Won't someone help me pick a fight about this?

I understand that these matters aren't precisely the same. The environment for herd immunity is literal, a genuine responsibility for all of is to maintain.

But the mechanics of medicine —the education, the practices, and sometimes the fleshy tissues– are a shared project as well. They pay off in all sorts of Jimmy Stewart - It's a Wonderful Life kinds of ways. You never know what the stranger on the street meant to someone you know, or to someone who taught you how to read in school 30 years ago, etc. (I just got to the part in the Steve Jobs book about how he actually met his biological father, and neither of them knew it.)

Implied consent to organ donation seems every bit as worthwhile as discouraging immunization dropouts. We are not lonely cowboys on a widely-scattered prairie. We're mutually reliant on an enormous and demanding medical system, even if we were "born healthy".

People who don't vaccinate their kids are operating on false data, as well as endangering their neighbors! That autism study was proved false years ago!

The latest autism research I've seen says it has to do with chemicals to which the mother is exposed very early in gestation (3-8 weeks), often before she realizes she's pregnant. There may also be a genetic factor.

"The latest autism research I've seen says it has to do with chemicals to which the mother is exposed very early in gestation" So far that has proven false as well. The only thing that seems to yield consistent findings is genetics. All of the other findings appear to vanish once the study is expanded.

The Anti vax autism link has a few connections. First and for most it allows a person to blame government for their child's condition. Absolution of ones culpability is a strong motive. As the sibling of an autistic adult once you convince them of something it's etched in adamantium. So if the parent has a touch of ASD and someone convinces them it's the vaccines no amount information (including the voice of god) will change their mind.

crid, if you want to discuss that subject I'd suggest you follow the link and post on the very page set aside for that very subject and stop trying to threadjack becuase Amy dares to have an opinon other than yours'

Also, go fuck yourself

Hmm, in looking at the linked article in the previous post, it claimed there were about 13% of people not on schedule, for various reasons, but only 17% of them were truely anti VAX. which putsa the anti vax at about a 2% of the population, even when clustered not a big percentage. With the general claim that herd immunity breaks down at 20% or so, 2% isn't that much.
One other consideration not being addressed is immigration, especially illegal immigration, Legal immigrants must pass certain medical checks, and can be immunized. illegal ones don't. It is no wonder to me that California, a welcoming state for illegal immigrants is also a hot spot for reemergergent diseases.

Iron lungs made such a fashion statement.

Bitterness

I'm always amused by how many anti-vax types are also pro-"homeopathic." Which is dilutions of a substance that is meant to stimulate the body's response to disease, thereby curing the disease. Which is a lot like what a vaccination does--introduces a weakened form of a virus, stimulating the body's response to the disease, and creating the immunity. But the first is good in their minds, while the second is bad.

Amy, have you tried bupropion (Wellbutrin?) It's a norepinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibitor.

> No, I haven't. I am not looking to experiment

For reasons too complicated to explain, I greatly admire that line of text.

Here's my 2 cents. 1) ALL diseases are diet related - caused by diet (or ingestion of some sort, which INCLUDES vaccination) and are fixed by healthy diet (food and food based supplements). 2) Don't trust any statistics, because they can always be made to show whatever you WANT them to show. Do your OWN research (and that doesn't mean asking doctors, because they are only informed in a very small subset of medical/health knowledge).

I for one fully support what Jenny McCarthy preaches. What she misses is what parents need to do INSTEAD of vaccination - which is to properly feed their kids (and properly feed themselves BEFORE they have kids).

Amy I suggest you do a little research before you attach me and call me an idiot. Read about Beauchamp vs. Pasteur to understand where disease in fact originates from. There are external factors that increase the chances of developing certain diseases, but those are not the only or even primary causes. The whole malaria from mosquito thing is rather questionable, and if you look it up you'll discover that. And science is based on coming up with a corollary and then setting out to prove or disprove it. Some people like to be individual thinkers and not just accept as fact what most other people tell them - this is how new ideas come about. Instead of just reading and taking at face value all the junk published attacking what Jenny says, why don't you do some research and look at the evidence which supports what she says. Again, go back and read about Beauchamp, Pasteur, and the origin of vaccines.

Marta you make some good points. Keep in mind when I specified diet I included all ingesting, so that includes things like mercury in fillings, semen entering the body, needles, smoking, sun's rays, etc. And I'm not convinced that diet won't cure AIDS - how many people do you know who have tried that and failed? Also, when I say diet causes disease I'm including the fact that a weakened immune system will prevent the body from naturally fighting off disease. And I categorically discount most "medical" literature out there because it's founded on incorrect principles begun in the late 1800's. Society seems to blindly accept what's published in medical journals - if you looked at the history of the AMA you might think otherwise. If you work in the industry then I'm not sure you can look at the situation objectively.

