tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33183858385328271972024-02-19T00:35:12.370-06:00My Socrates NoteThe amount of sarcasm I present is directly proportional to the amount of stupidity you presentMySocratesNotehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01823121688925710624noreply@blogger.comBlogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-15322116901939303122014-02-13T13:02:00.001-06:002014-02-14T07:19:33.444-06:00Vaccines and Religion…Just Not How you Think<p>A couple of weeks ago, I was having a discussion with an old friend of mine. He and I were remarking on the similarities between the vaccine zealots (those he calls Vaccine Wackos) and religious extremists.</p> <p>As you all know, I’ve discussed this observation many times on this site. However, I thought that I would delve further into this observation and reveal <b><u>how</u></b> my friend and I came to this conclusion. He and I have been working on this post for several days now, and considering that Gorski has sharted out his usual verbal Montezuma’s Revenge regarding how anti-vaxxers are cultists (and he does a very poor job of trying to compare the two), I felt it was a good time to look at the similarity of vaccine zealots and religious orthodoxy from a sociological standpoint as opposed to Gorski’s biased attempt at pigeon-holing.</p> <p>So first, let us define what a religion is. In the simplest of terms, a religion is a group of people with similar views and beliefs who develop practices and reverence for the same things. Religion is not really practiced by a single individual (it wouldn’t be a religion if it was), so often, there are hierarchies and followers. Priests and their flocks, if you will.</p> <p>Now, from this brief description, let’s look and see how that applies to the Vaccinators.</p> <p>Are they a group of people with similar views and beliefs who develop practices and reverence to the same things? This is a very resounding “Yes,” when it is regarding vaccinations. Do they have a hierarchy? Absolutely! Doctors like Offit and Gorski are considered to be the priests, the gatekeepers of knowledge. What about followers? Yep! This is evident in the congregation of fawning arse-lickers who infest Gorski’s slime-pit, and those who collect together on various social media sites to attack and harass unbelievers.</p> <p>Now that we’ve established a definition, let’s delve further into their belief structure. Religions are characterized by their beliefs. These beliefs are respected and held sacred by all members of the religion. These beliefs also come with a set of practices and morals that are considered very important to the congregation; if these beliefs, practices, and morals are not followed, then the member is considered to have “sinned.” These beliefs and morals are not up for debate, and they should not be questioned. </p> <p>For the Vaccinators, their belief is that vaccines are the single most important medical breakthrough in history. It is immoral to deviate, even a little, from the doctrine of the sacred Vaccination Schedule, and getting vaccinated is treated with reverence, a sacrament similar to baptism in the Christian religion. It is your moral obligation to vaccinate your children. You should not show questions or concerns regarding this sacrament, and any deviance from the established dogma will result in cries of anti-vaxxer.</p> <p>Which leads to our next part of religion; veneration of certain acts and things, and a clear definition of things that are evil or profane. Christianity venerates the death of Christ on the cross, and the cross is a reminder of this veneration. Things that pertain to, or are connected to, good acts that the church venerates are considered sacred. Things that they consider blasphemous, or profane, are considered evil. Those performing these types of acts are shunned, cast out, and scorned by the congregation. Often, they are called cultists, devil worshippers, or athiests.</p> <p>Now, compare that to Vaccinators. All vaccines are sacred. Getting yourself and your children vaccinated will save you and your children, just like going to church and proclaiming your love for Christ will save your immortal souls. Speaking about vaccine injury, or selectively vaccinating, is blasphemous. Those who do so are shunned, cast out, and scorned by the Vaccinators. Often, they are called cultists, anti-vaxxers, and child killers.</p> <p>In many churches, only the priest can understand, interpret, and teach about the Bible. Normal people within the church are incapable of understanding the true meaning behind the teachings of Christ, so should consult with their priest whenever they read the Bible. Similarly, Vaccinators believe that Doctors are the only ones capable of reading and understanding studies regarding vaccination and that anyone who reads them on their own and comes to their own conclusions is too stupid to understand the Science.</p> <p>So, as you can see, Vaccine Wackos are clearly religious zealots, at least from a sociological viewpoint. Their beliefs and behaviours are consistent with religious zealots and their reactions to heretics and blasphemers are just as consistent. Oh, I can hear the Vaccine Wackos now…</p> <p>“But we have SCIENCE on our side!!!!”</p> <p>No, you have your <b><u>biased and imperfect interpretation</u></b> of science on your side. Science, I might add, that is paid for and controlled by organizations that have a vested interest in the outcome of that science. They never critically evaluate the science that supports their paradigm. Also, notice the religious reverence to Science.</p> <p>The deification of Science is an abomination, and it should be ridiculed.</p> <p>So, to test our theory that Vaccine Wackos are just religious zealots, let’s do a little test. My friend and I spent several days perusing the internet, reading comments left on pro-vaccine sites and on religious sites. We’ve compiled a list of comments. Some of them, we’ve left alone, and some we’ve changed only one or two words. See if you can determine which comments below are from Vaccine Wackos, or which are from religious zealots.</p> <p>1. Your opinions are based on a lack of faith and the garbage you ingest from atheist blogs.</p> <p>2. You are against God because you plug into atheism and don't have any education in basic religion...a poor substitute for faith.</p> <p>3. Offit said he was hated. It's a strong sign we are on the right track.</p> <p>4. You're just another crank blogger who is a satanist.</p> <p>5. Priests are uniquely qualified to understand the theory behind religion and you are not.</p> <p>6. That's a common anti-vax lie. Everybody doesn't have different interpretations. How can there be different interpretations? It's right there in the Science.</p> <p>7. He's reading from a script in an attempt to pander to atheist groups. Why would you ever assume he is spreading "the truth"?</p> <p>8. You're the ones claiming that there is no God. Show us the proof that there is no God!</p> <p>9. There are no unanswered questions about God and creation....the questions have all been asked and answered, repeatedly.</p> <p>10. It is the obligation of pro-science vaccinators everywhere to put the cup of Science to Anti-vaxxer's lips, and cause Anti-vaxxers to drink it. And you will drink it!</p> <p>11. God has spoken! </p> <p>12. Jesus has saved humanity!</p> <p>13. We know this to be true because the Bible says it's true</p> <p>14. Your baby's salvation is in jeopardy if they are not baptized</p> <p>15. I don’t have to “prove” anything. You see, I have this wonderful thing called “faith” and with that I have no need of proof.</p> <p>16. Just calmly and maturely present your side of the argument. Some of my friends are athiests. Doesn't mean I have to delete them from my life. It just means it's my duty to inform them otherwise.</p> <p>17. Yet you don’t go to church, or only believe certain teachings? You do realize that makes you an atheist, right?</p> <p>Post your answers in the comments, and we’ll reveal the answers in a few days.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-37538999168606330762014-01-23T10:53:00.001-06:002014-01-23T13:55:55.838-06:00Musings on Anonymity and Libel<p>Several years ago, when I first met my dear friend, he and I spent many hours discussing a great many things. Religion, literature, science, and how the status quo, the scientific consensus, has perverted the purity of science. That last was a particular interest of mine, a fascinating sociological enigma that had already begun to occupy my thoughts. How delightful it was for me to find someone with similar interests.</p> <p>He introduced me to this little blog here and asked if I would like to collaborate, something I was quite honoured to do. I was already familiar with David Gorski at that time. Many years ago, when he was on Usenet, I occasionally commented on some of his articles and/or discussions. Gorski, you see, was one of the defenders of the status quo. He ridiculed any views that were in opposition to his and was unwilling to accept evidence that was in opposition to his point of view. He attacked opposing viewpoints relentlessly, with an almost religious fervor, yet refused to scrutinize or question his own orthodoxy. He would scoff and dismiss any ideas that opposed his views instead of objectively analyzing them. His views were a perversion of science, and it intrigued me that this pretentious wind-bag was given so much credence considering that he was the very definition of a pseudo-skeptic. </p> <p>Then, as now, I was anonymous, and my friend and I had many discussions (some quite heated) regarding anonymity and why he should choose to be anonymous. Sadly, he learned the hard way why he should stay anonymous after an unhinged and disturbing individual began stalking and harassing him online. He has now gone into hiding, only commenting under his real name on blogs and sites that he knows he is safe to comment on (like this one). </p> <p>I will remain anonymous. I do so to protect my livelihood and my reputation. Not that I’m ashamed of anything I’m doing by pointing out how unscientific Gorski is. It’s something I’m quite proud of, as a matter of fact. No, I remain anonymous to prevent narcissistic busy-bodies like the one I will mention below from contacting my place of business in an attempt to get me fired or reprimanded, like she’s done <a href="http://my-socrates-note.blogspot.com/2012/04/can-anyone-say-hypocrite.html">before</a>.</p> <p>Gorski wrote an <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/" rel="nofollow">article</a> today lamenting the tendency of people to out pseudonyms. Despite Gorski’s whining and martyrdom complex regarding how this was done to him, I mostly agree. However, this is not actually what I want to talk about.</p> <p>I wanted to discuss a comment on Gorski’s blog from one of the more vile, shrill, vapid, and hypocritical fuss-budgets amongst the Pseudo-skeptics, one that I’ve written about on more than one occasion.</p> <p>Lilady is one of the more humourous of Gorski’s sycophants. She bemoans how mean and cruel “anti-vaxxers” are, but then turns around and is even more cruel and vicious than they could ever be. She wails about how Jake Crosby stalks people like Gorski and Offit, yet she turns around and constantly stalks him and Anne Dachel. She also has many of the classic signs of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. For example, she expects everyone to believe she’s a retired nurse and epidemiologist (the latter began appearing in her numerous comments only in the past two years) and makes sure to mention it in nearly every comment she makes, which fits under the need to be recognized as superior. She expects constant attention, which is why she comments on Gorski’s site saying, “Look what I’m doing over here! I’m having an argument with anti-vaxxers!!” She lacks the ability to empathise with the people she argues with, and is arrogant towards them. She thinks she should be treated fairly and respected, yet she does not treat others in the same way. </p> <p>Now, I know that writing this post will likely feed her narcissism, and if that’s the case, so be it. I still think it is important to point out her pseudo-skeptical behaviours and comment on the lack of critical thinking exhibited.</p> <p>The below comment is the meat of my discussion today:</p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“Orac, I think I can speak for the RI Ladies to thank you for this excellent, sensitive post about “outing” a female blogger, by a man in a position of power. It is a vicious spiteful tactic designed to qwell any dissent and to put a younger less powerful woman in her place.</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">Your personal stalker who posts on his blog as “gambolputty”, has employed the same libelous tactics against me on his own blog and has used another pseudonym (“Caro”) to post nasty libelous comments at me on the Ho-Po and on Seth Mnookin’s blog:</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">http://blogs.plos.org/thepanicvirus/2012/03/26/bob-sears-bald-faced-liar-devious-dissembler-or-both/</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">It’s downright disconcerting and threatening for any blogger to resort to “outing”…doubly so, when the victim of the outing is a woman.”</font></em></p> <p>First off, notice the utter fawning and blatant arse-kissery? Pretty disgusting, yes?</p> <p>Secondly, I believe that Lilady needs to be edumacated on the definitions of stalking and libel. I personally find both of these accusations to be very serious, and therefore, I must address them accordingly.</p> <p>Let’s start with the legal definition of stalking. I’ll use the definitions for cyber-stalking as opposed to physical stalking considering that most of this alleged activity is occurring online.</p> <p><em><font color="#9bbb59">“Cyber harassment refers to online harassment. Cyber harassment or bullying is the use of email, instant messaging, and derogatory websites to bully or otherwise harass an individual or group through personal attacks. Cyber harassment can be in the form of flames, comments made in chat rooms, sending of offensive or cruel e-mail, or even harassing others by posting on blogs or social networking sites. Cyber harassment is often difficult to track as the person responsible for the acts of cyber harassment remains anonymous while threatening others online.”</font></em> (<a href="http://definitions.uslegal.com/c/cyber-harassment/">1</a>)</p> <p>So, let’s look at some of her comments on Gorski’s site that fit into these criteria.</p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“According to Jake…he was very *respectful*, just wanted to pose a *question* (rambling statement of *facts* as Jake’s sees the *facts*) and Dr. Offit publicly humiliated Jake.</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">Who knows if Jake is reporting his encounter with Dr. Offit accurately. Jake has been known to *misinterpret* and incorrectly report his many stalking capers, in his efforts to curry favor with his *keepers* at AoA and with his readership at that yellow rag.</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">Who should be believe then? Dr. Offit who is a world- respected scientist and physician and the director of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Department of CHOP? Dr. Offit who developed a safe rotavirus vaccine and who has devoted his professional life to educating parents, physicians, nurses, and students about immunology, vaccine safety and vaccine preventable diseases?</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">Or,</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">Jake Crosby, who is clueless about Intussusception (the bowel *turns inside out*, according to Jake), who repeatedly commits libel in his writings and commits slander every time he stalks Dr. Offit and lets loose with his false accusations. Jake Crosby, who has an undying love for a disgraced former doctor, that causes him to stalk and accost Dr. Offit and other public figures. Jake who *uses* a diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome to justify his atrocious anti-social behaviors that includes stalking and defamation of character.</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">I know Jake, his *handlers* and his readership lurk here. Just for you Jake…you are, in my opinion, a POS, you have an unnatural fixation on your hero Wakefield. And Jake, you may somehow graduate with a MPH…but you will never be an epidemiologist in the public health field.”</font></em></p> <p>Anonymous? Check. Using derogatory rhetoric to harass, bully, and make personal attacks against an individual? Check. Threatening? Not really…lilady is about as harmless and inconsequential as a dung beetle. However, that last comment could certainly be taken as threatening. She constantly lurks on his site and on facebook. She digs up information about his parents, what his parents jobs are, and keeps very close tabs on Jake’s whereabouts and activities, even going so far as to speculate about his dating habits.</p> <p>If that’s not stalking, I don’t know what is. Hello, hypocrisy.</p> <p>Now, let’s address the libel comment. In particular, as it pertains to yours truly. Here is the legal definition of libel:</p> <p><font color="#9bbb59">“to publish in print (including pictures), writing or broadcast through radio, television or film, an untruth about another which will do harm to that person or his/her reputation, by tending to bring the target into ridicule, hatred, scorn or contempt of others.” “Publication need only be to one person, but it must be a statement which claims to be fact, and is not clearly identified as an opinion. While it is sometimes said that the person making the libelous statement must have been intentional and malicious, actually it need only be obvious that the statement would do harm and is untrue.”(</font><a href="http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/libel">2</a>)</p> <p>Lilady has, on many occasions, made comments regarding Mr Crosby, Ms McCarthy and others that were untrue and with the intent to harm their reputations. </p> <p>Here’s the thing, lilady…if I’m disagreeing with you and giving you a reason for my disagreement, that is not libel. Saying that I don’t believe that you are a retired nurse and epidemiologist is also not libel, especially since it’s a reasonable observation, and it’s clear that what I am expressing is an opinion. It also cannot harm your reputation because a) you’re doing that yourself with your angry, shrieking, hysterical posts and b) you are anonymous and therefore have no professional reputation to uphold. But to lilady, anyone who disagrees with her directly is posting nasty comments and is a “libelous slanderer” (yes, that’s actually one of her insults). </p> <p>Continuing on, let’s look at the link she provided. This is where it gets hilarious. The comment she links to is not even directed at her, but she thinks that it’s libeling her. Talk about narcissism!</p> <p>Lastly, I do not condone “outing” pseudonymous bloggers and writers. Oft-times, they do this for a reason, and I respect that reason. Just as I respect lilady’s anonymity. Gorski is already “out,” and it’s no secret who he is. Therefore, my use of his real name opposed to his pseudonym is irrelevant. I have never once done this to her, nor have I personally done it to anyone else. And I take great offense that she would accuse me of doing so.</p> <p>I do not have the ability to comment on Gorski’s blog. He usually doesn’t like what I have to say about him, so he either moderates my comments (yes, he moderates selectively, despite his assurances of the contrary…if he doesn’t like what someone says, he will not let the comment through), or they get caught in his web filter (I use an anonymous proxy to hide my location from other bloggers…yes, a bit paranoid, I know. But considering what happened to my friend, I think it’s a reasonable precaution). So, I can’t post this over on Gorski’s blog as a rebuttal. I take accusations such as the one that lilady leveled at me <b><u>very</u></b> seriously. I strongly encourage her to refrain from making such accusations and educate herself on the terminology she’s using to accuse others. If she actually has real and concrete proof that I am libeling her in some way, then present that proof instead of trying to play the martyr and woe-is-me. If she cannot provide this proof, then it’s more evidence that she is a liar and that she’s full of shite.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-65228529462451685082014-01-07T13:58:00.001-06:002014-01-07T13:58:59.597-06:00Science Bowel Movements Wants Your Money. Just Trust them…it Isn’t a Scam.<p>Another post, you say? Two in a week? What is going on here?</p> <p>Once again, I find myself sufficiently amused by someone’s blatant hypocrisy that I just have to say something about it. You know me…I can’t keep silent in the face of such shameless duplicity.</p> <p>Who, do you ask, is responsible for this chuckle-worthy sanctimony?</p> <p><a href="a%20href=%22http:/scienceblogs.com/insolence/2014/01/07/orac-wants-you-to-join-the-society-for-science-based-medicine/%22%20rel=%22nofollow%22">Do you really need to ask</a>?</p> <p>David Gorski wants us to join his organization of elitist science wannabes:</p> <p><i><font color="#f79646">“The reason this new organization, the Society for Science-Based Medicine, is so needed is because, quite frankly, in the skeptical movement SBM is but one area of many areas of concern, and, in my estimation, one that doesn’t receive attention proportional to the real societal damage done by quackery. That has changed a bit (this year’s TAM featured two talks on Stanislaw Burzynski, and the skeptical movement has shown a gratifying movement towards combatting the antivaccine movement over the last few years), but, even so, I don’t think I exaggerate too much when I say that, even now, SBM tends not to be as prominent a concern in organized skepticism as other brands of pseudoscience and unreason, in particular creationism, religion, and the paranormal.”</font></i></p> <p>So, the main purpose of this little society is so that David can feel important, pretending that what his little elitist club is doing actually matters. That what they are doing is making a difference. A laudable goal, to be sure, if it wasn’t so laughable. </p> <p><i><font color="#f79646">“A new organization is needed to counter unreason and pseudoscience in medicine. That is why the Society for Science-Based Medicine is being founded. That is why I want you to join us.”</font></i></p> <p>It’s clear that David’s hope is that he will be considered the super-hero of “SBM” (which, in my opinion, should be Science Bowel Movement).</p> <p>That, and he wants your money. $85 a year to listen to his drivel? No thanks, I’d rather have 365 days straight of root canals.</p> <p>I find it remarkably amusing that David lambasts organizations like Age of Autism for asking readers for donations, saying that their site really serves no purpose other than to promote quackery and pseudoscience.</p> <p>So what does he do? He asks for money from his readers for a site and/or organization that serves no other purpose than to promote his version quackery and pseudoscience.</p> <p>The reason why Science Bowel Movements is not as popular or noticed as some of the things they purport to fight is because everyone is waking up to just how much of a scam these elitist scum are performing.</p> <p>Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at their guiding principles:</p> <p><i><font color="#f79646">“<b>Respect for knowledge and truth</b> – SBM values reality and what is true. We therefore endeavor to be as reality-based as possible in our beliefs and opinions. This means subjecting all claims to a valid process of evaluation.”</font></i></p> <p>Except when that claim conforms to their own bias. In other words, they only respect their own version of knowledge and truth. Anything else should be attacked with rabid abandon, going so far as to stalk, harass, intimidate, and bully anyone they disagree with.</p> <p><i><font color="#f79646">“<b>Methodological naturalism</b> – SBM believes that the world is knowable because it follows certain rules, or laws of nature. The only legitimate methods for knowing anything empirical about the universe follows this naturalistic assumption. In other words – within the realm of the empirical, you don’t get to invoke magic or the supernatural.”</font></i></p> <p>Except when it comes to how their pet theories work. You don’t have to understand it…it’s Science, man! Just trust them and don’t ask any questions!</p> <p><i><font color="#f79646">“<b>Promotion of science</b> – Science is the only set of methods for investigating and understanding the natural world. Science is therefore a powerful tool, and one of the best developments of human civilization. We therefore endeavor to promote the role of science in our society, public understanding of the findings and methods of science, and high-quality science education. This includes protecting the integrity of science and education from ideological intrusion or anti-scientific attacks. This also includes promoting high quality science, which requires examining the process, culture, and institutions of science for flaws, biases, weaknesses, and fraud.”</font></i></p> <p>Except when it comes to examining themselves and those they agree with for biases, weaknesses, and fraud.</p> <p><i><font color="#f79646">“<b>Promotion of reason and critical thinking</b> – Science works hand-in-hand with logic and philosophy, and therefore SBM also promotes understanding of these fields and the promotion of critical thinking skills.”</font></i></p> <p>Except when it comes to critically thinking about their own claims. You should just accept everything they say at face value.</p> <p><i><font color="#f79646">“<b>Science vs. pseudoscience</b> – SBM seeks to identify and elucidate the borders between legitimate science and pseudoscience, to expose pseudoscience for what it is, and to promote knowledge of how to tell the difference.”</font></i></p> <p>Except when it comes to the science that conforms to their expectations. No matter how bad the science, if they agree with it, then it must be good science.</p> <p><i><font color="#f79646">“<b>Ideological freedom/free inquiry</b> – Science and reason can only flourish in a secular society in which no ideology (religious or otherwise) is imposed upon individuals or the process of science or free inquiry.”</font></i></p> <p>Except when it comes to their religion. Thou shalt not question the science they agree with. Thou shalt not disagree with them or point out the flaws in their dogma…err scientific studies that they agree with.</p> <p><i><font color="#f79646">“<b>Neuropsychological humility</b> – Being a functional SBM proponent requires knowledge of all the various ways in which we deceive ourselves, the limits and flaws in human perception and memory, the inherent biases and fallacies in cognition, and the methods that can help mitigate all these flaws and biases.”</font></i></p> <p>Except when it comes to themselves. This principle doesn’t apply to them.</p> <p>They even go one step further, ridiculing a quote from Doctor Mehmet Oz:</p> <p><font color="#ffff00">““<i>Medicine is a very religious experience. I have my religion and you have yours. It becomes difficult for us to agree on what we think works, since so much of it is in the eye of the beholder. Data is rarely clean. You find the arguments that support your data, and it’s my fact versus your fact.”</i></font></p> <p><i><font color="#f79646">Dr. Oz is wrong. We have a way of determining what works: the methods of science. Like all tools it is only as effective as the person wielding it.”</font></i></p> <p>Except that their interpretation of science is more akin to a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.</p> <p>Which is religion.</p> <p>I cannot help but laugh at these fools. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds, apparently. Do as they say, not as they do.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-14898081065914944062014-01-02T14:20:00.001-06:002014-01-02T16:05:12.694-06:00Censorship is Bad…Unless You’re a False Skeptic<p>Some of you may have wondered why I haven’t posted much over the past year. Honestly, the little Vaccine/Autism war has grown tiresome for me, and I find myself growing increasingly bored with the same drivel coming from the false skeptic community when it comes to defending their own confirmation biases while ridiculing anything that doesn’t conform to their point of view. </p> <p>Occasionally, however, one of these cretins does something that I find sufficiently amusing enough to rouse me from the ennui that their droning ego-masturbatory cries for attention tends to induce in me. And, sure enough, it comes from the king of narcissistic false skepticism, Mr David H. Gorski. Are you in the least bit surprised?</p> <p>David is blathering about how something offends him…his usual verbal diarrhoea. Today he’s droning on about how he thinks censorship is bad on Facebook, Mkay? Observe:</p> <p><i><font color="#f79646">“My personal issues with Facebook aside, Facebook does indeed have many shortcomings, but until something else comes along and steals the same cachet (which is already happening as </font><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/27/facebook-dead-and-buried-to-teens-research-finds"><font color="#f79646">teens flee Facebook</font></a><font color="#f79646"> to avoid their parents) and even after, Facebook will remain a major player in social media. That’s why its policies matter. They can matter a lot. I was reminded of this about a week ago when Dorit Reiss (who has of late been the new favored target of the antivaccine movement, likely because she is a lawyer and has been very effective thus far in her young online career opposing the antivaccine movement) published a post entitled </font><a href="http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/abusing-the-algorithm-using-facebook-reporting-to-censor-debate/"><font color="#f79646">Abusing the Algorithm: Using Facebook Reporting to Censor Debate</font></a><font color="#f79646">. Because I also pay attention to some Facebook groups designed to counter the antivaccine movement, I had already heard a little bit about the problem, but Reiss laid it out in stark detail. Basically, the merry band of antivaccinationists at the </font><a href="http://avn.org.au/"><font color="#f79646">Australian Vaccination Network</font></a><font color="#f79646"> (soon to be renamed because its name is so obviously deceptive, given that it is the most prominent antivaccine group in Australia, that the NSW Department of Fair Trading </font><a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/antivaccine-group-struggling-for-new-id/story-e6frg8y6-1226793358040"><font color="#f79646">ordered the anti-vaccine group to change its misleading name</font></a><font color="#f79646">) has discovered a quirk in the algorithm Facebook uses to process harassment complaints against users and abused that quirk relentlessly to silence its opponents on Facebook.”</font></i></p> <p>David is somewhat correct here; censorship, in any form, is wrong. What he is describing is a form of bullying and harassment, behaviour I find to be childish and appalling. </p> <p>Except that David thinks that censorship is only bad when false skeptics are censored…it’s ok when they censor opposing views. </p> <p>This is a theme that I’ve written about numerous times on this site; the hypocritical double standard that false skeptics are free to bully, harass, intimidate and censor any opposing views, but how dare anyone do it back. He can dish it out, but he can’t take it.</p> <p>This is a common tactic on Facebook for the false skeptics. In fact, there is an entire page devoted to it; they call it the Anti-Vax Wall of Shame (which Gorski happens to be a member of). They make sport of ridiculing parents of vaccine injured children. They congratulate each other for bullying, harassing and intimidating anyone who opposes their point of view, and take great pride in reporting and banning anyone they don’t like. In fact, I’ve found one or two sites devoted to posting the reports and bannings instigated by the AVWOS.</p> <p>For example, here’s <a href="http://provaxquacks.wordpress.com/">Provax Quacks</a>, who has several posts about bans and reportings from members of the same hate-group that Gorski is a member of. </p> <p>Just don’t report or ban David’s arse-lickers…that’s bad.</p> <p>He even goes as far as to tell his fart-sniffers to continue bullying, harassing and censoring opposing views…just don’t tell anyone you’re doing it.</p> <p><i><font color="#f79646">“In other words, carry on what you’re doing, but please, just be a little less blatant about it and for heaven’s sake don’t publicly gloat about it when your abuse of Facebook’s reporting mechanism succeed!”</font></i></p> <p>He later comments and laughs about how the site “FB Time-Outs for Provaxers” is no longer accessible:</p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“Bwahahahaha. Apparently “Karen Little” either took down her gloating page or changed its privacy settings. The Keanu Reeve meme, in which the tag line was “What if I told you it wasn’t the algorithm,” now does not show up.”</font></em></p> <p>Or, it could be because someone reported the page. Do as I say, not as I do.</p> <p>What a bloody hypocrite.</p> <p>I’m not much of a Facebook user. When I do use FB, I make sure my posts are private and that I never comment on any of the Vaccine Zealot or Vaccine Skeptic pages or groups. I might read them, but I never comment. The extreme efforts that others, vaccine zealot and skeptic alike, will go through to silence opposition sickens me. I say let them speak their drivel, but point out their logical fallacies, point out their hypocritical behaviours and actions, and let others see what they are doing. Eventually, people will start to realize that they should not associate with these bullies and zealots and wonder why so many people are turning away from Gorski’s version of Religion-as-Science.</p> <p>Readers, please feel free to post here times when you’ve been censored, banned, or reported for posting something that wasn’t in line with what vaccine zealots and false skeptics didn’t like.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-36541785905331595262013-07-19T10:32:00.001-05:002013-07-19T17:37:41.105-05:00Jenny McCarthy Strawman Fallacies, Take Two<p>This has been an interesting week, has it not? First, there was the Zimmerman trial and the outrageous response to his acquittal. Then, there was news of Gay marriage being legalized in England.</p> <p>Then, there was news that was so outrageous, so shocking, so contemptible that it forced the entire Quackosphere ™ to creep out from under their bridges and organize a massive campaign to speak up against this atrocity.</p> <p>That’s right; <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/353730/jenny-mccarthy-new-take-view-betsy-woodruff">Jenny McCarthy has joined The View</a>.</p> <p>This is criminal! I mean, how dare they hire a beautiful woman who is openly outspoken about how she thinks her son was injured by vaccines! The gall!