Mystery solved: It was Robert De Niro who got Andrew Wakefield’s antivaccine propaganda film selected for screening at the Tribeca Film Festival

Over the last three days I’ve been complaining about how the Tribeca Film Festival selected for screening Andrew Wakefield’s antivaccine propaganda- and conspiracy-laden quackfest of a documentary entitled Vaxxed: From Cover-up to Catastrophe. I also took TFF to task for its extremely disingenuous response about its being about “discussion and dialogue.” You might also recall that I speculated, based on Andrew Wakefield’s having bragged to the faithful that Leonardo DiCaprio was promoting his film (and then, just as fast, denying that he had ever said any such thing) that perhaps Leonardo Di Caprio or another big name star who was antivaccine-sympathetic had greased the wheels to get this film into Tribeca. Another possibility I suggested was one of the Tribeca Film Festival’s founders, Robert De Niro, based on his having an autistic child.

Well, I just got an e-mail from Tammie Rosen at Tribeca Enterprises that reads:

I wanted to provide you with following statement from Robert De Niro, co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival, regarding Vaxxed at the Festival:

“Grace and I have a child with autism and we believe it is critical that all of the issues surrounding the causes of autism be openly discussed and examined. In the 15 years since the Tribeca Film Festival was founded, I have never asked for a film to be screened or gotten involved in the programming. However this is very personal to me and my family and I want there to be a discussion, which is why we will be screening VAXXED. I am not personally endorsing the film, nor am I anti-vaccination; I am only providing the opportunity for a conversation around the issue.”

Thank you,
Tammie

The statement appears legit, as it is now on the Tribeca Facebook page. Classic. Send out the press release admitting something bad (but not apologizing for it) on a Friday afternoon before a holiday and hope it doesn’t attract much notice. I’m only surprised Ms. Rosen didn’t wait until 5 PM. Of course, perhaps one of the intrepid reporters I mentioned the other day had discovered it was De Niro and the Tribeca Film Festival had no choice but to release a statement.

So it was De Niro who got Vaxxed into Tribeca. I had rather suspected as much, because someone who had worked on a movie in which De Niro was one of the leads a few years back (and who, of course, wishes to remain anonymous) e-mailed me and told me that De Niro’s wife had been seen talking to Andrew Wakefield on the set and that the two seemed friendly. I know more, such as who else was there (and thus was probably the person who introduced Wakefield to her) and what movie set it was, but that’s all I feel comfortable saying about it publicly. I don’t want to risk any identities.

In any case, if Robert De Niro and his wife Grace want to help their autistic child, may I suggest that “dialogue” generated by a propaganda film by a known scientific fraud whose UK medical license was revoked featuring a viewpoint trumpeting a long-discredited idea that MMR causes autism grafted onto a conspiracy theory about the CDC “covering up” the evidence that vaccines cause autism that has no basis in fact is not a good way to go about this. If De Niro really wants “dialogue,” maybe he should invite Brian Deer to attend the screening. If plane fare from the UK is too steep, then there are a number of experts he could consult on the East Coast. Heck, Paul Offit is in Philadelphia, a short Acela ride away!

I almost feel sorry for Mr. De Niro. Almost. He’s about to be besieged by antivaccine cranks, who will now look at him as a hero and try to get him to support all sorts of wacky quack and pseudoscience causes. I hope he likes his new admirers.

Actually, I do feel a bit sorry for Mr. De Niro. He’s now finding out the hard way why those of us who’ve studied him say that Andrew Wakefield discredits anything he touches. That now includes the Tribeca Film Festival.

Comments

#1 Dorit Reiss
March 25, 2016

If he wants to help his daughter and other people with autism, this is the opposite of what he should do.
#2 Amethyst
The Crystal Gem
March 25, 2016

I am not personally endorsing the film, nor am I anti-vaccination; I am only providing the opportunity for a conversation around the issue.

“I’m not anti-vax, but…”

Anyone else not surprised in the slightest?
#3 Orac
March 25, 2016

No, I called it in private because of information e-mailed to me that I didn’t want to discuss in public. In fact, the connection between Wakefield and De Niro’s wife goes back at least a few years.
#4 Tsu Dho Nimh
March 25, 2016

And it’s a HORRIBLE film – bad production values, poor editing, poor sound.

It’s barely high school film club level.
#5 Bob Blaskiewicz
March 25, 2016

Shit.
#6 Denice Walter
March 25, 2016

Yiiii!
Just terrible.
A bad choice both scientifically and artistically.
It has nothing to do with facts or reality.
.
If it were a film by a parent who truly believed in anti-vax and told his own personal story, it might be at least forgivable, Andy is a charlatan looking for funds and fame.
#7 Delphine
March 25, 2016

That statement attributed to De Niro is pathetic. So you don’t get involved with programming, ever, not once, in the past 15 years, but hey, this is personal, so of course, you got your way. And you’re just asking questions. Naturally.

What a load of fucking bullshit, Mr. De Niro.
#8 Denice Walter
March 25, 2016

Oh and both New Haven and Detroit aren’t very far away by Acela.
#9 Julian Frost
South Africa
March 25, 2016

Dorit nailed it.
Allowing an airing to a documentary which is a pack of lies about vaccines causing autism damages autistics. It doesn’t help us.
#10 Cam the Cat
March 25, 2016

If De Niro wants to “further the dialogue” in regards to autism, then he just supported the most voracious predator preying against that necessary movement, literally letting the fox in the hen house.

Shame. I had such great respect for that man as an actor.
#11 Delphine
immoderate
March 25, 2016

Just goes to show you how charming Wakefield can be. And yes, they’ve done the Friday afternoon PR dump-and-run on this one.

De Niro wants all of the issues surrounding the causes of autism be openly discussed and examined? Sir, you’re setting the conversation back, not moving it forward or even keeping it current.
#12 Delphine
March 25, 2016

The Deer Hunter is one of our absolute favourite films and we were actually going to watch it again for the umpteenth time tonight. I just asked my husband to please pick another film because I have no desire to watch De Niro right now. When he asked why, I gave him a condensed version of events. And he rubbed his face and said, “He struck me as being smarter than to fall for Wakefield.”
#13 Denice Walter
March 25, 2016

@ Cam the Cat:

I know. Sometimes smart, talented people make mistakes when they are suffering. -btw- De Niro had something to do with a film about his father, an artist, that was intriguing.
#14 brian
March 25, 2016

Mr. De Niro was about 55 years old when his son was born. Advanced parental age is one of the few known risk factors for ASD. Mr. De Niro seems to believe that ASD is caused by vaccines. What else could it be?
#15 Mephistopheles O'Brien
March 25, 2016

I now plan to boycott the Tribeca Film Festival for the foreseeable future. I also plan to not purchase any salad dressing produced by Mr. De Niro.
#16 has
scratch movie night for me...
March 25, 2016

Cam the cat@10: Nailed it. I feel for the unfortunate product of De Niro’s superannuated balls, having something like that creeping around the household. Contrary to what Hollywood tells us, monsters are real.

We focus so much on the indirect damage Andrew Wakefield does to children’s health in general, it’s easy to overlook just how much direct damage he does to this particular group of developmentally disabled vulnerable kids in particular. The man’s a predatory sociopath, barely one step up from Fred West or Jimmy Saville on the list of people who absolutely should not be permitted within a hundred feet of any child (or any person, period, for that matter).

Had Andrew Wakefield been blessed with half the talent for medicine as he obviously possesses for charming and using people to further his own interests, perhaps he might’ve made himself its next Newton; toxic personality and all. But at this point Jason Voorhees would be the most appropriate comparison, were it not that his victims are living, feeling real human beings, not cartoon celluloid parodies whose horrific fate happily ends as soon as the lights come back up.
#17 Denice Walter
March 25, 2016

AoA links to the Slanted story and Kim has found a new icon.
A commenter thinks that Orac & Co are not fabulous.
#18 Science Mom
http://justthevax.blogspot.com/
March 25, 2016

To echo other commenters, yeah a damn shame DeNiro couldn’t choose another way to channel his suffering. If he doesn’t feel it now then soon he will know how toxic Wakefraud’s taint* is.

*Not in the Popehat sense but could be too I suppose.
#19 Michael J. Dochniak
Iowa
March 25, 2016

Awesome
#20 Amethyst
The Crystal Gem
March 25, 2016

@Delphiine, #12:

As a longtime fan of both early Jim Carrey and Mel Gibson, I’ve learned to force myself to distance their acting performances from their real-life person. Carrey is an anti-vax moron but damn it if “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” doesn’t tickle my funny bone each and every time I watch it!

If “Deer Hunter” is your favourite film (it IS a great one!) you should not this come between you and your enjoyment of it. In fact, that would just make this whole travesty even more tragic.
#21 sadmar
March 25, 2016

Well, I’m a bit surprised it was De Niro. I was pretty sure it wasn’t some celebrity calling in a favor with RDN or someone else at the TFF sucking up to a ‘star’. I thought the best bet was some moneyed AV business-type working in or through the Tribeca board.

I want the minions to understand how extraordinary that statement from De Niro is. He may not have apologized, but he has confessed to an unforgiveable sin.

In the 15 years since the Tribeca Film Festival was founded, I have never asked for a film to be screened or gotten involved in the programming.

When a big star like RDN is President of a film festival, if he goes anywhere near programming choices or pushes a personal fave around the programmers, the festival loses all credibility and status. He’s Bobby De Niro. If he wants ‘Vaxxed’ to get screened in NYC, there are any number of ways he can see that happens. He can rent a theater, take out advertising, do interviews, make it ‘Robert De Niro presents;’ But he didn’t. He tried to hide it inside his festival.

I’m kinda surprised Orac didn’t get a tip from someone inside the TFF. Up until his statement, RDN was letting the public think the staff could be implicated in this, burning their reputations, not to mention crapping on their attempts to do their jobs within respectable professional standards.

What this tells us is that Andrew Wakefield snookered Robert De Niro so thoroughly that De Niro did something that put the passion project that’s been the central focus of his life for 15+ years in mortal jeopardy. This could kill not just the film festival, but the whole larger project of the Tribeca Foundation.

As such, I’m guessing this statement is the first step of De Niro falling on his sword, taking personal responsibility for this mishegoss to let everyone else at Tribeca off the hook. He seems to be hoping for a ‘first-time offender’ pass, but I doubt he’ll get one. He may have to separate himself completely from Tribeca in an attempt to restore its credibility, but unless someone of similar stature stepped in to take his place, I’m not sure how well the various Tribeca ventures could go on without him.

So thanks, Andy, for wreaking your destruction on one of our country’s more important cultural institutions. When you get back to Texas, can you arrange a meeting with Ted Cruz, please?
______

Noted without comment or conclusion:

From http://www.callous-disregard.com/reviews.htm:

“Meeting Dr. Andy Wakefield changed our lives and . . . we are forever grateful. His wise and measured advice about vaccinations helped us dodge a bullet . . . Our fourth son [had] multiple allergies and repeated infections . . . We now fully realize [he] would have been a victim of immune overload had we followed the regular vaccine schedule . . . [He] is [now] bright and healthy . . . This book provides a terrifying insight into what has been happening behind the scenes as efforts redouble to silence Dr. Wakefield . . . It is a wake-up call to those who think [he] is anything other than a modern day hero fighting for all of our children.”
—Robert Rodriguez and Elizabeth Avellán, Troublemaker Studios, Austin, Texas

From Wikipedia:

Machete is a 2010 American action film written, produced, and directed by Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis… The film stars Danny Trejo in his first lead role as the title character, and co-stars Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Don Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Steven Seagal, Lindsay Lohan, Cheech Marin and Jeff Fahey.
#22 Robert De Niro and Wakefield's propaganda film – Vaxxed
March 25, 2016

[…] Earlier today, the ethereal Orac received an email from Tribeca Film Festival that confirmed De Niro’s participa…: […]
#23 MarkN
March 25, 2016

Surprised in the sense that if he had these concerns all along with the causes of autism, why not discuss them with the health care team and university scientists? Why go the route of promoting an opportunistic fraud?
#24 Denice Walter
March 25, 2016

Maybe Robert wasn’t the one snookered … perhaps Grace was friendly with Andy and became a believer. etc.
#25 has
March 25, 2016

Sadmar@21: “This could kill not just the film festival, but the whole larger project of the Tribeca Foundation.”

I doubt this will put that much of a dent in it. It’s Hollywood; they’ll just retconn the reboot and be back to doing sequels in no time at all.

Though we really should give Wakefield his credit: he may be a criminal quack and a garbage director, but he clearly demonstrates some talent for running the long con. Now, off to vomit all over my videotape of Desperado…
#26 TroubleMaker
March 25, 2016

Too bad. As others have alluded to, under the circumstances it seems unlikely that DeNiro is really agnostic about this and is probably fully in the tank for Wakefield.

I’m going to stand by my initial gut reaction though that in the long-run, nothing much will come of this either way. For DeNiro’s and TFF’s part, I doubt anything sticks. The film is not up for any awards so the reputational damage to the festival seems limited. As for DeNiro, look at Jenny McCarthy. She’s a much lesser celebrity and her anti-vax advocacy hasn’t hurt her much. She has a steady XM radio gig and reality show and does interviews and appearances where none of this stuff comes up.

As for Wakefield, I still can’t imagine that this single screening and TFF association will do much for him on balance other than net him a little extra cash.

An unfortunate situation, but I don’t think long term this will move the needle much. I hope I’m right.
#27 has
March 25, 2016

MarkN@22: Hell, after decades as a phenominally successful and respected Hollywood A-Lister De Niro can hardly be short of a bob or two, never mind a whole bunch of chums with deep pockets of their own.

If his honest intention was to advance knowledge and support for autistics and their families, why the hell didn’t he put some of that wealth and influence into building something for autistics himself? The “De Niro Institute for Autism Research, Education, and Support” would’ve have a far nicer ring to it than the “De Niro Blank Check for Sociopathic Frauds“. He’s not just done obvious direct harm, he’s ruined other possible avenues as well. Any sympathy I might have for the man as a parent of a developmentally disabled child and expertly played mark is quite undone at the thought of what he might have achieved for others had he employed even a modicum of caution and critical thought.
#28 Reality
March 25, 2016

So Robert De Niro reveals his has the scientific intellect of Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey, and Rob Schneider?
No great surprise.
He’s an actor who is a genius at playing pretend; however, in the scientific and medical fields he’s an uneducated, drooling idiot.
Dunning-Kruger, Mr. De Niro. Look it up.
#29 MarkN
March 25, 2016

has@26 — no lie. Our university hospital & research probably would be more than willing to put the money to great use, they have a kick-butt program for the kids that rocks!

total shame…or sham
#30 Leigh Jackson
March 25, 2016

Sad. I hope that De Niro and his wife come to understand the huge mistake which they have made and try to make amends. Helping to perpetuate the dreadful career of a phony messiah who cares nothing for children.
#31 Science Mom
http://justthevax.blogspot.com/
March 25, 2016

I just had a strange thought…if Wakefraud could get someone like Robert DeNiro to break his own rule of interfering with the Tribeca selection process then the Church of Scientology might have a Hollywood messiah competition on their hands. What a damn shame and a waste of resources.
#32 sadmar
waiting for a real rain to come and wash all the scum off the world
March 25, 2016

@ TroubleMaker
I don’t think it will hurt RDN professionally. As for Tribeca, maybe his ‘owning’ of the jiggering will keep the larger rep safe enough. If they put up some firewall to make sure no VIP can affect the programing again, maybe he can continue as executive and public face… It’s not the public rep that matters here, it’s the trust level of the staff, the indie filmmakers, and programmers from other festvals – a sort of networking ecology that may be more fragile than you’d think. Institutions have survived worse, but also started irreversible crumbling at less. We’ll see… It’s not good. As for Andy, a little extra cash is all he ever wants…

@has
Tribeca’s not really Hollywood. Hollywood stuff is part of the festival, but the foundation is more about non-commercial stuff like documentary and weird ‘art’ movies, and doing some good work in the Tribeca neighborhood.

Also to be fair, we don’t know that De Niro hasn’t quietly spent more than a few bob on things that actually help autistics. He’s not the loud ‘Put my name on it!” type.

I agree that this is quite the con-job coup for Wakefield, and shows how much mischief he can still create. I doubt he (or anyone) can revive anti-vax to be a significant public health threat again, but he’s still a menace. If nothing else, the way the autistic kids are portrayed in the Vaxxed trailer isn’t helping them any. You know, they’re ‘ruined’, whether the vaccines did it or not.

So my bottom line stays: He’s sticking his head out of his bubble here. Let’s take the opportunity to show everyone now watching just what a vile lying scumbag he is. The more folks who understand that he’s poison, the lower his chances to con the gullible in the future.
#33 Spectator
March 25, 2016

Hollywood actors are paid to look good and bathe an audience in fantasy by playing the part of an imaginary character, or occasionally playing the imagined manners of a dead one.

Possibly not the ideal source for medical, scientific & political advice.
#34 Mephistopheles O'Brien
March 25, 2016

Hollywood actors are paid to look good and bathe an audience in fantasy

As long as they bathe. Or at least take a shower.
#35 Science Mom
http://justthevax.blogspot.com/
March 25, 2016

I agree that this is quite the con-job coup for Wakefield, and shows how much mischief he can still create. I doubt he (or anyone) can revive anti-vax to be a significant public health threat again, but he’s still a menace. If nothing else, the way the autistic kids are portrayed in the Vaxxed trailer isn’t helping them any. You know, they’re ‘ruined’, whether the vaccines did it or not.

This.
#36 Mark Harrison
March 25, 2016

Why so afraid of debate? If vaccines are safe and effective, science can prove it. Asking questions and conducting unbiased tests are scientific.
#37 Johnny
127.0.0.1
March 25, 2016

Hollywood actors are paid to look good and bathe an audience in fantasy by playing the part of an imaginary character, or occasionally playing the imagined manners of a dead one.

Indeed.

As friend Amethyst notes above, if you enjoy the performances, enjoy the hedoublehockeysticks out of them. But never forget that it’s all an act.

My latest heartbreak is Keri Russell in The Americans. She plays a tough, smart, resourceful, woman, perched on a lovely bottom, everything I’ve been saving myself for (except for the evil communist part). But then she made an appearance on The Daily Show. She’s everything she doesn’t play on TV, but she still has a lovely bottom, and that just isn’t enough for a good TV crush.

But I still enjoy the show, and have an even greater appreciation of her acting abilities.
#38 Chris
March 26, 2016

And then we have actors who do turn out to be champions of science. Which is why I love Alan Alda.
#39 Verna
Canada
March 26, 2016

“He’s about to be besieged by antivaccine cranks.” Too late. The antis are out in force on the Tribeca facebook page, spreading their delight and support for Mr. De Niro, and spreading misinformation far and wide. Right now the only thing that might rain on Wakefield’s parade is a large group of those on the autism spectrum and their families standing outside the theatre where the film is running and making sure their opinion of Wakefield is also heard.
#40 Chris
March 26, 2016

brian: “Mr. De Niro was about 55 years old when his son was born. Advanced parental age is one of the few known risk factors for ASD. Mr. De Niro seems to believe that ASD is caused by vaccines. What else could it be?”

Whoa. I just checked his wife’s IMDB page. She is two years older than me and they did not get married until 1997 (three years after the birth of my youngest). Let’s do some simple arithmetic and realize that she was at least forty years old when she had their youngest child.

Excuse me, but there might be something much more than vaccines as a cause of autism. De novo mutations due increase with parental age.
#41 Amal
Alaska
March 26, 2016

I am not an “anti-vaxxer”. I am a practitioner of East Adian Medicine, which is often criticized in blogs like this as being quackery. It never fails to astound me, the level of vitriol hurled by commenters. No level of critical thinking in any of the comments. Just personal attacks. So don’t watch his films and boycott the TFF. And this is the rational side of the debate? Rather sad.
#42 janerella
Oz
March 26, 2016

IMDB gives it to you direct
“Gave birth to her first child at age 42, a son Elliot De Niro on March 18, 1998. Child’s father is her husband, Robert De Niro.
Became the mother in 2nd time at age 56, her daughter, Helen Grace De Niro, was born in December 2011 via surrogate”.
Though simple arithmetic tells me that 5/6 of DeNiros children ( presuming all were vaccinated) DON’T have autism. Thats an 83% success rate of no autism with vaccines if they’re all about correlation/causation.
#43 Narad
March 26, 2016

I am not an “anti-vaxxer”. I am a practitioner of East Adian Medicine, which is often criticized in blogs like this as being quackery.

I can say with perfect confidence that I’ve never even heard of East Adian Medicine. How does it differ from West Adian?
#44 herr doktor bimler
March 26, 2016

And this is the rational side of the debate? Rather sad.

I am concerned that “Trump tweet haiku syntax” is already being emulated by intertube numpties.
#45 sadmar
March 26, 2016

@ Narad
Dammit, I’ve been trying to make a West Adian joke referencing the actor Aidan Quinn, who, I just learned blames a vaccination for turning his daughter from “above normal” to “a completely damaged child” overnight. But I can’t make it work and that “completely damaged” crap isn’t funny anyway….

So, West Adian Medicine is just plain old quackery, and East Adian Medicine is the sociopathic variant that disingenuously avers that rationality and critical thinking would produce anything other that vitriolic personal attacks against Andrew Wakefield. Since I don’t want to Godwin the thread: Why so afraid to debate cannibalism? Shouldn’t all the issues be openly discussed and examined. The vitriol hurled at Mr. Dahmer is just so sad. If you don’t like that sort of nutritional choice, just keep shopping at Whole Foods and boycott the Hannibal movies.

