[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
complaining but doing nothing. [/quote]
Agorism. Look it up.[/quote]
How’s that working out for you?
Everyone here, including myself has made some great points albeit many are quite biased (myself included) depending on the information we have available. I have all of my vaccines and believe that vaccinations have helped eradicate or reduce devastating viruses, but vaccines can undoubtedly be improved upon and god forbid a portion of the population questions authority.
I find it very suspicious that the entities that be, find it unethical to run testing of non-vaccinated populations vs vaccinated population, ESPECIALLY if it shuts up the anti-vax camp and emboldens the pro-vaccination position.
There are thousands of anti-vax families whom I’m certain would participate in the study.
http://www.dogsadversereactions.com/scienceVaccineDamage.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/high-rates-of-autism-foun_b_859234.html
I’d also urge many of you to be a little less arrogant and willing to question your own views, even if to simply better understand your fellow man.
[quote]Davinci.v2 wrote:
but vaccines can undoubtedly be improved upon [/quote]
Of course. That’s perfectly reasonable.
[quote]
and god forbid a portion of the population questions authority.[/quote]
Question away, but at least have some facts to back it up (not you specifically).
9/11 truthers question authority…
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
complaining but doing nothing. [/quote]
Agorism. Look it up.[/quote]
Totality of human history. Read some.
[quote]Davinci.v2 wrote:
but vaccines can undoubtedly be improved upon [/quote]
Sure, I’ll never question making them better. Shit, we should be.
Couple people on this thread, myself included, will be the first to do so.
[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
The only people who sign up for Internet surveys on a site dedicated to proving vaccines are the devil are either 1) parents of vaccinated kids that have some sort of problem and desperately need something to blame or 2) parents of unvaccinated kids who are desperately trying to PROVE that their decision was the right one. Parents of sick unvaccinated kids don’t go there, nor do parents of healthy vaccinated kids (by far the largest group).[/quote]
This point you made above supports anti-vaccers just as much as pro-vaccers. If vaccines are causing harm, OF COURSE the group of people that were harmed are going to try and spread the word. You’re 100% accurate though in that it is obviously an extremely biased survey.
I’ll check this thread again in a few days. I’m leaving for West Africa tonight.
[quote]Davinci.v2 wrote:
I find it very suspicious that the entities that be, find it unethical to run testing of non-vaccinated populations vs vaccinated population, ESPECIALLY if it shuts up the anti-vax camp and emboldens the pro-vaccination position.
[/quote]
This is a pretty interesting question.
My immediate reaction was that to perform a randomized trial, there must be clinical equipoise (a fancy word for saying that there is reasonable doubt whether the tested treatment works OR is harmful vs. the standard-of-care that it’s being tested against; despite the impression one might get from this thread, the medical community would not allow such a study to move forward because there is absolutely NOT clinical equipoise here)…
…but then I realized that you’re not talking about a randomized trial but a “study” in which anti-vaxxers voluntarily sign up to NOT vaccinate, regular-people likewise sign up to follow the regular vaccination schedule, both parties are followed for X years, and the rates of an assortment of diseases, conditions, etc are reported.
I can think of a few reasons why such a study is unlikely:
-
It would be super expensive. The earlier line about pharma-funded research vs. government-funded research is important here. If you submitted this study to the NIH, you’d be laughed out of the room by the scientific reviewers (no matter how much you think you have a reasonable question). Even Big Pharma has no real incentive to do this study today because anti-vaxxers are such a small minority; they’d be spending a few million bucks to get a few thousand extra kids to vaccinate yearly. Even if the study was an enormous success and got every single would-be anti-vaxxer to renounce their position and vaccinate moving forward, it’s really quite possible that the pharma company STILL wouldn’t make their money back on funding such a study.
-
There are probably docs who would be resistant to participate in such a study from both camps. The normal docs who support vaccines would probably fear a lawsuit knowing that even if they “won” and vaccines > nonvaccination by a landslide, you’d have a few nut-jobs come out of the woodwork to sue on the grounds that the doctors withheld an effective treatment from their child. Remember, we live in a country where people have won awards from McDonald’s for getting fat from eating at the Golden Arches too much and getting obese. People suck, and I’m sure someone would build a case that they were not adequately warned of the dangers, etc.
-
Perhaps the simplest explanation of all: to quote a line from my infectious-disease pal,
“The biggest myth about this stupid movement is that it is popular. It is fringe as fuck.”