</p> <p>Oh, and the furor is truly spectacular. The rhetoric has reached hysterical proportions. The amount of butt-hurt is truly epic.</p> <p><a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/07/16/dear_abc_putting_jenny_mccarthy_on_the_view_will_kill_children/">Salon</a> says that having her on the view will kill children. Just the fear-mongering in the title alone is enough to send the Pharma reps into fits of money-grubbing glee. Pareene vapidly opines:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“Parents have been convinced by McCarthy and the people she works with and promotes. They have forgone vaccination for their children. The result has been the recurrence and spread of preventable diseases. It’s incredibly irresponsible for a broadcast television network to think Jenny McCarthy should be on television — in a position where her job is to share her opinions — every day. It should seriously be a major scandal.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>His proof of this? Citations, please. Has this been peer-reviewed? </p> <p>He goes on and essentially calls Ms McCarthy a dumb blonde.</p> <p>Oh, the comments are wonderful, too. One commenter tells Anne Dachel:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“Fuck off and die, you anti-science cunt. I bet your kid deserved it, too.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>That’s lovely, yes? Truly a testament to the science community. This reminds me of some of the rhetoric that the Westboro Baptist Church spews out on a daily basis. Fortunately, Salon removed the offensive comment (and Dachel’s comment, too). I guess they wouldn’t want anyone to accuse them of being biased…</p> <p>Oh, it gets better. The various media outlets have a field day and express some fine examples of misogynistic hatred.</p> <p><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/07/17/jenny-mccarthys-hiring-on-view-prompts-backlash-boycott-calls/#ixzz2ZV9SPoCy">Fox News</a>: <em><font color="#f79646">“Jenny McCarthy is blonde, beautiful, a former Playboy playmate, a published author, a prominent comedic actress, and a Weight Watchers spokesperson.”</font></em></p> <p><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/15/jenny-mccarthy-view-vaccines/2518171/">USA Today</a>: <font color="#f79646"><em>“In recent years, McCarthy has become as well-known for her claims that vaccines cause autism as for her roles as a late-night host on VH1 and a 1993 Playboy model.”</em></font></p> <p>Notice anything common? That’s right, mentioning that she formerly posed nude. Since she’s posed nude, she must clearly be wrong.</p> <p>Even Gorski had something to say. In one of his shorter posts (only 2000 words or so), he laments and whines about such a horrible choice.</p> <p>Believe it or not, though, this isn’t actually what I wanted to talk about.</p> <p>No, it has to do with the very title of this article. That’s right, it has to do with another strawman fallacy that is so laughable, so uninformed, that it actually brought my good friend MySocratesNote out of retirement to help me write this article.</p> <p>Here it is, ladies and gentlemen, in all of its misinformed glory:</p> <p><font color="#ffff00">“Jenny McCarthy said that her son never had Autism to begin with. He had an unspecified seizure disorder/Landau-Kleffner syndrome. She’s been lying all along, so you can’t believe anything she says!”</font></p> <p>The origins of this myth actually sprang from an article from 2009 (which is no longer available, sadly). Fortunately, many different venues have repeated this lie, including one <a href="http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2009/05/20/jenny-mccarthys-son-was-never-autistic/" rel="nofollow">Left Brain/Right Brain.</a></p> <p>Observe:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“In After Vaccine-Autism Case Settlement, MDs Urged to Continue Recommending Vaccines (June 5), Dawn Fallik correctly cites Jenny McCarthy as a celebrity fanning the flames of the vaccine-autism link. McCarthy also makes parents think that autism can be cured with unproven treatments – as she claims is the case with her son – documented in her much publicized book, Louder than Words: A Mother’s Journey in Healing Autism (Dutton 2007).</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">Unfortunately, what the public does not realize as well as perhaps McCarthy is that her son was most likely misdiagnosed with autism in the first place. His disorder began with seizures and, subsequently, with the seizures treated, he improved. This would be more consistent with Landau-Kleffner syndrome, which often is misdiagnosed as autism.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Notice the language here: “most-likely.”</p> <p>Here’s the thing. The quote listed above is from a doctor who has <b>never </b>examined Evan. Nor has the doctor even seen his medical records. The quote above is just speculation that has been repeated over and over as fact. </p> <p>However, that does not stop the pseudo-skeptics from using this misinformation in their quest to hate all things Jenny. Observe one of Gorski’s more rabid and foaming-at-the-mouth sycophants, lilady (whose credentials have morphed from a retired R.N. to a retired R.N. epidemiologist):</p> <blockquote> <p><font color="#f79646"><em>“I am angry at Jenny McCarthy on two fronts.</em></font></p> <p><font color="#f79646"><em>- Her use (pimping), of her child’s seizure disorder to revive her moribund career as a D-List celebrity…and her statements that she *recovered* Evan.</em></font></p> <p><font color="#f79646"><em>- Jenny, being handpicked by J. B. Handley to be the spokesperson for Generation Rescue and the annual Quack Fest. </em></font></p> <p><font color="#f79646"><em>Yes, I’m angry that any TV program would even contemplate rewarding this creature, by giving her a slot on The View…to gin up the ratings”</em></font></p> </blockquote> <p>Such hatred! Such venom!</p> <p>I wonder if Ms McCarthy has received death threats, too. We can certainly see that she’s been stalked, harassed, and censored because people don’t like what she has to say. How far have they taken it? It’s difficult to tell because, unlike some (*cough* Offit *cough), she doesn’t whine about it. </p> <p>To me, it’s extremely interesting to see the parallels between Christianity and the Church of the Immaculate Vaccination. I mean, think about it. Look at the reaction to Ms McCarthy; the hatred, the bile. She’s the Church of the Immaculate Vaccination’s Whore of Babylon!</p> <p>Does that make Paul Offit their prophet (see what I did there)?</p> <p>One thing that is clear; there is a whole hell of a lot of misogynistic hate going on here. It is extremely interesting to see so much stubborn and complete intolerance of any belief or opinion that differs from their own.</p> <p>Hey, that looks familiar. Yes, it is familiar. That is the very definition of bigotry!</p> <p>Congratulations, Pseudo-Skeptics! You’re all a bunch of chauvinistic bigots.</p> <p>You have absolutely no leg to stand on here, pseudo-skeptics. None. Your vapid and spittle-flecked rancor toward Jenny McCarthy is your own doing. It is fueled by fear mongering and misinformation that is being stirred by idiots like Gorski. It is unscientific! <br /> <br /><strong><u>Addendum</u></strong></p> <p>lilady has commented on another <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-lincoln-sarnoff/jenny-mccarthys-got-the-wrong-view-on-vaccinations_b_3605185.html">Huffington Post</a> article, spewing her hatred and vile bigotry for all to see. She is also being soundly schooled upon the difference between the words cure and recovery. See, apparently, since she’s a “retired R.N.” she is incapable of understanding the difference between those two distinct medical words. The fail that ensues is truly inspiring. Enjoy!</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-30956764907539727762013-06-14T10:43:00.001-05:002013-06-14T10:43:10.112-05:00The Death of Alex Spourdalakis Cynically Expoited by David Gorski and his Sycophantic Lickspittles as Fuel for his Hatred of All Things he Deems Heretical.<p>Whew…just the title seems like a mouthful, yes? </p> <p>Earlier this week, I was devastated to hear the news that Alex Spourdalakis was dead, apparently murdered. When I learned that his mother and god-mother were found nearby, both unconscious, I knew what had happened. Needless to say, my heart sank, completely saddened by the needless loss of life of that poor young man. I tried to imagine his terror, his helplessness, as those he trusted most plunged a knife into his own heart. Even now, I still have tears at the thought…</p> <p>What would make a mother do that? How desperate, hopeless, and depressed must someone be to come to that decision? I can’t even imagine. I’d like to think that there are always alternatives, that there is always some other way, than to take a human life. While I in no way condone what Alex’s mother and god-mother have done, I can certainly understand that they, at least, felt there was no other choice. That doesn’t mean I am any less appalled.</p> <p>But to treat them with the hatred I’ve seen from Gorski and his mumbling meatheads, to call them monsters, is to dehumanize the tragedy. These are people whom, I believe, the system has failed.</p> <p>What is truly appalling, though, is when Gorski and his drooling sycophants exploit tragedies of this calibre to proselytize his agenda on the evils of…well, anything he deems antithetical to his church.</p> <p>Gorski’s latest dungfest, <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/06/14/autism-biomed-and-murder-of-alex-spourdalakis/" rel="nofollow">Autism biomed and the murder of Alex Spourdalakis</a>, does just that. Observe:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#d19049">Sometimes, in the course of blogging, I come across a story that I don’t know what to make of. Sometimes, it’s a quack or a crank taking a seemingly science-based position. Sometimes it’s something out of the ordinary. Other times, it’s a story that’s just weird, such that I strongly suspect that something else is going on but can’t prove it. So it was a few months ago when I came across the story of Alex Spourdalakis, a 14-year-old autistic boy who became a cause célèbre of the antivaccine crank blog Age of Autism. I first noticed it in early March when perusing AoA to see what the merry band of antivaccine propagandists was up to I came across a post by Lisa Goes entitled </font></em><a href="http://www.ageofautism.com/2013/03/day-19-loyola-chicago-hospital-locks-down-autistic-patient.html"><em><font color="#d19049">Day 19: Chicago Hospital Locks Down Autistic Patient</font></em></a><em><font color="#d19049">. In the post was a shocking picture of a large 14-year-old boy in a a hospital bed in four point restraints. He was naked, except for a sheet covering his genitals. His name, we were informed, was Alex Spourdalakis. Further down in the post was another, equally shocking, picture of Alex that, according to Goes, showed severe dermatitis on Alex’s back due to the hospital sheets. The photos shocked me for two reasons. First, if the story was as advertised (something to be doubted always about anything posted to AoA), for once I thought that I might be agreeing with Goes and thinking that AoA was doing a good thing. Second, however, I was extremely disturbed by the publication of such revealing photos of the boy. Undoubtedly, Alex’s mother must have given permission. What kind of mother posts pictures like that of her son for all the world to see? Then there appeared a Facebook page, </font></em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/HelpAlexAndDorothy"><em><font color="#d19049">Help Support Alex Spourdalakis</font></em></a><em><font color="#d19049">, which pled for readers to help the Spourdalakis family.</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#d19049">As I said, something didn’t seem right.</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Note that he doesn’t have evidence of any wrongdoing here…it’s just a feeling.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#d19049">As I read articles and posts about Alex Spourdalakis, going back to March, I had the distinct impression that there was more going on that met the eye. Lisa Goes might have been right. That has to be conceded. But while I occasionally looked at stories about Alex on AoA, they just didn’t seem to pass the “smell test” to me. Something, it seemed to me, was being left out. Neither did a lot of the claims seem entirely credible. At the very least, it was very clear that a highly biased, one-sided version of events was being presented. For instance, Goes claimed that Alex was kept in restraints 24 hours a day at Loyola University Medical Center (LUMC) </font></em><a href="http://www.ageofautism.com/2013/03/day-19-loyola-chicago-hospital-locks-down-autistic-patient.html"><em><font color="#d19049">for 19 days</font></em></a><em><font color="#d19049">:</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#d19049">According to her, at 14 years of age, Alex has a diagnosis of severe autism and cognitive impairment. He is non-verbal. In October of 2012, Alex began to suffer neurological events that prevented a healthy sleep cycle. He was awake for many hours at a time. Agitation and aggression ensued as a result of sleep deprivation. During this time, symptoms and behaviors that were indicative of severe gastrointestinal distress developed as well. A cycle of constipation, diarrhea and formed bowel movements surfaced and became a chronic problem. On February 16th at 5:00 am, with the assistance of police and paramedics, Dorothy took her inconsolable and highly-distressed non-verbal child to Gottlieb Hospital in Melrose Park, Illinois.</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#d19049">Because of Alex’s physical aggression, he was placed in locked restraints. At that time, Dorothy did not know the ER would be their home for the next several days, as Alex lay naked, in locked restraints, suffering bouts of violent vomiting, severe constipation and diarrhea. Neither she nor Alex bathed for the next 13 days while hospital staff and administrators attempted to devise a plan to care for Alex. “He was given Colace for his constipation and sometimes it would take security staff and nurses more than 15 minutes to arrive to help unshackle him so he could use the bathroom,” Dorothy explained. “Alex would scream as best he could when he knew he was going to have a vomiting episode, but security took several minutes to respond so Alex would lay in his own vomit, waiting to be released by a representative of security. He would be wiped down and returned to the same restraints.” </font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#d19049">Sure, it was possible that the boy was being abused so horribly, first at Gottleib Hospital and then at LUMC, but it seemed damned unlikely to me, although at the time I had no way of refuting or confirming the increasingly lurid stories being posted at AoA about Alex. Still, I knew that tere(sic) are very strict laws these days about patient restraint. The last time I ever had to order four point restraints was over 14 years ago, back when I moonlighted as a trauma attending in, yes, the Chicago area, the same metropolitan area where Alex lived and died. Before that I sometimes had to deal with the restraint of patients when as a resident I rotated on the trauma services at the hospitals where I trained. Sometimes patients with head injuries or severe intoxication would be violent and require restraint. There were always a strict protocol that we followed, even back then. My understanding is that the protocols have only gotten more strict. Restraining a patient, particularly a minor, is not something that is undertaken lightly, nor should it be. To believe the AoA account, we have to believe that a severely autistic teenaged boy would be kept in the emergency room for several days (also very, very unlikely) and put in restraints in an abusive fashion at not just one but two different hospitals, continuing after Alex was transferred from Gottlieb Hospital to Loyola University Medical Center on February 28. Actually, it was three different hospitals, because later Alex was shown in four point restraints at Lutheran General Hospital during his last admission in May. More on that later.</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>I know that’s a lot to read of Gorski’s nauseating drivel, but it’s important to read it in detail. The reason why is that Gorski is using anecdote as evidence for his “feeling” that something wasn’t right with the story. With no evidence at all, whatsoever, he dismisses the story of Alex’s hospital stay as “fishy,” as “one-sided,” because his anecdotal evidence says otherwise.</p> <p>But he has no actual evidence to contradict their story. It’s just a feeling. Does that sound familiar?</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#d19049">Missing from these stories was a clear and cogent explanation of why Alex was ever admitted to Gottleib Hospital and then transferred to LUMC in the first place. It’s mentioned in some places that Alex was “inconsolable, highly-distressed and suffering bouts of violent vomiting, severe constipation and diarrhea.” I had to look for clues to explain it, and, I must admit, I still remain puzzled. Certainly, this Change.org petition demanding that LUMC provide what Ms. Spourdalakis considers to be “standard medical treatment,” which to her included gastroenterology. Peppered through various reports were indications that Alex had multiple allergies and GI issues. Having observed a fair amount of autism quackery on the Internet, these terms were huge red flags to me that strongly suggested to me the possibility that Ms. Spourdalakis was heavily into “autism biomed.” </font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Hmmm…Alex exhibited signs of severe gastrointestinal distress, a condition <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/130/Supplement_2/S160.full">that is quite common in children with autism.</a> But because they wanted a treatment plan to address these GI issues and food allergies, they must be subjecting him to autism quackery.</p> <p>Because he has no actual evidence…he’s going off of a gut feeling. And because he says so.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#d19049">No, they appear to have subjected Alex to biomedical quackery, which might even have led to the symptoms leading to Alex’s repeated hospitalizations beginning in February. Time and investigation by the authorities will tell. I reject the “logic” of such antivaccinationists such as it is, that only makes sense only if you accept the pseudoscience claiming that vaccines cause autism.</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>He bases his conclusion off of his feelings. He is presenting his opinion as conclusive fact that Alex’s caregivers were subjecting him to teh ebil biomed (insert horror music here) and were the cause of his behaviour problems and bowel issues.</p> <p>He uses this tragedy to harangue his readers on the evils of those heretics who dare to defy the dictum of his church. He uses this tragedy to paint these parents of children with autism seeking a cure as evil, as monstrous.</p> <p>I cannot put into words how horribly, horribly disgusting I find this man. </p> <p>Hey, David? Could it be possible that the caregivers of Alex were failed by the medical establishment, by the very “Science” that you worship? All evidence I’ve seen points to “Yes.”</p> <p>These caregivers were failed by the medical establishment. Their son was subjected to treatment plans that only covered the problem, not fixed it. It was clear that he had GI problems, but the medical establishment refused to address these problems, even though there is plenty of evidence that shows that children with autism commonly have GI problems.</p> <p>While this is also anecdotal, I happen to be good friends of a father with a child who has extreme autism. He has told me on numerous occasions how difficult it is to get services for his son. How he has to drive three hours to see autism specialists. About how he cannot take his son to emergency care or hospital ER’s in his area because they simply do not have the resources or the knowledge to deal with children with autism as severe as his.</p> <p>Instead of continuing to defend your pathetic church, you fucking imbecile, acknowledge that your church may be part of the problem.</p> <p>I am saddened by this tragedy. Alex’s death was tragic, horrible, and my heart cries for the pain he has had to endure. I am angered beyond words at the way a…thing (I would say piece of shite, but even manure has a use…I don’t see a use for Gorski and his cretinous bumlickers) like Gorski could use this tragedy to push across his agenda.</p> <p>That this man is someone in the medical industry, someone who is supposed to care for the sick and helpless, sickens me. </p> <p>Is it any wonder why so many are turning to biomed? Is it any wonder why so many people are coming to distrust doctors?</p> <p>Not to me…not when we have a simpleton like David Gorski in the medical industry.</p> <p>If people like him continue to have their way, then I fear that we will see even more tragedies like this one.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-34786171279523038572013-01-15T15:14:00.001-06:002013-01-15T15:33:12.866-06:00David Gorski is Spouting More of his Nonsense, and his Anti-Science Stupidity Induces…Laughter<p>Ah, false-skeptics…</p> <p>If there is something that is a repeated theme to my blog, it’s pointing out the hypocrisy and unscientific behaviour of people who claim to be “science based” or “skeptics.” In fact, it was such an amusing diversion that, for a time, I had too much material to blog about. And then, I realised that I was way too busy in my own personal life that I really didn’t have time to focus on making fun of these hypocritical and duplicitous douche-bags. And before I knew it…6 months had passed since I had updated my humble little blog.</p> <p>Then, yesterday, an announcement was made. The NVICP awarded two children compensation for injuries that resulted from a vaccine. Both of these children were fine prior to vaccination, and both children developed an encepalopathy post vaccination that resulted in seizure disorders. One was diagnosed with ASD, the other with PDD-NOS.</p> <p>I’ll get more into that later. Right now, I want to discuss the reaction.</p> <p>Predictably, David Gorski had to say something. And his dismissal of these two children is so mind-numbingly stupid that I was contemplating watching “Jersey Shore” or “Honey Boo-Boo” to find something more intelligent.</p> <p>In David’s latest shart-fest, “<a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/01/15/david-kirbys-back-and-this-time-his-anti-vaccine-fear-mongering-induces-ennui/">David Kirby’s back, and this time his anti-vaccine fear mongering induces…ennui</a>,” Gorski begins his shrill and foaming-at-the-mouth rant with his usual logical fallacies, i.e. poisoning the well.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“</font></em><em><font color="#f79646">I sense a disturbance in the antivaccine Force, which is, of course, by definition the Dark Side.</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">Whenever I sense such a disturbance, there are a number of possible reactions that it provokes in me. One such reaction is alarm, as when antivaccine activists say something that is just clever enough to sound plausible enough that it might cause trouble. It never is, of course, but it often takes a close reading and some research to figure out what the game is and deconstruct the nonsense. Sometimes, my reaction is amusement, as when an antivaccine activist says something that is so hilariously dumb, so over-the-top in its scientific ignorance that it provokes chuckles or even guffaws as I read it, as, for instance, whenever </font></em><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/06/06/quoth-vox-day-vaccines-are-killing-babies/"><em><font color="#f79646">Vox Day jumps</font></em></a><em><font color="#f79646"> into the </font></em><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/03/20/if-you-hand-me-some-stupid-yes-in-fact-i/"><em><font color="#f79646">antivaccine fray</font></em></a><em><font color="#f79646">. Such excretions have a tendency to provoke some amused not-so-Respectful Insolence; that is, when I’m in the mood. Sometimes, my reaction is boredom, pure ennui. Such reactions are generally reserved for antivaccine nonsense that is so unimaginative, so derivative of lies and misinformation that antivaccinationists have been flogging before, that I’d really prefer to let the cup pass. However, I can’t, because I feel duty-bound, knowing that supporters of science-based medicine opposing the quackery that is the antivaccine movement are about to be buried in a tsunami (word choice intentional) of utter nonsense.</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">You know such a moment is fast upon us whenever David Kirby decides to address the vaccine-autism manufactroversy.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>A disturbance in the force? Seriously? Are we really sure this guy is a doctor, much less an adult? Then he starts wailing about how the nonsense is “unimaginative, so derivative of lies and misinformation” that he’d prefer not to talk about it. But poor David, who is such a busy “doctor” and “researcher” that he writes on his hate-blog daily, is such a martyr that he has to do this. Oh yes he does. Let’s not mention the heaping dose of hypocritical bovine faeces regarding lies and derivative misinformation. Observe.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“</font></em><font color="#f79646"><em>Of course, David Kirby is so 2005 or 2006. That was back when hardly a week passed without a dropping by Kirby appearing on that wretched hive of scum and quackery, The Huffington Post. These days, he rarely dips his toe into the antivaccine pool, but when he does he twists the catch phrase of the “most interesting man alive” from “stay thirsty my friends” to “stay stupid my friends,” which is just what he’s done this time. In a way, it’s oddly comforting to know that, even after all these years David Kirby can still bring home the stupid, flaming like napalm, and bring home the stupid he does in a post on—where else?—HuffPo entitled </em></font><font color="#f79646"><em>Vaccine Court Awards Millions to Two Children With Autism</em></font><font color="#f79646"><em>. He begins with what is, in essence, a bait and switch that is apparent in the title. You can see right there that what Kirby is going to try to convince people is that the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) through the Vaccine Court has “admitted” that vaccines cause autism by compensating children for vaccine injuries that include autism. We’ve heard this ploy </em></font><font color="#f79646"><em>time and time again</em></font><font color="#f79646"><em>. The routine is well-established and trotted out every so often to convince the credulous that somehow the government is “hiding” the “truth” that vaccines cause autism while paying off the parents of vaccine-injured autistic children.</em></font></p> <p><font color="#f79646"><em>It’s a transparent ploy for a variety of reasons. For one thing, the standard of evidence for the Vaccine Court is what has been referred to as “50% and a feather.” Basically, it’s the same standard of evidence as any other civil court: a preponderance of evidence.”</em></font></p> </blockquote> <p>Ah, where to begin…</p> <p>I love how Gorski accuses Mr Kirby of being so “2005 or 2006.” Certainly ironic considering that Gorski has been spewing his idiocy for how long? I also enjoy how he calls HuffPo a “wretched hive of scum and quackery” (Weeee!! Another childish Star Wars reference…how trite). But, of course, his site is totally science-based and unbiased, correct? Finally, notice the final comment there…a preponderance of evidence. This is very important in this case because we have all heard, time and time again, that Gorski is evidence-based. Except when there’s evidence that contradicts his previous bias. In other words, he’s “science and evidence based,” except when he doesn’t like the evidence.</p> <p>He begins discussing Mr Kirby, throwing out his usual fallacies and vapid insults, then goes to the actual meat of the article (after about 1000 words).</p> <p>Here’s where it gets hilarious.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“</font></em><em><font color="#f79646">In addition, although Ryan clearly has neurological problems, as Catherina points out there is no </font></em><em><font color="#f79646">evidence of actual autism</font></em><em><font color="#f79646">. In fact, if you go and look up </font></em><em><font color="#f79646">earlier records</font></em><em><font color="#f79646">, you’ll find that the child did not demonstrate any ASD behaviors on CHAT screenings:</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">On May 10, 2004, at Ryan’s sixteen month well-child visit, Dr. Armstrong completed a Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (CHAT) screen. Ps’ Ex. 4 At 25. That CHAT screen indicated that Ryan was interested in other children, pretend play, peek-a-boo, points with index finger, makes eye contact, and brings object for show. Id. On January 25, 2005, Dr. Armstrong examined Ryan for his twenty-four month well-baby check. Ps’ Ex. 4 at 31. During the visit, Dr. Armstrong conducted another CHAT screen, and again Ryan postively (sic) performed each of the listed behaviors.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Which is exactly the point. Ryan did not show signs of an earlier ASD. After his reaction, though, he certainly did. Gorski implies, without evidence, that Ryan did not actually have autism.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“Ultimately, the Vaccine Court ruled to compensate Ryan’s family because he appeared to have suffered a “table injury” of encephalitis. Why it decided to do this is unclear, but Kirby hints at dark conspiracies (in his usual fashion), pointing out that “something changed,” implying that it was new evidence under seal that did it. Maybe. Maybe not. What is clear is that, whatever the reasoning for the court’s final decision, the court did not compensate the Mojabi family for Ryan having an ASD. From the evidence that is publicly available, it doesn’t even sound as though Ryan has an ASD.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Ryan, indeed, has a diagnosis of ASD, according to his mother and his doctors. He was diagnosed with ASD in 2005. All he is doing here is speculation that he is trying to present as fact; a common occurrence with Mr Gorski</p> <p>Next is the case of Emily Lowrie. Here’s what the moron has to say:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“</font></em><em><font color="#f79646">The second case discussed is </font></em><a href="http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/CAMPBELL-SMITH.LOWRIE%2010-26-2012.pdf"><em><font color="#f79646">Emily Lowrie</font></em></a><em><font color="#f79646">, whose mother is Jillian Moller. Kirby, as is his wont, presents this case as David versus Goliath, with the government fighting to crush the child and her mother. (It is David Kirby we’re talking about, after all.) The story is actually somewhat different from that of Ryan Mojabi in that there was actually fairly convincing evidence that Emily suffered symptoms within two weeks of having received her vaccinations. She probably did suffer encephalopathy in close enough temporal association with vaccination to be, as the court ruled, a table injury. But evidence of vaccines causing Emily to become autistic? There is none. In fact, unlike the case of Ryan Mojabi, autism or autism spectrum disorder isn’t even mentioned in the </font></em><em><font color="#f79646">ruling</font></em><em><font color="#f79646">.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>First off, I laughed heartily at his description of Mr Kirby’s representation of the case. How many times have we heard how Gorski is attempting to topple the “pseudo-science propaganda?” Project much, Mr Gorski?</p> <p>I was genuinely surprised that he agreed with the evidence that Emily suffered a vaccine reaction. It was a pleasant surprise. But I wonder if he somehow thinks that since she did receive an encepalopathy from the vaccination and subsequent brain damage, it’s ok as long as it isn’t autism.</p> <p>My relief is palpable.</p> <p>He then proceeds to rail against Mr Kirby for repeating the mother’s words in regard to her testimony and the subsequent judgment, calling it “conspiracy mongering.”</p> <p>It’s a sure fire bet that whenever someone calls you a conspiracy mongerer, they have no interest in addressing your comment in any logical or reasonable way. It’s a way to poison the well and dismiss your claims without actually addressing the substance of the claim.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“</font></em><em><font color="#f79646">This is lame, even for David Kirby. It’s pure hearsay, the mother complaining about being “badgered” on the stand. That’s how the legal system works, and I understand how uncomfortable it can be. Your opponent’s lawyers can cross-examine you on the stand, and it can be very uncomfortable; then your lawyers get to cross examine your opponent’s witnesses. From the transcripts I read, there was at least one respondent witness who likely had a hard time on the stand. I realize that it might not seem fair that parents with a special needs child has to be subjected to cross examination, but that’s the way the legal system works. It would be nice if there were a better way, but even various review boards would rely to some extent on a bit of an adversarial system. More importantly, however, what we have here is a plaintiff claiming that her lawyer told her that the judge became very angry that she would have to compensate Emily once she was diagnosed with autism because she didn’t want to give antivaccinationists hope. Seriously? The judge would have to be pretty careless to say something so utterly stupid in front of a plaintiff’s attorney, or even where attorneys could overhear.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>But of course, using the mother’s own words to describe her experience is bad. That’s conspiracy mongering! And, how does he know that the judge didn’t say what she said? Was he there?</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“</font></em><em><font color="#f79646">Besides, having followed cases going through the Vaccine Court since 2005 or so, I smell hyperbole. In every case that I’ve examined, not only have the Special Masters (who do most of the questioning of parents) not been confrontational, but they’ve bent over backwards to give parents a chance to tell their stories in as non-judgmental a manner as possible. True, various parents’ expert witnesses don’t always fare so well (given that more than a few of them in the Autism Omnibus were anti-vaccine quacks, that’s not surprising), but the parents themselves, as far as I’ve been able to tell, have not been subjected to the same sort of questioning. One wonders if Mrs. Moller simply can’t take having her story questioned even gently.