be told by me that it’s unethical to deliberately give influenza to vulnerable people, you reveal that you are either a germ theory denialist (that is, you do not believe it is possible to give a person influenza in this manner) or you think it’s totally fine to give people influenza as long as there’s science. Pretty sure neither possibility is gonna win you a lot of respect.

“It concluded that to halve winter deaths the flu vaccine would have to have an impact on road traffic accidents!”

You think it couldn’t? I’ve never actually lost control of the car while sneezing or coughing but there have certainly been times when I’ve had to stop for fear of doing so.

@Philip Hills aka Johnny Labile:

I have never had a flu vaccine and have never had flu.

You’re lucky, but what you’re describing is not impossible under Probability theory. That is, if you’re telling the truth.

No 1 is “flu vaccine halves winter deaths” Cochraine tested this anecdote and found that only 10% of winter deaths are attributable to ‘flu like illness’. It concluded that to halve winter deaths the flu vaccine would have to have an impact on road traffic accidents!

Source for this. I would think that the Cochrane review would have distinguished between influenza deaths and deaths from other causes.

flu vaccine halves winter deaths

I have absolutely never heard anyone make this claim. Source?

You think it couldn’t? I’ve never actually lost control of the car while sneezing or coughing but there have certainly been times when I’ve had to stop for fear of doing so.

I know, right? Everybody’s so exercised about a text taking your eyes off the road for five seconds or so (not defending texting while driving—I’ve never texted in my life, FWIW), but so does a sneeze.

I hate hay fever season! I’d love to know how many accidents were caused by that “moonlight broom” they planted along I-5 here in the 30 years or so before it was replaced by the more native scotch broom–that pollen was like an evil cloud that spread several miles in either direction from the freeway.

what you’re describing is not impossible under Probability theory

About 0.13% after 40 years.

Johnny labile:

No 1 is “flu vaccine halves winter deaths” Cochraine tested this anecdote and found that only 10% of winter deaths are attributable to ‘flu like illness’. It concluded that to halve winter deaths the flu vaccine would have to have an impact on road traffic accidents!

Philip Mills of the Hope Osteopathy Clinic:

Cochraine found that as only 10% of winter deaths were caused by flu like illness, not even confirmed flu, if the jab was to halve winter death it would have to have an impact on road traffic accidents!

As ‘Pebbles’ at Epilogue (just before getting himself banned by that particular blogger):

The top claim for flu jab by the NHS and proper doctors is that it halves winter deaths. Cochraine found from stats that flu like illnesses, and that is not lab confirmed even, only account for about 10% winter deaths. Cochraine conclude that for the NHS claim that flu jab halves winter deaths to be true the jab would have to have an impact on road traffic accidents!

Evidently none of his various incarnations have actually read the Cochrane review (2009 updated version here), which says nothing about road traffic accidents.

You Gotta be a vaccine believer to not find this:

You could just be a person who understood that the problem with using outdated material to support an outdated claim is that stuff happens with the passage of time.

I’m also fascinated by the (to me) mysterious mindset that has no trouble accommodating the belief that vaccine manufacturers are lying to the people cheek-by-jowl with the belief that they’re printing the ugly truth in their package inserts.

But never mind that.

You might remember ‘lovelyday’ from a RI thread last year:

Top claim is flu jab halves winter deaths. Jefferson found that only 10% of winter deaths were attributed to flu like illness, that is not even lab confirmed flu.
So this claim is a lie, doesn’t matter if you are pro or anti its a lie. He found that one would have to claim that the flu jab reduced road traffic accidents to claim 50% reduction.

Sarah007 (at SBM):

The cochraine review of the flu jab looked at many of the claims made by advocates of the vaccine and found none of the claims could be supported. One claim made is that the flu vaccine halves winter deaths. It found that only 10% of winter deaths can be attributed to flu like illnesses so to halve winter deaths the vaccine would have to have an impact on road traffic accidents.

As ‘Yolanda’ at “Dr Briffa Wellness” blog:

The 96 season review of the flu jab in UK by the cochraine collaboration scotched the promo myths of flu jab efficacy and found virtually nothing to support its use as a theraputic.
One myth that flu jab halves winter deaths was highlighted, only 10% of winter deaths are attributed to flu like illness, that’s not even confirmed just ‘like’. For the flu jab to halve winter deaths it would have to have an impact on road traffic accidents!

As ‘Obvious’:

Top NHS claim is that the flu jab halves winter deaths. Cochraine looked at this claim and discovered that only 10% of winter deaths are caused by flu-like illnesses and that isn’t even confirmed flu. Cochraine concluded that to claim that the flu jab halved winter death it would have to have an impact on road traffic accidents.

The search terms “96 season” + flu + cochraine are particularly productive for unearthing the troll’s appearances, if one wants to follow his mental deterioration from 2009 to the present. He seems to be stuck on the notion that the Cochrane Collaboration performs season-specific metaanalyses of clinical studies.

Calli @312

But the insert is quite clear on specifically what proof they have, so I don’t think you can claim it’s misleading. Not without indicting your own reading comprehension yet again.

FTFY

I must say, for the “top NHS claim,” it’s awfully difficult to find even a single example of its being made in the first place.

MA — *chuckles* Yes, your version is better.

No 1 is “flu vaccine halves winter deaths” Cochraine tested this anecdote and found that only 10% of winter deaths are attributable to ‘flu like illness’.

Ignoring for the moment that we can’t find any actual evidence for this claim, I’m feeling rather stunned that the word “only” is here being connected with “10% of all winter deaths”. 10% works out to a hell of a lot of deaths, and put is in the top 10 killers. I looked it up, and turns out it actually *is* one of the top ten killers. The number one killer in the US is cardiovascular disease, followed by cancer, followed by chronic lung disease (COPD, asthma, etc), followed by diabetes, followed by influenza and pneumonia, followed by Alzheimers, followed by motor vehicle accidents, renal failure, and lastly firearms.

Damn. Why do so many people dismiss flu-like illness so readily, if it’s killing so many people even in America?

Johnny labile – ah the great morphing troll and germ theory denier.

So nice to meet you yet again. You remain wrong about the Cochrane (and do learn to spell that correctly) Review.

Ignoring for the moment that we can’t find any actual evidence for this claim

It’s presumably in here somewhere. The NHS bit, not so much.

It is amusing to see the scattering of the vaccine believer, even when its own minions see the facade for what it is, vaccine failure denial would be amusing if the devastation its methods wreak were not so insipid.

Smoke screens of spit and bile, meanwhile vaccine failure continues all over the place whilst those claiming high ground with the scientific inquiry of some MacArthurite zeal has only one option – to keep polishing pus.

Bring it on………………

How would efficacy studies be carried out for each season’s flu season? By the time each vaccine had been tested and found to be effective (or not), the season would have passed, and the people the vaccine might have saved from hospitalization with pneumonia or worse would be dead, or immune (and probably not in a mood to be told that all along the doctors had a vaccine that could have prevented the flu that just laid them out for weeks).

Also, to embroider upon Calli’s point, since about 2.5 million people die in the USA every year*, at least 600,000 people die each winter. So Labile, or lovelyday or whatever, appears to be complaining that flu vaccines “only” prevent 10% of winter deaths, that is 60,000 deaths every year.

What modality offered by the Hope Clinic might prevent 60,000 deaths each year? The cosmetic acupuncture perhaps?

* That seems awfully high? Is CAM losing its War on Death? People have been spending a fortune on alternative medicine over the past 50 years, and still 2.5 million people die every year? Surely most of them must have popped a supplement or two. Shocking.

@ ann

I’m also fascinated by the (to me) mysterious mindset that has no trouble accommodating the belief that vaccine manufacturers are lying to the people cheek-by-jowl with the belief that they’re printing the ugly truth in their package inserts.

It’s a contradiction common to many conspiracy theories, if not all. There is this secret cabal made of nefarious people which are at the same time all deviously cunning chessmasters and as stupid as a doorknob.
James Bond’s villains tend to be like this, too.

It could be something hardwired into our brain. To make a picture of someone you consider an enemy as both something very powerful (thus, something to be afraid of) and very weak (so you can despise it – you are so much better).
Umberto Eco wrote something on these lines in his assay about ur-fascism.

The remarkable effect is not of a vaccine Her Docky, if you read the paper it a massive dose of measles virus.

Can you ‘see’ how your vaccine belief has clouded your vision, probably not.

Dr Russell of the Mayo is clear to point out that it is not a vaccine.

So let’s get this right, you have a vaccine to stop measles but measles virus clear cancer! How clever is that?

“How would efficacy studies be carried out for each season’s flu season? By the time each vaccine had been tested and found to be effective (or not), the season would have passed, ” docky

Well that’s convenient. So random guesswork, clever marketing and make sure you scare governments into underwriting any fuck ups.

How clever

Someone on another message board referred to this as the “Genius Fools” theory of conspiracies.

Thus we have minds brilliant and intricate enough to orchestrate mass conspiracies (like 9/11 or vaccines) involving thousands or even millions of people in utter secrecy, yet are dumb enough to leave obvious trails for Internet nitwits to uncover.

Mind boggling, indeed.

So let’s get this right, you have a vaccine to stop measles but measles virus clear cancer!

It’s called the Godzilla threshold.
To fight a very nasty monster, out of desperation you may have to decide to get another monster involved, and hope the second one will do the job and be easier to control or placate.

How clever is that?

Very clever actually.
The anti-measles vaccine – made of a attenuated measles virus – and this potential anti-cancer treatment – based on a attenuated measles virus – are both courtesy of mainstream science.

Being a critic is easy. What has the Hope Osteopathic & Homeopathic Clinic to offer against any of these two illnesses?

“those claiming high ground with the scientific inquiry of some MacArthurite zeal”

What’s Dugout Doug got to do with vaccines?

vaccine failure denial would be amusing if the devastation its methods wreak were not so insipid.

Umm, what?

The new idiot continues to duck and weave, moving to a new tactic as soon as the last one fails. Now he’s resorting to namecalling and conflating an attenuated measles virus with wild-type, either out of ignorance or mendacity. Ho-hum. If you were interested in arriving at some sort of valid, reliable conclusion, you’d at least try to address the responses to your various flailings-about. Since you haven’t so far, you’re not far removed from the assertive behavior of the hippopotamus: vigorous tail-flapping to scatter fecal matter as widely as possible.

So, labile, back up one step and defend yourself: exactly who claims that influenza vaccination reduces all deaths in the wintertime by half?

Actually, madder, Johnny Labile/Philip Hills needs to back up even further than that. He said:

Another common vaccine cop out is ” Its not the vaccine itself that is lethal, its the process itself”

Where did you see this? This sounds like an antivaccine distortion of what a pro-vaxxer said.

Oh, I’m fully aware that Labile/Hills needs to justify quite a lot of statements as well as his sockpuppetry… but for now, I’d settle for the most recent single one. Just to see if he’s capable of it.

” I have never had a flu vaccine and have never had flu.

You’re lucky, but what you’re describing is not impossible under Probability theory. That is, if you’re telling the truth.” Julian

Uhh, I thought medical flu theory was a science, what’s luck got to do with it?

” Another common vaccine cop out is ” Its not the vaccine itself that is lethal, its the process itself”

Where did you see this? This sounds like an antivaccine distortion of what a pro-vaxxer said” More septic smoke from the Julian

This is a common weasel words press release.

“So, labile, back up one step and defend yourself: exactly who claims that influenza vaccination reduces all deaths in the wintertime by half?” Stupider

Well if you took the time to actually read the 96 season Cochraine review of the efficacy of the flu jab, one of its task was to take the top ten claims of the National Health Service otherwise known as the NHS in the UK and test them against the evidence.

It is not about being pro or anti vaxx, that’s a diversion. It is about evidence. I could cut and paste the link but I think you need to be a bit more proactive and less juvenile with your rantings.

Cochraine’s conclusion, specifically Tom Jefferson MD was “the top ten claims are implausible at best”.

40 years of RCT’s by the English government failed to prove the ‘contagion theory of flu so I have no idea what your belief system is, probably playground lurgy, I mean the idea of ‘catching flu’. That’s pure supposition.

If there was a gram of science in you, it would interest you that the claims for flu jab efficacy are anecdotes and shown to be by the biggest medical database in the world. But as you seem to enjoy being a medical zealot, I can’t help you anymore. I found the flu jab insert telling us that it had never been tested so how about an apology from the septic jerk that called me a liar?

Go on I dare you.

The remarkable effect is not of a vaccine Her Docky, if you read the paper it a massive dose of measles virus.

The stench of failure surrounds you.

“MV-NIS is a recombinant oncolytic measles virus (MV) derived from an attenuated Edmonston lineage vaccine strain (MV-Edm) that was adapted to grow on human cancer (HeLa) cells, then engineered to express the human thyroidal sodium iodide symporter (NIS) so that its in vivo spread can be noninvasively monitored by radioiodine single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)–computed tomography (CT) imaging.[5]”

The reference:

“The Edmonston vaccine strain of measles virus (MV-Edm) propagates efficiently in a broad range of human tumor cells, killing them selectively. However, the oncolytic potency of MV-Edm in different human tumor xenograft therapy models is highly variable and there is no convenient way to map the distribution of virus-infected tissues in vivo. To enhance the oncolytic potency of MV-Edm against radiosensitive malignancies and to facilitate noninvasive imaging of infected tissues, we generated a recombinant MV-Edm encoding the human thyroidal iodide symporter (NIS).”

PMID 17133484:

“The oncolytic measles virus Edmonston strain (MV-Edm), a nonpathogenic virus targeting cells expressing abundant CD46, selectively destroys neoplastic tissue.”

“Bring it on,” indeed.

To finish things off, as Mr. Hills obviously has trouble putting two and two together accurately,

“We sought proof of principle that one of the safest human vaccines, measles virus Edmonston B (MV-Edm), can be genetically modified to allow entry via cell surface molecules other than its receptor CD46.”

vaccine failure denial would be amusing if the devastation its methods wreak were not so insipid.

Umm, what?

Seconded.

I didn’t notice any scattering, either. FTM.

the 96 season Cochraine review of the efficacy of the flu jab, one of its task was to take the top ten claims of the National Health Service otherwise known as the NHS in the UK and test them against the evidence.

Since there is no “96 season Cochraine review of the efficacy of the flu jab”, our friend’s speculations and claims about its non-existent tasks are blissfully unconstrained by the surly bonds of reality.

When johnny makes stuff up about this Cochrane Collaboration review which exists only in his head, special amusement comes from his blithe assumption that Collaboration members concern themselves with claims made by a country’s health service… as if it were some kind of fact-checking agency.

Cochraine’s conclusion, specifically Tom Jefferson MD was “the top ten claims are implausible at best”.

The source for this scholarly citation of specific words put into someone else’s mouth? Why, that would be bottom-feeding sockpuppet “lovelyday”, from last year:

Top claim is flu jab halves winter deaths. Jefferson found that only 10% of winter deaths were attributed to flu like illness, that is not even lab confirmed flu.
So this claim is a lie, doesn’t matter if you are pro or anti its a lie. He found that one would have to claim that the flu jab reduced road traffic accidents to claim 50% reduction.
He did this for all the other top 10 claims and found the evidence for flu jab efficacy was implausible at best.

(that was just before “lovelyday” took fright and ran away with tail between legs, having been reminded that issuing death threats was uncool).

@Philip Hills, masquerading as Johnny Labile @347

Uhh, I thought medical flu theory was a science, what’s luck got to do with it?

By sheer random chance, some people will never get the flu even if they’ve never been immunised. In the same way, there have been people who have won the lottery twice, by sheer random chance.

Where did you see this? This sounds like an antivaccine distortion of what a pro-vaxxer said” More septic smoke from the Julian

This is a common weasel words press release.

Really? Because I’ve never seen it before. In fact, it sounds like something an antivaccinationist would say, so…
Citation needed. Who said it? Where did you see/hear it printed or stated?

So, Mr Labile (if that is your real name), are you seriously saying that if something has a *chance* of happening, not a certainty, that it isn’t real or scientific or anything like that? Oooh, Vegas must just love you.

So, Mr Labile (if that is your real name)

What makes me want to read that like Darren McGavin in A Christmas Story? ‘It must be Italian: “Frah-Gee-Lay!”‘

So.

Let’s review!

No 1 is “flu vaccine halves winter deaths”

No such claim has been made by the NHS or anyone else.

You (or your source) misunderstood something that Cochrane said about selection bias in the non-RCTs about flu-vaccine usage by the elderly,/i> that they were meta-analyzing.

Cochraine tested this anecdote

There isn’t one. So they couldn’t and didn’t.

and found that only 10% of winter deaths are attributable to ‘flu like illness’.

It’s actually 5 percent (among the elderly), per the Cochrane review you’re ostensibly summarizing..

It concluded that to halve winter deaths the flu vaccine would have to have an impact on road traffic accidents!

It says nothing remotely of the kind.

The whole thing is pure fantasy.

The whole thing is pure fantasy.

As befits someone who endorses Natural Hygiene.

Certainly.

But not as befits someone who’s spent the thread calling others “believers,” likening them to churchgoers, and otherwise suggesting they subscribe to a fantasy.

David

I love these sites, proliferated by cyber geeks, it is so obvious that your ‘moderation’ like some catholic opus seeks to keep you pus laden ‘truth’ afloat.

If none of your minions can find Tom Jefferson’s review and read how damning it is, the real battle is ignoring your jollop.

Hipporcates forgot more than you will ever know. Now keep this thread nice and septic, you don’t want to go posting something too real.

Are you really all these people or do you just make it all up for show? Who cares?

Philip Hills writing as Johnny Labile, Tom Jefferson has been blogged about by Orac before. Just put “Tom Jefferson” into the search box on this page. Let’s just say that the name Tom Jefferson is a huge red flag.

The troll’s word salad keeps getting more and more incoherent….

Tom Jeffersons review is not all that damning really. It concluded that Tamiflu was indeed useful as a prophylactic treatment, but didn’t help keep people out of hospital any better if given after they already had the flu.

There are several issues with the review though, not least of which was that it was all about seasonal flu, so doesn’t really address the issue of a pandemic.

Ah, so now the review exists and the Pretzel aka Chrisp dismisses it because someone told him so. Of course Lord Voldemort aka Orac is famous for that, funny how so much ‘orthodox science’ is based on peer pressure.

The review makes it clear. Nil point

” It concluded that Tamiflu was indeed useful as a prophylactic treatment” Crispy creme

What a load of tosh, there was no post pandemic audit because when the data for Tamiflu use was demanded by the BMJ for a post scamdemic audit the official response was that they lost it. Roche that is.

No surprise there though, more modern medical myths being preached by the chosen because after all elevating anecdotes to fact is what modern medical peer review is all about. How many popes just got canonized?