Despite the noise surrounding this, vaccination rates remain quite high nationwide. Anti-vaxxers may be the most vocal in this discussion, but in the great wide world of public health, this isn’t even a question. We already spent a few gazillion dollars proving that vaccines don’t cause autism in response to a falsified paper that held about as much water as “I don’t believe in gravity” - docs are tired of this, and it would take such a tremendous investment for relatively little return (getting that extra 2-3 percent of people to vaccinate) that I’m not sure anyone would see it as worthwhile. Like I said, most anti-vaxxers are in that small minority of people that will never, ever, ever believe this even when presented with direct and compelling evidence. Why would we spend a couple million bucks to “prove” something that almost everyone already believes and that won’t convince the few who don’t believe?
[quote]Davinci.v2 wrote:
This point you made above supports anti-vaccers just as much as pro-vaccers. If vaccines are causing harm, OF COURSE the group of people that were harmed are going to try and spread the word. You’re 100% accurate though in that it is obviously an extremely biased survey.
[/quote]
Yeah, uh, I know. Duh?
My point is this sort of selection bias (conducting a “study” that only includes cases that support the study hypothesis) is a crippling flaw that literally makes the data completely worthless, and yet these “studies” are held up by the anti-vax community as though they’re on the level (or “better” than the real published studies because they’re not corrupted by industry funding!)
It’s an astonishing level of either intellectual dishonesty or ignorance of proper study design.
*Edited to add: regarding the comment about ignorance of proper study design, to clarify, it’s not like I expect the average Joe to have doctorates in Epidemiology and Biostatistics and break down all published studies at the original source. What I resent is that some people who are presenting themselves as experts clearly are ignorant of proper study design, most notably certain chiropractors and natural-health practitioners that clearly don’t understand why these are crippling flaws continue to present them as “the evidence the government and Big Pharma don’t want you to see!”
[quote]magick wrote:
[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
I probably have enough head trauma from 15 years of football, I’ll live with a few more dead brain cells.
Being somewhat serious, part of the reason I write coherent, well-thought arguments in responses to this stuff is not that I expect to change LIFTY’s mind. He’s already gone. It’s that I don’t want some other poor sap(s) reading this stuff to read his argument and decide that it’s a valid one.
There’s a large majority who will usually go along with the scientific consensus (whether it’s right or wrong) because they aren’t qualified and/or don’t care.
There’s a small minority of people who will ALWAYS believe in conspiracy theory and go AGAINST the scientific consensus (again, whether it’s right or wrong) because, well, fucktards.
Then there are some people on the fringes who could go either way. People in this thread have talked about making “informed choices” or doing the research themselves, and the whole reason I feel some duty, or whatever, to contradict the crappy arguments brought here is that I want those people to actually have the right information. Not shitty stuff that sounds scary out of context, but the numbers presented in proper context.[/quote]
You’re awesome.[/quote]
Yeah he is. Way more patient. And he’s right, if anything I should be ranting less in the hope that I might be able to help genuinely concerned and confused paople out there. It is a significant and important duty, because I don’t have media bully pulpit.
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]Davinci.v2 wrote:
but vaccines can undoubtedly be improved upon [/quote]
Sure, I’ll never question making them better. Shit, we should be.
Couple people on this thread, myself included, will be the first to do so. [/quote]
Agree with both points. That is healthy. It is also useful to understand the very real knowledge gap though. I would never think of telling Pangloss how to trade, or beans how to conduct tax audits or return preparation because they do it for a living.
I might question them, and ask for clarifications on things that seem strange to me. I might even disagree…eventually and after seriously studying the methods–but I would always bear firmly in mind that a) they do this for a living and b) their living, family welfare, food depends on them having every bit of knowledge firmly in hand and thoroughly understood.
In other words, I better have a damn good and very compelling case if I disagree, because their lives depend on them knowing better than me and they have done it for years or decades. Not flashy sounding marketing, not “Mad Money” style wackiness or volume,not a fucking conspiracy theory. Solid data and well mined research that I understand.
In other words, I accept that any dissenting opinion I have is at a net -100% validity because I don’t do that for living. I do NOT expect my opinion to be equally valid, least of all on force of conspiracy “arguments”, because that is the fact of expertise in a specialized field. And as such I am respectful of them when I disagree, not like Lifty with a tinfoil hat and not boorish and offensive.
This is all theoretical of course, because I don’t have a fucking clue how to disagree with them aptly in their fields.
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]Davinci.v2 wrote:
but vaccines can undoubtedly be improved upon [/quote]
Sure, I’ll never question making them better. Shit, we should be.
Couple people on this thread, myself included, will be the first to do so. [/quote]
Agree with both points. That is healthy. It is also useful to understand the very real knowledge gap though. I would never think of telling Pangloss how to trade, or beans how to conduct tax audits or return preparation because they do it for a living.