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>This, right here, is the most telling statement in this entire article, and also the most thought provoking. Allow me to explain.</p> <p>There is documented evidence that priests in the Catholic Church were abusing children. When this was first brought to the attention of law enforcement, the Church tried to dismiss these claims in the following ways:</p> <ol> <li>By dismissing the claims, calling the parents of the children conspiracy mongerers, thereby marginalising the parents and families. They would excommunicate the families. </li> <li>By claiming that the children were only trying to extort money from the church (read the above comment where Mr Gorski implies this exact thing) </li> <li>By claiming that there is no solid evidence that this was occurring (covering it up). </li> </ol> <p>There are others, but those three are the most familiar to parents of vaccine-injured children.</p> <p>Seeing Gorski’s reaction to the revelation of the two cases, I can’t help but wonder why anyone still thinks that this utter and complete fool is considered to be “science and evidence based.” His entire belief structure is based on faith; the belief that vaccines are safe and effective. It’s never the vaccines, and no amount of evidence will ever convince him otherwise.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-7238527181539580372012-06-14T11:00:00.001-05:002012-06-14T11:01:35.011-05:00The “Anti-Vax” Ten Commandments<p>It’s been a while since I’ve posted, so imagine my surprise when, out of the blue, some mouth breather posts an anonymous insult on a post that’s months old. Really, where did this come from, I asked myself?</p> <p>“Self,” I answered, “Why don’t you back-trace where they came from.”</p> <p>And lo and behold…<a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/06/13/the-antivax-ten-commandments/">David H. Gorski’s hive of droolers and lickspittles</a>. <br /> <br />David didn’t like a comment left on someone’s Facebook page, apparently. Someone posted their own version of the 10 commandments that ridicules the pseudo-skeptics that infest the internet. The post was quite funny, in my opinion, and it was obviously meant to be satirical, something that Mr Gorski was unable to comprehend. Let’s see what he has to say. <br /> <br /><font color="#f79646"><em>"Although I’m interested in skepticism in general, I have a tendency to gravitate towards one particular form of pseudoscience (alternative medicine) and, in particular, a certain kind of that particular form of pseudoscience, namely antivaccine quackery. However, as much as I keep returning to the antivaccine movement, I keep noticing just how much it shares with other forms of science denialism and pseudoscientific thinking. I was reminded of this when one of my readers e-mailed me a link to a Facebook group, Pro-Vax Quacks. I have no idea who’s behind the group, but what I do know is that there’s a doozy of a post there that demonstrates one aspect of denialism that I’ve seen again and again and again, and that’s the desire to label science as a religion. I’ve seen it when creationists try to paint evolutionary biology as a religion. I’ve seen it when Holocaust deniers refer to “Holocaustianity.” And, of course, I’ve seen antivaccinationists do it by referring to “Vaccinianity,” even though I caution them about such terms.” <br /> <br /></em></font><font color="#cccccc">This is an interesting introduction, yes? And in case you were wondering, that was indeed sarcasm. Really, it’s his typical ego masturbation along with his usual dose of smug. But what’s interesting is his curiosity about why so many people call the belief in vaccination a religion. <br /> <br /><em><font color="#f79646">”Why are denialists so eager to label the science they hate as a religion? The reason is simple: They can’t win on evidence, and, at some level, I think they know it. More importantly, because they didn’t use science and reason to come to their views on vaccines, as much as they claim they did and delude themselves into believing that they did, they presume that scientists didn’t come to their views on science, be it vaccines, science-based medicine, anthropogenic global warming, evolution, or whatever science is being denied. Besides, it’s much easier to dismiss something if you can convince yourself that it’s just another belief, rather than being rooted in science, reason, and evidence, as the safety and efficacy of vaccines are. So that’s what vaccine denialists do.”</font></em> <br /> <br />It’s because it’s like faith. No amount of evidence, ever, will change their belief. They constantly and consistently try to force their beliefs on those who want nothing to do with them, and when that person refuses to be bullied, they label them “anti-vaxxer” and then shun them. This is exactly similar to the more fanatical factions of Christianity trying to force their beliefs on others, then calling them heretics when the others refuse to be bullied. Sort of like the Westboro Baptist Church that Mr Gorski carries such an interest in. Like calling to like, maybe? This is demonstrated in the above comment when he claims that parents delude themselves into believing that vaccines are injuring children. Many of these parents don’t just come to this conclusion out of the blue, like Mr Gorski implies. <br /> <br />Anyway, Mr Gorski thought it would be a good idea to come up with his own version.</font></p> <p><font color="#f79646"><em>“I realize it’s a really, really obvious thing to do, but I can’t resist meeting a set of Ten Commandments with a set of Ten Commandments. So, here for you are the Antivaccinationist Ten Commandments:” <br /> <br /></em></font><font color="#cccccc">Yes, it is obvious. And derivative and unoriginal, too. So, without further adieu, allow me to present to you David H. Gorski’s Ten Commandments. <br /> <br />And my responses to them, of course. <br /> <br /></font><font color="#f79646"><em>”1. Correlation is the LORD Thy God, who brought you out of the depths of despair and provided you with something to blame for your child’s autism even though it is no one’s fault. Thou shalt have no other gods before it and accept correlation as always being vaccine injury.”</em></font></p> <p>This is a massive strawman here. And I mean big! No one claims that all vaccine injury causes autism. But it’s interesting that when someone says that their child had a vaccine injury, it’s always a coincidence. There is no way possible that a vaccine could actually cause an injury. Oh sure, they <strong>say</strong> they believe that vaccine injuries occur, but the reality is entirely different. We must go by their actions, not their words. <br /> <br /><em><font color="#f79646">”2. Thou shalt make unto thee a graven image that is Satan, and that graven image shall be in the shape of a syringe. For vaccines are evil, and any health problem your child has will always be the fault of the vaccine. Always.”</font></em></p> <p>Again, another strawman, as well as a generalization fallacy. Not everyone whom he labels heretic is completely against vaccinations. And, again, I fail to find evidence that all heretics believe that all health problems are caused by vaccines.</p> <p><font color="#f79646"><em>“3. Thou shalt always take the name of vaccines in vain, because vaccines are evil and detested of God.” <br /> <br /></em></font><font color="#cccccc">This is just a rehash of the strawman and generalization fallacy mentioned in #2. Apparently, he was incapable of coming up with something more original. <br /> <br /></font><font color="#f79646"><em>”4. Remember the day of “too many, too soon” and keep it holy, so holy that you give no vaccines ever unless forced to by evil pharmaceutical companies.”</em></font></p> <p><font color="#cccccc">This one had me scratching my head. He’s really reaching here to try to come up with something to post. It’s quite pathetic, actually. But the very fact that people are being forced to receive vaccines made by companies that are well known and documented for lying about the safety of their products seems to not bother him in the least adds further veracity to the religion claim, doesn’t it? <br /> <br /></font><font color="#f79646"><em>”5. Honor Jenny McCarthy and Joe Mercola, so that pathogenic bacteria may live long in the babies’ bodies the LORD thy God giveth thee, at least until some of them start dropping dead.”</em></font></p> <p><font color="#cccccc">Sure enough, another strawman! It’s been torn apart many times, even on this <a href="http://my-socrates-note.blogspot.com/2010/05/jenny-mccarthy-strawmen-fallacies-take.html">site</a>, about Ms McCarthy’s claims. Additionally, many parents of children who are vaccine injured were involved with the vaccine/autism debate long before Ms McCarthy lent her voice to them. Not to mention the ad hominem attacks against both she and Dr Mercola.</font></p> <p><font color="#f79646"><em>“6. You shall murder by increasing the number of unvaccinated.” <br /> <br /></em><font color="#cccccc">Nice, David…accusing parents of murder with absolutely no evidence other than you say so. Here’s the best part, though…most of these parents he’s accusing of being anti-vaccine? They’ve vaccinated their children! Until the neurological health outcomes of unvaccinated children are truly investigated, parents are going to continue to fight for their parental rights to refuse medical procedures. <br /> <br /></font><font color="#f79646"><em>”7. Thou art married to “biomed” quackery forever. Thou shalt not commit adultery.” <br /> <br /></em></font><font color="#cccccc">Again, another strawman and another generalization fallacy. If one believes that a vaccine injured their child, then they must also believe in biomed, according to David. Hard to believe this nut-job is a doctor, isn’t it? <br /> <br /></font><font color="#f79646"><em>”8. Thou shalt steal denialist tactics and use them to denigrate the evil vaccines.” <br /> <br /></em></font><font color="#cccccc">I had to do a little research on this one. But once I found it? Well, let’s just say that David owes me a new monitor. Conspiracy theories…this is simply an ad hominem fallacy. Not only that, but he’s mentioned before that there’s likely a conspiracy of parents who are trying to suppress vaccinations. Cherry picking? Oh, my goodness, he’s <strong><u>never</u></strong> done that, has he? False experts? You mean like Max Witznitzer and Eric Fombonne, who were paid to testify against parents in NVICP cases? Logical fallacies…like the ones mentioned in this very article? Attack the opposition? You mean like what happened to the former owner of this site by a truly disgusting little stalker? <br /> <br /></font><font color="#f79646"><em>”9. Thou shalt bear false witness against vaccines as often and outrageously as possible.” <br /> <br /></em></font><font color="#cccccc">This shows both the depths of his own idiocy as well as the depths of his own self denial. The implication here is that parents are making up these vaccine injuries. If that doesn’t speak to how loathsome this cretin is, then I don’t know what does. <br /> <br /></font><font color="#f79646"><em>”10. Thou shalt not covet the real science, because you can never have it as long as you blame vaccines for conditions for which there is no evidence of causation by vaccines.” <br /> <br /></em></font><font color="#cccccc">And in this very comment right here, he proves the point of the person who wrote the article he’s mocking. Nothing, no matter how compelling, no matter how sound, will ever convince him that vaccines aren’t as safe as the companies that make them claim they are. None of the studies that have shown damage caused by vaccines are good enough for him, and he will never turn a critical eye to the studies that verify his own personal bias. Oh, and let’s not forget about his idea of the real science. The real science, I might add, that has only been done by parties with vested interest in the outcome of the studies. <br /> <br />Then, David further makes a fool of himself by making the following comment about my good friend: <br /> <br /></font><font color="#f79646"><em>”Also, if his blog is any indication (before today I hadn’t checked it in a while), he’s still rather obsessed with me. Most of his posts appear to be rants directed at me, even the recent ones I hadn’t seen before, although I do note that in his most recent post (from April) he says he realizes he was getting repetitive with his attacks on me and decided to go after Seth Mnookin instead for a change. I must say, I’ve never had anyone start a blog dedicated almost completely to attacks on me before. I don’t know whether to be flattered or appalled.”</em></font></font></p> <p><font color="#f79646"><font color="#cccccc">First off, Craig hasn’t run this site for almost a year. Secondly, my “rants” against him are actually humourous musings about Gorski’s infinite arrogance and stupidity. And lastly, the blog is not just dedicated to Gorski. However, Gorski’s mumblings are certainly the easiest to pick apart and ridicule because he just gives us <strong>so much </strong>of it. Sometimes, I don’t even know where to begin. Plus, he just makes it too easy. <br /> <br />So, there you have it, folks. Ten commandments and Eleven logical fallacies.</font></font></p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-28551738349807511022012-04-11T15:33:00.001-05:002012-04-12T08:54:35.773-05:00Seth Mnookin: Bald-faced Liar, Utter Hypocrite, or Both?<p>I thought I’d give Gorski a small break. I mean, how often can you comment on his narcissistic ego masturbation and mind-numbing hypocrisy without it growing stale? </p> <p>Instead, I thought I’d focus on an article I read by Seth-not-a-doctor-not-a-scientist-Mnookin. </p> <p><a href="http://blogs.plos.org/thepanicvirus/2012/03/26/bob-sears-bald-faced-liar-devious-dissembler-or-both/">Seth doesn’t like Dr Bob Sears</a>. Not at all. Seth accuses Dr Sears of being a “first-rate huckster” who is only motivated by greed, not by the genuine concern for his patients. All while Seth makes money from his book. </p> <p>I won’t go into too much detail about the article itself. Seth mainly pulls a Gorski and pats himself on the back about how “sciency” he is. He goes on to mention an exchange between him and Dr Sears concerning child zero in the killer California measles epidemic of 2008, where a whopping 17 children were infected and recovered with absolutely no adverse effects from a relatively benign (here in the US) childhood illness.</p> <p>Dr Sears responded to this accusation, saying that he was not patient zero’s paediatrician, and that he never spoke with Seth-not-a-doctor-not-a-scientist-Mnookin. Seth responds that he did, indeed, have a discussion with Dr Sears, and links to a recorded exchange between he and the doctor from 2008…almost 4 years ago. Then he goes on to mention an email exchange back in 2009…almost 3 years ago. <br /> <br />Could it be absolutely reasonable that Dr Sears may not recall a brief exchange that he had with some hack journalist that he never actually met in real life? Nah…couldn’t be possible.</p> <p>Instead of accepting this very real possibility, Seth-not-a-doctor-not-a-scientist-Mnookin accuses Dr Sears of lying. He links to newspaper articles showing that Dr Sears’s office was the origination point for the deadly Measles epidemic of 2008.</p> <p>According to one of their own Vaccine defenders, <a href="http://justthevax.blogspot.com/2012/04/retraction-of-sorts.html">Science Mom</a>, the index case was from a Children’s Clinic in La Jolla. Dr Sears’s office is in San Diego. So, it would appear as if Dr Sears was telling the truth about the index case. Curiouser and curiouser.</p> <p>Going to Seth-not-a-doctor-not-a-scientist-Mnookin’s site and perusing his comments on this article, I see the commenters, and Seth, continuing to repeat this lie. So, being the trouble maker I am, I left a comment, shown below:</p> <p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwEX77PmLtbBIiCfyR4GyyYY1Nce604dtKKM7KARKGFlFicMRPqvki07HY28K6jBAGmmNOSQmRvJyT0tr1ZuuUEB-InDKmchf9dso5DZL-3efkFyXJGRePvcncMXtZlzGumGeKUTj1IQ/s1600-h/Mnookin%25255B2%25255D.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Mnookin" border="0" alt="Mnookin" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAl2J6d6JDM0lz5rZpX73B6KhVjCYm4eXtMJV6Ou81jieJ0mwfC-MYZTnEYp882Rg97PivJ4EoRDy5aIgCffXS_IZSrrC1-gYFosExJDLwX0OaV-VYAHX6TMb5YfunndlXc2UFUHWfnA/?imgmax=800" width="244" height="148" /></a></p> <p><em>Click to embiggen</em></p> <p>If the comment is too difficult to read, here it is again;</p> <blockquote> <p><font color="#c0504d"><em>“And the proof that the child wasn’t one of Dr. Sears’s patients is here:</em></font></p> <p><a href="http://justthevax.blogspot.com/2012/04/retraction-of-sorts.html"><font color="#c0504d"><em>http://justthevax.blogspot.com/2012/04/retraction-of-sorts.html</em></font></a></p> <p><font color="#c0504d"><em>Now, will Seth be honest and retract his defamatory statement about Dr. Sears, I wonder? I have my betting pool ready…”</em></font></p> </blockquote> <p>Now, you’ll notice that the comment was left on Seth-not-a-doctor-not-a-scientist-Mnookin’s site two days ago. My comment has still not shown up, so I can only assume that it is either still in moderation, or it has been removed. Remarkable.</p> <p>Which is outright hilarious when you take into account a comment that Seth-not-a-doctor-not-a-scientist-Mnookin (hey, don’t laugh…Gorski uses this trope all the time...just returning the favor) left on his site:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“Example #10882 of why it’s so much easier to prove your point when you don’t censor comments and let people show themselves to the world.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>I will give him a few more days to see if my comment shows up. But for now, it is pretty clear that Seth-not-a-doctor-not-a-scientist-Mnookin is both a liar and a hypocrite.</p> <p>I’ll let you, my dear readers, decide.</p> <p>Addendum: So finally, 3 days later, my comment shows up. Interesting that it didn’t show up until after I made this blog post. Also, I still don’t see him retracting his statement about Dr Sears. So, my assessment of Seth-not-a-doctor-not-a-scientist-Mnookin remains unchanged.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-37769814535197868892012-04-10T11:11:00.001-05:002012-04-10T16:05:59.142-05:00Can Anyone Say “Hypocrite”?<p>I’d been meaning to discuss this previously, but got entirely too busy and had to put my thoughts concerning this on hold for a while. So, here it is for everyone’s amusement.</p> <p>One thing that never fails to amuse me about the false skeptic community and the “Science-based” bloggers and their squealing groupies is the laughably outrageous hypocrisy they spew. In fact, this is the very reason that my predecessor created this site, and the very reason that I continue it. What better to show just how unreasonable, unscientific and un-skeptical a group is? Point out their hypocritical and non-scientific behaviours to show the world just exactly what they are dealing with.</p> <p>This remains true in David Gorski’s rant, <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/03/a_school_board_president_abuses_his_posi.php">A school board president abuses his position to promote an antivaccine movie</a>. Honestly, it’s nothing new that anyone who is familiar with Gorski’s odious verbal butt drippings would be in the least bit surprised about. In it, he injures his arm trying to pat himself on the back. In fact, the majority of his rant is a recant of a post he made several months ago. The man is so caught up in his narcissism that he has to link to his own drivel to stroke his already enormous ego. Really, I’m not kidding. The man is just that caught up in his own self absorption.</p> <p>However, surprisingly, this isn’t what I really wanted to talk about. I wanted to discuss a comment made on this article from one of his more ardent and vicious sycophants named lilady. I’ve discussed my encounters with this particularly dim-witted lickspittle <a href="http://my-socrates-note.blogspot.com/2011/09/perils-of-engaging-pseudo-scientific.html">previously</a>, so I won’t pull a Gorski and regurgitate it here again for my own self-gratification. Instead, I will replicate her idiocy and then comment on how hypocritical it is, giving examples from her very idol to prove my point.</p> <p>Here’s the comment:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“Orac, I spent the better part of yesterday looking into this letter writer and confirmed the Mr. Marvel, is indeed, the president of board of the San Ramon Unified School District.</font></em></p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">I also sent an email to the District's school superintendent, Steven Enoch, objecting to Mr. Marvel's personal agenda, written on school board stationary.</font></em></p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">Mr. Enoch, via return email, requested my phone number, which I provided along with your blog that reviewed "The Greater Good" film, and he called me to discuss the matter. </font></em></p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">Mr. Enoch stated he was unaware of the letter and that it certainly did not represent school district policy. I, in turn, provided some information about AoA, its political arm (the Canary Party) and their anti-vaccine activities.</font></em></p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">Due to my involvement with many school boards in my State, I offered up my opinion that Mr. Marvel abused his office and should be sanctioned by the California School Boards Association:</font></em></p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://www.csba.org/"><em><font color="#f3a447">http://www.csba.org/</font></em></a></p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">Mr. Enoch will be speaking directly to Mr. Marvel about this letter and I will be following up, either at the district level or with an email to the California State School Boards Association.</font></em></p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">I located this website for immunization rates for Contra Costa County, where San Ramon is located:</font></em></p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://www.baycitizen.org/data/immunizations/"><em><font color="#f3a447">http://www.baycitizen.org/data/immunizations/</font></em></a></p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">Rates for complete immunizations for school entry are (relatively) high for Contra Costa County, compared to some adjacent counties. I'd like to see that those rates remain high.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>I’ll leave that here for a few moments to discuss something that happened to Mr Gorski a while back. Gorski was (rightfully) appalled at a comment left on Age of Autism where someone encouraged other commenters to contact Mr Gorski’s place of business and discuss with them Mr Gorski’s moonlighting activities. His sycophants moaned and cried about how horrible the people at AoA are for doing something like that. In fact, one of Gorski’s more dull-witted morons that goes by the name of Ren (epi-ren) still cries(almost a year later) about how one of those mean, evil anti-vaxxers tried to get him fired. </p> <p>Yes, this is horrid behaviour. Yes, I agree with Gorski and Ren that it is disgusting.</p> <p>Which is why I’m currently laughing myself silly by lilady’s comment. Notice the hypocrisy? Notice that she called the school board in an attempt to get Mr Enoch reprimanded or fired? It goes even further; in a later comment, she encourages other commenters to contact the said school board to file legal action against Mr Enoch:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font><font color="#f3a447">@ Liz Ditz and the RI Regulars: You are amazing Liz and have been very busy this past weekend.</font></em></p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">I just sent the SkewedDistribution link to Mr. Enoch, School Superintendent and requested a time frame for the retraction of that letter, by Mr. Marvel.</font></em></p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">IANAL...but I checked legal opinions about school board members' sanctions at the California School Board Association. There definitely are legal precedences concerning cases that deal with a school board member that has either stated publicly...or written a letter, that misrepresents the position of the school board. In fact, the Association has sent amici curiae briefs to various California courts, supporting the ability of a board of education to sanction the person who misrepresented school board policy.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Do as I say, not as I do, right? Again, I will reiterate how loathesome and disgusting I find this sort of behaviour. In fact, that is the main reason I choose to remain anonymous with my activities, specifically because of what happened to my good friend and because of repulsive little twits like this lilady person.</p> <p>Here’s a comment that lilady made on Dave’s hate-site that had me laughing so hard, I ruptured something:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“@ Sauceress: You made my day! I love their defense of Wonder Boy Jake's latest foibles by attacking Orac, Marc, Chris, Reuben and me and delight that I am in such company.</font></em></p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">The lead in to the blog was a classic about the the little cartoons that they consider "humor" and our indignity about the sheer filth and disgust that any website would even consider publishing them.</font></em></p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">No, we don't libel researchers, we don't start letter writing campaigns to destroy anyone's career and we don't encourage people to threaten any of their quack doctors.</font></em></p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">Any repercussions to their pathetic careers is an "inside job"...they sow the seeds of their own lack of credibility and their own destruction by their words and their deeds...pathetic.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Don’t libel researchers? Don’t start letter writing campaigns to destroy anyone’s career? Don’t encourage people to threaten doctors? Oh, my word…I haven’t laughed like that in a long, long time.</p> <p>If anything, it’s an amusing diversion to laugh at these revolting, small-minded hypocrites.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-88872111853081939382012-02-16T16:30:00.001-06:002012-02-16T16:30:08.528-06:00Stay Tuned for Another Dull and Smug Post from Gorski and his Mumbling Meatheads<p>This is a short post today. Using my oracular powers, I predict a smug and self satisfied post from Dorkski within the next few days concerning a study released today that supposedly “exonerates” the mercury/autism hypothesis (it doesn’t).</p> <p>I’ll reserve my comments for his misrepresentations, except to say that he will blindly and most assuredly praise the poor science represented within this study as “legitimate" and “sound.”</p> <p>Stay tuned…</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-52284799865401277402012-01-24T15:08:00.001-06:002012-01-24T15:08:29.524-06:00Tactics and Tropes of the Anti-Science False Skeptics<p>It never fails to amuse me when a false skeptic reveals himself for what they truly are. It’s even more amusing when they admire and praise someone for pointing out flaws in the logic of those they claim are “anti-vaccine” when the false skeptic is guilty of the same flaws in logic. </p> <p>One of the defining tropes of the Pseudo-Science false skeptics is their extraordinary hypocrisy. Seriously, it knows no bounds.</p> <p>Take, for example, David Gorski’s latest shart-fest “<a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/01/tactics_and_tropes_of_the_antivaccine_mo.php">Tactics and Tropes of the Anti-Vaccine Movement."</a> In it, David praises the author of a recent article, “<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X11019086">Anti-vaccine activists, Web 2.0, and the postmodern paradigm – An overview of tactics and tropes used online by the anti-vaccination movement</a>,” for calling out the common “tropes” of the anti-vaccination movement. The abstract of the article essentially says that the false-skeptics and pseudoscientists should work harder to ban together to prevent those with stories of vaccine injury from having a say. Oh, I know, it doesn’t actually say that, but it is easy to see that this is the direction they are going, as shown by recent attempts to prevent the NVIC from having an advertisement in Times Square. Or, the recent Slate article that references this report that calls for internet search engines to flag sites that discuss vaccine injury. Or even the recent removals of Jake Crosby at public events.</p> <p>Which is also a false skeptic tactic. They claim they are against censorship, but actively encourage censorship of parents who have stories of vaccine injury, all while claiming they “refudiate” anti-vaccine messages (there’s a subtle jab at them in there somewhere…see if you can find it). More on this in a moment.</p> <p>David begins his rant discussing how long he’s been dealing with that mean old anti-vaccine movement.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font></em><em><font color="#f3a447">I've been an observer and student of the antivaccine movement for nearly a decade now, although my intensive education began almost seven years ago, in early 2005, not long after I started blogging. It was then that I first encountered several "luminaries" of the antivaccine movement, such as J.B. Handley, who is the founder of Generation Rescue and was its leader and main spokesperson; that is, until he managed to recruit spokesmodel Jenny McCarthy to be its public face, and Dr. Jay Gordon, who, although he swears to high heaven he is not antivaccine, sure could have fooled me. At the very minimum, he is a credulous apologist for the antivaccine movement. Then there were many more through the years: Barbara Loe Fisher, Sallie Bernard, various bloggers from the antivaccine crank blog Age of Autism, and even the new generation of antivaccine activists, such as Jake Crosby, who is, if anything, even more annoying than the old generation.</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">Why am I mentioning this? The reason is simple. Over the years, I think I've come to learn just about every antivaccine trope, canard, strategy, and argument there is. At least, I know all the major ones, many of the minor ones, and even quite a few of the obscure ones. I'm rarely surprised anymore, even when of late antivaccinationists have taken to referring to supporters of science-based medicine as "vaccine injury denialists," a term antivaccine activist Ginger Taylor notably used in "The Role of Government and Media," a chapter in the anti-vaccine book Vaccine Epidemic: How Corporate Greed, Biased Science, and Coercive Government Threaten Our Human Rights, Our Health, and Our Children, which was edited by Louise Kuo Habakus and Mary Holland, and now uses frequently on her blog. (That actually might be a topic for another post entirely.) So when I see people writing about the tropes and tactics favored by the antivaccine movement, I know I'm quite qualified to judge whether they know what they're talking about or not, as I've spent nearly a decade in the trenches on Usenet and in the blogosphere.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Wow…this man is so completely and utterly clueless to his egotism and hypocrisy that a psychoanalyst would go into apoplectic fits trying to diagnose him. </p> <p>I want to take a moment to comment on something Dave wrote here. He mentions that “antivaccinationists” have taken to referring to supporters of science-based medicine as vaccine injury denialists. This is an interesting comment, isn’t it? First of all, they don’t actually do this to those who actually follow science-based medicine; they do this to false skeptics and pseudoscientists like David. People like David adamantly declare that they believe that vaccine injury is real, but when a parent says their child suffered from a vaccine injury, the first thing out of Dave’s mouth is a flat out denial, saying that their child didn’t have a vaccine injury…without even seeing the child or their records. Yes, he is that confident in his faith. In other words, he “believes” in vaccine-injury, but it just didn’t happen to your child. If that isn’t a vaccine-injury denialist, I don’t know what is.</p> <p>Which leads me to my next false-skeptic tactic. Whenever a parent mentions that their child was injured by a vaccine, they are met with a small selection of responses:</p> <ol> <li>“Correlation does not equal causation” – This is the standard response they will fall back on. However, they are never able to come up with a logical explanation for why so many parents observed things like encephalopathy and loss of milestones so soon after a vaccination. They also fail to mention that such correlations should be further studied. When a parent of a vaccine injured child says this, the response is usually “It has been ask and answered.” What they fail to mention is that there have never been any studies that actually LOOKED at these children so that a possible determination of what actually caused the injury could be done.</li> <li>“Vaccines are safe and effective; there’s no way your child was injured by a vaccine” – A logical fallacy that precludes any argument. This falls back to the faith argument; it has been asked and answered, and God…I mean Science…says it is so. They will try to inundate the conversation with link after link to numerous studies that show how vaccines are safe and effective. But they fail to mention that there are studies and actual records of children being seriously injured by vaccines. In many cases, these injuries just happen to be remarkably similar to autism.</li> <li>“You are a disease promoter; you want diseases like smallpox to return” – This is a common response when anyone questions vaccinations. Not only is it a non-sequitur, but it is also an ad hominem. But, of course, we all know that those who are truly science-based do their best to refrain from using such logical fallacies. Given that Dave and his sycophants use this argument on a regular basis further adds to the evidence that David is not actually a proponent of science-based medicine.</li> </ol> <p>He then discusses the paper, lamenting on the fact that so much information is now readily available to the public when, before, it should only be in the hands of people like him. He gives the impression that everyone else who is not a doctor or scientist is too stupid to understand what science is, so therefore should not have access to it.</p> <p>He then starts discussing the author’s description of tactics of “anti-vaccinationists.” I will respond to each in turn.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font><font color="#f3a447">1.Skewing the science. This involves cherry picking studies, denigrating science that doesn't support an antivaccine viewpoint, and endorsing bad science that supports antivaccine agendas.