That’s East Adian, I think…
#46 Larry
San Diego
March 26, 2016

I think #41 in addition to running afoul of the close proximity of the S & D keys also has no idea what critical thinking really means. I don’t care that the TFF folks allow an airing of the Wakefield desperation piece as long as it’s placed in the Science Fiction Docudrama category.
#47 Wow you are all full of shit!
Canada
March 26, 2016

I find it hard to believe that this site is even legit!
You can’t tell me that there are this many people who give a shit about the public seeing vaxxed. Really?
And you all felt you had to belittle the family and disgrace yourselves and vent about it on this assholes blog?
Amazing I can not and do not believe that you all have nothing better to do!
This seems more like a, lets get paid by big pharma and bash someone kinda site.
I hope you get paid! No sense looking like dickheads for free.
Karma’s a bitch, enjoy!
#48 Rich Woods
March 26, 2016

@MarkN #23:

Surprised in the sense that if he had these concerns all along with the causes of autism, why not discuss them with the health care team and university scientists? Why go the route of promoting an opportunistic fraud?

He may well have already discussed this with duly informed people, but I imagine they will have told him that we don’t have any absolute or simple answers as to why autism occurs. So when he hears of someone offering a simple answer, the temptation to reach for it might be too strong to resist. It may be even more difficult to resist if someone has mentioned that there are risks associated with having children later in life (not even necessarily regarding autism). Wakefield offers him an opportunity to blame an external cause rather than face the niggling worry that perhaps he and his wife might somehow be at fault.

All in all, that would be a very human reaction. It’s not the right one, but it’s understandable how very easily it could happen.
#49 sadmar
Looking at the fish lying in the bottom of the barrel
March 26, 2016

The other day Orac wrote:

I’m sure Wakefield’s isn’t the first documentary to air at a major film festival to have used such dishonest techniques.

As I said before, it’s not the techniques, it’s what you do with them. They’re just tools – in Orac’s hands, a scalpel can save a life, but in other hands it can slit a throat. So the question is: just how far from any acceptable norm is Wakefield’s use of filmmaking techniques?

Well, we haven’t seen the film, but we do have the trailer and Andy’s previous CDCWistleblower YT videos, and thanks to Kevin Barry, we have transcripts of a number of Hooker’s surreptitious recordings of Thompson, against which we can compare Wakefield’s uses of Thompson’s audio to the things Thompson actually said.

When Matt Carey wrote about the fabricated soundbite at the beginning of the trailer, like Amethyst I figured this was just the tip of the iceberg – as I’d detected likely major audio diddling of Thompson in the YT vids when they came out. So I thought I’d check for other chunks of ice, at least verifying the ones I’d suspected from the telltale signs of audio editing. I found a library with a copy of Vaccine Whistleblower and put it on hold, and DLed at the YT vids including Thompson’s voice. While I’m waiting for the book, I decided to compile a single edited video file of just the parts where Thompson’s voice appears, to make checking against the book easier.

In going back to Wakefield’s first CDC Whistleblower video – the one with the Tuskegee and Hitler comparisons – and skipping through those to the Thompson parts, I realized I hadn’t taken a close look at how the BS sausage was constructed. I mean, I knew it’ was going to be BS before I hit ‘Play’, and the outrageous genocide stuff smacked me in the face so hard my mind’s eye just kind of glazed over and I was mentally skimming the rest of it. It just seemed not to matter, so obviously corrupt was the whole enterprise.

But now I’ve begun to look close, and what I see – it’s a lot about how the image creates false contexts for the sound bites, as well as the surrounding audio of Wakefield, Hooker and others – is egregious fraud at every level in every filmic device. Maybe I’m (willfully?) forgetting something, but I can’t recall any use of documentary material and technique anywhere near this degree of mendacity. This even goes way beyond the level of fabrication in Reality TV, which most sensible viewers at least intuit is staged and cut to fit a prepared fictional script anyway.

If my stomach holds out, I’ll write up a close analysis, post it somewhere, and put a link here at RI. It won’t tell you anything macro about Wakefield you don’t already know, but it might, I think, offer a deeper appreciation of just how complete the perfidy runs, and how much work has to be done to create such a concentrated dose of audio-visual fraud. It’s like he’s sitting in his editing suite, twiddling his mustache, scheming until he comes up with the most sociopathic way to use every single element of production…
#50 Julian Frost
South Africa
March 26, 2016

Mark Harrison #36:

Why so afraid of debate?

This isn’t about “debate”. This is about a “documentary” constructed by a proven liar and fraud being given exposure. This is about the fact that there is good evidence of splicing, distorting and misquoting in said “documentary”.
The rest of your argument is a giant straw man.
@sadmar #32:

I don’t think it will hurt RDN professionally. As for Tribeca, maybe his ‘owning’ of the jiggering will keep the larger rep safe enough.

De Niro’s acting career is just about over anyway. Have you seen the films he’s been in recently? B-Grade “comedies” that reference his career playing gangsters and tough guys. He’s become a parody of himself. I believe that at this point the smartest thing he could do is take the fall for this and quietly end his career. That will save both Tribeca and him some face.
#51 Murmur
UK-ia
March 26, 2016

Afraid of debate?

There is no “debate” around Wakefield’s ideas: he has been thoroughly discredited, his work shredded for the unscientific fraud it clearly is, his unprincipled financial impropriety over MMR and competing vaccines thoroughly revealed…

And do I need to reiterate that Wakefield had no training or expertise in anything to do with autism? He was a gastro-enterologist, not a paediatrician or a child psychiatrist. He had minimal training in mental health or child development, less than I had as a nurse who worked in CAMHS and he appeared to have less of a grasp of science than I got from doing a science degree…

There is no debate over Wakefield.
#52 Jess
March 26, 2016

Bravo DeNiro!! Finally… I feel bad for doctors who won’t be able to sleep at night knowing how much damage they have done to infants over the years.
#53 MarkN
March 26, 2016

go fuck yourself, Jess
#54 Julian Frost
South Africa
March 26, 2016

Jess, your comment assumes that people like Wakefield will suddenly develop a conscience.
#55 Cam the Cat
March 26, 2016

Looks like Mr. Wakefield’s bio on the Tribeca website under the information for Vaxxed has suddenly just completely disappeared, if only temporarily. Hopefully they are updating it to more accurately reflect the man’s background.
#56 Lawrence
March 26, 2016

“Just asking Questions” or better known as “JAQ’ing” off….
#57 Peter Dugdale
March 26, 2016

Mark Harrison @36

Where were you when the debate was taking place? You will find past posts on this blog an invaluable resource when you check out how it went.

Debates are not a matter of attrition where the party who can keep talking longest wins: there should be a conclusion, and that was in the case of Wakefield, that the most august medical body in the UK found that he was a fraud and dishonest, and struck him off the register.

When there is a clear conclusion to a debate, unless new facts arise, you’re entitled to use the logic of plausibility and burden-of-proof to avoid wasting your time in futile discussions.
Try debating someone who believes in bigfoot: that’s roughly the level of most anti-vaxers.
#58 c0nc0rdance
March 26, 2016

I hate to take the negative route on this, but the age of Grace Hightower and Robert De Niro at the time of their son Elliot’s birth is probably the biggest risk factor in his diagnosis of ASD. Grace is 60, and Robert is 72; and Elliot is 18, so by simple subtraction, they were 42 and 54, respectively at the time of his birth. Children born to mothers >40 yr old; AND fathers >35 have the highest risk of ASD diagnosis. It’s certainly no-one’s “fault” that they have a child affected by a disease, but De Niro should be better informed if he’s going to “start a dialog”.

If De Niro really wanted to shine the light on autism causation, he could have started with what we’re fairly certain: autism has a genetic component, risk increases with the age of the parents, it’s strongly influenced by sex of the child, and there are some specific in utero environmental risks. Once you add up all the known risk factors, there’s really not much left for vaccines to cause.

I know some very nice researchers at Baylor College of Medicine who would probably be willing to meet with the De Niro/Hightower family and talk about their research. With a proper informed consent, they might even use a sample of Elliot’s blood to look at what de novo mutations, and particularly gene copy number variations that he possesses. The De Niro/Hightower family could raise awareness about the lack of funding for autism research instead of letting a known fraudster and profiteer like Wakefield siphon public donations away from legitimate research and outreach programs.
#59 Alain
The Shame
March 26, 2016

Gang, forget about bringing De Niro and antivaxxers et al to Baylor to the correct evidence. For them, it’s not about evidence but rather, the shame of bringing an autistic child into this world. It has always being about shame and will forever be. Work that angle and do think about it, why do you think that conman can be so successful? It’s all about shame and I did the work previously to prove the hypothesis as much as I can but never realized it before just about now.

Alain
#60 Alain
March 26, 2016

And yeah, I’m furious and madly pissed off at the chew toys but I’ll keep this professional for now.

There will always be autistics forever 😀

Alain
#61 Darthhellokitty
The Great Pacific Northwest
March 26, 2016

I was at a science fiction convention yesterday, and I met a woman wearing a badge that said “Hug Me, I’m Vaccinated!” I didn’t hug her, but I did thank her on behalf of the immunocompromised of the world.
#62 Denice Walter
March 26, 2016

I’m glad that sadmar is looking at this film in detail. If movie magic can make people appear to fly or emerge unscathed from raging firestorms, it can make nearly anything look like something it isn’t.- which can be useful in fantasy projects.

Andy has adroitly transferred his mendacity to a new medium- rather than concocting results and “chiseling”** data, he now makes films.

AS you may know, there is an entire genre developing aimed at the anti-vaccine/ autism audience: a few films have been discussed here ( like Manoukian’s’The Greater Good’ or ‘Trace Amounts’), but every woo-meister and disgruntled parent group appears to have a project in the works, many of them seeking funding: I read about this frequently at AoA and TMR: even today, a writer who works with horses, documents his method for assisting autistic kids with riding as well as shamanism in diverse international locales
( Horse Boy/ TMR). There are various projects involving parents ( “Canary Kids”) as well as woo-meisterly epics ( Vaccine Nation, Autism: Made in the USA, etc).

What I find unsettling is the use of the term ‘documentaries’ to describe these efforts- they’re not documentaries – ‘Citizen Four’ is a documentary – but these pastiches are decidedly not: they’re fantasy, stagecraft and politicised self-aggrandisement as well as blame games.

** in the words of BD himself
#63 JP
March 26, 2016

There will always be autistics forever

And, hey, whatever I am. My mom was convinced for the longest time that I was an alien changeling or something. I figure I’m just the traveling type.
#64 JP
March 26, 2016

a writer who works with horses, documents his method for assisting autistic kids with riding as well as shamanism in diverse international locales
( Horse Boy/ TMR).

He’s not based in New Mexico, is he? The mom of a couple of kids I used to nanny is (or was at the time) big into some guy in New Mexico who called himself a shaman and did/does a bunch of stuff with horses.
#65 Denice Walter
March 26, 2016

@ JP:

He’s not a shaman, he’s a shaman enabler ( I jest). He is Rupert Isaacson: I think he’s lived in Texas: he’s from the UK and South Africa. He has a few books and films out and a website. TMR just LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVES him.

You’re not an alien or changeling- you’re an artist/ writer. Not as bad.
#66 Johnny
127.0.0.1
March 26, 2016

Looks like Mr. Wakefield’s bio on the Tribeca website under the information for Vaxxed has suddenly just completely disappeared, if only temporarily. Hopefully they are updating it to more accurately reflect the man’s background.

Jake informs us today that “Doctor” Wakefield is taking steps to have his medical license restored. Maybe that will happen in the next day or so, and they plan to update the bio to include that he is a real doctor again. /sarcasm

http://www.autisminvestigated.com/wakefield-medical-license/
#67 Lawrence
March 26, 2016

So, he’s going to “sue” back in merry ole’ England?

That would be hilarious……
#68 Denice Walter
March 26, 2016

@ Johnny:

But did you see on what basis he thinks it should be restored?

In other ( not real) news:
Truth Kings**.com speculates that the money for AJW’s so-called documentary was supplied by Leo.

** seriously, isn’t that the worst blog name ever?
#69 jrkrideau
At the bottom of the lake (the bottom end that is)
March 26, 2016

#47 Wow

Nice try but not exactly the sophisticated attack we have come to know and appeciate. Clearly you have been listening to Ezra too much.

The issue is about lying and fraud in a so-called documentary that is produced by someone whom Peter Dugdale # 57 accurately characterizes as someone that the most august medical body in the UK found that he was a fraud and dishonest, and struck him off the register.
#70 jrkrideau
At the bottom of the lake (the bottom end that is)
March 26, 2016

#62 Denice Walters

, a writer who works with horses

Argh, after I’ve been reading about acupuncture and homeopathy for horses I thought you were going to say there was someone discussing autism in horses. I don’t know but riding horses might do autistic kid some good, but maybe not in the way your Horse Boy means it?
#71 Denice Walter
March 26, 2016

@ jkrideau:

I haven’t read all of his material but I’m sure that riding horses might at least be fun for some autistic kids. He may be partially realistic although I don’t know if visiting shamans all over the globe is therapy.
At least his son likes to film things.
#72 Johnny
127.0.0.1
March 26, 2016

Oh, sure, Denice, I read Jake’s brain droppings.

You know it’s a crock, I know it’s a crock, and I suspect “Doctor” Wakefield knows it’s a crock. The thing is, I suspect, from his point of view, it’s the chance to convince a lot of people to send him a crock of money for another failed lawsuit.

If it’s even true, I suspect there will be a Go Fund Me page in the near future.
#73 jrkrideau
At the bottom of the lake (the bottom end that is)
March 26, 2016

# 71 Denice Walters
Well yes, he may be partially realistic but JP’s comment at #64 is not reassuring.

BTW re your comment and Johnny’s re Wakefield trying to get his licence back, Jake provides a link to a link to the Walker-Smith vs General Medical Council judgement http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2012/503.html

It does not seem favourable to Wakefield. He might better keep looking in boxes of crackerjack or do I mean cherrios?
#74 Lawrence
March 26, 2016

The constant harping on the Walker-Smith case is nothing more than wishful thinking. If you read the transcripts of the hearing, WS really threw Wakefield under the bus (on multiple occasions).

I don’t know how the anti-vaxers think that this helps Wakefield’s case for reinstatement.
#75 JP
March 26, 2016

** seriously, isn’t that the worst blog name ever?

I was going to say it sounds like an MRA blog, but I think that’s “Return of Kings.” (Don’t visit if you’ve recently eaten.) But yeah, anything with “Kings” in the title is generally already bad enough, but “Truth Kings”? Gag me with the proverbial spoon.

He may be partially realistic although I don’t know if visiting shamans all over the globe is therapy.

I wouldn’t mind it. I will say that playing drums was one of my favorite forms of “therapy” when I had to be in the psych ward two times; I even played communally in a “drum circle” thing several times, which used to be anathema, given that I’m supposed to be a punk, not a hippie, or something.

Possibly it’s just a good way to get some frustration or other emotions out. I was pretty royally p!ssed about the whole deal, given that being put on the highest allowed dose of Zoloft with scant monitoring was what probably set the whole thing off.
#76 JP
March 26, 2016

^And the animal visits. The animals visit were nice. Only dogs, I think, no cats, sadly.
#77 Denice Walter
March 26, 2016

@ jrkrideau:

Right. He has a website and foundation. Mysticism and a smattering of ( supposed) science. I haven’t read it so I can’t vouch but I suspect that the former outweighs the latter.
#78 Chris
March 26, 2016

#47: “I find it hard to believe that this site is even legit!”

What do you have against the US Constitution’s first amendment? Are you one of those unAmerican traitors that wish to subvert all opinion you dislike?
#79 Thinking About It
Chicago
March 26, 2016

I saw the preview for the movie. Did anyone notice that one of the moms telling the story was one of the women who interfered in the Alex Spordalakis tragedy? One of the women who ended up screaming at the doctors to test him and talk Dorothy into using some of their biomedical quackery? I believe she is a RN or LPN. Again, how is she able to keep her license? Do they just recycle the same cast of people? I like DeNiro though, good actor.
#80 sadmar
Looking quixotically for a silver lining
March 26, 2016

Denise wrote:

What I find unsettling is the use of the term ‘documentaries’ to describe these efforts- they’re not documentaries..

Well, they are, just not good ones. One eensy-teensy bit of good that could come out of this – but probably won’t – is that the wider public could develop a better understanding of what docos are, and how to judge them. The rubric is extremely elastic, and always has been. And from the very beginning – Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North – a good number of years before the term ‘documentary’ came into use, the border between fiction and non-fiction in film has always been messy. Because it has to be, due to the nature of the medium, or rather just because it is a medium. It’s mediated. You have to make choices. Something’s always distorted, because the choices come down to different kinds of ‘distortions’ one way or the other. One of my aphorisms is: ‘You have to lie to tell the truth.”

What do I mean by that? It’s an observation borne of my experience making documentaries – none of them btw about ‘hot button’ subjects. We go out in the world and capture pictures and sounds of material reality. These days, for every minute of running time in the finished piece, we typically get between 30-60 minutes of raw material. We find if we try to assemble the pieces in any way that is ‘faithful’ to the precise conditions in which they were obtained, they simply don’t come close to telling the truth. They give the audience either a manifestly false or utterly inadequate view of the ‘big picture’. So we diddle. Usually a lot. If we’re skilled, and honest, each diddle moves the perception viewers will take away closer to the truth.

Let me give just one example; In Gates of Heaven Errol Morris interviews Phil Harberts, an insurance salesman from Salt Lake City who has suffered a nervous breakdown. and moved back to Napa, CA to live with his parents and work in the family business, The Bubbling Well Pet Cemetary. Though his sales career has crashed and burned, Phil attempts to project business mastery in the form of often incoherent self-help lingo.

the next very important ingredient is something that a lot of people and a lot of businesses fail to delge into. It’s the activity knowledge. It would be the equation to a mathematical problem. It would be equal to the chemist’s ability to emulsify chemicals – you know, properly, the valences… I don’t have the activity knowledge, but I’m getting the know-how before I’m getting the activity knowledge.

Anyway, Morris goes into Phil’s little office at the pet cemetery to set up an interview shoot. Phil is going to brag about his previous successes in the insurance biz. The office is filled with sales trophies and memorabilia that show Phil is living in a fantasy vision of the past that is now hanging by a perilous thread. The DP composes a shot of Phil sitting behind his desk. Morris looks in the viewfinder. Phil’s collection is mostly out of frame, and the bits visible don’t ‘read’. So Morris piles what he can on the desk, and moves all the wall hanging things to fill the space behind Phil visible in the shot. The ‘truth’ would have lied, because you wouldn’t have seen an important aspect of Phil’s character, how attached he is to these things, and the ‘lie’ tells the truth because you do.

In watching a documentary, you’re never seeing ‘the world’ but somebody’s story about the world. For whatever sets of things the camera eye falls on, there are a multitude of stories that could be told, and a multitude of ways to tell each of them. Viewers should always question the position of the story-teller, the boundaries of the story, and the methods of the telling.

When I taught documentary, I quickly learned to cut off any discussions of ‘is that a documentary?’ or ‘what is a documentary?’ after screenings. They were just utterly unproductive, empty and a total waste of time. Here is a film: what does it say? how does it work? what kind of ‘truth’ does it offer?

The closest I can come to a definition of ‘documentary’ is: a film that either documents something that happened in reality, or employs existing ‘documents’ of things that happened in reality. American Hustle for example, is about something that actually happened, but doesn’t ‘document’ Abscam. The Vaxxed trailer uses ‘actualities’ of autistic kids, file footage of people speaking in public, and interviews that are documents in the sense of ‘this is what Stephanie Seneff and Jim Sears said’. It also includes interview footage of Wakefield and Del Bigtree telling flat-out lies, but a fake document is documentation of fakery, if nothing else.

Anyway, I hope it’s apparent that trying to define documentary is a useless task, and trying to judge a film on the basis ‘is or isn’t’ is worse than useless, actually counterproductive. Every film is it’s own individual thing, with it’s own complex mesh of ways of using truth, representing the real, commenting on it, and so on. Take them all on their own terms, and view those terms with a skeptical grain of salt.
#81 sadmar
March 26, 2016

TruthKings.com speculates that the money for AJW’s so-called documentary was supplied by Leo.

…merely on the basis of Anna Merlan’s reportage of Andy name-dropping Leo on the ConspiraSea. I feel confident that with this coming from the lips of Wakefield and Truthkings, we can clear Mr. DiCaprio of suspicion.
#82 jrkrideau
At the bottom of the lake (the bottom end that is)
March 26, 2016

# 78 Chris
What do you have against the US Constitution’s first amendment?
Let me count the ways …

It was probably written in good faith by gentlemen who would not have anticipated some of the totally insane, brachiating, idiots that have emerged out of the cesspit of humanity to take advantage of it.

OTOH, it probably is not a poorly drafted as the Second Amendment.
#83 Chris
March 26, 2016

“It was probably written in good faith by gentlemen who would not have anticipated some of the totally insane, brachiating, idiots that have emerged out of the cesspit of humanity to take advantage of it.”

Like this delusional drivel?
#84 Robert de Niro achter geplande vertoning anti-vaccinatie docu op Tribeca filmfestival
March 26, 2016

[…] is veel commotie op blogs, krantenwebsites en social media over deze geplande vertoning van de propagandafilm van […]
#85 Dangerous Bacon
March 26, 2016

I’m very disappointed that the Tribeca Film Festival isn’t airing any documentaries on the Holistic Doctor Murder Conspiracy. We need to bring this out in the open; there are questions that need to be answered!

Here are the latest murders (and don’t tell me you buy the “official explanation”):

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/found-slain-santa-barbara-county-home-37921504
#86 THEO
March 26, 2016

I knew y’all would be running scared. This is awesome news. The damns are breaking. People don’t believe you anymore. People are waking up to corporate JUNK science. We are watching the slow death of Pharmaceutical mysticism.

