Medication time.

[bks]

Yeah, I'm not interested in defending or discussing MMS. Like most humans, I'm against giving kids bleach, in case that needs saying. I'd never even heard of it until now.

We were talking about the NVIC as the alleged center of the anti-vaccine movement. The NVIC has been around since 1982, way before the Wakefiled/autism debacle became a cause celebre in the late 1990s. Still and all, only a tiny fraction of American children go without any vaccines whatsoever (something like 1 in 350). Thus if the NVIC's goal was to do away with childhood vaccination compliance, they've failed miserably and with a pretty good head start, given the attention Vaccine Roulette got back then plus the opening Wakefield gave them with his phony study.

The only claims I'm interested in defending is that there isn't an anti-vaccine movement: that is, there is no large-scale, well-organized effort to keep everyone from taking any vaccines or to get rid of vaccines. There is a movement against making them mandatory and thus against forced compliance, which in the case of vaccines has additional valence due to the fact that vaccines work by herd immunity. Thus my immunization works better if you get yours, and if enough people don't get immunized my own might not be worth much. So there is an entirely legitimate group interest in increasing vaccine compliance, which can get dicey in a society with a strong civil liberties heritage.

If we take a less emotionally freighted vaccine issue, maybe I can better show what I believe the underlying issue is for the medical establishment (and no, I'm not talking about financial interests. That's too reductionistic and unfair even to people like Paul Offit, who's gotten rich from his contribution to vaccine science). Take the case of chicken pox parties:Dr. Robert Sears, he of the alternative vaccination schedule, notes the value of such gatherings in that "having the disease in most cases provides lifelong immunity - better immunity than the shot provides, so there is practically no worry of catching the disease as an adult" In a lengthy reply to Sears co-authored with Charlotte Moser, Dr. Paul Offit, who is also perhaps the leading medical advocate of the AAP's vaccination policy and the author of several popular books on topics related to vaccine criticism, retorted that "although Sears is correct in stating that natural immunity is generally better than vaccine-induced immunity, the high price of natural immunity, that is, occasionally severe and fatal disease, is a risk not worth taking" OK. But what is "occasionally"? Offit and Moser do not mention the statistical incidence of severe or fatal chicken pox, the statistical risk associated with varicella vaccine side effects, nor the difference in the strength of immunity garnered from the contracting the disease itself during childhood vs. the varicella vaccine, all of which would be necessary to allow the lay reader to make a reasoned determination of actual likely risk.

So here we have popular opposition to the varicella vaccine constructed as problematic not because it fails to understand science, but because it is willing to exit the realm of medical consensus and oversight regarding what counts as acceptable risk. That's the sticking point. It's the willingness to depart from expert risk assessments and make your own decision that is threatening from the perspective of medical expertise, even when that departure might be entirely reasonable. And that's one reason why all vaccine opposition tends to be cast as "anti-vaccine."

[compared2what?]

QUIZ FORMAT.

Fill in the blank by checking one of the four answers offered below:

I am an advocate for child safety. Therefore, when __________________ performs unnecessary surgery on children purely for experimental purposes/personal gain, injuring them for life, or champions the benefits of giving them industrial-strength bleach enemas until they vomit, cry and run fevers, I denounce it and them.

(a) The government.
(b) A person with whom I have common cause, whose work I promote, and with whom I appear at fundraisers, conferences and assorted other professional affairs.
(c) Both.
(d) Neither.

That's not a complicated choice, imo. But you never hear a word of denunciation. You hear defense or denial. Lie down with dogs.

[compared2what?]

Sorry. Didn't see your last before I posted the above. But that's my reply to it anyway.

The NVIC is formally an ally and partner of Autism One, which showcased and promoted the bleach enemas very splashily at an enormous conference that everyone who's anyone in the "indepedent" vaccine-safety-information world followed or attended. Prominently lists them on their website that way.

Both championed and defended Wakefield and his work, then. And probably still do.

Where I come from, you don't do that. And you don't tolerate it when your partners and allies do. Nor do you ignore it. You denounce it. And, if necessary, put procedures into place to prevent recurrence. Because it's torture, ffs.