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>This is a good one. Of course, David could never be accused of cherry picking studies, denigrating science that doesn’t support a pro-vaccine viewpoint, and endorsing bad science that supports pro-vaccine agendas, could he? How often does he refer to the Madsen study? How often does he claim that the Fombonne Canadian study is actually good science? If it supports his bias, then it must be good science. Hypocrisy, my friends. So, according to Anna Kata, David also uses this tactic.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font><font color="#f3a447">2.Shifting hypotheses. Otherwise known as moving the goalposts, this involves continually changing the standards of evidence deemed necessary to convince antivaccinationists of vaccine safety so that they can't be met and constantly coming up with new causation hypotheses that share only one thing in common: it's always about the vaccines.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>This one actually happens to be my favorite. Whenever they are presented with evidence that vaccines have caused injuries that are very similar to autism, they shift the goalposts, saying that “it’s only one case,” or they say, “That’s not actually Autism, so vaccines are safe and effective.” Or, they claim that autism is caused by old parents, or cold moms, or genes that they can’t find, or too much TV, or being too close to a highway, or low birth weight, etc. All of these share only one thing in common: it’s never the vaccines. More hypocrisy, and once again, David uses the same tactic.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font><font color="#f3a447">3.Censorship. This is an extreme characteristic of the antivaccine movement. For instance, Age of Autism does not allow dissenting comments. The Autism One yearly quackfest routinely kicks out those its organizers perceive as enemies, even though they follow the rules and don't disrupt anything. In the meantime, they go absolutely--if you'll excuse the term--apeshit when one of their own is asked to leave a scientific function. We're seeing this in action right now, as AoA and its hanger-on Ginger Taylor are both going nuts over Paul Offit's and Seth Mnookin's having asked AoA's one trick pony irritant to leave and Offit's accurately characterizing him as a "stalker." I'd take their complaints slightly more seriously if the antivaccine movement didn't so ruthlessly censor its perceived enemies and refuse to let them anywhere near their crank venues.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>This one made me laugh out loud. I happen to know for a fact that both Mr Gorski and Mr Reibel both selectively change and remove comments from their blogs if they don’t like the message. David only allows comments that he thinks his sycophants will enjoy. Then, he turns them loose like a pack of rabid dogs. But those that actually are meaningful responses, well documented and referenced articles included, and that refute his bias are mysteriously not allowed through the “filter.” Now, the comment about the Autism One conference is missing a few pieces of evidence, like how Mr Reibel was breaking rules (this was discussed in the comments <a href="http://my-socrates-note.blogspot.com/2011/06/building-communities-by-exclusion-or-i.html">here</a>), stalking and harassing Dr Poling and his wife and recording their conversations without their permission. I’m certain if he wasn’t such a little twit, he would have been allowed to stay and participate. Also note that Aut-One was a sponsored event done by independent parties that had the right to throw whoever the hell they wanted to out, including that little douche-bag. And, if I recall, I remember a certain false-skeptic going absolutely—if you’ll excuse the term—apeshit when one of their own was asked to leave a conference for breaking rules. Contrast this to Jake Crosby’s being kicked out of not one, not two, but three PUBLICALLY SPONSORED EVENTS! For just asking questions. For this, he is labeled a stalker (which I fail to see how; all three events were relatively close to his home, and he was interested in getting answers to his questions), but one of their own, who endlessly <a href="http://my-socrates-note.blogspot.com/2009/12/go-to-hell-reibel.html">hounded</a>, <a href="http://my-socrates-note.blogspot.com/2010/02/to-ken-reibel.html">harassed</a>, and forced a father of a vaccine-injured child to go into <a href="http://my-socrates-note.blogspot.com/2011/06/farewells-and-epiphanies.html">hiding</a>, is somehow not considered a stalker.</p> <p>Yes, the hypocrisy is strong with this one. And, another tactic that Dave and his bum-lickers all use.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font><font color="#f3a447">4.Attacking the opposition. The antivaccine movement is particularly incessant in this tactic, in my experience. I've lost track of how many times I've been attacked or had antivaccine cranks try to cause me annoyance at my job by e-mailing my bosses. A year and a half ago, a bunch of antivacicne cranks, "inspired" by a false accusation of an undisclosed conflict of interest from Jake Crosby, tried to get me fired from my job through a campaign of e-mails, phone calls, and letters to the board of governors at my university. And what I've experienced is minor indeed compared to what someone like Paul Offit has experienced.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>I already partially covered this earlier, but David and his lickspittles all do this, too. They’ve attacked Dr Poling and his wife, called <a href="http://healthimpactnews.com/2012/pediatrician-calls-state-trooper-and-cps-on-parent-refusing-to-vaccinate-child/">cps on parents for not vaccinating</a>, said they wish parents of vaccine injured children would all die of preventable diseases, called a parent’s medical insurance to try to get the insurance company to drop coverage, and have wanted all of us to be thrown in jail or put on a remote island. They attack anyone and everyone who does not conform to their view, and my friend Craig can certainly attest to that (apparently, threatening phone calls and messages sent to his site don’t count). And that thing about Dr Offit and those death threats? Yeah, still waiting to see proof of that.</p> <p>And here’s further proof of my previous statement:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font><font color="#f3a447">One tactic I think Kata left out is one that I've noted before. It's not a tactic unique to the antivaccine movement, but antivaccinationists certainly use it. I'm referring to crank conferences gussied up to look like legitimate scientific conferences. For example, we have the yearly quackfest known as Autism One every year in Chicago around Memorial Day. Recently, Autism One has joined forces with the health freedom movement, combining an Autism One conference with the Health Freedom Expo from March 2-4, 2012 in Long Beach, CA. In this, we might be seeing an even more obvious sign of the scientific bankruptcy of antivaccinationists in that Patrick "Tim" Bolen will be featured on a "Vaccine Panel." I thought that having Dan Olmsted chair a panel called Malfeasance in the Media that includes Tim Bolen, David Lewis, and Andy Wakefield was bad enough. After all, that's a group that could give the masters' how-to-do-it course on media malfeasance.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Attacking the opposition. Need I say more?</p> <p>Whew…a whole world of hypocrisy right there. So, since Dave and his arse-kissers are guilty of every single one of the tactics mentioned above, that must mean they are anti-vaccine!</p> <p>Note: When dealing with false skeptics, hold them to the same standards that they hold everyone else.</p> <p>Now, let’s take a brief moment to discuss the “tropes” that Dave mentioned.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font><font color="#f3a447">1."I'm not antivaccine; I'm pro-safe vaccines." Yes, indeed. This one is the biggest, baddest, most irritating trope of all, repeated by everyone from Jenny McCarthy to J.B. Handley to Barbara Loe Fisher. A variant of this is to liken vaccines to cars and say that "I'm not 'anti-car,' I just want safer cars." Not a good analogy. A better equivalent would be if they demanded absolute safety of cars and refused to use them unless GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda, et al swear that they'll never be injured in a car crash.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>David and his fart-sniffers are horribly guilty of misusing the “anti-vaccine” label. Anyone, to them, who questions or has reservations about the safety of vaccines is a heretic (sorry, “anti-vaccine”). One of the things I teach in school is etymology, or the study of words. The prefix “anti” means opposed or against. So, someone who is truly anti-vaccine is completely opposed to vaccination. Many people they label as such are not opposed to vaccination; in fact, many of them actively encourage vaccination, but have concerns about the safety of so many vaccines given in such a short time. So, label this as a false skeptic trope.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font><font color="#f3a447">2.Vaccines are toxic. A.k.a. "the toxin gambit."</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>This falls back to the thiomersal argument. And, we all know how many of the safety studies on thiomersal are circumspect. If you don’t know the minimum safe dose of a highly toxic substance, then how can you definitively say that it is not toxic in doses that are well above the EPA safety limit? I call this trope “Dosage makes the poison.” Since there are no safety data on how a six pound child will react to a toxic substance, then they have no way to determine what the proper dose is.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font><font color="#f3a447">3.A demand for absolute safety.</font></em></p> <p><font color="#f3a447"><em>4.A demand for absolute "proof" that vaccines are safe.</em></font><em><font color="#f3a447">”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>This is a misrepresentation of what is actually being called for, in my opinion. All many of these parents want is for vaccines to be SAFER! That is a huge difference between safer and absolute safety. And, if you believe the cup-cake lady, <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/17/2581380/disease-returns-as-vaccine-is.html">then safer vaccines are bad</a>, Mkay?</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font><font color="#f3a447">5."Vaccines didn't save us," one of the more intellectually dishonest of many intellectually dishonest tropes used by these cranks.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>I slightly agree with him here. Vaccines are useful, but claiming that vaccines are as effective as they say they are is also dishonest. I think that the core of this argument is that vaccinating for so many diseases is having unforeseen consequences; like the recent evidence that the increase in varicella vaccinations during childhood is causing cases of shingles in young adults and adults after their immunity wanes.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font><font color="#f3a447">6.Vaccines are "unnantural(sic)."</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>This is a disingenuous argument from Dave. The issue is that they are trying to enforce a one-size-fits-all approach to a complex and highly diverse bodily function, the immune system. Everyone’s immune system acts in different ways, and trying to claim that all vaccines will illicit the same type of immune response in everyone IS unnatural.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“7.Choosing between "vaccine injury" and disease. Jenny did this famously when she said vaccination are a choice between autism and infectious disease and that she'd take the measles.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>This is an example of blowing things out of proportion and misrepresentation (hey, another trope!). The problem here is that measles in the United States is rarely, if ever, a serious condition. And, again, we see a clear implication that Dave is denying that vaccine injuries are real. The choice becomes clearer to those who have had children injured by vaccinations; they were injured because the parent did the right thing.</p> <p>He then makes the following statement:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“Such a statement is a reminder that finding common ground with those who question, fear, or crusade against vaccines is no easy task. Their arguments are constantly shifting and evolving - this has been furthered by the fluidity of the Internet and social media. While acknowledging and correcting flawed arguments is important, an approach that moves beyond providing "the facts" is likely needed. With the anti-vaccination movement embracing the postmodern paradigm, which inherently questions an authoritative, science-based approach, "facts" may be reinterpreted as just another "opinion". This issue is as much about the cultural context surrounding healthcare, perceptions of risk, and trust in expertise, as it is about vaccines themselves. For these reasons it is possible the minds of deeply invested anti-vaccine activists may never be changed; therefore it is for both the laypersons with genuine questions or worries about vaccines and the healthcare professionals who work to ease their fears that keeping abreast of the methods of persuasion discussed here is essential. Recognizing anti-vaccine tactics and tropes is imperative, for an awareness of the disingenuous arguments used to cajole and convert audiences gives individuals the tools to think critically about the information they encounter online. It is through such recognition that truly informed choices can then be made.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Dave will never be able to find common ground because he doesn’t try to talk to a person, discovering what their questions and fears are. Instead, he bullies, attacks, and ridicules their legitimate concerns. And the reason why David’s “facts” are construed as opinions is because David is not an expert; his bias makes his interpretation of the “facts” an opinion. Furthermore, it’s difficult to determine what the actual facts are when the organisations creating those facts are the same organisations that are creating the products, the same organisations that have been caught lying and faking the results of their studies.</p> <p>In conclusion, I will reiterate that the biggest tactic/trope of the vaccine injury deniers is that they are hypocrites; they criticise others for the very behaviours they pride themselves in.</p> <p><strong>ADDENDUM:</strong> I just read an extraordinarily humourous comment from someone named Kruuth on David’s Den of Misinformation, Lies, and Sycophants:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“I've never gone to Ginger's blog before. After reading the front page I thought that I was reading something written by a ten-year-old. Once I saw that she's an adult, and one with a child as well, I just sighed. If she needs a reason why anyone in the real medical field doesn't take her seriously she needs to look no further than her own blog. “</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Oh my word; I actually spit out my coffee laughing at that one. One wonders if he has ever read Dave’s blog; irony meters, brain chomping Hitler zombies, talking about himself in the third person, pretending to be a computer from a defunct and downright awful Sci-Fi television show.</p> <p>Yes, hypocrisy.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-51687883201580439842011-12-08T15:50:00.001-06:002011-12-08T15:54:57.037-06:00Why a Biased Pseudo-Skeptic and False Scientist Should Not Publish a Scientific Review on a Subject He Knows Nothing About.<p>Some of you may be wondering why I’ve been so quiet lately. In all honesty, I’ve been busy. However, that does not stop me from doing research on various subjects, nor does it exclude me from finding an interesting research article and waiting to see what happens.</p> <p>Early last month, a new study was released that correlated a link between aluminium adjuvants in vaccines and a surprising number of auto-immune disorders, including Autism. You can read the abstract of the study <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22099159">here</a>.</p> <p>I waited and watched to see who would try to discredit this study, and how they would try to do it. Our good “doctor” David H. Gorski was the one, and he did not disappoint. Now, I get to have fun picking apart his rambling and monotonous diatribe.</p> <p>People wonder why I accuse Dr Gorski of pseudo-science and crankery. The answer is simple; he pretends to be a knowledgeable scientist, when in fact, he has no training or legitimate background in many of the subjects he discusses, all while giving the impression that he does. Not only that, but as you’ll see from the below deconstruction, he falls into the exact same traps and fallacies that he accuses others of. Allow me to demonstrate.</p> <p>In his rambling and spittle-flecked rant entitled <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/12/and_global_warming_is_caused_by_the_decr.php">And global warming is caused by the decrease in the number of pirates or: Why an inorganic chemistry journal should not publish a vaccine epidemiology paper</a>, he begins with a mocking dissertation on how much fun he’s been having with “anti-vaccine cranks” over the past few days. Observe:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“In my eagerness to pivot back to an area of my interest after having had a little fun with anti-vaccine cranks, I ignored a paper to which several of my readers referred me over the last few days. Many of them had first become aware of it when everybody's favorite smugly condescending anti-vaccine crank, Ginger Taylor, started pimping it on her blog.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>While he smugly and condescendingly does the same. Continuing:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“Before that, it apparently popped up on the only anti-vaccine site almost as loony as Age of Autism, namely SaneVax, and it wasn't long before this paper started making the rounds of the anti-vaccine crankosphere, showing up at Gaia Health, and then just yesterday the anti-vaccine propaganda blog Age of Autism. It was at that point that I decided that I had made a mistake in not taking a look at this article; so I was more than happy to do so.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>I’m sure you can all see what he’s doing here and I’ll allow you the opportunity to read that paragraph again, knowing that he is attempting to color his readers’ opinions on what the article will contain. Poisoning the well, anyone?</p> <p>He duplicates the abstract, and then follows with this:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“I thought I knew all the major quackery websites out there, but somehow I had never come across this one before. It appears to be a doozy, posting a glowing review of the anti-vaccine movie whose misinformation and pseudoscience I deconstructed three weeks ago, attacks on Brian Deer for his exposing Andrew Wakefield for the fraud he is, and, in a classic case of crank magnetism, a heapin' helpin' of anthropogenic global warming denialism.</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">Already, things aren't looking too good.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Indeed, Dave, they are not. Look here, my friends. He further attempts to color his readers’ opinions on what the article actually contains, not even bothering to discuss the actual science. Moving on:</p> <blockquote> <p><font color="#f3a447"><em>“</em></font><font color="#f3a447"><em>Still, I pride myself on always going straight to the source when examining studies like this that are being bandied about the anti-vaccine underground. Who knows? Maybe I'll find something to change my mind. True, it's highly unlikely, but you never know</em> <strong><font color="#ff0000">(Gambolputty – Oh, dear…I got a lovely chuckle out of that one!)</font></strong>. <em>I was, however, curious just who the authors are. Christopher Shaw, I had heard of before. He was featured in the anti-vaccine propaganda movie The Greater Good and gave a talk at the anti-vaccine conference in Jamaica featuring Andrew Wakefield in January. His co-author Lucija Tomljenovic is apparently a postdoctoral fellow who was also a speaker at that very conference, giving two talks there.”</em></font></p> </blockquote> <p>More of what I mentioned above. And that is just the introduction! Not only that, but we have a heaping helping of an ad hominem fallacy and guilt by association mixed in, don’t we?</p> <p>Already, we see that he has established that he is biased against the paper. A real scientist would read the paper objectively, not with the antagonistic bias we see here.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font><font color="#f3a447">So let's get to the meat of the article, such as it is. Personally, after reading it a thought kept going through my head, namely that chemistry journals (particularly journals devoted to inorganic chemistry) probably shouldn't be publishing medical articles. The editors and peer reviewers, so enamored with an apparently strong correlation, fell for the oldest crank gambit in the book: Confusing correlation with causation. Perhaps the most irritating part of the article is how Tomljenovic and Shaw misuse and abuse Hill's criteria, a famous set of nine criteria postulated by Sir Austin Bradford-Hill for assessing the plausibility and likelihood of a particular correlation indicating causation. I discussed Bradford-Hill's criteria before when Andrew Weil also misused and abused them.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Finally, he starts discussing his interpretation of the science. Notice his sneering contempt for a legitimate research journal. Can anyone see the huge and glaring error he made in the above paragraph? Don’t scroll down until you can see what it is.</p> <p>That’s right. He accuses the authors of the article of confusing correlation with causation. Let’s look at the relevant sentences that state what the authors concluded, shall we?</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#00ff00">“The application of the Hill's criteria to these data indicates that the correlation between Al in vaccines and ASD <strong><u>may be causal</u></strong>. Because children represent a fraction of the population most at risk for complications following exposure to Al, <strong><u>a more rigorous evaluation of Al adjuvant safety seems warranted.</u></strong>”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>The emphasis is mine. It’s interesting…they say that the correlation requires more study, and that the correlation <strong><u>may be</u></strong> causal, not that it <strong><u>is</u></strong> causal. Notice how he twists and manipulates what is actually said in the conclusion. In any study that comes to this sort of correlation/conclusion, it is an excellent idea to study the correlation more concretely. His invocation and interpretation of the Bradford-Hill criteria will be approached further down. Keep in mind that Gorski’s interpretation of the criteria is, in his monochromatic view, the only interpretation that matters. Let us continue.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font><font color="#f3a447">Perhaps the silliest aspect of this article is Table I, in which Tomljenovic and Shaw try to convince you that the inflammatory aspects of various autoimmune diseases share aspects with inflammation provoked by aluminum adjuvants. Of course, I'd be shocked if some autoimmune diseases didn't share some aspects of inflammation provoked by aluminum adjuvants or even vaccines in general. Inflammation is a common process that can be provoked by many things. I could tell you that the cytokine profiles that Tomljenovic and Shaw point to as being so "similar" to cytokine profiles due to aluminum adjuvants are the same sorts of cytokine profiles that result from almost any sort of injury. If, for example, as a surgeon I cut open your abdomen in order to rearrange your anatomy for therapeutic intent, I bet I could find studies with cytokine profiles that I could tenuously compare to cytokine profiles due to vaccination with aluminum-containing vaccines.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>This is an interesting argument. However, the fact that these markers were present is cause for concern. These markers should not be present in anyone if vaccines were as safe as Mr Gorski would like you to be brainwashed to believe. The authors even go so far as to provide links to previous studies that corroborate their reasoning. I’ll get to those shortly. For now, we will continue with Gorski’s analysis.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font><font color="#f3a447">In fact, perusing the chart I'm struck by how tenuous the resemblances between inflammation due to autoimmune diseases and inflammation due to aluminum adjuvants is. Presumably this is the best these two could come up with, and their best just isn't all that convincing. None of this stops the not-so-dynamic duo from including autism and Gulf War Syndrome on their list. The latter they characterize as being "specifically recognized as 'Autoimmune/inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants," which is news to me given that I thought the emerging consensus was that Gulf War Syndrome probably doesn't exist as a single distinct syndrome but rather as many health problems with different etiologes, much less is it recognized as some sort of autoimmune syndrome caused by vaccine adjuvants. After all, none of the anthrax vaccines soldiers received prior to going to the Gulf used squalene adjuvants. Meanwhile, autism spectrum disorders are listed in the chart as being "linked to Al-adjuvanted vaccines." I suppose that's true in the literal sense in that anti-vaccine activists have linked ASDs to Al-adjuvanted vaccines, but what Tomlijenovic and Shaw are doing is what lawyers like to call assuming "facts not in evidence." Again, there is no solid evidence linking vaccines, whether Al-adjvanted or not, to autism, and several large epidemiological studies that have utterly failed to find a link between vaccines and autism. Where were the peer reviewers here?”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Ok, this will take a little bit of time to deconstruct. Bear with me here.</p> <p>Let’s begin with GWS, or Gulf War Syndrome. He states that none of the vaccines given to veterans before going to the Persian Gulf contained squalene-based adjuvants. He gives no reference to this, of course, but fortunately I was able to track down what he was talking about, which was an IOM funded <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1563566/?tool=pmcentrez">study</a> released in 2006. What he fails to mention (or deliberately omits) is that an FDA investigation in 1999 found <a href="http://www.protectingourguardians.org/docs/accountability_for_DoD,_BioPort,_FDA_by_Cong._gov_reform_comm.pdf">5 specific lots of Anthrax vaccines that contained squalene adjuvants</a>. So, there is some controversy there. </p> <p>However, let’s give Gorski the benefit of the doubt and say that his statement is somewhat true. Even if we take that position, then the authors’ statement is also true in that there <strong><u>has</u></strong> been evidence of adjuvants having been linked to GWS and autoimmune disorders in gulf war veterans.</p> <p>Taking this position, then we can also say that there has been some data linking autoimmune dysfunctions in autistic children and that these dysfunctions have been linked to vaccines. Need I mention a certain beautiful little redhead we all know and love?</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font><font color="#f3a447">The "evidence" in the paper consists mainly of Tomlijenovic and Shaw comparing increasing ASD prevalence to the increasing number of vaccines in vaccine schedules in various countries, their argument being that increasing doses of aluminum through vaccines correlates with increasing prevalence of ASD. Basically, they collected data on ASD diagnoses for children from ages 6-21, from 1991-2008 from the US Department of Education Annual Reports for ASD prevalence. Next, they tried to correlate the autism prevalence in this group with the cumulative aluminum dosage they received before age 6 through the pediatric vaccination schedule. They then basically did the most simplistic analysis imaginable, plotting the minimum, mean, and maximum aluminum exposures against ASD prevalence. Can you say "ecological fallacy"? Sure, I knew you could.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>It’s fortunate that the authors used very simplistic means to plot their data. It clearly and succinctly shows a distinct correlation that in no way can be refuted. Dave attempts to do this in the most hilarious and hypocritical way; by invoking the Ecological Fallacy. He’s even kind enough to define that for us.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“To recap, because I haven't had to discuss it in a while, the ecological fallacy can occur when an epidemiological analysis is carried out on group level data rather than individual-level data. In other words, when the group is the unit of analysis, the chances of finding a false positive correlation go way, way up”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Can any of you think of any epidemiological studies released by the CDC and the Pharmaceutical industry that falls into this fallacy? Can you say all of them? Sure, I knew you could.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font><font color="#f3a447">Add to this the fact that, for all the authors' claims that they controlled for confounding factors, by falling for the ecological fallacy they allowed huge confounders into their analysis. Even worse, they appeared to make no attempt to control for birth cohort other than to remove vaccines from their calculations that hadn't been introduced into the schedule at the time the children were vaccinated. (How nice of them.) In any case, although the diagnostic criteria used for autism and ASDs were set in 1994 in the DSM-IV, screening in schools, increased availability of services, and decreasing stigma to a diagnosis of autism led to an explosion in autism diagnoses. The way to control for this would have been to examine much more narrowly defined birth cohorts. They didn't. They used a single 15-year period. They also did nothing more than look for a linear correlation between aluminum dose and autism prevalence, citing r = 0.92, instead of calculating r2. The authors are incredibly impressed by this (and apparently so were the reviewers), even though it's not so hard to produce high Pearson coefficients for a lot of seeming correlations that in fact don't have anything to do with each other. The most heinous example I can recall is a ham-handed attempt to correlate abortion rates with breast cancer incidence.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>This is a somewhat absurd argument, isn’t it? This is a single correlative study that looks at a particular hypothesis and investigates correlations between a potential cause and effect. It is certainly not uncommon for such a preliminary study to congregate such data into a single cohort. In fact, plotting the data year by year (as was done here…I’ll post the chart shortly) reduces the chance of the same statistical manipulations that we saw in the Madsen studies. Here’s the chart:</p> <p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge-YFOewK-vQu3kWCykWPAl1cTPlEqlFUt4GHKlgZwon-VH1veOyCu5wA1xzYAhRaWWDuyKd30MGAF1cNkmH9x75IZdoo-1hs5baKDEmhx34CD-fA1MAUCHfjUlpjrCVXdicwZnl_TWg/s1600-h/image4%25255B1%25255D.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAQ43ubtmNLTwx2fjeNFRPXgndIl1jXPrKygnef-NydNP8444Fh4Z6hb3Qr0Hb8yV087U0pvDv0Zb68VXNPCDQBzn-KAPglfg10o_KyAwBwF80rXf9cP1S-bc2h810o_94CiAId6NN4w/?imgmax=800" width="332" height="235" /></a></p> <p><em>Click for larger pic</em></p> <p>Hard to refute the numbers, yes?</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font><font color="#f3a447">Given how common papers like this are from anti-vaccinationists are, I sometimes think it would be fun to play a game I'd like to call "Name That Correlation!" What other correlations with the increase in autism diagnoses can we find over the last 20 or 30 years? Let's see. Personal computer use has been rising since the 1980s. Perhaps that's the cause of autism! More similar to Tomlijenovic and Shaw's time frame, Internet use has exploded since the early 1990s. Back in 1990, few people had Internet access or e-mail addresses. (As hooked in as I am now, believe it or not, I didn't have Internet access back then, either.) Now almost everyone does, and Internet access has become truly mobile via smartphones like the iPhone, Blackberry, and Android handsets. I bet a nice correlation between Internet usage and autism diagnoses could be constructed. Come to think of it, mobile phones, although first introduced in the 1980s, didn't really begin to take off until the mid-1990s. In the early 1990s, mobile phones were uncommon because they were so expensive and coverage was very spotty. Now, the nearly everybody owns one. The time frame of Tomlijenovic and Shaw's study fits the time frame of the rise of mobile phone use almost perfectly!”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Funny he should say this. My friends and I have created a game that is quite similar. We take these studies that show a correlation between vaccines and autism, and then take bets to see who will be most accurate with how the pseudo-skeptics and false scientists will attempt to refute it. The most humourous aspect of Gorski’s comment is his attempt to refute the evidence based on other things that could be responsible. The problem is, internet usage and cell phones have never been known to cause encephalitic reactions in children within hours of usage. I can certainly think of something that has, though. Can’t you?</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font><font color="#f3a447">Finally, Tomlijenovic and Shaw misuse and abuse Bradford-Hill's criteria. For example, they list criteria numbers one and two as being satisfied for aluminum and autism. Those are strength and consistency. The problem with these criteria is that they aren't supposed to be evaluated by one study. They conclude their association is strong because they have a high Pearson correlation coefficient, but their study is an outlier. It's not correct to say that the correlation is strong based on the totality of the evidence. Ditto for consistency, as, again, their study is an outlier, and, quite frankly, citing DeLong's execrably embarrassing study as a study that found a correlation between vaccine uptake and autism does not help their case. They also try to convince readers that one of Bradford-Hill's other criteria, such as biological rationale and coherence, have been met because of their attempt to make the tortuous vague resemblances between cytokine profiles they constructed seem like strong evidence for biological plausibility. Even worse, they try to use their confusion of correlation with causation as an argument that there is a temporal relationship between the purported cause and the effect. No, it's not. In fact, they have not convincingly met any of Bradford-Hill's criteria, much less eight out of nine.