Facts, not Fantasy

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Anti-vax pro-disease nutters make people sick

Anti-vaxers seem to have a problem with reality.  Even when you give them real, hard data.  So, I just wanted to put these two links up.  basically, because these nutters want to go against reality, people are getting sick from preventable diseases.  Not only sick, but infants are DYING as well...

The Bad Astronomer has this to say:

Washington pertussis outbreak is very, very bad

This is one of the scariest graphs I’ve seen in a long time.

This plot, from the CDC, shows probable and confirmed cases of pertussis – whooping cough – in the state of Washington from 2011 through June 2012. Last year’s numbers are the short, light-blue-grey rectangles, and this year’s are the dark blue. The plot is by week, so you can see the 2011 numbers slowly growing across the year; then this year’s numbers suddenly taking a huge leap upward. They are reporting the new rate as 13 times larger than last year. Note that 83% of these cases have been confirmed as being pertussis, while 17% are probable. The drop in recent weeks is due to a lag in complete reporting of cases.
Got that? There are 13 times as many people – more than 2500 in total so far – getting pertussis right now as there were last year at this time in Washington. 
CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST.

Not only did the Bad Astronomer have this to post, but Steve Salzberg was the original poster that Dr. Plait generated his post from.  Of course, the source material was from the CDC, which thanks to nutters is having a hard time on that last C in their name...

Anti-vaccination propagandists help create the worst whooping cough epidemic in 70 years


The great northwest of the U.S. is known for its natural beauty.  It's also a high-tech region with a highly educated public - not exactly the kind of place one would expect to fall for the anti-science rhetoric of the anti-vaccine movement.
But it has.  The anti-vaxxers have convinced a frighteningly high number of parents in Washington State to withhold vaccines from their children.  A story in The Seattle Times last year reported that 
"Washington [state] parents are choosing not to vaccinate their kindergartners at a rate higher than anywhere else in the country."  
This despite the fact that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (formed by the founder of Microsoft, which is headquartered in Seattle) is one of the world's leading sponsors of vaccine research.  
When the vaccination rates drop, everyone becomes more vulnerable to infectious diseases.  When more than 90% of the population is vaccinated, we have "herd immunity" - this means the disease can't spread because there aren't enough susceptible people in the community.  So the high rate of vaccine refusal in Washington makes it easier for whooping cough (and other diseases) to spread.
The media has been complicit in spreading some of anti-vaccine misinformation.  Sometimes it comes straight from the media itself, such as the credulous, anti-science, anti-vax CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson. Other times it comes from talk shows, magazines, or even airline advertisements that provide a platform for anti-vax celebrity doctors such as Jay Gordon (who gained fame as Jenny McCarthy's son's doctor) and "Dr. Bob" Sears, who has published his own "alternative" vaccine schedule in a book filled with anti-vaccine nonsense.  These characters continue to claim, at every chance they get, that vaccines cause autism (as Gordon has said, repeatedly), or that they cause other harms, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  They use their medical degrees and their faux concern "for the children" to frighten parents into keeping their kids unvaccinated.

I only wish that there was a way to criminally prosecute these nutters for the pain and suffering they are causing.

Monday, May 07, 2012

40 Reasons - Medical Ludditery at it's finest


Sometimes while poking around the anti-vaccine lobby you find something so insane that not even Natural News would touch it. And I have found something that's madness incarnate. 

In this corner I present to you Jagganath Chatterjee, whose mindbogglingly daft 40 Reasons to Not Vaccinate your child attempts to bring the anti-vaccine movement to India. So with that in mind, here are 40 arguments against his 40.    

1. There is no scientific study to determine whether vaccines have really prevented diseases. Rather disease graphs show vaccines have been introduced at the fag end of epidemics when the disease was already in its last stages. In case of Small Pox the vaccine actually caused a great spurt in the incidence of disease killing thousands before public outcry led to its withdrawal. 
I don't know what planet Jagganath lives on but in the real world Smallpox vaccination was halted when the world was declared free of smallpox and we didn't need to vaccinate for something considered extinct. Vaccines were introduced in response to epidemics and further epidemics after those became less and less severe. However with every vaccination the severity of the outbreaks lessened. I did point out the idea that smallpox vaccinations were either introduced at the end of a outbreak or before one with no effect is a common idea in vaccine denialists in a previous article.
2. There are no long-term studies on vaccine safety. Very short-term unscientific tests are carried out where the vaccinated subjects are checked against another group who are given another vaccine. Technically the tests should be carried out against a non-vaccinated group. No one really knows what protocols are followed at such industry-sponsored trials. 
On the contrary. There are plenty of studies on vaccine safety over entire generations. Jagganath CLEARLY doesn't understand what a placebo vaccine is. A placebo is anything that mimics all the components of the drug except the active component. How does one mimic a positive immune reaction though? By giving another vaccine where there is no overlap with the test vaccine. That way the only difference is sensitisation to different antigens. And we have statistics that compare to non vaccinated groups. There is plenty of literature showing the categorical fall in the incidence of a disease after the vaccine is introduced such as in the case of the incidence of Smallpox or the various studies into the introduction of the Measles vaccine. Not to mention that all the protocols of vaccine testing are published.

What Jagganath means is "I don't know the protocols so I am going to assume no one does".
3. There has never been any attempt to compare a vaccinated population against a non vaccinated population to know what vaccines are doing to the children and the society.
Jagganath's problem is he thinks that the vaccine test has to occur simultaneously rather than as a timed comparison. AKA you take a group of people and note the existing rates and then vaccinated them and see what happens to the rates. He wants a side by side comparison where one group lives and one group dies when the results are the same as comparing to existing rates.

In India the effect is insanely clear. Diseases that once killed in the thousands are vanishing. Polio is eradicated from India (A frankly titanic and insanely impressive effort)
4. The child receives not one but many vaccines. There are no tests to determine the effects of multiple vaccines.
Because there are many diseases. And so far what we see is that all those vaccines drop their respective diseases creating a drop in mortality rate.

None of these vaccines are given at the same time and anti-vaccine luddites love categorising multivalent vaccines and strains as "individual" vaccines. Therefore to them the OPV and Polio vaccines either count as two or three depending on strain.

Again, there are plenty of tests every one of them shows that the majority of people who utilise vaccines are fine.   
5. There is no scientific basis for vaccinating infants. As per senior doctors quoted by the Times of India, "Children suffer from less that 2% of vaccine preventable illnesses but 100% of the vaccines are targeted towards them." The vaccine pioneers who have recommended abundant caution before vaccinating the population have never advocated Mass vaccinations.
Really? Those doctors are fucking morons then. The leading causes of deaths in all children in India are Diarrheoa, Pneumonia, Measles and Malaria. That with a enforced vaccine program and other drives the state of Keral has produced an infant mortality rate of around 11 per 1000 compared to the frankly batshit insane norm of 70 per 1000. Oh and 70 per 1000 is not the same all over India. There are parts of India where the rate is far worse. Only Malaria is not vaccine preventable, diarrhoea and pneumonia have various vaccines that reduce mortality and measles is really uncommon in areas with access to the MMR vaccine.