Yeah, I'm not interested in defending or discussing MMS.

Well, who would be if it was something they could avoid? You don't get to pick and choose your way around it when it's in the picture, though. Therefore:

It's either okay that the NVIC has never felt the need for anything other than silence and continued support when it comes to the torture, abuse and injury of children by its close associates. Or it's not. There's a moral obligation to condemn it whether the perp's your pal or not. Or there isn't.

It's not a middle ground kind of thing, as I see it. Slippery slope, once you start averting your eyes.

[compared2what?]

The only claims I'm interested in defending is that there isn't an anti-vaccine movement: that is, there is no large-scale, well-organized effort to keep everyone from taking any vaccines or to get rid of vaccines.

...

I actually agree. There's the appearance of one. But it's a stalking horse for other things. (Medicare. Etc. Overton Window.)

There is a movement against making them mandatory and thus against forced compliance, which in the case of vaccines has additional valence due to the fact that vaccines work by herd immunity. Thus my immunization works better if you get yours, and if enough people don't get immunized my own might not be worth much. So there is an entirely legitimate group interest in increasing vaccine compliance, which can get dicey in a society with a strong civil liberties heritage.

If there is, they don't spend a whole lot of time or money putting together presentations that make a case for it, or doing outreach and education programs that argue in its favor. Because I've never seen those arguments being flogged anywhere -- no Awareness days for them; no posters; no press coverage. Nothing.

Who's in this movement? They should get together with the toxins-injury-and-danger anti-vaxxers. Might have a few things in common.

If we take a less emotionally freighted vaccine issue, maybe I can better show what I believe the underlying issue is for the medical establishment (and no, I'm not talking about financial interests. That's too reductionistic and unfair even to people like Paul Offit, who's gotten rich from his contribution to vaccine science). Take the case of chicken pox parties:Dr. Robert Sears, he of the alternative vaccination schedule, notes the value of such gatherings in that "having the disease in most cases provides lifelong immunity - better immunity than the shot provides, so there is practically no worry of catching the disease as an adult" In a lengthy reply to Sears co-authored with Charlotte Moser, Dr. Paul Offit, who is also perhaps the leading medical advocate of the AAP's vaccination policy and the author of several popular books on topics related to vaccine criticism, retorted that "although Sears is correct in stating that natural immunity is generally better than vaccine-induced immunity, the high price of natural immunity, that is, occasionally severe and fatal disease, is a risk not worth taking" OK. But what is "occasionally"? Offit and Moser do not mention the statistical incidence of severe or fatal chicken pox, the statistical risk associated with varicella vaccine side effects, nor the difference in the strength of immunity garnered from the contracting the disease itself during childhood vs. the varicella vaccine, all of which would be necessary to allow the lay reader to make a reasoned determination of actual likely risk.

So here we have popular opposition to the varicella vaccine constructed as problematic not because it fails to understand science, but because it is willing to exit the realm of medical consensus and oversight regarding what counts as acceptable risk. That's the sticking point. It's the willingness to depart from expert risk assessments and make your own decision that is threatening from the perspective of medical expertise, even when that departure might be entirely reasonable. And that's one reason why all vaccine opposition tends to be cast as "anti-vaccine."

Could you restate that?

I'm not sure I understand what vaccine-related ill, grievance or problem the anti- applies to that's worth an international lobby's time, energy and willfully blind tolerance of human experimentation and bleach enemas for children. Or anybody's, ftm.

[compared2what?]

There is a movement against making them mandatory and thus against forced compliance,

Or as the NVIC puts it:

Our Mission
The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is dedicated to the prevention of vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and to defending the informed consent ethic in medicine.

As an independent clearinghouse for information on diseases and vaccines, NVIC does not advocate for or against the use of vaccines. We support the availability of all preventive health care options, including vaccines, and the right of consumers to make educated, voluntary health care choices.