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Ah, we finally get to Gorski’s biased interpretation of the Bradford-Hill criteria. I’ll give him the point that criteria one and two should not be determined by just one study, however, the Bradford-Hill criteria do not specify that the study shouldn’t be an outlier; this appears to be Dave’s own interpretation. But let’s go one step further and evaluate what is stated in the study.</p> <p>Under Strength, they say that the association is statistically significant (consistent with the Bradford-Hill criteria for strength (<a href="http://www.drabruzzi.com/hills_criteria_of_causation.htm">here</a>)). Looking at their data, then this falls within the criteria, so they’ve marked it as a “Yes”</p> <p>Under Consistency, they say that several studies have found an association between vaccines and autism (true). Following the criteria (replication in other studies), then this is also given a “Yes.”</p> <p>They gave sufficient reason for biological rationale in that there is a demonstrable association between auto-immune dysfunctions and cytokine response (this is a verification of Dr Poling’s work).</p> <p>Here’s the table that shows how the authors demonstrated the Bradford-Hills criteria:</p> <p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvew_g6l3g4sXJ0grr-kydqSCzWLkZwff0nw0_TeSCezRWdlirf7O6EupZb9nVI96ezDrUJ6R6ic4iJEETOhcj_VR7EFDLpKUTJUn1QDukxSGLOwWhR5Gtv2B2fCzOIP_iNMp1LcTT6Q/s1600-h/image8%25255B1%25255D.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI2z9nmPfouvOOh4ePif9eqSbd75AtBvogy-mJNrEQ5OvFxT84JaSQKsdh6ZQc1Zcl-Wwxj0rO6Gzq7g9XyQpbeJ9A10YsD3WUN2eNnLc7iKRE632p9ughCVK5yl4vJ_WPFZzS6u0P1w/?imgmax=800" width="348" height="265" /></a></p> <p><em>Click for larger pic</em></p> <p>It’s clear to me that Mr Gorski does not like the results of this study. In fact, it’s quite clear that he began his analysis without an objective mind and used his own bias and misinterpretation of the Bradford-Hills criteria to make his own judgment on what the article is actually saying. For example, he repeatedly accuses the authors of confusing correlation with causation, when the authors do nothing of the sort. They clearly state that Aluminium adjuvants <strong><u>may be</u></strong> associated with autism and auto-immune disorders and give statistics and data to show how they came to this conclusion. I always enjoy how Dave likes to build strawmen and put words in peoples’ mouths.</p> <p>In conclusion, I’d like to give you a definition of a pseudo-scientist and a crank.</p> <ol> <li>Cranks overestimate their own knowledge and ability, and underestimate that of acknowledged experts. (Gorski gives the firm impression that he’s an expert, and he dismisses anyone who disagrees with his view, despite them being real experts) </li> <li>Cranks insist that their alleged discoveries are urgently important. (Gorski insists that all scientists agree with him, and any scientists who does not agree with him is not a real scientist) </li> <li>Cranks rarely if ever acknowledge any error, no matter how trivial. (Self explanatory) </li> <li>Cranks love to talk about their own beliefs, often in inappropriate social situations, but they tend to be bad listeners, and often appear to be uninterested in anyone else's experience or opinions. (How often does he blog? And the last half is self explanatory.) </li> </ol> <p>I’d also like to add another; a crank dismisses evidence that does not conform to their pet theory, or evidence that they dislike. They will attack this evidence with an unmitigated rage.</p> <p>Doesn’t this sound familiar? Any questions as to why I say David H. Gorski is a crank and a quack?</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-4806554473261883472011-12-06T13:30:00.001-06:002011-12-06T13:37:13.413-06:00An Anti-science Slimeball Destroys an Immature and Witless Concept<p>I don’t often get to write on my blog. I’m sure most of you can understand this. The majority of us have jobs and other duties that require our time and effort, things that are far more important that blogging several times a day (I’m sure you can all tell that last dig was pointed at a certain doctor we all know and despise). However, I did promise that I would maintain this page and continue to point out the hypocrisies, lies, and general nastiness of those who are pseudo-skeptics and false scientists. People new to this debate need to see what type of people they are dealing with.</p> <p>Such is the case for Dr Gorski’s latest childish screed entitled <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/12/ginger_taylor_destroys_my_irony_meter.php">An anti-vaccine activist destroys my irony meter</a>. Oh, where to begin? There’s so much irony and hypocrisy in this article…</p> <p>Apparently, Jake Crosby was evicted from a recent conference where Seth Mnookin was holding a presentation. When the question and answer period came around, Jake took his turn, grabbing the microphone and asking a challenging question to Mr Mnookin about some of the more recent revelations concerning Dr Wakefield. Instead of answering the questions, Mr Mnookin asked for Mr Crosby’s removal.</p> <p>Jake wrote an article about it on AoA, of course. He told his side of the story, and gave the reason that he thought he was removed. Several commenters offered their support of Jake, praising him for his tenacity.</p> <p>Fast forward a little bit, and we have Orac and his bumlickers discussing this removal. Here’s what he has to say:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font></em><font color="#f3a447"><em>While I'm </em></font><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/12/an_anti-vaccine_fantasy.php"><font color="#f3a447"><em>having a bit of fun with the anti-vaccine crank blog Age of Autism</em></font></a><font color="#f3a447"><em>, I notice that its Boy Wonder Jake Crosby, the one-trick pony whose trick is playing "six degrees of separation" in order to try to link anyone who supports the science of vaccines with big pharma, the CDC, the FDA, or any other company or regulatory agency he doesn't like, has a new post up at AoA. In it he complains about being </em></font><a href="http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/12/seth-mnookin-boots-jake-crosby-out-of-public-conference-chaired-by-merck-exec.html"><font color="#f3a447"><em>kicked out of a conference</em></font></a><font color="#f3a447"><em>, the Research Ethics Book Group Lunch and Book Signing at the annual Advancing Ethical Research Conference held by Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research (PRIMR). The book being discussed was </em></font><a href="http://blogs.plos.org/thepanicvirus/"><font color="#f3a447"><em>The Panic Virus</em></font></a><font color="#f3a447"><em> by Seth Mnookin. From previous times when Jake has tried to ask what he calls "challenging questions," the impression that I keep getting is that he tends to ramble a lot and monopolize the microphone, rather like the the Royal Rife guy did at the Trottier Symposium where I was a speaker in 2010.”</em></font></p> </blockquote> <p>I mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. Pseudo-skeptics and false scientists don’t like it when you question them. They don’t like to be challenged; they hate to be contradicted. Anything that falls outside of their safe, happy little pseudo religion is heresy and should be shunned. Any person who speaks against them gets the treatment that Jake received in the comment above. Any scientist who disagrees with the false scientists are excommunicated, thrown from the fold and ridiculed endlessly. You do not question the consensus!!!</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font><font color="#f3a447">Whatever happened (and I'd love to hear Seth's version or an account from someone who was at the lunch of what really happened, given Jake's propensity to see things only in a way that makes him seem like a persecuted iconoclast and hero), Jake was apparently asked to leave. None of this is particularly remarkable, given that he was parroting the </font></em><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/11/brian_deer_strikes_again_more_evidence_o.php"><em><font color="#f3a447">same nonsense about David Lewis</font></em></a><em><font color="#f3a447"> having "exonerated" Andrew Wakefield that AoA has been pushing. In fact, I wasn't even going to mention Jake's post, given that getting himself kicked out of such conferences has apparently become an essential part of his anti-vaccine schtick.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Much like getting kicked out of Autism One conferences is an essential part of his buddy Ken Reibel’s anti-science schtick. It’s ok when pseudo-skeptics do it, though, because they are doing it in the defense of the Holy Science! He doesn’t even bother to question whether or not there was a legitimate reason for Jake’s removal; he merely assumes that Jake was being disruptive and deserved to get kicked out. Of course, with no evidence. Oh, sure, he says he wants to hear the other side of the story. But the funny thing is, even if others corroborate Mr Crosby’s story, he’ll still say that Jake deserved it. Why? See my mantra above; you do not question or challenge the consensus!!!</p> <p>Dear Dave then goes off on a rant about a comment made by Ginger Taylor. Essentially, she says that those who speak the truth are unafraid of the truth, and they welcome challengers and those who disagree with them to debate it with them. He begins:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“What caught my eye was a comment after Jake's post by everybody's favorite example of someone who thinks far more of her knowledge of science than any objective measure could justify, <a href="http://www.adventuresinautism.com">Ginger Taylor</a>”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>David is of the firm belief that if you are not of the elite priesthood that he belongs to, then you have no right to speak your mind against The Doctrine.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font><font color="#f3a447">Let's see. If what Ginger says is the case, then one of her favorite anti-vaccine conferences Autism One must not love truth. In fact, the it must hate truth. After all, its organizers </font></em><a href="http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2011/05/autismone-again-expells-peaceful-non-disruptive-registered-attendees.html"><em><font color="#f3a447">have kicked out people who disagree with its anti-vaccine message</font></em></a><em><font color="#f3a447"> each of the last four years. Let's see. It was </font></em><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/05/expelled_from_autismone.php"><em><font color="#f3a447">Ken Reibel</font></em></a><em><font color="#f3a447"> in 2008, Chicago Tribune reporter Trine Tsouderos in 2009, a department of health employee from a western state and an independent filmmaker in 2010, and </font></em><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/05/expelled_anti-vaccine_style_2011_edition.php"><em><font color="#f3a447">Ken Reibel (again) and Jamie Berstein in 2011</font></em></a><em><font color="#f3a447">. During the last of these, the organizer of Autism One brought in the Lombard, IL police to expel Ken and Jamie. It was a case of massive overkill in the name of trying to prevent discussion and debate with someone who disagrees with them and knows how to dismantle their arguments.</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">Truly, my irony meter has been fried, fricasseed, and melted to the point of vaporizing. To hear Jake whine about being asked to leave a conference and then to see Ginger opining in her usual nauseatingly self-congratulatory smug fashion about how "lovers of truth" like her and her buddies in the anti-vaccine movement don't do this sort of thing were just too much for it. I wonder if there's some sort of titanium protective case I can buy for the next one.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Oh dear…the irony meter comment. The good doctor is, one can assume, an adult. And yet, he repeatedly spews this nonsensical and immature garbage. It’s quite humourous, actually. But it does make me question his sanity.</p> <p>However, since the good doctor was so kind as to provide us with links to his drivel (personally, I believe that he constantly links to himself due to his narcissistic ego masturbation), let me get to the point of this article. This has to do with what Orac and his arsekissers have to say about kicking people out of conferences.</p> <p>Orac has <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/05/expelled_anti-vaccine_style_2011_edition.php">this</a> to say:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font><font color="#f3a447">Remember how I've said time and time again that the anti-vaccine movement is </font></em><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/04/the_anti-vaccine_movement_as_a_religion.php"><font color="#f3a447"><em>very much like a religion, a cult even</em></font></a><font color="#f3a447"><em>? One of the key attributes of religion is an intolerance for heretics, apostates, and unbelievers. The usual approach to unbelievers is either to try to convert them and then, failing that, to shun them (fortunately in most civilized countries Inquisition-like reactions are no longer common) or to skip the attempt to convert them and jump straight to the shunning. More evidence of just how true that is was presented on a silver platter to me at the </em></font><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/05/autism_one_the_yearly_anti-vaccine_quack.php"><font color="#f3a447"><em>anti-vaccine quackfest Autism One</em></font></a><font color="#f3a447"><em> that will be wrapping up today in Lombard, IL.”</em></font></p> </blockquote> <p>Wait a second…did you just read that? Why, yes, he did! He just admitted that Seth Mnookin is anti-vaccine! Why? Because Seth was intolerant of Jake as an unbeliever. He couldn’t convert Mr Crosby, so he shunned them. And, since Dr Gorski agrees with this policy when it applies to pseudo-skeptics and false scientists, then by his very definition of a crank, that makes him anti-vaccine by default.</p> <p>Good job, David!</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“As I've said time and time again. Despite the claims of the anti-vaccine movement and the sponsors of <a href="http://www.autismone.org">Autism One</a> (which, as you recall, include <a href="http://generationrescue.org">Generation Rescue</a>) this is not the behavior of an intellectually honest and open movement that wants to persuade based on science and reason. It is the behavior of a group that has something to hide, that prefers shunning and expelling those who aren't afraid to criticize it to open engagement and attempts to persuade based on the evidence. It is also the behavior of a group that thinks its members can't stand up to challenges and therefore need to be protected from criticism or contrary views”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Oh, thanks for clearing that up, Dave. So, you admit that Seth,and by association you (and your pseudo-skeptic community) are also being intellectually dishonest.</p> <p>Hey, don’t look at me; I’m merely holding him to the same standards as he holds those he labels as pseudo-science or anti-vaccine.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“[T]he behavior of the conference organizers is indicative of fear, fear of being seen doing what they do, saying what they say, and selling what they sell. Scientific meetings are not like this. Skeptical meetings are not like this either; indeed, at last year's TAM, a moon hoax believer managed to get to the front of the line to challenge Adam Savage about the Mythbusters episode on moon hoaxers. He was not expelled; in fact, Savage respectfully answered him and he was later seen at various other events at TAM. At the Lorne Trottier Symposium last year, a believer in Royal Rife quackery asked about it. The panel only started to ask him to leave after the man wore out his welcome by dominating and monopolizing the question and answer session to the point where people waiting in line behind him were denied an opportunity to ask their questions due to time constraints. In other words, he got his say and was not asked to leave until he had reached the point of showing an extreme lack of consideration for his fellow audience members waiting to ask questions of the panel.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>So, he admits that real scientists do not kick people out of conferences for disagreeing with them. In fact, they welcome debate and disagreement. So, Orac is admitting that Seth Mnookin is not a real scientist (I agree), and that he (Mr Gorski)is also not a real scientists because he is agreeing with Seth kicking Mr Crosby from the presentation. Thanks for clearing that up, Mr Gorski!</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f3a447">“</font><font color="#f3a447">Given this behavior, all I can ask is: What is Autism One afraid of[?]”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Yes, given this behaviour, what are Mr Mnookin and Mr Gorski afraid of? Are they afraid that they could be wrong about something? Oh, the horror!</p> <p>I promised myself I would never do this. I promised myself that I would refrain from using one of Orac’s childish nerdisms that my good friend Craig bastardised. But I must…I absolutely have to.</p> <p>The Hypocrisy! It Burns with the stupidity of a Thousand Oracs!!</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-92210134154827287532011-10-25T13:05:00.001-05:002011-10-25T13:08:30.347-05:00A Cornerstone of Vaccine Safety Research?<p>By Gambolputty</p> <p> </p> <p>I remember earlier this year when the Wakefield scandal reached its head. Craig and I poured endlessly over the GMC hearings, checking, rechecking, trying to determine where and what was wrong with the ‘98 Lancet study. He and I both realized that Wakefield was sloppy. Yes, I understand that many of my regular readers will disagree with this. I also share Craig’s opinion of Dr Wakefield, and I am unable to deny the fact that he was slovenly in his research. Did he fake his data? I’m still not completely convinced of that, but the evidence and motive for doing so is certainly compelling. Needless to say, the media had a field day. They celebrated the destruction of Dr Wakefield’s career. They applauded a biased hack journalist with an obvious vendetta. The airwaves were flooded for months with every lurid detail of the investigation. The false skeptics and pseudo-science windbags that infest the various “science-based” websites bragged and preened, saying that they knew all along. They crooned that the “anti-vaxxers” were too stupid to read the science and understand it. You see, they knew the study was faked, and they read the report with that preconceived notion in mind because that is how science works. Dozens of studies by prestigious organisations have shown over and over what the false skeptics have been saying all along. The matter was settled, the science has spoken. Vaccines do not cause autism.</p> <p>I’m sure some of you are wondering why I bring this up. Not to worry, my point will be evident shortly.</p> <p>Today I read an intriguing article about the 2003 Danish Thiomersal (or Thimerosal) study. This study is thought to be the cornerstone of the hypothesis that the mercury based preservative had nothing to do with the increase in autism. The study shows that after Thiomersal was removed from Danish vaccines, the incidence of autism continued to increase. So, the false skeptics said, that means that it is not in the least bit possible for vaccines to cause autism (yes, I know…big leap in logic there). The matter was closed, etcetera, etcetera.</p> <p>Those of us who believe that vaccines can cause neurological damage often return to this study. If you truly <strong>read</strong> the study, and not the abstract of the study or its conclusion, you would see that the numbers just don’t match up. It’s quite fascinating, if you don’t mind me saying. During the course of the epidemiological investigation, Denmark changed its diagnostic criteria for autism. Not only that, but the inclusion criteria changed mid-study; where, before, autism cases were only included on an in-patient basis, after 1995, they were changed to include cases on an out-patient basis. The authors of the study claim to have accounted for these statistical artifacts, but have never released the raw data to show <strong>how </strong>they were able to account for this.</p> <p>But today, an <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/scandal-exposed-in-major-study-of-autism-and-mercury-132519518.html">article</a> shows a different story being told. Emails reclaimed through the Freedom of Information Act show that CDC scientists (who claim the fore-mentioned study was independent) and the study authors manipulated and omitted data to show that there was an increase in autism diagnoses after the removal of Thiomersal from vaccines. In fact, these emails show that the CDC <strong>knew</strong> that the cases of autism were actually <strong>decreasing</strong>! That’s right…after the removal of Thiomersal, autism cases actually went down in Denmark. Which tells us that the mercury based preservative does, indeed, have a statistical impact on autism diagnoses. This, in fact, further supports Verstraeten’s emails that discuss the increase of autism from TCV’s (Thiomersal Containing Vaccines) that stated that he couldn’t make the association “go away.” And, the CDC lied about it to protect the vaccination program.</p> <p>The emails, heavily redacted, show that the CDC was aware of the decrease in autism post removal, and wanted to discuss this with the authors. The reply, from lead author Dr Madsen, says this: </p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“I am not currently at the university, but I will contact you and Poul tomorrow to make up our minds.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>I’m sure you are all familiar with who Poul is, aren’t you? That’s right, Poul Thorsen, who is currently being indicted on fraud and embezzlement. At the time, Dr Thorsen was in residence at the CDC while writing this article. Remember, the CDC claims that this study was independent, and one of their resident researchers was working for them while writing this paper. Which, to the CDC, means that the researchers who wrote this paper were independent researchers. Soon after, Dr Thorsen made a request to the director of the National Center for Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (an office of the CDC) to expedite the paper into publication.</p> <p>What’s interesting to me is how the false skeptics continue to praise how “good” the science is in this study because it supports their belief that vaccines aren’t associated with autism. Here is proof that the CDC and the authors covered up the fraud in their paper. Now, let me ask you this; are the airwaves rife with the sound of reporters covering this development? Are they shocked about the duplicity and fraud of the CDC scientists who misrepresented this study and its importance on the health of our children? Are they dragging the authors of this study through the mud like they did Dr Wakefield?</p> <p>I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I will mention it again. The hypocrisy of these false skeptics utterly fascinates me.</p> <p>Now, I’m sure there will be cries of “Conspiracy Theorist” forthcoming, but I will take the time to mention this. It isn’t much of a stretch to come to the realisation that the CDC is doing everything in its power to protect the Vaccination program. Because, if it were to become wide-spread knowledge that they have been covering up information about the safety of childhood vaccines, falsely claiming that they are safer than they let on, then the faith in doctors, scientists, and the pharmaceutical giants would be shattered irrevocably. </p> <p>Isn’t this, to you, a compelling reason to fake and manipulate data so that it shows that vaccines are as safe as they claim?</p> <p>If they’ve lied about this, what else have they lied to you about?</p> MySocratesNotehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01823121688925710624noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-39797274297835176572011-09-29T10:30:00.001-05:002011-09-30T12:59:08.008-05:00The Perils of Engaging Pseudo-Scientific False Skeptics<p>By Gambolputty</p> <p> </p> <p>Hello, my friends. It’s been some time since I have had the pleasure to be blessed by your presence and enjoyed your comments and thoughts. As I said in my previous post, I would update this site infrequently. But, there are times when a tidbit comes down the wire that I find too irresistible, too juicy, to not pass up. All I have to do is look no further than our resident brothel of misinformation and pseudo-skeptical hypocrisy; Respectful Insolence.</p> <p>It never fails to amuse me when those who subscribe to the “Skeptic” canard fall into the same accusatory rhetoric that they accuse their opponents of. For example, they foam at the mouth when someone draws devil’s horns on Dr Offit. They caterwauled and beat their breasts (and still do..and what has it been? 2 years now?) when Age of Autism posted an off-color picture of several “Skeptic” heroes having a Thanksgiving dinner that made allusions to cannibalism. They wailed and gnashed their teeth when someone makes a suggestive comment about a doctor being under the table servicing Dr Offit.</p> <p>And then you have Orac’s latest crapfest, entitled “<a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/09/the_perils_of_engaging_the_public.php">The Perils of Engaging the Public</a>.”</p> <p>Mr Gorski laments the fact that Doctors sometimes speak in public venues. He doesn’t like the fact that, when speaking publicly and allowing a period of questions and answers, that there may be someone who disagrees with their stance. Here’s what he has to say.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“</font><font color="#f79646">People wonder why scientists involved in controversial areas are reluctant to address the public. Courtesy of our favorite band of anti-vaccine bloggers at the anti-vaccine propaganda blog Age of Autism, we see yet another reason why. Yes, AoA's resident attack poodle Jake Crosby decided to disrupt the Q&A session of a public talk (videocast </font></em><a href="http://videocast.nih.gov/Summary.asp?File=16828"><em><font color="#f79646">here</font></em></a><em><font color="#f79646">) by the editor-in-chief of The Lancet, Fiona Godlee.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Resident attack poodle. Man, that’s classy, yes? Attributing a young man with diagnosed Asperger’s Syndrome to a yapping animal? Since I am someone who is diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, I am utterly and completely offended by this. But, let’s continue with the discussion:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“This is how cranks behave. They ramble on, monopolizing precious Q&A time without regard to the rest of the audience, and then, when the exasperated moderator asks them to get to the point, they "continue, undeterred." In this, Jake reminds me a lot of the Royal Rife guy who "continued undeterred" at the Trottier Symposium last year in Montreal after multiple requests that he get to the point and then, later, more pointed requests that he yield the microphone in order to give someone else a chance to ask a question. I will, however, thank Jake for mentioning Respectful Insolence. I like to know I'm making a difference in a young man's life.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Oh, I love this. Since Mr Crosby found some of Fionna Godlee’s presentation inaccurate and mentioned those inaccuracies, then he’s “monopolizing precious Q&A time without regard for the rest of the audience.” And I doubt he is having any influence on Mr Crosby, other than derogatory amusement and a clear example of how doctors and scientists are not supposed to act.</p> <p>The comments in Mr Gorski’s rabid diatribe are even better. For example, someone named lilady (whom I have reprimanded several times on various websites under another guise) opines:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“I viewed the video...it was even "better" than I thought...Boy Wonder Cub Reporter Crosby starts his harangue at 54:06 into the video and continues his nasty rambling attack on Fiona Godlee for a full three minutes.</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">I stated it before and I am stating it again Jake does not have Asperger Syndrome. He blogged about his past experiences of being on prescribed zonking medication and receiving special education services when he was "misdiagnosed". IMO, Jake was probably diagnosed correctly with ADD or ADHD...and when he heard of the disease dejour- autism-he and his warrior mommy had him re-diagnosed with the Asperger Syndrome label and he became the poster boy for AoA.</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">He is just a nasty kid with an inflated ego fed by the sycophants at AoA.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>This is gold, isn’t it? I also viewed the video, and I’m having a difficult time seeing anywhere in the video where Mr Crosby was anything but unfailingly polite. It was clear that he was nervous, and I applaud him for coming forward and defending someone and something he believes in. The above commenter, though, believes that since Mr Crosby disagreed with Ms Godlee, then he was making a “nasty, rambling attack.” This is a simple, elementary concept that she is apparently unable to grasp. As I mentioned before, I’ve called her on it before. Just because someone disagrees with you, it doesn’t mean they are attacking you. This is obviously too difficult for her to comprehend, sadly. Not only that, she makes a completely evidence free statement, saying that Mr Crosby doesn’t have Asperger’s Syndrome, that borders on libel (since it is clearly meant to damage Mr Crosby’s reputation). And her final statement? Pure hypocrisy since Mr Gorski is just a nasty big kid with an inflated ego fed by the sycophants at Respectful Insolence. Keep in mind, also, that she claims to be a registered nurse.</p> <p>Here’s another gem from a lickspittle named Marc:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“Wow--I think it's been a long time since I've seen such a diatribe as Jake's "heroic" recap of himself taking on Big Pharma directly. Incredible! Aside from referring to himself in the third person in the title (always a great sign that entertainment will follow), he misrepresents himself at the talk (he wasn't representing GW--he was representing AoA and hiding that makes him a fraud in my book)!”</font></em> </p> </blockquote> <p>How is he misrepresenting himself? He is a student there, yes? Doesn’t that mean that he is with GW? I highly doubt that Age of Autism sent him there. In fact, I can say with relative certainty that he went on his own. Mr Crosby has fixated on the Vaccine/Autism connection, Dr Wakefield’s part in it particularly, and he is pursuing that to the best of his ability. Those with Asperger’s do tend to fixate on certain interests, do they not? This, too, borders on libel in that it is clearly meant to harm Mr Crosby’s reputation.</p> <p>Here’s another one from someone named Chris:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“I object to "attack poodle" because standard poodles are wonderful dogs. They are intelligent water retrievers (the cutting of their curly fur is to keep the joints warm while making it manageable). Unfortunatel dog breeders decided to "play" with the breed and created the "toy poodle." Those little yappy things are an abomination, especially the one that belonged to my paternal grandparents.</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">Young Master Crosby would be better described as an "attack toy poodle."”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Such classy people over at RI. True paragons of society, these.</p> <p>Then someone named Reuben issues this following comment which sounds quite threatening to me:</p> <blockquote> <p><font color="#f79646"><em>“Oh, he goes to George Washington alright. And his professors are well aware of his representing himself as being from there without clarification of being just a student. They are not happy. </em></font></p> <p><font color="#f79646"><em>I personally can't wait to show up at his masters project presentation and ask some questions.”</em></font></p> </blockquote> <p>Not only does that sound threatening, but Reuben clearly has intent to harm Mr Crosby’s reputation.</p> <p>And lastly, Orac the Quack makes this statement:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“I have a lot of readers who are "on the spectrum" and rely on them to tell me when I've gone too far, which, fortunately, is rare. However, unlike Young Master Crosby, when I screw up and it is compellingly pointed out to me (i.e., pointed out in a way that persuades me), I do change course and try to make up for my mistakes.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>No, David, it is not rare. Nor would you listen if you were told you went too far. You don’t perceive this as a mistake because Mr Crosby disagrees with you. And you will continue to make denigrative comments as long as you are cheered on by your mindless sycophants.</p> <p>So, in conclusion, Mr Gorski, who exalts himself for being someone who is a proponent of free speech, does not like it when people disagree with him. In fact, he thinks that people who disagree with the established paradigm should not have a say, nor should they be allowed to defend themselves or others. When speaking publically and allowing Questions and Answers, then those whom he disagrees with should not be allowed a say.</p> <p>Why, that sounds remarkably like censorship, doesn’t it? This goes back to what my friend used to say. Do not question; do not disagree.</p> <p>I am more and more convinced that Orac’s definition of Skepticism is nothing more than a fanatical religion trying to hide under the skirts of “legitimate” science.</p> <p> </p> <p>Addendum:</p> <p>Apparently, my post yesterday ruffled a few feathers. The responses were extremely amusing.</p> <p>Someone named Sauceress had a sniveling tirade concerning my posting (and refused to link…hey, I linked to Dave’s drivel. At least Dave has the decency to link to the sites he quotes). She spends a good portion of her regurgitation taking my comments out of context and misrepresenting what I was actually saying. Not surprising in the least considering that this is their typical <em>Modus Operandi</em>. Then, she brings forth the completely mature and totally sane reference to the Irony Meter. Oh dear…</p> <p>She concludes her rant with this:</p> <blockquote> <p><font color="#f79646"><em>“So in Gambolputty's eyes, showing up to ask questions infers intent to harm Mr. Crosby's reputation.”</em></font></p> </blockquote> <p>No, but the tone implied in Reuben’s comment certainly did. Doesn’t help that she took the comment out of context and misrepresented what I actually said. Particularly the part where I mentioned that it “sounds threatening to me.” Oh well, I expect no less from Orac’s drooling brown-nosers. And here I was hoping that my post would meet their approval. After all, that is my greatest goal in life; to be adored and cow-towed to in the same way as their great and powerful master, Orac. Oh, whatever will I do, knowing that they don’t approve of my point of view? Oh, woe is me.