Science and Stupidity:When Opinon replaces facts

[Stavros]

Two articles in The Independent illustrate an alarming tendency to dismiss science, to be replaced by opinion, as if an opinion and a fact were the same thing. One concerns the Flat Earth hypothesis, the other the so-called controversy regarding the use of the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) Vaccine where in spite of the evidence the President of the USA endorses the argument that MMR causes autism, a theory which led one of its leading exponents to be struck off the Medical Register in the UK though he now lives in Texas and continues to advocate a policy that has destroyed lives.

The report on the Flat Earth Convention in the UK claims they did offer scientific 'proof' that the Earth is not a globe or a sphere but flat, although in precise terms I don't see how domes, ice walls, diamonds, puddles with multiple worlds inside, and even the Earth as the inside of a giant cosmic egg can be taken seriously. Critically, this is where the confrontation takes place:
While flat earthers seem to trust and support scientific methods, what they don’t trust is scientists, and the established relationships between “power” and “knowledge”.
And again,
A particular point of contention occurred when one of the physicists pleaded with the audience to avoid trusting YouTube and bloggers. The audience and the panel of flat earthers took exception to this, noting that “now we’ve got the internet and mass communication … we’re not reliant on what the mainstream are telling us in newspapers, we can decide for ourselves”.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/flat-earth-convention-birmingham-fake-news-science-facts-a8336946.html

The MMR controversy is far more serious because it impacts people's lives. It concerns Andrew Wakefield who
co-authored a now notorious and debunked medical paper that claimed to have found a link between autism (https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/autism) and the use of a common children’s vaccine (https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/Vaccines). The paper, later retracted (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)60175-4/fulltext) by The Lancet, helped lead to a drop-off in vaccination rates and an increase in outbreak diseases such as measles, (https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/measles) not only in Britain and Europe, but in the US. The doctor was subsequently found guilty by the British General Medical Council (GMC) of three-dozen charges, including dishonesty and abuse of children, and struck off the medical register.

Again, the key here is Wakefield's defence of himself and his dangerous ideas:

“I was discredited in the eyes of those who wanted to see me discredited. In other words, those who had an interest in maintaining the status quo,”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/andrew-wakefield-anti-vaxxer-trump-us-mmr-autism-link-lancet-fake-a8331826.html


More alarming is that Wakefield and others met the President in the White House who interrupted their presentation-
“He interjected and said, ‘You don’t need to tell me that vaccines cause autism. I’ve seen it, I’ve seen it personally’. We went on to discuss the issue of the autism crisis that is set to affect 80 per cent of boys if nothing is done. He said if he was to be elected he’d do something about it.”

And also
On more than 20 occasions, Mr Trump has tweeted about there being a link between vaccines and autism, something experts at the government’s leading public health institute say is not true. He also repeated the claim during a Republican primary debate, a remark that was immediately dismissed as false by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-vaccines-autism-links-anti-vaxxer-us-president-false-vaccine-a8331836.html

In practical terms it appears the President has done nothing; that this man is prepared to discard science for a 'feeling' that it 'just ain't right' may be an accurate estimate of his rank stupidity, but should he be allowed to endanger the lives of children because of that?

[buttslinger]

In the Business World, if you sell an inferior product, a cheap hammer, or a liter of sugar water, if you sell it cheap enough, people will buy it. In the Business World, not paying taxes is smart. Trump is a very successful Business Man, you can't argue that. You can make a lot of money selling shit.

[trish]

One could employ the ‘scientific method’ in the pursuit of knowledge on one’s own. You could design and construct your own instruments, perform your own experiments, analyze and interpret your own data, confirm or falsify your own theories and hypothesis. It’s always interesting to see how far you can get on your own.

This is true for larger communities and organizations too. Any industry, any union of scientists etc. can pursue a similar program. The difference will be that individuals will not be carrying out each and every task on their own. There will be a division of labor.

Any one professional chemist (working for industry, the academy, a government agency or the military) will have verified much of what she claims to know on her own. But not with all of her own equipment, and not without a great deal of guidance, not only from mentors but from the field itself as it developed before her and was set down in logs and eventually in textbooks. The modern sciences are vast and complex. To meaningfully progress and add to our present knowledge, to even know what our present knowledge is, we need to avail ourselves of a division of labor and trust the work of dedicated researchers other than our lone selves.

For anyone who has pursued a career in the sciences, this isn’t difficult. The difficult part is doing the science itself: but remaining true to the integrity of the enterprise is easy and pretty much a given. Truth is what we’re all in search of after all. Yes there are other motivations too. Winning the admiration of your colleagues, being the first to discover something new. But every ‘discovery’ is going to be scrutinized to the nth degree; both to ascertain its validity as well as to test the bounds of its application. Academia and government agencies (e.g. NASA and the CDC) are the most open venues and subject to the highest scrutiny. Industry and military research are less open and may perhaps be more subject to deliberate abuses.