The writing is on the wall.

Robert De Niro is a hero. I knew there was a reason I liked him. He knows truth when he sees it. Unlike you people. Moohooowaaaa
#87 Chris
March 26, 2016

THEO: “I knew y’all would be running scared. This is awesome news. The damns are breaking”

We’re running?
#88 rs
March 26, 2016

“The damns are breaking.”

Freudian slip much?
#89 herr doktor bimler
March 26, 2016

But yeah, anything with “Kings” in the title is generally already bad enough, but “Truth Kings”?

Brings to mind the Sand Kings from George Martin’s story.
#90 Cam the Cat
March 26, 2016

I found this to be extremely hilarious:

https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&q=%23FutureTribecaDocumentary

@FutureTribecaDocumentary
#91 JP
March 26, 2016

Brings to mind the Sand Kings from George Martin’s story.

If we are trading classics, Bill Fay’s “Time of the Last Persecution” is worth a listen. Both sides of the LP are up on the Youtubes.

I wonder if THEO ever got around to that conversation with his priest about the sanctity of life or whatever it is those folks talk about. Seems like protecting children from preventable, sometimes deadly, diseases would be pretty high on the list.
#92 JP
March 26, 2016

^ I believe I mentioned “Pictures of Adolf Again,” one of the more memorable tracks of that great album, here in one of my more politically frantic moments.
#93 Cam the Cat
March 26, 2016

Also this:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/cbpolis/science-twitter-drags-de-niro-15-funniest-future-29a0x
#94 Cam the Cat
March 26, 2016

Holy hilarious hell, some people are really rolling with this:

https://twitter.com/YoniFreedhoff/status/713662013747118082
#95 Brian Deer
March 26, 2016

I feel sorry for De Niro really. Wakefield’s been preying on parents – particularly, when he can, rich parents – for 20 years.

The techniques by which he gets his claws into them, and his fingers into their cheque books if he can, are incredible. The whole Englishman in America is often enough.

I don’t want people to take this any way other than a factual observation, but I would be you fifty bucks that he had Grace giggling, possibly doing selfies with him, and that, by now, she’s got a nagging doubt that her son may have a bowel disease.

Unless you knew how he works, you wouldn’t think anything other than that he’d been cruelly mistreated, and that none of anything is true, and if only he had the money he would prove himself innocent.

It would take your breath away. But I can tell you, when his lawyers deposed me for 6.5 hours, he and that crank Clifford Miller sat there for every minute of it, until I went through the fraud in Table 2 of his paper. Then, he left the room.

I’ve seen him at a conference of young mothers put up an overhead slide of fulminant, ulcerating Crohn’s disease, and wallowed in the gasps of mothers. Then he says that the bowel disease he discovered isn’t this, but it’s “similar”. In fact, his bowel disease doesn’t exist. It has never been imaged. He made it up.

As I say, I feel sorry for De Niro.
#96 Cam the Cat
March 26, 2016

Sorry, not trying to spam, but this story has become Comedy Gold in the Twitterverse.

https://twitter.com/jtotheizzoe/status/713414630572367872
#97 JP
March 26, 2016

The techniques by which he gets his claws into them, and his fingers into their cheque books if he can, are incredible. The whole Englishman in America is often enough.

One is reminded of Rasputin.

“Rah, rah, Rasputin, lover of the Russian Queen…”
#98 Narad
March 26, 2016

Mostly off-topic, but I’m disappointed about the second-round matchup here.
#99 Frequent Lurker
March 26, 2016

Anna Merlan is reporting it’s pulled: http://jezebel.com/tribeca-film-festival-robert-de-niro-announce-theyre-p-1767288170
#100 Frequent Lurker
March 26, 2016

Tribeca FB Page:

https://www.facebook.com/Tribeca/posts/10154153954489758
#101 Beth S
March 26, 2016

Yes Frequent Lurker..#99…News of his pulling it just came thru my twitter feed.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2016/03/26/3763690/tribeca-anti-vaccination/
#102 Beth S
March 26, 2016

Thank you so much, Orac and the activists here and on other sites for bringing this issue front and center—and educating Robert Deniro re: Wakefield.
#103 Narad
March 26, 2016

Anna Merlan is reporting it’s pulled

That stinks, sunlight being the best disinfectant, etc.
#104 Brian Deer
March 26, 2016

Thank god for that. I can watch Casino again for the 100th time. And Jackie Brown. And what’s that one about Rupert Pupkin?
#105 Jen
March 26, 2016

Wow. That’s frightening that the pharmaceutical companies have that much say in what Americans can watch. We are literally living in a fascist state. Some of you have a hand is destroying babies lives.
#106 JP
March 26, 2016

We are literally living in a fascist state.

Speaking as the resident canary, no, we’re not. I’ll let you know if it ever becomes the case. (It could happen here!)

Some of you have a hand is destroying babies lives.

No, see, it’s once common and now easily preventable diseases which destroy babies’ lives. Literally.
#107 kfunk937
making popcorn
March 26, 2016

And it’s science, for the win!

h/t: Dr Amy, SkepticalOB
#108 Narad
March 26, 2016

That’s frightening that the pharmaceutical companies have that much say in what Americans can watch.

Do you think “they” sent him a link to the Holistic Doctor Assassination Plot?
#109 Jen
March 26, 2016

To be honest, the idea to yank it off the schedule proves the point. They are scared and know that they (Pharma companies and the medical community) kill / maim babies. It’s funny, I’m just a normal person… No real connection to this issue (my kids reacted badly to their vaccinations but not enough that I feel overly passionate about the topic), but I would have to say we are now at a point where about 1/2 the people I talk to about the topic (and they aren’t overly “crunchy” or “holistic” at all) know that vaccines trigger autism (and assorted other issues). It’s unbelievable. After this that number will get higher. Lol! So many people know the truth about vaccine injury. People have seen someone’s child, niece, nephew, brother, etc become injured… You can’t deny that. And you guys have a twerp like Brian Deer and dork like Orac. Good luck with that!
#110 herr doktor bimler
March 26, 2016

We are literally living in a fascist state.
If Jen’s comment #105 was intended as a satire of antivax stupidity and contempt for words and their meanings, I have to say it was excessively cruel.
#111 Narad
March 26, 2016

To be honest, the idea to yank it off the schedule proves the point.

Allow me to help.
#112 JP
March 26, 2016

Narad @98:

Who were you rooting for?
#113 Narad
March 26, 2016

Who were you rooting for?

“Who”? The original defense was “opportunity for a conversation.” A genuine, taped grilling of Wakefraud after the screening seems like it would be an excellent start.
#114 Chris
March 26, 2016

Jen: “So many people know the truth about vaccine injury. People have seen someone’s child, niece, nephew, brother, etc become injured… You can’t deny that.”

No, we cannot deny they make the claim. What we can do is ask for actual proof, often in the form of medical records. This is something that they will provide lots of excuses to avoid. Belkin is infamous for his mealy mouth mumbling about those records (it was very sad his baby died from SIDS, but it is terrible that if he had so much conviction it was the HepB vaccine, then he should provide the evidence).

I, on the other hand, do have the records and bills pertaining to my oldest child’s seizures from a am actual disease before its vaccine was available. I also have photos of the suffering all three kids had with chicken pox (one being an infant).

By the way, my son is still autistic even though he missed so many of those evil vaccines because they did not exist — he just suffered from at least two of the diseases.

The plural of anecdotes is still not data, even if I have the medical records. What you and your friends really need to do is to provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that counters the several studies done of the last fifteen years, many of which are discussed on this blog.

“And you guys have a twerp like Brian Deer and dork like Orac. Good luck with that!”

Why do you think insults are a valid substitute for evidence?
#115 JP
March 26, 2016

“Who”? The original defense was “opportunity for a conversation.”

Ah. I happened to catch the Daily Show segment that image is the brain-child of, and most of the choices in the “bracket” are people, so I was just wondering if you’d picked some favorites or something.
#116 Denice Walter
March 26, 2016

“Living in a fascist state” ?

Madame, if that is true you’d better start REALLY worrying because that same government can read all of the things you’ve written about its malfeasance and corruption whenever you express yourself so freely on the internet.

I hear that they have drones.
#117 Woo Fighter
March 26, 2016

On the Tribeca Facebook page the antivax loons have reached the conclusion that since De Niro is already rich, he’d be immune to payoffs from Big Pharma (as an incentive to pull the film). So the reason he pulled it is, wait for this, because one of his family members must have been threatened. (Maybe they’d send the “alterna-doctor” serial killer?)

Someone named Maurine Meleck is going apesh!t on the Facebook page, crying bullying and CENSORSHIP. I don’t much follow the key players in the antivax crusade but maybe her name rings a bell to some of you.

Of course De Niro is now a pooopyhead whereas 24 hours ago he was a hero to the autism/antivax army.

I can’t wait to see the outrage and uproar at AofA and NN when they become aware of this. So far they’re still praising and thanking De Niro over at AofA. I’m sure Mikey will call for a boycott of De Niro films. And then try to sell some iodine.
#118 Denice Walter
March 26, 2016

Rupert Pupkin: was in “The King of Comedy”

My own absolute fave is Raging Bull, who knows why because I hate boxing but my g-d…it was great-
and it wasn’t just the Cavalleria Rusticana music/ slo mo half naked man imagery either.

-btw- minions, I am very pleased to have come home- after a long day traipsing about the bourgeois wilderness an hour from here- and found out that the film was pulled.
Sceptics rule!
#119 Denice Walter
March 26, 2016

@ Woo Fighter:

Ms Meleck is a regular at AoA.
-btw- AoA already knows ( see their comments on the most recent posts there)
#120 Woo Fighter
March 26, 2016

Here’s some of the Facebook fun, for those of you who don’t partake. For those who are on Facebook, it’s a fertile feeding ground for trolls, for sport.

i’m going out to buy some popcorn.

Catherine Mary Tribeca – I will NEVER recommend you again!!! You (the Corporation) have NO TESTICLES OF TRUTH!!!! I am sooooo disappointed that there is NO ABILITY TO OPEN A DISCUSSION – money talk$ hmmmhmmmhmmm Money Talk$

Kris Nielsen Pulling Vaxxed was a terrible decision. Wtf. Goodbye first amendment. If the science is settled, play the movie. People should be able to prove it wrong in a heartbeat.

Gina Rose What’s the matter?! Are you folks that bought and paid for by the ruling elite that you have to remove a VERY important documentary about the TRUTH! You even go as far as removing it from this page! Absolutely DISGUSTING humans you are!!!!!! When all these children, parents and people who have been vaccine injured! SHAME ON YOU! It’s SO obvious that the truth is being silenced when one side of a debate is NOT allowed! I hope and pray that God gives you all what you deserve!!!!!!!!!!

Shirley L. Cedillo Big Pharma has you by the balls. Dont tell me this country is a democracy when corporations can influence free speech. You are a Sham Tribeca.
#121 Chemmomo
Not in a fascist state. I can tell the difference.
March 26, 2016

Jen my emphasis

No real connection to this issue (my kids reacted badly to their vaccinations but not enough that I feel overly passionate about the topic), but I would have to say we are now at a point where about 1/2 the people I talk to about the topic (and they aren’t overly “crunchy” or “holistic” at all) know that vaccines trigger autism (and assorted other issues). It’s unbelievable.

That’s the thing, though. What’s unbelievable is what is being described as vaccine injury. And that includes autism.

If you truly have no real connection to the issue, why don’t you take the time to evaluate the stories. Compare what’s being claimed on websites promoting overinflated numbers of injuries, and the facts listed in the documents they cite. You’ll find they don’t add up.

And you guys have a twerp like Brian Deer and dork like Orac. Good luck with that!

Jen, Never mind. I just finished reading your comment and I no longer believe I am interacting with an adult old enough to have children of her own.
#122 shay simmons
March 26, 2016

Woo Fighter, have you seen the comments on the Tribeca site? “Soft kill,” indeed.

If the US had perfected soft kill technology why wouldn’t we be using it in the Middle East?
#123 Chemmomo
Repost with correct html. Still not living with fascism.
March 26, 2016

Jen my emphasis

No real connection to this issue (my kids reacted badly to their vaccinations but not enough that I feel overly passionate about the topic), but I would have to say we are now at a point where about 1/2 the people I talk to about the topic (and they aren’t overly “crunchy” or “holistic” at all) know that vaccines trigger autism (and assorted other issues). It’s unbelievable.

That’s the thing, though. What’s unbelievable is what is being described as vaccine injury. And that includes autism.

If you truly have no real connection to the issue, why don’t you take the time to evaluate the stories. Compare what’s being claimed on websites promoting overinflated numbers of injuries, and the facts listed in the documents they cite. You’ll find they don’t add up.

And you guys have a twerp like Brian Deer and dork like Orac. Good luck with that!

Jen, Never mind. I just finished reading your comment and I no longer believe I am interacting with an adult old enough to have children of her own.
#124 Woo Fighter
March 26, 2016

Shay,

I had been following the comments of the Vaxxed page itself at Tribeca’s site (which had accumulated some 2700 comments at last check) including several contributions from pig farmer John Scudmore, who proudly defended his crackpot beliefs about Zionism, Sandy Hook and 9/11 in addition to repeatedly bleating his vaccination-is-murder and vitamin-C- cures-everything opinions with lots of links to his own whale.to.

Is there a another comments page about the film still active? Please send the link if so.
#125 Jen
March 26, 2016

As for name-calling, etc… Sorry if “twerp” and “dork” offend you. I have read and seen the most vile words used by Brian Deer about parents who have suffered so much. He’s a nasty, disgraceful man.

As I said previously… About 1/2 the people I interact with know the damage that is being done by vaccines. At the end of the day, this latest stunt will be seen for what it is… An admission of guilt. They know they kill babies, they know vaccines trigger autism, they know Mercury destroys brain cells. I’m thankful that I protect my kids from that toxic sludge. For that I am so grateful for those who came before me telling their stories of the damage that has been done. And yes, many of you have blood on your hands.
#126 Alain
March 26, 2016

Jen,

I dispute that they know. Period.

Alain
#127 shay simmons
March 26, 2016

WooF, my bad! thank you for catching that. The “soft kill” comment is actually on the Variety webpage.

http://variety.com/2016/film/markets-festivals/tribeca-film-anti-vaccination-1201739937/#respond
#128 Chris
March 26, 2016

Jen: “As for name-calling, etc… Sorry if “twerp” and “dork” offend you. ”

No, it is not because is offensive, it is just that it just another boring excuse for not provide actual evidence.

Jen: “They know they kill babies, they know vaccines trigger autism, they know Mercury destroys brain cells.”

Accusations are not evidence.

“I’m thankful that I protect my kids from that toxic sludge. For that I am so grateful for those who came before me telling their stories of the damage that has been done.”

Please thank you responsible neighbors that maintain your community’s immunity to diseases by vaccinating their families.

“And yes, many of you have blood on your hands.”

Yeah, sure. You keep telling yourself that:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2016/03/11/another-child-dead-from-quackery-the-parents-say-theyre-being-persecuted-in-a-plot-to-impose-forced-vaccination/
#129 shay simmons
March 26, 2016

He’s a nasty, disgraceful man.

For exposing a money-grubbing fraud? Your ethical outlook is sadly askew.
#130 Chris
March 26, 2016

Jen,

Please thank your responsible neighbors that maintain your community’s immunity to diseases by vaccinating their families. They are protecting your children.
#131 Jen
March 26, 2016

Shay,

Reading comprehension isn’t your strong point, is it? Brian Deer is disgraceful for what he has said and done to parents of children with vaccine injuries. Disgusting man.
#132 Jen
March 26, 2016

Chris,

I don’t want anyone to risk the lives of their children to protect mine! Stop the nonsense. We are injuring babies with unsafe vaccines. Tragic.
#133 Chemmomo
Wishing for preview
March 26, 2016

Jen @ 125 thank you for the response.

Sorry if “twerp” and “dork” offend you.

Don’t apologize to me; I was just pointing out that using them make you appear immature and foolish.
If your comment is truly written by someone who “ ha[s] no real connection to the issue,” I am sorry to inform you that you have been misled by those “ [a]bout 1/2 the people I interact with.”

They know they kill babies .

Count those babies for me, Jen. How many? How many babies are killed by a vaccine? When you’re done counting those, count how many babies in this age using vaccines are killed by infectious disease – diphtheria, pertussis, measles. Count them for me. Then go find out how many babies died from those diseases before we had the vaccines.

I’m thankful that I protect my kids from that toxic sludge. For that I am so grateful for those who came before me telling their stories of the damage that has been done.

So much for “ no real connection to the issue.” You should be thanking your neighbors for vaccinating their children and allowing you to be smug about skipping it for yours.
#134 Denice Walter
March 26, 2016

” many of you have blood on your hands’

I for one can’t fathom that one..
How?
Because we support vaccination?

Most people who support SBM are not doctors or nurses and do not have direct influence or contact with patients like this-

it also means that we can’t really take any credit for better community health -btw-

What a bizarre world view where health protective measures are considered dangers!
#135 capnkrunch
March 26, 2016

Curious if Jen wants to comment on any of the issues I brought up here. Most apropos is Wakefield’s dishonest editing in the trailer.
#136 Chemmomo
Reality
March 26, 2016

Jen

And yes, many of you have blood on your hands.

No, Jen, that’s you and your vaccine-rejecting compatriots who convinced these parents vaccines were harmful:
http://globalnews.ca/news/2079381/boy-dies-from-diphtheria-in-spain-parents-had-rejected-vaccine/
#137 Chemmomo
Reality
March 26, 2016

Jen

Brian Deer is disgraceful for what he has said and done to parents of children with vaccine injuries. Disgusting man.

Please post direct quotes with links. Repeating something doesn’t make it true.
#138 Chris
March 26, 2016

Jen: “Stop the nonsense. We are injuring babies with unsafe vaccines. Tragic.”

Prove it.

Post the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that any vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule causes more harm than the disease.

You know, like HiB:
https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/ezekiel-stephan-another-pediatric-death-by-world-view/

Or like measles:
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-measles-sspe-20150624-story.html

From the story: “The boy, born in the United States, was only 5 months old when he was infected with a severe viral illness. After he turned 3, the once healthy young boy began to struggle with behavioral problems and seizures. Soon he was diagnosed with SSPE.”
#139 Science Mom
http://justthevax.blogspot.com/
March 26, 2016

Cam @96 Thanks and just re-tweeted. Enjoying your comments on the Tribeca post. Sadly some rather douchey “pro-vaxx” commenters are creating more noise than signal. Keep up the good work.
#140 brian
March 26, 2016

Jen wrote:

About 1/2 the people I interact with know the damage that is being done by vaccines.

Well, that’s the problem, You need to get out more and interact with people who actually understand science and medicine instead of devoting your time to discussions with people in wacky anti-vaccine echo chambers.
#141 Narad
March 27, 2016

And yes, many of you have blood on your hands.

Save it for LJ Goes, Jeanna Reed, Wakefraud, and the rest of the biomeddlers who were accomplices in Alex Spourdalakis’s murder.
#142 Science-Themed Films Raise Eyebrows | Pasco Phronesis
March 27, 2016

[…] was accepted for submission to the Tribeca Film Festival, which is when it attracted all kinds of attention from those who have fought Wakefield and his theories. They pushed back on the Film Festival, and […]
#143 Science Mom
http://justthevax.blogspot.com/
March 27, 2016

Tribeca moved the whole shebang. Damn, should have grabbed some screenshots, good blog fodder with some of those anti-vaxx comments and their pleas to read their NaturalNewsJonRappaportMercolaTenpenny websites and watch YouTube videos. For what it’s worth I would have preferred letting it air and having some hardball questions from the discussion panel afterward.
#144 herr doktor bimler
March 27, 2016

About 1/2 the people I interact with know the damage that is being done by vaccines.

Imagine my surprise to learn that Jen’s social circle consists of morons.
#145 herr doktor bimler
March 27, 2016

And yes, many of you have blood on your hands.

Not me! I always wear gloves!
#146 shay simmons
March 27, 2016

Reading comprehension isn’t your strong point

Evidence-based thinking isn’t yours. Chemmomo is right; post direct quotes with links.
#147 herr doktor bimler
March 27, 2016

We are injuring babies with unsafe vaccines. Tragic.

Oh joy, another bampot trying to imitate Trump Twitter Haiku syntax (or the same bampot with a different nym).
#148 herr doktor bimler
March 27, 2016

A genuine, taped grilling of Wakefraud after the screening seems like it would be an excellent start.

The loons are already convinced that he’s a martyr; no need for the St Lawrence treatment.
#149 Philip Collman
Confused
March 27, 2016

#120 TESTICLES OF TRUTH!! How does that work? Do you use them like Wonder Woman’s lasso? OUCH!
#150 The Tribeca Film Festival Pulls Anti-Vax “Documentary” – Slate Magazine (blog) | Movie Update
March 27, 2016

[…] Niro is a co-founder of the festival, and has actually an autistic son. At Respectful Insolence, Orac quotes from a letter he received from the Tribeca […]
#151 Sam
March 27, 2016

At least it appears that De Niro finally came to his senses and ended up pulling the plug on Wakefield’s pseudoscientific garbage.
#152 John Phillips
On the other side of the channel from somewhere else and not a fascist state. Not yet anyway.
March 27, 2016

Jen

…and seen the most vile words used by Brian Deer about parents who have suffered so much…

I have read pretty much all Brian has ever written on this subject and all I have seen from him with regard to the parents of the children involved in Wakefield’s fraudulent study is compassion and understanding. Now unless you are just parroting what you have heard from other AV’s, you can easily provide cites for where and when Brian acted as you claimed.