There is plenty of scientific basis for vaccinating infants. The entire point is that the maternal immune system stops protecting the child after a few weeks of birth and indeed in India the maternal immune system isn't all that strong due to the functional malnourishment that is endemic to India (between 60% of people in India are functionally malnourished - AKA missing vital nutrients often due to wacky diets prescribed by sadhus and alt. medicine practitioners). 
6. Children are vaccinated simply because parents can be frightened to forcefully vaccinate their children. Vaccinating infants is the most profitable business both for the manufa. cturers as well as the doctors.
Jagganath is a moron. There I said it. It's really bloody hard to be polite about a topic. Look, if you had a guy from NASA talk about space shuttles and amazing rockets and then some flat earther came out and started quoting flat earth nonsense, the guy from NASA would call this man a moron and everyone else would nod along. I don't see why I should respect Jagganath or his pro-disease nonsense.

Why should we spend money on rockets when we can spend it on some sort of space ship.

The treatment for Measles in India would cost around Rs. 300 to Rs. 500 for the average child. The vaccine costs Rs. Free. Remind me again is free bigger or smaller a value than 300? Most children in India are entitled to free vaccines and the government recommended schedule is available from government healthcare centres for free. Yes. India's government can barely afford to feed people and the power where I live doesn't work and corruption is so rife in it that it's easier to count non-corrupt people in politics... And even they managed to do something amazing in providing basic vaccination for free. And it shows! The infant mortality has consistently fallen across the board in areas with good healthcare acccess. India's current infant mortality is is a whopping 62 per 1000. Still high but falling.

Profit? Most vaccine manufacturers also make drugs. There is more money in sickness than in prevention. I don't think the anti-vaccine lobby understand that enough.   
7. The Government of India has come out with a quarter page advertisement in The Hindu warning parents not to vaccinate beyond the Government approved vaccines. Parents have been advised against vaccinating in private clinics and hospitals.
No they have not. I think what was in the papers was a warning not to vaccinate beyond the government approved list of vaccine companies as many fradulent companies may exist. And I don't think the Government of India has ever published an article like this. I think this is a lie.   
 8. The Orissa Chapter of the Indian Association of Pediatricians has admitted in a letter to the CM, Orissa, that private clinics and hospitals are ill equipped to store vaccines and warned parents not to vaccinate upon the advise of private practitioners and hospitals.
Bollocks. I checked. No one has said this. And you can store vaccines in a normal bog standard fridge. If push comes to shove you can make an ice box and store them. No one has said this, it seems like the only people who have heard this information in India are Jagganatha and his luddites.

Oh Noes! Where would we get a Fridge!
 9. ALL THE VACCINE INGREDIENTS ARE EXTREMELY TOXIC IN NATURE.
In large quantities yes. In a vaccine most of these are in miniscule amounts that our bodies are capable of dealing with and that we are routinely exposed to more amounts of these "toxins" (particularly in India where environmental dumping laws are rather more libertarian than in the west) in our daily lives or produce them within our own bodies.  
10. Vaccines contain heavy metals, cancer causing substances, toxic chemicals, live and genetically modified viruses, contaminated serum containing animal viruses and foreign genetic material, extremely toxic decontaminants and adjuvants, untested antibiotics, none of which can be injected without causing any harm.
Aluminium and Mercury is also found in a whole lot of traditional indian medicine in far larger quantities. I don't see Jagganath having a hissy fit over those. And without the live or genetically modified (I assume this is what he thinks attenuation is) viruses in the vaccine how does he think they work? These are arguments hashed out repeatedly.

There you go! Fan Service! Famous woman eats phallic food. You are welcome!

I do love the idea of foreign genetic material. Did you know that roughly three to four times a day I consume foreign genetic material. Humans are so addicted to foreign genetic material that if you stop consuming foreign genetic material you die.  

11. The mercury, aluminum and live viruses in vaccines is behind the huge epidemic of autism (1 in 10 worldwide as per doctors in the USA), a fact that has been admitted by the US Vaccine Court.
If this were Naruto this man would have the power to see through time or summon a giant badger when he blinks


Lying again? Not surprised! Hannah Polling was given money not because she has autism but because she had a mitochondrial disorder and that no one could say that the vaccines hadn't exacerbated it. But guess what? Mitochondrial disorders are insanely rare. Like "Should be on an episode of House" rare. Put it this way, I have seen a case of Wilson's Disease which was featured on house and that is a lot more common than this.

1 in 10 worldwide? More like 1 in a 100. And the US vaccine court is not the high court of science. At times like this I believe that there is a god and he took me seriously when I uttered Voltaire's Prayer.  
12.The CDC of USA, the vaccine watchdog, has publicly admitted that its much-publicized 2003 study denying any link between vaccines and autism, is flawed. The Chief of CDC Dr Gerberding has confessed to the media (CNN) that vaccines can cause "autism like symptoms". The Autism epidemic is found only in those countries that have allowed mass vaccinations.
The CDC is not the vaccine watchdog but is an entity that does public health and tracks disease trends in the USA so as to better combat emerging threats in medicine. It's basically the Intelligence branch of American Medicine. They audit and improve the functioning of a entire system of medicine.

And we produced information categorically stating that there is no link between autism and vaccination since the rates of autism are the same in vaccinated and non-vaccinated people. Autism diagnosis is rare in India because there is no infrastructure and for the same reason why kids in the 80s didn't "suffer from autism".

Because we all knew weird, antisocial or plain crazy kids. Kids that today would be diagnosed with autism. Many of these kids grew up and adapted to live in the real world. Many did not and became recluses. The point is today we are capable of recognising these children. The vast majority of kids on the autism spectrum fall under the "slightly weird but normal" category of "80s children". As for flawed research? I am guessing the CDC's study in Jagganath's opinion was flawed but the Andrew Wakefield one was performed as the acme of scientific rigour which proved that vaccines can travel through time to cause autism and epilepsy is a form of autism. 
13. In the year 1999, the US Government instructed vaccine manufacturers to remove mercury from vaccines "with immediate effect". But mercury still remains a part of many vaccines. The vaccines with mercury were never recalled and were given to children up to the year 2006. "Mercury free" vaccines contain 0.05mcg of mercury, enough to permanently damage a infant.
Firstly, the only vaccine with thiomersal (not mercury, otherwise I am going to claim that all my food contains deadly deadly chlorine! And explosive sodium!) left in the USA is the flu vaccine and that contains 20 mcg of it. Not 0.05 mcg. The problem is Jagganath again cannot tell the difference between different SI units.   
14. IN INDIA NO ATTEMPT HAS BEEN MADE TO ENSURE THAT MERCURY AND OTHER HEAVY METALS ARE REMOVED FROM VACCINES SIMPLY BECAUSE IT WOULD MAKE VACCINES COSTLIER.
It would also make vaccines harder to distribute and there has been been no correlation with the minute amounts of aluminum hydroxide (you consume more aluminium hydroxide in over the counter anti-emetics, bulk laxatives and anti-heartbearn medication than in all the vaccines combined). I don't know what planet Jagganath lives in the government is on a tight budget and costlier vaccines actually means fewer people vaccinated.  
15. In a reply to then President Sri Abdul Kalam, the Health Ministry informed, "mercury is required to make the vaccines safe". To the authors query that "what are these vaccines that it requires the second most dangerous neurotoxin, mercury, to make them safe?", there was no reply.
We routinely use neurotoxins in medicine such as Atropine and Neostigmine... These save people's lives. Botulin toxin is vital to the treatment of spastic paralysis and curare is vital to setting bones and heart surgery.