> The whole malaria from mosquito thing is rather
> questionable, and if you look it up you'll
> discover that.

No.

Y'know, every now and then someone comes along and says you can get another seven miles per gallon if you just switch to square wheels. It's not true, but the person who says it likes to think about how beloved they'd be if they turned out to be right.

I've had malaria... The (plentiful) mosquitoes seem like the most likely vector. It certainly wasn't that Papua New Guinean Crêpe Suzette.

Myhrvold's investing several times your net worth into projects to deal with mosquitoes.

Do you suppose he did the reading you suggest? Shame for him to waste all that money, right?

yep - exactly right.

He started college at 14, had a PhD at 23, and worked for Stephen Hawking. IV has rolodex (if not speed-dial) access to most of the world's genius, and a pretty good slice of its cash.

Yet you know so much better than Myhrvold and the several generations of brilliance who've been fighting this murderous, crippling scourge over the centuries.

You must be a very, very special man.

Or perhaps there's another explanation...

Hmmmmmmmmm.

A shame that fate has saddled you in this life of material and social exclusion... Such that year after year, you're unable to share your genius with others. It's like you're surrounded by a lesser grade of humanity!

It's ironic, right? Despite your open, questioning mind, you're unable to connect with others in a productive manner. You have so much insight, yet you can't imagine how to create enough wealth to test your ideas in the field, where human lives could be improved... MILLIONS of human lives in some of the world's most ancient and enduring contexts of poverty and suffering. All it would take would be a little spark of light to show them the truth.

Sucks.

Just thinking about it bums me out.

Ever approach a biologist with your ideas? I'm thinking like at a university, maybe, or at some respected health-care facility?

Ever talk to any of the money people, the guys who happen to excel at creating wealth and motivating others to make things happen, but who happen to have minds that aren't "open and questioning"?


Aw, fuckit. It's late... I can't think about this anymore... It's just too sad!

but even idiots deserve to continue living

Got to disagree with you there Amy, the expansion of stupid people and their stupid mistakers and their stupid ideas is whats been holding humanity back.

I say we infect jwipe with AIDS and let him prove us wrong, I say we stop putting warning labels on toasters warning people not to use them in the tub, I say we stop warning the morons among us that eating rat poision is a bad idea as it wont just kill rats.

I say we let the stupid people die, Stupidity is mankinds only regular preadator anymore

Ahhh. I've been lookiing for this kind of poster ever since the Augusta Chronicle shut its Forums down, robbing me of the guy who insists the Earth is "young" because there are old oyster shells...

First, delicious irony and abject ignorance in one sentence: "Don't trust any statistics, because they can always be made to show whatever you WANT them to show."

And it gets better: "Do your OWN research (and that doesn't mean asking doctors, because they are only informed in a very small subset of medical/health knowledge)."

jwipe, you literally have no idea what "statistics" means. You should look here, paying special attention to this line:

"A statistician is someone who is particularly well versed in the ways of thinking necessary for the successful application of statistical analysis."

That does not even begin to describe anyone you know. This field has literally brought you the processor on your desk by allowing the proper analysis of logical systems AND the manufacturing processes - nearly a thousand of them - used to bring it to you.

I do not think "research" means what YOU think it means, because you would have to be visiting from an alternate reality to state things which are false, in this world, so boldly.

Ah. I can always hope you're trolling.

So glad I've provided all of you with such great entertainment! It's fascinating to me the amount of anger and viciousness thrown simply because I'm expressing a different viewpoint than your own (or different than the masses). My goal here is to educate and enlighten, not to make money - because there is no money to be made. When the answer to these issues doesn't cost much and is readily available (ie food), there's no way to profit from it; which is exactly why you're so adamant in your thinking - corporations stand to lose billions if you were to think differently; ponder that.

The one point I feel the need to address is the statistics line. Yeah, I understand statistics, studied it, all that. Of course in theory that's all great, but in practice whoever pays for the study will be damn sure the stats show what they're paying to show, otherwise it will never be published. Most of these studies leave out data or skew data to prove what they're trying to prove. Making studies costs money, and someone needs to pay for it. And usually for every study you can show which "proves" one thing I can show you another study which "proves" the opposite. So what.

Flame on folks, doesn't bother me a bit (and I think that's what irks you even more).

Whereas you guys wish me to contract AIDS, I wish you all a happy and healthy New Year :D

> I'm expressing a different viewpoint
> than your own

If only. If only there were flashing glint of new perspective on these matters.

