Kingfillins said:

To Anon….”What do mean link between vaccines and disease?”

http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/vaccineimages.asp

“The FDA admits that the 12,000 reports it receives annually on pharmacologic side effects from vaccines represent only a fraction of what actually occurs.”

Yes, a bit of itching and a rash here and there (which clears up after a week or so) for a few of the people who get the vaccine. Besides, coincidences happen as well.

BTW: The smallpox vaccine (which we basically don’t use any more since it has already done its job and sent smallpox extinct) did have a relatively high side effect rate, though still a lot less than the disease it protected against.

Of course courts are infallible, never making a mistake.

Generally considered to have been a mistake.

You should know that she wasn’t selected to run the NIH because of her scientific knowledge but because of her politics and isn’t particularly highly regarded in the scientific community. The NIH seems to suffer from that a lot.

Well when all the well conducted studies show nothing there and consistently show nothing why would you expect another study to be any different?

The question is settled, and also largely irrelevant anyway.

Maybe if there were unlimited funding we could continue to research the issue until people like you all die of old age but there isn’t unlimited funding, money spent on another confirmation of the null hypothesis is money which isn’t going into other things.

It’d also be pretty damn hard to actually find any such kids in the first place.

I mean how would you know it was the vaccine which did it?

No, they hurt when they penetrate the skin.

At much higher doses than you’d get from vaccines.

Never mind that it actually wasn’t a problem in the doses it was being used in (and further research has backed that up).

Never mind that thimerosal wasn’t actually dangerous in the doses used in the vaccines so I wouldn’t exactly say that matters.

There is also no reason to believe that either substance is harmful in the doses given.

No, actually I get a feeling for how deluded you are.

It’s a lot closer to 100% than that, maybe 99% at the lowest.

It probably isn’t even 1% (at least of the stuff those misinformed mums sprout).

Close enough for me.

No you haven’t, you’ve found claims, not evidence.

Even if everything about vaccine risks the anti-vaccination movement says is true it still wouldn’t justify not being vaccinated.

Maybe because I’m a member of the reality based community.

Besides, even if I were to believe the anti-vaccination nonsense I’d have to believe autism (even in the most severe forms) to be worse than death to justify not vaccinating and I’m just not that bigoted.

http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/vaccineimages.asp

“The FDA admits that the 12,000 reports it receives annually on pharmacologic side effects from vaccines represent only a fraction of what actually occurs.”

If there is no link, it would surely be very easy to prove such in a court of law, and impossible to prove that there is a link, yet…

On November 9, 2007, respondent filed a Rule 4 Report conceding that petitioner should be awarded compensation in accordance with 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-11(c)(1)(C)(ii). Respondent stated that, based on a review of the petition, medical records and affidavits, the “facts of this case meet the statutory criteria for demonstrating that the vaccination Hannah received on July 19, 2000, significantly aggravated an underlying mitochondrial disorder, which predisposed her to deficits in cellular energy metabolism and manifested as a regressive encephalopathy with features of autism spectrum disorder.” (Rule 4 Report at 7). Respondent further stated in the Rule 4 Report that the onset of Hannah’s complex partial seizure disorder, nearly six years after her July 19, 2000 vaccinations, was not related to her vaccinations. (Rule 4 Report at 7)

On February 21, 2008, respondent filed a Supplemental Rule 4 Report addressing respondent’s review of Dr. Zimmerman’s expert report. (See Supplemental Rule 4 Report at 1-2). Respondent stated that “[h]aving reviewed this additional evidence, [medical personnel at the Division of Vaccine Injury Compensation, Department of Health and Human Services (DVIC)] now recommend [ ] compensation for Hannah’s seizure disorder as sequela of her vaccine-injury in accordance with 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-11(c)(1)(C)(ii).” Based on respondent’s concession, a damages determination is now underway in this case.