I suppose without the minions like Chris we wouldn’t have the Lords.

Please advise

Hmm, perhaps it’s time to employ the “ultimatum question” technique in dealing with Mr. Hills? And warning him that sockpuppetry is a bannable offense here, naturally…

Mr Hills the troll is well known for his antics. Sometimes it is useful to puncture the nonsense (like about the Jefferson review), but the namecalling is juvenile and best ignored.

Truth be told, I do a far better line in name calling than Mr Hills can muster. So he fails on that score as well.

Anus, one small detail. The only thing banned here is vaccine non acceptance, no matter how many flawed trials tell us of the marvels of vaccination, even the thousand of kids maimed by polio vaccine experiments can halt the wondering at the second coming. Thing is that the evidence base,’ medical peer review’ is about as honest as the Resurrection.

Like posturing goats during rutting – the septicus mounts and fails to spawn, no one wants to here their rantings or respond to their feeble production.

One day you will wake up and see the earth is no longer flat.

So, Mr. Hills/Labile, we just need to “wake up” and see the source for your claim that the flu vaccine is supposed to “halve winter deaths.” Where is it? Who actually says that?

@Philip Hills:

Anus, one small detail. The only thing banned here is vaccine non acceptance

And yet your comments are allowed to stand.

no matter how many flawed trials tell us of the marvels of vaccination,

Okay, pick out three trials that support vaccination and point out how they are flawed. If you can, that is.

even the thousand of kids maimed by polio vaccine experiments can halt the wondering at the second coming.

Um, evidence needed that “polio vaccine experiments” led to mass cripplings.

@philip hills

OK, please present evidence for your belief within 3 posts, or we can all assume that you have been lying to us the entire time and admit that vaccines are beneficial for people and society.

Here is what the publisher has to summarize on flu jab

You think “Victoria’s magazine of people, ideas and culture” publishes the Cochrane reviews? Considering your whining about looking things up, it doesn’t seem like you’ve gotten around to it with this:

“Influenza vaccines are effective in reducing cases of influenza, especially when the content predicts accurately circulating types and circulation is high. However, they are less effective in reducing cases of influenza-like illness and have a modest impact on working days lost. There is insufficient evidence to assess their impact on complications. Whole-virion monovalent vaccines may perform best in a pandemic.”

Or the slightly paranoiac-sounding follow-up, which still concedes this:

“In the relatively uncommon [not quantified in the abstract] circumstance of vaccine matching the viral circulating strain and high circulation, 4% of unvaccinated people versus 1% of vaccinated people developed influenza symptoms (risk difference (RD) 3%, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2% to 5%). The corresponding figures for poor vaccine matching were 2% and 1% (RD 1, 95% CI 0% to 3%).”

Of course, you don’t understand what a fourfold difference means in terms of the expected mean time between individual bouts of flu. Even a twofold difference changes the even-odds window from 13.5 to 27.4 years. (Haven’t I said that already?)

Then again, given that you’ve never even been in the ballpark about what proved to be your basic item of endless droning, perhaps you don’t even know what “publisher” means.

You do put yourself in a difficult position by yammering on about the nonexistent “96 season review of the flu jab in UK by the cochraine collaboration,” though, because you don’t believe it’s contagious in the first place:

40 years of RCT’s by the English government failed to prove the ‘contagion theory of flu so I have no idea what your belief system is, probably playground lurgy, I mean the idea of ‘catching flu’. That’s pure supposition.

Try to marshal the forces of whatever ragtag band of neurons is still managing against all odds to continue to tread ethanol in the Sargasso Sea swirling between your ears: The fact that seasonal influenza vaccination is effective at all means that you are completely fυcked.

[Influenza vaccines] are less effective in reducing cases of influenza-like illness…

Are they trying to say that the flu shot doesn’t provide much (or even any) protection from not-flu? Next thing you know we’ll find out that seat belts don’t protect us from chain saw injuries.

Sometimes it is useful to puncture the nonsense (like about the Jefferson review), but the namecalling is juvenile and best ignored

Maybe it’s a nervous tic and he doesn’t know he’s doing it.

You think “Victoria’s magazine of people, ideas and culture” publishes the Cochrane reviews?

Philip also thinks that the Cochrane collaboration maintains its own “biggest medical database in the world”. He has an active fantasy life.

@Johnny – they don’t? I definitely have been doing something wrong then….

I want to correct some of the misinformation Labile has spread here about the NHS and the influenza vaccine. We know that the influenza vaccine is less useful in healthy adults than it is in children, in pregnant women, in the elderly or those with asthma or other conditions, which is why the vaccine is only recommended by the NHS for high risk groups and for health care workers.

I’m bemused by Labile’s claim: “Flu jab useless in preventing flu in healthy adults”. Even Cochrane acknowledges that the vaccine is effective in healthy adults: “15.6% of unvaccinated participants versus 9.9% of vaccinated participants developed ILI symptoms, whilst only 2.4% and 1.1%, respectively, developed laboratory-confirmed influenza”. That seems pretty impressive to me, given the difficulties in identifying which strain will be current in any season and in differentiating between flu and flu-like illnesses. Does Labile have anything that could rival that? Does echnicaea, vitamin C or whatever prevent flu as effectively? (The answer is “no”, by the way, Cochrane tells us that they don’t even prevent colds).

The article Labile links to (written by anti-pharma journalist Alan Cassels) states that:

The Cochrane examination of flu vaccines in healthy adults, a body of literature spanning 25 studies and involving 59,566 people, finds an annual flu shot reduced overall clinical influenza by about six percent.

The latest Cochrane review looked at “90 reports containing 116 data sets; among these 69 were clinical trials of over 70,000 people”, so Cassels’ article is out of date. It also looks at absolute risk instead of relative risk, which I think is misleading in this context. The risk of getting a flu-like illness in any one season is 15.6%, according to the Cochrane figures, reduced to 9.9% by vaccination. This is only a 6% reduction in absolute risk, but if I’m going to decide whether to get the vaccine or not I’m not that interested in absolute numbers, I want to know the relative risk. I want to know how my chances of getting sick compare if I get the vaccine to my chances if I don’t. Cochrane’s figures tell me that vaccination reduces my chances of getting a flu-like illness by 36% and reduces my chances of getting laboratory-confirmed influenza by a massive 54%. Useless? Not by any definition of the word I’m familiar with.

That’s why I get the flu vaccine every year (I also have asthma, so the NHS kindly pays for my flu shot). I have had influenza, twice, and it is something I would prefer to avoid ever getting again if at all possible. Reducing my risk of getting it by half with a vaccine that, according to Cochrane, will at worst give me a sore arm and/or a fever for a day seems like a better bet than vitamin C or D or goji or whatever unproven concoction CAMsters recommend these days.

I’m bemused by Labile’s claim: “Flu jab useless in preventing flu in healthy adults”.
All the guy knows or cares is that “Cochrane Collaboration” are Yang Worship Words.

“which is why the vaccine is only recommended by the NHS for high risk groups and for health care workers. ” Kreb cycle

This is LOL material and you obviously made that up. One of the section of the review specifically said that old people produced a crap immune response, even if that was important and health care workers being jabbed had no impact on outcome either.

Cochrane found that the jabs were marginally effective at best, even in the, “Relatively uncommon circumstance of vaccine matching the viral circulating strain and high circulation.” Said another way: the vaccine is next to useless for healthy adults.

Furthermore, “Inactivated vaccines,” said Cochrane, “Caused local harms and an estimated 1.6 additional cases of Guillain-Barré Syndrome per million vaccinations”. But most damning was their rider in the form of a warning. Here it is verbatim – you can make up your own mind about what it means:

WARNING:

This review includes 15 out of 36 trials funded by industry (four had no funding declaration). An earlier systematic review of 274 influenza vaccine studies published up to 2007 found industry funded studies were published in more prestigious journals and cited more than other studies independently from methodological quality and size. Studies funded from public sources were significantly less likely to report conclusions favorable to the vaccines. The review showed that reliable evidence on influenza vaccines is thin but there is evidence of widespread manipulation of conclusions and spurious notoriety of the studies. The content and conclusions of this review should be interpreted in light of this finding.
Spotlight on Cochrane review

Let’s look at this Cochrane review that must be — as its authors state clearly — seen as compromised and biased given the available data sources. The findings in the review, entitled Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy adults, weren’t equivocal. The authors performed a systematic review of 40 randomised, controlled trials (RCTs) of flu vaccination versus placebo or no intervention, or RCTs comparing types, doses and schedules of flu vaccines. The authors concluded that, in a best-case scenario when the vaccine flu strain matched the circulating strain, 4% (expressed as a risk difference [RD]) of people given a flu jab of the type used in public vaccination schemes develop flu symptoms, compared with 1% of unvaccinated people. In the much more common circumstances when there is a mismatch, the figures were 1% versus 2%, respectively. The authors found no evidence that the vaccines prevented viral transmission or flu complications – the other main public-health justifications for the flu jab.

As for the live, weakened nasal vaccine destined for UK kids, “The effectiveness, according to WHO [World Health Organization] criteria, appears relatively low”. Coming to any conclusion was difficult because of, “A limited number of studies presenting conflicting results”.

All you do is try to diss the messenger, there is little or no scientific inquiry just playground na booing.

The big issue is this. Someone decided that an antibody response equated with an immune response and this has been extrapolated to ‘protection’ or ‘immunisation’.

This is a fantasy, even Immunity Journal has pointed out that equating antibody levels with protection is not really a correlate.

Kind of makes the arguments here about efficacy dissolve into anecdotal woo.

Considering the yearly failures of for example mumps vaccine, measles vaccine, one wonders what is going on.

The big issue is this. Someone decided that an antibody response equated with an immune response and this has been extrapolated to ‘protection’ or ‘immunisation’.

This has already been dealt with in its original version. You’re chasing your tail.

This is a fantasy, even Immunity Journal has pointed out that equating antibody levels with protection is not really a correlate.

“Immunity Journal”? Everyone knows that circulating antibodies aren’t the whole story. The problem for you is that this does the opposite of what you “think.”

Here it is verbatim – you can make up your own mind about what it means

Oh, goody, it responds to being spoon-fed something by pretending it discovered it on its own.

Said another way: the vaccine is next to useless for healthy adults.

What part of 0.95 = 0.5 ⇒ n = 13.5 but 0.975 = 0.5 ⇒ n = 27.4 do you not understand?

Said another way: the vaccine is next to useless for healthy adults.

Once again:

40 years of RCT’s by the English government failed to prove the ‘contagion theory of flu so I have no idea what your belief system is, probably playground lurgy, I mean the idea of ‘catching flu’. That’s pure supposition.

The fact that seasonal influenza vaccination is effective at all means that you are completely fυcked.

“which is why the vaccine is only recommended by the NHS for high risk groups and for health care workers. ” Kreb cycle

This is LOL material and you obviously made that up.

Apparently, the technical component of training in “classical osteopathy” includes textspeak but stops short of “what links are”:

People who should have a flu jab

The injected flu vaccine is offered free of charge on the NHS to people who are at risk to ensure that they are protected against catching flu and developing serious complications.

You are eligible to receive a free flu jab if you:

* are 65 years of age or over
* are pregnant
* have certain medical conditions (see below)
* are living in a long-stay residential care home or other long-stay care facility
* receive a carer’s allowance, or you are the main carer for an elderly or disabled person whose welfare may be at risk if you fall ill
* are a healthcare worker with direct patient contact or a social care worker (see below)

Considering the yearly failures of for example mumps vaccine, measles vaccine, one wonders what is going on.

Perhaps you’d like to point out the “yearly failures” here. Or here.

Kind of makes the arguments here about efficacy dissolve into anecdotal woo.

Your turn, Johnnycakes: let’s have the evidence for “classical osteopathy.” Please also highlight some of the most significant discoveries and revisions to practice guidelines over the past 20 or so years.

The only “vaccine-failure” that seems to be at issue, is morons who refuse to get vaccinated, travel overseas to places where these diseases are endemic, and then bring these diseases back here…..that’s the real failure.

@phillip hills

Let’s see, that’s 3 strikes, yer out.

Thanks for admitting that your argument is based on nonsense and that you admit that vaccines are safe and good for humanity.

Also, thanks for admitting that you are a liar, and that everything that you have stated should be treated as such, until you can post some actual pertinent evidence.

Ah, so now the review exists

A review exists. But nobody ever said it didn’t.

The question was whether the review you described existed. This one:

No 1 is “flu vaccine halves winter deaths” Cochraine tested this anecdoteand found that only 10% of winter deaths are attributable to ‘flu like illness.’ It concluded that to halve winter deaths the flu vaccine would have to have an impact on road traffic accidents!

^^Every word of that is a pure fantasy.

Philip Hills,

You need to read the Cochraine review sonny and get up to speed with the lack of efficacy evidence.

Firstly, your link doesn’t go to a review, but to a Times Article that’s over four years old. In addition, there were no links to any reviews by Cochrane (not “Cochraine”) in said article.

Considering the yearly failures of for example mumps vaccine, measles vaccine

Ah, the Nirvana fallacy, a.k.a. “if it’s not working all the time, then it’s useless”. Long time no see.

Firstly, your link doesn’t go to a review, but to a Times Article that’s over four years old. In addition, there were no links to any reviews by Cochrane (not “Cochraine”) in said article.

I have no idea what is going through Philip’s mind at this point, except maybe spirochaetes.

Labile,

To suggest that flu vaccines are effective is a vaccine belief system stance. You need to read the Cochraine review sonny and get up to speed with the lack of efficacy evidence.

I repeat, Cochrane’s figures tell me that vaccination reduces my chances of getting a flu-like illness by 36% and reduces my chances of getting laboratory-confirmed influenza by a massive 54%.

Anyone who can interpret that as evidence of vaccine inefficacy has some reading comprehension problems, or perhaps more serious problems.

It’s interesting that it isn’t just the idiotic nonsense that Labile keeps repeating, even when it is repeatedly refuted with reliable information, but the spelling errors too.

[http:]//content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1967306,00.html Narad the oracle

To suggest that flu vaccines are effective is a vaccine belief system stance. You need to read the Cochraine review sonny and get up to speed with the lack of efficacy evidence.

Apparently, you don’t realize that repeatedly coughing up dumb mass-media stories quite effectively demonstrates that you yourself have done no such thing, even though the relevant one is open-access. This isn’t too surprising, given that you clearly can’t even keep straight what you’re referring to and have a severe problem with simply making things up.

Quick: What’s the relative risk CI for all-cause mortality in what the Time story is pointing at?

No? What’s the title of what the Time story is pointing at?

Now kindly knock off the Toni Basil choreography impression and respond to comments 383–388.

What part of 0.95ⁿ = 0.5 ⇒ n = 13.5 but 0.975ⁿ = 0.5 ⇒ n = 27.4 do you not understand?

Someone should needlepoint that on a sampler or something.

Intern knits

Do you think we’ve got te wrong idea about all these cables and things all along? Was the US military just trying to ensnare us all?

Someone should needlepoint that on a sampler or something.

My mom used to be in a needlepoint group with Virginia Kelley. I’m not explaining it to her.

This isn’t too surprising, given that you clearly can’t even keep straight what you’re referring to and have a severe problem with simply making things up.

Our friend finds it easier to recycle stuff he made up previously, in the manner of a combination of Oroborus and the Human Centipede.

Sadly, Philip isn’t clever enough to put this together, but it would have been a blast:

It is interesting that anus Feldspar obviously has a vaccine belief system all cranked up.

To suggest that flu vaccines are effective is a vaccine belief system stance.

SoP hit No. 1:

Another example that denies the assumption “antibodies = proteccion” which forms the feeble basis of the whole vaccine belief system!

No. 2:

let’s start with the Cochraine study on the industrial and academical pharma-sponsored fraud on flu vaccine data and studies

Here’s an interesting quote from Tom Jefferson in that Time article:

People always ask me if I am against other vaccines. I am not. I have five children. They have all been vaccinated against the major diseases as part of the standard childhood-vaccination program. Those vaccines have strong evidence to back them up. I am not antivaccine. I am anti–poor evidence.

So, Jefferson has doubts about flu vaccines, and thinks we need larger, better studies. Personally I would bet those larger, better studies would support what the current data tell us: flu vaccines are less effective than some other vaccines, for obvious reasons, but are still an important and valuable public health tool.

Incidentally, newer more rapid vaccine production methods will soon enable vaccines to be matched with seasonal strains much more effectively, and we will see effectiveness improve greatly.

I also found it interesting to read about Jefferson’s experiences looking at flu, in another of Labile’s links. Jefferson discovered that the edges are blurry (when is a flu-like illness flu?) and decided that this means that flu doesn’t really exist, it’s all in the mind, caused by stress. We’ve seen that before, with mental illness, where people have claimed that because some cases are ambiguous the entire category is meaningless, so schizophrenia and other SMIs don’t really exist. I think this betrays an intolerance of ambiguity, but I digress. I wonder how Jefferson reconciles this with our understanding of influenza viruses and being able to test for specific strains. A lot of flu-like illness isn’t caused by flu, but this surely isn’t a good reason to condemn a flu vaccine.

More to the point, Jefferson’s attitude does perhaps explain some of what looks to some of us like bias against scientific medicine and, in the past at least, a curious tolerance of woo (“more studies needed”) in some Cochrane reviews.

We’ve seen that before, with mental illness, where people have claimed that because some cases are ambiguous the entire category is meaningless, so schizophrenia and other SMIs don’t really exist. I think this betrays an intolerance of ambiguity, but I digress.

Not by this reader’s standards. I’d say it was a very insightful point, incisively put. Being comfortably mindful of how much you don’t know is essential to learning (and hence knowledge).

IMO. I just now realized. Thanks to you.

This is a fantasy, even Immunity Journal has pointed out that equating antibody levels with protection is not really a correlate.

I’d say I should have remembered the source for this, except that I only found it while trying to clean the desktop litter box. There is a locus in a 2013 January 5 rambling FB comment from the Hope Osteopathic Clinic Essex:

Do antibodies “protect”?

So this medical theory that “antibodies protect” how does that fit in with traditional osteopathic practice? Well it doesn’t!

It doesn’t fit with medical research either.

“Antibodies are not requied for immunity against some viruses” Immunity journal March 1 2012″

The unmatched quotation mark is in the original. Now, where does this actually come from? A ScienceDaily-regurgitated press release. There is no such issue of Immunity.

The actual item? Here.

That’s right, mice and… VSV.

Wow.

He’s just a calamity of epic proportions on the reading-comprehension front, isn’t he?

