Vaccination & epidemic

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

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

No, I criticize their handling of this specific case. It is rare to find a topic where the funding is so imbalanced (70% of funding available for studying genetic causes of autism, only 30% available for those who want to study environmental triggers) or where additional study is not encouraged. How many other health issues are told, "We don't need any more studies." Scientists should always want to do more studies. How many hundreds of cancer studies get funded each year? Yet we're supposed to be satisfied with a little over a dozen in the last decade, half of which were just large-scale medical record examinations done in other countries?

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

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.

As I have explained, the problems with adjuvants and heavy metals are separate. They are both bad, for different reasons. You must be in favor of low-tar cigarettes because, hey, there's less tar.

And if adjuvants are that cut-and-dried, please explain why the viruses themselves that get injected are not enough to make your immune system fight it off? Obviously these particular adjuvants do something different, or they wouldn't be used. Are inhaling a cold virus and inhaling some arsenic gas equivalent?

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

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.

Sorry this is so disjointed, my vaccine-injured child is having a bad day and is being very distracting.

Here's my problem with this attitude: you have set yourself up to always be right. If there is no evidence of falsehood yet, well clearly it's because science is on the right track. If it turns out there is evidence of falsehood, well then we found it because the system worked, you're right again!

The system only works because individual people speak up when they see falsehoods being perpetrated. It works in cases like these because of people like me, not because of people like you. The system will cease to work if I just sit back quietly and wait for it to magically work on its own.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

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The system only works because individual people speak up when they see falsehoods being perpetrated. It works in cases like these because of people like me, not because of people like you. The system will cease to work if I just sit back quietly and wait for it to magically work on its own.

Well said Clod.

Right now, I remain unconvinced by either side of the debate. Because neither side has fully proved its position. That, to me, is a reason for more, not less, investigation. Especially as one side appears to be severely handicapped by a lack of investment and support for further study.

[classicman]

Can't they both be right to some degree? I'm not sure its really 100% either/or. Perhaps in certain circumstances (A) is the result and in others (B) ...

[Undertoad]

And if adjuvants are that cut-and-dried, please explain why the viruses themselves that get injected are not enough to make your immune system fight it off?

As I understand it, vaccination effectiveness fell off when the conditions became so hospital-clean that the immune system only had to fight off one thing, the vaccine; adding additional "dirty" elements would help to activate the immune system, so that it would wake up and notice that it was time to work harder because it had things to fight off.

Speaking of which. If there's an environmental change in our world, it's not the contaminates, but rather the lack of them. It's in the cleanliness of people's infant homes.

The other day this gent invited me into his house where he had a 1 year old, and the place was made immaculate for the child. We were all forced to take off shoes outside so as to not contaminate anything. All surfaces were not only clean and dust-free, they were pristine. Anti-bacterial wipes for every surface, soaps for every sink. Disposable nappy diapers went into their own sealed bin. Even the cat was bathed. All I could think was, these uber-nazi-clean conditions are totally new to us as a species. We have never had it like this. I don't know but I wager this is not actually ideal for the child.

[DanaC]

Well...I wasn't raised in a super-clean house whne I was little. I grew up in a normal house with pets and normal amount of dirt and a Dad who fixed bits of engine on the Kitchen table. I played in an old air raid shelter in the grounds of a disused chicken packing factory. My immune system was still fucked up and I tended towards allergies and intolerances. My bro on the other hand never had an allergy in his life.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Here's my problem with this attitude: you have set yourself up to always be right. If there is no evidence of falsehood yet, well clearly it's because science is on the right track. If it turns out there is evidence of falsehood, well then we found it because the system worked, you're right again!

By the very same reasoning, you have set yourself up to always be wrong. If there is no evidence of falsehood yet, it's because the right criticisms of the studies haven't been found. If there IS evidence of falsehood, well then OMG FOUL SYSTEM BROKEN!

The system only works because individual people speak up when they see falsehoods being perpetrated.

I agree but only where we determine "falsehoods" though careful, diligent study using the scientific method. The system works because competing theories add or override the body of work of previous study.

It works in cases like these because of people like me, not because of people like you. The system will cease to work if I just sit back quietly and wait for it to magically work on its own.

In the late 80s-early 90s there was a group of docs who came to believe that AIDS was not caused by HIV. They honestly believed the AIDS-HIV link was a "falsehood". They had theories. They published. They were angry as hell that they could not find traction. They blamed it on funding and bias and culture and "the system", etc.