On May12, 2008, in an exclusive interview, former NIH Director Dr. Bernadine Healy told CBS News’ Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson that the question of a link between vaccines and autism is still open for debate. She expressed dismay at the latest Institute of Medicine (IOM) Immunization Safety Review Committee’s Report: Vaccines and Autism, that stated that the weight of the body of scientific evidence does not show a causal link between vaccines and autism, and that more research on the vaccine question is counterproductive. Healy also said public health officials have intentionally avoided researching whether subsets of children are “susceptible” to vaccine side effects—afraid of what they might find and afraid the answer will scare the public into not getting their children vaccinated, and have intentionally avoided the kinds of scientific research studies that might show causality.

“I always hated needles”

So you mean they cause you dis-ease.

http://www.zimbio.com/Symptoms+of+MRSA/articles/fVGPugb4hCq/MRSA+Vaccine+Trial+Halted+Ends+Disaster

“In 1919, at Dallas, Texas, U.S.A., ten children were killed and sixty others made seriously ill by toxin-antitoxin which had passed the tests of the New York State Health Department. The Mulford Company, at Philadelphia, the manufacturers, paid damages in every case.

In 1977, a Russian study found that adults exposed to ethylmercury, the form of mercury in thimerosal, suffered brain damage years later. Studies on thimerosal poisoning also describe tubular necrosis and nervous system injury, including obtundation, coma and death. As a result of these findings, Russia banned thimerosal from children’s vaccines in 1980. Denmark, Austria, Japan, Great Britain and all the Scandinavian countries have also banned the preservative.

Vaccine Companies Investigated for Manslaughter
A formal investigation has been launched by French authorities against two managers from drug companies GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Pasteur. A second investigation for manslaughter has also been opened against Sanofi Pasteur MSD. The investigations are in response to allegations that the companies failed to fully disclose side effects from an anti-hepatitis B drug used between 1994 and 1998. During this time, close to two-thirds of the French population, and almost all newborn babies, received a hepatitis B vaccine. The vaccination campaign was halted after concerns rose over the shot’s side effects.

March 7, 2005 – Merck Misled on Vaccines – Drug maker Merck and Co. continued to supply infant vaccine containing thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, for two years after declaring that it had eliminated the chemical. In September 1999, amid rising concern about the risks of mercury in childhood vaccines. Merck executives confirmed the details in the FDA letter.

FDA – “Rotavirus Vaccine May Harm Infants Infant” – Vaccine RotaTeq Linked to Intestinal Problems
On February 13, 2007 the U.S. government issued a warning for a potentially life-threatening condition called Intussusception that causes the twisting of the intestines in infants vaccinated against a virus that is the leading cause of early childhood diarrhea. Intussusception originally led to the withdrawal of the first rotavirus vaccine eight years ago

July 10, 2008 – 12 Babies Die During Vaccine Trials in Argentina At least 12 infants who were part of a clinical study to test a pneumonia vaccine have died in Argentina over the course of the past year.The study was sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline, and uses children from poor families. According to the Argentine Federation of Health Professionals, the families are “pressured and forced into signing consent forms”. The vaccine trial is still ongoing despite the denunciations.

Two excerpts from closed door meeting conducted by the CDC in 2000: “But from all of the other studies of toxic substances, the earlier you work with the central nervous system, the more likely you are to run into a sensitive period for one of these effects, so that moving from one month or one day of birth to six months of birth changes enormously the potential for toxicity. There are just a host of neurodevelopmental data that would suggest that we’ve got a serious problem. The earlier we go, the more serious the problem.” Dr. Weil

“Aluminum & mercury are often simultaneously administered to infants, both at the same site & at different sites. However, there is absolutely no data, including animal data, about the potential for SYNERGY, additively or antagonism, all of which can occur in binary metal mixtures that relate and allow us to draw any conclusions from the simultaneous exposure to these two salts in vaccines.” Dr. Johnston

Now if you read the bizarrely slanted Wikipedia summary about vaccination http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_controversy you will get a feeling for how the “official” perspective on this topic is very much lacking in serious objective representation.