There’s a calculation he does in one of his posts to the thread you linked to several posts up ^^that way, purporting to show that DTaP exposes infants to neurotoxic amounts of mercury by EPA standards. And it’s just mind-boggling how much simple, straightforward information he manages to misconstrue in the course of doing it.

It really showcases his abilities.

There’s a calculation he does in one of his posts to the thread you linked to several posts up ^^that way, purporting to show that DTaP exposes infants to neurotoxic amounts of mercury by EPA standards.

‘Putinreloaded’ is a different troll — equally dishonest and stupid, but going to more effort to achieve it. Putinreloaded is a holocaust-denying, HIV-denying all-round poster-child for crank magnetism, who maintains a website.

No mistake ann, these people who hide behind medical peer review have probably never won anything in their lives.

It’s truly remarkable that there are still people who not only believe in the woo of vaccination, they actually line their own kids up for the ‘treatment’.

If that isn’t child abuse……………….but I suppose their defense is ‘I was ordered to do it’ Perhaps Her Dock should enlighten us with some vaccine psalms.

when exactly did you start to believe that vaccination was a modern medical miracle then and what exactly was it that turned you on to it?

Thanks for oozing back out of the woodwork, Philip. Now get your scammy ass in gear and deal with comments 383–388.

@Philip Hills:

[W]hen exactly did you start to believe that vaccination was a modern medical miracle then and what exactly was it that turned you on to it?

When I learned about the massive drops in the rates of the diseases after we started vaccinating against them.

Now get your scammy ass in gear and deal with comments 383–388.

Or we’ll assume you’re Gish Galloping because you have no answer.

[W]hen exactly did you start to believe that vaccination was a modern medical miracle then and what exactly was it that turned you on to it?

The factoid that really drove it home for me was when Mark Crislip, an Infectious disease doctor in what can reasonably be called a big city, recently said that he has only seen 2 cases of mumps in his life. My mom, just a regular housewife in the ’50s, has nursed 3 cases of mumps. It’s reasonable to assume that, from her grandchildren on, none of her descendants will suffer from mumps again. In fact, it’s possible that within their lifetimes that we could make mumps go the way of smallpox.

We have the power to make some diseases extinct. I’d call that a modern miracle.

Now get your scammy ass in gear and deal with comments 383–388.

I’ll echo the call.

Oh I forgot, medical peer review can’t see context, only its small result. Couple that with medical belief systems and we have a religious science.

Self validating medical peer review is about as low as it can go

Oh and Pretzel didn’t get rid of mumps, did he, judging by the outbreaks in the US this year or was that the process of vaccination that failed, or the reporting or…………

Johnny Lablie
Our dyslexic visitor seems to have omitted the hyphen in the middle of his second name.

Hey, Mr. Osteopath Quack. I’ve always been curious about what goes on in the so-called mind of a committed antivaccinationist; maybe you can satisfy my curiosity.

Tell me which of these statements is the one where the spark plugs in your brain sputter and fail:

1) MOST people who survive a bout with a particular disease do not get that disease again.

2) There must be a mechanism in the body by which it develops resistance to that disease.

3) If that mechanism was identified, we could potentially develop a method that would activate the body’s resistance to a disease WITHOUT requiring that the actual disease be endured.

4) If, for sake of argument, vaccination is NOT that method, there is still every reason to believe that that method IS out there waiting to be discovered.

5) By contrast, there is neither logical evidence nor experimental evidence to indicate that osteopathy can do d—-s—- for any condition.

6) Ergo, even someone who believes that vaccination as we currently know it IS NOT a means to activate the body’s resistance mechanisms would logically agree, it is of more value LOOKING for that means than dropping a single dime on the ludicrous idea that yanking around bones will somehow cure skin conditions.

Well well, bit of a screw up on the mumps claim for Mr Pretzel. I see no one has conceded that the ‘got rid of mumps claim’ was pure speculative vaccine belief!

We don’t ‘catch disease’ they are physiological events determined by homeostatic adjustment demands. Once the event has occured, unless circumstances demand, they are not required again.

It is the medical mythology of the mystical isolated disease state that makes no sense to me and a lot of people. The body does not go wrong and need fixing for the larger part of it.

I hear you splutter ‘wot no disease’. But that would put the Pretzels all out of a job.

3 Is plain arrogant stupid, it is not about an argument. If a person with a skin condition has constipation, eats crap and puts steroids on as a treatment where is the logic in that?
The immune system does not need ‘stimulating’ to work!

The elephant in the room is your inability to see that the solutions to many of man’s current predicaments does not need some sexed up science solution.

Who is Phillip Hills anyway,?

ah the septic moderator chops the posts and edits to keep the thread on tack.

This always confirms what one always knows.

More Catholic than the pope the orac soldiers on creating mythology……………….

Philip Hills, I had a look at that report you posted.

Mumps parotitis may lead to expression and immune recognition of a tumor-associated form of MUC1 and create effective immune surveillance of ovarian cancer cells that express this form of MUC1.

Operative word MAY. And the cells have to express MUC1 for it to work.

How many people used to die of mumps?

http://www.immunizationinfo.org/vaccines/mumps

Before widespread vaccination, there were about 200,000 cases of mumps and 20 to 30 deaths reported each year in the United States.

I hope that answers your question.

Self validating medical peer review is about as low as it can go

You know Jack $h!t about peer review.
Re your little rant at #419, the only failure is with the self-appointed “vaccination experts” who refuse to get their children vaccinated and discourage other parents from vaccinating.

Lablie,

It’s truly remarkable that there are still people who not only believe in the woo of vaccination, they actually line their own kids up for the ‘treatment’.

I love it when the lunatic fringe act as if they are in the majority, and seem to believe only a shrinking number of die-hard nutters believe in vaccination, when the converse is actually true.

What is truly remarkable is that in the 21st century, in the developed world there are still people who cling on to a medieval belief system like yours. Do you not realize that the vast majority of people, including doctors and scientists, see the overwhelming evidence for the benefits of vaccination, and can clearly see your ideas are nonsense? How can anyone think that an intervention that results in a 99.99% fall in the incidence of a disease, and has serious side effects so rare that we can’t even be sure they are side effects, is a failure? I find your position quite bizarre.

Oh I forgot, medical peer review can’t see context, only its small result.

I don’t think you understand the peer review process. Peer review is when other scientists look at your work and do their very best to find fault with it, which includes context.

Alternative medical practitioners have to attack peer reviewed studies because they clearly demonstrate the lack of efficacy of what they do. Peer review and well-designed studies directly threaten your livelihood, don’t they?

Amazing – current troll is getting more and more incoherent every time it posts….perhaps its gears are winding down.

Johnny Labile, who mendaciously denies he is Philip Hills:

We don’t ‘catch disease’ they are physiological events determined by homeostatic adjustment demands.

“Terrain of the body” was shown to be incorrect over a century ago. But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that someone who gets vaccination so badly wrong believes in it.

The elephant in the room is your inability to see that the solutions to many of man’s current predicaments does not need some sexed up science solution.

Please list those problems.

ah the septic moderator chops the posts and edits to keep the thread on tack.

Oh, stop whining. I’ve had posts of mine sent into moderation before. It happens.

Who is Phillip Hills anyway,?

I hope you’re in the mood to start paying a lot more attention to your FB page.

The elephant in the room is your inability to see that the solutions to many of man’s current predicaments does not need some sexed up science solution respond to comments 383–388.

FTFY. Take a load off, Fanny.

Actually, Philip, because you’re, ah, special, I’ll give you one more:

Explain why Natural Hygiene didn’t work for its creator.

I really have no idea why you think I am Mr Hills, I suppose it gives you a distraction to the facts.

“You know Jack $h!t about peer review.” Julian F

Well it seems to pass anything that pays enough,$

“Peer review is when other scientists look at your work and do their very best to find fault with it, which includes context. ” Krackor pants

Well they made a shit job of validating flu vaccination!

” Everyone knows that circulating antibodies aren’t the whole story. ” Narad

Well that’s an admission. But elsewhere the septic line tells us that the antibody marker is the confirmation that a vaccine has ‘worked’ and produced an immune reaction. Weasel words that suit a bullshit line in sales, yet again.

Nosebleed or whatever you are, what is an FBI page? Still not Phillip Hill and never have been!

I also don’t believe in a creator so you will have to answer that.

” The elephant in the room is your inability to see that the solutions to many of man’s current predicaments does not need some sexed up science solution.

Please list those problems. Narrod

Obesity, cardiovascular disease will do for two. Have you seen those programs on half ton women with medics calling obesity a disease that needs surgery! All through the programme the victims are eating total crap. I have never met a doctor who understands what a balanced diet is.

Philip Hills on FB:

Oh look, there is an exploding elephant in the room, but apparently clinical data is not allowed in EBM so we have to step over it, where did I put that ladder.

Troll:

The elephant in the room is your inability to see =

I am disappointed that this one doesn’t explode.

Perhaps Johnny Labile could explain to me why, when someone whose terrain of the body happens to have developed the “physiological events determined by homeostatic adjustment demands” known as measles enters a population which has never developed those particular “physiological events determined by homeostatic adjustment demands” known as measles (pre-Columbian Native Americans, say), then the whole population develops those particular “physiological events determined by homeostatic adjustment demands” known as measles in a fashion very similar to, but of course entirely distinct from, an epidemic.

And while he’s at it, perhaps Johnny Labile could explain why the “physiological events determined by homeostatic adjustment demands” known as measles never develop except in people exposed to other people suffering the same “physiological events determined by homeostatic adjustment demands” known as measles.

And while he’s working on that, Johnny Labile might explain how it is that the “physiological events determined by homeostatic adjustment demands” known as smallpox don’t occur anymore.

We don’t ‘catch disease’ they are physiological events determined by homeostatic adjustment demands.

Determined how?

How does one “catch” the specific “homeostatic adjustment demands”?

Can you convincinly demonstrate that this phrasing is anything other than a parlor game gone horribly awry?

ah the septic moderator chops the posts and edits to keep the thread on tack.

Incorrigible sockpuppet coward complains about being moderated? Whining is not a good look.

419

Oh and Pretzel didn’t get rid of mumps, did he, judging by the outbreaks in the US this year or was that the process of vaccination that failed, or the reporting or…………

422

Well well, bit of a screw up on the mumps claim for Mr Pretzel. I see no one has conceded that the ‘got rid of mumps claim’ was pure speculative vaccine belief!

432

Tell us why Mark Pretzel didn’t get rid of mumps.

I’m guessing these verbal ejaculations are related to my statement that we could make mumps go the way of smallpox (but where ‘Crislip’ leads to ‘Pretzel’ is a mystery to me).

Note that I didn’t say that we were near, or even pushing hard to rid the world of mumps, only that we could in the near future. Mumps only lives in humans, and if we made a concerted effort by spreading the vaccine far and wide, we could make it extinct. Polio has almost gone the way of smallpox, and, if the anti-vaxers would crowbar a little science into their craniums, we could wipe out a few other diseases, too.

It’s more than a whole army of osteopaths backed up by a fleet homeopaths could ever do.

422

We don’t ‘catch disease’ they are physiological events determined by homeostatic adjustment demands. Once the event has occured, unless circumstances demand, they are not required again.

So, are you saying that germ theory of disease is wrong? Because if that’s what you believe, then it’s silly to carry on.

@436 —

I’ll give you an assist.

Explain why natural hygiene didn’t work for Shelton.

Oh and Pretzel didn’t get rid of mumps, did he, judging by the outbreaks in the US this year or was that the process of vaccination that failed, or the reporting or…………

…the frankly admitted fact that the vaccine is 80 percent effective?

(People who get mumps can get it again, ftm.)

Well they made a shit job of validating flu vaccination!

What part of 0.95ⁿ = 0.5 ⇒ n = 13.5 but 0.975ⁿ = 0.5 ⇒ n = 27.4 do you not understand?

Johnny Labile aka Philip Hills:

“You know Jack $h!t about peer review.” Julian F

Well it seems to pass anything that pays enough,$

I know this is viewed as a jerk thing to say, but thanks for proving my point that you know nothing about peer review.

Everyone knows that circulating antibodies aren’t the whole story. ” Narad

Well that’s an admission. But elsewhere the septic line tells us that the antibody marker is the confirmation that a vaccine has ‘worked’ and produced an immune reaction. Weasel words that suit a bullshit line in sales, yet again.

You have no proper understanding of immunology. Just as the turning out of a product is proof that an assembly line works correctly, but isn’t the whole story, ditto with the immune system and antibody production.
@Johnny:

where ‘Crislip’ leads to ‘Pretzel’ is a mystery to me.

I’m guessing it’s a lame attempt at a pun. Crislip, crisp, pretzel.

Well well, bit of a screw up on the mumps claim for Mr Pretzel. I see no one has conceded that the ‘got rid of mumps claim’ was pure speculative vaccine belief!

In the US mumps incidence fell from over 180,000 cases every year before vaccination was introduced to fewer than 8,000 every year for the past 20 years (only a few hundred cases most years).

So where did mumps go? I suppose there must have been a mass campaign of osteopaths to adjust millions of children to prevent mumps.

Between the “weasel words” and the “elephant in the room”, there’s quite a menagerie accumulating over at the Hope Osteopathy Clinic.

From the “mumps and ovarian cancer” paper (linked to above):

Mumps parotitis may lead to expression and immune recognition of a tumor-associated form of MUC1 and create effective immune surveillance of ovarian cancer cells that express this form of MUC1.

In other words, an infection with mumps can result in an auto-immune condition, in which the immune system is overly vigilant towards a glycoprotein expressed both in salivary glands and in various tumours. Now this strikes me as genuinely interesting (although any autoimmune condition may well have additional, *undesirable* effects, for which the authors do not seem to have searched), because if it happens as an incidental result of mumps, there is perhaps a better-targetted way of obtaining better protection.

[Diseases] they are physiological events determined by homeostatic adjustment demands. Once the event has occured, unless circumstances demand, they are not required again.

Note to the bystanders: when a real scientist really try to explain something to non-specialists, he/she will try to use simple words. With various degrees of success, to be fair. And sometimes, there is no choice but to use big words.
By example, when I want to talk about the flu, I don’t say “zoonose”, but “virus jumping between different species of animals”.

A con artist will play Mr Spock and spout chains of sciency-sounding terms. “Quantum” seems to come a lot. For all the big words, it’s just word salad.
By example, the sentence at the top could be paraphrased as:
“Diseases are something the body does when its biological needs have changed. Once the body has done it, the disease won’t occur again, unless it does.”

although any autoimmune condition may well have additional, *undesirable* effects, for which the authors do not seem to have searched

Like mebbe declaring war on your exocrine glands?

So, are you saying that germ theory of disease is wrong?

He’s nearly cutting and pasting from the Natural Hygiene Society:

“Most people are familiar with the term homeostasis, which refers to the body’s balancing, centering, and stabilizing mechanisms. Homeostatic mechanisms are what enable your body to adjust to the relentless changes in your external and internal environments.”

By extension,

“The medical historian, Shyrock, tells us in his The Development of Modern Medicine, that a new etiology based on bacteriology ‘showed that the cause of tuberculosis-if not the malady itself-were indeed definite realities. It proved that there was, in the case of tuberculosis, some thing there that acted as if it were an entity.’ He also points out that today a diphtheria epidemic in a community is interpreted by the board of health to indicate the presence of a definite intruder. Thus the old idea of disease as an entity is still with us, and the foregoing expressions about disease are not to be regarded as metaphors today, any more than they were when they were first used. They accurately express prevailing medical views of the nature and essence of disease…. It is the law of life that the body resists and expels whatever it cannot use. Disease is vital resistance to non-usable, therefore, injurious substances.”

Oh, and fasting for a week will completely sterilize your gut.

“Mumps parotitis may lead to expression and immune recognition of a tumor-associated form of MUC1 and create effective immune surveillance of ovarian cancer cells that express this form of MUC1.” Noosad the oracle

“Note to the bystanders: when a real scientist really try to explain something to non-specialists, he/she will try to use simple words.” Helixcanthus

Well well, one rule for………………. so I take it the former is not real

“although any autoimmune condition may well have additional, *undesirable* effects, for which the authors do not seem to have searched” narad the intruder

Lots of medical myths here. Of course the medic couldn’t get their head round the idea that the simpler ‘disease state’ may in fact be protective or preventative because that flies in the face of medical woo, that each disease state is distinct and different.

Still not Mr Hill by the way

“Oh, and fasting for a week will completely sterilize your gut.” Noonoo

Well apparently if you feed a cow on starch rich corn the gut produces the lethal Ecoli 157. By observation it is also known that a switch to real grass, not hay or fake grass, clears the pathogen within days.

So there must be something in it. Alternately the mad cow scientist chooses to spray all US meat with ammonia because it is sexier than admitting corn is killing people.

“So, are you saying that germ theory of disease is wrong?” Noonoo

Well it’s back to front, the environment has more to do with it than most medics give credit to. I suppose eating crap and taking antibiotics to clear up the mess is a kind of homeostasis.

“Mumps only lives in humans, and if we made a concerted effort by spreading the vaccine far and wide, we could make it extinct.” some medical twat

Well the US has been jabbing way above the mythical herd immunity line for years and they still get outbreaks. What do you do when everyone has been jabbed and it still outbreaks? Pray?

Kreb:

So where did mumps go? I suppose there must have been a mass campaign of osteopaths to adjust millions of children to prevent mumps.

I know a couple of osteopaths, one of whom is a primary care physician. His approach to mumps prevention is, of course, vaccination. 😉

Just a reminder, American osteopaths are real doctors. Unfortunately not those in the UK, as evidenced by the fact free rants of the one who is trolling this thread.

“So where did mumps go? I suppose there must have been a mass campaign of osteopaths to adjust millions of children to prevent mumps.” Cauliflower

Well it went nowhere did it according to mumps ‘vaccine failure’ reports in the US this year. What has osteopaths got to do with this thread anyway. Leave it for 5 mins and suddenly some medical detective has decided you are someone else it is all very medical anecdotal pap!

Who wants to be a ‘real doctor’? or an osteopath or Mr Hill?

How big a smoke screen do you need to hide behind, the facts speak for themselves. Vaccination is bull.

“Like mebbe declaring war on your exocrine glands?” Noob

What a paranoid idea, body killing itself, only a medic could dream that one up! Bit like pandemic woo, “we are all going to die unless we submit to advertising”

Still not Mr Hill either

Well apparently if you feed a cow on starch rich corn the gut produces the lethal Ecoli 157. By observation it is also known that a switch to real grass, not hay or fake grass, clears the pathogen within days.

You know, people used to believe in that sort of thing (I mean, people who possessed function above the brainstem.) The idea was called “spontaneous generation”; people observed baby rats emerging from piles of old rags and came to the natural conclusion that the rags had produced the rats.