Neurotoxins aren't safe but that doesn't mean they do not have a function. And many of these are far deadlier than mercury. Mercury in vaccines is in such a small amount that you get more mercury from eating fish and from drinking water from certain areas.


Rice, Shark and Chicken. So very tasty.




And Abdul Kalam is a rocket scientist. A smart man but his knowledge of medical science is not the same as other people. I am sure this conversation didn't take place. Because medical textbooks mention the reason for the usage of thiomersol (Preservative, a miniscule dose of thiomersol keeps the solution free of bacteria, maintains attenuation and stops any fungal growth). 
16. Mercury used in vaccines is second in toxicity only to the radioactive substance, Uranium. It is a neurotoxin that can damage the entire nervous system of the infant in no time.
No it's not. There are more deadly neurotoxins out there and many that we use for medically related things. Neurotoxin isn't a "mechanism" there are specific ways they work. And I am sure pure sodium is as deadly but we regularly eat ionic sodium. Chemical structure is also vital.  
17. Mercury accumulates in fat. The brain being made entirely of fat cells, most of the mercury accumulates there giving rise to the peculiar symptoms of the autistic children.
Maybe Jagganath's brain is made up of fat cells but the rest of us have brains that function due to neurons.  
18. The mercury used in vaccines is ethyl mercury. According to Indian doctors7 this is 1000 times more toxic than the usual methyl mercury.
Yet according to reality methyl mercury is more toxic and in which planet is ethyl mercury equal to mercury? Ethyl indicates an ethyl (a two hydrocarbon group) while methyl indicates a single hydrocarbon group. How are these similar to mercury with no hydrocarbon groups? Oh that's right... Failure of basic high school chemistry here. 
 19. The aluminum present in vaccines makes the mercury, in any form, 100 times more toxic.
Yet the aluminium present in aluminium foil, juice packets and a variety of other places including over the counter antacids is perfectly safe. How does it make mercury 100 times more toxic? Magic? Oh wait... More Lies by anti-vax. And not even very good lies.  
20. As per an independent study aluminum and formaldehyde present in vaccines can increase the toxicity of mercury, in any form, by 1000 times.
Which is industrial grade nonsense of the highest order. I have  been exposed to the kind of formaldehyde concentrations that would make Jagganath claim that I am the the bloody Superman (Cadavers for dissection are soaked in formaldehyde and the "smell" of formaldehyde is basically you inhaling rather huge quantitites of the stuff. Formaldehyde is poisonous but you do need a fair bit. The issue being that when you drink methanol all of it is converted into formaldehyde faster than you can process it.

Formaldehyde is actually produced in our body as an intermediate in the production of Nucleic Acids. By Jagganath's logic the amount of mercury I consume in seafood often wrapped in foil plus attending anatomy dissections should have killed me. Or turned into some sort of mutant due to all that extra nucleic acids. I am pretty sure that's how biology works.

If I lived in a comic book. 
21. As per a Tehelka article on Autism, children are receiving 250 times more mercury through vaccines than they can possibly tolerate. The same article states that if one considers the WHO limit for mercury in water, they are receiving 50,000 times the limit. The limits set, incidentally, are for adults and not infants.
Which is industrial grade bollocks because then you should be campaigning against the consumption of shark in southern India since that is a well known source of mercury.

The WHO standard for water concentration of methyl mercury (the more toxic form) in water is 2 mcg per litre. Ethyl mercury is less toxic and excreted far faster than methyl mercury (over hours rather than days) with less absorption. In 10 days you have drunk more methyl mercury than a single vaccine. Congratulations.

Oh food wise? Per person per day we consume around 20 mcg of mercury. More in some people who like a lot of fish.

50,000 times the limit? In order to reach that value based on water you would multiple 2 x 50,000 = 100,000. Then you would divide by 20 = 5000.

This means that in order to produce a dose 50,000 times the limit of the EPA you would need to inject yourself with 5000 vaccines simultaneously and via IV. Not that only one regular vaccine really contains any significant quantity of thiomersal and that I don't think anyone recieves 5000 vaccines in their life time. A quick check and it turns out there is like at most 20 to 25 shots throughout your life. I am pretty sure if I injected you with 5000 vaccines (assuming each is a tiny 3 mL dose) I would need a syringe 15 Litres in capacity. I must point out there is 15 litres of fluid in an average human body so we would need to double the human volume. The argument is frankly stupid.

This is without going into the fact that the body excretes ethyl mercury and that Jagganath swaps between inorganic mercury, methyl mercury and dimethyl mercury stats.  
22. Autism in India has emerged as the most rapidly growing epidemic amongst children. From 1 in 500 it has steadily climbed to 1 in 37 today. As per Indian doctors, "You can go to any class of any school today and find an autistic child."
Amusing. Since the incidence of autism in India is not 1 in 37. Infact the incidence rate being quoted is allegedly one from Korea. Infact the current autism rate in India is UNKNOWN due to the complete lack of proper psychiatric care available across the nation. The major thrust of indian medicine is primary healthcare with a few secondary care specialities. Psychiatry is sadly not a field of much importance due to the social and clinical stigma of such cases.

However the truth is the diagnosis of autism is a very difficult task and that autism has sadly become a wonderful pop diagnosis by many doctors. Many children with autism seemingly "grow out" of their disorders. Some are genuinely autistic and have been socialised in a way that they understand behaviour and have adopted it. Some are however not autistic. There are shy, quiet and weird children. Their shyness, quietness and weirdness may not be pathological, it may merely be a quirk of personality. Psychiatry as a science is extremely subjective (for a science) and I do feel that sometimes parents think that any deviation from the idea of normal demands a psychiatric explanation for such behaviour.