</p> <p>Reuben then chimes in, commenting that he in no way meant his comment as an attempt to attack Mr Crosby’s reputation, which is reassuring. However, he takes one step forward and two steps back with this:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“If that blogger has qualms about what is written here or elsewhere, why not come over for a chat? We can give them the dictionary definition of libel and let hilarity ensue.</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">The difference between this comment thread and their echo chamber is that bullshit is not tolerated. Had any of us been threatening to him, the rest of us would have called them on it.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Why not come over here for a chat? No one is stopping you, and I don’t moderate. The difference between my comments and Orac’s is that a) I DO tolerate bullshit and promptly make fun of it and the person doing it and b) I don’t have a cadre of fawning arse-lickers trying to ingratiate themselves to me. And the definition of Libel is pretty easy to understand:</p> <ul> <li>A published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation; a written defamation </li> <li>The action or crime of publishing such a statement </li> <li>A false and malicious statement about a person (claiming that Mr Crosby does not have Asperger's implies that he is lying about his condition. This is inherently defamatory) </li> <li>A thing or circumstance that brings undeserved discredit on a person by misrepresentation (claiming that Mr Crosby was misrepresenting his status as a student of GW, claiming that he was using it to claim he was a representative, meets this criteria). </li> </ul> <p>One of the reasons I don’t post over there is because I want Mr Gorski to have as little information about me as possible. The previous blog owner had considerable trouble with someone stalking, threatening him, and forcing him to go into hiding. I’d rather not have similar things happen to me, and I prefer to keep both my location and my employment a secret, especially knowing that these self-proclaimed “skeptics” are as petty and underhanded as those they ridicule.</p> <p>Oh well…at least Orac’s mindless flunkies are completely predictable and entertaining in their own sadly pathetic way.</p> <p> </p> <p>Further Addendum:</p> <p>Someone named Antaeus Feldspar goes into a lengthy diatribe regarding my understanding of libel. While his comment is lengthy and somewhat informative, it suffers from a serious and quite obvious flaw; I stated, quite clearly, that it <strong>borders</strong> on libel. I never once said that it <strong>was</strong> libel.</p> <p>Reading comprehension fail…alas.</p> MySocratesNotehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01823121688925710624noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-46166335305159069592011-07-13T14:09:00.001-05:002011-07-13T14:10:55.633-05:00Introductions Are in Order, and An Asinine Post on an Anti-Science Blog<p>by Gambolputty</p> <p>Hello, everyone. Our dear friend MySocratesNote has stepped away from this lovely little blog and has passed the reins to <em>moi</em>. Some of you may have noticed my posting recently under this name, but I assure you that I have been posting online, countering the misinformation of those like Orac, Steve Novella, Stephen Barrett and others for quite some time (though under a different moniker). Now, I believe a little introduction is in order.</p> <p>I have chosen to remain anonymous, and this is for a number of reasons. Firstly, I love my job, and I don’t feel comfortable revealing too much about where I work or what I do. Seeing what has happened to my friend <a href="http://my-socrates-note.blogspot.com/2011/06/farewells-and-epiphanies.html">here</a>, I feel that it is best for me to maintain my anonymity. I will tell you that I am a teacher (among other things), and I will just leave it at that. For some time, I have been a silent contributor to this blog. So when MySocratesNote left it to me, he did so in the hopes that I would continue with his legacy and take the time to point out the dishonesty and hypocrisy of the false skeptic community.</p> <p>So that is it, in a nutshell. Unlike some, I do not have the time or energy to post here daily (or in some cases hourly *cough* Kim Wombles *cough*). I will post infrequently, or when the mood suits me. But you can be assured that I will continue to try to post with the same amount snark as Craig did, but mixed in with my own humour and British witticisms.</p> <p>Now, on to what I wanted to discuss.</p> <p>Today, I glanced over at Mr Gorski’s (I refuse to give him the honorific) misinformation site and noticed that he is disturbed by an article written on Age of Autism. Then again, when is he not?</p> <p>His latest excrement, “<a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/07/a_disturbing_post_on_an_anti-vaccine_blog.php">A Disturbing Post on an Anti-Vaccine Blog</a>” is yet another tour-de-farce of logical fallacies and delusions of grandeur masquerading as a martyr complex.</p> <p>The gist of this not so remarkable piece of fiction is that he his afraid; he’s concerned that Kent Heckenlively is promoting violence against some unnamed entity. He thinks that Kent has dropped off the deep end, and should be carefully monitored:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“Notice how Heckenlively refers to "Dark Forces." Not "dark forces," but "Dark Forces," capitalized, as though it's name or these Forces are so malevolent that they need to be capitalized, much as the Force in <em>Star Wars</em> was so important and powerful that it needed to be capitalized as a formal name. Worse, the imagery is downright paranoid. These Dark Forces, according to Heckenlively, are out to destroy the activists and "scientists" who have bought into the idea that vaccines cause autism, rather than the real situation, which is that they are trying to guard public health against the return of vaccine-preventable diseases that will occur if vaccination rates fall due to the sort of propaganda that AoA promotes.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Notice how Gorski refuses to acknowledge that there have indeed been cases of corporate interests destroying the livelihood of those who threaten their profits. Tobacco did this for years. Pharmaceutical corporations have also been caught in the act of doing exactly what Mr Heckenlively said. “We need to find them and destroy them where they live.” What is so humourous about this is that Dave doesn’t seem to realise that this is commonplace in today’s corporate environment. He tries to paint Kent as a conspiracy monger and accuses him of paranoia and seeing shadows in dark places.</p> <p>Oh, the irony.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“I have a hard time characterizing Kent's post as anything other than disturbing, if not downright scary. Think about it this way. When someone starts to view his opponents as "wicked people" deserving to be wiped out by God (or, as other translations of this particular psalm put it, to be "destroyed for their wickedness"), it's just a short hop to thinking that perhaps believers should take matters into their own hands and start smiting the evildoers themselves, thinking it doing the Lord's work. In any case, it's very clear that Heckenlively is, at the very least, praying to God to "deal with" those whom he considers to be "wicked people out there trying to keep our children from getting better." In the context of the psalm, "dealing with" these wicked people clearly means to destroy them.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>That seems pretty bleeding paranoid, doesn’t it? Notice how poor little Dave tries to milk as much drama from this as possible by saying that some translations of Psalm 94 call for the wicked to be destroyed, all in an obvious and transparent attempt to color Mr Heckenlively in the worst possible light. Only paranoid conspiracy theorists pray to God to destroy the wicked! Notice how he tries to twist the meaning of what Kent wrote and claim that Kent is praying for God to destroy the evil-doers. He says that “dealing with” these wicked people means that they must be destroyed. I’m quite certain that if Mr Heckenlively meant to use that particular translation of Psalm 94, he would have. No, it’s not clear that Kent is praying for them to be destroyed; he’s praying for them to be punished. But the half-witted twit has to make this more menacing, more ominous, by changing the meaning of the words to suit his own agenda.</p> <p>Ah, poor Dave. So persecuted. Such a drama-queen.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“Heckenlively and I are clearly on different sides of the autism-vaccine issue. Even so, I have never wished ill upon him. Hell, I've never wished ill upon even J. B. Handley, even though he has frequently attacked me. Well, maybe just a little bit of ill, such as embarrassment for his ridiculous statements and his promotion of anti-vaccine quackery and that his efforts to harm public health fail. Certainly I have never wished that God Almighty destroy him or Heckenlively for his wickedness or publicly wished ill upon him. Yet here we have Kent Heckenlively praying to God publicly to destroy his enemies. Presumably, that would include me, plus a number of people who are my friends, acquaintances, and fellow travelers in promoting vaccination and refuting anti-vaccine pseudoscience.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Smell that? No no, you don’t need to scratch your computer monitor as I am more than certain you can smell it from where you are sitting. That, my friends, is called Bullshit! He’s never wished ill on Kent or the people at Age of Autism? What about wishing that they would all go to jail for their beliefs? Or using one of his masturbatory fantasies that he describes as a “meme” to go after the anti-vaccine movement (chomping their brains)? Yes, I understand that it is his poor attempt at humour, but we all know that deep down in his cold, barren, childish and bent little mind that he fervently wishes for this to come true. Repeatedly, he twists Kent’s words to get as much drama as possible, all so that Orac can seem more saintly. Yes, Dave is such a martyr! Oh, what he goes through to distribute his moronic drivel to his drooling arse-lickers. I’m sure you can all hear him sighing with his burden. Also, it would appear as if Mr Gorski has a bit of a guilty conscience, yes? Orac’s paranoia is so deep seated that he thinks that Kent is actually calling out for violence to be done against <strong><u>him</u></strong>, that <strong><u>he</u></strong> should be destroyed for his wicked ways.</p> <p>Then he closes with this shart:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“I don't know what is going on in Heckenlively's life right now that has brought him to this. The pain in his writing is palpable; he really does sound like a man on the edge, a man who is ready to break. I can only hope he finds a way to deal with whatever is going on in his life right now and return to a state of normalcy. We might be opponents when it comes to the issue of vaccines and autism, but, unlike Kent, I don't want God--or anyone else--to destroy anyone over this.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Nor does he care. He’s too self absorbed in his own narcissism to care what happens to anyone outside of his myopia. Once more, he promotes the myth that Kent is praying for God to destroy him, all so he can make himself more saintly. I swear, reading this, you’d think that he was in line for a beatification.</p> MySocratesNotehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01823121688925710624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-5675931726288294692011-06-14T13:19:00.001-05:002011-06-14T13:19:37.109-05:00I Bid You All Welcome to Autistic Alms<p>Please, take the time to visit my new site, <a href="http://autisticalms.wordpress.com/">Autistic Alms</a>. I’d like to make this site a sandbox of sorts that presents thoughts and ideas on how to help our children. At first, I’d like to post a few questions to my readers and allow them to discuss their thoughts. Also, feel free to write up articles of your own and submit them (you will get full credit, I assure you). I look forward to seeing you all there, and please, tell you friends!</p> <p>We all need a little help now and then, and I would like everyone to stop by and post your thoughts. See you there…</p> MySocratesNotehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01823121688925710624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-68457012875544002442011-06-09T15:49:00.001-05:002011-06-09T19:50:52.329-05:00Farewells and Epiphanies<p>I’d like all of you to get comfortable. Have a seat, open up a brewski (if that’s your thing) or a glass of wine (ditto) or your morning coffee and sit back and relax. This post will be vulgar; it will be raw; and most of all, it will more than likely piss off people on all sides of the argument. Likely, some people will never speak to me again. That’s fine; I’m ok with that. It’s not like it hasn’t happened before. Besides, it lets me know who of you out there are truly my friends and those who just pay lip service (hey look…flowers!)</p> <p>When we write online, we all use personas. Those who read our blogs or articles or whatever expect to see certain things from the person writing. In Orac’s case, his readers expect to see insolence and snark as well as biased scientific discussions. With Kim Wombles, her readers expect to read about community and acceptance while she calls the kettle black. With me, I’d like to think that many of you expect my usual dry wit, my sarcastic humor, and for me to point out and laugh at the false skeptics and hypocritical science poseurs.</p> <p>Today, I’m putting aside that persona. I’d like all of you to imagine me sitting there with you, this big, tall, burly man, gray in my long brown hair and short beard, intelligent and earnest blue eyes behind my glasses. I look almost scholarly, and I look very very tired. You see, I’m going to talk to you straight; no sarcasm (well, not much), no poking fun at anyone (ditto), just me telling you things as I see them. If you don’t like it, too fucking bad. I could really give a rat’s ass; there’s the door, and don’t let it hit you in the ass on the way out because I already have too much shit to clean up. And if you’re reading this and you’re curious about what I’m going to talk about and want to continue reading, then please continue.</p> <p>One thing I’ve noticed about the online Autism wars is that things get nasty. People do and say things that are appalling and disgusting, and then they go on doing it. Each side wants to hurt the other in some way; one side tries to hurt someone’s livelihood, the other wishes that their opponents would all die of deadly diseases; one side thinks that their opponents should be jailed because they believe that those opponents are culpable in injuring and harming children, while the other wants to put their opponents on an island so that they can all die off. A while back, I noticed a comment on AoA that surprised and shocked me. Someone had posted information about Dr. Gorski and where he worked, etc. This, to me, was crossing a line. Gorski’s allies <a href="http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-price-of-skepticism/">jumped in</a> and showed their support, agreeing that it was an underhanded and tasteless thing to do. I <a href="http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/06/david-gorskis-financial-pharma-ties-what-he-didnt-tell-you.html?cid=6a00d8357f3f2969e2013484b348c9970c#comment-6a00d8357f3f2969e2013484b348c9970c">spoke up</a> on AoA and <a href="http://my-socrates-note.blogspot.com/2010/06/crossing-line.html">expressed my displeasure</a> at what was done. Then, several months later, AoA did it again, showing a picture of Elyse Anders (Skepchick…she and I had a very pleasant email exchange afterwards..while she and I don’t agree about autism and vaccines, I can say she is a lovely and very sweet woman and that it was a real pleasure corresponding with her) and her child that seemed pretty threatening. Again, <a href="http://my-socrates-note.blogspot.com/2010/12/aoa-goes-too-far.html">I spoke up</a>, putting my foot down and refusing to post on AoA or defend them. <a href="http://kwomblescountering.blogspot.com/2010/12/nasty-business.html">Kim Wombles</a> and <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/12/the_age_of_autism_counterattack_begins_a.php">Gorski</a> and all of their clan stepped up and wailed about how horrible AoA was for doing something like that. When someone commenting on an article on <a href="http://pediatrics.about.com/b/2011/04/17/autism-now-on-pbs-newshour.htm">about.com</a> attacked Ken Reibel’s son, I spoke up, castigating that person even though I cannot stand Reibel. No matter how much you loathe or despise someone, there are things that should not be pulled into the argument. You don’t attack their livelihood, and you don’t attack their family.</p> <p>So, what do the false skeptics do when one of theirs begins stalking and <a href="http://my-socrates-note.blogspot.com/2010/02/to-ken-reibel.html">harassing</a> someone who isn’t in their little clique? When that person starts posting information about where someone lives, pulling up comments and posts from 5 or <a href="http://my-socrates-note.blogspot.com/2010/09/musings-on-farcical-compensation.html">more years ago</a> by the person’s wife and posting them online (meaning that they dug really deep to get them), making mysterious phone calls to the individual and then hanging up when the person answers, and posting information about where <a href="http://www.science20.com/countering_tackling_woo/reinforcements_community_brings_antivaccine_narratives_provide_more_drama-79535">someone works</a>? What do they do when the person being harassed <a href="http://my-socrates-note.blogspot.com/2011/06/building-communities-by-exclusion-or-i.html">politely asks</a> for the false skeptic to please stop because the actions are threatening and frightening to his family? Do they gather and defend this person, expressing their support and castigating the offending individual and loudly, proudly, make him an outcast to their elite club?</p> <p>*chirp chirp*</p> <p>That’s right…they do nothing. Not a fucking thing, because in their eyes, he didn’t do anything wrong. You see, this is the very reason I started this blog. </p> <p>I see this double standard all the time. The false skeptics wail and moan and gnash their teeth at how horrible those mean, cruel, evil “anti-vaxxers” are, but when they do the EXACT SAME THING, no one says a word. It’s ok when they do it, because they are righteous and holy in their cause. They are so assured that they are right and just that anyone who disagrees with them is anti-science/anti-vaxxer. It’s ok when they insult these parents, calling them tea-baggers and conspiracy theorists, because they KNOW they are right, and nothing anyone can do or say will ever change their minds. They are not open to new evidence. They do it because they feel that they are fighting for the health and welfare of children.</p> <p>It’s a terrible thing what the AoAers make misogynistic comments about how a doctor is under the table giving Offit a hummer, but it’s ok when they say that Jenny McCarthy is a blonde bimbo who shows her bewbz, and why should you listen to her? It’s absolutely traumatizing when the eebil “anti-vaxxers” say that the Pharmaceutical industry and their shills are harming children, but it’s ok for them to call these people killers, or to open a website that accuses Jenny McCarthy of killing thousands of people. The world is going to end because the “anti-vaxxers” compare the tactics of the false skeptics to Nazis, but it’s ok when one of their number (the same fuckwit I mentioned that was stalking and harassing someone he doesn’t like) makes a shitty movie parody that casts one of the AoAers as Hitler and the rest of the editors of the site as his cabinet.</p> <p>Really, it’s all very, very sickening.</p> <p>The thing is, though, that AoA does the same thing. They are so assured in their righteousness, that they are right and just in their actions, that anyone who disagrees with them is a pharmaceutical shill, etc. etc. They do it because they feel they are fighting for the health of their children.</p> <p>The only thing I see are a bunch of fucking assholes pointing fingers at each other and calling each other names. And you know what? It doesn’t do a damned thing to help our children.</p> <p>That’s right…every single one of them should be fucking ashamed of themselves. And that includes me.</p> <p>Orac isn’t fooling anyone but his sycophants and lickspittles. He claims to be science and evidence based, but then he declares from on high, with the angels above singing “The Science Has Spoken.” He’s critical of everything that contradicts his warm, safe little world view. He goes through the studies that call into question his paradigm, picking them apart and going through them with a fine toothed comb. He says he is not a friend of the Pharmaceutical industry, but he doesn’t question the crappy studies they release that supports his point of view. He doesn’t question the studies that, when they discover that the rates of autism in children with MMR are significantly higher in one age cohort, the study writers adjust the age cohorts to massage the data. He doesn’t question when a researcher compares autism rates in one city to vaccine uptake in another, then uses that to claim there is no association. Those are all fine and dandy in his book, and they reinforce what he already knows, so you can add confirmation bias to his list of tricks. And then he turns around and laughs at the parents and scientists who obviously have confirmation bias when presenting their studies. To Orac, real scientists don’t make a claim that states that vaccines could cause autism. And when a scientist is presented that shows a method and mechanism that shows that, he repeats that no real scientists would make the claim that vaccines could cause autism. He complains about censorship, but doesn’t want anyone who disagrees with him to have a say.</p> <p>He doesn’t do a damned thing to help our kids. It’s a game to him, a way to make himself feel superior. But in truth, he’s a narcissist who can only make himself feel better by ridiculing others. His only goal is to be right, and rubbing it in the faces of those he doesn’t like. But, when he’s proven wrong on something, the subject is never broached again…the subject is no longer mentioned.</p> <p>Kim Wombles is, quite possibly, the biggest violator of the “Oh no he DI-IN’T” club. She gets all flustered and angry and offended when people she doesn’t like insult her or her friends. It’s awful, you see? It’s terrible! They should instead write about building communities and talking about the joy that their children bring, and not about calling people dumbasses and going on and on and ON about how much better they are than their opponents because they believe one way and their opponents believe another (like she does). She can insult them, though…that’s ok, because that’s all part of building a community. They should write about love and friendship, but not write hateful comments about others’ beliefs (like she does). And flowers…don’t forget the flowers! And woo…gotta say woo at least 40 times an article. Oh, and when they do write about the joy that their children bring, it’s ok for her to ridicule them because she says they are dumbasses. And even dumbasses have feelings (you all may think I’m kidding or being sarcastic here…I assure you, I am not. This is how she really is). She complains about censorship, but doesn’t want anyone who disagrees with her to have a say.</p> <p>Do as she says, not as she does. Pot…kettle…cunt. It’s all a game to her, you see. A way to prove to herself that she’s better than the people she doesn’t like. In actuality, she’s an even lower form of scum than she thinks they are. Again, not a damned thing to help our kids.</p> <p>Ken Reibel trolls the internet looking for articles on vaccines and autism. He deliberately makes inflammatory comments to offend and humiliate parents of vaccine injured children. He accuses them of lying, of making up stories about their children’s injuries. He hounds parents like myself relentlessly, stalking them, pulling up posts and comments from their spouses that are years and years old. He harasses them endlessly, then laments when he is kicked out of conferences hosted by the people he hates. You see, it’s all a game to him. He gets his jollies by intimidating these parents, hoping that his badgering will get them to just shut the fuck up! He complains about censorship, but doesn’t want anyone who disagrees with him to have a say. But is he doing anything to help our kids?</p> <p>Age of Autism is an online website that focuses on the vaccine/autism link. Once, they posted lots of information about diet, treatments, and doctors who assist with helping autistic children feel better. Lately, they’ve been focusing on calling people names, lamenting about how everyone is so mean to them, and complaining about how no one takes them seriously. They write scathing articles about those that oppose them, claiming that they are all pharma-shills. They focus on the studies that show no link between vaccines and autism, running through them with a fine toothed comb, but they aren’t critical of any of the studies that do show a connection. They relentlessly support a failed doctor and researcher who was shown to be unethical and sloppy in his research, even if he had good intentions. They relentlessly perseverate over another failed researcher who stole money and went into hiding. They complain about being censored, but they censor any disparaging comment posted on their site.</p> <p>But, is what they are doing helping any children? Are they helping parents of autistic children?</p> <p>Me, I talk about hypocrisy and double standards. I ridicule these doctors and science poseurs, showing that they aren’t really science and evidence based. I show them that they are just as much of a cult and a religion as those they deem “anti-vaxxers” because they cling so desperately to their dogma, because they worship science. Anyone who disagrees with anything they say is a heretic. And for that, I am outcast. For that, I am anathema! Just because I disagree with them about how science really works, just because I point out that science is not a god and should not be worshipped, I am shunned. While I don’t think I’m playing a game, I do enjoy bringing them down a notch or two. Their arrogance deserves to be mocked. Their hypocrisy deserves to be ridiculed. Their ignorance deserves to be brought to light.</p> <p>But am I doing anything to help our children?</p> <p>Nope, none of us are helping our children. Oh, sure, Orac and his cronies will say that by supporting vaccinations, they are helping children. They’re not, though…they’re just laughing at those they feel are inferior. And Kim will say that she’s building a supportive community that these parents can share their stories. She’s not, though…she focuses on the “angry places” like AoA and instead waxes poetic about how much better she is than these angry parents. AoA will say that they are trying to help vaccine injured children by exposing the corruption in the Pharmaceutical industry. They aren’t really helping children, though, because this whole thing has descended into name calling and finger pointing.</p> <p>I include myself in all of that, too. I think it’s important to acknowledge your faults, especially when you are pointing out the faults in others. To really expose hypocrisy for what it is, self knowledge of your own flaws and hypocrisies is essential. But, again…that’s not really helping anyone.</p> <p>I sometimes wonder if people like David Gorski and I could have been friends. He has great taste in music, and he and I share a lot of the same interests. I also find some of his blog posts extremely fascinating, and sometimes downright funny. Same with Reibel…could we have been friends? I admit, the guy is downright hilarious sometimes (that is sincere, btw). I tried being friends with Kim Wombles, but I have this little bias about being betrayed and stabbed in the back. </p> <p>So, with this realization, I am going to quit writing as MySocratesNote. I’m sure many of you have seen this coming for a little while, but I don’t think I’m helping my son by doing this. In fact, I am going to follow the advice of a friend of mine and stop writing as myself entirely. I will be going underground and writing behind the wall of anonymity.</p> <p>At this time, I haven’t decided whether or not I’m going to close the site, leave it alone floating in cyberspace, or turn it over to a friend and let him write as MySocratesNote. One thing I will be doing is creating a new website. On it, we will discuss things that help our children. We will discuss things like how to stop a severely autistic child from playing with his feces, or the best way to potty train them. We will discuss treatments, both biomedical and mainstream. All will be welcome. All will have a say. Oh, there will be rules, yes. One of them will be no discussions about Vaccines, because to be honest with you, I am sick to fucking death of hearing about it, and those discussions are taking place in earnest on dozens of other sites around the web. And those that break my rules will get my usual 3 strikes before they are banned.</p> <p>So, expect one more post after this from me as MySocratesNote. That post will have the new address of a site I am building that will focus on the things that help our children with special needs.</p> <p>I encourage everyone to link to this article here. I want everyone who is in this war to read this. I want everyone to know just how petty this war has gotten. I want everyone to come up with ideas and thoughts about what I should write about on my site. I’d like the new site to be a sandbox of sorts, and I will even allow people to submit articles and ideas. I would like everyone to share their ideas about how to calm our children when they go into their rages. I’d like ideas on how to prevent meltdowns when you think they are coming. How to deal with SSI; how to deal with Medicaid; what resources to use to supplement insurance. I want this to be a REAL community that is focused on helping our children, not a pseudo-community that excludes people because you don’t like how they think or because you think they are dumbasses.</p> <p>Even if you hate me; even if you think I’m full of shit, I am 100% positive that EVERYONE can agree that this is about our children. So, I challenge all of you to put aside the hatred, the bickering, the bigotry, and help each other out. Many of us have autistic children, and we are all in this together. So, let’s do this, people!</p> MySocratesNotehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01823121688925710624noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-66885067767963174762011-06-06T15:17:00.001-05:002011-06-06T15:18:14.750-05:00Building Communities by Exclusion: Or, I accept everyone…except you. I don’t like you.<p>I promised myself I would back off from blogging for a while. I swore that I would focus on my work and my family and not get drawn into the stupidity and arrogance of the false skeptics and the pseudoscience nutjobs. We all know them. They are the ones who ridicule parents like myself because we believe that our children were injured by vaccines. They are the ones who laugh at parents of vaccine injured children, proclaiming that we have all the answers and that we think we know everything, all while arrogantly proclaiming to have the answers and that they know everything. They are the ones who make a game of mocking parents of vaccine injured children, then they become all offended that the parents fight back. They are the ones who cling so desperately to flawed epidemiological studies, and laugh that parents of vaccine injured children have no science to defend their hypothesis. And, when the parents offer a hypothesis, they refuse because they claim that there is no more to learn and that they already know what will be found. The same ones who laughingly mock a father who writes about his son’s first words in 5 years and how that made him feel.</p> <p>And so I found myself clicking on a link that one of my Facebook friends sent me. Lo and behold, it was an <a href="http://www.science20.com/countering_tackling_woo/reinforcements_community_brings_antivaccine_narratives_provide_more_drama-79535">article</a> from a well known false skeptic, Kim Wombles. Yep, I’m sure you’re all familiar with her.</p> <p>After reading her article titled, “The Reinforcements That Community Brings: Anti-Vaccine Narratives Provide More Drama,” I spent some time laughing uproariously…I mean, it tells you everything you need to know about bias and how illogical her article will be when she starts it off in the title with an insult and a generalization fallacy. I mean, my goodness, calling someone anti-vaccine and full of woo does so much to help build community and promote meaningful discussion, don’tcha know? So, I will point out what’s wrong with her article and then discuss what was said in the comments.</p> <p>So, the basic essence of her article is that the online autism community has polarized itself. For the most part, I agree. People have taken sides in this discussion, and all sides think they are the right one. Though, personally, I don’t feel I’m on anyone’s side but the children's. I don’t agree with many of the things AoA does, and the same goes for the false-skeptics. So, I guess you would say I’m somewhere in the middle. That doesn’t matter to Kim, though. I’m either with her or against her.</p> <p>However, there is more to what Kim is saying here. She has already decided that she is right and that everyone who doesn’t agree with her paradigm is wrong. She blithely continues to say that those that she has determined are wrong are not open to new evidence that contradicts their world view, so they should not be reached out to; i.e. they should not be made part of the community. Because she says she is “science-based,” then, to her, that means she is superior to those she opposes. So she should try to reach (read that as brainwash) those who are on the fence or who are moderate. These people can be persuaded to not think critically about what the Pharmaceutical industry publishes and tries to disguise as science and that they should believe everything they are told without question. </p> <p>In other words, she has already made it clear that she is not open to new evidence that contradicts her world view. She creates polarization by claiming that those who do not agree with her are anti-science, anti-vaccine, or a dumbass, a tactic we see all to often in the false-skeptic community. She doesn’t even acknowledge that the tactics she is using are what created the whole polarization in the first place (“My child was injured by a vaccine.” “Correlation is not causation, so stop spreading anti-vaccine fears, dumbass.”). She accuses those who disagree with her of being like a religion who hold fervently to their beliefs. But, if you read this blog post carefully, you’ll clearly see that her and the rest of the false-skeptics are as well. I’ll get to that in a minute. But first, I will continue with my analysis.