Do you believe in that, Mr. Hills? Do you believe that piles of rags create rats out of nothing? You should, really; if you believe that a cow’s gut can produce “Ecoli 157” where there was no E. coli before, the belief that unliving rags can produce rats differs only in scale.

“So where did mumps go? I suppose there must have been a mass campaign of osteopaths to adjust millions of children to prevent mumps.” Cauliflower

Well it went nowhere did it according to mumps ‘vaccine failure’ reports in the US this year.

If you’ll check out http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/mumps.html, you’ll see that “an estimated 212,000 cases occurred in the United States in 1964. Following vaccine licensure, reported mumps decreased rapidly. Approximately 3,000 cases were reported annually in 1983–1985.” Further it says “Since 1989, the number of reported mumps cases has steadily declined, from 5,712 cases to a total of 258 cases in 2004. In 2006, the United States experienced a multi-state outbreak involving 6,584 reported cases of mumps.”

Let’s be conservative and say we’ve declined from 100,000 cases of mumps per year to 7,000. That’s a better than 90% decline in absolute numbers, and a larger decline in the rate.

Where did the other 93,000 cases of mumps go?

Someone correct me if I’m wrong…but outside of the fact that hay is *dried* grass rather than growing grass, I don’t get what the difference is. And why “growing” grass is better for cows, per Mr Labile (lay-bile – how I always read his name – and how I see his behavior) than hay. And who feeds cows fake grass (astroturf?)

Our friend in Essex does not disappoint.

Act 1. In comment #417 he cites a paper on mumps, which was circulating among the usual suspects back in 2012.

Act 2. In #447 I quote from the paper, in the course of considering its implications.

Act 3. Our friend attributes the quoted passage to someone called Noosad and complains that it is not sufficiently dumbed down for him to understand.

Had he read the paper before citing it? One has to wonder.

Well apparently if you feed a cow on starch rich corn the gut produces the lethal Ecoli 157. By observation it is also known that a switch to real grass, not hay or fake grass, clears the pathogen within days.

Alternatively, in the real world, apparently not.

I just- by chance- viewed parts of a film called “Food, Inc” yesterday which included the *cows-fed-corn-not-grass-produce-E.coli* theme ..So that’s where that originated.

-btw- it was ilustrated- compleat with cow poo.

Funny how our neighbor has managed to sell his corn-fed black Angus to people for years without making them ill. Is it supposed to be common?

If ever there was justification for calling bullsh!t about the fallacy of grass-fed cattle not causing serious E coli infections, this is it:

http://extension.psu.edu/animals/beef/grass-fed-beef/articles/telling-the-grass-fed-beef-story

Consumer science studies show food safety is important to consumers, and it is an important feature of food buying decisions. The advertisements for grass-fed beef that claim there are no chances of E. coli infection in humans from grass-fed beef are scary and dangerous, and not because this is a threat to traditional beef products. It is dangerous because it gives consumers a false sense of security. In the case of E. coli, this contamination happens in a processing plant and has nothing to do with how or where the animal was raised. Cattle in all types of environments-feedlots and pasture- have been shown to have the virulent form of E. coli in their digestive tract, and it requires the special care that is taken in beef processing plants to prevent meat contamination. It also requires consumers to use safe handling and cooking methods common to all foods for their safety, and these false claims do not diminish that need.

Noosad the oracle

Too deep in your cups to even to figure out who wrote what, eh?

Alternatively, in the real world, apparently not.

I want a definitive statement from Shelton.

@ hdb

Act 2. In #447 I quote from the paper, in the course of considering its implications.

Using smaller and/or more descriptive words, as per my point in #448. People can look up “glycoprotein” or “salivary gland”, or not, and still get the gist of what you wrote.

And act 3, indeed, the troll ignores both your comment by quoting the article itself and my qualifier “specialist talking to non-specialist” in order to complain it’s too complicated for its little brain.

Addendum to my rule of thumb to identify quacks: they are very prone of twisting quotes and their opponents’ names.
Helix is a favorite webcomic, character of mine. Dub round, Mr Labile.

@ Labile

vaccination is bull

And you, sir, are a duck.

Mr Hills and his enormous number of alter-egos is purely and simply an anti-vaccine fabulist. Mr Hills has again and again around the web had it explained to him that his anti-vaccine canards are false.

He just moves on to the next blog and does the same all over again. This is seriously troll-worthy behaviour.

@#468 —

I realize that it looks as if he were saying, “No–o, no-o.”

But I believe he’s calling you “Noonoo,” a la Teletubbies.

Using smaller and/or more descriptive words, as per my point in #448.

I too thought that was straight-up explanatory language.

Because it was.

I’m still waiting for someone who disbelieves the germ-theory to explain why so many diseases act as if they are contagious if they really aren’t. 

If measles, mumps, chickenpox, and smallpox are just physiological states that any human being might experience, why did no human beings in pre-Columbian Americas ever experience them?  And why did those physiological states sweep across the continents like wildfire when Europeans, who had commonly experienced them, arrived?

If plague is just a physiological state that any human being might experience, why do no human beings in America experience that state unless they’ve been in contact with ground-dwelling rodents?  Why don’t we all experience it now and then?

Why don’t any human beings today experience smallpox, which used to be a terrifyingly common physiological state?

I truly don’t understand how anyone can reasonably answer the above questions without invoking contagious particles that are capable of replication. I.e., the germ theory of disease.

but outside of the fact that hay is *dried* grass rather than growing grass, I don’t get what the difference is.

There is a place for my farmboy memories about the differences between fresh, dried and fermented (silaged) forms of grass and non-grass forage, but this probably is not it.

He just moves on to the next blog and does the same all over again. This is seriously troll-worthy behaviour.

As long as he is providing entertainment here, he is not smearing his stupid all over other blogs.

“If measles, mumps, chickenpox, and smallpox are just physiological states that any human being might experience, why did no human beings in pre-Columbian Americas ever experience them? ” LW

It is more obvious than you think. Basically the Europeans brought shit food, alcohol en mass along with many other crap lifestyle modalities.

Meanwhile modern medical myths keep spreading stories about catching disease which is rather immature at the best of times. I suppose it is convenient for those wishing to sell snake oil but surely it’s time to call time on this scam

“If plague is just a physiological state that any human being might experience, why do no human beings in America experience that state unless they’ve been in contact with ground-dwelling rodents? ” LW

is this really a question or just bonkers? How do you get in contact with ground dwelling rodents? Maybe you are stupid enough to not grasp that drinking rat piss might be toxic?

We don’t get plague anymore because we changed the way we lived, I mean no one invented a vaccine for it, there was a bloody great fire that dumped the last one in England.

“I want a definitive statement from Shelton.” The noonoo screamed – well how about a paragraph or two.

It is not inappropriate to call the drug system of healing ‘the art of killing’, but as we are trying to avoid harsh words we will call it the science of nonsense. It is nonsense in one sense of the word, for there is no sense in it. It is nonsense systemized. It is a collection of non-sensical vagaries reduced to fixed principles of palpable absurdity. The art of treating the sick with all kinds of poisonous drugs and every kind of destructive measures, may be called the science of medicine, and the medical journals, as well as the daily press, may be filled at all times with announcements of the discoveries of great improvements in the “healing art”, but all these discoveries, with which the journals teem, amount to nothing more than additional means of getting more and more poisons into the human organism. 1922 seems pretty timeless too.

“He just moves on to the next blog and does the same all over again. This is seriously troll-worthy behaviour.” Her Mengelee

Yes Chris P is an issue, a legend in his own lunchtime. He has a serious personality septic disorder compounded by a religious belief in vaccination. Not the kind of doctor one would want to ask about ones children really.

He can’t discuss anything that conflicts with his belief disorder, he, like many other septics, is deluded into imagining that everyone is called Mr Hill because he has cut and pasted and googled some ‘key phrases’ and thinks he has solved something. That’s about the limit of his scientific inquiry, kind of scary for a doctor don’t you think.

It is just a pity I am not and never have been Mr Hill, judging by his site I am sure he has better things to do than blog at meditwats, guilty that their vaccine lunacy has damaged so many children

What a paranoid idea, body killing itself, only a medic could dream that one up!

Are you suggesting that autoimmune diseases don’t exist? Seriously?

Where do the anti-thyroid peroxidase antibodies in patients with autoimmune thyroiditis* come from? Why do they only occur in patients with that condition?

I’ve come across germ theory denialists but an autoimmune disease denialist? What next, gravity doesn’t exist?

* Several other autoimmune diseases with equally undeniable evidence to support their existence are available, sadly.

Johnny Labile Philip Hills, chickenshіt douchebag
Up your arse

I strongly suspect that you spend so much time whοring around on the wrong side of the Ottowa scale that you can’t tell whose ass you have your head up at any given moment. L-rd knows you can’t even figure out what block quotations signify.

“Like mebbe declaring war on your exocrine glands?” Noob

“Noob”? You’re reduced to weird monosyllabic ejaculations? Was I even addressing you in the first place? Oh, right, that’s above your pay grade. Do you even know what the fυck I was talking about?

What a paranoid idea, body killing itself, only a medic could dream that one up!

Let’s have it, Beriberi. In detail. In the real world, CTLs don’t know “self” from a hole in the ground. How does it work in on Planet Vitalism?

What’s the naturoste-Œ-EE-Œ-paygiene explanation for viviparous species? Think carefully.

What next, gravity doesn’t exist?

It had better be an improvement on expanding-Earth.

Perhaps Johnny Labile doesn’t know that the US still has occasional cases of bubonic plague…fortunately, most are susceptible to antibiotics. http://www.cdc.gov/plague/maps/

As to “how do humans contact ground dwelling animals”…..what does he think mice, prairie dogs, chipmunks, etc are? And kids will pick up anything lying on the ground if curious enough. Fleas desert a dead animal, bite human, and voila! Plague (if the animal was infected).

I have now placed Johnny with “kids stay on sidewalks” insane troll, mentally.

Hey, look, Johnny said something sensible!

We don’t get plague anymore because we changed the way we lived,

That’s exactly right!  We have better houses, more solid, that rodents such as the Norwegian rat have a difficult time entering and spreading their fleas. Our public health authorities are aware of the diseases potentially spread by rats and work to control them. 

Well done, Johnny!

Of course, then he spoils it by saying

I mean no one invented a vaccine for it

Um, yes, they did. Ask MO’B. 

“If measles, mumps, chickenpox, and smallpox are just physiological states that any human being might experience, why did no human beings in pre-Columbian Americas ever experience them? ” LW

It is more obvious than you think. Basically the Europeans brought s— food, alcohol en mass along with many other c— lifestyle modalities.

Yep, it’s amazing how much European food, alcohol, and other lifestyle modalities Cortes managed to cram into his little ships — enough to poison the whole Aztec nation in two years!

Johnny’s expertise in history rivals his expertise in medicine. 

is this really a question or just bonkers? How do you get in contact with ground dwelling rodents?

Nature’s grand plan comes with contact with ground-dwelling rodents fully en suite in most places that humans inhabit.

So no effort is really required.

“I want a definitive statement from Shelton.” The noonoo screamed – well how about a paragraph or two.

You lose again, Philip Hills of the Hope Osteopathic Clinic Essex, and not just because you can’t even fυcking successfully count to two.

Let me explain something. We call it “not requiring a structured clinical interview”:

Well apparently if you feed a cow on starch rich corn the gut produces the lethal Ecoli 157. By observation it is also known that a switch to real grass, not hay or fake grass, clears the pathogen within days.

Alternatively, in the real world, apparently not.

I want a definitive statement from Shelton.

To this, you “respond” with the first paragraph of An Introduction to Natural Hygiene, which you ascribe to 1922. This – as with effectively your entire being – is utterly nonresponsive, although it does reveal Shelton to be a plagiarist:

“We often wonder how the ancients could have navigated the seas without a compass, but these mariners were more at home on the trackless ocean than a physician in a sick room.”

The Indiana State Sentinel, 1849 (PDF):

“Why we wonder how the ancients could have navigated the seas, without the compass? But those mariners were more at home on the trackless ocean than are physicians in a sick room.”

Basically the Europeans brought s— food, alcohol en mass

Quick, someone tell the Mesoamerican cultures that before Columbus they knew nothing of alcohol, and that the pulque they brewed must have been some kind of placebo.

Mr Hill, judging by his site I am sure he has better things to do than blog at meditwats, guilty that their vaccine lunacy has damaged so many children

Mr Hills has enough spare time on his hands to work on undermining the Rotary International “End Polio Now” vaccination campaign, by posting vaccines-cause-polio links onto the campaign’s FB page. This is despite elsewhere boasting of his Rotary membership, and of his support for that campaign.

Quick, someone tell the Mesoamerican cultures that before Columbus they knew nothing of alcohol

Or syphilis.

Which Philip Hills of the Hope Osteopathic Clinic Essex might like to persuasively demonstrate the “non-catching” nature of for an encore.

Can anyone tell me why the Johnny labile troll is claiming he is not Mr Hill when nobody is saying he is?

No don’t tell me, I guess I have worked it out. When you are used to making stuff up, you just keep making stuff up.

Of course, when you are reduced to quoting from Mikey you know you have no arguments left.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=774411695932887&set=a.653986761308715.1073741825.260535883987140&type=1&relevant_count=1

As an aside, I like how the clinic likes its own posts on FB. As a non-FB user, can I ask does anyone who is normal ever do this?

I’m going to go through what labile said and perform a takedown. Because I want to.
#451:

“Note to the bystanders: when a real scientist really try to explain something to non-specialists, he/she will try to use simple words.” Helixcanthus

Well well, one rule for………………. so I take it the former is not real

That’s a bit rich, seeing as Helianthus and I were both quoting from the study YOU posted.
#452

Of course the medic couldn’t get their head round the idea that the simpler ‘disease state’ may in fact be protective or preventative.

“Terrain of the body” again.
#453

Well the US has been jabbing way above the mythical herd immunity line for years and they still get outbreaks. What do you do when everyone has been jabbed and it still outbreaks?

Firstly, since antivaxxers tend to congregate, you can get clusters where herd immunity isn’t reached, even if the country as a whole reaches herd immunity percentages. Secondly, remember smallpox? We jabbed everyone and it went extinct in the wild.
#457

What a paranoid idea, body killing itself.

Riiiiiiigggggghhhhht. biological processes are extremely simple and don’t interact with each other so things never go wrong. Oh wait.

@ ChrisP

Can anyone tell me why the Johnny labile troll is claiming he is not Mr Hill when nobody is saying he is?

Actually, some of us did. Narad and Herr Doctor Bimler tracked sockpuppets with similar style all over the internet and pinpointed a Philip Hill as a likely source of all posts. See comments 214-251 in this thread.

It has been a long thread and Mr labile, whoever he is, has left a long trail of unsupported or debunked claims. I’m thinking of re-reading the whole thread, just for the info dropped by the regulars.

@ ChrisP

I forget:

the clinic likes its own posts on FB. As a non-FB user, can I ask does anyone who is normal ever do this?

Well, anyone with a bit of ethics will know that’s cheating.
On par with making a sockpuppet to endorse one’s own comments.
So, short answer, no. You are not supposed to like yourself 🙂

Liking your own posts on Facebook is viewed as, shall I say, onanistic.

“If measles, mumps, chickenpox, and smallpox are just physiological states that any human being might experience, why did no human beings in pre-Columbian Americas ever experience them? ” LW

It is more obvious than you think. Basically the Europeans brought s— food, alcohol en mass along with many other c— lifestyle modalities.

I’m trying to imagine the Johnny Labile version of the history of the Americas:

The pre-Columbian Native Americans were peacefully living their age-old healthy lifestyles, hunting with bow and arrow on horseback*, innocent of alcohol and disease, when Columbus arrived in their Edenic paradise. Poof! The continents were instantly covered with unhealthy European cities and little farming communities raising unhealthy European crops such as corn and potatoes**, and instantly the Native Americans found themselves beset by European lifestyle diseases such as measles, mumps, smallpox, chickenpox, and influenza.

* Shhh. 
** Double shhh.

Meanwhile modern medical myths keep spreading stories about catching disease which is rather immature at the best of times.

I do find ‘germ theory’ denialists fascinating. How does anyone maintain such an irrational belief in the face of such a huge amount of evidence?

There are many historical experiments, for example John Snow, cholera, and the pump handle, as well as the day to day experiences of doctors, that prove germ theory beyond any doubt. We can induce and cure bacterial infections in animals, see the causative organisms under a microscope, culture them and inject them into other animals that also get sick. Even the healthiest and best fed lab rats are susceptible to infections (and cancer). It works just as we would expect it to according to ‘germ theory’.

We can even sequence viral DNA, and build viruses from scratch using this genetic code that make animals sick just as the natural virus does.

We also routinely culture bacteria from sick patients, find out which antibiotic kills those cultured bacteria, give that antibiotic to the patient, and they get better. Sometimes we find they have an antibiotic resistant infection and they don’t get better as easily. If conventional science had it wrong it would rapidly become very obvious.

How does a germ theory denialist explain all this? Generally they don’t even try, they simply ignore all the evidence that contradicts their delusional beliefs, or claim it has been fabricated.

It would be lovely if we only got sick if we didn’t live a healthy lifestyle, but sadly our immune systems are not perfect and a number of pathogens have evolved to evade them. I am quite sure that if Mr. Labile was exposed to sufficient typhoid or cholera bacteria, or hepatitis B viruses by the right route he would get sick, no matter what his diet/lifestyle, unless he has been vaccinated, of course.

What a paranoid idea, body killing itself.

Seeing as you don’t believe in a creator, I’d be curious to know how you account for the phenomenon of natural death if the explanation isn’t that the body kills itself.

Is natural death also an idea that only a septic medic would endorse?

Is natural death also an idea that only a septic medic would endorse?

Being septic – medic or otherwise – is a good reason to consider the imminence of natural death 🙂

(Note to Narad:

^^There’s no syllepsis there. I realize there should be. But it’s early.)

“If measles, mumps, chickenpox, and smallpox are just physiological states that any human being might experience, why did no human beings in pre-Columbian Americas ever experience them? ” LW

It is more obvious than you think. Basically the Europeans brought shit food, alcohol en mass along with many other crap lifestyle modalities.

Meanwhile modern medical myths keep spreading stories about catching disease which is rather immature at the best of times. I suppose it is convenient for those wishing to sell snake oil but surely it’s time to call time on this scam

What a fascinating delusional structure Mr. Hills has. Janet Parker works one floor above one of the last locations on Earth where the smallpox virus still exists – and she becomes the last person on Earth to die of smallpox.

But it’s not because the smallpox virus causes smallpox, of course. No, Ms. Parker must have suddenly radically changed her diet to pure McDonald’s burgers. It’s just utter coincidence that her dietary changes, for which there is no evidence that they even occurred, came at the same time as her exposure to the non-infectious smallpox virus.