1 in 100 sounds about right for the current incidence of autism. Globally that's probably the rate with local variations in distribution. I believe the problem in India is due to the complete lack of infrastructure with regards to diagnosis of autism. Autism is not the be all and end all of the world. Many autistic people live normal lives that are indistinguishable from you or me. Most are for all intents and purposes normal. We may as well start worrying about the rise of dyslexia in our populations.  
23. Autism is a permanent disability that affects the child physically, mentally and emotionally. It makes the child loose social contact. It impedes both the physical and mental growth of the child. It destroys the brain causing severe memory and attention problems. According to vaccine researcher Dr Harris Coulter, vaccines cause children to become pervert and criminal. All the school shootings by the children in the USA are by autistic children. Vaccines can cause more harm that even the medical community privately acknowledges.
Jagganath here crosses the line and limbos under the bar of good taste. And I set that bar really bloody low to the ground.

So let's throw down some medicine. Autism is clinically defined as a developmental disorder that occurs in the first 3 years of life. It is a PHYSICAL condition linked to abnormal biology and chemistry. The exact aetiology of autism is UNKNOWN. Any person saying that they know the cause of autism is vaccines is trying to sell a load of wank and should be called out for being such a wanker.

There is a genetic variation that causes autism. This is because monozygotic twins (effective clones) exhibit it more if one of the pair has it than dizygotic twins (two separate eggs and sperm). More boys (3 to 4 times more) are affected than girls indicating it is linked directly or indirectly to the X chromosome (If it was Y based it would be solely in boys). There are very specific methods of diagnosing autism (eg. CHAT and the ASQ) including genetic and metabolic tests.

The major problem with autism is that parents fear bringing children in for diagnosis. As the stigma of autism and mental disorder has fallen in the west, so has the increase in Autism diagnosis as parents are more likely to bring their children in for diagnosis and care.

There are five methods of treating autism. Applied Behaviour Analysis, Cognitive Speech Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy Linked to Learning and Medication. Medication is solely advised in cases of autistic children who are afflicted with destructive behaviour that makes them dangerous, extreme compulsion, mood swings and aggression. Sometimes it helps in case of insomnia and in cases of dietary issues.

Dr. Harris Coulter can jump in a fucking well for all I care but there has been no link between autism and criminal behaviour. Nor school shootings. It's the use of a tragic occurence to scare people into thinking that if you vaccinate then your kid will shoot up a school.

At no point did anyone want to talk about what went through those children's minds when they shot up those schools, why they thought those things so that we can stop further such attacks. No one was interested in the "why" of the situation. And one can point out that ease of access to guns helps.  
24. Autistic children also suffer from severe bowel disorders. As per Dr Andrew Wakefield, this is due to the vaccine strain live measles virus in the MMR vaccine. Nearly all children become fully autistic after the MMR shot.
Andrew Wakefield purposefully misdiagnosed children and subjected them to a series of invasive tests and produced a toe curlingly bad piece of research solely to make money via a lawsuit.

Most children do not develop autism after the MMR vaccine.  
25. The DPT also causes children to regress giving rise to fears that multiple live virus vaccines are an important cause behind autism. If three live viruses can cause so much harm we can well imagine what today’s five and seven viruses vaccines will do to children.
They do not cause children to regress. Infact one of the oddities of vaccination is that vaccinated children have lower incidences of neurological conditions than non-vaccinated children. The DPT vaccine is also bacterial (Corneybacterium Diptheriae, Bordetella Pertussis and Clostridium Tetanii) and not viral. So there is that.  
26. Before the autism epidemic, it is already well known that vaccines have caused the cancer epidemic in today’s society. Both the Small Pox and the Oral Polio Vaccine are made from monkey serum. This serum has helped many cancer causing monkey viruses, 60 found so far, to enter the human blood stream.
The method by which variola and polio viruses were attenuated would also affect the simian virus thus immunising us against the viruses themselves. The cancer epidemic is due to the fact we live so goddamn long. You have to die of something. Human life is a series of bottle necks. Vaccines destroy one bottleneck so more people die at the other bottlenecks. To someone living in the DRC or some other Least Developed Country heart attacks are rare because most people do not make it to that particular age of where that bottle neck of health occurs. We do.

Vaccines caused cancer by ensuring more people live longer. The longer people are alive the more likely they are to get cancer. Prostate cancer is really rare if most people die by the age of 45.
27. It is also known that it is the use of green monkey serum in vaccines that has led to the transfer of the Sivian Immune deficiency Virus (SIV) from monkeys into humans. The SIV and the HIV that causes AIDS are very similar.
Actually it was probably due to the mixing of human blood and ape/monkey blood during the slaughter of bushmeat in Africa. The SIV and HIV are retroviruses and are actually really fragile. The attenuation procedure would actually kill them outright.
28. Not only AIDS, a blood cancer in infants (Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia) that is affecting children in thousands is also due to the extremely toxic nature of vaccine ingredients.
ALL is mainly due to exposure to radiation, translocations of 9/22 and 4/11 chromosomes and benzene exposure. It shows high occurences in Down's, Fanconi's Anaemia, Bloom's, X-linked Agammaglobulinemia, Ataxia telangiectasia and other diseases.

It's not due to vaccines.  
29. Infantile jaundice and also infantile diabetes is also scientifically connected to the toxic vaccines.
Let's break this down separately.

Infantile Jaundice is due to a variety of reasons. There is good old physiological jaundice which is something that nearly every baby born suffers from. This is due to increased blood load on liver, incomplete uptake, incomplete conjugation of billirubin and incomplete excretion.

Now the pathological causes are more common. Membrane disorders, Sepsis, Arteriovenous malformation, G6PD deficiency, Pyruvate Kinase deficiency, Sickle cell Anaemia, Alpha Thalassemia, Haemolytic Disease of Newborn, Rh incompatibility, Breast milk feeding (yes... Seriously though? If that's the case the baby is placed under a white light photoincubator and feeding is continued since the benefits of the feed outweigh the jaundice caused), Cephalohaematoma, Polycythemia Vera, Hypothyroid, Gilbert's Syndrom, Criggler Najjar Syndrome, TORCH, Galactosemia, Alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency, Cystic Fibrosis, Total Parenteral Nutrition and Alagille Syndrome.

Note how vaccines aren't in the list.
29. The live polio viruses used in the Oral Polio Vaccine has caused Vaccine Attributed Paralytic Polio in more than 65,000 children as per doctors of the Indian Medical Association. In the USA this vaccine has caused polio 16 years after administration. The OPV has also let loose a new strain of polio in both India and Africa. The OPV is banned in other countries.
Vaccine Associated Polio is mainly seen in children who aren't properly vaccinated by the OPV. It's a rare complication caused by an insufficiently vaccinated individual being exposed to the OPV in normal sources of infection.

In India last year there were just 12 cases of Vaccine Associated Polio. In a country of 1 billion people. The OPV is the preferred vaccine in areas where endemic polio is present due to the higher levels of immunity it grants over the IPV and due to the sub-clinical transfer mechanism granting other people some mode of immunity. As wild cases of polio disappear due to the vaccine preventing the spread and propogation of wild polio countries swap to the IPV.