</p> <p>She continues with a brief discussion about how Jamie Bernstein and Ken Reibel were removed from the recent Autism One conference. She goes on to say that the removal was due to Ken being recognized. Of course, I will give the benefit of the doubt to Ken and Jamie in that that may very well be how they <strong>perceived </strong>what happened because of their personal biases. However, the reality is quite a bit different than the perception, and this is something that Kim, I think, deliberately failed to disclose in her article. By their own admission, Ken and Jamie were breaking the rules of the conference by taking photographs of the event. The Autism One terms and conditions specifically state that no photography is allowed. Don’t believe me? Read the <a href="http://www.autismone.org/content/autismone-conference-policies">link</a>. But Kim didn’t provide that info, did she? Reading her article, she leaves the impression that what Autism One did was wrong, and that those on “her side” wouldn’t do anything like that. And yet, she leaves out the part about the rules and how they were broken. Then, she claims that the “Science-based” side is more reasonable, and I tend to agree with this statement. However, it’s pretty clear that she, and those she associates with, aren’t actually science-based. I tend to think of people like PassionlessDrone as being someone who is actually science-based. Again, more on that in a moment.</p> <p>Then she discusses (or rather complains) that “anti-vaccine” narratives are compelling, and that is what is causing their ranks to swell. She goes on to discuss how some at AoA complain about how those that claim to be “science-based” just try to discredit the speaker and don’t really address the science. I will step up and agree with Kim here and say that AoA does this too. And they can be pretty mean and nasty about it, just like Kim’s “science-based” nutjobs can be. She then makes a very curious statement.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“I don't know of any evidence-based individuals who have alleged that Wakefield is a nut. Dishonest. Unethical. Fraudulent. Greedy. But not a nut. And we really shouldn't care if McCarthy is a slut (not a phrase I've seen used against her unsubstantiated claims, by the way). If her claims are backed by evidence, whether she gets around or not is irrelevant. I think the argument has been that she's a Playboy bunny who doesn't know what she's talking about (and since she thinks antifreeze is in vaccines, it's fair to say she doesn't), but that's not the same as claiming she's a slut and should be ignored.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Really? She hasn’t? She’s never seen Orac make statements that essentially boil down to, “She showed her bewbs, and I’m a doctor…you gonna believe her over me?” Or, maybe she’s seen people call her a <a href="http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/Jenny_McCarthy_Body_Count/Home.html">killer</a>? Naw….her “side” never does that…</p> <p>Then she mentions how AoA focuses on Thorsen and his role in the extortion of a few million dollars, and then AoA’s focus on the fact that Seth Mnoonkin is a recovering heroin addict. Here’s what she has to say:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“The first is relevant and it's fair to ask what role he played in the studies themselves; the second is an actual attempt at an unjustified discrediting.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>And here, I will agree with her 100%. Nothing bad to say to this statement.</p> <p>But then, she screws up the whole thing with this:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“How do you reach parents to show support and get there before those with more compelling, dramatic explanations convince parents that there are answers for why their kids have autism and that they can be healed if you just try the right mining chelator or other quack treatment? How do we create a vibrant, supportive community that lets parents feel comfortable in the absence of certainty while having the courage to withstand the temptation of promises of instant cures? How do we make our narrative more compelling than the vaccine-injury's?”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>So, in other words, how does she prevent parents who have children who suffered from a vaccine injury from telling their stories? How does she censor their pain? How can she deny that these children exist and help these poor, stupid parents who are questioning vaccines understand that all of these stories that these crazy people talk about are all fake and never happened (Disclaimer: I am in no way implying that these questioning parents are stupid, just that this is how Ms. Wombles is coming across)? She talks about creating a vibrant, supportive community, but not if she calls you a dumbass…then, she is not interested in having you in her community. Then, she makes a wonderful generalization fallacy, i.e. that if you believe that vaccines cause injury, then you must be someone who uses mining chelators or quack treatments. And her final question, how to make their narrative more compelling? As long as she continues to treat those she disagrees with the way she does, she won’t. As long as she continues to claim that the vaccine injuries that these children experienced are somehow not real (oh, I know, if she ever reads this, she’ll say that she never does this. She’ll say that she believes that vaccine injuries do exist….but it didn’t happen to their kids), then it looks like she is in denial and is afraid of these parents and children. That does absolutely nothing to help her cause. In fact, this is the main thing that turns people away. The mocking, the ridicule, the snide comments about these parents who have vaccine injured children…yeah. That would compel anyone to join her “side.”</p> <p>Now, onto the comments. I’ll begin with the one that caught my attention; a comment that a friend of mine left. He pointed out that Kim was being a bit hypocritical in her article (she was) and that it was downright funny that she claims to be science-based. She then returns, with no evidence, that he must be anti-vaccine. My friend responds with the observation that since he doesn’t agree with her, then in her book, he’s anti-vaccine, and such a comment without evidence is preposterous (it is…but I’m paraphrasing). She then accuses him of being someone else (without evidence again). At this point, I jump in (under a pseudonym, but I wasn’t really hiding who I was), saying that, using her logic, since she <strong>thinks</strong> he’s an anti-vaxxer, he must be so. And, since she <strong>thinks </strong>he is this other person, then he must be so. His next argument boils down to the fact that scientists don’t make definitive claims in the absence of all the relevant data (again, I’m paraphrasing). What follows is a highly entertaining exchange that I will copy here for your perusal.</p> <p>This comment is from some nameless moron (Well, maybe he has a name, but he was so boring that I’ve forgotten it):</p> <blockquote> <p><font color="#f79646"><em>“</em></font><font color="#f79646"><em>A comment like that is simply a twisted version of reality. Of course, scientists accept the possibility of being wrong, unless they're not wrong. How can they tell? Its called data. Scientists don't wonders if Newton's theories are wrong, every time they perform an experiment. They don't wonder if the laws of chemistry will hold up today. These are things that are known, and they are not going to be questioned, nor will any scientist consider the possibility that they are wrong.</em></font></p> <p><font color="#f79646"><em> <br />This is typically a subterfuge to allow all manner of crackpot ideas in, because if they aren't taken seriously, the accusation is leveled that one is not being "scientific" by considering the possibility. However, that's not true. Science requires evidence and the evidence doesn't support the opposing views of the anti-vax crowd. Now, if someone can produce actual evidence and not simply anecdotes, or claims that others don't know what they're talking about, then perhaps there would be a basis for a scientific discussion. <br />So, your comment is disingenuous, since it isn't about producing additional evidence. You can argue that I don't know you, or don't know anything about you, but I don't really need to, since you've clearly identified the kind of person you are in your posts. You aren't interested in having a realistic discussion .... you simply want to post your agenda and "laugh" about it. Well, I hope you're amused, because anyone that thinks any of this is amusing, is truly the fool.”</em></font></p> </blockquote> <p>You all know me…I so enjoy responding to comments like this:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font style="background-color: #dfce04" color="#d16349"></font></em><em><font style="style" color="#dfce04">“</font><font style="style" color="#dfce04">Hmmm...what agenda? The fact that he was pointing out that Kimmie was being a hypocrite means he has an agenda? Brilliant!!</font></em></p> <em><font style="style" color="#dfce04"> <p> <br />And I think you're missing the point. No, I'm wrong...you are missing the point. From what I can gather from your post, you are saying that science has looked at all possibilities with vaccines and autism and that vaccines do not cause autism. This is an unscientific statement simply because of the fact that a scientist will not make such a claim without all of the evidence. If they haven't actually studied the children who are alleged to have developed autism from a vaccine, then the data is incomplete. No subterfuge involved in that whatsoever. Maybe a bit of paranoia on your part, though. <br />The amusement, in my opinion, is that those like Kimmie who claim to be science based and who then laugh about these parents who claim that their children were injured by vaccines, dismissing their claims without reviewing all of the evidence are the true fools, and that they deserve nothing but the same scorn and ridicule that they aim at those they disagree with.”</p> </font></em></blockquote> <p>At this point, Kim jumps in with a comment that completely confused me:</p> <blockquote> <p><font color="#f79646"><em>“"Kimmie?" Ouch. I'm mortally wounded now, especially given how you read the piece on my personal blog about name-calling just a couple days ago. :-) </em></font></p> <p><font color="#f79646"><em>Yeah, yeah, we got it, you don't like me. I deserve your scorn. What's new?”</em></font></p> </blockquote> <p>I hadn’t read her personal blog. I expressed my confusion, and she makes a childish innuendo about keeping secrets and that the post was a good one with “lots of flowers".” I told her she was being childish and I had no idea what she was talking about. Here’s her response.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“</font><font color="#f79646">Ah, here and I thought I was protecting your privacy and all.</font></em></p> <em><font color="#f79646"> <p> <br />Nah, I'll just share one of my favorites. Mint is lovely, isn't it, when it flowers?</p> <p> <br />Not only do you have the lovely scent, all the little blooms are gorgeous, and the bees and other insects love it. They flock to it. <br />Listen, you've obviously got some temper issues and I'm sure it's a tremendously liberating feeling and all to let that rage spew over and everything, but maybe you could go stand in a corner and tantrum instead? It'd probably be more productive for you. I hate to think of your blood pressure rising over my posts.</p> <p> <br />See, I've read rants like that before. A lot. And since you're not going to offer anything substantive other than to ratchet up the name calling and vitriol (nice work), then what's the point? Those kinds of rants don't work to get me irritated, just as the condescension you offer doesn't move me. <br />Didn't you get that's the whole point of this post? Neither side is going to be moved by the other side. Both sides have people on them who really despise the other side. We know that; it's not new. It's not changing. So why keep doing it? Unless it's nothing more than a solitaire game to you? <br />If you've read my first blog and have history with me (and you made that abundantly clear in what you've written here), then you know that I always from the get-go acknowledged vaccine injuries occur and that we need to do everything we can to make sure vaccines are as safe as possible. Why I even had someone (ahem) share his story because I think it's important people don't forget that vaccine injuries do happen.</p> <p>  <br />What cannot be denied is that people change their memories, usually unintentionally, to match their current belief system. Memory is malleable. I'm not interested in arguing personal narratives (says so right on my blog on what I believe and why); with memory being so faulty and with the internet allowing records of changing stories, it just isn't worth it: the truth can't be figured out at a personal level. Not after the fact, and maybe not even during. Our biases cloud everything. At least when we're talking about how two events relate. We're good at making illusory correlations. Really good. Hey, maybe I'm even doing it now!</p> <p> <br />So, instead I'd prefer to focus on the scientific studies that show no evidence of a link between autism and vaccines. If 15 cases of </p> </font><em><font color="#f79646">intussusception</font></em><em><font color="#f79646"> can be detected and linked to the first rotavirus vaccine through the VAERS reporting system, causing the vaccine to be taken off the market quickly, then why do you think a link between vaccines and autism couldn't be found?</font></em></em><em><font color="#f79646"> <p> <br />Much more productive than rants and name-calling, especially without any substantiation. Of course, I'm a hypocrite, so what do I know?”</p> </font></em></blockquote> <font color="#f79646"> <p><font color="#cccccc">Wow! So much to pick apart there. I’ll leave my rebuttal for a moment and point out something. Notice how she complains about ratcheting up the vitriol and name calling? The lady doth protest too much, methinks. </font></p> <p><font color="#cccccc">So then, I explain that my calling her “Kimmie” was not done consciously, especially since my wife’s first name is Kim (well, Kimberly, but she goes by her middle name), and I call her Kimmie to tease her sometimes. Writing that in my earlier comment was entirely unintentional. Then, it occurred to me that Ms. Wombles was so paranoid that she had to go and track down and see who was commenting on her site and where they were commenting from. So, since I accessed the site from work, and someone from where I work likely accessed her site, then that person just <strong>had </strong>to be me. So, I gave her a brief explanation about how many corporate networks run, and that there are thousands of people who work in my company, and any one of them could have accessed her site and it would look like they were accessing it from one location. Such simple things are obviously beyond her. Then, I explained that what she perceived as a rant (she’s so touchy, natch…going off half-cocked at the littlest thing) was just me being highly entertained by her stupidity.</font></p> <font color="#cccccc">But what makes me laugh the most at her comment was when she started talking about rants and name calling without substantiation. Look above to see her rant, and look at my earlier comment to see how I substantiate my name-calling (I explain why I think they are fools).</font></font> <p><font color="#cccccc">So, then the idiot from earlier accuses me of being arrogant:</font></p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“Sorry, but you're simply an arrogant fool. I have neither the time or patience to waste with someone that understands science so poorly and thinks the whole issue is simply amusing.</font></em></p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><font color="#f79646"><em>This is an unscientific statement simply because of the fact that a scientist will not make such a claim without all of the evidence.</em> </font></p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">.. and you think telling stories is evidence? This is precisely why such discussions are a waste of time with people like you. You think that it's productive to keep pursuing avenues of investigation for which no connection exists, because you stubbornly assume that a connection must be there. Instead of recognizing that there is more to be learned, you insist on the validity of data which doesn't exist. The scorn and ridicule isn't based on disagreement. It's based on someone using pseudoscience as a vehicle for introduce crackpot ideas and even worse .... promoting agendas where people can profit off of others desire to obtain help and/or solutions.</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">  <br />Just as the point of Raun Kauffman mentioned earlier. Here is an individual that has supposedly found a solution, but instead of sharing it, seeks to personally profit from it. A series of thousand dollar seminars .... just as if he were telling you the secrets of buying real estate. Yeah, that's real credible. </font></em></p> <em><font color="#f79646"> <p> <br />If you truly had evidence, then you'd present it (and not simply more anecdotes from others that think science is wrong). If you truly had evidence, then you wouldn't be laughing about it and think its hilarious that others don't know the "secret". Instead, by your mere attitude, I can already tell that you're simply someone that likes to blather on and on about what science is, or should be without actually being capable of contributing anything yourself.”</p> </font></em></blockquote> <font color="#f79646"> <font color="#cccccc">Hilarious, yes? I take great glee in pointing out that he’s the pot calling the kettle black, and that he is making a claim (vaccines don’t cause autism) without looking at all of the evidence. You know, like the kids who actually got sick?</font></font> <p>The rest of the article and comments are all there for you guys to enjoy. Do feel free to give her a piece of your minds.</p> <p>Now, lets go back to what I was talking about in regards to her comment concerning religion. I’ll approach this from a different angle, though.</p> <p>So, the scientific consensus is that vaccines do not cause autism, am I correct (well, no, not entirely, but let’s say yes for the sake of argument, shall we)? Anyone who disagrees with that statement, or is not completely convinced, is obviously anti-vaccine, and I am certain that you all would agree with that statement (using their logic, mind you). So, that would mean that the scientific consensus is considered “Orthodox” or “mainstream” and those that disagree with this orthodox view would be in variance to that doctrine.</p> <p>So, what would you call someone who has an opinion or doctrine at variance with the orthodox or accepted doctrine, especially of a church or religious system?</p> <p>A heretic. And how would those who follow that orthodox view treat those who oppose them?</p> <p>Well, in medieval times, heretics were usually executed. Then, they were outcasts of society. So, tell me how many times you all have heard the false skeptics say that parents who believe that their children were injured by vaccines should be separated from society? Or put on an island somewhere so that they could die out? Or that they wish we would all die of diseases?</p> <p>The false skeptics worship Science. They give it an almost mystical reverence, and they rarely question any dogma that comes from their hierarchy. They cling to it and are so devout in their true belief and conviction that anyone who questions their God is treated with utmost derision and scorn. Isaac Asimov said it best:</p> <p>“Endoheretics are appropriately credentialed scientists. If the person is outside the scientific community or at least outside of his specialty, he is an exoheretic. If a person is an endoheretic, he will be considered as eccentric and incompetent, whereas if the person is an exoheretic, he will be regarded as a crackpot, charlatan, or fraud.”</p> <p>Sound familiar?</p> <p>Why do I point out her hypocrisy, you ask? Because hypocrisy is dishonesty in the purest sense of the word. She is being dishonest to herself and her readers, and those people she is trying to win over to her “side” know it.</p> <p>I admit that sometimes I do suffer from hypocrisy; we all do. I usually try to catch myself and apologize when I do. But, the difference between me and the rest of the false skeptics (except for Orac…you know where you stand with him, I’ll give him that) is that I will let you know where you stand with me. I make no secret about my opinion of you, and you’ll always know where you stand with me. I won’t try to lull you into a false friendship, then secretly laugh behind your back about your beliefs or about how you feel when something good happens to you. If I don’t like you, you will know it because I will tell you. I will stand behind my beliefs and I will let everyone know when I change my mind. I don’t profess to know all the secrets. I don’t profess to have all the answers. I accept that I could be wrong, and when I find enough evidence that convinces me of that, I will proclaim that to everyone publicly.</p> <p>Now, I ask you this; do you see the false skeptics do this? Do they profess to have all the answers (“The Science has spoken!”)? Do they accept that they could be wrong?</p> MySocratesNotehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01823121688925710624noreply@blogger.com43tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-17520083041551338282011-05-16T13:59:00.001-05:002011-05-17T11:41:08.756-05:00A Response to Orac’s Evidence Free and Fact Free Response to MySocratesNote<p>Sadly, this will be my last post for a while. I had an all too brief respite from my extremely heavy workload last week, and tomorrow (Monday, when I have this post set to publish) it will be back to work for me. And, until the end of September, I don’t see any time in the near future that I will have time to blog.</p> <p>So, today I will take a brief interlude and respond to something the good Quack…err, I mean “Doctor” posted in his comments section on the article I wrote about in my last post.</p> <p>Now, to remove any cries of hypocrisy on his part, I will post the 2 comments that he devoted to me first (and one from one of his commenters), and then reply to them in my usual manner, i.e. picking them apart, showing how and why it’s wrong, and then making fun of him.</p> <p>Let’s begin.</p> <blockquote> <p>Post 1:</p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“</font><font color="#f79646">Oh, dear. It would appear that I've managed to annoy someone. Yet another irony meter is fried as Craig </font></em><em><font color="#f79646">accuses me of "missing the point":</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">Holland et al found no such thing [vaccines causing autism]. Really. They didn't. Because the number of possible autistic children found among the VICP-compensated, even being as generous as possible, is not really distinguishable from the expected prevalence in the general population (and they came by their number using criteria much less strict than the commonly accepted 1% prevalence), there isn't even a correlation shown to make us suspicious that vaccines might have caused autism in the VICP-compensated group. Correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation, but if there isn't even a correlation then there's no reason even to suspect causation.</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">Me, "missing the point"? Pot, kettle, black, Craig. Pot, kettle, black.”</font></em></p> <p>Post 2, from someone named JayK:</p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“Did you notice how well cited Craig's posting was? I mean, he obviously knew that the only reason that the CDC, the authors of the Korean study and most recent studies on autism all use the 1:100 rate for autism is because of the one British study. He sure showed all them intellectual academic fools!</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">And I notice you've been poisoning the well again, what have we told you about that?”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><font color="#cccccc">Post 3:</font></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“No, no, no, no, JayK, you've got it all wrong! I'm shifting the goalposts! Craig himself says so in the comments of his post (Blogger's down, and Craig hates me so much that deletes any comment I leave on his blog)</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">First off, the government's own data do not "prove" that vaccines cause autism. Second, there is no "shifting of goalposts." I could have easily made the same argument without the South Korean study. It was nothing more than conveniently timed icing on the cake. Craig simply does not understand the concepts that (1) correlation does not necessarily equal causation; (2) in order to justify looking for causation, you need to have at least correlation, which the PACE study doesn't provide, given that it can't show a significantly higher risk of autism in the VICP-compensated population; and (3) that legal evidence is not scientific evidence.</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">Poor Craig. With his realization that Andrew Wakefield is a fraud, I thought there was hope for him. I really did. But he appears to be backsliding.”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Ok, take a few moments to read those comments (and compose yourselves…laughing that hard can rupture something if done too much).</p> <p>Ok, now that you’ve had time to wipe the tears of laughter away, let’s pick his first post apart.</p> <p>David, you didn’t annoy me…not in the least. I find it highly amusing that you like to pretend and play at being a scientist and skeptic. And, I’m quite certain that those who are truly scientists and skeptics also find your antics amusing in an “aww, isn’t that cute!” sort of way. Kind of like a “baby skeptic.” I and others have explained the reasoning for this in <a href="http://my-socrates-note.blogspot.com/2010/12/false-skepticism.html">several</a> <a href="http://my-socrates-note.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-safe-is-safe-false-skeptics-and.html">posts</a>. And, laughably, it seems that I may have struck a nerve with him, especially considering the tone of both of those comments. He took the time out of his busy day, breaking into his comments, to announce to his sycophants what I had said.</p> <p>Oh look, and there’s another reason for my condescending amusement; the irony meter comment!  The lack of maturity inherent in that comment is profound. Not only that, but it calls into question both his emotional and intellectual maturity/health, simply because of the fact that it makes him look like a twelve year old child. Besides, the hypocritical blathering that I pointed out in his article has already destroyed all future irony meters, melting them into a puddle of radioactive slag.</p> <p>And, the next sentence is, again, unscientific. Holland et al found confirmed cases of autism in children who received compensation from the NVICP. Records from the NVICP confirm that these children had a brain injury and subsequent autism. Saying that their autism is exclusive to the vaccine injury, <strong>without reviewing the evidence, </strong>is laughable at best. I, and the authors of the paper, agree that extrapolating that this is a clear case of the vaccine courts compensating for autism is ill advised. Which is why the authors are asking for more study. But it is clear that David is opposed to doing this. Is he afraid of what they’ll find?</p> <p>Then he claims that the number of of cases of autism in children in the NVICP is consistent with the general populace. Right here, we see him trying to shift the goalposts, and in EXACTLY the way I said he would. The point of the paper, quite simply, was to call for more study into the unscientific claim of “Vaccines don’t cause autism.” The prevalence was merely an afterthought. Furthermore, David is basing his accusation/claim off of his own misrepresented data. <a href="http://www.ebcala.org/unanswered-questions/response-to-anti-vaccine-proponents-claim-court-paid-for-autism-cases">In a letter from Robert Krakow</a> to the Medscape editors, Mr. Krakow makes clear that, “83 cases computes to slightly more than 3% of the approximate total number of compensated cases, which is approximately 2500. We deliberately avoided any such statistical conclusions in the paper because our research is preliminary and constituted review by interview and verification of only 150 cases. While extrapolation allowing use of the 3% computation is tempting and would allow the statement that 41% of reviewed cases showed "autism", we deliberately avoided making this statement, as our analysis is not an epidemiological or statistical one.” Again, calling for more inquiry. </p> <p>But, let’s throw that out. Let’s just say that the paper does not exist. Now, let’s perform a little thinking exercise here. Let’s say that the NVICP compensated one child for a vaccine injury that caused autism. Just one! Would that invalidate the claim that “Vaccines don’t cause autism?”</p> <p>Using simple and binary logic, if a statement is stated as true, and another statement verifiably contradicts the first statement, then it invalidates the first statement. This is why <strong>real</strong> scientists never make claims like “Vaccines don’t cause autism,” because <strong>real </strong>scientists never make such absolute claims in the first place, and in the absence of all evidence. Science never argues in absolutes. Why? Because doing so removes the possibility that the person making this unscientific claim will be open to evidence that opposes this view. <strong>Real </strong>scientists understand that it only takes a single example that contradicts a claim to invalidate that claim. One single case of vaccines causing autism would invalidate the “Vaccines don’t cause autism” claim. Just one.</p> <p>Which is why I say that Orac is not a real scientist or a real skeptic.</p> <p>In the next sentence, we see how he shifts the goalposts (in exactly the way I said he would).  I’ll get more into that in a minute.</p> <p>Finally, he accuses me of missing the point, saying that I’m the pot calling the kettle black. Oh, the hypocrisy in that comment…</p> <p>He keeps using those words, but I don’t think they mean what he thinks they mean.</p> <p>My point was that the paper was trying to use the NVICP cases to claim that there were instances of vaccines that resulted in brain damage and autism. They were doing this to attempt to call for more investigation into these 83 cases, and ultimately to disprove an unscientific claim that “Vaccines don’t cause autism.” He obviously missed the point.</p> <p>Whew…and that was just his 1st comment! Ok, on to the next.</p> <p>This one is easy. JayK attacks a strawman. His poorly executed sarcasm claims that I am invalidating the CDC and all recent prevalence studies because of the British prevalence study. All I said was that the false-skeptics pray to the British study, which used a survey on the adults, many of them self diagnosed. But, they dismissed the SCQ survey because it just doesn’t mesh with their paradigm. I don’t see anywhere where I was claiming that any recent prevalence studies were invalid. I did say that the Korean study was pretty bad, though. Sadly, starting tomorrow, I won’t have time to write about it in detail until at least October. And, obviously, JayK is unaware what poisoning the well is…even though I explained it clearly in my previous post.</p> <p><a href="http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/poisoning-the-well.html">Poisoning the well</a>: </p> <p>This sort of "reasoning" involves trying to discredit what a person might later claim by presenting unfavorable information (be it true or false) about the person. This "argument" has the following form: </p> <ol> <li>Unfavorable information (be it true or false) about person A is presented. </li> <li>Therefore any claims person A makes will be false. </li> </ol> <p>This sort of "reasoning" is obviously fallacious. The person making such an attack is hoping that the unfavorable information will bias listeners against the person in question and hence that they will reject any claims he might make. However, merely presenting unfavorable information about a person (even if it is true) hardly counts as evidence against the claims he/she might make. This is especially clear when Poisoning the Well is looked at as a form of ad Hominem in which the attack is made prior to the person even making the claim or claims.</p> <p>So, JayK apparently doesn’t have the mental capacity to understand that simple concept. Let’s look at how Orac the Quack…err “Doctor” opened his article from last week.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font color="#f79646">“So it is, now that I've sat down to write about the "study" or "report" (or whatever you want to call it) that was </font></em><em><font color="#f79646">touted late last week</font></em><em><font color="#f79646"> as "proof" that the government has compensated vaccine-injured children based on their having autism. Maybe the buildup was just too much. After all, the anti-vaccine flacks at Age of Autism have been flogging this report relentlessly since the press release was first announced. So have other anti-vaccine groups. A little known fact is that I'm on the mailing list for a number of anti-vaccine groups. I do it for you, to keep my finger on the pulse of the anti-vaccine loons and as an early warning system to let me know when they're up to various chicanery. Between being plugged in to anti-vaccine blogs and various mailing lists, I can report that the entire anti-vaccine crankosphere was abuzz with excitement over the release of this report, so much so that I was starting to wonder if there would be anything there that might be be worth paying attention to. Heck, even </font></em><em><font color="#f79646">FOX News took the bait</font></em><em><font color="#f79646">:</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">I needn't have worried. Now that the report, written by anti-vaccine stalwarts </font></em><em><font color="#f79646">Mary Holland</font></em><em><font color="#f79646">, </font></em><em><font color="#f79646">Louis Conte</font></em><em><font color="#f79646">, anti-vaccine lawyer </font></em><em><font color="#f79646">Robert Krakow</font></em><em><font color="#f79646">, and </font></em><em><font color="#f79646">Lisa Colin</font></em><em><font color="#f79646"> and entitled </font></em><em><font color="#f79646">Unanswered Questions from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: A Review of Compensated Cases of Vaccine-Induced Brain Injury</font></em><em><font color="#f79646">, has been published, I sort of wish I hadn't promised to blog about it, because now that I've actually read the damned thing I can't believe it. It's just that bad.