Our Work
NVIC provides assistance to those who have suffered vaccine reactions; promotes and funds research to evaluate vaccine safety and effectiveness, as well as to identify factors which place individuals at high risk for suffering vaccine reactions; and monitors vaccine research, development, regulation, policy-making and legislation. Since 1982, NVIC has advocated that well-designed, independent, on-going scientific studies must be conducted to: (1) define the various biological mechanisms involved in vaccine injury and death: (2) identify genetic and other biological high risk factors for suffering chronic brain and immune system dysfunction after vaccination; and (3) evaluate short and long-term health outcomes of individuals, who use many vaccines, and those, who use fewer or no vaccines, to determine the health effects of vaccination on individuals and the public health.

NVIC works to protect the freedom for citizens to exercise the human right to voluntary, informed consent to any medical intervention or use of pharmaceutical product, such as a vaccine, which carries a risk of injury or death.

Honestly, that's a little opaque and heavy on the death/injury risk for a movement that's dedicated to universal child safety not making something forced-compliance mandatory that already isn't. Nothing about schools, no alternatives to school-based mandates suggested. You'd never know it was what they were about. Would you?

[Canadian_watcher]

Proponents of vaccination -- mainstream medicine, the government, pharma, etc. -- concede and long have conceded that vaccination-related injuries do occur and have been proven to, voluntarily and regularly.

They also maintain an enormous database of adverse-reaction reports that has absolutely no barriers or constraints that prevent some kinds of events from being reported, to which any researcher who is one has access.

no, they don't - not effectively and openly and they certainly pick and choose when to reveal info and when not to. That's precisely what the academic and peer reviewed papers linked to at the bottom of the first post I made in this thread are all about. The study provides hard evidence to the contrary in fact.

here they are again for you:
(1)http://www.ecomed.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/3-tomljenovic.pdf

(2)http://www.ecomed.org.uk/publications/the-health-hazards-of-disease-prevention

And they also took thimerosal out of the vaccines on a precautionary basis as soon as a semi-reasonable hypothetical fear of it took hold.

why don't they stop using the aluminum adjuvants then, given this:

While Tomljenovic and Shaw believe their paper is the first academic research to persuasively demonstrate a correlation between aluminum exposure and autism, the literature on aluminum and neurological disorders is extensive. For example, writing in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1997, (8.) Bishop, Morley, Day and Lucas found that “ ...in preterm infants, prolonged intravenous feeding with solutions containing aluminum is associated with impaired neurologic development,” and in 2002, Becaria, Campbell, and Bondy, writing in Toxicology and Industrial Health, (http://tih.sagepub.com/content/18/7/309.abstract ) observed accumulating evidence suggests that aluminum “… can potentiate oxidative and inflammatory events, eventually leading to tissue damage.”

(from here: http://www.columbiajournal.ca/12-05/P7VaccineWars.html)

And of course not only that ^, but many other studies linking Aluminum in vaccines to various syndromes whose numbers are increasing.

By the way, neither of those scientists are anti-vaccine. Or at least that's what they say. I guess that if we're playing by the rules of 'you can't take what these people SAY seriously' (as above in your response to bks) then it's all up for grabs and we can ascribe any motive to anyone. (like say, Bart Farkas, but I digress)

[bks]

I actually agree. There's the appearance of one. But it's a stalking horse for other things. (Medicare.)

Care to explain that? You think that vaccine opposition is a proxy for medicare opposition? This is interesting to me. How so?

There is a movement against making them mandatory and thus against forced compliance, which in the case of vaccines has additional valence due to the fact that vaccines work by herd immunity. Thus my immunization works better if you get yours, and if enough people don't get immunized my own might not be worth much. So there is an entirely legitimate group interest in increasing vaccine compliance, which can get dicey in a society with a strong civil liberties heritage.

if there is, they don't spend a whole lot of time or money putting together presentations that make a case for it, or doing outreach and education programs that argue in its favor. Because I've never seen those arguments being flogged anywhere -- no Awareness days for them; no posters; no press coverage. Nothing.

Who's in this movement? They should get together with the toxins-injury-and-danger anti-vaxxers. Might have a few things in common.