For someone who claims to have no real attachment either way to the subject, you do appear to like shooting the messenger, i.e. Brian Deer and Orac, while regurgitating disproven AV tropes.
#153 John Phillips
On the other side of the channel from somewhere else and not a fascist state. Not yet anyway.
March 27, 2016

Repeatinmg with the blockquote end added.

Jen
…and seen the most vile words used by Brian Deer about parents who have suffered so much…

I have read pretty much all Brian has ever written on this subject and all I have seen from him with regard to the parents of the children involved in Wakefield’s fraudulent study is compassion and understanding. However, unless you are just parroting untruths you have heard from other AV’s, you no doubt can easily provide cites/links for where and when Brian acted as you claimed.

For someone who claims to have no real attachment either way to the subject, you do appear to like shooting the messenger, i.e. Brian Deer and Orac, while regurgitating disproven AV tropes.
#154 Actor Robert De Niro Caught in Vaccine/Autism Row | Thai Divorce Lawyer
March 28, 2016

[…] Read more on this story here, here and here. […]
#155 jrkrideau
At the bottom of the lake (the bottom end that is)
March 28, 2016

# 83

Like this delusional drivel?

Well not really the man may be a idiot but he is still roughly coherent, more so than I would have expected. Perhaps his helpers may have supplied some editorial advice.
#156 Chris
March 28, 2016

Well you would expect a certain higher class of con-men in a Nevada jail (which is where he and others were transported to from Oregon).
#157 Cedrica
Oregon
March 28, 2016

When a child is ill with something that is likely to last a lifetime, the parents will grasp for any straws offered to them, even if handed out by educated, reasonable-sounding charlatans who know how to mix fear with fiction sounding like fact. I think this is what happens with these parents. They are so desperate they will do and believe anything.
#158 Thomas
March 28, 2016

” We are literally living in a fascist state. ”

Not quite. While it’s true that a high government official (Bill Posey) apparently attempted to force a private organization to show a film that they didn’t want to show, which is consistent with fascist ideology, this attempt at bullying was successfully resisted – a triumph over fascism.

However, your claim ” many of you have blood on your hands” is certainly the kind of filthy accusation that would fit in well on any Nazi poster. Good work.
#159 LouV
France
March 29, 2016

@Jen #125

They know they kill babies, they know vaccines trigger autism, they know Mercury destroys brain cells.

Why are you talking about mercury when :
1) the movie is about MMR, which never contained thiomersal
2) it was phased out of the vast majority of pediatric vaccines 10+ years ago anyway, with zero effects on autism.
#160 Marsha Broad
Australia
March 29, 2016

Ummm… don’t mean to sound like the devil’s advocate but… hasn’t Dr W Thompson already admitted that there was a cover up at Merck about the link between MMR and Autism.
And Lou V, MMR did contain thimerisol but it was agreed by Vax manufacturers to remove it due to the bad publicity. It’s also still in Flu shots and meningococcal and trace amounts are still used in the manufacturing process because of it’s anti-bacterial properties. I know this is not what anyone here wants to know, but this info is publicly available. Just sayin’.
#161 herr doktor bimler
March 29, 2016

hasn’t Dr W Thompson already admitted that there was a cover up at Merck about the link between MMR and Autism.

Indeed? In this supposed admission, did Thompson explain (a) what the alleged link was, and
(b) how Merck knew about it, and
(c) how Thompson knew about Merck’s alleged cover up?
- #162 Marsha Broad
  March 29, 2016
  
  Oh sorry i was under the impression this was a science blog but now I’ve realised the reason everyone has pseudonyms… so they can bully others with legitimate questions.
  If thimerisol wasn’t in MMR then it was definitely in the DTap and still in flu shots – how does this make it any better when babies are being exposed to this?… didn’t see you argue that point about it being in other vaccines!??
  And Dr Thompson has openly admitted that he was complicit in distorting data while he worked for Merck that African American boys were 340% more likely to present with autism at 36 mths. This was also exposed by Congressman Bill Posey. I’m not sure how you can deny this information when it’s public knowledge.
  I’m starting to think the bloggers on here are just pro-vax denialists and not about the science at all.
#163 Science Mom
http://justthevax.blogspot.com/
March 29, 2016

And Lou V, MMR did contain thimerisol but it was agreed by Vax manufacturers to remove it due to the bad publicity.

The bad publicity would have been if thiomersal had ever been in the MMR vaccine. Think now, do live viruses and thiomersal get along Marsha?
#164 shay simmons
what Science Mom said
March 29, 2016

MMR did contain thimerisol

Thank you for establishing that you have no idea what you are talking about, Marsha.
#165 Orac
March 29, 2016

And Dr Thompson has openly admitted that he was complicit in distorting data while he worked for Merck that African American boys were 340% more likely to present with autism at 36 maths.

No, he didn’t. He just didn’t. In fact, Thompson still works for the CDC.
#166 Science Mom
http://justthevax.blogspot.com/
March 29, 2016

If thimerisol wasn’t in MMR then it was definitely in the DTap and still in flu shots – how does this make it any better when babies are being exposed to this?…

Used to be, going on 15 years now and thimerosal-free influenza vaccines are so abundant, most people including infants receive those. Funny how you complain how your science is served to you when you can’t even get your basic facts straight.
#167 Narad
March 29, 2016

And Dr Thompson has openly admitted that he was complicit in distorting data while he worked for Merck that African American boys were 340% more likely

OK, so you can’t tell Thompson from Hooker and, amazingly, also still havent figured out what a relative risk of 1 means. Or you’re being paid to make antivaccine cranks look bad.
- #168 Marsha Broad
  March 29, 2016
  
  Ok so now you’ve proved… this is just a site for people wanting to bully others…
  And you admit that Thompson did admit corruption to Hooker and Posey (while working at the CDC) and contributing to a misleading study as publicised by mainstream media AND that thimerisol was in vaccines and is still in some flu shots (and is in pneumococcal too!) But interestingly when the autism debate started approx. 15 yrs ago (must have felt that thimerisol was a contributory culprit) decided to remove from most vaccines. Otherwise why would they remove it if it was such an important ingredient and so safe? And why censor a movie about fraud within the CDC when it’s already on public record & RFK Jnr supports this argument?
#169 herr doktor bimler
March 29, 2016

everyone has pseudonyms
That is news to me.

Ummm… don’t mean to sound like the devil’s advocate but
Rest assured that you sound more like a mendacious idiot.
#170 Narad
March 29, 2016

^ Aside from noting my blockquote fail, I’m now wondering whether “astrosmurfing” could be recaptured.
#171 Narad
March 29, 2016

Hey, how did Marsha get to invoke the “reply” indent?
#172 Narad
March 29, 2016

hasn’t Dr W Thompson already admitted that there was a cover up at Merck about the link between MMR and Autism

Good L-rd, your head is filled with tapioca pudding. Hint: “ex rel.”
#173 Science Mom
http://justthevax.blogspot.com/
March 29, 2016

Dear Marsha,

No.

XOXO,
Dr. Bully
#174 brian
March 29, 2016

Marsha Broad wrote, “African American boys were 340% more likely to present with autism at 36 mths.”

Like BS Hooker, you seem unable to understand the difference between the odds ratios that can be derived from a case-control study and the nonsense that dribbles from an attempt to hijack case-control data for another purpose. You might want to crack a book–and then tell Hooker. This is embarrassing for both of you.
- #175 Marsha
  March 30, 2016
  
  Embarrassing is when you try to support an opposing position when even the scientist conducting the study says the risk is statistically significant.
  While you’re there maybe you could find me an independent( i.e. not funded by pharma) study that uses a double blind placebo without the use of adjuvants as the placebo and uses saline, with the outcome that vaccine don’t cause any adverse reactions… thanks, haven’t been able to find one and not one pro-vax ‘so called evidence based scientist’ has been able to provide one to support their argument.
#176 herr doktor bimler
March 29, 2016

The story so far:
Marsha:
Dr W Thompson already admitted that there was a cover up at Merck about the link between MMR and Autism
Dr Thompson has openly admitted that he was complicit in distorting data while he worked for Merck

Reality:
Thompson never worked at Merck.

Marsha:
So you admit that Thompson did admit corruption to Hooker and Posey (while working at the CDC)
—————————————————
Homer Simpson gets away with this kind of self-serving dishonest non-logic because he’s supposed to be a bullsh1tting self-deceiving halfwit afflicted with delusions of adequacy. What’s Martha’s excuse?
- #177 Marsha
  March 30, 2016
  
  I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.
#178 herr doktor bimler
March 30, 2016

Ok so now you’ve proved… this is just a site for people wanting to bully others…

Is this a five minute argument, or the full half hour?
If Martha wants Abuse, that’s Mr. Barnhart in Room 12
#179 Chemmomo
If it was the half hour argument, I want my deposit back
March 30, 2016

Marsha Broad

i was under the impression this was a science blog but now I’ve realised the reason everyone has pseudonyms… so they can bully others with legitimate questions.

Did you ask any questions? You have posted multiple statements that are factually incorrect. Maybe there was one in there, but it was written rhetorically, as a challenge not as a question requesting information.

this is just a site for people wanting to bully others….

In 3 posts, Marsha Broad makes two accusations of bullying because she was corrected on easily verifiable facts. I don’t think Marsha Broad actually understands what constitutes bullying.
#180 Narad
March 30, 2016

Oh sorry i was under the impression this was a science blog but now I’ve realised the reason everyone has pseudonyms…

Oddly enough, there seems to be no trace of any “Marsha Broad” from Australia. Then again, having shed the location, it has now done the same with the surname.

The ability to indent inclines me to put 2 quatloos on a bored Dodson.
#181 Helianthus
March 30, 2016

But interestingly when the autism debate started approx. 15 yrs ago

I see Marsha applies the same innumerate skills to measure elapsed time as to read statistical results.
Wakefiled’s study about MMR – which is somewhat related to this thread’s topic – was published in 1998. “Debate” about autism and vaccines were already in full swing back then.
We are in 2016. That’s a bit more than 15 years. Like, 20% more.
By the same token, I can say I’m approx. 35-ish.

I don’t think Marsha Broad actually understands what constitutes bullying.

As someone who has been bullied in school, I concur.

Anyway, with the thimerosal thingy, she amply demonstrated she cannot be bothered with facts. Publicly available facts.
- #182 Marsha
  March 30, 2016
  
  It’s all very clear now… the bullied become the bullies… this is like nerd revenge!
  Still haven’t seen a peer reviewed independent double blind placebo =with saline instead of adjuvants used- in the study from anybody…(because there aren’t any!) I see you’re more comfortable with inane commentary and mutual tugging in a lame attempt to belittle others than ‘real science’ to back up your statements on this site.
#183 sadmar
I really hate Safeway, except for the Lucerne nonfat cottage cheese
March 30, 2016

If Orac screened out all the troll posts, and Narad created a troll-comment-generator (like the Deepak generator thingy) to drop chunks of the same old wootoric at random into the threads, and a minion-response-generator to drop a dozen replies of I-can’t-believe-anyone-has-to-repeat-basic-facts, I don’t think anyone would notice the difference…
#184 Mephistopheles O'Brien
March 30, 2016

@Marsha – there’s a NSFW joke that ends with the punchline “you’re not really here for the hunting are you?”

Based on your refusal to respond to those who made very polite corrections to your comments or who asked polite questions about them, I suspect you’re not really hear for the discussion.

If you’d like to actually discuss this, then please stop the accusations of bullying and make a point or ask a question.

Thanks.

P.S. I hope there were no trigger words in my comment. If there were, they were unintended.
#185 Mephistopheles O'Brien
March 30, 2016

“not really HERE”
#186 MI Dawn
March 30, 2016

@Marsha: HPV was done with double blinded studies with adjuvents AND WITH SALINE as you would see if you had looked at the package insert.

And if you are looking for a blinded study by an independent researcher : create one, get it passed by an IRB, and then PAY for it. Lots of antivax groups out there with money. Then find the volunteers to have the study done, knowing that some will end up in the vaxed side who DON’T want to be there, and vice-versa. Oh – and you can’t drop any current standards of care – that’s against all IRB standards (see Geneva Convention)

Now, call me a bully since, like many others, I pointed out a factual error in your statements.

And MI is my birth state and Dawn is my name, as Orac and a few others can vouch.
#187 MI Dawn
March 30, 2016

And, by the way – no. I won’t join your study. I refuse to take the risk that I or my children will go without the protection of vaccines.
#188 MI Dawn
March 30, 2016

2 additional thoughts:

1. Isn’t ist funny that all the anti vax groups call for a “vaxed vs unvaxed” study but refuse to create one, get it passed by a REAL IRB and pay for it?

2. I just realized that my parents and I failed at parenthood money-grabbing. My sister consistently hyperventilated with vaccines, so that she would actually pass out and have seizures. We should have reported that to VAERS instead of smacking her upside the head and telling her to quit it. My daughter was the same way (sans seizures) and we treated her the same. I guess I *should* have reported it to VAERS and then gone to the Vaccine Court for money when she didn’t get into big prestigious major east coast university that costs lots of money (TM)
#189 Narad
March 30, 2016

Still haven’t seen a peer reviewed independent double blind placebo =with saline instead of adjuvants used- in the study from anybody…(because there aren’t any!)

The Salk field trials were funded by the March of Dimes. Anything else?
#190 Helianthus
March 30, 2016

@ Marsha

Still haven’t seen a peer reviewed independent double blind placebo =with saline instead of adjuvants used- in the study

We just had someone in a previous thread asking the same questions as you.

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2016/03/22/wtf-andrew-wakefields-antivaccine-documentary-to-be-screened-at-the-tribeca-film-festival/

The interested reader could go over there and look up the links provided by various readers starting around the 80-90th comments. Julian Frost, Chris, LouV, squirrelelite, Narad, among others, provided plenty of resources.

OTOH, I don’t feel like wasting time on spoon-feeding data to dishonest trolls. Looking for a study? Pubmed and Google Scholar are your friends.

this is like nerd revenge

‘nerd’? Now, who is belittling who?

When I am wrong, people call me on it, and my answer is “my bad, I was mistaken”.
Your answer in the same situation? “you are bullying me”.

Don’t ask for respect when you showed none.
#191 Todd W.
http://www.harpocratesspeaks.com
March 30, 2016

@Marsha

Hi, could you please clarify something? You ask for an independent, double-blind, saline-placebo controlled trial. Could you please provide a definition of what you consider “independent”? I will assume that anything that is funded or conducted by a vaccine manufacturer (such as the studies conducted as part of the approval process) are inadmissible. Are there any other categories that you would not consider “independent”?

Also, as noted already, do you accept that you were factually incorrect when you claimed that Thompson worked at Merck and that MMR had thimerosal in it? Those are both false and are easily verifiable.
#192 brian
March 30, 2016

Still haven’t seen a peer reviewed independent double blind placebo =with saline instead of adjuvants used- in the study from anybody…(because there aren’t any!

“In this randomized, double-blind trial, 1781 sexually naive children were assigned (2:1) to quadrivalent HPV-6/11/16/18 vaccine or saline placebo administered at day 1 and months 2 and 6.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17484215
#193 Mephistopheles O'Brien
March 30, 2016

this is like nerd revenge

Back in my first dorm the common greeting was “hey gnurd”. In a good way – we were all gnurds. The term has come into such common usage now that I can’t see it as an insult.
- #194 Marsha
  March 30, 2016
  
  It wasn’t an insult, it was an observation.
#195 brian
March 30, 2016

Marsha wrote: “Embarrassing is when you try to support an opposing position when even the scientist conducting the study says the risk is statistically significant.”

It’s really embarrassing to fail to understand what “statistically significant” means, especially in the context of a study that suggested that that “statistically significant” result was not biologically significant. Thompson’s co-authors suggested that the observed increase in the odds ratio for vaccination in the tiny subsample of African American boys who did not receive MMR on time was due to the vaccination requirements for entry preschool programs for special needs children: the children were vaccinated because they were autistic rather than they became autistic because they were vaccinated.
- #196 Marsha
  March 30, 2016
  
  Brian I think you should re-read your statement about what Thompson’s co-authors ‘suggested’… sounds like they were ducking for cover after being exposed! What a ridiculous comment… vaccinated because they were autistic??… why? The corruption in the CDC has already been exposed… when there’s books and movies about it, you know you have a problem!
#197 shay simmons
March 30, 2016

Lots of antivax groups out there with money.

Wakefield’s Strategic Autism Initiative, for example, which between 2010-2013 collected about $600k, and who handed out grant monies totaling …$80k. Where did the rest of that donated money go?

http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2014/11/07/andrew-wakefield-paid-316k-to-administer-80k-in-grants-by-the-strategic-autism-inititiative/

Nice work if you can get it.
#198 brian
March 30, 2016

Marsha, did you read the paper? Here’s the final sentence from the discussion:

The difference in vaccination coverage by 36 months of age between case and control children is likely to be an artifact of immunization requirements for preschool special education attendance in case children.
#199 Mephistopheles O'Brien
March 30, 2016

when there’s books and movies about it, you know you have a problem!

There are books and movies about a universe that includes Jedi Knights. I’m not seeing a problem, but perhaps you see differently.
- #200 Marsha
  March 30, 2016
  
  OK, so you don’t have trouble distinguishing fact from fiction, you can listen to a Doctor/ Researcher explaining very comprehensively the faults/ distortions/ manipulations in the ‘scientific’ studies for Gardasil and the lack of study into adverse reaction related to reproductive health. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoWUSuGCo-I&ebc=ANyPxKrY04nLoclbvjKXxONpq757wKcqMHNM7bVEkhx3oEHEXC8fKqya9fsDiTvPuTHxYj4OE9Kk
#201 Chris
March 30, 2016

Oooh, evidence by YouTube, of an obstetrician on a religious channel! Well that obviously is much better than vast numbers of studies done by scientists and doctors around this planet.

And it has nothing to do with the American MMR vaccine.
- #202 Marsha
  March 30, 2016
  
  If you bothered to watch Chris, you’ll see she pulls apart those ‘vast number’ (a handful) of studies by other scientists usually employed by the pharmaceutical company. Brian raised Gardasil… I was merely responding.
  Respectfully my husband has a med science degree and he along with the editors of many pre-eminent medical journals, has also come to the conclusion that many scientific studies are flawed, hence the need for organisations such as the Cochrane Group.
#203 Chris Preston
Australia
March 30, 2016

Doctor/ Researcher explaining very comprehensively the faults/ distortions/ manipulations in the ‘scientific’ studies for Gardasil and the lack of study into adverse reaction related to reproductive health.

Ah Deirdre Little, National Bioethics Convenor for the Catholic Women’s League.

Are you able to spell: conflict of interest?
- #204 Marsha
  March 30, 2016
  
  Yes, conflict of interest is spelt, “Murdoch on the boards or having shares in Glaxo, Merck etc and demonising anti-vaxers in the media and big pharma donating to government officials & ministers and Gates & Sloan getting to De Niro…
#205 brian
March 30, 2016

Marsha, one in ten thousand women between the ages of 15 to 29 suffer premature ovarian failure. It would be surprising indeed if some Gardasil recipients did not suffer POF. The question is this: is the prevalence of POF higher in vaccinated than in unvaccinated populations?

After the distribution of nearly 100 million does of HPV vaccines, the answer certainly appears to be “no.” [Stillo M et al. Safety of human papillomavirus vaccines: a review. Expert Opin Drug Saf. 2015 May 4; 14(5): 697–712.]
- #206 Marsha
  March 30, 2016
  
  ‘Distribution from the lab does not equal administration… as many vaccines are disposed of due to compromised conditions, being disposed of due to expiry dates etc so the doses administered will be significantly lower, so your figures for VAERs will always be distorted.
#207 Science Mom
http://justthevax.blogspot.com/
March 30, 2016

If you bothered to watch Chris, you’ll see she pulls apart those ‘vast number’ (a handful) of studies by other scientists usually employed by the pharmaceutical company.

Real scientists publish in the scientific literature, not put up YouTube vids.

Respectfully my husband has a med science degree and he along with the editors of many pre-eminent medical journals, has also come to the conclusion that many scientific studies are flawed, hence the need for organisations such as the Cochrane Group.

Yes some scientific studies are flawed which is why no single study is accepted at face-value. Peer review is flawed which is why we must ever strive to improve it. As much as I love the Cochrane Collaboration, even they are flawed. That doesn’t mean YouTube videos superior in evidentiary quality than the scientific literature. It sounds like your husband’s “med science degree” isn’t doing him or you much good. Respectfully of course.

‘Distribution from the lab does not equal administration…

Read, dig deeper if you have to. In this case distribution means administration.
- #208 Marsha
  March 30, 2016
  
  In response:
  1. Shay – Husband’s degree is in histopathology.
  2. Science Mom – What nobody goes to med conferences anymore that are recorded? Time to check in your library cards and ‘check the net’. If you bothered to watch you’ll see it presented a number of studies, one of which was offered here previously as ‘evidence’ as use of saline in placebo’s but flawed in methodology to prove efficacy.
  3. Science Mom – Prove that distribution is administration…(in this case) given that many vaccines are disposed of before use.
#209 shay simmons
March 30, 2016

“my husband has a med science degree”

So does my older brother. He’s an x-ray technician.
#210 herr doktor bimler
March 30, 2016

conflict of interest is spelt

NO NO NO this is spelt.
#211 herr doktor bimler
March 30, 2016

hence the need for organisations such as the Cochrane Group.

Pro-tip: Spell it “Cochraine” for Bonus Trolling Points.
#212 The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
March 30, 2016

How does RI suddenly have nested comments, but only for Marsha?
#213 herr doktor bimler
March 30, 2016

How does RI suddenly have nested comments, but only for Marsha?