I might question them, and ask for clarifications on things that seem strange to me. I might even disagree…eventually and after seriously studying the methods–but I would always bear firmly in mind that a) they do this for a living and b) their living, family welfare, food depends on them having every bit of knowledge firmly in hand and thoroughly understood.
In other words, I better have a damn good and very compelling case if I disagree, because their lives depend on them knowing better than me and they have done it for years or decades. Not flashy sounding marketing, not “Mad Money” style wackiness or volume,not a fucking conspiracy theory. Solid data and well mined research that I understand.
In other words, I accept that any dissenting opinion I have is at a net -100% validity because I don’t do that for living. I do NOT expect my opinion to be equally valid, least of all on force of conspiracy “arguments”, because that is the fact of expertise in a specialized field. And as such I am respectful of them when I disagree, not like Lifty with a tinfoil hat and not boorish and offensive.
This is all theoretical of course, because I don’t have a fucking clue how to disagree with them aptly in their fields.
[/quote]
Well put.
[quote]Davinci.v2 wrote:
Everyone here, including myself has made some great points albeit many are quite biased (myself included) depending on the information we have available. I have all of my vaccines and believe that vaccinations have helped eradicate or reduce devastating viruses, but vaccines can undoubtedly be improved upon and god forbid a portion of the population questions authority.
I find it very suspicious that the entities that be, find it unethical to run testing of non-vaccinated populations vs vaccinated population, ESPECIALLY if it shuts up the anti-vax camp and emboldens the pro-vaccination position.
There are thousands of anti-vax families whom I’m certain would participate in the study.
http://www.dogsadversereactions.com/scienceVaccineDamage.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/high-rates-of-autism-foun_b_859234.html
I’d also urge many of you to be a little less arrogant and willing to question your own views, even if to simply better understand your fellow man.[/quote]
Alright, davinci you’ve been very civil. And you are irght I probably sound arrogant over the internet. It is not actually arrogance as much as beating my head in frustration. But I would urge you to understand how offensive it is for someone like Lifty, or the others that I have had the misfortune of interzcting with personally over the past couple weeks, to a) suggest they know better than me and my education, school debt, and career and publications means fuck-all in terms that either explicitly state so or imply directly the previous along with the corollary that their opinions should hold just as much scientific validity as mine (distinct from moral or ethical). and b) that all these scientists who support vaccination are somehow evil and dishonest shills for some invisible conspiracy for “big” anything. I’m going to try to do the same for you, but Lifticus is on his own.
First, in addition to what Activities guy said, there are regulations about ethics from withholding treatment considered to be proven effective and safe for illness and thereby directly endangering lives in the study. That’s not suspicious. Thats ethical. And they are there for many reasons (cough, Tuskegee, cough), the same reasons psychological experiments no longer are allowed to do things like the Stanford Experiment and the very same reason that experiment, along with a couple of others I can think of off the top of my head, are considered completely unethical.
Withholding treatment is a direct violation of the Hippocratic oath first and foremost. There are a lot of other reasons but I am surprised I have to tell you this.
Incidentally this is actually one of the primary difficulties with the Ebola vaccine under development–they need to test it but the customary study designs would literally be killing people without the vaccine–in a very direct way-- should it be effective.
Second, you did not look at your links. You posted a link of an interview on a “study” using that term generously done by lawyers and a law enforcement official. Not statistician, no scientists, not even a real study but an analysis of court cases. Done by people who have ABSOLUTELY NO SCIENTIFIC LITERACY and who also have a very well documented and established agenda to boot.
You posted another page about a dog vaccination study done by another person with no science background, with an openly biased and propagandized title, with no methodology, no discussion of methodology, not even a real mention of what they were injecting other than somehow concluding it was “vaccines” that did it. In short it was a scientifically illiterate hit piece done with complete bias readable in the title.
You posted a 3rd link which I mnow you did not read because it spends the entire time debunking the anti-vaccination stance, and it was posted ostensibly to support your position that vaccines are shady somehow…which it does the opposite.
The only remotely scientific source you posted was the first pdf link from Poland. I can tell you simply after reading the abstract and looking at the journal I have reservations about the veracity of peer review and the authors themselves, especially after looking at the hypothesis and the list of AEFI. I mean, fever, swelling at injection site…these can be normal for needle delivered drugs of any kind. And “inconsolable crying”??? Really??? how me an infant who doesnt cry viciously when poked with a needle! That is frankly not a legitimate effect! I am not even through the first page.
The other thing that immediately springs to mind is that they do not address causation. They correlate, very different.
In addition, I could find no scientific journal study or review of ANY KIND referencing this paper, except the paper itself.
