Vaccination & epidemic

[Undertoad]

This study was so flawed that it was rejected from consideration by the gold standard scientific review by the highly influential Cochrane Collaboration.

Does this discredit the study? Where can we read the reasons for rejection?

[Undertoad]

No reference was made to the successful vaccine court case on behalf of the child Bailey Banks

Remember how the case was not decided on the basis of science? I think we looked at that in the Other Thread.

[jinx]

No that was the Hannah Poling case.


edit:... that we discussed in the other thread.

Biological plausibility = biology = science

[jinx]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

All vaccines are preventative, and he described it as a "safer vaccine" in his patent application?

No they're not - there are therapeutic vaccines as well as prophylactic. Look it up.

[Undertoad]

Huh, true, and interesting.

Wakefield's vaccine was dual-purpose: "The present invention relates to a new vaccine for the elimination of MMR and measles virus and to a pharmaceutical or therapeutic composition for the treatment of IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease); particularly Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis and regressive behavioural disease (RBD)."

[Clodfobble]

elimination of MMR and measles virus

Depends on whether you interpret this as the elimination of another vaccine on the market, or the elimination of the virus from the body. It is an awkward wording in either sense.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Does this discredit the study? Where can we read the reasons for rejection?

I'm not sure which Danish study he's referring to.

It's either this one, whose flaws are noted here, or this one, flaws noted here. I don't know which one was rejected by the Cochrane Collaboration, but it's worth noting they rejected it even though they continue to support the overall use and safety of the MMR (i.e., they rejected their own side's study.)

[Undertoad]

later in the patent application

"What is needed is a safer vaccine that does not give rise to these problems... I have now discovered a combined vaccine/therapeutic agent which is not only most probably safer to administer to neonates and others by way of vaccination, but which can also be used to treat IBD whether as a complete cure or to alleviate symptoms."

[Undertoad]

There's also another NEJM Danish population study Pie sent me, based on the Jepson book.

[Undertoad]

OK, the Bailey Banks finding came from the same Vaccine Court from the Poling case, in which the finding has to be "50 percent and a feather" -- not scientific standards.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

later in the patent application

"What is needed is a safer vaccine that does not give rise to these problems... I have now discovered a combined vaccine/therapeutic agent which is not only most probably safer to administer to neonates and others by way of vaccination, but which can also be used to treat IBD whether as a complete cure or to alleviate symptoms."

Then I guess it looks like he had a small conflict of interest, in that he might make money by the removal of the MMR, just like the people on the other side had a large conflict of interest in that they stood to lose billions in existing MMR shots, not to mention a loss in overall vaccination rates with their other products after the trust was gone.

On the other hand, it's been over ten years. As far as I can tell he wasn't awarded the patent, and certainly the prophylactic treatment he was working on didn't pan out because if it had they would be using it at his clinic. He is not a billionaire like his opponents still are (and still stand to lose.) And yet, he hasn't stopped his research, hasn't stopped putting himself out as a figure of public abuse as he tries again and again to get the message out there. Surely you must acknowledge that whether or not you believe his theories are right, he obviously believes he is doing the right thing. If he were motivated by money he would have moved on long ago to something that actually produced it for him, don't you think?

Here's my question, Tony. Can you, or can you not admit that "science," "medical research," "scientific standards," and every other ideal you keep holding up on a pedestal, are corruptible? Not in an ideal world, of course, we all know they're supposed to transcend that pettiness to find the golden truth in their pure white lab coats. But we don't live in an ideal world. Science is politics and money, just like every other institution that man has ever created.

Congress ordered the CDC to do a study of unvaccinated children in the early 1980s. They haven't done it. There are thousands of children who have recovered from their disease, with video proof of their symptoms before and after, and they all say they used the same set of treatments. Yet the CDC won't even acknowledge the treatments, let alone research them. Half a dozen other countries have found results, using "scientific standards," that completely contradict ours. The CDC ignores them. Please explain to me how any of this is possible, if we're adhering even loosely to these idealized standards you think you are witnessing. Don't scientific standards call for investigating these discrepancies?