Flat-Earthers and anti-vaxxers, who claim to view the evidence with a clear and unbiased eye, seem to me to be among the biggest cherry-pickers there ever were. There are so many ways to falsify the flat-earth hypothesis the mind boggles at the prospect that there’s any modern person who believes it. Nor can I imagine what must be the mental state of the anti-vaxxer who is willing to risk the health of her child and all the others she has contact with on the basis of a decade old rumor which has been debunked by the very same medical community to whom she takes her child for all other ailments.

[nitron]

I'd say it's not just these two groups, but you picked good examples stavro.
To take your analogy a little further .
Anti vaxers tend to be on the left , and flat -earther's on the right of the politico spectrum. It seems to me.
I would add ,how about what science has to say about human nature,say ,Evolutionary Psychology's observations , for example, and how both right and left disregard it.


On the left,in my opinion.
Denying Nature ,over reliance on Nurture.
, no inherent differences, the Standard Social Science Model,,it's all nurture, therefore the potential of freewill and free agency.If only we have the right environment.Denying inherent differences ,immoral or irrational actors,
leading to ,tribalism, identity politics,no free speech .

And,from the right,I see...

Denying Nurture, and simplistic notions of Nature.
....trust the markets, it corrects itself.It's rational self interest so it all will work out. We have free will , we're rational agent's.
No such thing as, immoral or short sighted ,narrow self interested ,actors that take no heed of wide survival. Narrow ,short term profits, even at the cost of there offspring's well being.

Yia, Denying is delaying.
Delaying a better way of being , why not use the best tools civilization has come up with to try and manage our self's ?
Evolutionary Psychology,because it admits that it's both nature-nurture that have laid miserable suffering on all of us for all of history, and to change that ,it's really really difficult . Why can't we accept that an honest acceptance of human limitations can lead to an honest discussion about what we can implement and when it's not working,change it again with no loss of honor, we're imperfect . Thanks for starting the thread, and getting it off my nipples.

[buttslinger]

Of everyone I know closely, the only person I know who came out of College set for life, was my brother, who got a Chemistry Degree. Basically he MEMORIZED every lesson he got, until he was the book.
Personally, all that damn homework I had as a kid??..........total waste of time!

[Stavros]

Anti vaxers tend to be on the left , and flat -earther's on the right of the politico spectrum. It seems to me.


I don't think it makes sense to present the nature-nurture debate as a contrast between left and right. The point about the 'nature' school I assume, is that they believe categories -male and female, for example- are fixed and cannot be changed. If you add in the view of some that male and female have precise functions related to procreation, which is natural, the only way to explain homosexuality is to present it as an aberration, to be condemned morally if preferred though some can just label it 'wrong' and leave it at that. But if you believe in nurture as a presentation of the alternative, that gender categories are not just fluid but change as society changes, you can still argue that if nurture makes homosexuals, it can also unmake them. This could as easily produce a 'gay cure' from 'the left' as the 'right'. I don't know how to define male and female as 'left' or 'right' as people on the left have been and probably still are hostile to transexuality, and to assume that a liberal social movement must also be left-wing is I think too easy an assumption to make.

Thus I don't see how the 'anti-vax' brigade can be associated with the 'left' as would be the case with any conspiracy theory, as not all conspiracy theories are adopted or supported by 'right-wing' nutters, as nutters can be found in all walks of life.

It is simply a refusal to believe that what science produces as facts are indeed facts. Should the flat-earth brigade also argue against gravity as a scientific fact? Why this denial takes place may have more to do with the process as much as the consequences, thus people who in reality are opposed to the remedies that exist to combat the worst effects of climate change -taxation and the subsidy of alternative energy, for example- attack the science behind climate change in an attempt to undermine the politics. The anti-vax argument is an example of people who think medicine has too much power and is too closely linked to 'big pharma' that attack the science in order to undermine those who they think are making decisions for them they can make for themselves.
Many parents may think 'home schooling' is better as it protects their child from the indoctrination by the state, but it doesn't guarantee home schooling is a better alternative in educational terms.

[Stavros]

Truth is what we’re all in search of after all.

From your robust reply, this expresses the core dilemma, because once it is argued that the truth is unreliable because its source is unreliable the potential exists to define the truth not on the basis of evidence, but on something that is not even scientific such as the claim 'the truth' only exists to achieve a political goal that can be challenged. Thus climate change as science is declared to be a hoax when the remedy is presented as carbon taxes by people who argue as a principle that 'all taxation is theft', and who oppose the subsidization of alternative energy solutions because it enables the state to interfere in markets where the state ought not to be.

If the argument against the science of climate change is in fact an argument about politics, the argument about the science of abortion is an argument that connects it to moral judgement, but only in a selective way.
The science behind the argument that abortion is murder is based on a definition of life that claims it begins with the creation of a foetus that can be seen through the science of electronics as the foetus can be observed by ultrasound developing into human form. But this is only as far as the science goes, for the greater weight of the moral argument is that it is wrong to abort life, an argument based either on religion, or on a more basic appeal to the idea that killing is wrong.
But this is where the same people appear to abandon their argument, for if it is morally wrong to abort a life in the womb at 10 weeks, is it not also wrong to abort a life when it is ten months old, if that life is being lived in a house in Baghdad destroyed by a bomb in a war supported by those who previously said abortion is a crime against humanity? After all the science also enters into the debate when a doctor pronounces the 10-month old baby is dead, even if the only evidence of life is half a torso.