IT IS PUBLISHED IN A JOURNAL OWNED BY THE SAME UNIVERSITY THAT DID THE STUDY. This is the same as if Merck were to publish a study “peer reviewed” by Merck Journal.
Giant, angry, flashing red alerts are going off in my head. I consider this to be a an IMMEDIATE cause for serious concern and it s possible that this may be a fraudulent journal–otherwise known as a predatory journal. I will be looking into this and may end up reporting them.
Especially laughable is the statement I find at the end of the study “auhors declare no conflict of interest”. No? I suppose if you’re going to publish at “home base” you can say whatever you want.
Perhaps activitiesguy can take a look at it, I am typing from my phone and do not want to thumb type any more. I will look at it at a computer later but I cannot emphasize enough that this rings all kinds of alarm bells in my head. All of them.
Second author of that polish paper is listed as an editor for his own publication. He is also listed as a PEER REVIEWER.
This breaks all, every single one, of the ethical regulations. In addition he conveniently forgot to put that publication on his CV on researchgate (linked in for scientists), even though he has other studies FROM THE SAME ISSUE of the same “journal” listed, and listed in chronological order. The first author conveniently does not appear of Researchgate, and you conveniently can’t find a reference to the publication at all on any CV there.
They use a misleading impact factor and indexing, which has been flagged as such by independent scientific watchdog groups.
Shit, you can’t even find them on the primary misleading company they claim to be indexed by–not only did they pick a misleading company, they lied about their indexing on the company’s list!
This is, at best, unethical on all levels and at worst outright fraud.
Ha, I actually looked at the links Davinci posted and assumed he was just showing that there’s “controversy” rater than trying to mount a serious case that vaccines are harmful. Because, as you’ve just said, those links don’t even all argue in the same direction (that sciencebasedmedicine guy has written several thorough takedowns of poorly conducted anti vax “research”) and the couple that suggest vaccine harm are not credible sources. The one paper you’ve gone into a bit more detail has a couple of laughable methods flaws, I’ll give a couple examples when I get to my computer.
However, getting philosophical for a moment: yet again, the problem here is that if you’re determined to be anti vax, you can gin up some information, and explaining why that information is non-credible requires both a journey into some technical jargon (which most people don’t have the patience for) as well as a statement like “if this was real, it would be published in a real journal, not a self-published or open-access journal where you can basically pay to publish anything.” And that plays right into a conspiracy theorists’ hand: you’re suppressing the truth, they say. The big journals won’t publish because they’re part of the conspiracy! Ugh. Round and round we go.
I recently read another good post on ScienceBasedMedicine recently that I want to quote here. The thoughts that follow are not specific to vaccines, but they’re reflective of several themes that are common in the general “science-vs-psuedoscience-accented-with-scare-tactics” realm (that also fits the anti-vaccine movement) and probably should be highlighted here:
“First, she identifies a scary sounding chemical in a food item. Then she publicizes it to her generally scientifically-ignorant readership and urges them to bombard the food manufacturer or restaurant with complaints and requests to remove said chemical from their product.”
“It’s a very arrogant position to take; Hari is so sure of her righteousness that if you oppose her, you’re either part of the evil food industry cabal or a sheeple who’s been deceived by that cabal. It’s also a convenient excuse not to engage seriously.”
“…she appears to be conflating the vile comments she’s received on her Facebook page with the reasoned, science-based criticism that she’s been receiving from many bloggers, including us at SBM, all in order to tar reasonable criticism of her fear mongering with the brush of the sorts of misogynistic slurs featured in her response. All of this (or Hari not-so-subtly implies) is supposedly orchestrated by her enemies in the food industry. It’s fallacy of poisoning the well/guilt by association, plain and simple.”
“Companies can live and die by public perception of their products. To them, even if their position is rooted in solid science (and we know that The Food Babe’s position almost never is), sometimes it’s far easier and less expensive for them just to give in to a quackmailer like Hari than to try to resist or to go to the considerable effort and expense necessary to counter her propaganda by educating the public.”
Full post here:
Meanwhile, here’s another post that is worthwhile reading that is specific to vaccines addressing one of the great anti-vax scare tactics, the “OMG have you read the package insert?” fallacy:
"One cannot just pull a package insert out of a box and say “here, I win.” If only it were that easy.