</font></em></p> <p><em><font color="#f79646">The things I do for you! One thing that I didn't do for you, I will admit, is to watch the press conference announcing the report. After all, why bother with the spin when I can look at the report itself, which has plenty of spin, all wrapped up in legalese and logical fallacies commonly used and abused by lawyers?”</font></em></p> </blockquote> <p>He’s presenting adverse information beforehand in order to bias his readers against the persons in question and hence reject any claims.</p> <p>It must be nice for JayK to be so stupid that he allows others to think for him.</p> <p>Now, to Orac the Quack…err “Doctor’s” last post.</p> <p>First off, I don’t hate Orac; quite the contrary. I find he is an intelligent person, though he is terribly misguided. And the reason I write about him so much is that it amuses me greatly to see someone who is so intelligent do so many things that are unintelligent. Sure, some of my comments are derogatory, but that’s me just poking fun at him in the same vernacular that he pokes fun at others. To be honest, I have a good deal of respect for him, and I find his articles on cancer research extremely fascinating. If, sometime in the future, I were to ever come down with cancer, and I somehow ended up at his hospital (this is all hypothetical, of course), I am quite certain that he would be able to provide me with sound advice and excellent care. What saddens me about him is that he is so willing to accept any trash or garbage that comes out of the Pharmaceutical industry. Oh, sure, he’s written about some of their atrocities, and was rightfully appalled. But he is unwilling to accept that they are not being forthcoming about vaccines, that they are not being completely truthful. Sure, I understand the importance of vaccines. Sure, I understand that it is terrifying to accept the possibility that vaccines are causing damage like what happened to my son. But being unwilling to accept that they (the Pharma industry) have been dishonest before and could also (and likely) be lying about vaccines baffles me.</p> <p>Also, his parenthetical comment leaves the impression that he tried to leave a comment on my last post. That, however, is completely untrue. If he had tried, and was polite in his response, he would have been allowed through. This is why I allowed someone like Mr. Reibel to start posting here again. And he and I have had some serious knock-down, drag-out verbal brawls.</p> <p>Now, going on. He says that the paper, and the government’s data, did not prove a single case of causation. I agree; it did not. My previous post was made in error before I finished reading the paper, and for that, I ask my readers to accept my apologies. However, he IS shifting the goalposts. Let me explain why.</p> <p>Let’s say that the paper DID find causation. David’s excuse for dismissing this is that, since the prevalence is not greater than the autism prevalence in the general populace, then it is irrelevant.</p> <p>Yes, in other words, if a single case exists of vaccines causing autism is found, then he would still say that vaccines don’t cause autism.</p> <p>Then, he makes a blatant ad hominem fallacy, saying that because the PACE study wasn’t performed by scientists (who were consulted in the review), then it is invalid and is not evidence.</p> <p>What is remarkable, to me, about the PACE study is that it has never been done. None of these children in the NVICP have had any type of follow-up. Orac is making his definitive claim on studies performed by parties with vested interests (oh yes, I know that he will say that studies that purport to prove causation also have vested interests), who are essentially policing themselves, and who have <strong>never looked at the population that actually got sick!</strong> I find it both odd and depressing that it took a group of lawyers to do this, and not scientists. Sadly, science looks as if it is afraid of what they’ll find. As a result, these children and families are being left in the dust. They are dismissed, marginalized, and essentially are pariahs to society for <strong>doing their duty to society and getting their children vaccinated. </strong>It isn’t their faults that their children got sick. </p> <p>Lastly, Orac claims I’m slipping. However, I ask you this; I was willing to accept new information that contradicted my previous views and change my mind on something that was important to me. Have any of you ever seen Orac do the same thing? Or, does he drop the subject and never speak of it again?</p> <p>Orac, in the words of Eric Clapton;</p> <p>“Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself.”</p> <p>Goodbye for now, friends.</p> MySocratesNotehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01823121688925710624noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-82348547210822994482011-05-11T16:30:00.003-05:002012-04-16T11:09:00.643-05:00And, Here we Go Again.It’s been quite some time since I’ve written anything on my blog here. When last I wrote, it was concerning the Wakefield affair and my thoughts in reference to said affair. I promised that I would further write about it, and that I would try to get it to you soon.<br />
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Sadly, I had to break my promise to you. This is for several reasons. Work has, sadly, crept into my personal life. Major projects at work have forced me to take on added responsibilities. On top of this, they’ve been downsizing my department, so now we have less people in my department who are doing more. So, that caused some significant interference in both my blogging persona as well as my own writing. So, my thoughts on Wakefield remain in my blog queue, I have still not had time to finish “Callous Disregard,'” and I was even contemplating cancelling my blog.<br />
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What is it, you ask, that has brought me out of semi-retirement?<br />
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I’m sure you can probably figure out why, can’t you?<br />
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After yesterday’s announcement, I figured that you all may be wondering about my thoughts (well, the one or two of you that read my little blog). Don’t worry, I’ll let you all know about that shortly.<br />
What I really wanted to talk to you about is our favorite false-skeptic and Dr. Who fanatic. Yes, that’s right…the guy who likes to talk about himself in the third person; Mr. Ego himself, Orac.<br />
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Orac’s latest execrable article is titled “<a href="http://tinyurl.com/64gs9ut">Another swing for the fences and a miss by the anti-vaccine movement</a>.” And yes, you can be certain, it is chock-full of logical fallacies, ad hominem attacks, and strawmen arguments, all wrapped up in the pretense of actual science. But this one is so bad that I just HAD to come out of my partial retirement and say something.<br />
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So, please allow me to take this apart and look at it.<br />
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He starts his post by hurling accusations of “anti-vaccine” no less than ten times in a paragraph that is eleven sentences long. Yes, I kid you not. On top of this, he devotes a good portion of this paragraph hurling insults and negative epithets on those he disagrees with in order to make it clear that he has no intention of honestly looking at the press release. This is a tactic known as “poisoning the well.” In other words, he is presenting adverse information to his audience with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing everything they say before they actually say it. This is, of course, a form of ad hominem fallacy. And as we all know, such logical fallacies have no place in real science.<br />
He then starts describing the paper:<br />
<blockquote><em><span style="color: #f79646;">“The things I do for you! One thing that I didn't do for you, I will admit, is to watch the press conference announcing the report. After all, why bother with the spin when I can look at the report itself, which has plenty of spin, all wrapped up in legalese and logical fallacies commonly used and abused by lawyers?”</span></em></blockquote><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibzBQ0HmQp6INXMEsmL4IcAymiIx6rX0NAN_Yo29_O9L-nANiN24SDgE7TFdmQ0roJl83YxZ5Sz5g5jVG0CeSFne2oegWC_nh4NntIqxpRbHefblZv4rV8mARnBZmIJcBCxOZxyXCGwfg/s1600-h/618px-JeanLucPicardFacepalm%5B5%5D.jpg"><img alt="618px-JeanLucPicardFacepalm" border="0" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBngCw1ox-zRZk3K09l0nidjVIFN3COmgVrSsuAaAGww-46jvtcRd_oKKe95H6bzKWiSNXrHaFLS_b7GF9ll2XDmfzT8RukNWHbhHM8yvOrmOUHTV34n5xziCOfudmPU0drD7aM1b2hgw/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-width: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="618px-JeanLucPicardFacepalm" width="480" /></a><br />
So, after reading that excerpt, I’m sure you can all see the reasoning for the above picture. He mockingly accuses those he falsely labels “anti-vaxxers” for using logical fallacies, all while he gleefully makes logical fallacies. To use his extremely juvenile and blatantly idiotic phrase:<br />
“He owes me a new irony meter.”<br />
<br />
He then goes on to quote a line from Lewis Carrol’s “Through the Looking Glass,” which describes how Humpty Dumpty confuses Alice with how he twists words to mean what he wants them to mean. Then, he accuses the authors of the report <a href="http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/pelr/vol28/iss2/6/">Unanswered Questions from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: A Review of Compensated Cases of Vaccine-Induced Brain Injury</a> of doing just that; changing the meanings of words to fit their purpose.<br />
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I’ll get to that in a minute, because it is quite important.<br />
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He goes on to describe a few key points from the report, which focuses on looking at a number of children compensated through the NVICP for vaccine injury and brain damage, who then later developed “symptoms consistent with autism spectrum disorder.” Here’s what he has to say:<br />
<blockquote><em><span style="color: #f79646;">“It is not as uncommon as we would like in medicine for conditions and diseases to be defined primarily (or even only) by aggregations of symptoms. Irritable bowel syndrome is an example. Ditto tension headache. Moreover, it is often the context within which those symptoms arise that distinguish one diagnosis from another. In any case, the DSM-IV provides fairly clear diagnostic criteria for autism. If the child doesn't have enough of these criteria to be diagnosed as autistic, that child could have "autism symptoms" but not autism. This is not a difficult concept, except apparently for Holland <em>et al</em>, who seem to be arguing that any child with autism-like symptoms must have autism. This is akin to arguing that anyone who has a belly ache or diarrhea must have irritable bowel syndrome or that someone who experiences a headache must have migraines”</span></em></blockquote><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJPeXFdG_M0WiYtHaCo6SZ8N5diEhDMp8akEgMcphQYbMXIMICfVUrGmcLIyoowM38owzcKMWGvmRQyifPJOhLrql3JO-Akokk393l6Xc0pe5BBiqz56OTbAX5neE82tRc-Kq0eiwbJbY/s1600-h/double-facepalm%5B3%5D.jpg"><img alt="double-facepalm" border="0" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVGAvpBfzGZg9QCPNMqcwpQzGJNA2MFHWzoNnHwUZ4sTG3vOmEF_akyv_0d7KhZQVsyjeiItFhgsFmtgiTZSbY5Eh4oGCJ05VTh3BzUIEe93QhXUsZjk95iGAZV24tUhR2y7KrPjTqURc/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px currentColor; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="double-facepalm" width="405" /></a><br />
That’s right, ladies and gentlemen; he just said that these children did not have enough symptoms of autism to be classified as having an ASD. He did this, mind you, without providing a single shred of evidence! And this is not the first time he’s done this. When Hannah Poling was awarded for her vaccine injury, he outright said that she didn’t have autism, even though her parents and physician said that she did. So, it is quite clear that he is twisting the meaning of the word “autism” to suit his own purposes. Oops…there goes another irony meter.<br />
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Here’s the deal; 39 of the parents of these children were able to provide proof that their children received an ASD diagnosis after their encephalitis. But, Orac says that that isn’t autism…without seeing any of their medical records.<br />
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He then continues with a discussion of the prevalence rates, and how the authors of the report got those numbers. For the sake of amusement, let’s see what he has to say:<br />
<blockquote><em><span style="color: #f79646;">“83/2500 results in an estimated prevalence rate of approximately 3.3%. On the surface, this seems to support the claim that the prevalence of autism is three-fold higher in VICP-compensated children than it is in the general population. Of course, there's at least one problem, and that's that the authors admit that, of these 83 children, they could only find documentation of autistic symptoms for only 39. This results in an estimated prevalence of autism of around 1.6%. This is rapidly falling into the range of what we would expect in the general population. Given that the VICP population is a skewed sample, many of whom have developmental disabilities, I'd be shocked if the prevalence of autism in this group wasn't at least slightly higher than it is in the general population. Of course, this "study" is not good evidence that it is. Taking into account the skewed population and the noise inherent in looking at a small population over 20 years, the prevalence of autism in VICP-compensated children does not appear to be detectably different than it is in the general population.”</span></em></blockquote><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKVpvnI8B8UEITf7mwIljRfVmBg4hMDsQHzrmzwxsyFuofFCPbUV1WTix5F2f9bGpcNZvTlO6Ge6NFLgBCQRnpHdZjNTcsjr0I9auIwH-vgI5IMUX9hmbhHEOW-CQ2iGH5ql8sr-FVLGU/s1600-h/infinitefacepalm%5B1%5D.jpg"><img alt="infinitefacepalm" border="0" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWnzImMqaGjgTZcmgNqipObDQ68cKejZfbCIupM-h8n22BJq5LHq4bb7PNA2SM7FvRAu-yzpN5AFNd8o_6-9-TBdIFy9H-lM5vS3bAU5mNWSsmmI0DOyqvjDAlkE2MYw5MmwTG7lFnuX8/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px currentColor; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="infinitefacepalm" width="437" /></a><br />
The report made it quite clear that the rest of the 83 children they are saying developed autism after their injury were evaluated and found to be autistic. They used similar criteria and methods that the British study that was released recently did that found a prevalence of 1 in 100 autistic adults (this was done with a survey, and many of these adults surveyed had no official diagnosis and were self-diagnosed). But, the British study was legitimate. Yes, the irony is so thick that all future irony meters will not melt into a pile of radioactive slag.<br />
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You know what, though? Let’s say you agree with him and completely disagree with the findings in the report. One simple and irrefutable fact remains:<br />
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These children were compensated by the United States government because they were injured by a government-sponsored vaccination program, and those injuries caused brain damage and behavioral symptoms that look an awful-lot like autism.<br />
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He then finishes off with an insulting barrage on those he disagrees with, insinuating that the Korean study that was just released was actually good science (it wasn’t; there have been several reviews of this “study” that show just how awful the methodology was). But, since Orac agrees with it, then it HAS to be legitimate.<br />
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He closes with this little gem:<br />
<blockquote><em><span style="color: #f79646;">“In other words, they did all that work and wrote all those words in order to add yet more evidence to support what we already know from copious evidence from a large and robust existing body of studies: That vaccines do not causes autism. They just refuse to realize or admit that that's what they've done.”</span></em></blockquote>Somehow, without reviewing the medical records of these children, or even reviewing their histories, he is able to make this definitive statement.<br />
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And somehow, in all of this, he has the audacity to claim he is science and evidence based?<br />
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Man, did I call this one. He did EXACTLY what I said he would.<br />
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David, if you read this, please take this bit of advice. Calling yourself science and evidence based after writing that piece of evidence-free garbage is, quite simply, hypocrisy to the infinite power, and frankly quite dishonest. You call yourself a scientist? The hypocrisy I pointed out has NO place in real science. I think that, perhaps, you should return to high-school for remedial science classes. Sadly, I feel that the students in high-school would be far more mature than you, at least mentally.MySocratesNotehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01823121688925710624noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-69719954926204872812011-01-24T13:51:00.001-06:002011-01-24T13:53:13.472-06:00And Now For Something Completely Different!<p>Cue Sousa’s <em>The Liberty Bell.</em></p> <p>I know I promised all of you my further thoughts on the Wakefield affair, and I do promise to deliver. However, over the past week, I have not just been under the weather, but can-barely-crawl-out-of-bed sick. So, that delayed my post mortem a bit, and it is sitting in my journal queue to be released at a later date.</p> <p>But, I’ve decided to delay my assessment a little bit in light of the fact that a friend was kind enough to send me a copy of Wakefield’s book (thank you VERY much sdtech). I’ve begun reading it, and I thought that it would be a good idea to document my thoughts on the book before releasing my final assessment. Over the next few days, I will release several posts on my viewpoint of Wakefield’s book. I feel that to honestly assess this entire business, I need to objectively review all sides of the story. While I have carefully reviewed Wakefield’s defense, it would be dishonest of me to not read his book in the same objective light that I have tried to look at Deer’s research in.</p> <p>Furthermore, I find that I lack the stomach anymore for all of the bickering going on between various interested parties in these online autism wars. I’ve come to the conclusion that no matter how much I point out the hypocrisy of all who are hurling stones at each other, nothing I can do or say will prevent them from continuing to do so. And, really, do my insults and sarcastic witticisms do anything to help my son? No.</p> <p>While I will still post with much of my usual sarcastic banter, I will try to refrain from the out-right insulting rhetoric I have been prone to in the past. Will I still point out inaccuracies and hypocrisies that I find? You betcha! But, I don’t feel as if the insults are productive. Unless the person absolutely deserves it. And I know how some of you enjoy my unique take on many things.</p> <p>So, short post today while I continue to recover. My comments section shall remain open to all; my previous post triggered some very interesting and polite discussions from everyone, for which I sincerely am thankful to all who posted. Let’s keep this up, shall we?</p> <p>Until next time.</p> MySocratesNotehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01823121688925710624noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-3528104850355365132011-01-15T11:13:00.001-06:002011-01-15T11:13:54.078-06:00An Assessment of the Wakefield Affair, part 1<p>Some of you may have seen my post on Jenny McCarty’s Huffington Post <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jenny-mccarthy/vaccine-autism-debate_b_806857.html">article</a> and are probably curious why I changed my opinion of Dr. Wakefield. What particular piece of information changed my mind? Well, that is a tough question to answer. I can’t point to one particular thing because the only thing I can go on is the evidence provided.</p> <p>When I started looking at this, I had to use what information that was available. Admittedly, I am missing one particular piece of information from Dr. Wakefield, and that is his book. I haven’t had the time, or the money, to read this book as of now. Am I going to read it? Yes, I will. But, from what I’ve been able to gather, it is really only a rehash of his defense against Deer’s allegations. To not read Wakefield’s book and look at it with the same objective light as I’ve tried to look at everything else concerning this would be intellectually dishonest.</p> <p>My evaluation looked at Brian Deer’s BMJ articles, his website, Andrew Wakefield’s defense and those websites that defended him, and finally the GMC transcripts. The transcripts were the most time consuming aspect of this case because it was over 6 million words, and I will admit that some of the things mentioned in there I didn’t completely understand. Maybe it was the language used (I’m only bilingual; I speak American, Texan and a tiny bit of Coon-ass). I’ve spent the past week, both day and night, reading, pondering, evaluating, weighing, and thinking. Sometimes, all night, just laying in bed thinking about it (which is why some of my posts on Jenny’s Huffpo article are so rife with spelling and grammar errors…I’m usually much better about things like that)</p> <p>I’m not going to lie to you; I’m having a really hard time writing this. I put a little bit down, then have to step away and really think about what I need to say next. Some of my trepidation is knowing that my admission has disappointed many people I consider friends. Some of it is mental exhaustion. Some of it is self evaluation. Some of it is the realization that I don’t really have to try to convince anyone of turning against Andrew Wakefield; I only have to tell you what convinced me.</p> <p>So, let me start with my thought process. You can see a little of it one of my older <a href="http://my-socrates-note.blogspot.com/2011/01/old-news-is-new-news-or-tale-of-tail.html">posts</a>, which I will leave up. I realized that I had an emotional investment in this issue, and that to truly, objectively, evaluate the evidence, I needed to somehow detach myself from my personal investment and actually LOOK at what was being written. In this case, I tried to evaluate it with the following in mind: Deer was biased against Wakefield; Wakefield was biased for himself; and the GMC is supposed to be an unbiased 3rd party (which, I am quite sure, will be argued against…but for the sake of argument, assume that they are unbiased). This was NOT easy, so bear with me.</p> <p>Over the next few days (maybe longer considering how long it’s taking me to write this), I will discuss specific items pertaining to the Wakefield affair. This will include several items from each of the above mentioned locations. I will evaluate and weigh each of these items and explain why I think the argument is weak or strong.</p> <p>What jumped out at me first was the accusation that Brian Deer brought against Wakefield as to a potential motive for the 1998 Lancet paper. Essentially, Deer says that Wakefield manufactured the Lancet paper in order to scare the British parents into taking the separate M M and R vaccines, then he would market his own Transfer Factor as a potential rival for these vaccines. This, to me, was Deer’s weakest argument (and thereby Wakefield’s strongest). Yes, the application for the patent does say that it was a vaccine. However, Wakefield’s defense claims that it wasn’t meant as a rival vaccine because it was mainly to be used as a treatment for Inflammatory Bowel Disease and as a potential prophylaxis for immune-compromised patients (<a href="http://briandeer.com/wakefield/vaccine-patent.htm">bottom of page one, and top of page 2</a>). I am willing to give Wakefield the benefit of the doubt on this one, because Wakefield’s statement concerning this is corroborated by evidence. However, since Wakefield did not disclose this information when releasing the Lancet article, and in the subsequent media announcement, this is a blatant Conflict of Interest. That is bad, even if you defend Wakefield. This calls his Lancet article into serious question, even before you start looking at the science. The GMC hearings say this:</p> <p>f. A proposal, dated 4 March 1998 and drafted by Mr 10, was submitted to the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine in relation to the proposed company, <br />Admitted and found proved</p> <p>I realized that I started in the middle, so I had to go all the way back to early 1996, when Deer alleges that Wakefield was approached by Richard Barr. To me, this is one of Deer’s strongest arguments. Barr admits to soliciting Dr. Wakefield in order to provide him with several patients for an then unheard of condition that Barr claims was linked to MMR. Over the course of the research into the ‘98 Lancet article, Wakefield received about $750 thousand dollars (plus expenses) for his work. This was also undisclosed. Not only bad, but REALLY bad. Wakefield’s defense is to claim that he was using this money to pay for a second study that he was doing, though never released. But, even if you believe Wakefield, the fact that he did not disclose this information is a serious COI. The GMC hearings say this:</p> <p>a. In 1996 you were involved in advising Richard Barr, a solicitor <br />acting for persons alleged to have suffered harm caused by the <br />administration of the MMR vaccine, as to the research that would be <br />required to establish that the vaccine was causing injury, <br />Admitted and found proved <br /></p> <p>b. Mr Barr had the benefit of public funding from the Legal Aid <br />Board in relation to the pursuit of litigation against manufacturers of the <br />MMR vaccine (“the MMR litigation”), <br />Admitted and found proved</p> <p>Ok. I think that’s enough for now. I am going to open up the comments to everyone, even those not normally allowed to comment. I have a stipulation, however. Keep it civil, guys. If the comments get out of hand, you will get one warning. If they continue to get out of hand, I will delete the comment. On the 3rd strike, you will no longer be able to comment.</p> <p>Tomorrow (maybe) I will continue with my evaluation.</p> MySocratesNotehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01823121688925710624noreply@blogger.com66tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318385838532827197.post-70028793305585874072011-01-12T10:46:00.006-06:002011-01-12T21:45:31.394-06:00Old News is New News, or a Tale of the Tail Wagging the DogI promise today that my article will be short. I’ve been swamped at work and working a ton of overtime, so I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to read up on things and comment in my usual sarcastic style.<br />
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Brian Deer has just released the 2nd part to his expose on Andrew Wakefield. In it, he discusses how Dr. Wakefield filed for a patent for a Transfer Factor that he (Deer) alleges could be used as an alternative vaccine, and that this is the basis for the 1998 Lancet article. Deer contends that Dr. Wakefield wanted to use his report to discredit faith in the combined MMR vaccine, splitting them up into separate vaccines, so that he could get his own TF on the market and make money off of the royalties.<br />
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Also, this just in: The Earth circles the sun; the Earth is not flat; water is wet.<br />
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In other words, ladies and gents…nothing new, nothing new to see here, move along.<br />
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When first I read the headline, I asked myself “Maybe this will convince me that what everyone is saying about Dr. Wakefield is true.”<br />
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Instead I came away decidedly underwhelmed and wondering why, suddenly, this is such a big deal, particularly when this same story has been repeated ad nauseum since Deer stuck his ratty little nose in the dumpster and started crying about the sky falling?<br />
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So, I started doing a little reading about this Transfer Factor. From what I can gather, this really started up in February of 1996 at the Royal Free hospital. In June of 1997, Dr. Wakefield filed a patent on behalf of the Royal Free (who was the patent holder)for a transfer factor that would treat the measles illness. What this tells me is that it was to alleviate already existing symptoms. He theorized that it could potentially act as a prophylactic (i.e. preventative measure), but when given leave to test the TF on one of the Lancet children, the treatment was ineffective. So, he stopped pursuing the TF as a viable treatment for Measles. This was before his Lancet study was released in 1998.<br />
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Ok, under normal circumstances, anyone reading this would think that this evidence is pretty damning. Until they read the details. The devil is always in the details.<br />
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You see, if Dr. Wakefield was going to use his TF as an alternative vaccine and instigated the MMR scare after his Lancet article, then why would he have stopped testing on the TF BEFORE the release of his Article in February 1998. If his TF was viable, he would have continued to test and market it. But it wasn’t. And he knew this before releasing his article.<br />
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Perspective time. If his only goal was to make money, and he was formulating an alternative vaccine, and he manufactured a report that said that MMR could cause bowel problems so maybe they should split up the vaccines, then why release the article and have a press conference after he knew that his TF didn’t work?<br />
Again, I cannot say with absolute certainty that Dr. Wakefield is innocent or guilty. I cannot do so without reading all of the evidence. But seeing this calls some of the accusations being hurled at him into serious question.<br />
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People new to this discussion are probably thinking the same thing once they start reading the details. Why now? Why is this man being so doggedly attacked? No other medical scandal in history has gotten this type of publicity, not even the Vioxx scandal. So, what is different about this one? Are the medical establishment at pharmaceutical companies really this afraid of one man? And we already know that Brian Deer has a serious vendetta against Dr. Wakefield for some unknown reason. Can we trust that his information is objective and unbiased?<br />
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Please don’t take it that I am defending Dr. Wakefield. I’m not. All I am doing is commenting at the oddities in what I have read so far. I am forming MY OWN judgment on what I have read.<br />
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I encourage everyone reading this to read the reports. Read Deer’s story. Read Wakefield’s story. Read the GMC hearings. And MAKE A JUDGEMENT FOR YOURSELF! Do NOT let people tell you what you should believe. <br />
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Update: I am currently reading the GMC hearings, and someting jumped out at me. Here it is:<br />
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"f. A proposal, dated 4 March 1998 and drafted by Mr 10, was submitted to the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine in relation to the proposed company,<br />
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Admitted and found proved"<br />
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So, in simple language, this was submited after the Lancet article submitted on February 28, 1998. My earlier post was in error, and for that I apologize. I shall continue to read the hearings and give my final judgement when I'm done.<br />
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Additional update:<br />
According to the patent, the TF was being applied for as an alternative to MMR in (wait for it)<br />
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IMMUNO-COMPROMISED PATIENTS!!! Also, it is to be used in those with IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease) and Crohn's disease. (Page 1 of the patent at 30-35, and page 2 at 5-10)<br />
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"Unfortunately, as I have shown previously in the above mentioned patent application the use of theis vaccine has been shown to be instrumental in development of Crohn's disease and other forms of IBD over the ensuing 30 to 40 years and particularly has been instrumental in a substantial increase of Crohn's disease in children since vaccination was started in 1968.<br />
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The Physician is therefore confronted with a difficulty at the individual level in that whereas as a public health measure measles vaccination is called for, it can have unwanted effects <strong>in those subjects who are unable to immunological eliminate the virus so introduced.</strong><br />
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<strong>This is particularly so when there is at present no cure for IBD; sufferers can expect relapses of their disease requiring potent immunosuppresant therapy or removal of the affected bowel and may be condemned to the use of a osteomomy bag.</strong><br />
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What is needed therefore is a safer vaccine which does not give rise to these problems, and a treatment for those with existing IBD."<br />
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Emphasis mine.<br />
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Further reading of the patent clearly states that the TF could, in no way, compete with the MMR vaccine. It was simply a proposed alternative protective agent for Measles in those who through whatever reason were not able to get the MMR vaccine. Interesting that all of that information wasn't even touched upon by Brian Deer and his defenders.<br />
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So, again I ask; if the TF wasn't a viable protective agent, and it was mainly for treatment and as a potential protective agent in immuno-compromised individuals, then who could it compete with MMR?MySocratesNotehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01823121688925710624noreply@blogger.com4