For Marsha and other Sciencebloggers.
#214 Science Mom
http://justthevax.blogspot.com/
March 31, 2016

2. Science Mom – What nobody goes to med conferences anymore that are recorded? Time to check in your library cards and ‘check the net’. If you bothered to watch you’ll see it presented a number of studies, one of which was offered here previously as ‘evidence’ as use of saline in placebo’s but flawed in methodology to prove efficacy.

You call that a conference? And if she had anything substantive she would have published a review in a reputable journal. It’s still argumentum ad YouTube. (forgive me Latin scholars.)

3. Science Mom – Prove that distribution is administration…(in this case) given that many vaccines are disposed of before use.

Just a back of the envelope calculation of those studies I could access to confirm, 703,954 doses administered and a non-overlapping 29,491,994 doses distributed. What you should have done.
#215 brian
March 31, 2016

Marsha, you raised the idea that HPV vaccination causes premature ovarian failure. When I pointed out that the evidence refutes that idea, you chose to focus on the idea that not all of the distributed vaccines had been administered as if that somehow supported your point. Since HPV vaccines are used in ca. 66 countries including the US, Canada, Australia, and most of Western Europe, and since vaccine uptake is increasing (by 2013 about 57% of girls and 37% of boys age 13-17 in the US had been vaccinated) it should be clear that millions of adolescents have received HPV vaccines.

The evidence does not support the idea that Premature Ovarian Failure is more common among girls vaccinated against HPV than in the unvaccinated population. In fact, the evidence just doesn’t support the tropes that you’ve gleaned from anti-vaccine echo chambers and spewed here as you attempted to slide from one refuted position to another. That’s all.
#216 Science Mom
http://justthevax.blogspot.com/
March 31, 2016

For Marsha and other Sciencebloggers.

Okay second time I’ve seen this reference. Care to spill?
#217 Julian Frost
Gauteng East Rand
March 31, 2016

Marsha:

Distribution from the lab does not equal administration… as many vaccines are disposed of due to compromised conditions, being disposed of due to expiry dates etc so the doses administered will be significantly lower, so your figures for VAERs will always be distorted.

Supporting evidence needed. Your say so is not proof.
#218 Alain
March 31, 2016

1. Shay – Husband’s degree is in histopathology.

So? My university studies in neuroscience doesn’t prevent one of my brother from being a functional illiterate despite all my best effort to help him…

Alain
- #219 Marsha
  March 31, 2016
  
  Comment was for Shay.
  I also have a brother like that much to my dismay.
#220 herr doktor bimler
March 31, 2016

Care to spill?
The ability to add replies to comments as sub-threads suggests that “Marsha” is a blogger, with “tongue so firmly in cheek as to protrude from the vulgar bodily orifice”.

I am not familiar with the entire Scienceblogs ecosystem, but my reading of Narad’s uncharacteristically cryptic comment #180 was that one particular member has prior form for stirring things up.
#221 LouV
France
March 31, 2016

when there’s books and movies about it, you know you have a problem !

Then I am sure you’ll have no problem answering the detailed criticisms of the book and the trailer that have been published here, on ScienceBasedMedicine or Left Brain Right Brain ?

https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/vaccine-whistleblower-bj-hooker-and-william-thompson-try-to-talk-about-epidemiology/
https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/review-of-vaccine-whistleblower-a-legal-perspective/
https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/vaccine-whistleblower-an-antivaccine-expose-full-of-sound-and-fury-signifying-nothing/
#222 Narad
March 31, 2016

How does RI suddenly have nested comments, but only for Marsha?

I saw it earlier “today” from one non-Marsha commenter; it may be platform dependent, viz., another half-assed job from the thought-free SB IT monkeys. (Note their earlier tinkering with on-again, off-again direction of comment links to HTTPS versions.)
#223 OP
March 31, 2016

How does RI suddenly have nested comments, but only for Marsha?

I got a nested comment by hitting reply in the email notification of comments.
#224 Todd W.
http://www.harpocratesspeaks.com
March 31, 2016

@Marsha

Would you be so kind as to answer the questions I asked you in comment #191? Thanks.
#225 MI Dawn
March 31, 2016

I’m more than happy to think that Marsha is from Australia, because of her spellings of certain words. I can’t check IP addresses, but her verbiage and statements remind me a lot of another Marsha whom Reasonable Hank showcased in one of his postings.

And, Marsha has totally ignored those of us who pointed out Gardisil had saline double blind trials. She obviously only believes in HER version of the truth…
#226 Chris
March 31, 2016

Marsha, the HPV vaccine will not prevent measles, mumps and rubella. Wakefield’s little fictional film was on the American MMR vaccine, so you blatherings are pointless.
- #227 Marsha
  March 31, 2016
  
  Thanks Dopey,
  But the HPV conversation was with someone else who thought they’d try to source a double blind placebo vaccine study that actually used a saline instead of adjuvants… keep up! Obviously there haven’t been any conducted for MMR as vaccine manufacturers usually prefer to distort the results by not using saline. Kapeesh?
#228 brian
March 31, 2016

HDB: Oh, man! I hate to think that I wasted time replying to a bored Scienceblogger–but , um, I otherwise wasted time replying to someone whose best defense of her blathering is that she is married to someone with a science degree.
#229 shay simmons
March 31, 2016

Alain — what you said.

I was married for 21 years to an infantryman (now I’m married to an ex-infantryman). This does not in any way, shape or form qualify me to set up a defensive perimeter with interlocking fields of fire and a coordinated barrier plan.

(although I still do know what MOOSEMUSS stands for).
#230 Dangerous Bacon
March 31, 2016

Marsha: “when there’s books and movies about it, you know you have a problem!”

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=chemtrails

And don’t miss the YouTube videos which confirm there’s a Chemtrail Problem.
#231 Ellie
Still on the green side of the grass
March 31, 2016

@229
Yes, certainly. I went to YouTube and learned I could get rid of the chemtrails by spraying them with Windex. I feel much safer now.
#232 Marsha
March 31, 2016

#228 & #229 The point was that we research this subject together and if I have questions… as my degrees are in other areas, I refer to him… hence we don’t vaccinate our kids (with the blessings of our 2 family med doctors, one of which has written a book on the subject).
#233 Marsha
March 31, 2016

Clearly there’s a problem when people o this site can’t distinguish fact from fiction.
Obviously denial isn’t just a river in Egypt…
PS This is so much fun… and no, not a bored blogger, but yes, am familiar with Unreasonable Wank, but not a target… yet!
#234 Marsha
March 31, 2016

Please refer to comment #233.
And I’m impressed you were able to find a saline placebo… the first yet! Most pro-vaxers just resort to abuse and denigration instead of doing their homework. Not the MMR but Gardasil will do… obviously you didn’t watch the lecture by Dr Deidre Little or you would have seen her discredit it with many other ‘fast tracked’ studies with low sample due to massive drop out rates and limited scope to observe affects on reproductive organs. Oh well, guess you can nurse your daughters through those lovely side effects in years to come.
By the way, I noticed all of you only bothered to comment on the YouTube clip and not the other pubmed studies i posted. Typical… cherry picking!
#235 Dangerous Bacon
March 31, 2016

“The point was that we research this subject together”

Scouring the Internet for antivax glurge is not “research”.

“we don’t vaccinate our kids (with the blessings of our 2 family med doctors”

Too bad they’re apparently so badly out of touch with the rest of their profession.

http://www.healthisprimary.org/aug132015release
#236 Marsha
March 31, 2016

And you totally ignored the other 3 studies I posted… see comment #234
#237 Delphine
pop muzik
March 31, 2016

Marsha Marsha Marsha………

one of which (sic) has written a book on the subject

Could you please provide a link to the book?

I’m married to a guitarist of some repute. I can’t even play an open G without screwing it up and I like to annoy him by referring to Jaco Pistorius as Paco Rabanne. But whatever works for you both, dear.
- #238 Marsha
  March 31, 2016
  
  Oh so patronising, Dear.
  So this is the part where you attempt to systematically discredit one of my doctors?
  https://herbsarespecial.com.au/books_and_dvds/vaccination.html
  
  Dr Peter Baratosy – Started out in the military as a GP (That’s a General Practitioner i.e. medical doctor in Australia) and became disillusioned so has done further research and broadened his studies into other modalities.
#239 Delphine
March 31, 2016

*over-the-shoulder-indignant-correction PASTORIUS
#240 Marsha
March 31, 2016

#235 –
“Too bad they’re apparently so badly out of touch with the rest of their profession.”
I wouldn’t say out of touch, I would say enlightened and disillusioned with the ‘sickness industry’ perpetuated by big pharma and their lobbyists who have so comprehensively infiltrated your government to enforce such draconian policies such as mandatory vaccinations for all school children in most States??!! So much for land of the free! You’re only free if you relent to let your government stick a bunch of toxic substances under the guise of ‘protection’- Mengele style – into your otherwise healthy baby!… “Aahhh… America, the best democracy money can buy!” I can say that because my parents are ex-pats.
Going back to De Niro… if Freedom of Speech is so important to you Yanks… why are you trying to censor a movie?
#241 Narad
March 31, 2016

if Freedom of Speech is so important to you Yanks… why are you trying to censor a movie?

You seem to be unclear on the concept.
#242 Chris
March 31, 2016

So, Marsha, why do you think insults are a valid substitute for data and evidence? Still the subject of Wakefield’s little fictional film is the American MMR, not the HPV vaccine. Please stop mixing them up.

Now please provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers (not elderly GP’s who sells herbs in Australia) that the American MMR vaccine causes more problems than measles, mumps and rubella.

“Going back to De Niro… if Freedom of Speech is so important to you Yanks… why are you trying to censor a movie?”

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from criticism. Also the film festival is a private organization and not the US Congress (yeah, go read the first amendment to the US Constitution). I believe I am within my rights to block the channels on my DVR that show porn. Why would you force me to allow my children access to that content?
- #243 Marsha
  March 31, 2016
  
  Well done you!
#244 Narad
March 31, 2016

And I’m impressed you were able to find a saline placebo… the first yet!

Apparently you missed the part about the Salk trials.
- #245 Marsha
  March 31, 2016
  
  Oh please Narad, you’re making this too easy…
  And in your polio research you must have missed the part about the Cutter Incident (adding 40,000 new cases, paralysing 200 and killing 10) written by none other than your hero Paul Offit.
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1383764/
  Also about the part where the clever scientists thought they’d slice and dice a bit of SV40 monkey virus into the mix to give 98 million polio recipients cancer to boot! So if the polio doesn’t get ya the cancer will!! (Add Dr.Evil laugh).
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10472327
  
  Haven’t they re-named polio Guillane Barre Syndrome… you know the bonus diseases you get after the flu shot… otherwise the punters wouldn’t think the vaccine worked!
#246 Delphine
March 31, 2016

Oh so patronising, Dear.
So this is the part where you attempt to systematically discredit one of my doctors?
https://herbsarespecial.com.au/books_and_dvds/vaccination.html

Yes!! This is the part!!!

http://whatisvaccination.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Chicken-Pox-by-Dr-Peter-Baratosy-MB-BS-PhD.pdf

Thank you for explaining what “GP” means, very helpful!!

(pro-tip, not all of the minions are American)
#247 Delphine
March 31, 2016

BTW Marsha, I waded deeper upthread and was heartened to see that you invoked the notion of bullying. I just don’t think people on the internet feel victimized enough these days.
#248 brian
March 31, 2016

Obviously there haven’t been any [placebo-controlled trials] conducted for MMR as vaccine manufacturers usually prefer to distort the results by not using saline.

Can you think of no other reason that a placebo might not be appropriately used in a vaccine trial?

Although there has been a placebo-controlled trial of MMR [1] as wells as similar trials [e.g., 2] of other combined measles vaccines, such trials have been uncommon in recent years for ethical reasons. For background information, you might want to read the Declaration of Helsinki and the Belmont Report.

FDA and the World Health Organization take the recommendations in those documents seriously–and so do physicians and scientists around the world. If a vaccine for a particular disease already exists, WHO suggests that a comparator should be used instead of placebo in a trial of a new vaccine or combined vaccine except in specific and largely local circumstances, so that both the experimental and the control groups receive active treatment. [3]

1. Peltola H, Heinonen OP. Frequency of true adverse reactions to measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. A double-blind placebo-controlled trial in twins. Lancet. 1986 Apr 26;1(8487):939-42.

2. Englund JA et al. Placebo-controlled trial of varicella vaccine given with or after measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. J Pediatr. 1989 Jan;114(1):37-44.

3. Rid A et al. Placebo use in vaccine trials: recommendations of a WHO expert panel. Vaccine. 2014 Aug 20;32(37):4708-12.
#249 Helianthus
March 31, 2016

Mengele style

Aaand the Godwin point.
By someone who has no idea what Mengele was doing, but never mind.
Since then, Marsha also added the “polio was relabelled” cliché.
I think I can say Bingo.

By the way, I noticed all of you only bothered to comment on the YouTube clip and not the other pubmed studies i posted.

Um. I don’t remember Marsha posting studies before #234. Let’s search the thread.
The Youtube clip, I found the link on this thread.

The “other pubmed studies” Marsha posted before #234… I must have missed them.

——————————-
Now, as of #244.

Ah, the Cutter incident.
Sad evidence that BigPharma screw up from time to time.

SV40; OTOH…
Next to the 1999 article Marsha linked to, the NCBI helpfully linked to a few review articles (a summary of many articles). In short, the involvement of SV40 in cancer is controversial.
While a review in 2000 concluded of the guilt of SV40, two other reviews in 2005 and 2006 seem to go in the opposite direction.

e.g; 2006
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16963733
- #250 Marsha
  March 31, 2016
  
  #249 Helianthus
  Ah, the Cutter incident.
  Sad evidence that BigPharma screw up from time to time.
  
  ARE YOU SERIOUS? Screw up from time to time???
  
  Big Pharma kill more Americans in one year than you lost in every world conflict!!
  Here’s a few more cock-ups from pharma…
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13QiSV_lrDQ
  Here’s a lovely interview with Offit vs Dr Boyd Haley PhD (I think you’ll find he’s pretty well qualified).
  There’s even a new textbook researched by 8 scientist researchers from around the world that connect the dots between vaccines and autoimmune diseases.
  http://au.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118663438,subjectCd-MD17.html
  Next you’re going to tell me that Dr Judy Mikovits PhD doesn’t know what she’s talking about!!
  
  Look, I’ve got better things to do, so this is my last comment… you pro-vaxers can shoot up your kids and yourselves with neurotoxic adjuvants, but I’d prefer to keep my kids healthy. They enjoy being some of the few kids at their school camps who don’t have to line up for the medications for inflammatory diseases like asthma, exzema and allergies, like all the other sick vaccinated kids… and yes, before the next person says, oh but they might get an infectious disease instead… they’ve already had some and got through it very well because they’re healthy and their immune systems haven’t been crippled by toxins AND now have life long immunity.
  AND many vaccinated kids get sick from THOSE diseases too… if you’re scientists you’ll know that the vaccine don’t prevent you from catching the diseases per se and if you read the CDC page you’ll also know that newly vaccinated people are also more like to spread some diseases immediately after vaccination. That’s why oncologists often tell their immuno-compromised patients to avoid newly vaccinated people. So, on that note, farewell & live long… well as long as you can under the circumstances. x
  
  There are countless ‘screw ups’ for vaccine around the world… India sued the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for awful adverse reactions from the Gardasil vaccine, Japan had a high infant mortality rate and started delaying their vaccinations until over age 2 and now have the lowest in the world. There are many outbreaks around the world in vaccinated populations. I have a personally friend who had their 5th baby and was advised by the hospital nurse to have a pertussis jab to see his baby and he is now disabled – Ben Hammond, lives in WA, Aust.
#251 Marsha
March 31, 2016

#242
(Still the subject of Wakefield’s little fictional film is the American MMR, not the HPV vaccine. Please stop mixing them up.)
Keep up Chris, the HPV was raised by one of your cohorts, I merely responded.

(Now please provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers (not elderly GP’s who sells herbs in Australia) that the American MMR vaccine causes more problems than measles, mumps and rubella).

Find me one not funded by big pharma that says it’s safe and hasn’t used adjuvants ain the placebo i.e. not ‘studied’ by the manufacturer so it’s independent.. you know, not bollocks. But given your research was conducted by a lying criminal Poul Thorsen with a track record of falsified studies, can’t expect your MMR studies will be worth the grant money he stole.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-crime-research-funds-idUSTRE73C8JJ20110413

Here’s something interesting …
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-376203/Former-science-chief-MMR-fears-coming-true.html#ixzz44OsASUxC

(Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from criticism. Also the film festival is a private organization and not the US Congress (yeah, go read the first amendment to the US Constitution). I believe I am within my rights to block the channels on my DVR that show porn. Why would you force me to allow my children access to that content?)

Don’t mind criticism, but your cohorts attempted to shut it down with their demonstration plans earlier – wreaks of fear and facism to me – can’t let the truth come out. Don’t care what your do in the privacy of your own home, but the public have a right to see a movie which simply depicts the story of a whistle blower and information that is already on the public record i.e. the CDC is corrupt and has a revolving door to big pharma and the FDA… conflict of interest.
#252 Delphine
March 31, 2016

wreaks (sic) of fear and facism to me

To me, it reeked of bullying.
#253 Chris
March 31, 2016

That Daily Fail article is from 2006:
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2006/02/09/peter-fletcher-melanie-phillips-and-the-daily-mail-a-cracked-facade/

Do try again, but with PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that the American MMR that was introduced in 1971, and modified in 1978 (which was the favored vaccine for the Measles Elimination Program) causes more harm than measles, mumps and rubella.

Ten year old news articles do not qualify.
#254 herr doktor bimler
March 31, 2016

but the public have a right to see a movie

And the only person stopping them from seeing the movie is Andy Wakefield, with his refusal to upload it to YouTuba, so I don’t know why Marsha chosen RI for her tantrum.
#255 Science Mom
http://justthevax.blogspot.com/
March 31, 2016

Thanks Dopey,

Says the person who thinks thiomersal was in MMR, Thompson claimed fraud at Merck, refusing to show a film at a private film festival is censorship, YouTube is research, her husband’s degree means expertise and a woo-struck physician knows more than thousands of vaccine researchers.

@Helianthus, no she didn’t have a single cite other than her YouTube video when she whinged about no one reading her other cites.

As for her anti-vaxx doctor:

dicine and started to seek out alternatives. He studied various modalities, such as Acupuncture, Homeopathy, Hypnotherapy, Nutritional and Environmental Medicine. He has a PhD in Complementary Medicine and is a Fellow of the Australian College of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine.
Aw he sounds so speshul AND he had a “journey” towards enlightenment. Becoming willfully barmy isn’t a freakin journey.
#256 Woo Fighter
March 31, 2016

So this is the part where you attempt to systematically discredit one of my doctors?

Not necessary. It seems to me as if the good doctor is doing a great job of systematically discrediting himself.

From his own website:

Dr Baratosy believes that the best approach in the treatment of disease is the use of “natural” medicine: lifestyle, diet, nutrition and natural therapies. That is what he considers real medicine. Some have referred to the natural approach as “complementary” medicine… as if the natural approach complements the sanctioned modern, drug, surgery approach.
Dr Baratosy disagrees.
Modern medicine should be called “complementary medicine” because it is complementary to the natural, preventative approach, and not the other way around.
The natural, preventative approach is the best means of dealing with health problems. In spite of what has just been said; modern medicine cannot be totally dismissed… it does have a place; its main usefulness is possibly only in life and death situations and, possibly, as a last resort.
Dr Baratosy uses many natural techniques in the treatment of disease, such as diet and nutrition, including intravenous Vitamin C and other nutrients, acupuncture, prolotherapy, chelation, homeopathy, hypnotherapy, bio-identical hormones and herbalism.
#257 Narad
March 31, 2016

Just by the by, as Marsha’s decidedly low-rent performance isn’t exactly holding my interest (not to mention having to scroll back for the nested comments), I was just reading an interview with John Baez that mentioned his Crackpot Index, which I had forgotten about.

I take it that the overlaps with antivaccine cranks will be obvious.
#258 Narad
March 31, 2016

^ For example, after being supplied twice with another (massive) double-blinded, saline-placebo-controlled trial, the best that Marsha could come up with was changing the subject:

Oh please Narad, you’re making this too easy…
And in your polio research you must have missed the part about the Cutter Incident (adding 40,000 new cases, paralysing 200 and killing 10) written by none other than your hero Paul Offit.

Just another poorly built automaton.
#259 Science Mom
http://justthevax.blogspot.com/
March 31, 2016

The Crackpot index is terrific; thanks for sharing that. It would only take some minor modifications to apply that to anti-vaxx cranks. I think I’ll have a go at it sometime soon.
#260 herr doktor bimler
March 31, 2016

a lying criminal Poul Thorsen with a track record of falsified studies

Please to provide evidence of falsified studies. Please to provide conviction for alleged criminality.
- #261 Marsha
  April 1, 2016
  
  Poul Thorsen – Autism researcher funded by the CDC to discredit Wakefield …and fugitive http://oig.hhs.gov/fraud/fugitives/profiles.asp
#262 herr doktor bimler
March 31, 2016

Don’t mind criticism

“Desperately seeking ~~disagreement~~ martyrdom” would be more accurate.

Marsha’s decidedly low-rent performance isn’t exactly holding my interest

It’s been a variation on the Gish gallop. Pack five lies into as many sentences; wait for other commenters to refute four of those five lies; triumphantly brandish this response as a tacit acceptance that the fifth lie was actually true.
#263 herr doktor bimler
March 31, 2016

Haven’t they re-named polio Guillane Barre Syndrome… you know the bonus diseases you get after the flu shot

I would like to know more about the time machine that Guillane and Barré must have been using, when they described their eponymous syndrome back in 1916.
#264 Dangerous Bacon
March 31, 2016

Marsha: “Haven’t they re-named polio Guillane Barre Syndrome… you know the bonus diseases you get after the flu shot… otherwise the punters wouldn’t think the vaccine worked!”