But this is part of my point, if I get what you're saying. The arguments made in favor of vaccine compliance by medical authorities SHOULD draw on socialistic arguments. That is, they ought to say: yes, there's a small chance of injury, but when you vaccinate your child you're doing something that benefits society. Your willingness to (potentially) sacrifice your child's welfare is a social good. But please: find me those arguments! The ones I see from medical authorities don't make those sorts of claims. The ones I see insist on the safety of vaccines. I think medical authorities would rather not talk about the socialistic aspect of vaccine compliance because it'll call attention to the fact that vaccines are proprietary and profited from. PLUS this would require they remind the public that, on rare occasions, they're damaging.

[Canadian_watcher]

Here is a selection from the opening of the paper by Lucija Tomljenovic: The vaccination policy and the Code of Practice of the Joint Committee on
Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI): are they at odds? published here: http://www.ecomed.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/3-tomljenovic.pdf

Here I present the documentation which appears to show that the JCVI made continuous efforts to withhold critical data on severe adverse reactions and contraindications to vaccinations to both parents and health practitioners...

just in case the bland link addresses weren't enticing. maybe that will be.

[compared2what?]

Proponents of vaccination -- mainstream medicine, the government, pharma, etc. -- concede and long have conceded that vaccination-related injuries do occur and have been proven to, voluntarily and regularly.

They also maintain an enormous database of adverse-reaction reports that has absolutely no barriers or constraints that prevent some kinds of events from being reported, to which any researcher who is one has access.

no, they don't - not effectively and openly and they certainly pick and choose when to reveal info and when not to. That's precisely what the academic and peer reviewed papers linked to at the bottom of the first post I made in this thread are all about. The study provides hard evidence to the contrary in fact.

here they are again for you:
(1)http://www.ecomed.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/3-tomljenovic.pdf

(2)http://www.ecomed.org.uk/publications/the-health-hazards-of-disease-prevention

I'll read them. But it was a good-faith assertion.

And ONCE AGAIN:

My immoveable problem with this stuff is that it's paid for and promoted by the same people and organizations that countenance and endorse stuff like operating on children for experimental purposes and giving them industrial-strength bleach enemas.

I don't trust the judgment of anyone who thinks the ends justify those means. And I certainly don't want to take my information about what is and isn't good healthcare policy from them.

And no. There's not a few degrees of separation. There's ONE closely allied, coordinated connected group of people and organizations who work together, share resources, appear together before congress, sign letters and petitions together, promote each other's projects, and conspire to remain silent about the injury and mistreatment of children on their own side.

If that's the sort of thing you take seriously, check it out yourself if you don't believe me

If it's not the sort of thing you care about unless the government does it, we disagree.

[compared2what?]

All right.

Counting to ten again.

I just can never believe that...Okay. Counting to ten.

[compared2what?]

I actually agree. There's the appearance of one. But it's a stalking horse for other things. (Medicare.)

Care to explain that? You think that vaccine opposition is a proxy for medicare opposition? This is interesting to me. How so?

It's kind of a money-trail and history-trail argument. And they're always a little byzantine. I'd be happy to see if I can streamline it and get back to you. But it'll take a little time.

FWIW, opposition to vaccination originated when vaccination did and has always been reactionary-populist, a la Schlafly. At first as a kind of it's-against-God's-laws thing, as here:



And then, not long after that, as a racialist outrage thing. So it's actually got a very long stalking-horse pedigree.

WHICH DOESN'T MEAN ALL THE SCIENCE IS WRONG. Because, you know. When it's right, it's right. But caveat lector.

There is a movement against making them mandatory and thus against forced compliance, which in the case of vaccines has additional valence due to the fact that vaccines work by herd immunity. Thus my immunization works better if you get yours, and if enough people don't get immunized my own might not be worth much. So there is an entirely legitimate group interest in increasing vaccine compliance, which can get dicey in a society with a strong civil liberties heritage.

if there is, they don't spend a whole lot of time or money putting together presentations that make a case for it, or doing outreach and education programs that argue in its favor. Because I've never seen those arguments being flogged anywhere -- no Awareness days for them; no posters; no press coverage. Nothing.

Who's in this movement? They should get together with the toxins-injury-and-danger anti-vaxxers. Might have a few things in common.

