Brains, And The Lack Thereof

[elfs]

I make a pretty classic mistake when I write these posts up. I assume that most of you have heard 99% of what I've heard, and might only be interested in the last 1% or so. For example, the entire world has been abuzz with the fact that Andrew Wakefield, the man who sparked the whole "MMR Vaccination causes autism" scare, apparently faked all of his data and that not has no one else been able to replicate his results, there were no such results in the first place.

I mention this because I wanted to find the ugly underbelly of the whole thing. And oh, I hit the motherload. The mailing list "Environment of Harm," is in full denialist mode (all typos remain unchallenged):

• As awful as this might seem to be for Dr. Wakefield and his family, I see it as Big Pharma getting VERY nervous.
• Propaganda machine in full swing ...I must remind myself to step away from the tv in order to get any legit news/commentary.
• I sure hope Andy has gotten a thick skin by now. Poor guy, taking all this heat for telling the truth.
• You'd be stunned if you knew what happened during those studies. Nothing made by a pharmaceutical company is safe. NOTHING
• Pure caracter assination , We are fighting with uneven resources , and the adversary is not playing frairly . these people have no interest in helping the childreen

Fun, huh?

Other things going on:

Multivitamins provide no benefit against cancer or heart disease

This is neither surprising nor good news, but I've seen it in several places and now Orac has a write-up. A study of 161,810 post-menopausal women has shown that dietary supplements have absolutely no benefit against heart disease, osteoporosis, or cancer.

Fox News reads Republican talking points memo on the air, presents it as independent journalistic effort.

This is a fun catch. Fox even admits on the air that when they say "we," they (or at the very least the producers, researchers, and talking heads of the show Happening Now) are referring to "Fox News and it's affiliate, the Republican Party."

National Guard Soldier discharged for being a lesbian

This is just plain ol' disappointing. At least she was given an "honorable seperation," and a discharge number low enough she would be eligble to re-enlist if the ruls were changed.

I don't know that it's "despicable," as some commenters have said. It's sad, yes. The rules are there, and Amy Brian maybe didn't tell anyone she worked with, but putting her sexual orientation on her MySpace page was probably not smart.

Stunning Shamelessness of the Right

I've said before that I don't like the economic box of bullshit we're being peddled here, but at least I've never said otherwise. Patriot's Quill was reading The Corner (damn, I should have gone there instead of the religious hangouts this week) and found Arnold Kling repeating the "generational theft" meme the Right has been floating (the idea that debt is a theft of our grandkid's productivity-- well, yeah). Quill gave Kling the benefit of the doubt: maybe he's always been a debt hawk.

But no. Kling was for running up huge deficits under Bush II if a market crisis happened for him. Kling has shown no remorse for the deficits run up under the Iraq war. The Internet memory hole is indeed deep.

Comments

[codeamazon.livejournal.com]

I see the results for vitamins as positive in that they will hopefully begin to reverse a generation of food propaganda. Until very recently I was considered as much a crackpot for arguing against vitamins' efficacy as I was for electing a vaccination schedule not completely in line with U.S. standards.

(BTW, have you looked at New Jersey's newest vaccine law? Given that we know flu shots are only effective when they guess the strains correctly, it amounts to a pure subsidy to the industry in the years they don't.)

[elfs.livejournal.com]

No, I haven't heard about that one. The NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/nyregion/new-jersey/04flunj.html) has a good piece on it. I guess I'm generally on-board to the whole idea; I don't believe "big pharma" is out to make a profit at the expense of children's lives, and looking at the probabilities, yes, more children will be alive at the end of their schooling because of this policy. And none of them will be autistic because of it.

I guess that's a positive result. Forcing people rather than convincing them to believe it's a good idea is a nasty policy decision, though, and probably wasn't wise.

[codeamazon.livejournal.com]

My opinion may be different in part because of two experiences.

1) The polio vaccine in use when Stone was little was considered unacceptably dangerous in most of Europe and Japan at the time. I opted for the version they used at my own expense and with a lecture on "subjecting my child to an extra stick". By the time Joy came along is was SOP here too and the old one was considered too dangerous.

2) I watched Joy's arm turn red and swell after a vaccination (Pertussis which has a relatively high reaction rate especially in older kids) and then watched her develop life-threatening "flu-like" symptoms. She had a life-threatening reaction, and no other cause was determined, but it was not reported as a vaccine reaction because there was rotovirus in the area that could have led to the same symptoms, and there wasn't proof the localized reaction was related to the systemic reaction. Makes you wonder what proof is required and how accurate the reaction numbers are. (No other family member became ill, fwiw, despite having been covered in her ... uhm ... effluence on more than one occassion.)