The scientific community came to reject their ideas on scientific bases. Today AIDS is no longer a death sentence because HIV positive people have their HIV levels controlled. Those other docs were completely wrong. Did the life-saving treatment come about because those doctors had a competing pet theory? No. It came about because the scholarship system looked at them, figured out they were full of it, and proceeded to develop other medical knowledge until the problem was solved.

When you find yourself in disagreement with a lot of the rest of the vaccine-skeptical Autism community, what basis will you use to determine that you are right and they are wrong? How do you KNOW you are right? How do you know what you know? What is your epistemology?

(my god i have not had so much fun composing Cellar posts in a while... thanks clod)

[DanaC]

Linking a wiki definition of epistemology? No, that's not the least bit patronising lol.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

If there IS evidence of falsehood, well then OMG FOUL SYSTEM BROKEN!

Once again, the system is not failing because there are falsehoods. The system is failing (in this case) because those falsehoods are being steadfastly unexamined. Not examined and proven false... unexamined. The CDC will not currently examine the possibility of any environmental trigger, not just vaccines. You yourself said you had been convinced that the current epidemic is a combination of a relatively common genetic predisposition coupled with a new environmental trigger. Why is no one at the CDC interested?

When you find yourself in disagreement with a lot of the rest of the vaccine-skeptical Autism community, what basis will you use to determine that you are right and they are wrong? How do you KNOW you are right? How do you know what you know? What is your epistemology?

The first step for me in determining which side was right was the fact that the biomedical treatments were working. The very basis of these treatments is that autism is rooted in immune dysfunction--they couldn't possibly work if it is not (as the CDC maintains,) and the fact that they are confirms that it is. That got me to the point where you are; that it is most certainly environmental and triggered externally sometime after birth, but I was not sure yet what that trigger might be. Then step two: my daughter got her MMR shot and she stopped talking. I watched it happen, just like they said it could. After 12 months of normal bowel movements and normal speech development, she suddenly had 4 straight weeks of diarrhea and lost all her words. To this day her digestion is severely unbalanced and we must use a careful combination of foods and supplements to keep her regular.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, the MMR itself was not as big of a contributor to my son's autism--he was already showing some signs by 3 months--but it was the tipping point for my daughter. This informs my position on the relative and overall dangers of different shots. I know I am right because I watched it happen. And yes, now is when you say "correlation does not equal causation," and it's where I tell you that at some point the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming. I'll go so far as to acknowledge that maybe my daughter is the only one in the world that it happened to--but I know it happened to her, and all the rest of the autism moms are saying the exact same thing happened to their kids.

So I'm faced with one side that corroborates my experience, predicted it in several cases, and offers treatments that are currently, empirically, working. And the other side dismisses my experience as impossible, predicts the exact opposite of what I'm seeing, and not only offers no treatments, steadfastly says that the other side's treatments aren't working, in the face of said empirical evidence. Every moment of my life for the last year has shown one side to be true, and the other to be false, without exception. That is how I know I am right.

I will know I am wrong if the medical community manages to isolate a different environmental cause, removes it from the population, and the autism rate goes down. But I'm confident it won't happen, if for no other reason than they are refusing to look at any environmental causes, so of course they will not find one.

[jinx]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Huh, true, and interesting.

Huh, yeah, it's true. I didn't just pull something out of my ass or post my argumentative yet uninformed opinion as fact. Incidentally, why did you?

[Undertoad]

Nobody's understanding of the world is perfect, jinx. Through our common bonds we examine the world together.

[jinx]

You are sitting in front of a computer that can access all information available on the internet. It would have taken what... 2 or 3 minutes to check yourself before you posted?

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

But I'm confident it won't happen, if for no other reason than they are refusing to look at any environmental causes, so of course they will not find one.

I'm sure you agree with David Kirby, here are seven studies in progress

http://www.ageofautism.com/2009/06/f...-to-watch.html

ETA: It would have taken what... 2 or 3 minutes to check this.

[Clodfobble]

Four of those studies have only been recommended by the National Vaccine Advisory Committee, not yet guaranteed or approved by particular health organization. The Amish study also fell into this category, except they went so far as to mandate it rather than recommend it. Still didn't get done.

Of the remaining three, one is a joint effort by the department of Health and Human Services and the Environmental Protection Agency. Good thing we have the EPA to step in and do medical research where the CDC won't. Another is from the NIH, who has historically been more favorable towards autism research--their former director has come out vocally in favor of Wakefield and his work. Only one is an actual study that has just barely been begun by the CDC, still collecting study participants, and it is planned to be 5 years long. That's nice and all, but there's plenty of information out there right now that could be utilized for much faster studies to actually get some shit done.