Even if, say 80% of the “anti-vax woo” is all just hysterical nonsense, a bunch of misinformed Mums who clearly do not understand science….. thats still 20% worth listening to.
So what is the percentage? 100% woo??
Clearly that is not the case, as I have quickly located this information that clearly shows vaccines can cause disease.

So what is the percentage? Who is calculating? even 10% or 5% of “Woo” is a serious reason for concern.

“Woo” as you call it is the (only a slither) of information I have supplies above…

Why do you downplay such serious reasons for caution, and such serious reasons to
distrust corporate pharmaceutical companies?

        Kingfillins said:

Now if there was no validity to Wakfields original study, why has it been subsequently duplicated? I thought that this was the ultimate scientific method for evaluating a validating a studies claim.

Simple, it hasn’t.

Part of the reason there isn’t any concern for how the children could be helped by the quackery of Wakefield is because he couldn’t have helped them.

Then why is there no correlation between autism rates and MMR vaccination rates?

Could it be that there isn’t actually any link?

Of course if you were to take the anti-vaccination movement and people like you seriously you’d have to believe that autism were somehow worse than death (which it isn’t, but being an bigot may well be).

The ones we’ve got are safer than getting the disease, isn’t that good enough?

I always hated needles so combining multiple vaccines into a single shot was always a good thing and I suspect I’m not alone in believing that.

Only those who wanted to torture their kids with more needles than necessary would insist on a single vaccine per needle.

What do mean link between vaccines and disease? It’s already been admitted, vaccines prevent people dying from disease and it hasn’t exactly bankrupted any countries.

You’re the one who is doing a witch hunt here.

“Newly-revealed documents show that on December 20th, 1996, a meeting of The Inflammatory Bowel Disease Study Group based at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School featured a presentation by Professor Walker-Smith on seven of the children who would later become part of the group of patients Dr Wakefield wrote about in his 1998 The Lancet paper (which was later retracted by The Lancet).

Remember, Dr Wakefield has been accused of completely fabricating his findings about these same children in his 1998 paper, but these documents reveal that fourteen months before Dr Wakefield’s paper was published, two other researchers — Professor Walker-Smith and Dr Amar Dhillon — independently documented the same problems in these children, including symptoms of autism.

Thus, Dr Wakefield could not have “fabricated” these findings as alleged by the British Medical Journal, which now finds itself in the position of needing to issue a retraction, or it must now expand its accusations of fraud to include Professor Walker-Smith and Dr Dhillon… essentially, the BMJ must now insist that a “conspiracy of fraud” existed among at least these three researchers, and possibly more, in order to back up its allegation that Dr Wakefield’s study results were fabricated.

This is not about “Bad Science” It is about bad journalism.

Professor Walker-Smith’s 1996 presentation at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School was entitled, “Entero-colitis and Disintegrative Disorder Following MMR – A Review of the First Seven Cases.”

His presentation notes began with the following text: “I wish today, to present some preliminary details concerning seven children, all boys, who appear to have entero-colitis and disintegrative disorder, probably autism, following MMR. I shall now briefly present
their case history.”

He then went on to detail the clinical history of these seven children as derived from his medical team as well as senior pathologist Dr Amar Dhillon. Importantly, Dr Andrew Wakefield was not part of this investigation. This means that Dr Wakefield’s findings were independently replicated by another medical research team.

The British Medical Journal’s accusations against Dr Wakefield — that he fabricated his findings — are therefore false. The mainstream media accusation that Dr Wakefield’s findings have “never been replicated” is also blatantly false.”

Now if there was no validity to Wakfields original study, why has it been subsequently duplicated? I thought that this was the ultimate scientific method for evaluating a validating a studies claim.

It is ironic that there is now a concern for the children who took part in this study, as to the nature of the invasive tests at the time, yet no concern for these childrens suffering and bowel conditions today, and how children could be helped via this valid and vital line of study.