But this is part of my point, if I get what you're saying. The arguments made in favor of vaccine compliance by medical authorities SHOULD draw on socialistic arguments. That is, they ought to say: yes, there's a small chance of injury, but when you vaccinate your child you're doing something that benefits society. Your willingness to (potentially) sacrifice your child's welfare is a social good. But please: find me those arguments! The ones I see from medical authorities don't make those sorts of claims. The ones I see insist on the safety of vaccines. I think medical authorities would rather not talk about the socialistic aspect of vaccine compliance because it'll call attention to the fact that vaccines are proprietary and profited from. PLUS this would require they remind the public that, on rare occasions, they're damaging.

What happened to the "NVIC is not about opposing vaccination as a dangerous, harmful thing" part of your argument? And your reply to my remarks about why the oh-I'm-not-interested-in-their-boosterism-for-MMS approach is not, in my opinion, an option?

[bks]

There is a movement against making them mandatory and thus against forced compliance,

Or as the NVIC puts it:

Our Mission
The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is dedicated to the prevention of vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and to defending the informed consent ethic in medicine.

As an independent clearinghouse for information on diseases and vaccines, NVIC does not advocate for or against the use of vaccines. We support the availability of all preventive health care options, including vaccines, and the right of consumers to make educated, voluntary health care choices.

Our Work
NVIC provides assistance to those who have suffered vaccine reactions; promotes and funds research to evaluate vaccine safety and effectiveness, as well as to identify factors which place individuals at high risk for suffering vaccine reactions; and monitors vaccine research, development, regulation, policy-making and legislation. Since 1982, NVIC has advocated that well-designed, independent, on-going scientific studies must be conducted to: (1) define the various biological mechanisms involved in vaccine injury and death: (2) identify genetic and other biological high risk factors for suffering chronic brain and immune system dysfunction after vaccination; and (3) evaluate short and long-term health outcomes of individuals, who use many vaccines, and those, who use fewer or no vaccines, to determine the health effects of vaccination on individuals and the public health.

NVIC works to protect the freedom for citizens to exercise the human right to voluntary, informed consent to any medical intervention or use of pharmaceutical product, such as a vaccine, which carries a risk of injury or death.

Honestly, that's a little opaque and heavy on the death/injury risk for a movement that's dedicated to universal child safety not making something forced-compliance mandatory that already isn't. Nothing about schools, no alternatives to school-based mandates suggested. You'd never know it was what they were about. Would you?

Not universal child safety! Safety for every individual child! In their own somewhat misguided, libertarian-infused way of seeing things. They would never say universal child safety. .

Who said they have answers? All they have, at best, is a vague understanding of the global health security ethos that's permeating social life, plus some entirely unenviable experience of seeing their children suffer. I think I understand your reluctance to cede any ground to what you perceive to be a creature of the right (and I'm lefter than you, sister ), but it's forest and trees here. Like I've been saying, vaccines are not where I'd put the stake in the ground. But the new paradigm of governance is global security, and compliance with global health protocols are a part of it, even at the macro level. More on that later. I've had the evening's first cocktail.

[compared2what?]

I was right the first time. Makes me too upset. I'm out.

Carry on.

[Sounder]

For the record; I do not and have never believed that vaccines cause autism or that Dr. Wakefield and other anti-vax people are not victims of bad thinking.

I had never heard of bleach treatments on any vaccine concerned website before so I googled it and found that there are indeed such misguided people.

I see similarity between these two hypotheticals; Our real worries do not center around vaccine effects, because we already know of their great benefits, so its better to keep the conversation centered on the crazy contingent of the people that have vaccine concerns,

and

People should have no interest in considering the power and criminal effect that an international banking consortium may have on society because David Icke believes that human-alien hybrids rule this planet.

But of course, that would never really happen, and I simply have an over fertile and misguided imagination.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Well, I suppose that indicates there is more bleed-through from that thread than I thought.

Sounder, interested in what you think in terms of prescriptive action - or inaction - pm is fine, would appreciate your mind grapes.

Same goes for anyone reading this, pretty much.