Oh, and those who visited her in the hospital, before the nature of her ailment was realized, and also contracted smallpox? It couldn’t be that they were in contact with someone who transmitted an infectious micro-organism to them, because there is no such thing! Despite the obvious ecological niche that exists for “micro-organism that preys on larger species at cellular levels and reproduces itself to spread to other such hosts”, evolution never produced ANY such micro-organisms, because… uhmmm… uh, well, I guess it didn’t want to be accused of biting the body’s style? Since the body generates EXACTLY such micro-organisms, but only in response to TV dinners? Yes, yes, that must be it. Those who contracted smallpox after visiting someone who had an ultimately fatal case of it – they, too, must have had a sudden, uncaused, undocumented, radical change of diet.

There simply is no other logical explanation, since the much more logical explanation was one that a 1920s plagiarist didn’t believe in.

Helianthus, Narad, Herr Doktor, myself and one or two others have identified Philip Hills of the Hope Osteopathic Clinic as the likely author of these posts. There is a little matter of an ‘s’ between who we have concluded the author is and who the author says he is not. Which is why I asked the question. Why state you are not someone other than the person everyone else has identified? Unless Mr Hills is so incompetent as to fail to spell his own name, several times in a row. Sadly, this is something I am almost ready to believe.

Thank you all for the FB explanation. I thought as much.

Helianthus, Narad, Herr Doktor, myself and one or two others

We’re all the same person, of course.

Well if Mr Hills’ past performance is to go on, we are all named Chris.

That is OK, because Chris is a pretty good name.

However, if everyone changed their names to Lucy, we could be a Lucy nation

It’s just utter coincidence that her dietary changes, for which there is no evidence that they even occurred, came at the same time as her exposure to the non-infectious smallpox virus.

the enire American population, en masse, gave up alcohol and changed their diet and lifestyle from the unhealthy European diet and lifestyle to the healthy pre-Columbian Native American diet and lifestyle durng the mid-60s, which is why, like the pre-Columbian Native Americans, we never suffer smallpox and almost never suffer mumps or measles.

You remember that great change, right? It is in all the history books, the same place we learn about alcohol, the European diet, and the European lifestyle, which we obviously do not ourselves indulge in, or we would get measles, mumps, and smallpox.

Meanwhile plague disappeared from Europe, not after a successful vaccine campaign but a great fire and reforms to planning and city infrastructure laws.

Let’s hope that Chris and Her docky are not tempted to run a detective agency or they will be burning anyone who disagrees with their quirky logic. I mean fancy believing that injecting people with crap protects!

This playground lurgy idea of catching disease is bonkers.

Meanwhile plague disappeared from Europe, not after a successful vaccine campaign but a great fire and reforms to planning and city infrastructure laws.

And because the black rat that carried the plague was outcompeted by the brown rat that didn’t.

I mean fancy believing that injecting people with crap protects!

Then what happened to smallpox?

This playground lurgy idea of catching disease is bonkers.

As has been pointed out in this thread, germ theory has remarkable predictive power.

“Meanwhile plague disappeared from Europe, not after a successful vaccine campaign but a great fire and reforms to planning and city infrastructure laws” that kept the rats and their plague-bearing fleas away from the people. Tes, exactly.

Vaccination isn’t the only way to prevent disease. It’s just the best way to prevent air-borne, highly contagious diseases like measles.

@Johnny not Hills labile,

Frankly, Johnny, I don’t give a d— what your real name is, because the value or lack thereof in your statements doesn’t depend on who you are.

But I find your posts totally unconvincing, because you fail to make a prima facie argument to support anything.

But the plague reference struck a chord in me because I live in New Mexico, sometimes jokingly called “the land of the flea and the home of the plague” for reasons that are obvious if you look at this map:
http://www.cdc.gov/plague/maps/

But, I will ask you a few questions.
1) How do you explain the spreading of the plague in the 14th century? What change was happening that caused the geographical movement of the disease?

2) Why is there now a sudden growth in plague cases in Africa? http://www.who.int/csr/resources/publications/surveillance/en/plague.pdf

3) What do the flea and the plague have to do with each other?

4) Why do antibiotics work well enough against the plague that routine vaccination is not recommended except for people who are likely to be exposed to yersinia pestis?

Meanwhile plague disappeared from Europe, not after a successful vaccine campaign but a great fire and reforms to planning and city infrastructure laws.

When there were no longer people coming into frequent contact with rat fleas that carried the disease, the incidence of bubonic plague decreased and it no longer was a massive health threat on the scale that it was during the middle ages. People still catch it, and there is now a vaccine against it. However, it is sufficiently rare in Europe that the vaccine is not recommended on a routine basis. There are still plague outbreaks in many parts of the world when infected fleas on rodents are able to bite people. Bites from uninfected fleas do not, of course, spread plague.

There are several diseases that have been controlled by providing clean water and uncontaminated food in the absence of any lifestyle changes. The reduction in incidence of rabies by immunizing pet dogs and cats (once again, with no lifestyle changes or presumed changes in the number of animal bites) also suggests that the disease is spread from organism to organism.

“Then what happened to smallpox?”

Everyone on Earth simultaneously changed their unhealthy diet and lifestyle modalities, silly.

“We also routinely culture bacteria from sick patients, find out which antibiotic kills those cultured bacteria, give that antibiotic to the patient, and they get better. Sometimes we find they have an antibiotic resistant infection and they don’t get better as easily. If conventional science had it wrong it would rapidly become very obvious.” Kreb cycle

Well this is a bit of fancy, we are now facing a situation where even orthodox medical science admits we have run out of antibiotics to kill germs. No one denies the existence of germs or bacteria or viruses, it is what they are doing that is in question. The alternative view of the role these organisms play is that they are not isolated separate entities that ‘infect’ the host. The are a normal physiological adaptation to environment. If we cut the blood off to the arm we get gangrene, no one caught it, it is the normal evolution of events. In a ‘toxic’ lung that is unable to clean itself the bacteria that ‘appear’ like any flora in a living tissue and will break down this waste and then allow the normal channels of cleaning ‘snot’ to wrap it up and us to cough it out. It may be a funny colour but it, properly managed with rest and diet, be a self concluding event.

It fits in perfectly with your idea of ‘antibiotic resistance’ that is if you keep killing natures little cleaners then they will evolve in the newer more toxic environment until they eventually overwhelm the host and we then get ‘flesh eating killer bug ate my grandma’

So the short period of time where antibiotics seemed to be the miracle has now got us to a point where those who have chosen to medicate every cleaning crisis are fast trackng to degeneration.

Just like the credit boom led to world wide financial collapse and it was created by financial experts too, all that skill and brilliance but all they did was look at one part of the picture and the end of the story was an almighty fuck up.

Well done orthodox germ mythology!

And the ignorance safari continues courtesy of Mr. Hills. It’s a variant of “argument to consequences” (If X was true, then it would be unhappy for us, therefore X must be false) but since “people seek ‘quick fix’ solutions and are careless with them” is not a consequence of germ theory, it doesn’t even hold together on that level.

I was going to mock it with the reductio ad absurdum of “people on a farm get lazy and eat through the food that was supposed to be put away for winter, then they suffer extreme deprivation when winter actually arrives; their poor decisions mean, of course, that all our theory about ‘people need to eat’ is wrong.” Then I remembered, Hills is a devotee of Shelton; he might well believe that that’s right, and that people don’t need to eat!

It may be a funny colour but it, properly managed with rest and diet, be a self concluding event.

An unchecked bacteria infection could indeed lead to a self-concluding event.
There is certainly nothing more concluding than death.

I’m sure the poor damselhere just needed a change of lifestyle: more sun, a more balanced diet…

@Johnny Labile/Philip Hills:

No one denies the existence of germs or bacteria or viruses, it is what they are doing that is in question. The alternative view of the role these organisms play is that they are not isolated separate entities that ‘infect’ the host. The are a normal physiological adaptation to environment.

It may be “in question” to you, but not to most scientists and doctors. Oh, and I want some proof of terrain of the body, please.

If we cut the blood off to the arm we get gangrene, no one caught it, it is the normal evolution of events.

Then why is infection listed as a cause of gangrene? Oh wait, you think germ theory is incorrect.

“As has been pointed out in this thread, germ theory has remarkable predictive power.” Julius

Too right!

http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.588640

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/mar/11/superbugs-antibiotics-bacterial-diseases-infections

???

How does that disprove the predictive power of germ theory, which concerns how and why diseases will occur and not — N-O-T, not — how or whether they’ll respond to antibiotics?

Also:

People had been dying for a long, long time before vaccines, antibiotics, and/or any other pharmaceuticals came to be.

Please explain how that process occurred as you understand it.

Thanks.

What a complete idiot. Antibiotic resistant bacteria causing infections that can’t be treated with antibiotics supports the germ theory rather than detracting from it.

Does osteopathy affect cognative function do you think or was Mr Hills always like this?

“Antibiotic resistant bacteria causing infections that can’t be treated with antibiotics supports the germ theory rather than detracting from it.” Crispy creme

You obviously don’t understand the pathway of resistance. It is created by using antibiotics you fool. There isn’t a special kind of bacteria that won’t obey the rules, they are all becoming resistant because of the short sighted fix of medics dishing them out like sweeties.

It’s natural selection unless of course you are a creationist?

God almighty, and I am an atheist, what can’t you not understand about that?

“Then why is infection listed as a cause of gangrene? ” Julius C

Ok smarty pants where did the ‘infection’ come from then?

LW: Why don’t we all experience it now and then?

Europe used to. Along with pogroms, multi-country wars, and crusades.

MI Dawn: That’s exactly how the latest case of bubonic plague started. A ten-year-old was examining a squirrel carcass, got bit, and was hospitalized.

@Philip Hills/Johnny Labile:

Ok smarty pants where did the ‘infection’ come from then?

From bacteria getting in through broken skin, consuming human cells, multiplying, and releasing toxic substances, dimwit.

God almighty, and I am an atheist, what can’t you not understand about that?

Unfortunately, we are not fluent in gobbledegook.

I’m still trying to follow the illogic (perhaps that’s my problem)– if germs don’t cause disease, why do we care that they’re evolving to have antibiotic resistance?

I’m still trying to follow the illogic (perhaps that’s my problem)– if germs don’t cause disease, why do we care that they’re evolving to have antibiotic resistance?

Well, I’m stuck on a different bit of illogic – If a bunch of people live a crappy lifestyle, they’ll develop a disease, and that will cause the body generate microbes. If they fight the microbes with antibiotics, those microbes will develope antibiotic resistance. Then other people who live the crappy lifestyle will develop disease, and they too will generate microbes, but not the original microbes, they will get the new model resistant microbes. So how does the information to make the new model resistant microbes get passed along from person to person?

Wait….so moron Johnny believes that humans can spontaneously create life (i.e. bacteria & virus)?

“if germs don’t cause disease, why do we care that they’re evolving to have antibiotic resistance?” madder

Well it is hard trying to explain logic to medical fanatics.

Normally lungs clean themselves by either wrapping crap in mucous and then us coughing it out. At the cellular level metabolites, which are predominantly acidic, are buffered with alkali and rendered nonreactive so that they can pass into the blood and then through the normal channels of elimination ie kidneys and pissed out.

If the waste build up is too fast or not reduced/prepared for safe excretion it it temporarily stored in extracellular spaces where water is absorbed to dilute its effect. Medically this is called edema. Long term compensations, as such, start to stimulate the production of cortisol which thickens the lysomes in the cells to keep the wast under ‘lock and key’.

If the waste becomes organised bacteria starts to accumulate that effectively feeds off the waste, breaking it down into manageable portions and we are now in the state of what the medics would call an infection. These tend to happen to groups of people in similar situations like families or work colleagues and gives the impression that the condition was ‘caught’. Those that don’t ‘catch’ it are labelled ‘noise in the data’ for the more fanatical medics among us.

If we chuck and antibiotic at it it totally fucks the process and forces the process to desperately shove the waste back into extracellular spaces where it organizes and consolidates waiting for the next opportunity. Same with anti pyretics which are there to govern the process. This is now a much more toxic situation and a more rigorous flora to feed off this waste, the original antibiotic won’t work now so we need a new one.

Thus infection ‘resistance’ is a direct consequence of antibiotic prescription at stages when rest, simple food and good nursing would have been enough.

Modern research shows us that persistent antibiotics for chest infections increases the likelihood of lung cancer by a massive 50%.

Rather than germs ‘causing disease’ they are the products of the environment. Luckily those of us who never take antibiotics are least at risk from the coming nemesis.

Well, he did say @453

Well apparently if you feed a cow on starch rich corn the gut produces the lethal Ecoli 157. By observation it is also known that a switch to real grass, not hay or fake grass, clears the pathogen within days.

@507

This playground lurgy idea of catching disease is bonkers.

@513

The alternative view of the role these organisms play is that they are not isolated separate entities that ‘infect’ the host. The are a normal physiological adaptation to environment. If we cut the blood off to the arm we get gangrene, no one caught it, it is the normal evolution of events. In a ‘toxic’ lung that is unable to clean itself the bacteria that ‘appear’ like any flora in a living tissue and will break down this waste and then allow the normal channels of cleaning ‘snot’ to wrap it up and us to cough it out.

So, yah, it seems to me that’s what he’s saying. Can you come up with another interpretation?

No apology needed – in a fit of vanity, I assumed that the question was directed at me *about* the other Johnny.

“So how does the information to make the new model resistant microbes’ Johnnny

Fail in logic, people who don’t take all the meds ie allow normal cleaning and eat well are not susceptible to resistant strains. That must be true or we would all have it!

“Wait….so moron Johnny believes that humans can spontaneously create life (i.e. bacteria & virus)?”

Ooooh lawrence didn’t your mum tell you where babies came from. So let’s get this right, you think there are loads of different viruses and bacteria just randomly ‘going around’ infecting people? So where did they come from lawrence?

Tell me this, if , as a women I go to the doctor for a Rubella antibody test to see if I am ‘immune’ to Rubella as I want to have a baby and he tells me my antibody levels are high therefore I am protected. Why, if I get an HIV antibody test and it is positive ie I have high levels of HIV antibodies – am I told that I have a disease?

As best I can tell, he’s clinging to a sort of warmed-over Béchampism, where stressed cells are transmogrified into microorganisms. Or something. But I fail to see how the existence of antibiotic resistance supports this idea, or alternatively disproves germ theory.

“How does that disprove the predictive power of germ theory, which concerns how and why diseases will occur and not — N-O-T, not — how or whether they’ll respond to antibiotics?”

I’ve run into this kind of nonsense before – antibiotic resistance is bad, so any theory that predicts (or is consistent with) antibiotic resistance is also bad – and bad theories must be false. You see the same kind of fantasy among the relativity cranks – atomic bombs are a consequence of relativity, so relativity is bad, and wrong.

In a ‘toxic’ lung that is unable to clean itself the bacteria that ‘appear’ like any flora in a living tissue and will break down this waste and then allow the normal channels of cleaning ‘snot’ to wrap it up and us to cough it out. It may be a funny colour but it, properly managed with rest and diet, be a self concluding event.

Again, go test it out. It would certainly be less tedious than desperately trying to change the subject over and over to try to cover your scat inability to answer direct questions.

I’m sure your “snot” normal cleaning products from any number of sexually “transmitted” diseases would be fascinating for all concerned.

So let’s get this right, you think there are loads of different viruses and bacteria just randomly ‘going around’ infecting people? So where did they come from lawrence?

I wonder what Mr. Hills thinks of studies like these, which use genome sequencing to directly trace the transmission of an infectious strain through a community, and to reconstruct the emergence of antibiotic resistance in this strain:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24753569

Ummmm….the moron doesn’t seem to know the difference between the combination of two living cells (the sperm & the egg) to create a baby vs. supposedly life arising from detritus in the body…….given that his whole thought process was disproven a few centuries ago, this guy is completely hopeless.

I am reminded of insano-troll, that lived in a completely different reality, with even substantially different definitions of even basic scientific terms……the color on this guy’s planet most certainly isn’t blue.

In a ‘toxic’ lung that is unable to clean itself the bacteria that ‘appear’ like any flora in a living tissue and will break down this waste and then allow the normal channels of cleaning ‘snot’ to wrap it up and us to cough it out. It may be a funny colour but it, properly managed with rest and diet, be a self concluding event.

Then why is there such a long historical record of people dying from pneumonia that it had already existed for centuries before the little observation below was made:

Hippocrates noted that death from pneumonia usually occurs on the seventh day. Areteaus of Cappadocia, about 140 A.D., concurred with Hippocrates that death usually ensues on the sevenths day. He wrote about the usefulness of the lungs, and explained that certain maladies can cause havoc: (6)

But if the lungs be affected, from a slight cause there is difficulty breathing, the patient lives miserably, and death is the issue, unless someone effects a cure. But in a general affection, such as inflammation, there is a sense of suffocation, loss of speech and breathing, and a speedy death. This is what we call peripneumonia, being an inflammation of the lungs, with acute fever, when they are attended with heaviness of the chest, freedom from pain, provided the lungs alone are inflamed.”

See that part about people dying absent intervention?

If that’s not what you mean by “self-concluding event,” how do you account for it?

Bear in mind that it predates antibiotics, and that the ancients were aware of food and rest.

Why was Shelton bedridden with symptoms that kept getting worse and not better for the last thirteen years of his life?

Philip Hills, proprietor of the Hope Osteopathic Clinic Essex, inquires,

Tell me this, if , as a women I go to the doctor for a Rubella antibody test to see if I am ‘immune’ to Rubella as I want to have a baby and he tells me my antibody levels are high therefore I am protected. Why, if I get an HIV antibody test and it is positive ie I have high levels of HIV antibodies – am I told that I have a disease?

If I were your physician, I’d tell you not to worry about a thing and just carry on.

After chloroforming you and lopping off your dong, of course.

@Labile

Modern research shows us that persistent antibiotics for chest infections increases the likelihood of lung cancer by a massive 50%.

Care for providing a source for this info?

@ Any passing bystander

I go to the doctor for a Rubella antibody test to see if I am ‘immune’ to Rubella as I want to have a baby and he tells me my antibody levels are high therefore I am protected. Why, if I get an HIV antibody test and it is positive ie I have high levels of HIV antibodies – am I told that I have a disease?

The answer to this apparent discrepancy is the context:
Strictly speaking, detecting antibodies specific to a given pathogen only proves one thing, that your body encountered said pathogen (or a lookalike, like a vaccine) and your immune system developed antibodies against it.