India has endemic polio, so the OPV is used.  
30. Vaccines contain serum from not only chimpanzees and monkeys but also from cows, pigs, chickens, eggs, horses, and even human serum and tissues extracted from aborted fetuses.
And?

This really is an argument based on "See all this weird stuff! It's not natural!". Just because you cannot understand function does not mean that something doesn't work. I don't understand exactly how a jet engine works (I understand it's compression of air but precise function is alien to me) but that doesn't mean I can mock the damn thing.  
31. Deaths and permanent disability from vaccines is very common and known by the medical community. They are instructed by the Government to keep quiet and not to associate such cases with vaccines.
The government of India couldn't plan a booze up in a pub. Seriously? When they tried to run the Commonwealth Games they had to rush to finish building, fucked up the accomodations and had a shoddily constructed bridge collapse on them. And I am supposed to believe that they single handedly control all the doctors in the land?

Fat Chance. Doctors know vaccines work. Death from vaccines and permanent disability is so rare that I haven't heard of a single one. Not one.  
32. Many doctors argue that diseases during childhood are due to the body exercising its immune system. Suppressing these diseases causes the immune system to remain undeveloped causing the various autoimmune disorders like diabetes and arthritis that have become epidemics today.
Which is why those western kids who don't exercise their immune systems are so weak and pitiful while Indian kids are so strong and healthy right? This argument seems to admit that vaccines work though...

I would like to talk to these doctors who think "Diseases Exercise the Immune System". Mainly to note down their MCI numbers and have them drummed out of the institution since their argument is plain moronic and indicative of a complete lack of ability and knowledge. Your immune system does not function better the more you get sick. It's not a muscle.

And yes, vaccination does not cause diabetes and arthritis. It does howeveer let you live long enough to get those lifestyle disorders.  
33. Vaccines suppress the natural immunity and the body does not have natural antibodies anymore. The mothers milk therefore does not contain natural antibodies and can no longer protect the child against illnesses.
Vaccines function through the natural system of specific immunity and the antibodies produced by a vaccine and by the disease are indistinguishable from each other. Breast milk itself loses it's effectiveness over time since the baby's immune system detects the maternal antibodies and destroys them since they are foreign bodies. It's why the protection from it wanes.   
34. In the USA vaccine adverse effects are recorded and the Government offers compensation of millions of dollars to victims (the most recent case in its Vaccine Court may have received upto $200 million in damages). The Indian Government simply refuses to acknowledge that vaccines can cause deaths and permanent disability.
Out of 8000 cases made to the Vaccine Court only 950 have recieved compensation and the system is a no-fault system. If you can prove that your child has a vaccine related side effect (as listed on the side of the box through testing) then you get money with relation to that. The majority of the major damages paid were to Hannah Poling who may have suffered damage due to possessing a rare mitochondrial disorder.

The Indian government acknowledges that, however it knows that vaccination prevents more deaths and disabilities than the anti-vax lobby claims it causes. It's infact laughably moronic to be anti-vax in India since it requires a very selective blindness to all the dead children.  
35. It has been scientifically proven that vaccines cannot prevent disease. Vaccines try to create humoral (blood related immunity) whereas it has been found that immunity is developed at various levels, humoral as well as cellular. We still do not know enough about the human immune system and therefore should not interfere with it.
This is just plain stupid. We know about immunology, there is an entire fucking field that we do research in. We know way more than Jagganath and his quacks. It's been scientifically proven that vaccines prevent diseases all over the bloody world when we made goddamn smallpox extinct. This isn't up for debate anymore, this is fact.

The more anti-vax argue on this point the more stupid they sound. Non Specific immunity is not as powerful as the specific immune system because people without a specific immune system get sick really easily.

That's what an AIDS patient is. He is an individual without a specific immune system. Surely by Jagganath's logic that patient would be perfectly fine right? It's only humoral immunity after all.  
36. In the USA parents are informed about vaccine after effects and their consent has to be taken before vaccinating their children. In India the Government assures the population through massive advertising campaigns that vaccines are extremely safe. Parents refusing to vaccinate are threatened by the administration.
Ah yes bullshit merchants! Since vaccine side effects are mentioned before administration of the vaccine even in India... This is just an outright lie.

You aren't threatened by the admin so much as exposed to real disease. Lot more vaccine preventable diseases are around in India and so it's a lot more easier for us to say I told you so.   
37. THERE IS NO SYSTEM OF TREATMENT TO TREAT A VACCINE DAMAGED CHILD. The parents have to run from one hospital to another. The Government turns a blind eye and refuses to even acknowledge the vaccine connection.
Because everything Jagganath thinks is a connection is not, and I have seen vaccine side effects being treated and have treated them myself. (Things like rashes, fevers and chills). In India parents run from hospital to hospital as there is no complete healthcare system and everything is run in a patchwork system of public and private coverage. You would have to run from hospital to hospital if you thought you broke your foot too.
38. Medical doctors have challenged even the vaccines recommended by the Government of India. The BCG vaccine for tuberculosis has been extensively tested in India as long back as 1961 and found to be totally ineffective. The OPV is causing polio and other neurological and intestinal disorders in tens of thousands of Indian children. The Hep-B vaccine introduced recently is not meant for children at all, it is a vaccine for a sexually transmitted disease that should be targeted only at promiscuous adults. The tetanus vaccine contains both aluminum and mercury besides the tetanus toxoid. The doctors themselves avoid the DPT as it is one of the most toxic vaccines ever devised. The measles vaccine is a vaccine that regularly causes severe adverse effects and the health workers want it out.
In Tamil Nadu where the BCG vaccine was rolled out, TB has become so rare that when a TB positive case is seen you are immediately required to test for HIV. BCG mainly protects against variations on TB such as TB meningitis and miliary TB. I dealt with the OPV argument earlier. Hepatitis B vaccine is VITAL in halting the spread of a fairly terrible disease that can spread through horizontal transmission and vertical transmission. The tetanus vaccine protects against fucking tetanus and toxoid is a component and is different from a toxin. And I have been vaccinated with the DPT because Diptheria and Tetanus scare the everloving fuck out of me.