Testing your ideas wouldn't be difficult. But it would be more costly to you –and at this point, perhaps more embarrassing– than staying at home and pretending to "educate". Yet you don't do specifics... No chemistry, anatomy, vectors or genetics are discussed.

Wrapping up the Jobs book over here. A favorite aphorism from the most exciting industry of my lifetime, microcomputers, may or may not have come from his lips, though he indisputably personified it: Real artists ship.

You want specifics? Ok here's a good place to start. http://www.amazon.com/Bechamp-Pasteur-Chapter-History-Biology/dp/1564599272/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1325364422&sr=8-3

I apologize for misspelling Bechamp's name in a previous post. I'm sure that's what threw you off when you went to actually research my claims.

Our task in life is not to "research" the claims of goofballs... The burden of proof doesn't work that way.

Why a typo for something that means so much to you, something that could save so many lives?

Amazon reviews:

The information in this book is excellent but it is very difficult to follow on account of it's age/scientific language.

José Quintáns M.D., Ph.D,
Biological Sciences Collegiate Division
University of Chicago

[I]f you are up to it, this book has great info on Pasteur and Bechamp. The author does seem a little biased (or alot), but I don't blame them. :)

Elizabeth Brainerd
Professor of Medical Science
Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Brown University

(Bogus attributions. FUNNY, right?)

(Is this thing on? Can you hear me in the back?)

(TITS OUT, people! Happy New Year!)

Offering the name of a professor who blurbed a book -- there's scientific evidence!

Here's how blurbing works: You know somebody's husband or somebody did you a favor at some point or your agent asks you to blurb some other client, and you do. You likely haven't even read the whole book but maybe a few pages or worse, a few paragraphs.

As Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You want to claim that eating green beans or Snickers bars causes malaria, AIDs, and whatever else...show us the valid and reliable (terminology for solid studies) research (randomized, double-blinded, s'il vous plait) to back your whack-job claims up.

You do have to pat yourself on the back for probably being the biggest idiot I've encountered in 2011. Just made it under the wire, too!

> Offering the name of a professor who blurbed
> a book -- there's scientific evidence!

That was the joke... Those people are real, but they didn't say those things....

Whereas you guys wish me to contract AIDS, I wish you all a happy and healthy New Year :D

Posted by: jwipe

There werent multipule people wishing that, just me. Also technically I suggested we deliberatly infect you.
I mean seriously you cant even be bothered to get a post just five slots above your reply to it correct

So tell us - how are we to trust your judgemt on our lives and health when your judgement on how to use copy and paste and the nscroller bar on the right side of the web window is so fucking piss poor?

Also arent you claiming to have a cure? Logically based soley on your own statement if I was somehow able to infect you with AIDS all you would have to do is eat the right foods in the right order and qauantities to cure yourself

So why the hurt feelings?

"It's fascinating to me the amount of anger and viciousness thrown simply because I'm expressing a different viewpoint than your own (or different than the masses)."

Actually, I'm expressing a logical point: that you have done none of the "research" you are so eager to recommend.

You will be a hero. Your name will be shouted from the rooftops, greater than Newton, Salk, {insert name here}. If only you produce.

Ain't gonna happen. And, it won't happen for anyone like you - those who assume that the rest of humanity, outside of their own little group, is both unskilled and unmotivated to find what you hold dear.

Perhaps you enjoy homeopathy? For what you have offered as thought, or even reasoning, is a 6X solution of the real thing.

(That means "not detectable by actual analysis".)

Um.. while the flame war continues, a little halftime entertainment?

The "a" in DTaP does not stand for "and", it stands for "acellular". One of the reasons that a lot of anti-vaccine people had a problem with the old DTP vaccine was that the pertussis component caused most of the side effects. The newer vaccine - which has been out for over 20 years in the US, and longer in Japan, offers good immunity with much less side effects.

Vaccine development isn't static. Science improves. It doesn't make the old technology bad, it just makes the new technology better.

Happy New Year

The myth "MMR vaccine causes autism" was not a mistake, it was deliberate fraud by British pediatrician Andrew Wakefield, who was in the pay of a rival vaccine maker's solicitor (attorney) Richard Barr. A good, thorough telling by the reporter who dug out the details is here:
http://briandeer.com/mmr/lancet-summary.htm

The eventual result, in May 2011, was that Wakefield lost his license to practice medicine. Barr, however, appears to still be doing business as an attorney, which confirms my impression that even in Britain, attorneys are unlikely ever to be held responsible for their actions no matter what they do. So much for the notion that licensing protects the public.