Marsha: “I’ve got better things to do”

…hopefully including a psychiatric consultation.
#265 Delphine
March 31, 2016

Japan had a high infant mortality rate and started delaying their vaccinations until over age 2 and now have the lowest in the world.

No, Japan doesn’t have the lowest rate of infant mortality in the world (though it is low, there are other countries in which the rate is equal at 4/1000) No, their rate of infant mortality did not fall in the wake of changes to their vaccine schedule.

Here’s a 2014 chart on Japan/childhood immunization. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2014/10/04/lifestyle/vaccination-choice-two-unknowns/#.Vv3gQ5wrLIV

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
#266 JP
March 31, 2016

…hopefully including a psychiatric consultation.

Meh. Marsha’s shtick is not nearly colorful or interesting enough to pass for real madness.
#267 Science Mom
http://justthevax.blogspot.com/
March 31, 2016

Japan had a high infant mortality rate and started delaying their vaccinations until over age 2 and now have the lowest in the world.

Oh I missed this but not hard considering the copious amount of copralite Marsha is leaving around. But speaking of copralite, Marsha exhumes this from Vera Schreibner and doesn’t even get the crank’s claim right.
#268 Delphine
March 31, 2016

Okay so now that I’ve been arsed to look it up, Japan’s at 2/1000. Same for Sweden, Norway, Slovenia, Iceland, and Singapore.
- #269 Marsha
  April 1, 2016
  
  Delphine #268
  You’ll see that vaccines are linked to SIDS deaths and the US is worst developed country for IMR – ranked 34 in the world for Infant Mortality rate after many developing countries and has the highest numbers of vaccinations on their schedule. Those with fewer vaccines have better IMR’shttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170075/Also http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-17509/Why-Japan-banned-MMR-vaccine.html
  
  Science Mom #266 Who’s Vera??
#270 Delphine
March 31, 2016

Is that regurgitated Vera garbage? I wondered where she got that. It makes little sense, if you’re truly committed to being anti-vaccine. Is there something magical that happens after the 2nd birthday that makes vaccines A-OK, or do they just write them off to suffer and die from the terrible side effects??
#271 herr doktor bimler
March 31, 2016

But speaking of copralite

I use real organic-grown FairTrade copra and help keep independent coconut growers in business.
#272 Science Mom
http://justthevax.blogspot.com/
March 31, 2016

@ HDB, well that serves me right. Hurumph, grumble.
#273 herr doktor bimler
March 31, 2016

Disagreeable people pay more attention to typos and minor grammatical errors.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0149885
#274 Narad
April 1, 2016

Disagreeable people pay more attention to typos and minor grammatical errors.

Is this the one that uses the nauseating concoction “grammos”?
#275 capnkrunch
April 1, 2016

Grammos? Like the breakfast cereal recommended by 9 out of 10 English teachers?
#276 Helianthus
April 1, 2016

@ Science Mom

no she didn’t have a single cite other than her YouTube video when she whinged about no one reading her other cites.

Thought so.
Don’t read the articles we provided but insist we read the articles she didn’t provide.
Shifting the goalposts to the point of removing them from the playground altogether.
For someone draping herself in honesty and moral high ground…

Say, anyone has a spare crank Bingo card? I started writing on the blank backside of mine, but it’s overflowing, now.
A troll Bingo card would do, in a pinch.
#277 capnkrunch
April 1, 2016

Speaking of COIs (haven’t bothered reading Marsha’s posts but I’m sure she said something along the lines) the study she linked to in #269) has a correction because the authors initially failed to disclose COIs and funding sources. Seems to be a common theme for antivax papers. Yay transparency!
#278 Julian Frost
Gauteng East Rand
April 1, 2016

@Marsha #269:

You’ll see that vaccines are linked to SIDS deaths

False.
http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk/en/publications/reanalyses-of-casecontrol-studies-examining-the-temporal-association-between-sudden-infant-death-syndrome-and-vaccination%280b8f1152-32bb-426a-8190-de35474f7437%29.html
From the abstract:

There is no increased or reduced risk of sudden infant death during the period after the vaccination.

Vaccines do not cause SIDS.
#279 Chris
April 1, 2016

Marsha, Marsha, Marsha: “Japan had a high infant mortality rate and started delaying their vaccinations until over age 2 and now have the lowest in the world.”

How did I miss this classic anti-vax gem. Oh, wait… it was surrounded by lots of other nonsense. This is one insidious lie that has been around by decades. Yeah, the reason they could not blame the vaccine for SIDS is because more kids actually died from pertussis!

Here is an actual study:
Expert Rev Vaccines. 2005 Apr;4(2):173-84.
Acellular pertussis vaccines in Japan: past, present and future.

Here is verbiage from the abstract: “After two infants died within 24 h of the vaccination from 1974 to 1975, the Japanese government temporarily suspended vaccinations. Subsequently, the public and the government witnessed the re-emergence of whooping cough, with 41 deaths in 1979. This series of unfortunate events revealed to the public that the vaccine had, in fact, been beneficial.”

Here is a more detailed explanation: Impact of anti-vaccine movements on pertussis control: the untold story

Oh, and about Japan and their MMR vaccine, see Measles vaccine coverage and factors related to uncompleted vaccination among 18-month-old and 36-month-old children in Kyoto, Japan. Which says:

The Immunization Law in Japan has been providing children with measles vaccination since 1978. Since Measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine was introduced into Japan in 1989, a number of cases of post-vaccination aseptic meningitis have been reported and these have been attributed to the use of Urabe Am9 mumps vaccine [8]. In 1993, the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) withdrew the domestically produced MMR vaccine [9]. As of 1994, an amendment to the Immunization Law made vaccination voluntary and not mandatory. According to the present law, a single dose of measles vaccine is recommended for children over one year of age. Children are eligible to receive measles vaccination after 12 months following birth but not beyond 90 months. Until January 2004, adminisiration of measles vaccine was recommended between 12 and 24 months of age, instead of between 12 and 15 months when children have the greatest risk of contracting measles [10]. In Japan, measles vaccine coverage has remained low, and either small or moderate outbreaks have occurred repeatedly in communities. According to an infectious disease surveillance (2000), total measles cases were estimated to be from 180,000 to 210,000, and total deaths were estimated to be 88 [11,12]

Yeah, the public health decisions instead of scientific ones tended to cause deaths in Japan. They are not the country to look for guidance on sound vaccine policy. Plus the Urabe mumps vaccine strain was never used in the USA.

Marsha, Marsha, Marsha — please stop lying and provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that the American MMR causes more issues than measles, mumps and rubella.
I am sorry, but Japan is not an American state. Do try to brush up on your geography.
- #280 Marsha
  Australia
  April 1, 2016
  
  Julian than why is sids listed as a side effect on some vaccine package inserts? If side wasn’t a possible consequence of vaccines why is it on many vaers?
  And Chris, I live in Australia which is in Asia (so more relevant to me than you, no doubt)… Not sure if our MMR is same as yours… & haven’t got time to check right now…
#281 Julian Frost
Gauteng East Rand
April 1, 2016

P.S. I went to the link Marsha provided. It’s “Infant mortality rates regressed against number of vaccine doses routinely given: Is there a biochemical or synergistic toxicity?” Authors are Neil Z Miller and Gary S Goldman, familiar names to the readers here. In addition, “This article has been corrected. See Hum Exp Toxicol. 2011 September; 30(9): 1429.”
I went to the Corrigendum. Miller and Goldman failed to disclose several conflicts of interest.
Not quite the slam dunk you thought, Marsha.
#282 Chris
April 1, 2016

My apologies for leaving out several important words in one sentence: “Yeah, the public health decisions based on politics instead of scientific ~~ones~~ reasons tended to cause deaths in Japan”

Yeah, because politicians don’t care about science. Ever hear of Orrin Hatch and his protection for supplement manufacturers?
#283 gaist
April 1, 2016

Obviously Masha’s “better things to do” were done rather quickly, and did not include searching for links to research she was asked to provide and insists people haven’t read….
#284 gaist
April 1, 2016

Marsha. Apologies.
#285 LouV
France
April 1, 2016

@Marsha #250
I see that you chose not to comment on the graphic provided by Delphine @265, which completely contradict your claim that Japan “started delaying their vaccinations until over age 2”. Unless by “2” you meant “2 minutes / hours / days”.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3824286/
They suspended the whole cell pertussis vaccine in the 70s, but introduced the acellular pertussis vaccine in the 80s (this vaccine is also used in western countries).
So I failed to see how any of this could have a link with the SIDS rate nowadays.

Also, using the “Reply” function doesn’t help to see your new comments for those of us who are reloading the page, and puts them in the wrong order chronologically ; this might explain why we missed your Pubme links.
#286 LouV
April 1, 2016

@Marsha #250

I meant #269.
#287 herr doktor bimler
April 1, 2016

Is this the one that uses the nauseating concoction “grammos”?

Also, “peevers”.
#288 Narad
April 1, 2016

Also, using the “Reply” function doesn’t help to see your new comments for those of us who are reloading the page

It does point to how little use this function attracts, though. I recall people stating that it wasn’t working at all, and I infer that it’s HTML-mail, which wouldn’t work for me in any event.

Has anybody tested how deep the nesting will go?
#289 Helianthus
April 1, 2016

@ LouV

Also, using the “Reply” function doesn’t help to see your new comments for those of us who are reloading the page, and puts them in the wrong order chronologically ; this might explain why we missed your Pubme links.

On the latter, not likely.
When Marsha published her reproachful comments #234/236, the comment #245 with the pubmed links, in response to Narad #244, was not visible yet. And #234/236/244 were not published using the reply function, so they should be in chronological order.
And to my knowledge, #245 was the first comment with pubmed links at that time.
If there is another Marsha comment with pubmed links before #234, I would like it to be pointed to me. I do read them.
#290 Helianthus
April 1, 2016

@ Chris #279

Oh, and about Japan and their MMR vaccine

The interesting part is, that the info you just quoted was already present in the Daily mail article she quoted, if a bit in a confusing way. The issue with the Urabe mumps strain is presented midway down.
And right in the closing sentence, the 90-ish deaths of babies from wild measles following the MMR ban.

(as an aside, could not find the date of publication of this Daily mail article. Most vexing)
#291 herr doktor bimler
April 1, 2016

Look, I’ve got better things to do, so this is my last comment…

That was a remarkably short-lived flounce.
I will admit to some curiosity as to what Marsha is up to, with her craving for martyrdom and her initial pretence of “just asking questions” that she was unable to maintain for more than one comment. As M O’B noted back at #183, she’s “not really here for the hunting”. If she wanted to change people’s minds, she would try some more effective rhetorical strategy than this sh1tweasel tactic of spewing up an entire lap-full of lies and then claiming vindication when some of them aren’t refuted immediately. But she’s putting a lot of effort into her project of presenting as a mendacious Dinobdella ferox arse-leech.

So I am inclined to pigeonhole her as a Poe.
But then I though the same thing about Phildo, the potty-mouthed chiropracticing Essex alcoholic*.

* Some of these descriptors may be redundant.
#292 Julian Frost
Gauteng East Rand
April 1, 2016

@Marsha:

why is sids listed as a side effect on some vaccine package inserts?

1) This is “Argument by Package Insert”. Any adverse events, regardless of whether they could be provably linked to the vaccine or not have to be reported.
2) From the Package Insert for Infanrix:

These adverse events were reported voluntarily from a population of uncertain size; therefore, it is not always possible to reliably estimate their frequency or establish a causal relationship to vaccination.

Just because an adverse event occurred during a vaccine trial doesn’t mean the vaccine was the casue of the adverse event.

If sid[s] wasn’t a possible consequence of vaccines why is it on many vaers?

Just because a report is made to VAERS it doesn’t automatically mean that the vaccine caused the adverse event. It means the vaccine may have caused the adverse event. What the researchers do is look for patterns of increased events after vaccinations. As that study I linked to pointed out, there is no correlation between vaccination and SIDS.
#293 herr doktor bimler
April 1, 2016

#260

a lying criminal Poul Thorsen with a track record of falsified studies”

Please to provide evidence of falsified studies. Please to provide conviction for alleged criminality.

#261 Marsha
Poul Thorsen – Autism researcher funded by the CDC to discredit Wakefield …and fugitive http://oig.hhs.gov/fraud/fugitives/profiles.asp

Let us pause to admire the complete absence from Marsha’s unresponse of evidence for falsified studies or conviction for criminality. The whole exercise in mendacity exhibits a kind of platonic perfection.
#294 OP
April 1, 2016

#280 Marsha

Australia which is in Asia

That is news to me …
#295 Narad
April 1, 2016

I see that Marsha has predictably failed to stick the flounce.
#296 Helianthus
April 1, 2016

Oh gosh, another Wakefield fan just showed up on the next day thread (March 26).

To do: rinse the discussion, repeat the same old counter-arguments, head-desk out of sheer frustration.
Sysiphe had it easy. At least the stone made no pretense of having the high ground.
#297 LouV
France
April 1, 2016

Regarding the “Australia which is in Asia”… how is geographical proximity relevant ? I live in France, but that doesn’t mean that the vaccine schedule in United Kingdon or Germany or Spain is relevant to me, even though they are much closer than Japan and Australia. Our government and public health are separated.
And I looked up “MMR australia Urabe”, which gave me at once http://www.immunise.health.gov.au/internet/immunise/publishing.nsf/Content/Handbook10-home~handbook10part4~handbook10-4-11

An increased risk of aseptic meningitis has been observed after vaccination with the Urabe strain of mumps vaccine in some countries. However, the Urabe strain is not used in Australia. MMR and MMRV vaccines available in Australia contain a Jeryl Lynn-derived strain of mumps, which is not associated with an increased risk of aseptic meningitis.
#298 Ellie
Still on the green side of the grass
April 1, 2016

Australia is in Asia? I suppose it’s way too late to track down my sixth grade teacher and correct her on world geography. She’d be 110 by now.
#299 Science Mom
http://justthevax.blogspot.com/
April 1, 2016

Julian than why is sids listed as a side effect on some vaccine package inserts? If side wasn’t a possible consequence of vaccines why is it on many vaers?
And Chris, I live in Australia which is in Asia (so more relevant to me than you, no doubt)… Not sure if our MMR is same as yours… & haven’t got time to check right now…

This is a keeper.
#300 MI Dawn
April 1, 2016

OK, so Marsha hasn’t been profiled by Reasonable Hank. But I suspect her name was in one of the other postings, as a syncopant to the profiled one, in FB comments, which is why she’s so familiar to me. Anyone who refers to the disgusting Unreasonable Wank webpage is an automatic Fail in my book.

I don’t need to rebut her droppings, because the others are doing so well. But I think I’ll ask my friends in Oz if they are in Asia, just to watch them roll on the floor with laughter. It’s pretty obvious that Marsha (since she states she’s an expat) had the typical American schooling about geography and hasn’t bothered to learn anything since.
- #301 Marsha
  April 3, 2016
  
  I’m not ex-pat, my parents are.
#302 Delphine
April 1, 2016

Delphine #268
You’ll see that vaccines are linked to SIDS deaths and the US is worst developed country for IMR – ranked 34 in the world for Infant Mortality rate after many developing countries and has the highest numbers of vaccinations on their schedule. Those with fewer vaccines have better IMR’shttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170075/Also http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-17509/Why-Japan-banned-MMR-vaccine.html

Vaccines don’t cause SIDS.

Marsha, I’m saying this in the nicest possible way, as an extremely tired person who is as yet insufficiently caffeinated and dealing with a dog with the runs — you really, really need to “do your research” elsewhere.

Exhibit A: The USA and IMR. Marsha, do you know why the USA ranks the way it does for IMR? It’s a serious question. I’ll give you one hint — it has to do with the way the US measures IMR and the way that other countries don’t. Look it up, and come back, and we can talk about IMR. There are other reasons, but that’s where you should start.

Also, I linked you to a chart demonstrating that Japan vaccinates well before 2. This was easily accessible information. It kind of throws out the whole “Japan’s IMR is so low because VACCINES” argument.
#303 Chris
April 1, 2016

Marsha, Marsha, Marsha (I missed this): “And Chris, I live in Australia which is in Asia (so more relevant to me than you, no doubt)… Not sure if our MMR is same as yours… & haven’t got time to check right now…”

Big freaking deal. Wakefield’s little fictional deal is blaming the CDC, a department in the USA, of malfeasance. So you babbling about vaccines that do not prevent measles and are not used in the USA is completely off topic. The whole bringing up a mumps strain that was never used in the USA (and apparently also not in Australia) was a pointless diversion.

So answer my question and provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that the American MMR causes more risks than measles, mumps and rubella.
#304 rs
April 1, 2016

“I suppose it’s way too late to track down my sixth grade teacher and correct her on world geography. She’d be 110 by now.”

You never know. I occasionally speak to my second grade teacher when I visit my hometown. She’s pushing 100, if not past that (I don’t ask). When we met last year she corrected my grammar. That made us both laugh. As she said, “once a teacher, always a teacher. I can’t stop myself.”
#305 JP
April 1, 2016

You never know. I occasionally speak to my second grade teacher when I visit my hometown.

I often run into a favorite professor of mine (she mostly works as a reference librarian, but teaches with others occasionally) when I’m back in Olympia. The last time I saw her she was picking up some beer for a young man who’d dog-sat for her for some time. She said she figured he wouldn’t take money, but he would take beer.

She herself doesn’t drink anymore; had one of those academia-and-ex-husband-induced drinking problems.

I might run into some of my old teachers when I go to visit my hometown later this month. I wonder if they’ll recognize me with the mohawk and all; probably, especially since I’ll probably be with my mom if we make a trip into town. They were all super excited when they found out I was in college; I wonder what they’ll think of the PhD adventure. They saw it coming, I expect. “Smartest student in the White Salmon school system!” they used to say. My typical retort was, “well, that ain’t saying much.”
#306 I 5 peggiori film complottisti - Omnia Gate
April 1, 2016

[…] Nei giorni scorsi il Tribeca Film Festival è riuscito a inoculare nuova linfa vitale al mito dei vaccini che causano l’autismo inventato dall’ex-medico Andrew Wakefield. Il Festival aveva infatti in programma di proiettareVaxxed, presentato come un documentario che svela il legame nascosto (anzi, insabbiato) tra le immunizzazioni infantili e l’epidemia di autismo e diretto dallo stesso Wakefield (!), ma è stato sommerso immediatamente di critiche da chiunque conoscesse la materia. Tribeca inizialmente ha cercato di difendere l’indifendibile appellandosi alla libertà di discussione, e poche ore dopo Robert De Niro in persona, fondatore del Festival, si è esposto ricordando che uno dei suoi figli è autistico e che era importante tutte le voci potessero essere ascoltate. […]
#307 Science Mom
http://justthevax.blogspot.com/
April 1, 2016

Heh, Wiki_p categorises Vaxxed as “docufiction”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaxxed
#308 Todd W.
http://www.harpocratesspeaks.com
April 1, 2016

@Marsha

Just in case you don’t stick the flounce, would you be so kind as to answer the questions I asked you waaaay back at #191?

Also, I noticed that you haven’t read package inserts very closely, or else you would have seen the statement that adverse events are listed whether or not they were actually caused by the vaccine. This post may help you understand package inserts a bit better: http://www.harpocratesspeaks.com/2014/09/package-inserts-understanding-what-they.html

Find me one not funded by big pharma that says it’s [MMR vaccine] safe and hasn’t used adjuvants ain [sic] the placebo

I would challenge Marsha to find any studies comparing MMR against adjuvant as the placebo, considering that MMR does not contain any adjuvants, nor has it ever had any adjuvants. Much like her erroneous claim that MMR had thimerosal in it, it appears that Marsha also does not know that MMR has no adjuvants.
#309 herr doktor bimler
April 1, 2016

India sued the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for awful adverse reactions from the Gardasil vaccine

That’s a new one on me, as Lemmy remarked while counting his moles.

It you inquire into the source of this particular lie, the first few pages of search results are the usual Two-girls-one-cup spectacle of antivax grifters plagiarising material from other antivax grifters. Eventually, however, you get to the origin of the story, in which:
1. No-one is suing the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
2. India is not suing anyone.
3. There were no “awful adverse reactions from the Gardasil vaccine”.

Rather, the Indian government is being sued, by health activists, unhappy with an abortive field trial of Gardasil. They were unhappy with wide-spread violations of parental / guardian informed-consent requirements… it turns out that corruption is so institutional in the Indian polity that if a system can somehow be manipulated to extract money from it, it will be manipulated, and in this case scammers were consenting to the vaccination of adolescents over whom they had no authority.

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Bill-Gates-faced-trial-in-India-for-illegally-testing-tribal-children-with-vaccines

So the lawsuit was essentially that the Indian federal government should have predicted this degree of corruption and ethics violations, as should PATH (the Gates-funded organisation, jointly organising the trial). India is simply not a place where one can fund public-health initiatives.

Whoever is occupying the Marsha-skin, he or she must be monitoring the alt-med echo chamber, and thought this new addition to the catechism should be brought to wider notice.
#310 Woo Fighter
April 1, 2016

Science Mom:

If you haven’t already done so, check out the “Talk” section of that Wiki entry (there’s a small tab to click on at the top of the home page).