Finally? No Fucking Healthcare Worker Wants the Measles Vaccine Out. Measles kills 60,000 children in India per year (half of the world's deaths to measles are in India). India has poorer measles vaccine coverage than Africa. It's got a long way to go in producing coverange and guess what? All sane healthcare workers want more vaccination with the vaccine. Maybe Jagganath hangs out with a bunch of quacks but the real workers want more of this vaccine that would save 60,000 lives per year.  
40. The pediatricians are introducing dubious vaccines in India, which are being opposed by the doctors, politicians, and public in American and European countries. The Rotavirus vaccine, Hib vaccine, HPV vaccine and the various multi various vaccines being introduced without any kind of testing is only because the vaccine manufacturers and the doctors administering them want to ensure a good income from them. They care two hoots about medical ethics and the fate of the children who will receive these vaccines. Vaccines containing nano particles and viruses and also plant based genetically honest doctors worldwide are opposing modified vaccines.
Rotavirus vaccine would stop the biggest cause of infantile diarrhoea and therefore the biggest cause of child mortality in India. Haemophillus Influenza B vaccine would stop one of the biggest causes of meningitis. HPV would stop one of the biggest causes of cervical cancer which is one of the biggest causes of deaths in women. Many of these have been tested for a decade. Just not in India since the manufacturers of these are not Indian. Good income? The HPV vaccine costs $390... The cost of a single case of cervical cancer varies from thousands of dollars to thousands of dollars and sterility and loss of sexual function to death. Doctors in India make a killing because there are so many diseases.

Medical ethics are all well and dandy for someone whose article is a tapestry of lies. And to my knowledge there are no "doctors" opposing vaccines. Only quacks.
    Of course they aren't exhaustive! There is no depth to the well of Anti-Vax stupidity and I have long given up being amazed by their highly ludicrous arguments. I however am stating that if Jagganath Chaterjee wants to make up stupid challenges then I will be glad to take his money off him. I could do a lot of good with $90,000 and in return I am willing to place James Randi's Million Dollar Reward as a counter offer.

    The challenge Mr. Jagganath lists has different rules to the ones he has stated. Mr. Jagganath has CLEARLY stated that "
    a $90,000+ (yes, US Dollar Ninety Thousand) award for any doctor who will drink a mixture containing the total quantum of toxins that are pushed into the childrens little bodies till the age of six in the name of "immunisation"" and so that is the challenge I will hold him to rather than the other challenge mentioned which is to drink something called a "weight adjusted dose of the collective toxins in vaccines which I assume is just anti-vax speech for if we combine the total volume of all vaccines and times it by your weight you will get poisoned by this higher amount because we think biology works by linear equation" .

    Yes, I will take all the vaccines that an Indian 6 year old has recieved and drink them if and only if Mr. Chaterjee proves that he has $90,000 for this challenge and comes down to witness me drink and indeed hands over the money personally. Because no one likes anyone who welshes out on deals now do they?

    Thursday, March 29, 2012

    Evolution and Vaccination - A destruction of an anti-vaccine argument


    It's no secret that a lot of the anti-vaccine movement exists due to the ignorance of parents who need to make decisions with their child's healthcare. Anti-Vaccine portrays themselves as scientists when they are not often using acronyms and official sounding degrees and lab coats to make themselves seem like they are professionals.

    They work by creating unreasonable doubt and by portraying their qualifications as equal to a medic when in reality they generally follow incredibly outdated medical practices and ideas that are laughably out dated in a science that is moving at a pretty hefty pace. They lie and portray deadly diseases as "harmless" and easily controlled by nutrition, vitamins and magic water.

    They show a complete lack of understanding of statistics, probability and actual terminology and appeal to ideas like "souls", "harmony", "balance" and "energy". Words which mean very little in terms of the biochemical machine that is your body and are even more vague when one asks them to describe a medical condition.

    Today we deal with Vactruth's article by Bunny St. Marie on Vaccine Resistant Pathogens. And it is basically a collection of incredibly daft ideas that need to be dismantled comprehensively lest I be accused of quote mining and taking ideas out of context.


    Friday, March 16, 2012

    The Vaccine Times: Whooping Cough outbreak sickens over 140 people in Canada

    We all know that Canada is just one of those third world nations with no infrastructure and no access to any health care what so ever, right?  Right? Well, The Vaccine Times found this gem that I wanted to pass along.

    A whooping cough outbreak in British Columbia, Canada has sickened more than 140 people since December, prompting Canadian Health authorities to issue a warning. Hotspots  include the Fraser Valley, Hope, Chilliwack and Agassiz areas. If you are traveling to the area make sure you have received your booster shot, and especially if traveling with children make sure they are up-to-date with their DTaP vaccine. Pertussis can be particularly dangerous if caught by a young child, especially a baby who hasn’t had a chance to be vaccinated yet.

    Wednesday, March 14, 2012

    The Vaccine Times: There isn’t a single study on the cumulative effects of……

    A very interesting post recently at The Vaccine Times reporting on an early result from a study.  I highly suggest you check out the linked Steve Novella link as well.  This is from a neurologist, and the study results are about neurology after all!  Just be glad the science takes a rigorous approach and actually comes to defensible conclusions about the world around us as opposed to finger pointing and wild speculation.
    Recently a new study came out which suggested that changes to the brains of autistic children might be detectable as early as 6 months of age. Steve Novella has covered this particular study at his Neurologica blog so there is no need to repeat what he said there. Predictably, the anti-vaccination crowd has come out restating their belief that vaccinations are still to blame. Now, to be fair nothing in this study proves that vaccines cannot cause, or have any effect on, autism. All it says is that it may be possible to notice differences in the brain as early as 6 months of age, and even at that it does not provide a diagnostic tool, due to its size (92 infants) and limitations. It certainly points to an interesting direction, but I do not believe any strong conclusions can be drawn from it.
    If the results can be replicated in larger studies though, it would certainly lay to rest one of the myths about vaccines and autism, namely the one that maintains that vaccines given at or around the age of 2 cause autism, i.e. it would exonerate the MMR vaccine for example. But that is not what I wish to deal with today. What I do wish to deal with today is the common anti-vaccine conundrum that “there isn’t a single study on the cumulative effects of vaccines on (fill in the blank)“. You will always hear this from the anti-vaccine crowd, especially when the topic of autism is being discussed. Superficially it seems to make sense, after all if we’re giving vaccines to children why shouldn’t we test if in the cumulative they cause autism?
    The problem is, of course, that there are thousands of afflictions that one could choose to blame vaccines for, and then turn around and ask why a cumulative study of the effects of the vaccination schedule on that particular affliction has not been done. The list could include, but not be limited to:
    • Nearsightedness
    • Farsightedness
    • Cancer (all types)
    • Diabetes
    • Bone breakage
    • Deafness
    • Blindness
    • Heart problems
    • Lung problems
    • Kidney failure
    • and on, and on, and on
    I wish to be clear that I do not mean to make light of the seriousness of autism as a disorder. The point is that we could pick literally hundreds of things to blame on vaccines and demand cumulative studies to be done, and maintain the vaccines are to blame until said studies are done, effectively perpetually moving the goal post so that vaccines are never considered “good enough”. Even the most strident anti-vaccine activist has to concede that research money is limited and we cannot possibly run studies about everything, so a certain level of plausibility must be established before studies of this magnitude are to be undertaken.

