Kimmo

the situation is a bit bigger than wakefield and his role. it's bigger than merck falsifying data on a vaccine administered to millions. link it's even bigger than gerberding, former cdc director, leaving her post and going directly to work for merck as head of their vaccine department! i don't think we even need to get into the whole pfizer atrocity in africa, do we? (and people wonder why dem forners are so ignorant and can't just take their (our) meds!). to me, the above are distractions. ok maybe they show that both pharma and some anti-vax researchers will falsify data (surprise surprise), but the bigger problem is that vaccines haven't been studied in ways they could, and there are known problems with them already. i think until this happens, we will continue to have public trust issues, with the accompanying problems undervaccination can lead to (as mentioned in your earlier post). somewhat interesting read for the science types (scroll down to View from the other side and "scientific proofs": link

you know better, rob. it's irresponsible for you to be publicly airing your fear-mongering, when we know, through extensive SCIENCE, that vaccinations are 100% money back guaranteed to be COMPLETELY SAFE and it's been proven. plus, the government tells us so, and so do the scientists. so please take it down.

ladies and gentlemen, may i present to you: SCIENCE.

you and rob both, seemingly.

http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/48/4/456.full i've read this study before, and i don't think this is a study that compares vax vs non-vax kids, only mmr and thimerosal effects on autism rates among vaccinated kids, right? from the above study: No studies have compared the incidence of autism in vaccinated, unvaccinated, or alternatively vaccinated children (i.e., schedules that spread out vaccines, avoid combination vaccines, or include only select vaccines). These studies would be difficult to perform because of the likely differences among these 3 groups in health care seeking behavior and the ethics of experimentally studying children who have not received vaccines.

after you're done, can you please go check all your neighbors' outlets?

healy states clearly that she doesn't support a particular hypothesis, only that a particular hypothesis has not been properly investigated; there's a big difference between the two. really? which studies? i haven't seen a study comparing vaccinated vs un-vaccinated kids from birth to X years of age. if there is one, let me know cuz i'd love to read it. climate change has been studied in a very specific manner. i haven't seen the same type of studies with vaccines (maybe i just haven't seen them? sounds like you have so i'd love to hear about them). btw, did you read the links i provided?

ok ok one more nugget for thought: The antibody to this antigen was found in 83% of autistic children but not in normal children or siblings of autistic children. Thus autistic children have a hyperimmune response to measles virus, which in the absence of a wild type of measles infection might be a sign of an abnormal immune reaction to the vaccine strain or virus reactivation. link

You'd think?!? Lastly, Healy says the government has a long way to go to even do basic research that could get at the heart of what she believes is an open question. For example: why in the past decade hasn't the government compared the autism/ADD rate of unvaccinated children with that of vaccinated children? If the rate is the same, it tends to point away from vaccines. If the rate is markedly lower in unvaccinated children, it tends to point toward vaccines. Healey again.

The death toll from childhood diseases would be unthinkable without vaccines. You must be younger and your father and mother didn't recount the tales of how many friends and classmates died all the way through their schooling. and that's the rub, joe. what a quandary. if there is found to be a link between asd and vaccines in certain susceptible kids (how many might that be?), how do we proceed in a way that doesn't threaten the progress we've made in eradicating vaccine-preventable illness? From Bernadine Healy, former director of the NIH: Healy said: "There is a completely expressed concern that they don't want to pursue a hypothesis because that hypothesis could be damaging to the public health community at large by scaring people. "First of all," Healy said, "I think the public's smarter than that. The public values vaccines. But more importantly, I don't think you should ever turn your back on any scientific hypothesis because you're afraid of what it might show." link

and since we're talking about vaccines: US gov says vaccinations caused autism disorder and approves compensation to parents. Meanwhile in Italy....

choosing coke over pepsi doesn't result in the loss of 100's of thousands of lives, as did the choice of bush over gore. down-playing the real, qualitative differences between the two parties we're stuck with right now is as idiotic as overlooking the structural sarcomas you speak of. yes, it's a hell of a conundrum.

average joe and joanna don't have the time/inclination to do the research. they do as their docs say. and no, the docs themselves don't always/often/(ever?) have the time/inclination to do the research themselves. plus, i wonder what pressures the docs face to prescribe x y or z drug (i'm sure convenience plays a role).

as much as i'd like to see this, i'm not sure it's gonna play out like this. maybe you're right, but there's absolutely no way that the repub party is obsolete and dead. i think there are aspects of the repub party that need to survive, but i don't know how it's gonna happen.

now look, joe, i disagree that this is what "we just saw". there weren't that many votes that separated the two candidates, so to dismiss the republican "message" and "strategy" out of hand is simply incorrect. it's not that black and white/ brown and white as you say. shit, if it wasn't for the ludicrous and outrageous statements by a couple of repub nut jobs at the most inopportune time, we might be bemoaning the presidency of nut job romney. Ditto with the south on gay marriage and including blacks. No way, Jose. And that's the problem with the redistricting - the House is now locked down on racial lines and so those necessarily divisive house races set the tone for the overall election. ask pat rove. he said he's got the answer.

i will not sit idly by while you talk to my little brother like that, you, you... polish person.

rob is the little brother you didn't know you had.

max, you missed his sophisticated humor. rob doesn't have much to say, so he picks at straw men under the guise of "humor".

or bicycles?

that was a really good one. you're really outdoing yourself now. how about cars?

sorry dude! your sophistication is admirable also.

what i've always appreciated about your contributions is the degree of sophistication you bring to the table. whether it's humor, or something else entirely.

words are only words. it's the intent behind them. hey and yea, i'll throw my hat in the ring of progress towards the better. just not sure the "data points" you pick are the ones i'd use, nor the tone of self-assurance (arrogance ain't my thing, although don't take this as a charge), but those might just be personality differences, that's all.

you make some good points, rob. it's fairly evident that those who eat healthy, exercise, and have a good lifestyle enjoy much better health than those who don't (including a much lower risk of cancer). not sure about the "serfs", though. modern "serfs" here in america tend to be rather unhealthy, for a variety of reasons.

They do seem to be rather ineffective (as current evidence suggests). dangerous and bad for you? there are evidently questions regarding their safety, and without doubt there have been serious and deadly complications from them, but in some ways this seems moot to me, since the reason for getting this vaccination seems (probably) unnecessary in the first place.