If I needed more proof of the business and social pressures involved (i.e. that vaccination schedules are not purely scientifically determined) I need look only as far as HPV, which is much more consistently useful than the flu vaccine which is only effective when they formulate it correctly, yet ISN'T on the required schedules. Like any 14yo girl is going to think "I'm protected from an STD which might lead to deadly complications in twenty years, so I think I'll just go ahead and do it wantonly."

[fallenpegasus]

The original vaccination schedules were designed to halt public-school fast epidemics of touch contagious childhood diseases. There is a direct public health basis, based on prompt epidemiology.

While I agree that HPV is a dangerous disease, and that administering the vaccine is a Good Idea, there is not a group epidemic basis for mandating it.

Frankly, if people have to be *mandated* to do good ideas... that's a screaming match for another day.

[codeamazon.livejournal.com]

Ok, that's a worthwhile distinction, though I would point out HPV *is* in fact a contagious epidemic. We just don't see those deaths and costs for a few decades.

As for the claim that vaccination isn't profitable, citation? A quick search netted me this : http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/61874.php which suggests it is not only profitable, but a growth industry. (First hit from a neutral source -- I skipped anything anti-vaccine for obvious reasons.)

FLU vaccine specifically isn't profitable precisely because they have to predict many months in advance what the likely flu pattern that year will be, and if they miss the product is worthless. Making it mandatory makes it a safer gamble for the company by requiring vaccination whether it's useful that year or not.

How on earth that could lead a free-market guy (I thought?) to conclude that government coercion is even debateably legitimate is beyond me. Why not simply subsidize the years it's a failure to encourage production and leave what people put in their bodies up to them and their doctors?

[blaisepascal]

One of the common screeds of the anti-vaccinationists is that "big pharma" is making lots of money on vaccines, and pushing an over-fast vaccine schedule is driven by profit.

I'd like to see the opposite figures: how much would "big pharma" be making in profits on anti-measles drugs if people stopped taking MMR?

[codeamazon.livejournal.com]

Interesting but likely impossible question. You'd have to take into account death rates, likely pharmacological sales loss for those deaths, etc. etc. We don't know what drugs would be available for, say, Measles if Measles were still common.

The problem I have is that so many people fall on one or the other side so blindly. It seems like most people either believe you're a selfish sinner for not following precisely the U.S. standards (right now) or for utilizing vaccination at all.

There are undoubtedly huge benefits to vaccination regimens, and for some diseases like Polio there are only a very few 'purists' who object even though most of us have not seen polio in our lifetimes.

However we're moving well out of that territory when we require vaccination for the flu prior to going to pre-school. Science explains that this vaccine only works when they guess right. Science tells us a non-trivial portion of people are sensitive to the egg basis. *Politics* mandates the vaccination without respect for whether it's useful that year.

[fallenpegasus]

"pure subsidy". heh.

Given the savage safety and liability requirements imposed on "big pharma" for making them, and the low profits and low margins on developing and dispensing vaccines, we're all lucky "Big Pharma" is willing to do it at all.

If I was a "Big Pharma" exec, I'd say "fuck this noise" and discontinue all existing vaccine formulation and dispensation work.

And we would only have ourselves to blame.

[maellenkleth]

heh. USDOD policy is certainly different from Canadian DND policy, which basically boils down to 1) "who cares" and 2) "we don't care whether or not you are married, but no shagging whilst on duty or in camp."

just sign me,
an always-visible dyke O-6 (retired), ex-CF.

Greetings, Friend!

[heofmanynames.livejournal.com]

When are you going to come back South & visit us? I miss hearing the coffee song rolling across the field in the morning!

Re: Greetings, Friend!

[maellenkleth]

jeez, okay, it's true that there are only a thousand people on the Web and we keep meeting.

guess that the next time I will be in Lumpkin County, Georgia will be year after next, likely off-season. I am on sabbatical at the moment and therefore rather less likely to be seen in public, at least with a name tag attached (most recent bumping into Elf and Omaha notwithstanding) -- the oracle business always works better from the other side of the darkened curtain. ^_^

hugs, anyway.

[grum]

I realize that it's likely to make me look like a troll, but if everyone she deployed to Iraq with knew that she was gay, then she told someone in some manner. I'm not saying the policy is right, but you can't claim she played by the rules* and was a perfectly-behaved innocent victim.

*It was my impression that the "don't tell" portion included non-military disclosure and that if there was any way to link disclosure to you, then having it up on her myspace page was violating the policy. I'll welcome correction if my impression was incorrect.

[icebluenothing.livejournal.com]

I make a pretty classic mistake when I write these posts up.

.... Never get involved in a land war in Asia?

[maellenkleth]

1. never eat at a place called Mom's,
2. never play cards with a man named Doc,
3. never ever take a vacation in a country named Stan.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

I see it as Big Pharma getting VERY nervous.

In other words, "I'll see it when I believe it". Paranoid conspiracy fantasies are all like that.