References to Mike Adams and his “food lab” have repeatedly been deleted (edits reversed) by moderators as not credible. The back-and-forth from his defenders and anti-vaxxers is quite entertaining (as it is for any controversial subject: our former resident troll DJT got banned from editing the Burzynski page and complained loudly to moderators in “Talk.” The page for almost any quack is full of edit efforts and whining.)
#311 Julian Frost
South Africa
April 2, 2016

Looks like Marsha got tired of being a chew toy and finally stuck the flounce.
- #312 Marsha
  Australiasia
  April 3, 2016
  
  Yes Australasia or Oceania or Asia Pacific… pick one as I know Americans are notoriously ignorant about geography anywhere outside the US but could probably tell you where any town was in the US within 10 kms. (That’s kilometres, not miles).
  Would love to continue playing the sand pit (sand box to you)but have assignments due this week and next… have to prioritise… like all working/ studying mums.
#313 herr doktor bimler
April 2, 2016

Heh, Wiki_p categorises Vaxxed as “docufiction”

The Whackweedia is a paid saboteur, an accomplice of the Big Pharma doctor-assassins!!
https://pharmakills.st/paid-saboteurs/

… along with RetractionWatch, Jeffrey Beall, the GMC, Quackwatch. Sadly, Orac is not listed among the accomplices.
#314 Narad
April 2, 2016

The Whackweedia is a paid saboteur, an accomplice of the Big Pharma doctor-assassins!!

Something tells me that there’s a relationship here with mhracorrupt.st.
#315 Narad
April 2, 2016

^ And gsy.st, which confirms that “Ben Porter” is not just an administrative contact name.
#316 Delphine
love me like a reptile
April 2, 2016

That’s a new one on me, as Lemmy remarked while counting his moles.

Marsha has yet to return because she’s researching how vaccines caused Sir Lemmy’s demise.

“The USA ranks Number Terrible!!1!” for IMR gets tossed out to support both anti-vax and pro-Koi pond birth agendas. Here’s hoping Marsha was arsed to delve deeper.

What am I saying…………..
#317 Woo Fighter
April 2, 2016

I can’t be bothered to check, but I think Marsha’s debut in the comments here timestamped March 31 based on the US date, but that would already be April 1 in Australia. The same Australia that’s not in Asisa.

Could “Marsha” have just been an elaborate prank?
#318 Woo Fighter
April 2, 2016

Asia. Of course.
#319 herr doktor bimler
April 2, 2016

“Ben Porter” is not just an administrative contact name

It is possible that Sao Tome strictly enforces its domain-registration rules, and that the “Ben Porter” who registered gsy.st and gcmaftruth.st and all the associated sites is using his real name.

http://www.tcpiputils.com/browse/ip-address/190.97.165.90

But neither Porter’s e-mail address nor his cellphone number are in use anywhere else, and he does appear to be primarily concerned with the enemies of David Noakes and the various injustices heaped upon Noakes to bring his name into contumely.

“Contumely” is sadly under-used as a word, and now I want to incorporate it in a limerick.
#320 JP
April 2, 2016

The same Australia that’s not in Asia.

Wasn’t there something in the board game Risk called “Australasia?” Might be where the confusion came from.

We were taught as children that it was part of “Oceania.” (Sp?) Whatever, it’s a giant island (okay, continent) full of snakes and spiders and scorpions. If I had my pick, I’d probably visit New Zealand.
#321 Mrs Pointer
April 2, 2016

@Herr Doktor #317:

Mr Porter’s rhetorical style is very similar to that of David Noakes, in particular his propensity to present his argument in the form of tallies, viz:

“4 cancers…
50 other diseases…
200 scientists…
8 nations…
400 doctors…
120 scientific research papers…
32 other research papers…
10,000 people…
80 nations…
six people penniless…
94 fabulous results…”

… and a partridge in a pear tree.
#322 shay simmons
April 2, 2016

Australia is a lovely place with lovely people, but a buddy passed along a bit from a safety brief that he sat thru prior to a port call in Sydney.

“If it doesn’t stick you, it will sting you. If it doesn’t sting you, it will bite you. And if it doesn’t bite you, it will eat you.”
#323 herr doktor bimler
April 2, 2016

…and if it does none of those things, it will just fall out of a tree onto you.
#324 rhwombat
Blue ringed octopus central
April 3, 2016

Oi – hdb! You leave our West Island fauna alone. You’re just jealous because you kiwis ate all your moas. No lesser authority that The Australian Museum had carefully documented Thylarctos plummetus – though I do note that the first aid measures recommended for attack used to mention review by psychiatrist.
#325 Mrs Pointer
April 3, 2016

@rhwombat #322:

The good doktor has legitimate reasons to be concerned about the dangers posed by Thylarctos plummetus. Studies have shown he is in a High Risk Group for such attacks:
http://bit.ly/1RSzYJC
#326 Chris Preston
April 3, 2016

If I had my pick, I’d probably visit New Zealand.

But it is full of kiwis who will insist on talking about ruggaz and making you eat fush nd chupps.
#327 Delphine
April 3, 2016

ruggaz

This is rugby, yes?

We have friends who hail from the Auckland area. They are fans of the All Blacks. No, let me amend that. They are completely, unstintingly devoted to the All Blacks.
#328 Denice Walter
April 3, 2016

re ‘Australasia’

I do recall reading that long ago as a geographic region.

More recently, my friend, Mike, visited a guy he attended university with 30 years ago. The AUS-ian had a governmental position as an engineer IIRC but was forced into early retirement and didn’t have much money. So he let my friend stay for a week but they didn’t really go out, just to the beach and cooking shrimp/ prawns at home.

So Mike, deciding that he wanted to see more of AUS spent his last 3 or 4 days in Sydney’s Chinese section at a discount hotel and found really excellent food.
I guess that’s Australasia.
#329 rs
April 3, 2016

“Wasn’t there something in the board game Risk called “Australasia?” Might be where the confusion came from.”

If you find a really, really old version of the game you can invade Gondwanaland or Laurasia. But beware the monsters lurking in the Tethys Sea.
#330 Chris
April 3, 2016

Marsha: “..pick one as I know Americans are notoriously ignorant about geography anywhere outside the US but could probably tell you where any town was in the US within 10 kms.”

My irony meter just exploded. Apparently this is from a person who had no clue that the MMR vaccine never contained thimerosal, and that she did no know which country’s MMR that Wakefield docufiction was about.
#331 Delphine
April 3, 2016

Marsha, again — lots of folk here, including the one to whom you responded (Julian even helpfully identified “South Africa” but apparently reading comprehension is still a challenge) are not Americans. I’m Canadian by birth but have lived in several countries. Not Japan, though, where they vaccinate well before age 2. I did however live in the US. Would still love to discuss why their IMR is what it is with you, once you’ve had a chance to look it up.
#332 Delphine
April 3, 2016

nber.org/papers/w20525 is where you could do some reading, Marsha. Sorry if I’ve borked the link, typing on my phone under 130 lbs of dog.
#333 Amethyst
The Crystal Gem
April 4, 2016

Heh, the Wikipedia page for “Vaxxed” even mentions our beloved host.
#334 Julian Frost
Gauteng East Rand
April 4, 2016

So Marsha, underneath my comment, writes:

pick one as I know Americans are notoriously ignorant about geography anywhere outside the US

…but seems unaware that my location was “South Africa”, which is not only not part of the USA, but on a different continent.
The snide, mocking ripostes just write themselves.
#335 Narad
April 4, 2016

I’m mildly interested in the question “within 10 km of what,” but that will no doubt become clear when Marsha gets around to Springfield.
#336 MI Dawn
April 4, 2016

@Narad: can we at least make her tell us WHICH Springfield? In which state? I mean, it’s not like states don’t repeat city names or anything….
#337 Delphine
dark roast
April 4, 2016

…but seems unaware that my location was “South Africa”, which is not only not part of the USA, but on a different continent.

You mean East Rand is not up the road from Baltimore??!
#338 LouV
France
April 4, 2016

@Marsha #312

Yes Australasia or Oceania or Asia Pacific… pick one as I know Americans are notoriously ignorant about geography anywhere outside the US but could probably tell you where any town was in the US within 10 kms. (That’s kilometres, not miles).

JP #320

We were taught as children that it was part of “Oceania.”

That’s what we are taught in France too.
Anyway, that doesn’t change my point from #297 : the proximity between two countries doesn’t have influence over their vaccine programs, especially in the case of the Urabe strain in MMR.
#339 Chad
April 4, 2016

This comment is directed towards the writer of the article.
You really should open your mind.
What you fail to understand is that there are a lot of people that are not anti vaccine but merely want to create an awareness that doctors and scientists are not miracle workers, they are human beings, and human beings make mistakes. No matter what you think to be true its just your opinion. Vaccines are NOT 100% safe, period. Vaccines may have saved thousands of lives from terrible diseases and do have some efficacy but if there are even just a small portion of the population who may have been harmed there is reason to speculate and ask questions. Who are you to say otherwise. All people are asking for is transparency and a willingness of these institutions to go back over their research to see where a problem may lie. If you know anything about a vaccine, there are adjuncts in them to reduce immune function so that the vaccine itself can penetrate. Maybe herein lies the problem. This is just a question that may need to be answered, or we can go with your opinion to do nothing and believe that they are 100% safe. Wouldn’t that be stupid.
We are living in the year 2016 and the fact that I even have to write this to point something out to people who are so stubborn and close minded is ridiculous.
#340 Chris
April 4, 2016

Chad: ” Vaccines are NOT 100% safe, period.”

Please post the link to the comment where that claim was made.

“This is just a question that may need to be answered, or we can go with your opinion to do nothing and believe that they are 100% safe. Wouldn’t that be stupid.”

Really, please tell us who on this blog (author or commenter) has claimed that any vaccine 100% safe. Just post a link to that comment or one of Orac’s articles where that claim is made.

“All people are asking for is transparency and a willingness of these institutions to go back over their research to see where a problem may lie. If you know anything about a vaccine, there are adjuncts in them to reduce immune function so that the vaccine itself can penetrate.”

The MMR vaccine has never contained any adjuvants. Something you would have known if you had bothered to read the comments to Marsha.

“We are living in the year 2016 and the fact that I even have to write this to point something out to people who are so stubborn and close minded is ridiculous”

Okay, change out minds. Since Wakefield’s docufiction was on the American MMR vaccine, then you need to tell us how it is so risky. Please post the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that it causes more ,problems than measles, mumps and rubella.
#341 Mephistopheles O'Brien
April 4, 2016

If you know anything about a vaccine, there are adjuncts in them to reduce immune function so that the vaccine itself can penetrate.

They’re called adjuvants and they are used to increase the body’s immune response, not reduce it. Reducing the immune response would be counterproductive.

All people are asking for is transparency and a willingness of these institutions to go back over their research to see where a problem may lie.

I don’t think anyone has much of an issue with that. What problem should they be searching for and how do you know it exists?
#342 herr doktor bimler
April 4, 2016

“If you know anything about a vaccine, there are adjuncts in them to reduce immune function”

And here I was, thinking that the adjuvants are to *exacerbate* the immune response. I must have been taught the wrong Science.

” so that the vaccine itself can penetrate.”

See, there’s your problem. On my planet we invented needles for that.
#343 herr doktor bimler
April 4, 2016

They’re called adjuvants

Perhaps Chad wrote “adjunct” as short for “adjunct professors”. Each dose of vaccine includes millions of nano-sized, under-paid educational assistants (miniaturised with Fantastic Voyage shrink technology) who travel around the body lecturing the lymphocytes until they do their jobs properly.
#344 Dangerous Bacon
April 4, 2016

“This comment is directed towards the writer of the article.
You really should open your mind.”

He tried that but his cerebellum kept flopping onto the floor and getting dusty.

“Vaccines may have saved thousands of lives from terrible diseases and do have some efficacy”

Sorry, but you’ve just forfeited membership in the Wackadoodle Antivax Warriors Club. Vaccines never helped anybody, it’s all a pharma lie.
#345 Chris Preston
Australia
April 4, 2016

We are living in the year 2016 and the fact that I even have to write this to point something out to people who are so stubborn and close minded is ridiculous.

We are indeed in 2016, but it seems that ignorant people blathering on about how vaccines do not work still exist.

Chad, the list of your failures in your post include:

1. The claim that vaccines are not 100% safe. No-one has claimed they are. They are merely much safer than getting the disease they protect against.

2. The claim that adjuvants (not adjuncts as others have pointed out) reduce the immune response. They don’t. The whole point of the adjuvants is to increase the immune response.

3. The claim that the adjuvants are required to get vaccines to penetrate. Vaccines are typically applied intramuscularly, there is no reason to add anything to get them to penetrate. (some are applied in other ways – by ingestion or inhalation, but once again there is no need to add anything to get them to penetrate.

4. That somehow everyone ignores side effects of vaccines. They don’t, millions of dollars are spent researching how to reduce the small number of serious side effects from vaccines.
#346 Chris Preston
April 4, 2016

Each dose of vaccine includes millions of nano-sized, under-paid educational assistants

I don’t get paid at all by the institution where I am an adjunct.
#347 Delphine
making actual brownies, not of the alice b toklas variety
April 4, 2016

No matter what you think to be true its just your opinion

There are these things called facts. You’re entitled to your own opinions and beliefs, but you aren’t entitled to your own facts.
#348 herr doktor bimler
April 4, 2016

I believe the canonical form is
“Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.”
#349 sadmar
April 5, 2016

if there are even just a small portion of the population who may have been harmed there is reason to speculate and ask questions.

That’s true. But speculative questions would need to be explored using valid evidence and research methods. So this comment is irrelevant to the discussion of ‘Vaxxed’, which is manifestly fraudulent in misrepresenting William Thompson’s recorded comments to Brain Hooker, and a variety of other things.

All people are asking for is transparency and a willingness of these institutions to go back over their research to see where a problem may lie.

While I’m willing to omit Andy Wakefield from the category of ‘people’ (i.e. ‘a human being’) most anti-vaxers – who are asking for MUCH more (specifically, the ‘freedom’ to spread life-threatening illnesses to the immuno-compromised) – however delusional and pathological with NPD they may be, do qualify as ‘people’, as their reality-field-distortions are all too human.
- #350 Marsha
  April 5, 2016
  
  Sadman, you clearly have no idea if you think that unvaccinated people spread diseases. ALL PEOPLE ARE CARRIERS whether vaccinated or not… in fact many Oncologists will tell their immuno-compromised patients to avoid newly vaccinated patients due to the risk of shedding such as polio virus through faecal matter etc and from the injection site.
  Vaccines do not prevent anyone from getting the disease, their only purpose is to ‘potentially’ reduce symptoms in those who have them… and have nothing to do with spreading infection. You’re obviously one of the ‘herd mentality’ cohort which is a fiction invented by big pharma for profits!.
#351 Marsha
April 5, 2016

I’m also sure William Thompson would have brought a case against Brian Hooker had he been misrepresented.
Telling fairy stories now… bit hard to misrepresent something that recorded.
#352 Narad
April 5, 2016

After a few days of ignoring AoA (which are likely to continue), a quick visit netted the Dachelbot’s plumping for Cliff Kincaid.
#353 Narad
April 5, 2016

^ BTW, Blaxill’s attempt at the “Utah whistleblower” (reprised in the Weekly Fishwrap) is such a hilarious fever dream that it may well merit a takedown somewhere or another.
#354 Narad
April 5, 2016

Sadman, you clearly have no idea if you think that unvaccinated people spread diseases. ALL PEOPLE ARE CARRIERS whether vaccinated or not… in fact many Oncologists will tell their immuno-compromised patients to avoid newly vaccinated patients due to the risk of shedding such as polio virus through faecal matter etc and from the injection site.

I, for one, am impressed at Marsha’s laser-like focus on completely humiliating herself with this one.
#355 Chris
April 5, 2016

Marsha, Marsha, Marsha: ” newly vaccinated patients due to the risk of shedding such as polio virus through faecal matter etc and from the injection site.’

This is hilarious! First, it has nothing to do the American MMR vaccine.

And the pooping from an injection site is hilarious! (hint: the IPV did not shed… guess why… it has to do with the “I” in “IPV” versus the “O” in “OPV”).
- #356 Marsha
  April 5, 2016
  
  Chris are you Autistic or something, possibly aspergic?? i.e. have difficulty with reciprocal conversation or connecting abstract thought processes?
  : ” newly vaccinated patients due to the risk of shedding such as polio virus through faecal matter etc and from the injection site.’
  The example was Polio from faecal matter etc (and in reference to other vaccines) and from the injection site.
  You have to be American as you are FAR too literal to be from the UK or Australia.
#357 Julian Frost
Gauteng East Rand
April 5, 2016

Oh boy.

ALL PEOPLE ARE CARRIERS whether vaccinated or not…You’re obviously one of the ‘herd mentality’ cohort which is a fiction invented by big pharma for profits

If even a vaccinated person is a carrier, why do diseases not spread when immunity reaches a certain level? If herd immunity is a fiction, then why are children too young to be vaccinated unlikely to get the diseases in areas where herd immunity levels are maintained?
- #358 Marsha
  April 5, 2016
  
  Julian Frost… Herd immunity is a marketing campaign. Diseases DO spread through vaccinated communities… there have been many here recently in Australia and US – link from CDC and babies can get diseases from vaccinated parents. If a parent has a pathogen in their nostrils from the community it can be easily spread to other’s in the home including babies. Other diseases spread by other means such as Polio and Rotavirus can also be contracted through the faeces of newly vaccinated people.
  http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000359.htm
  http://www.state.nj.us/health/cd/documents/mumps/mumps_clinical_faq.pdf
#359 Julian Frost
April 5, 2016

Marsha:

I’m also sure William Thompson would have brought a case against Brian Hooker had he been misrepresented.
Telling fairy stories now… bit hard to misrepresent something that recorded.

Except Hooker was the one who made the recordings, not Thompson, so unless Thompson also made recordings he has no proof. Your argument fails.
#360 Narad
April 5, 2016

This is hilarious!

She’s not even competent at internalizing the talking points that she’s trying to regurgitate, as the “many Oncologists” line reveals (there’s a single locus for this one, IIRC).

Then again, her comment 350 simply repeats her comment 250. To the extent that there’s thought going on, it’s badly malfunctioning, which is part of why I didn’t even bother with the pesky bits about viral entry and so forth.
#361 Alain
April 5, 2016

Does she even know what our esteemed host do for his $DAYJOB?

Inquiring mind want to know…

Alain
#362 Narad
April 5, 2016

I’m also sure William Thompson would have brought a case against Brian Hooker had he been misrepresented.

L-rd, more regurgitation. Your “logic” forces you to acknowledge that Wakefraud’s proving to have been nothing but piss-proud with his very serious promise to sue Emily Willingham and Forbes is a wholesale concession.

Well played.
#363 Alain
Ok, Spilling the beans
April 5, 2016

From [h_tp]://scienceblogs.com/insolence/author/oracknows/

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 Orac 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 30 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.)

Respectful Insolence™ is a repository for the ramblings of the aforementioned surgeon/scientist concerning medicine and quackery, science and pseudoscience, history and pseudohistory, politics, and anything else that interests him (or pushes his buttons). Orac’s motto is: “A statement of fact cannot be insolent.” (OK, maybe it can be just a little bit insolent. Sometimes. OK, fairly often. Orac tries to keep his insolence respectful most of the time, but readily admits that he sometimes fails in cases of obvious quackery and pseudoscience, responding to personal attacks on him, examining poor critical thinking skills, bigotry or racism, and just general plain stupidity. When the stupidity to which Orac is responding reaches a certain very high level, he just can’t help it and makes no apologies. You will know this is happening when Orac uses the phrase “the stupid, it burns” or some variant thereof.

Of particular note: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1515983

Al
#364 Alain
April 5, 2016

Little did I know that quoting our esteemed host about page would result in my quoted post being in moderation.

Dear esteemed host, I will have to change email address soon as my domain is no longer valid…

Al
#365 Narad
April 5, 2016

Dear esteemed host, I will have to change email address soon as my domain is no longer valid…

You can leave your E-mail address here the same as it always was (and, yes, I received your new one). It’s just a text key paired with the “name” field.
#366 Helianthus
April 5, 2016

ALL PEOPLE ARE CARRIERS whether vaccinated or not

Wow. Even Th1Th2 didn’t go that far.
#367 LouV
France
April 5, 2016

… I see Marsha, when contradicted, still prefers to jump to another (incorrect) argument rather than adress the counter-argument or admit error.
Better to nitpick on “Australasia” and supposed American geographical ignorance than adress the fact that Japan and Australia always had different MMR (at least regarding the Mumps strain), or that Japan doesn’t delay vaccinations until 2 years.
You people can’t complain about being ignored when you make this kind of easily checkable mistake and ignore / don’t adress the corrections.

Oh, and on that note :

Telling fairy stories now… bit hard to misrepresent something that recorded.

Actually, it is not that hard, especially if the person recorded is unaware of it. This blog, Science Based Medicine and Left Brain Right Brain discussed many misrepresentations ; I even posted links at #221.
- #368 Marsha
  April 5, 2016
  
  It may seem like jumping around to you but when you’re responding to 10 different people, other’s will not understand if they didn’t see the original question… hence the tangent about Australasia…
  Getting back to the original subject, is it the scientific practice to attempt to discredit any scientist who comes up with a conclusion different from your own ‘opinion’ because you’re all so worried about your sponsors/ donations/ grant funding? This is all so reminiscent of Clair Patterson’s fight against the lead additives organisation to get lead out of products, being the expert in the field, but eventually took 30 yrs to occur… there are many studies showing links to autism from vaccines… why are they ignored in preference of studies funded by pharma even though these peole are also highly qualified but no conflict of interest. Just wreaks of big tobacco, big sugar, big food, big oil etc. My view is that this is an inconvenient truth.
  “There is no science that shows vaccines cause Autism”, except in these published studies which show links
  
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3878266/
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21623535
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25377033
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24995277
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12145534
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21058170
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22099159
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3364648/
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17454560
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19106436
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3774468/
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3697751/
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21299355
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21907498
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11339848
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17674242
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21993250
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15780490
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12933322
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16870260
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19043938
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12142947
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24675092
  
  All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
  Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788 – 1860)
#369 Alain
April 5, 2016

… I see Marsha, when contradicted, still prefers to jump to another (incorrect) argument rather than adress the counter-argument or admit error.