Package inserts have excellent and useful information, important for physicians and other healthcare workers in treating patients. However, package inserts must be read fully, without cherry picking data that supports your point of view. Taking information out of context, without spending the effort to understand it completely, just shows the level of denialism. The anti-vaccinationists are focused on finding any data, no matter the quality, that supports what they want to believe. "
[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
Ha, I actually looked at the links Davinci posted and assumed he was just showing that there’s “controversy” rater than trying to mount a serious case that vaccines are harmful. Because, as you’ve just said, those links don’t even all argue in the same direction (that sciencebasedmedicine guy has written several thorough takedowns of poorly conducted anti vax “research”) and the couple that suggest vaccine harm are not credible sources. The one paper you’ve gone into a bit more detail has a couple of laughable methods flaws, I’ll give a couple examples when I get to my computer.
However, getting philosophical for a moment: yet again, the problem here is that if you’re determined to be anti vax, you can gin up some information, and explaining why that information is non-credible requires both a journey into some technical jargon (which most people don’t have the patience for) as well as a statement like “if this was real, it would be published in a real journal, not a self-published or open-access journal where you can basically pay to publish anything.” And that plays right into a conspiracy theorists’ hand: you’re suppressing the truth, they say. The big journals won’t publish because they’re part of the conspiracy! Ugh. Round and round we go.[/quote]
You’re dead right on all points here and your other post below this one.
It absolutely drives me insane because there’s no way to win. Self-publishing is looked down upon for a damned good reason, and it’s considered unethical for the same reason.
The “big” everything conspiracies just piss me off. Big Pharma, Big Food, Big Oil, Big Everything. There’s no doubt that some shady stuff happens, I’m not arguing that and I never will because they’ve all had histories of abuses…but then again, so has every single institution in the history of fucking mankind. Every single one. So you can’t move from “there’s shady shit that happens” to “they’re ALL EVIL”. This is why critical assessment is so important, not running scared at everything. If people just decided to slow down just a bit and not look for something to blame, they’d look at a lot of information that they never considered before.
The bigger problem of course is that people view science and peer reviewed journals in such a light–and they do. The conspiracy theorists look for “peer reviewed journals” to support them, but then turn right around and claim that the 1000s upon 1000s of studies that oppose them are all inadmissable. Sorry, it doesn’t work like that.
I’m reminded of Sallie Bernard’s reaction to the CDC’s giant study that they invited her–and other anti-vaccination people–to help plan, construct, and oversee. Transparency on a level almost never seen in government. And when the study showed ABSOLUTELY NO RELATIONSHIP to what she wanted to see…did she go with the science? Nooooo. She fucking flew off the handle and disavowed the study SHE HAD BEEN PART OF.
Because she and most others aren’t fucking interested in science. Because in science you go where the evidence takes you, regardless of what you WANT to have happen.
No good deed goes unpunished man. And the CDC really tried hard on that one.
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
I’ll bet a mortgage payment the following are exponentially more dangerous that a vaccine, and anyone complaining about Vax indulge themselves at one point in their life and/or have given it to their kids:
- Ibuprofen
- Tylenol
- Vicodin
- Sodium Pen
- Beer
- Wine
- Weed
- Bicycles
- Sports
- Hotdogs
- Swimming pools
[/quote]
So what?! these things also have a higher probability of killing people than what people get vaccinated for.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
I’ll bet a mortgage payment the following are exponentially more dangerous that a vaccine, and anyone complaining about Vax indulge themselves at one point in their life and/or have given it to their kids:
- Ibuprofen
- Tylenol
- Vicodin
- Sodium Pen
- Beer
- Wine
- Weed
- Bicycles
- Sports
- Hotdogs
- Swimming pools
[/quote]
So what?! these things also have a higher probability of killing people than what people get vaccinated for.[/quote]
No, they really don’t.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
I’ll bet a mortgage payment the following are exponentially more dangerous that a vaccine, and anyone complaining about Vax indulge themselves at one point in their life and/or have given it to their kids:
- Ibuprofen
- Tylenol
- Vicodin
- Sodium Pen
- Beer
- Wine
- Weed
- Bicycles
- Sports
- Hotdogs
- Swimming pools
[/quote]
So what?! these things also have a higher probability of killing people than what people get vaccinated for.[/quote]
This is so far from understanding that I don’t even know where to begin.
Let’s reiterate for, like, the tenth time in this thread: the reason “what people get vaccinated for” has a pretty low probability of killing you is because the use of vaccines has so drastically reduced the prevalence of such diseases that they’re reduced to a foggy memory for most. As countingbeans has said over and over, you have the luxury of walking around unvaccinated because most people HAVE been vaccinated and aren’t going to give you one of those diseases. If everyone stopped getting vaccines, it’s pretty likely that measles would start to spread and (eventually) return to levels where people saw it as a threat instead of thinking “Well, that’s just like a really bad chicken pox that nobody gets any more.”