But.
In the case of rubella, or any infection for which there is a vaccine and/or a good chance of clearing it, if you don’t show any symptom of the illness, then obviously you encountered it in the past, and if it made you sick, you got better. Thus, conclusion: your body has seen this pathogen before, and it’s a reasonable guess to state that you are now immune to it.
Sometimes, it could be a wrong guess: your level of antibodies is not enough to be protecting. Still, as a quick test, checking for the antibodies is useful as it does tell you that at least, you reacted to a previous encounter. One could be more accurate if the antibodies are not simply detected, but quantified.
And, wonders of wonders, it’s even possible to tell you if you met the pathogen only one time (mostly IgM antibodies), or repeatedly (seroconversion to IgG).

Now, as for HIV, or any long-lasting infection without many cases of people having been cured:
Well, if you have antibodies against it, then you have encountered it. And since it rarely goes away on its own, then, very likely, you still have the virus in your body, busy making you sick.

Tell me this, if , as a women I go to the doctor for a Rubella antibody test to see if I am ‘immune’ to Rubella as I want to have a baby and he tells me my antibody levels are high therefore I am protected. Why, if I get an HIV antibody test and it is positive ie I have high levels of HIV antibodies – am I told that I have a disease?

Because rubella and HIV differ in crucial respects. Rubella has a vaccine; HIV does not. Human immune systems can sometimes fight off and clear rubella (much more effectively if they’ve been vaccinated, of course); with the possible exception of a very few rare cases, human immune systems do NOT fight off and clear HIV.

So if you have HIV antibodies in your system, just about the ONLY possible explanation is that HIV got into your system, and is still there, albeit almost certainly mutated or about to mutate into a form that your existing antibodies won’t recognize and can’t fight.

By contrast, having rubella antibodies shows that you were exposed to either rubella or the rubella vaccine at some point, but it doesn’t mean you have it now.

So the question is a bit like asking, “why does the doctor tell me that the left hand which I sprained should be better in a few weeks, but tells me that the right one which got caught in the woodchipper won’t be better even a year from now?” because … that’s the facts. Sprains, absent extraordinary circumstances, heal up with time; amputations do not.

Now that I’ve dealt with your question, Mr. Hills, let’s see if you can answer this one.

Suppose we take one of the viruses which you insist is not infectious, but instead generated by a body in respnse to poor living. Let’s pick measles, since those who believe measles is infectious regard it as very infectious indeed.

If we take that virus to a laboratory and introduce it to an appropriate cell culture, very soon we will find that the cells are now churning out multiple copies of the virus. There is no reasonable way to deny this, since this is what we’ve been doing for decades on decades when we WANT to produce a large volume of virus. Of course, if you DO deny it, please let us know that this is where you choose to part ways with reality.

All right, then. Now, then:

1) Isn’t it impossible for the virus to have arisen as an attempt by the larger organism to remediate a negative condition … since there is no larger organism?

2) Doesn’t the cell’s response – producing copies of a virus only after being exposed to that virus – match up with what germ theory has been saying all along, about the cells being infected?

3) Even if, for sake of argument, something other than infection was going on between the virus and the cell – we are seeing the results. Cell exposed to virus; cell starts producing virus. Why would this not lead to viruses that, in fact, reproduce themselves in the wild, by doing whatever it is they do to cells, to insufficiently protected cells of living organisms? And continue to reproduce indefinitely in this fashion? How would these viruses NOT be the infectious diseases that you claim it’s “bonkers” to believe in?

Today’s highlights:

The osteopathic troll claiming that I “don’t understand the pathway of resistance” I lolled so hard I think I have broken something. What is most funny about this is that the osteopathic troll knows my real name (as do quite a few other posters here) and could quickly look me up.

The osteopathic troll presents some snot and bull story about how antibiotics cause resistance to do with waste organising itself after being pushed back into extracellular spaces and waiting to leap on the next bacterium that comes wandering by.

The osteopathic troll presents some snot and bull story about how antibiotics cause resistance to do with waste organising itself after being pushed back into extracellular spaces

I kind of liked that part of it. It speaks to my political tendencies.

(How we gonna make the germ nation rise?
Agitate! Medicate! Organize!

H/T Brother D and Collective Effort, Antonio Gramsci, and Susan B. Anthony.)

Johnny Labile: Dude, do you understand how anything in the world works? I bet you think the Earth is 6,000 years old and flat. And I thought the US was bad at science- what are they teaching British kids these days?

If the waste build up is too fast or not reduced/prepared for safe excretion it it temporarily stored in extracellular spaces where water is absorbed to dilute its effect. Medically this is called edema.

We’re now around volume 6 proper of The Hygienic System, BTW.

Anyway, Philip Hills, for the peace of mind of current and prospective clients of the Hope Osteopathic Clinic Essex, not to mention simplifying the lives of the relevant regulatory authorities, please answer the following:

Is your whimsical denial of the existence of infection – seeing as it quite obviously is as close to the core of your “medical” “philosophy” as an errant corn kernel bobbing in a stopped-up toilet – properly implemented by yourself and the other two Hillses on the quackupucture side of the racket?

I suppose if I was a medical doctor and current facts surrounding antibiotic failure and 1 in 16 people pick up an infection in a hospital whilst being there for ‘treatment’ I’d freak out and deny any causality.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-27046990

I don’t know how many times on has to say ‘I am not a germ denialist’ for you to get that? Also I am not Mr Hill so I also have no idea why that consoles you with your fascist opinions.

Many acknowledge that the medical experiment of antibiotics is on the cusp of collapsing, it is well known in medical circles that this is the case and the cause – is antibiotics, nothing more nothing less.

“Antibiotics don’t ’cause’ resistance; rather, they create an environment which favours the growth of resistant variants which already exist in nature or arise by chance.” HPA weasel words – its not the sharp landing that killed those on the plane it is the sudden stop at the end.

http://www.hpa.org.uk/Topics/InfectiousDiseases/InfectionsAZ/AntimicrobialResistance/GeneralInformation/antimAntibioticResistancefactsheet/

You can’t blame those who choose to avoid them either.

So how do you ‘catch’ ganrene when there is no penetrating wound?

“Because rubella and HIV differ in crucial respects. Rubella has a vaccine; HIV does not. Human immune systems can sometimes fight off and clear rubella (much more effectively if they’ve been vaccinated, of course); with the possible exception of a very few rare cases, human immune systems do NOT fight off and clear HIV.” Anus feldspar

Do you make this up or did you read it in a medical peer reviewed comic? I’d love to know

Hey Orac, if you are going to cherry pick replies and then allow your worms to smear shit on everything it kind of validates my perspective. I a still not Mr Hill so that’s a blind alley but at least we all know know how your web of pus is linked and who feeds it.

I have lost count of the referenced quotes that you have refused to publish, the ones that show your other posters are basically wrong about physiology on many levels.

Trust me, I am not a doctor would seem to be a fitting sign off, ohh and I am not Mr Hill either!

I have really enjoyed watching the poor level of critique here and look forward to more of your straw fallacies and appeals to emotion going the way of woo.

“not a doctor” is perhaps the only true statement you’ve made Johnny moron…..

Mr. Labile, if that’s your real name, you have one simple question you need to answer if you want to be taken seriously. If germ theory is incorrect, why does all the evidence suggest otherwise?

@ the deletere troll

Do you make this up or did you read it in a medical peer reviewed comic?

You should have paid attention in school. This is immunology/microbiology 101.

Because rubella and HIV differ in crucial respects. Rubella has a vaccine; HIV does not. Human immune systems can sometimes fight off and clear rubella (much more effectively if they’ve been vaccinated, of course); with the possible exception of a very few rare cases, human immune systems do NOT fight off and clear HIV.

Do you make this up or did you read it in a medical peer reviewed comic? I’d love to know

Well, if you believe the above is false, then surely it will be a snap for you to tell us which part is the false part. Do you believe that a vaccine for rubella does not exist? Or that a vaccine for HIV does? If you CANNOT explain what part of the passage you jeer at is something you’re confident in calling untrue, the logical conclusion is that you only know you WANT to believe that it’s untrue, and have no actual argument that would lead to that conclusion.

Meanwhile, to remind you of another question you’re ducking: if viruses infect cells in culture (as we can readily observe in the laboratory), why are you so adamant that viruses can NEVER infect cells in living organisms?

1 in 16 people pick up an infection in a hospital whilst being there for ‘treatment’

I’m confused – if “This playground lurgy idea of catching disease is bonkers”, then clearly the idea of “picking up an infection in a hospital” would also be bonkers. Thus it can’t be part of your argument.

I don’t know how many times on has to say ‘I am not a germ denialist’ for you to get that?

Only in the sense that you don’t deny that they exist. Where germs come from, how they spread, and what they do in a host is where your understanding is, shall we say, lacking. It would be more accurate to say you are a ‘germ theory of disease denialist’. Or ‘idiot’. I could go either way.

I have lost count of the referenced quotes that you have refused to publish, the ones that show your other posters are basically wrong about physiology on many levels.

I see that Philip Hills has now been reduced to the Gerg level of desperation.

So if one in fifteen people entering hospital leave with an infection that they didn’t have when they went in is this germ theory in action or failure.

If someone promoting diet and health as a defense against disease was creating an infection stat like this you would be calling for the gallows?

I suppose all it takes is a little belief and head in the sand too.

I suppose now we have the internet and are in the modern world that old fake ‘trust me I am a doctor’ is wearing a bit thin. Must be hard keeping up vaccine belief when so many people can see through the red mist and spot snake oil.

Johnny, a hospital is a nearly sterile environment. If your ideas were correct, there would be no infection whatsoever in them.

So if one in fifteen people entering hospital leave with an infection that they didn’t have when they went in is this germ theory in action or failure.

WOW the stupid is strong with this one

To explain my comment further: There are, indeed, a large number of sick people in hospitals. If sterility was not carefully maintained, far more than one in fifteen would be infected when they leave. On the other hand, since Johnny claims the illness is a result of environment, then a hospital, with its carefully cleaned rooms and balanced nutrition, should actually be the healthiest place of all.

Of course, understanding cause and effect would destroy the idea of Natural Hygiene.

So if one in fifteen people entering hospital leave with an infection that they didn’t have when they went in is this germ theory in action or failure.

In action, naturally. After all, the term “infection” means “the invasion of a host organism’s bodily tissues by disease-causing organisms, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to these organisms and the toxins they produce.” Thus if someone has a new infection, they have been exposed to an infected by some organism which made them in some way sick. They didn’t get sick and then their bodies get colonized by (or generate) said organisms.

Question: why is rabies only spread by exposure to an animal with rabies, not from exposure from healthy animals?

Question: why is plague only spread by exposure to infected rodent fleas?

Question: why did people catch anthrax after being exposed to powdered anthrax spores through the mail, when it’s not common in people in the same environment who were not exposed to said spores?

I thought that using sock puppets = ban. Two instances in this thread alone…

Maybe if they’re entertaining they’re allowed to stick around for a bit? And Mr. Hills has proven hilarious.

Voldemort aka Johnny labile, who denies he is Philip Hills despite commenting very much like him:

I have lost count of the referenced quotes that you have refused to publish, the ones that show your other posters are basically wrong about physiology on many levels

You cited whale.to in an earlier quote. Oh, and two or more links typically sends a comment into moderation. I don’t buy your claims of censorship.

Except for having tried to pass yourself off as a pediatrician.

‘Pediatrician’ / ‘Mythbuster’ / ‘Cardinal Ernst’ / ‘The Pope’ / ‘mythbusterorpopeshagger’.

Not to forget passing himself off as ‘Consultant‘ (that thread holds some sort of record for sockpuppetry, with Troll-boy switching his nym between Ernsty, Ernstymate, Singhkorswim, Humpty, JosephineJugs and Lol).

Comment #550 (under the new nym of ‘voldemort’):

Hey Orac, if you are going to cherry pick replies and then allow your worms to smear shit on everything it kind of validates my perspective

Whining about censorship is a recurring theme from Mr Hope Osteopathy. Way back at #76 when he was calling himself “the craic”, he complained

What I find sadly remarkable about you Orac is you exert the same cherry picking of posters that you accuse all your dissenters of doing

(that’s the same comment where he invented a best friend with cancer in “lung, prostate, spleen, adrenals” who cured himself with diet… let us just say that his problems do not include a pedantic concern for the truth).

In other blog-threads where he indulged in similar nym-fests, the same complaint emerges, that his comments are being deleted. Incompetence? Drinking early? Dementia?

@voldemort,

Hey Orac, if you are going to cherry pick replies and then allow your worms to smear shit on everything it kind of validates my perspective. I a still not Mr Hill so that’s a blind alley but at least we all know know how your web of pus is linked and who feeds it.

That seems needlessly bitter, but could you summarize what you tried to post to validate your perspective? It’s been my experience that Orac doesn’t censor, though there are spam filters on the site and he may (as he has a real job) take some time to release items.

I have lost count of the referenced quotes that you have refused to publish, the ones that show your other posters are basically wrong about physiology on many levels. Please feel free to summarize.

Trust me, I am not a doctor would seem to be a fitting sign off, ohh and I am not Mr Hill either!

I personally don’t care if you’re Mr. Hill or Mr. Underhill and, frankly, I considered it poor form of people to try to see through your ‘nym given recent discussions on net anonymity.

I have really enjoyed watching the poor level of critique here and look forward to more of your straw fallacies and appeals to emotion going the way of woo.

I’m sorry you’re unable to appreciate the actually rather elevated level of critique you’ve seen here. In other forums, it would have quickly devolved into stock insults.

Oops, left out a blockquote there in paragraph 3. Needless to say, everything before “please” is a quote.

Of course, understanding cause and effect would destroy the idea of Natural Hygiene.

No, all “diseases” are caused by violation of one or another Law of Nature. As inferred by Natural Hygiene and its forebears.

“We might as well try to extinguish a fire by silencing the fire-bells,” per Felix Oswald.

Lest Mr. voldemort or Johnny Labile or whatever he/she chooses to call himself thinks himself/herself special, I have a perfectly civil comment in moderation.

Philip Hills, chickenshіt douchebag:

I suppose now we have the internet and are in the modern world that old fake ‘trust me I am a doctor’ is wearing a bit thin.

Once again: “Your turn, Johnnycakes: let’s have the evidence for ‘classical osteopathy.’ Please also highlight some of the most significant discoveries and revisions to practice guidelines over the past 20 or so years.”

So if one in fifteen people entering hospital leave [sic] with an infection that they didn’t have when they went in is this germ theory in action or failure.

Right. Because understanding how infectious pathogens work causes them to spring into being. Naturally, they cluster wherever this understanding belief is strongest.

Philip Hills, chickensh1t douchebag:

Are you suggesting he’s a coward? You just don’t recognise his special form of anonymous bravery.
Here, for instance, he bravely threatens to use anonymous tip-offs to land JosephineJones in a defamation suit:

in fact that is where I am going now. Don’t worry full copies of screen shots are on their way to WHS head office as you moderate and I look forward to seeing you sh1t your pants in public!

And here he is, with a different nym, bravely calling for an “organic jihad” against Orac.

Here, for instance, he bravely threatens to use anonymous tip-offs to land JosephineJones in a defamation suit

Are these actually normal constructions in UKish flavors of English?

“Consultant”: “Being a woman I am surprised you haven’t looked into the cervical cancer jab scam JJ….”

“Johnny Labile”: “Tell me this, if , as a women I go to the doctor for a Rubella antibody test….”

Narad: I don’t live in the UK, but I doubt it. The troll has about the same grasp of grammar as Thingy and Grog had- not much. And as already remarked, he appears to have a brain the same size as a stegosaur’s brain. Although I’m being unfair to the stegosaur.

So if one in fifteen people entering hospital leave with an infection that they didn’t have when they went in is this germ theory in action or failure.

You tried that fallacious argument before, Mr. Hills. “If people who believe in a scientific principle get bad results kinda-somehow related to that science it means that the principle is WRONG!!” Well, no, it doesn’t, does it? If people correctly understand a science, AND they make good decisions about how to apply that knowledge, AND luck is with them, they may get good results. If they get bad results, it could be from bad decisions, or just plain bad luck.

It seems like perhaps it’s time for Mr. Hills to face an ultimatum question…

Are these actually normal constructions in UKish flavors of English?

I doubt it.

It’s superfluous information in both cases, too.

It’s superfluous information in both cases, too.

Unless one has a kneejerk reaction to sensing whiffs of a counterfactual. Which might happen for the sort of person sporting some semblance of a Van Dyke who tries to masquerade as both “Johnny” and “Sarah.”

“Please also highlight some of the most significant discoveries and revisions to practice guidelines over the past 20 or so years.” Noonood

How about the NICE guidelines after studies on kids with fevers at great Ormond Street finally realising that suppressing fevers in kids was not only counterproductive it produced more sequalae. It showed that kids with meningitis recovered much quicker than using magical medical potions to thwart nature.

” If they get bad results, it could be from bad decisions, or just plain bad luck.” Anus feldspar on weasel words about why 1 in 15 people who go to hospital leave with an infection they didn’t have when they went in.

Hey Anus, I thought that medical science was about science, not bad luck. Was it talisman failure or belief system failure?

@ MoB

I personally don’t care if you’re Mr. Hill or Mr. Underhill and, frankly, I considered it poor form of people to try to see through your ‘nym given recent discussions on net anonymity.

I agree and should act accordingly. To address the wrongness of this poster’s arguments is more important than who he really is.
Although I would also say it’s good to know this poster comes under many ‘nyms.

@ Bystanders and other lurkers

So how do you ‘catch’ ganrene when there is no penetrating wound?

The Wikipedia entry on gangrene is very educational.
Caution: It also has some vivid pictures of gangrened limbs. Not for the faint of heart.

In short, gangrene starts with tissue necrosis (to simplify, the death and decay of a big piece of flesh).
Many things could trigger necrosis; by example, a restriction of the tissue’s blood supply. That happens to the inside of solid tumors once they outrun their blood supply (about the only case where necrosis is a good thing); that happens to limbs around which a tourniquet has been used; that happens to unfortunate people with blood circulation issues, by example as a complication of diabetes.
Note that in all these cases, you don’t need a penetrating wound.

And yes, necrosis, and then gangrene, could happen because some nasty bacteria are busy eating you alive. And again, in some cases, you don’t need a wound: the bacteria are making their own way in, notably with wet gangrene and food poisoning.

Clostridium perfringens, a deadly-toxin-producing bacterium often involved with gangrene, has some interesting cousins: Clostridium botulinum (of Botox fame), and Clostridium tetani. See a pattern, here?

Members of the Clostridium family are also commonly found in dirt, or as part of the normal skin or even gut flora. A frequent cause of food poisoning by botulism is because Clostridium botulinum is a common guest of pigs’ guts, and if bacteria are kiiled by cooking contaminated meat or blood, the toxin isn’t destroyed.