[Undertoad]

In the short run, yes, all those things you put into scare quotes are corruptible. Less corruptible than in almost every other institution, but yes.

In the long run, no. Truth will out. Redundant studies will find conflicting results, new theories will be advanced and tested.

The guy who discovered that stomach ulcers are caused by a virus was going heavily against medical consensus... and faced some battles at first... but the truth was evident. The guy who invented the MRI faced an uphill battle, as nobody believed he could be coming up with something useful. In the end, truth won.

Why doesn't the CDC operate in the way you'd prefer? Dunno. Your explanation seems to tend towards "The organization is involved in an unlawful, multi-decade conspiracy to maintain the status quo at all costs." I doubt this.

The explanation that you desire requires more and more extraordinary narratives over time. This makes me more skeptical. The underlying mechanisms change - it's specifically MMR! No? Then, it's surely mercury! No? Well then it's squalene, or density! It's gut-related, no, it's brain-related as vaccines cause encephalitis! This makes me more skeptical.

Meanwhile, notice that the Amish are a genetically closed community, and Autism has a proven genetic link. So a study of the mere numbers would not be significant. Why not just compare numbers of vaccinated versus non-vaccinated children? That's been done, as in the Danish studies, and similar rates found in both groups. Oh but those studies are bad? ALL of the studies that disprove your theory are faulty in some way? ALL OF THEM? This makes me more skeptical.

[jinx]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

OK, the Bailey Banks finding came from the same Vaccine Court from the Poling case, in which the finding has to be "50 percent and a feather" -- not scientific standards.

Understanding the NVICP

The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) is an innovative federal no-fault
program enacted in 1986, (and since amended), which was designed to resolve a perceived crisis
in vaccine tort liability claims that threatened the continued availability of childhood vaccines
nationwide. In mandating that vaccine injury claims be considered first under VICP, the statute
was intended to reduce lawsuits against physicians and manufacturers, while providing those
claiming vaccine injuries a reduced burden of proof. Claimants under the VICP need not prove
negligence, failure to warn, or other tort causes of action; they must only prove that a covered
vaccine caused injury.

As in any product liability case, the initial question for decision is causation. There are two
ways to prove causation under the Act. The VICP contains a Vaccine Injury Table, which is
designed to minimize difficulties petitioners face in proving that their injury resulted from a
vaccine. The Vaccine Injury Table lists certain injuries and conditions which, if found to occur
within a prescribed period of time following vaccination, create a rebuttable presumption of
causation. In such “on-Table” cases, petitioners do not need to adduce proof of actual causation.
For example, if a petitioner proves that her child received a DPT vaccine and that the child
suffered an encephalopathy (brain injury) within three days thereafter, causation is presumed.
The Act’s Qualifications and Aids to Interpretation further define the compensable conditions.
Assuming a petitioner is able to meet the Table’s requirements, the respondent (the Secretary of
HHS) may still defeat the compensation claim by establishing that the condition was more
probably than not caused by a “factor unrelated” to the vaccine.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Less corruptible than in almost every other institution, but yes.

I don't buy it. Just as corruptible, no more no less. What would make it less corruptible? Scientists are just better people than all the rest of us? They have morals that the rest of us simply don't? Bullshit. Science is a good process overall, just like capitalism is a good process, and both weed out the bad folks in the long run. But we still have Enron, and we still have Wyeth getting caught paying ghostwriters to publish "research" studies with no evidence to back them up.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Why doesn't the CDC operate in the way you'd prefer? Dunno. Your explanation seems to tend towards "The organization is involved in an unlawful, multi-decade conspiracy to maintain the status quo at all costs." I doubt this.

Well, in a literal sense it is indeed unlawful. Congress ordered them to do something and they have not. They don't get to decide if the Amish are a reasonable population to study or not. They get to follow the orders of Congress just like the rest of us.