    Monday, March 12, 2012

    Ivory Coast: Meningitis outbreak kills 11 during first three days of February

    This particular article highlights why organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Doctors Without Borders, and the like are so important!  It doesn't matter if these people are in a distant nation, or are poor, or whatever the case may be.  They are still people, and having people suffer and die from something that is preventable is a crime.  And this doesn't only happen in third world countries.  Meningitis also happens in the US, especially in places where a lot of people live together, such as at a university.  And this $5 shot absolutely nets "big pharma" much less than the $250,000 course of treatment for meningitis...  Just get vaccinated already.
    There have been 40 cases of meningitis reported in four departments across the Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) during the first three days of February 2012, including 11 fatalities.
    The outbreak reported Friday has caused people to seek out vaccinations for their families.
    According to an Integrated Regional Information Networks report:
    The ministry of health has declared the outbreaks in the Kouto and Tengrela regions as epidemics, and are providing free vaccinations in both locations through mobile health teams.
    They are achieving this with the help of the World Health Organization and UNICEF.
    The report also notes that the cost for the meningitis vaccine costs $5 USD for and $3 for groups in the cities of Saminkro and Kani. The costs are too much for many families, which has caused them to lobby for cheaper vaccines.
    However, as Jeremie Ipo, director of the district health centre in the village of Poungbè in Korhogo region notes that the cost is based on economics, “We can only reduce the price of the vaccine as soon as there are enough people demanding it.”

    Saturday, March 10, 2012

    Understanding How Vaccines Work

    The CDC has an excellent pamphlet that everyone should read!  It basically explains how vaccines work without getting too technical (a danger that people who have to fight for reality all too often fall into, because reality is complicated).


    Click the image to go to the actual CDC Pamphlet.  I do love a line right from the pamphlet (emphasis mine):
    "Vaccines greatly reduce the risk of infection by working with the body’s natural defenses to safely develop immunity to disease."
    Funny how this seems to be missed by the anti-vax pro-disease nutters...

    Thursday, March 08, 2012

    A Photon in the Darkness: It's Natural

    How often has some wooish person told you to take something, or adhere to something because it's "natural".  This (and chemical free) are a couple of my pet peeves.  Not because they are particularly wooish, but because they expose the blatant ignorance, and poor education of the wooist caught up in this particular brand of delusion.  A Photon in the Darkness also has an encounter with this type of woo that makes for a good story:

    It’s Natural!

    January 25th, 2012

    I think I need to switch radio stations.
    If you remember, last summer, the station I was listening to on my weekly drive to Downstate Univ. was carrying advertisements for a pseudo-study of a “natural” remedy for “low testosterone”. Lately, the same station has been bombarding me with ads for a “natural” way for post-menopausal women to ”restore hormonal balance”. This “hormonal balance”, we are told, will not only eliminate the hot flashes and other problems of menopause, it will allow us to “eliminate that stubborn belly fat”. On top of that, the advertisement assures us that it is “natural” (Note: so are hemlock, tetanus and dying in childbirth).
    Up to now, I have dealt with this by simply changing the station, but I recently had a friend tell me that she had started this “natural” remedy in an attempt to ”restore hormonal balance” (and, I suspect, to get rid of her “stubborn belly fat”, although neither of us brought that up). She was quite enthusiastic about the remedy, although on closer questioning she admitted that the hot flashes hadn’t gotten much better, although she was positive they were “less intense”, if just as frequent as before.
    What finally got me out of my “if you can’t say something nice…” reticence, though, was when she told me that she felt this “natural” remedy was vastly superior to the hormonal replacements her doctor and she had discussed (and decided against). And those of you who have read my ‘blog before can probably guess why…
    “It’s natural!”
    Cautiously, I asked her a few questions. First, I asked her if she knew what was in the pills she was taking; she didn’t,
    CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE POST.

    Tuesday, March 06, 2012

    A Photon in the Darkness: Autism and Insurance

    I have been very negligent in posting lately, so I plan on setting quite a few posts up in the queue in order to pass along some information to you all.  This particular post from "Prometheus" at the A Photon in the Darkness blog seems rather appropriate, even though the date of the post is a bit out of date.

    Autism and Insurance: Myths vs Reality

    December 22nd, 2011

    Earlier this week, I had arranged to have coffee with a close friend of mine. When I arrived, she was holding a copy of the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal and was quite upset about an article on the “Affordable Care Act” (”Obama-care”). In this article, it was mentioned that the department of Health and Human Services was planning to leave it up to the various states whether or not to mandate “autism treatment” coverage. This, she felt, was a cruel blow to families with autistic children. Fortunately, I had been through this all before, many years ago, when my child was first diagnosed with autism, so I had some perspective to offer.
    Back in those dark days, we were casting about for something, anything to do to help our child, even to the point of attending a “DAN! conference”. In that “conference” (it was more like a revival meeting than a conference), we heard repeated, over and over, that health insurance plans would not pay for anything related to autism, the dreaded “299.0″ (ICD-9 code for autism). As I later recalled, this “fact” was most often mentioned by practitioners who offered “alternative” treatments for autism.
    Shortly after returning from that “conference”, I had the opportunity to question (”interrogate” might describe the flavour of that exchange better) our paediatrician about that point. He was - and is - an exceptionally patient person and managed to answer my question without adressing my obvious hostility.
    As he explained it, the insurance companies look over each bill and ensure that - among other things - that the procedural code (CPT codes) matches up with the diagnostic code. They want to ensure that a doctor isn’t claiming reimbursement for an appendectomy when the diagnosis is “bunion”, for example. For this reason, chelation and HBOT aren’t “approved” for autism because - as I’ve outlined in several ‘blog postings - they haven’t been shown to be effective in the treatment of autism, just as appendectomy hasn’t been shown to be an effective treatment for bunions.
    Other issues that arise, especially in the “alternative” treatment of autism, are when the “treatment” is either of questionable effectiveness, such as “Applied Behavioral Analysis”, or its effectiveness has not been demonstrated. Insurance companies usually see these as “experimental” treatments and refuse to pay for them.
    However, parents have also complained that they are unable to get insurance companies to pay for “mainstream” therapies, such as speech therapy and psychiatric consultation when the diagnosis was “autism”. This, according to our patient paediatrician, is due to the ignorance of the practitioner. There is no universal treatment for “autism” - it is too broad and heterogenous a diagnosis for that. So, to justify - for example - speech therapy, another diagnosis is needed, since the diagnosis of “autism” does not, in itself, imply a need for (or benefit from) speech therapy. Experienced and well-trained practitioners are aware of this requirement and so don’t submit bills that don’t have proper justification for the prescribed (or recommended) therapies.
    When I later questioned some of the parents who had complained about having insurance companies refuse to pay for “autism”-related treatments, I found that a few things kept cropping up:
    READ THE REST OF THE POST HERE.