Regardless of the initial trigger, necrotic tissue is prime feeding ground for
a bunch of opportunistic bacteria: the immune system is not working here, the dying tissues are releasing a bevy of nutrients, and the absence of oxygen is actually a blessing for many of these bacteria, like the Clostridium above, as they would be killed, or at least seriously impeded, by normal levels of oxygen (the scientific word for these bacteria is “anaerobic”).

Now, to quote our recent visitor:

It may be a funny colour but it, properly managed with rest and diet, be a self concluding event.

It’s indeed a funny colour. Also, according to a hospital doctor who taught me microbiology, gas gangrene has tell-tale smell (hydrogen sulfur) and touch – bubbles of gas generated by the bacterium Clostridium perfringens are trapped inside the decaying tissue.

And if historical chronicles are to be believed, treating gangrene with rest and diet usually resulted in a very painful and very terminal self-concluding event.

You need to do a bit more. Like removing the dead, rotting tissue, increasing the oxygen content around it (yeah hyperbaric tanks), and use some antibiotics.
In case of toxin-producing bacteria, a bacteriostatic antibiotic is sometimes preferred (a drug which will slow bacteria proliferation but not kill them), because the toxin is usually accumulated inside bacteria and killing them would release a massive spike of deadly toxin.

Meh, another wall of text. An illustration of the bullsh!! ratio which favors quacks, I guess. Shouting nonsense is easy and fast, trying to explain things is long and difficult.

Are these actually normal constructions in UKish flavors of English?

They are the kind of grammatical errors I have encountered from poorly educated people who are trying to sound clever.

the sort of person sporting some semblance of a Van Dyke who tries to masquerade as both “Johnny” and “Sarah.”

He was ‘nancy’ for a while at Zenosblog. The original topic of that thread was osteopathy, which made our friend particularly excitable and sockpuppety, and in quick succession he switched his nym to “professor”, “skepticunt”, “shitebuster”, and “fannyblaster”. And a few dozen more, increasingly misogynistic. Vacuum denial is mentioned.

Apologies to Orac to my previous comment, which triggered the obscenity detectors and went into moderation (by listing some of the misogynistic nyms Mr Labile has used at a UK skeptic site).

I’m still amazed that anyone can maintain a belief system that is contradicted by almost everything we have learned about health and disease over the past 200 years. I have a number of questions for Mr. Labile.

If bacteria, viruses and parasites are not separate organisms, but are generated by our bodies in response to disease, why don’t they have the same DNA as us? Why is the DNA in bacteria found in chicken with salmonella the same as that found in humans with salmonella?

How is it we can culture bacteria from a sick animal, inject those bacteria into another healthy animal, and it gets sick with the exact same symptoms as the first?

How is it we can construct polio viruses from their genome, inject them into mice and the mice become paralyzed?

Why did almost every child get measles before vaccination was introduced? What ‘accumulation of waste’ did almost every child suffer from then, but hardly any do now, except in developing countries that don’t yet vaccinate?

If bacteria are friendly waste disposal units, that only attack diseased tissue, why do so many of them produce toxins that affect normal healthy cells? What is the function of the toxins produced by cholera, typhoid, botulism, pertussis and tetanus, for example?

Why did so many people die from bacterial infections before the introduction of antibiotics? Doctors (and vets) in the 1940s embraced antibiotics because they finally had an effective treatment for a range of diseases that they were previously unable to treat. You should read some accounts from that era – I read a biography of James Herriot a while ago which described what being a rural vet was like before and after the introduction of antibiotics. It’s amazing how many animals died of “a normal physiological adaptation” before the antibiotic era and how few after. Were all those vets and doctors mistaken?

Another thought, why does hand-washing in hospitals reduce illness? Why do we bother having a sterile environment to perform surgery? If the body generates pathogens as “a normal physiological adaptation”, why did aseptic and antiseptic surgery improve results so dramatically, if not by reducing post-op infection?

I’m puzzled by this idea that our bodies are unable to deal with “waste” (another term for eevil toxinz), and have to store them up. Robert O. Young makes the same claim, but he says the acid toxins are is stored as fat, not edema. Our kidneys and livers have a demonstrable ability to excrete far more waste, including acidic waste, than we throw at them, so why would we store any up? Since athletes produce far more acidic waste, and use up far more of their alkaline buffering capacity than the rest of us, wouldn’t we expect them to be unhealthier than anyone else?

Those are just a few of the facts that are completely inconsistent with natural hygiene ideas that occur to me. There are many, many more.

@ Krebiozen

How is it we can culture bacteria from a sick animal, inject those bacteria into another healthy animal, and it gets sick with the exact same symptoms as the first?

And sometimes a different species of animal to boot, like every times scientists are studying a human illness using an animal model.

What ‘accumulation of waste’ did almost every child suffer from then

Especially puzzling in light of claims that today’s children are subjected to more “toxins” than in the past.

Those are just a few of the facts that are completely inconsistent with natural hygiene ideas that occur to me. There are many, many more.

You put your finger on that distinguishes a real scientific theory from unsupported beliefs randomly collapsed together.

A good scientific theory is able to explain the working of the universe (or of a specific part thereof) without running into inconsistencies at every turn.
So I guess the germ theory of disease is not “just a theory”.

I personally don’t care if you’re Mr. Hill or Mr. Underhill and, frankly, I considered it poor form of people to try to see through your ‘nym given recent discussions on net anonymity.

I agree and should act accordingly. To address the wrongness of this poster’s arguments is more important than who he really is.
Although I would also say it’s good to know this poster comes under many ‘nyms.

I agree in some respects with you … but must disagree in others.

Some propositions are most effectively argued against by showing that the arguer does not actually believe in them, not sufficiently to apply them consistently.

In the current example, the person currently calling himself “Johnny Labile” (JL, from here on) asserts that certain efficacy studies showing the effectiveness of vaccines have been “fiddled” and those studies constitute such a large part of the evidence base for vaccines that we should abandon vaccines as being a “hoax”.

It is of course possible to counter those arguments on other grounds – challenging JL to substantiate his claim that studies were “fiddled” in the first place; challenging JL to show that such allegedly “fiddled” studies constitute anything more than a tiny fraction of the large, large evidence base demonstrating the effectiveness of vaccines. However, the problem with this approach is that it depends on making a silence ring loud: rather than admit that he cannot substantiate his allegations about efficacy studies being “fiddled”, JL can simply change the subject to OTHER loud allegations.

If, however, it turns out that JL not only believes in but makes his living from a “science” that does not have any evidence base, it means that he does not really believe that vaccines should be disbelieved because of a thin evidence base; he just wants to push the conclusion “vaccines are bad!” and he doesn’t give a crap if actual facts lead to that conclusion, or don’t.

And I think it should be obvious that if JL is “lovelyday”, the one who posted this slanderous comment, then he has sacrificed all right to have his personal life kept out of the discussion. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t name a particular skeptic who allegedly molested underage illegal immigrant boys; if he is going to allege that such a thing was done and that it somehow reflects on the scientific beliefs held by that skeptic (and by all other skeptics, in an act of “guilt by association with almost certainly non-existent wrongdoers”) then there is no reason that his own personal life should not be brought to light. I understand very well that two wrongs do not make a right, but here, it is a question of which wrong we should commit: fighting on a battleground that an honorable arguer would never have opened up, or letting the dishonorable arguer who did chose to open battle there fight launch his offensives, secure in the belief that no one can subject him to similar treatment.

“I have lost count of the referenced quotes that you have refused to publish, the ones that show your other posters are basically wrong about physiology on many levels.”
Having difficulty counting to zero? How sad.

Antaeus
“If people who believe in a scientific principle get bad results kinda-somehow related to that science it means that the principle is WRONG!!”

You’ve identified the key “logic” in Hill’s “thought” process. Looks like I was right in comment #534.

For all your rambling rants on gangrene let’s see what a specialist in infection says about the battle of Waterloo and what he thinks of high tech modern ‘treatment’

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4035849.stm

“Yet with all our technical advances in medicine, mortality rates from conditions such as sepsis (bacterial infection of the bloodstream) haven’t improved dramatically over the past century. Proff Merv Singer

It is very tiring reading so many rambling rants from people with absolutely no scientific inquiry – all you do is believe Pubmed and crash on.

Just because you are told at med school about “vaccines save lives” “before antibiotics we were stuffed” but hey no now we have antibiotics we are mega stuffed?

Professor Singer’s work in no way relates to anything Johnny Labile has discussed, particularly his assertion that vaccines don’t work and that the “contagion theory of flu” is “pure supposition”.

“Professor Singer’s work in no way relates to anything Johnny Labile has discussed, particularly his assertion that vaccines don’t work and that the “contagion theory of flu” is “pure supposition”.” Memphis O’Brain

What a fantastic cherry pick, well done!

If they had better survival rates at Waterloo than they did in the Falklands I’d say modern infection control, along with 1 in 15 leaving hospital with an infection they didn’t have on the way in, is pure bullshit!

It is very tiring to read so many rambling rants from Johnny Labile that include no actual substance or rational argument.

Again the ‘septic moderator’ suspends the posting of comments so that the rambling Memphis can steer his rational away from suppositious bunk towards great piles of septic belief. Long may his ramble blurb a smokescreen.

@Johnny Labile:

“Yet with all our technical advances in medicine, mortality rates from conditions such as sepsis (bacterial infection of the bloodstream) haven’t improved dramatically over the past century.” – Prof Merv Singer

I decided to read the article. What the Professor was saying was that the body shutting down was a method of conserving energy and “going into hibernation”. It neither invalidates what we said about gangrene, nor validates your claims.

“Please also highlight some of the most significant discoveries and revisions to practice guidelines over the past 20 or so years.” Noonood

How about the NICE guidelines after studies on kids with fevers at great Ormond Street finally realising that suppressing fevers in kids was not only counterproductive it produced more sequalae. It showed that kids with meningitis recovered much quicker than using magical medical potions to thwart nature.

I take it you are legitimately so impaired that you don’t understand that this simply demonstrates my point. Now try again, only with “classical osteopathy.”

You know, as in the original question.

I have no idea why you keep directing me to therapies I know nothing about and ask me to validate them? Perhaps by exchange I should ask you to tell me how voodoo works because you seem to know a lot about vaccination or maybe how to make fairy cakes?

Is it your usual method of communication to start insisting that someone is someone they are not and then offload piles of medical magik, claiming to be a scientist and expect a logical reply? You need more help than I will ever forget.

Now how do you respond to new (2009) NICE guidelines telling doctors not to dish out antipyretics to kids with fevers because it is doing what many alt meds speakers have known since Hipporcrates- suppressing temperatures in acute illness directly leads to chronic illness.

To address the wrongness of this poster’s arguments is more important than who he really is.

Philip Hills does not have “arguments,” he has “making things up and changing the subject.” His dishonesty, including sockpuppetry, is a free choice. Once one willfully embraces the role of bad-faith actor who wishes to deny responsibility so as to carry on (and on and on), the standards of propriety that underlie pseudonymous posting have been eviscerated by the actor, in my book.

“Antaeus
“If people who believe in a scientific principle get bad results kinda-somehow related to that science it means that the principle is WRONG!!” ” Vogon speaks

Well like smearing steroids on kids with eczema or handing out steroid inhailers and doing nothing else about asthma. Ask anyone who is chronically atopic what they think of ‘proper doctor’ treatment.

“Please also highlight some of the most significant discoveries and revisions to practice guidelines over the past 20 or so years.”

Combining ‘classical osteopathy’ with completely incompatible modalities like acupuncture, herbalism and TCM — all the while claiming that the ‘osteopathic lesion’ is central to the paradigm — possibly counts as a “revision to practice guidelines”. Although there is nothing new about “scamming with whatever grift you have”.

Prof. Mervyn Singer is funded by the Wellcome Trust, and the expert at anon’s link is from the CDC.

I notice.

Funny how being on the medic-septic payroll isn’t always a disqualifier.

But I suppose it’s no more of a contradiction than arguing that vaccine manufacturers are lying about their products, except on the package inserts, where they blurt out the truth.

How about the NICE guidelines after studies on kids with fevers at great Ormond Street finally realising that suppressing fevers in kids was not only counterproductive it produced more sequalae. It showed that kids with meningitis recovered much quicker than using magical medical potions to thwart nature.

I was SHOCKED to check the actual NICE guidelines and discover that Johnny Labile is lying through his teeth. Again. It is as if he can’t help it.

His dishonesty, including sockpuppetry, is a free choice.

It is entertaining when JL, of all people (if his insults are any guide, he believes that ‘puerile’ is a location in the Outer Hebrides) waxes indignant because people are addressing him by a name that is not whatever nym has currently caught his fancy.

I was SHOCKED to check the actual NICE guidelines and discover that Johnny Labile is lying through his teeth.

There does seem to be some issue with mixing sources into a mental slurry smoothie.

Although I’ll be jiggered if I can find the real payload, the paper seems to be attached to the Great Ormond findings. Wherever they be.

I’m disappointed, because I was curious whether this source was going to do me the favor of summarizing why slowing the early growth of N. meningitidis was a net clinical good.

the paper seems to be attached to the Great Ormond findings

Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown the Daily Mail.

It appears that fever is indeed of some utility, but not exactly in the sense intended.

“When contacts of patients with meningococcal disease receive parenteral antibiotics at the time they develop fever, no disease develops (22, 161, 225; R. A. Wall, M. Hasson-King, H. Thomas, and B. M. Greenwood, Letter, Lancet ii:624, 1986). When antibiotic therapy is started later in the course of the disease, i.e., when ischemic lesions have progressed, more bacteria can escape the effect of antibiotics, since meningococci remain viable in the nonperfused center of these lesions for up to 13 h after the start of antibiotic therapy (499).”

@sockpuppeting antivaccinationist:

Well like smearing steroids on kids with eczema or handing out steroid inhailers and doing nothing else about asthma.

My sister had both eczema and asthma as a child. I can tell you for a fact that you are talking horse apples about how physicians treat these conditions.

Labile,

If they had better survival rates at Waterloo than they did in the Falklands I’d say modern infection control, along with 1 in 15 leaving hospital with an infection they didn’t have on the way in, is pure bullshit!

Ah, the good old days of Waterloo. Why did we abandon that wonderful era of medicine? Clearly the preferred method of preventing infection in the early 1800s was very effective. I wonder what that might have been? Here’s an excerpt from ‘The Bloody Fields of Waterloo’, written by British surgeon M. K. H. Crumplin:

Complications were commonplace – infection, non-healing of the fractures and limb deformity. As with thigh fractures, ascending erysipeloid infection (caused by astreptococcal bacterium) of the wounds often was so rapid as to preclude amputation and heralded the demise of the patient.

That doesn’t sound so great, does it? Especially when your only hope of avoiding it was for a field surgeon to amputate the injured limb before infection set in: “amputations carried out speedily after a wounding were twice as likely to be successful than ones delayed by a day or more”. No effective anesthetic either. I hope Professor Mervyn Singer isn’t suggesting a return to that!

In contrast, here’s an account from the Falklands War, the Battle for Goose Green specifically:

For someone not long out of medical school, the injuries suffered, mostly multiple shrapnel fragments, presented a challenge – especially as gunshot wounds were a rare sight in civilian hospitals at the time.

“These were all guys who were gungy, their smocks are covered in whatever they had picked off the ground. So you’ve got contaminated wounds so everyone’s having penicillin.

“We’re trying to clean things up as best we can and put a dressing on. And then move them out as they need to be under the knife of a surgeon ideally within six hours in order to reduce the risk of subsequent infection of the wound,” he says.

Mr Hughes said he was “absolutely gobsmacked” that everyone treated at the field hospital survived.

“It is a testimony to the fitness of these young men. Not only did they survive but their recovery subsequently was amazing. The wounds they sustained and then the short period of time before they were back to almost fully fit. It was humbling really to see that.”

I’ll stick with modern medicine, including the antibiotics, thanks.

Also, you seem to have conflated sepsis both with infection generally and with all causes of death. Sepsis is what used to be called septicemia; it’s a generalized systemic inflammatory condition, caused by severe infection. It mostly affects very sick people whose bodies are unable to fight off infection effectively; people with cancer, serious injuries, the malnourished, the very young and the very old. The most factor in surviving sepsis is how quickly intravenous antibiotics are started. There is no effective alternative or traditional treatment for sepsis. Conventional treatment may not be great, but it’s a lot better than what was available in 1815.

If they had better survival rates at Waterloo than they did in the Falklands I’d say modern infection control, along with 1 in 15 leaving hospital with an infection they didn’t have on the way in, is pure bullshit!

The article refers to 52 privates in the 13th Light Dragoons wounded at Waterloo. There were 4700 killed on the side of the UK, Prussians, and their allies; another 14,600 were wounded. In the Falklands, there were 255 killed and 775 wounded on the UK side. There were remarkably few sabre injuries at the Falklands. How you can draw any kind of conclusion from that is beyond me.

I would agree that improvements could be made in infection control in hospitals. On the other hand, the fact that they can get new infections contradicts all you try to say about infections not being transmissible.

The article refers to 52 privates in the 13th Light Dragoons wounded at Waterloo.

That was my thought too, when I read the BBC item… to wonder how long the UCL press department had spent scouring through the Waterloo annals, looking for some narrow combination of regiment and rank where the survival rate among the wounded was high enough to make the point they wanted for their churnalism press-release (“Give us more money for our dramatic research on organ failure”).

I have no idea why you keep directing me to therapies I know nothing about and ask me to validate them?

This doesn’t speak well to the level of expertise offered by the Hope Osteopathic Clinic Essex, Philip Hills.

Is it your usual method of communication to start insisting that someone is someone they are not

Remember this?

“The big issue is this. Someone decided that an antibody response equated with an immune response and this has been extrapolated to ‘protection’ or ‘immunisation’.

“This is a fantasy, even Immunity Journal has pointed out that equating antibody levels with protection is not really a correlate.”

What a coincidence:*

“So this medical theory that ‘antibodies protect’ how does that fit in with traditional osteopathic practice? Well it doesn’t!

“It doesn’t fit with medical research either.

“‘Antibodies are not required for immunity against some viruses’ Immunity journal March 1 2012′”

This ship has sailed, Sockdrawer.

and then offload piles of medical magik, claiming to be a scientist

Where have I claimed to be a scientist, Philip?

and expect a logical reply?

From you? Heh.

You need more help than I will ever forget.

To wit.