The link between some children and the current recommended Vaccine schedule and ingredients causing adverse serious effects is obvious. This does not mean that vaccines should not be used. It means creating vaccines that are safe for all children. Not just so they have a long shelf life, or are easy or more profitable in some way. Taking a way the choice of single shots is also a bizarre step to take.

If a like between vaccines and disease was admitted it would bankrupt the USA.

A Witch Hunt is not the way to evaluate science or policy. it is always a way to manipulate and control public perception and create irrational hysteria as a way of obfuscating some truth or motive.

MMR doctor struck off register

        drbuzz0 said:

I think I have mentioned this before: peer review does not generally work very well at dealing with outright dishonesty and it can easily get through because there is usually a presumption that the authors have been generally honest, or at the very least, would not stoop to outright fabrication of data.

It’s not just dishonesty in this case, Wakefield was not just an outright liar, he is a bull****ter. Princeton philosopher Harry Frankfurt made this observation, which I think is applicable here:

“It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bull**** requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bull****ter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.”

        DV82XL said:

Lancet retracts ‘utterly false’ MMR paper

I have read some about this in the past couple of days. There are plenty of times when a journal published study has later been the either qualified or critical statements made. Occasionally studies are volentarily retracted by their authors, citing an honest error or something. Many peer reviewed journals do also have a section of letters to the editor that occasionally refute studies in a fairly candid manner.

So it is not unusual for a study to get some level of refutation or opposition after being published or to get amended.

However, I can’t recall too many instances where a journal published study has gotten this kind of treatment, where the publishers of it will use such direct and strong condemnation of something like this. In the professional world, these kind of statements really don’t come out much, and when they do, it’s usually reserved for the worst of the worst crimes against scientific ethics.

This is one of those rare “man bites dog” kind of freak stories that really shocks those involved in research. I think I have mentioned this before: peer review does not generally work very well at dealing with outright dishonesty and it can easily get through because there is usually a presumption that the authors have been generally honest, or at the very least, would not stoop to outright fabrication of data.

“The Lancet today finally retracted the paper that sparked a crisis in MMR vaccination across the UK, following the General Medical Council’s decision that its lead author, Andrew Wakefield, had been dishonest.

The medical journal’s editor, Richard Horton, told the Guardian today that he realised as soon as he read the GMC findings that the paper, published in February 1998, had to be retracted. “It was utterly clear, without any ambiguity at all, that the statements in the paper were utterly false,” he said. “I feel I was deceived.”

Many in the scientific and medical community have been pressing for the paper, linking the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) jab to bowel disease and autism, to be quashed. But Horton said he did not have the evidence to do so before the end of the GMC investigation last ThursdayThe Lancet today finally retracted the paper that sparked a crisis in MMR vaccination across the UK, following the General Medical Council’s decision that its lead author, Andrew Wakefield, had been dishonest.

The medical journal’s editor, Richard Horton, told the Guardian today that he realised as soon as he read the GMC findings that the paper, published in February 1998, had to be retracted. “It was utterly clear, without any ambiguity at all, that the statements in the paper were utterly false,” he said. “I feel I was deceived.”

Many in the scientific and medical community have been pressing for the paper, linking the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) jab to bowel disease and autism, to be quashed. But Horton said he did not have the evidence to do so before the end of the GMC investigation last Thursday”

        Mary Hirzel said:

It is the GMC that is disgraced and guilty.

The only disgrace, as mentioned above, is that it took so very long to come out so strongly against him. This man’s actions include child endangerment and fraud. He should be in criminal court. At the very least, I this at least ends his career in medicine.

Do you honestly believe that the whole world is one giant conspiracy against him and the “truth”? I mean drug companies may be rich, but you honestly think they bought off the GMC and every medical organization of every major country plus 99% of doctors? Seriously get a grip on reality.

Like this is any surprise?

Skeptical website attract loony commenters like moths to a flame. In both cases they fly around a bit and annoy the hell out of you before ultimately getting burned.