I don't believe it is a conspiracy so much as it is bull-headed denial, just like all the people who denied the stomach ulcer guy, and the MRI guy--except in this case there's a lot more money involved (both pharmaceutical money and government money, since as we have discussed the government has already accepted default monetary liability for anyone they find to have been injured by a vaccine,) so the denial is inherently going to be stronger. How long did it take the stomach ulcer guy to prevail? More than a few years, I'd imagine. And it only happened because he fought. So we fight.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

The explanation that you desire requires more and more extraordinary narratives over time. This makes me more skeptical. The underlying mechanisms change - it's specifically MMR! No? Then, it's surely mercury! No? Well then it's squalene, or density! It's gut-related, no, it's brain-related as vaccines cause encephalitis! This makes me more skeptical.

You are confusing me with other anti-vaccine proponents. I have not moved from one problem to the next; there are problems with all of the above and they combine to create a host of very different autistic conditions. My main concern is, as I have said before, the use of adjuvants in vaccinations. Squalene is just one type of adjuvant, but it does seem in some studies to be worse than others. The MMR contains triple the amount of adjuvants as single-dose vaccines, so it's going to cause more of a problem in this regard. It is widely documented that autistic patients have a reduced--or complete lack of--ability to detoxify, thus, adding more mercury (thimerosal) to their systems does not trigger the disease, but it does make their symptoms worse.

Autism is an extremely complex disease, because it's not really a disease, it's a set of neurological symptoms. If you sneeze, you might have a cold, you might have the flu, you might have allergies, or you might have some rare form of nose cancer. The smoker with lung cancer and the woman with cervical cancer had very different causes for their apparently similar symptoms, and they will require different treatments. But still we say they both have cancer. I could, incidentally, run a study of cancer patients that concluded there was absolutely no link between smoking and cancer, because look at all these people with cervical cancer who didn't smoke!

Some autistic children have an underlying mitochondrial disorder, many do not. Most have underlying digestive problems, some do not. Some are verbal, go to school, and live relatively normal lives. Some sit in the corner banging their head on the wall and wearing diapers when they're teenagers. When you take chelation drugs, they measure the output of metals in your urine: some kids could put their pee straight into thermometers, so much mercury comes out. Others don't really have any mercury, but they are full of lead. Some have their biggest problem with aluminum. Each of these is eliminated by a different metabolic process, but if any of the processes is messed up then you end up with the same symptoms of heavy-metal poisoning, which overlap considerably with autistic symptoms.

Here is a reasonably laid-out chart showing all the relationships we've found so far:

[Undertoad]

What would make it less corruptible?

Because the output is scholarship. Everyone in the scholar's community and all competing communities are open to published peer review, the running of similar studies, open debate, etc. Because the results have to be observable and reproduce-able.

If a falsehood lingers, it becomes easier to shoot down over time. Progress in unrelated areas leads to progress in the related area. The MRI makes it possible to study brain inflammation, and voila, a new set of facts shines new light on the old ones. Genetics suddenly opens a new understanding, not available ten years ago. We climb to the top of a mountain and suddenly we can see over seven different hills.

and we still have Wyeth getting caught

Precisely. That's success in the system. In the long run truth will out.

Don't take my word for it. You can see it working. We know more and more, we understand more and more, even just in the last 20 years. Cancer now no longer the terrible death sentence. HIV now no longer the terrible death sentence. Major mental illnesses, now highly treatable. Tremendous progress in surgery, now making dangerous operations routine and cutting hospital stays from weeks into days.

The system you criticize is the same system that produces those results.

Each of these is eliminated by a different metabolic process, but if any of the processes is messed up then you end up with the same symptoms of heavy-metal poisoning, which overlap considerably with autistic symptoms.

You'd be an advocate for squalene then as it is non-metallic.

An adjuvant is anything your immune system has to fight off. We are literally inhaling them at all times.