Now how do you respond to new (2009) NICE guidelines telling doctors not to dish out antipyretics to kids with fevers

I’ve already responded, bonehead.

because it is doing what many alt meds speakers have known since Hipporcrates-

“If the fever be acute, and if there be pains on either side, or in both, and if expiration be if cough be present, and the sputa expectorated be of a blond or livid color, or likewise thin, frothy, and florid, or having any other character different from the common, in such a case, the physician should proceed thus: if the pain pass upward to the clavicle, or the breast, or the arm, the inner vein in the arm should be opened on the side affected, and blood abstracted according to the habit, age, and color of the patient, and the season of the year, and that largely and boldly, if the pain be acute, so as to bring on deliquium animi, and afterwards a clyster is to be given….”

suppressing temperatures in acute illness directly leads to chronic illness.

Gee, I misssed that part in the actual guidelines. Oh, wait, you haven’t provided any. Get moving.

* Also characteristically screws up the number of people that Krahling & Wlochowski comprise.

What a coincidence:

In a crowded field of ’em. Here:

last years vaccine failure was whooping cough, highest uptake of vaccine ever coinciding with the highest outbreaks ever.

There:

The highest whooping cough vaccine coverage for years runs alongside the highest number of cases for decades!

Here:

Cochraine does a 96 season study of the efficacy of flu vaccine and tests the top 10 claims.

No 1 is “flu vaccine halves winter deaths” Cochraine tested this anecdote and found that only 10% of winter deaths are attributable to ‘flu like illness’. It concluded that to halve winter deaths the flu vaccine would have to have an impact on road traffic accidents!

There:

Last years 96 season Cochraine review on the flu jab looked at the top ten claims that the NHS made for still using it. I will only mention the top one, the rest also failed to stand at all with Cochraine saying the whole EBM for flu jab was implausible at best. So the top claim made by health chiefs in this country for using flu vaccination and making us all pay for it was that it halved winter deaths. Cochraine found that as only 10% of winter deaths were caused by flu like illness, not even confirmed flu, if the jab was to halve winter death it would have to have an impact on road traffic accidents!

Etc.

Maybe someone’s plagiarizing poor Mr. Labile in order to discredit his revolutionary ideas.

ann @616 or therabouts.

The identical misspelling of Cochrane is a bit of a tell.

Maybe someone’s plagiarizing poor Mr. Labile in order to discredit his revolutionary ideas.

Except for the sockpuppets, which he’s effectively copped to already. So, yes, it’s but one hapless osteopath who has not only lovingly seized upon the scattered aphorisms of “Johnny Labile” et al. but also stitched them together into long-form homage.

“That was my thought too, when I read the BBC item… to wonder how long the UCL press department had spent scouring through the Waterloo annals, looking for some narrow combination of regiment and rank where the survival rate among the wounded was high enough to make the point they wanted for their churnalism press-release (“Give us more money for our dramatic research on organ failure”).” Boomler doomler

It is interesting though that when one has a belief system so dependent on dissing anything that is not ‘in the book’ that Her Docky almost vomits on paper to dismiss blasphemy. Does it scare you that simple events like leaving the temperature alone and not using sexy high tech med equipment may be better than intervention?
We don’t want the public thinking that they might not need a doctor.

I suppose you would shit your stethoscope watching this short film, let’s see how you diss this.

Tell us how dangerous vitamin C is – I can’t wait to piss myself laughing.

Ohhh, a Bolen link! Mr. Hill, do you agree with Mr. Bolen when he states:

The so-called “skeptics” are a misinformation campaign run by angry male homosexuals masquerading as atheists whose management has a significant interest in pedophilia, its promotion and protection.

Bwahaha! I thought Hills couldn’t go downwards from using whale.to as a source, but Scudamore the pig farmer is the soul of reliability compared to Patimmy Bolen!

I have no idea why you keep directing me to therapies I know nothing about and ask me to validate them?
It seems a little late in the conversation for Johnny to suddenly feign ignorance of osteopathy.

Does it scare you that simple events like leaving the temperature alone and not using sexy high tech med equipment may be better than intervention?

Where is the NICE Guideline, Philip Hills? You know, the one that supports this assertion:

suppressing temperatures in acute illness directly leads to chronic illness

It is already clear that you think that there is no such thing as a dangerous fever:

It is in fact known that unless there is a hypothalamic disorder where the body temperature cannot be regulated, the fever will not be allowed to reach a temperature that is damaging to the human body, basically we do not boil ourselves….

It is remarkable that you return with babbling about being “scared” and “shіtting your stethoscope” when you’re merely running away again to try to change the subject to vitamin C.

Well like smearing steroids on kids with eczema or handing out steroid inhailers and doing nothing else about asthma.
My sister had both eczema and asthma as a child. I can tell you for a fact that you are talking horse apples about how physicians treat these conditions.

Smearing stuff on children is another of Johnny’s obsessions (one hesitates to wonder why). Here he was as “Shurma Wallace” at Skeptical Barista:

What on earth is a ‘proper doctor’? Is that the man that smears your child with steroids telling you how to clear up that nasty skin condition that doesn’t tell you that the slippery slope down the atopic pathway starts here.

(in the same thread, “Shurma” also mentions the ‘Cochraine fellowship” and an “Ashfar ruling” known only in osteopathy circles).

Credit for introducing this “Ashfar ruling on informed consent” (a misspelling of Afshar’) into the osteopathy hivemind goes to one Howard Broadmore, in a 2007 article for the British Institute of Osteopathy. Thereafter it turns up in a Hope Osteopathy FB post, and from sockpuppets who can’t spell ‘Cochrane’. The Broadmore article is also Johnny Labile’s source for the “survival rates at Waterloo” story (Broadmore reprints a clipping from the Guardian but was evidently unable to read it properly).

Here is the bit about the AVN you left out.

How drunk were you when you posted that? I only ask because nobody’s mentioned the AV(S)N. Were you trying to make an ass of yourself in two places at once and get confused?

Where is the NICE Guideline, Philip Hills? You know, the one that supports this assertion:
suppressing temperatures in acute illness directly leads to chronic illness

The existence of a no-antipyrexic NICE guideline seems to be a tenet of faith among UK osteopaths — including the idea that meningitis is best left untreated. For instance, here:

Children get infectious diseases at appropriate times to provoke a ‘healing crisis’ whereby they detoxify themselves. […] However, in order to effectively practice holistic medicine, and allow the ‘healing crisis’ to occur – often getting worse before getting better – we must be able to educate our patients and to manage their expectations

…at least the writer there is telling the truth about educating osteopathy clients not to expect any effective treatment.

The anti-vaccine article from the British Institute of Osteopathy is unsigned, because cowardice. Having misspelled ‘Afshar” as “Asfar” while providing legal advice, the author claims to be neutral (“My personal understanding of this subject is irrelevant to someone else making a choice and I would never advise anyone what decision to make”) while linking to Mercola, NVIC, an alt-health magazoid, and a UK-specific antivax site. Because dishonest sh1tweasel as well as cowardice.

Oh, but, hey, Philip, since you’re whoring around over there,* could you get Patty Bolen to issue an update about when Mark Geier is going to finish making Maryland “face the music“?** Or David Geier’s overturning that little practicing-medicine-without-a-license thing?*** Or his suit against the, er, “NVIC attorneys”? Patty never did follow through on the “I’ll be telling you this story shortly” line from a year ago that I can tell.

* Number 18 for the year.
** No. 368510V.
*** No. 374822V.

The existence of a no-antipyrexic NICE guideline seems to be a tenet of faith among UK osteopaths

Oh, I know where one relevant guideline is,* but I’m waiting for Philip Hills’ one: “new (2009) NICE guidelines telling doctors not to dish out antipyretics to kids with fevers because … suppressing temperatures in acute illness directly leads to chronic illness.”

All the 2009 guidelines are here.

* Punatr “1…7/4…9/fnzr.cqs” nobir gb “14171/63908/zhgngvf-zhgnaqvf.cqs”.

The anti-vaccine article from the British Institute of Osteopathy is unsigned, because cowardice.

Regrettably, this item seems nowhere to be found:

“Interestingly some years ago I wrote an article for the BOA magazine entitled ‘the context of adverse reactions.’ It was a response to an IJOM article where I believe the Australian osteopathic org had tried to draw up a list of adverse reactions to osteopathic treatment. It included fever, diarrhoea and vomiting and my article was a critique of this ridiculous position.

“This could be taken to imply that provoking an immune reaction, or healing crisis in your patient, as a result of your treatment might lead to you being effectively struck off for mal practice!”

Compare-and-contrast time with the unsigned piece.

Unsigned: “In 2009 Jayne [Donegal] was asked to be an expert witness in a high court case where two parents had split up, one wanted vaccination for the child but the other didn’t…. After losing round one on a technicality the GMC finally lost and was forced to concede that the High Court ruling on this issue was based on the sound up to date evidence that Jayne had provided in her court report.

“The High Court ruling was that vaccination was not in the best interests of the child. This ruling was on the GMC website for a number of weeks before it was taken off.”

One might note that this story, as told, is entirely incoherent. Why would the GMC be involved in a parental dispute? Oh, wait, somebody got it into their head that she was bringing the profession into disrepute. And the GMC found there was nothing to the charge (n.b. the correction). Yet, contrary to the anonymous author’s claim, the mother(s) lost.

However, in order to effectively practice holistic medicine, and allow the ‘healing crisis’ to occur – often getting worse before getting better

The trick appears to be surviving the “healing crisis”. I assume that if the patient does not pull this off it is their own damn fault. At any rate there have been no complaints from those who did not survive the healing crisis.

one Howard Broadmore, in a 2007 article for the British Institute of Osteopathy
Broadmore’s omnium-gatherum of loosely connected thoughts contains an earlier recension of the “mumps prevents ovarian cancer” story. He promised more details in a forthcoming article on osteopathy and cancer, which to date remains unpublished.

Side note: Since Philip Hills has seen fit to try to drain Perryani Boilen here, I’ve brought the RECAP docket for Doctor’s Data v. Barrett current.

I suppose you would sh*t your stethoscope watching this short film, let’s see how you diss this.

I note the evasive change of subject, but I’ve seen this before, with no adverse effects on my digestive system.

Firstly, I think it’s ironic that the patient in this video was initially ill with influenza, which could have been prevented by a vaccine. Or was it just a ‘normal physiological adaptation to environment’ that nearly killed him? It’s odd that he was also diagnosed with leukemia; perhaps this has something to do with his unusual presentation, and subsequent unexpected recovery.

Was his ‘miraculous’ recovery anything to do with vitamin C? We don’t know. He had been turned into the prone position, in the hope this would help him to clear gunk from his lungs, just before the vitamin C was administered, which may have had something to do with it. How would IV vitamin C immediately start to clear someone’s lungs? There is evidence for vitamin C deficiency in chronically ill patients, and in these cases administration of vitamin C may be beneficial, but since ITU patients are routinely given relatively large amounts of vitamin C anyway, it seems unlikely in this case.

IV vitamin C is hugely popular in CAM circles, so why don’t we see more of these miracle cure tales? If there were dozens of them I would start to get more curious.

It does seem the hospital were premature in wanting to pull the plug in this case, but sadly this does happen. If you have a limited number of life support machines, you have to pick and choose which patients are most likely to benefit. A patient who appears to have complete lung failure, and leukemia, who hasn’t improved in weeks and is very unlikely to improve in the future probably doesn’t fit the criteria for life support.

However, in order to effectively practice holistic medicine, and allow the ‘healing crisis’ to occur – often getting worse before getting better – we must be able to educate our patients and to manage their expectations

In other words, we must be able to p!ss on patients and convince them it’s raining.

we must be able to p!ss on patients and convince them it’s raining

Burzynski’s career in a nutshell.

“I suppose you would shit your stethoscope watching this short film”

There’s your problem – you have been seriously misled about where a stethoscope is supposed to go. Once you take it out, your life may have one fewer pleasure, but you’ll probably be able to concentrate better, and learn some real science.

By the way, “Memphis O’Brain” is a surprisingly good alternate screen name. I may keep it. Thanks.

There’s your problem – you have been seriously misled about where a stethoscope is supposed to go.

I had been meaning to use this at some point, but it appears that Philip’s last tantrum was grade A projection.

Hi Krebiozen, I’m fairly sure the patient in that vid became ill during the first wave of H1N1 in the southern hemisphere, before a vaccine was available. Some of the bloggers at Sciblogs were critical about the unscientific approach and lack of balance on the show. Alas, it remains a rally point for many Kiwi alt medders (meddlers?) See! those ebil doctors were going to let him die!

Hi biblia,

Hi Krebiozen, I’m fairly sure the patient in that vid became ill during the first wave of H1N1 in the southern hemisphere, before a vaccine was available.

You’re quite right. According to my reading he contracted H1N1 influenza in June 2009, which was before a vaccine was available anywhere. However, he might have been afforded some protection from H1N1 if he had influenza vaccines (or had survived influenza) in previous years.

The likes of Labile claim, when it suits them, that infectious diseases such as influenza, are ‘normal physiological adaptation to environment’ that simply require rest and a good diet for a full recovery, and that vaccines are unnecessary. When someone is actually seriously ill with such a disease, they criticize doctors for doing exactly what they say will allow the body to heal – I don’t know how else you can describe an induced coma with all nutritional requirements (and more*) provided – and demand that doctors administer massive doses of IV vitamin C, which is about as unnatural as you can get.

Personally I would like to see more research on higher than usual doses of vitamin C, especially in very sick patients who often have very blood concentrations. I think the evidence does support its use in specific circumstances (for example here) but only in doses high enough to restore normal plasma levels.

The evidence for the benefits of doses of hundreds of grams of ascorbate per day, to increase plasma levels above normal is limited, at best. The risks are minimal, but do exist; excreting large amounts of anything can cause problems in patients with renal impairment. As I wrote above, where is the evidence from alternative practitioners who are using IV ascorbate? Whether negative or positive, it would be useful to see this.

Looking at this case reminded me how the CAM brigade routinely describe the H1N1 pandemic as a debacle or a scam, and claim that hardly anyone was killed by the disease. Recent estimates suggest that globally more than half a million people died of H1N1.

* A few years ago an ITU nurse in the UK told me that patients are routinely given gram quantities of vitamin C in their feeds, though I have been unable to confirm this.

I had been meaning to use this at some point, but it appears that Philip’s last tantrum was grade A projection.

Which brings to mind another highlight of “Johnny Labile”‘s trolling career. Sometimes, as noted, he likes to style himself as “sarah007”, or as “nancy”. So it was inevitable that he would complain that:

sometimes people pretend to alter their gender so it looks more softy/hard

(this came as an addendum to his speculation that UK skeptic blogger Josephine Jones was really “a lady boy”).

Still find it remarkable that the Kreb cycle managed to watch this and forgot that the family had to take the ‘proper doctors’ to court to get an injunction to force them to give the patient vitamin C intravenously. And then the ‘proper doctors’, against the wishes of the patient’s family withdrew the vitamin C and the patient went down.

It was only removing the patient from the big critical care unit to a smaller provincial hospice that enabled the family to get him back on the large doses.

Your septic myopia would be funny if it wasn’t so dangerous. It’s laughable that the tube fed patient was ‘probably’ getting vit C so by default the ‘proper doctors’ sussed it really.

Science isn’t about taking sides, it is about looking at what is happening, you cannot divide the world into pro or alt med, that kind of dualism died out with Descartes.

Have you found the “new (2009) NICE guidelines telling doctors not to dish out antipyretics to kids with fevers because … suppressing temperatures in acute illness directly leads to chronic illness” yet?

Well yes but you still haven’t obviously. Try adjusting the septomiter filter.

Well yes but you still haven’t obviously.

I take it you missed the part where I provided the relevant guideline. Now, I’m waiting for yours.

Labile,

Still find it remarkable that the Kreb cycle managed to watch this and forgot that the family had to take the ‘proper doctors’ to court to get an injunction to force them to give the patient vitamin C intravenously.

Since the ‘proper doctors’ could be sued for negligence if they gave a treatment that was not part of standard care and something went badly wrong, I can understand their reluctance.

And then the ‘proper doctors’, against the wishes of the patient’s family withdrew the vitamin C and the patient went down.

Perhaps, we only have the family’s word for this, and even if it’s true, it doesn’t mean the vitamin C had anything at all to do with it.

It was only removing the patient from the big critical care unit to a smaller provincial hospice that enabled the family to get him back on the large doses.

As far as I can ascertain that’s not true, the next hospital also objected to giving him an unproven and potentially dangerous treatment, but eventually agreed to smaller doses which the family supplemented with liposomal ascorbate by mouth.

Your septic myopia would be funny if it wasn’t so dangerous. It’s laughable that the tube fed patient was ‘probably’ getting vit C so by default the ‘proper doctors’ sussed it really.

All ITU patients are given at least 100 milligrams of ascorbate in their feeds daily, and often much more. There is evidence that patients deficient in vitamin C do better with supplementation, but in those who aren’t deficient it makes no difference. A patient who has been on ITU for three weeks is unlikely to be vitamin C deficient. I see nothing laughable about that.

Science isn’t about taking sides, it is about looking at what is happening, you cannot divide the world into pro or alt med, that kind of dualism died out with Descartes.

Science is about not getting fooled by cognitive biases; the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy in this case. This patient was turned into the prone position shortly before he showed signs of improvement. How do you know that this wasn’t the cause of his improvement? Which is more likely to be the cause of this man’s recovery, IV vitamin C which has apparently only ever had this miraculous effect on this one occasion, or turning the patient which has been shown to be beneficial in clinical trials (I linked to one earlier, you might have noticed)?

I agree that there is only one kind of medicine, medicine that has been proven to work. The rest is quackery.

“Citric acid is OK so send for more oranges”, by the way, is a mnemonic I use to recall Krebs Cycle, which someone might find useful:
Citric = citric acid
acid = aconitate
is = isocitric acid
OK = alpha-ketoglutarate
You still have to memorize the enzymes and side reactions, but it’s a helpful start.
so = succinyl-CoA
send = succinic acid
for = fumaric acid
more = malic acid
oranges = oxaloacetate

It was only removing the patient from the big critical care unit to a smaller provincial hospice

For anyone interested in reality, Waikato Hospital is not a “smaller provincial hospice”.

And over at ERV he’s “buckthetrend”. He’s a busy wee dude.

For completists, add ‘buckthetrendi.

Miscellaneous entry:

That Xjus comment reminds me of the crazy anti-vaccine guy from a couple of months back who also kept addressing people that don’t have anything to do with this site.

And… “optimus prime,” “nobbly,” “bucker,” “buckthewowser,” and “bouquet.”

40 years of study by the cold and flu unit failed to prove the contagen theory of flu, the idea only exists in the mythology of pubmedists and medical peer reviewists.

Impressively, it looks as though “Dwarky is a system bot” was deployed twice, but “weebeehealthy.com” is toast.

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