Game of Whack-a-mole with round-robin for a predefined set of answer.

It’s also one attempt to bring everyone down to her level and then win by wearing everyone down. That remind me of a nasty critter who used the same strategy but in the case of the nasty critter, father was an abusive cop and he was born and raised with the bar set to Jupiter…you all can imagine the result.

Al
#370 MI Dawn
April 5, 2016

@Helianthus: please be careful. Too many repetitions might work like Beetlejuice, and I haven’t had enough coffee yet for that much bizarreness. Marsha is bad enough; I’ll give her points for coherency, even if she’s wrong in almost everything she posts.
#371 Helianthus
April 5, 2016

Perhaps Chad wrote “adjunct”

Or more charitably, it was a case of zealous Autocorrect.
I sometimes would need a cryptologist to decode the messages my boss wrote on his smartphone.
#372 Todd W.
http://www.harpocratesspeaks.com
April 5, 2016

@Marsha

I see you still haven’t answered the question about what you consider to be “independent” research.

I’m also sure William Thompson would have brought a case against Brian Hooker had he been misrepresented.

Ah, you are a mind reader, then? Why so certain? Thompson is a person who could very well speak out about all of this without fear of repercussion, yet he has said that he will only appear before Congress if they subpoena him. And if I recall correctly, when he found out that Hooker had recorded him, he didn’t want his name revealed, but Wakefield went ahead and outed him anyway. That doesn’t sound like someone who wants the spotlight a lawsuit would bring.
- #373 Marsha
  April 5, 2016
  
  Todd you must be the mind reader to know Thompson thoughts… where is this quote exactly? i.e. about “not wanting the spotlight and will only appear yada yada”
#374 Delphine
the young grey-eyed king had been yesterday slain
April 5, 2016

Marsha, you mentioned your studies above. What is your field of study, if you don’t mind sharing?

Did you get a chance to read the paper to which I linked you?
#375 TBruce
April 5, 2016

@350:
“Marsha, what you just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response, were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
#376 Dangerous Bacon
April 5, 2016

Marsha should realize that not only are inactivated vaccines safe to give contacts of immunosuppressed cancer patients, but a number of live attenuated vaccines are safe as well (according to guidelines of the Infectious Diseases Society of America):

MMR (measles, mumps and rubella)
Varicella & Zoster (chickenpox and shingles)
Rotavirus
Yellow Fever
Typhoid
They should NOT receive the oral polio vaccine.

https://www.oncolink.org/experts/article.cfm?id=2657

Marsha has it exactly backwards – immunosuppressed patients are truly at risk from people with vaccine-preventable diseases, not the vaccines themselves. This is why cancer centers like M.D. Anderson call on all employees to get the flu vaccine. And why parents of children with cancer become upset when other parents fail to get their kids vaccinated.

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/02/open-letter-parent-unvaccinated-child-measles-exposure
- #377 Marsha
  April 5, 2016
  
  So you’ve confirmed they shouldn’t go near someone who has received the polio or rotavirus… correct?
  Also how to germs discriminate which nostrils they infect… the vaccinated or the vaccinated… again a ridiculous concept that only diseases are spread in unvaccinated populations when there have been outbreaks all over the world of measles, pertussis etc in highly vaccinated communities. Anyone can have a germ in their nostrils (which is the usual catchment area) and sneeze it onto someone else.
  This makes the whole ridiculous argument about getting vaccinated for other’s sake null & void. Vaccines are only designed to reduce the symptoms in recipients, not the spreading of diseases.
#378 Chris
April 5, 2016

Marsha, Marsha, Marsha: “So you’ve confirmed they shouldn’t go near someone who has received the polio or rotavirus… correct?
Also how to germs discriminate which nostrils they infect… the vaccinated or the vaccinated…”

Do you understand what route polio and rotavirus both take? They mostly bypass the nose. Have you heard of how vaccines educated the immune system to deal with the germs?

By the way, when do you plan to provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that the American MMR causes more risks than measles, mumps and rubella?

“Vaccines are only designed to reduce the symptoms in recipients, not the spreading of diseases.”

Marsha, Marsha, Marsha — the following is US Census data showing measles cases during the 20th century. Please tell us why incidence dropped 90% in the USA between 1960 and 1970. Do not mention deaths (mortality is not morbidity), do not mention any other decade, do not mention any other disease and do not mention any other country (Japan, Australia, England and Wales are not American states):

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
#379 Chris
April 5, 2016

Marsha, Marsha, Marsha: ““There is no science that shows vaccines cause Autism”, except in these published studies which show links ”

Ha ha ha ha ha… oh, that is hilarious:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/?s=geier
#380 Delphine
with Chopper Socrates
April 5, 2016

But the big question is — who is going to be replaced? Who is going to come off? It could be Jaspers, Hegel, or Schopenhauer!
#381 Delphine
April 5, 2016

i.e. have difficulty with reciprocal conversation or connecting abstract thought processes?

Gold.

When I was at university, I came to realise that some of the things I believed deserved another look. Confronted with facts, I engaged in a process of reappraisal. Sometimes it was simple, other times, arduous.

Frequently, the outcome was such that I was forced to alter my belief. It was often hard to admit that what I once believed to be unquestionably true was actually quite wrong. I hope through your studies that you are able to experience the same, Marsha.

Logic of itself cannot give anyone the answer to any questions of substance; but without logic we often do not know the import of what we know and often fall into fallacy and inconsistency. Peter Geach, British philosopher
- #382 Marsha
  April 5, 2016
  
  From another science blog I put the question to about ALL PEOPLE BEING CARRIERS REGARDLESS OF VACCINATION – clearly they’re not as one-eyed as this site.
  
  https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1m7er0/can_a_vaccinated_person_be_a_carrier_for_the/
  
  Most definitely. Not only are there no vaccines that have a 100% efficacy rate, but you can have variations within a disease (classic example being influenza) that allow you to become infected even if you’re vaccinated. Some vaccinations have scarily low rates of efficacy, an example would be the BCG Vaccine against TB, which has an efficacy between 0 and 80% depending on a whole range of factors.
  Another fairly obvious way in which you can spread disease despite not being infected with it is simple physical transmission. I shake hands with someone who has sneezed on their hand, then shake hands with a third person, and they can catch the disease person one had due to infectious agents such as viral particles or bacteria being physically transferred person to person, regardless of whether I became infected.
  A final way that this can occur, and perhaps the most interesting is that some diseases can form physical structures within the body and effectively ‘hide’ from the immune system, then can be released at a given time. The classic example of a disease doing this is Tuberculosis. If you do happen to inspire some particles of M. tuberculosis, and they happen to reach your lung, they can form what is known as a Tubercule within your lung, a small round nodule of bacteria surrounded by fibrous tissue that is ignored by your immune system. You can carry these while not infected with TB for decades, but rupturing one through physical trauma or respiratory distress (Such as heavy coughing) can activate an infection in you and/or make you infection to other people.
  
  And another thread:
  I believe some vaccines eradicate carriage and some do not. I am thinking of meningococcal vaccines in particular. I know for a fact that one popular one does eradicate carriage and one does not. So… one of them would both prevent the person from carrying the disease in their nasopharynx and protect from infection. The other would simply prevent infection. That being said neither is 100% effective (I believe they are both ~85%). So… it is possible, yes
#383 Marsha
April 5, 2016

Maybe you guys should get your info from a Merck insider (with a conscience)…invest 20 mins.
#384 Julian Frost
Gauteng East Rand
April 6, 2016

@Marsha:

Not only are there no vaccines that have a 100% efficacy rate…

Hardly anything has a 100% efficacy rate. That doesn’t mean that vaccines (many of which have a success rate > 90%) aren’t effective.

…but you can have variations within a disease (classic example being influenza) that allow you to become infected even if you’re vaccinated.

That’s why you get a yearly flu shot. Also, can you give us examples of diseases with variations that render vaccination against them ineffective, or are you just throwing mud and hoping some sticks?
#385 Julian Frost
Gauteng East Rand
April 6, 2016

@Marsha:

Herd immunity is a marketing campaign.

False. The principles behind herd immunity were discovered when it was found that even if not everyone in a community had been vaccinated against smallpox, it would stop spreading once a certain percentage had been vaccinated. Your denialism of a provable process is laughable.

Diseases DO spread through vaccinated communities.

Strange then that in every recent outbreak, a disproportionate number of patients were unvaccinated.
Or maybe vaccines do their job very well, albeit not perfectly.
#386 Julian Frost
April 6, 2016

Diseases DO spread through vaccinated communities… there have been many here recently in Australia and US

Firstly, in a lot of those cases, the victims were too young to be vaccinated. Secondly, the outbreaks were in communities with high levels of non-vaccinators. Not quite the slam dunk you thought.
#387 Amethyst
The Crystal Gem
April 6, 2016

#383

Alex Jones? Bahahaha! You’ll forgive me for not taking that video seriously at all. Sadly, it is not all fun and games: it is terrifying and depressing to see the like/dislike-ratio on it as well as reading the comments.
#388 Murmur
UK-ia
April 6, 2016

“There is no science that shows vaccines cause Autism”, except in these published studies which show links”

Hooker, Geier, Geier, Hooker, some more Geier…False equation of neurological damage from mercury with autism, forgetting that thiomersal/thimerosal/whatever isn’t used and hasn’t been used since a long time ago, a couple of commentary articles on Hooker’s p*ss poor attempts at epidemiology…Is that it?

For the hard of understanding, and apologies to regular readers who have seen this one before: assessment for autism was part of what I did for a living; I worked in a service which included an international authority on autism; if there was any credible evidence linking vaccination to autism or mercury or whatever easily preventable thing the entire CAMH and paediatric services of the UK (I won’t speak for any other country) would be all over it, screaming at politicians and drugs companies to do something about it. There isn’t, we haven’t.
#389 Helianthus
France
April 6, 2016

From another science blog I put the question to about ALL PEOPLE BEING CARRIERS REGARDLESS OF VACCINATION – clearly they’re not as one-eyed as this site.[…]

Terminology. Look it up.
For me, “carriers” means “have the bug at this very moment” – as in “being carrying it”. In this case, I stand by my “no, that’s false”.
If by “CARRIERS”, you mean “potentially capable of transmitting the disease, if they happen to have the bug on them”, well, yes. So what?

You seem to be fixating on the possibility that a vaccinated person may be “shedding” the viruses in the vaccines (a concern only valid for live attenuated virus vaccines, BTW – properly killed bugs don’t replicate). If the virus persistence is an issue with the attenuated virus, it’s very likely to be an issue with the wild virus as well.
Ah, but you are going to tell me that nowadays, almost everybody is vaccinated against measles, but almost no-one has the wild measles. Well, 60 years ago (or even just 40 years ago, in my country) it was the other way round – everybody had an encounter with the wild measles virus.
Personally, I prefer to be surrounded by people shedding a weak virus rather than by people shedding an aggressive one, but it’s only me.
Not to mention that this supposed shedding is an overblown concern. In recent measles outbreaks, like the one in Disneyland, the responsible virus’ genome has been typed and found to be the wild virus, not the one used in the vaccine strain.

Your “vaccinated get the disease, too” is just more of your basic calculus fail.
If the ratio of vaccinated:non-vaccinated is in the 90:10 to 95:5 range, but the people getting sick have a ratio in the 50:50 range, i.e. non-vaccinated people are over-represented, well… It seems that vaccines have been working for a lot of people, finally. It also seems that the wild virus is targeting non-vaccinated people. Funny that.

Your long tirade about washing hands and so forth just demonstrated the importance of personal hygiene. Again, so what? No-one here is saying that vaccines are the start and end of preventing diseases. Nutrition has a role, hygiene has a role. It’s about using all the weapons available in our arsenal.
And having an immune system prepped against the disease is a very important role – because, funny enough, you can only catch most diseases once, or even if you get it twice, your immune system’s response is much faster and efficient the second time. And the lower your illness, the sooner your body get rid of the bug, the less you are a “CARRIER”.
And it’s that vaccines are doing (OK, trying to do – doesn’t work all the time): giving your body the benefits of a first infection, without most of the drawbacks. No more, no less.
In some cases, vaccines are actually the only way to get immunity – and survive. Tetanus is the perfect example.

You are just deep into the Nirvana fallacy. If it’s not 100% efficient, then it’s useless.
By your logic, why should we bother to wash hands* or clean our house? It’s not 100% efficient at getting rid of all bugs, either. Notably the airborne ones.

* note to the lurkers: believe it or not, but when scientists came with the germ theory of disease in the 19th century, and started hinting at the need for more personal hygiene, there was some contrarians to seriously say it was a conspiracy by soap merchants.
Plus ça change…
#390 LouV
France
April 6, 2016

@Marsha #368

It may seem like jumping around to you but when you’re responding to 10 different people, other’s will not understand if they didn’t see the original question… hence the tangent about Australasia…

In fact, this answer completely illustrates my point about you getting basic facts wrong and not adressing this, instead jumping on another point. This is called a Gish gallop and you can’t be expected to be taken seriously if you are doing this. I am not bothering to answer to your diversion, others have already done so ; and you aren’t going to acknowledging their answers either, just use other long debunked arguments ad nauseam. (or please prove me wrong)
What mattered to me wasn’t the bizarre nitpicking about Asia / Australia, but the two facts about vaccines in Japan / MMR in Australia you got completely wrong.

The worse is, I am in favor of criticizing vaccines, to make them safer. I can acknowledge there were instances some of them had to be pulled from the market, that some adverse effects were proven (the 1st US rotavirus vaccine, the OPV which had to be replaced by IPV, the whole cell DTP replaced by the acellular DTP, narcolepsia caused by one H1N1 vaccine, etc.).
But these effects have never been discovered thanks to arguments like yours.
You’ve got no shame to compare yourself to Patterson, when she would never have won her fight with a methodology that cartoonish.
And people like you make so much noise that it drowns legitimate criticisms of vaccines, decredibilize them.
#391 LouV
France
April 6, 2016

(Damn, forgot that Patterson was a man.)
#392 Helianthus
April 6, 2016

@ LouV

the OPV which had to be replaced by IPV

Indeed, fact-based criticism of vaccines is important. If memory serves,, in the UK it was thanks to the lobbying of a father whose son contacted polio by the OPV vaccine that the health authorities advanced the time to shift to the IPV.

The IPV is much safer, but also a less efficient vaccine than OPV, so there were legitimate concerns that shifting to IPV too early in a anti-polio campaign may result in a backlash of wild polio infections, with the IPV failing to protect as many people as the OPV would have.
OTOH, as some point the OPV would start causing an unacceptable amount of polio cases as side-effects, in regards to all the cases it”s otherwise preventing.
Tricky risk/benefit analysis, with these two vaccines.
#393 Todd W.
http://www.harpocratesspeaks.com
April 6, 2016

@Marsha

Ah, I see that instead of answering my question about what you consider to be “independent” research, you nitpick on my opinions about why Thompson might not want to sue Wakefield or Hooker. I will take that as an admission that you have no good definition of “independent”, and that any study which contradicts you will be deemed by you to not be independent.

Also, how’s that search coming for studies comparing MMR to adjuvant alone? Or will you acknowledge that you got that detail wrong, along with all of the other factual errors you made?
#394 MI Dawn
April 6, 2016

Question: is this Marsha the same “Grandma Marsha” we went round and round with before? If so, I’m done with her. She wouldn’t admit she was ever wrong, especially about “vaccines cause autism!!111111!!!!”

But I’m enjoying the brilliant responses by my fellow minions.
- #395 Marsha
  April 6, 2016
  
  No, 1st time in tho group & def no grandma!! Interesting you refer to yourselves as minions… Of what? Big pharma?
#396 herr doktor bimler
April 6, 2016

ALL PEOPLE ARE CARRIERS whether vaccinated or not

Even now I am carrying Ebola, Zika and several diseases so rare as to be unknown to science. Despite having never been exposed to them. Only a strenuous regime of hop-flavoured fluids keeps the infections under control.
#397 herr doktor bimler
April 6, 2016

I’m also sure William Thompson would have brought a case against Brian Hooker had he been misrepresented.

I interpreted Marsha’s comments as proof of her stupidity and self-chosen ignorance. I’m sure she would have brought a lawsuit against me if I had misrepresented her.
#398 Todd W.
http://www.harpocratesspeaks.com
April 6, 2016

@hdb

You raise a good point. I mean, mere misrepresentation is a suable offense, as every lawyer knows. I’m sure you can expect to be served by Marsha’s legal team any day now.
#399 herr doktor bimler
April 6, 2016

And has she denied my comparison to a “mendacious Dinobdella ferox arse-leech”? I THINK NOT.
#400 Delphine
still snowing
April 6, 2016

Marsha, I watched the Infowars video. Will you read the paper to which I linked you? Or comment on the chart with Japan’s immunization schedule?

Will fairies fly out of my bum first?
#401 Delphine
April 6, 2016

Vaccines are only designed to reduce the symptoms in recipients, not the spreading of diseases.

Are you immunized, Marsha? If that’s what you believe to be true, are you immunized? Just off the top of my head:

1. My uncle and aunt were unable to have children as my uncle contracted mumps as a teen and was rendered sterile. No vaccine available at that time.

2. My husband didn’t get chicken pox until he was a teenager, despite repeated childhood exposure. He missed 3 weeks of school and had pox everywhere, including UNDER HIS FORESKIN. I type that in caps because that’s how he says the words. In caps. No vaccine available at that time.

3. I got the flu in 1996 and ended up in hospital with pneumonia. I lost 11 pounds (I’m thin) and looked and felt like I was dying. Could not walk 3 city blocks to the subway without resting for over a month after I came home. I had not received a jab for influenza that year.

4. My late Dad’s first memory is of his father running with him in his arms at night through London’s blacked out streets during the Blitz. He had a severe case of measles and needed to be in the hospital. As an adult he still bore the scars on his face. No vaccine available at that time.

5. My paternal grandmother was felled in quick succession as a child by measles then scarlet fever. She ended up with rheumatic fever and was never the same. She suffered a stroke giving birth to my aunt, and ultimately died at just 38. No vaccine available at that time, nor antibiotics for strep.

So, are you immunized, Marsha?
#402 Todd W.
http://www.harpocratesspeaks.com
April 6, 2016

Vaccines are only designed to reduce the symptoms in recipients, not the spreading of diseases.

That is a rather sweeping generalization, and, like many generalizations, is not true. Whether vaccines prevent the spread or just prevent symptoms really depends on the vaccine.

For example, live or whole-cell vaccines prevent infection and spread. They train the immune system to target the organism as a whole, rather than a product of the virus of bacterium. Vaccines that use inactivated viruses or only pieces of a bacterium may prevent spread, or they may only prevent/reduce symptoms, again, depending on the vaccine.

Let’s look at a couple of examples. Whole-cell pertussis vaccine prevents infection and spread of pertussis. However, it also has a slightly greater risk of adverse reactions compared to the acellular pertussis vaccine. wP has all of the bacterium in it, so the body learns to attack the wild type bacteria. By contrast, the acellular pertussis vaccine uses portions of the toxin produced by the bacterium. Much better safety profile, and it works very well to prevent serious disease in those who are vaccinated, but because focuses mainly on the toxins produced by the B. pertussis, it doesn’t work as well at training the immune system to recognize and fight the bacteria before they are able to replicate to the point of being able to spread to others. It’s a known issue with the current vaccine, and is why work is being done to find an alternative that is as good at preventing disease in the vaccinated as the current and wP vaccines, but safer than the older, more effective wP vaccine.

Another example is polio vaccine. OPV enables the body, and particularly the digestive portion of the immune system, to recognize and fight the virus before it can replicate and cause disease or spread to others. However, it does have some risks associated with it, such as the rare but serious risk of VAPP. IPV, however, only trains the body to fight off the infection systemically. It doesn’t really gear up the immune system in the gut to prevent wild type poliovirus from replicating and shedding; it just prevents disease once the virus gets through the gut and into the rest of the body. So it is technically possible for someone immunized with IPV to get infected with wild type poliovirus and spread it without actually getting any symptoms of the disease themselves. Again, this is an issue that is known among virologists and immunologists, who are actively working on what the next steps are once we eliminate wild type polio cases worldwide.

The difference between Marsha and science-based people is that we acknowledge the nuances of vaccines. Marsha, however, takes a black-or-white stance, where any positives are ignored and any negatives are magnified beyond reason.
#403 Chris
April 6, 2016

Helianthus: Indeed, fact-based criticism of vaccines is important. If memory serves,, in the UK it was thanks to the lobbying of a father whose son contacted polio by the OPV vaccine that the health authorities advanced the time to shift to the IPV.”

In the USA it was John Salamone who actually became a member of the CDC’s group that decides on the vaccine schedule:
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1999-03-16/news/9903160091_1_polio-vaccine-oral-vaccine-sabin-vaccine
#404 Helianthus
April 6, 2016

@ Chris

Maybe I was thinking of John Salamone, so in the US, not the UK.
I committed the story to memory as a cautionary tale, but I was unable to track it back..
#405 shay simmons
watching it pour down rain
April 6, 2016

Not only are there no vaccines that have a 100% efficacy rate

There are no forms of contraception with that efficacy rate either. Are you going around advising people to stop using birth control because it doesn’t work?
#406 Chris
April 6, 2016

“Maybe I was thinking of John Salamone, so in the US, not the UK.”

Well, there could have been someone in the UK also.

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