    Sunday, March 04, 2012

    Actual News Story on Vaccines

    Isn't it sad when a media outlet that most Americans would have a visceral revulsion to actually carries news that is much more factually correct, and doesn't give in to the false "both sides" fallacy when it comes to vaccines?  There is a reason that whenever the anit-vax pro-disease nutters have one of their "experts" on, they are generally either not an actual doctor, or they are discredited because of their non-reality based practices.

    With apologies to Tim Minchin: You know what you call alternative medicine that works? Medicine!

    Harpocrates Speaks: Of Maths and Measels

    When it comes to loony causes, I have to rank the anti-vax pro-disease nutters as some of the looniest...  And a good tell-tale signal that a cause is loony is the level of deception that they will use to twist and distort facts.  The creationists are a good example of this.  However, Todd W. has written a great article about the way that the pro-disease anti-vaxers seem to try to abuse math to support their lies.

    Of Maths and Measles

    There are times that I really despair for our country. Specifically, the educational system troubles me from time to time. Take simple mathematics, as an example. By the time one graduates high school and becomes a, presumably, productive adult in our society, regardless of whether said individual goes on to college or jumps right into the workforce, there are certain simple skills that they should have. All the basics should be well in hand: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. They should have a good understanding of decimals, fractions and percentages. Even if someone needs to use a calculator, rather than doing it in their head or scratching a problem out on paper, they should at least have an understanding of how these things work and how to use them.

    This woe for the state of education came bubbling up again as I read a comment on a PBS article about the measles outbreak in Indiana. Allie Morris, the author of the article, wrote that at least 13 of the individuals who had contracted measles had a history of MMR vaccine refusal. The commenter, Mmavallet, couldn't believe this number, suggesting that it was statistically impossible for there to be 13 individuals who were all unvaccinated, coupled with a belief that the vaccine couldn't be 95% effective (it's not, BTW, being >99% effective):
    I don't buy that all 13 people spread over various counties were all unvaccinated. And the MMR does not have a 95% efficacy rate or else you wouldn't be having these outbreaks in a population where 98% of people vaccinate. It's statistically impossible. If you really research the numbers on these outbreaks, about 50% of those infected are vaccinated! If they really worked, you wouldn't have to continually get revaccinated for the same illness. It's not immunity if it wears off...only natural immunity is permanent.
    Let's take a closer look at the issue, shall we?

    Basically, the problem involves figuring out a couple of fractions and percentages. We might all remember story problems asking us to figure out that X is what percentage of Y? Or, alternatively, X is Z percent of what? And yet another variation, what is Z percent of Y? This can be boiled down into a simple equation:
    X/Y = %/100
    To address this individual's comment, we would need to start with a few basic assumptions. First, that the vaccine is 95% effective (we'll do this with a 99% figure, as well). Second, we need to know about how virulent measles is; in other words, what percentage of vulnerable people would be infected if exposed? According to the CDC, that attack rate is about 90%. Finally, we need to know what the approximate uptake rate is for the vaccine. The commenter claims that 98% of individuals in the area vaccinate. We'll use that number for our calculations.
    CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE.

    Friday, January 20, 2012

    Stupidest Weapon Ever


    We medical business types have unleashed our latest weapon against the puny humans who inhabit the USA. The Rabies Bomb! 

    I don't even know where to start about the fears over this nonsense from usual suspect Mike Adams the health ranger.

    Health Rangers are no match for my
    swarthy tan and luchadore skills!

    The article is a fine collection of anti-vax lunacy at it's finest. All the right ingredients are there, there is the conspiracy theory of the medical industry producing weird and wonderful weapons to defeat it's enemy. There is the collusion of a shadowy cabal. And there is the plan which is frankly insane.

    The weaponization of vaccines just took another leap forward in America with the recent air-dropping of rabies vaccines by the Texas Department of State Health Services. Using a battery of small planes based out of Del Rio, Texas recently dropped 1.8 million edible vaccine packets over 7,700 square miles of rural Texas. The packets contain edible rabies vaccines dipped in fish oil and coated with fish meal to entice foxes and coyotes to eat them. Once consumed, the animal is "vaccinated" against rabies, researchers claim. Of course, what these researchers don't yet understand in their scientific ignorance (and arrogance) is that they are also engaged in a rabies DNA / RNA bombardment of Texas.
    The price of a single vaccine is around $60, the price of a single cluster bomblet is $60... Do you know what's more effective than dropping rabies RNA (there is no rabies DNA on the basis of the virus is an RNA virus)...

    In addition the vaccine being used is the V-RG (Recombinant Vaccine) which is often used in wildlife drops to reduce rabid animals in the wild. The virus is vaccinia (spreads cowpox not rabies) with rabies glycoproteins being expressed on their protein coat. Meaning it is harmless to animals and humans and that there is no rabies RNA in the vaccine.

    Thus making it the absolute worst weapon ever. Do you know what's more dangerous? Taking 10 dollars worth of 1 cent coins, melting them down into a block and hurling that at people. I am sure we could kill or injure more people that way than burning our money on $60 worth of fancy viruses that don't even kill humans. Since when have we been so incompetent? The only way this could injure someone is if some moron choked on it.

    The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has already conducted bizarre experiments on genetically engineered mosquitoes that carry vaccines to be silently injected into unsuspecting humans. And that same foundation has also invested heavily in covert vaccination technology that could, for example, vaccinate you with a spray mist used at airport security checkpoints
    Yeah... I cannot read anymore. I cannot stop laughing.

    Who takes this lunatic seriously? Is he seriously one of the major proponents of the anti-vaccine movement? And he believes that we are weaponising mosquitoes to spread vaccines rather than say the three deadly diseases that mosquitoes already spread? Surely this is a drop in deadliness as we are not using Malaria, Dengue fever and Yellow Fever to kill people...

    And we are expected to take them seriously. 

    Wednesday, January 04, 2012

    W.A. whooping cough epidemic: ABC News Breakfast Jan. 2012

    This is Western Australia (not Washington State).  As the newspaper there reports:
    A whooping cough epidemic is rampant in Western Australia, prompting the Health Department to warn parents about the need to vaccinate against the infectious and potentially fatal respiratory disease.

    The recorded infection rate more than doubled from 1458 in 2010 to 3597 by December 23, 2011.

    Director of Communicable Disease Control Dr Paul Armstrong said November had the most recorded cases, with 704 people infected.
    While I believe Dana McCaffery was from New South Whales, it should be a stark reminder the danger this disease poses to newborns, whether it is in NSW, WA, or even in the US.  Death, suffering, and misery are reduced by a simple and safe vaccine.  Not only that, this vaccine depends on herd immunity for it to offer that protection to those too young to get the vaccine.  As a matter of fact, if you come in contact with infants, or even think you might come into contact with infants, then check with your doctor about a booster.

    Here is a video that accompanies the newspaper article.