When the truth is so challenged it loses its core meaning, there is no truth. But there is a difference between denying the existence of gravity and denying the scientific validity of the MMR vaccine; one is irrelevant to society (as is true of the flat-earth concept), the other has social consequences, and it is where science impacts on society that politics can get involved, but until recently, it was rare for politics to deny science its core activity to the extent that it now has. After all, science did badly as a result of the creation of nuclear weapons, just as nuclear energy in spite of its efficiency suffered greatly from the disaster at Chernobyl, but this can be understood as the potential for science to do good as well as bad, though ultimately there was never anything in the science of nuclear fission that insisted it be used to kill and destroy. And the science behind nuclear fission has survived.

The mere vulgarity of the language that has been used to dismiss science ought to be the warning sign that the alternative argument is based merely on prejudice. That a policy on climate change can be based on one man's resentment of another renders it worthless.

The real problem then becomes: how do you rescue the truth from the politics? It is not a politically good move to tell a potential voter 'you are stupid', but if they are convinced the earth is flat, that vaccines do more harm than good, how can their views be changed? Evidence can do that, and is the foundation of much science, but I suspect some people adopt a position for whatever reason and cannot be forced to change, and we can only hope they do not influence politicians and, over time change their views.

[blackchubby38]

Anti-vaxers tend to fall on both sides of the political spectrum since mistrust in government, especially when it comes to people's personal lives, is not a party neutral belief. I also happen to think they're the worst of the conspiracy groups since their ignorance poses a threat to the well being of society.

The Flat-Earthers, I have no time for stupidity in my life and really don't pay no attention to them. Their belief is relatively harmless.

[Stavros]

This could be in the Climate Change thread but is resonant here too, the bizarre ideas of a Republican Congressman -Mo Brooks. Don't these people employ interns to do basic research?

Brooks represents Alabama's fifth district and - during a recent House Science, Space and Technology Committee hearing - said some pretty strange things about sea levels.
When asking questions to Philip Duffy, president of the Woods Hole Research Centre in Massachusetts, he asked whether rising sea levels are the results of eroding rocks and soil and nothing to do with humans whatsoever:
What about erosion?
Every single year that we're on Earth, you have huge tons of silt deposited by the Mississippi River, by the Amazon River, by the Nile...and every time you have that soil or rock or whatever it is that is deposited into the seas, that forces the sea levels to rise, because now you've got less space in the oceans, because the bottom is moving up.
He then went on to ask Duffy how much ice there is in the Antarctic. Literally.


https://www.indy100.com/article/republican-congressman-mo-brooks-climate-change-denier-sea-levels-rocks-weather-8361471 (https://www.indy100.com/article/republican-congressman-mo-brooks-climate-change-denier-sea-levels-rocks-weather-8361471)

[trish]

There is a relation between erosion and sea level rise. Rising tides erode more beaches at faster rates.
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/its-beach-season-enjoy-it-while-you-can
https://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/rising-sea-levels-and-moving-shorelines

The scientific consensus is that ocean rise has three primary causes: thermal explansion, melting glaciers and ice caps, ice loss from Greenland and West Antarctica.
Imagine that, they don’t even consider falling chunks of chalk from the cliffs of Dover. But fuck that whole community of oceanographers and climatologists. The new hot theory from Rep Brooks is that too many rocks are falling from ocean cliffs and displacing too much water thereby raising the sea-level and razing the science of oceanography to its very foundations.
https://www.livescience.com/62613-erosion-causes-sea-level-rise-mo-brooks.html

Brooks might have as well suggested we can counter ocean level rise by removing more fish from the ocean. If it had occurred to him, I’m sure he would’ve endorsed the idea. Fishing: Good for the Economy and Good for Beaches - not to mention Good Eating.

My own theory is that Americans have gotten so fat their weight is pushing the continent deeper into the ocean and displacing the water. Stop Sea Level Rise: Eat Less.

[Stavros]

Maybe what your clever American engineers could do to save Florida from rising sea levels is to dig a series of deep holes around the coast of the state, so the water can flow into them and the state will be saved--??

[buttslinger]

Maybe what your clever American engineers could do to save Florida from rising sea levels is to dig a series of deep holes around the coast of the state, so the water can flow into them and the state will be saved--??

Was that dry British humour?
If this were a hundred years ago and they didn't have air conditioning yet, I kid you not, I couldn't survive. And if I had to pick lettuce in 100 degree heat, I couldn't do that either.

[filghy2]

Maybe what your clever American engineers could do to save Florida from rising sea levels is to dig a series of deep holes around the coast of the state, so the water can flow into them and the state will be saved--??

No, we just need to tilt the flat earth and tip the excess sea water into space.

Just wait till the worthy Rep Brooks finds out about plate tectonics and the new earth's crust that is being continually pushed up at mid-oceanic ridges. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seafloor_spreading

[filghy2]

If this were a hundred years ago and they didn't have air conditioning yet, I kid you not, I couldn't survive. And if I had to pick lettuce in 100 degree heat, I couldn't do that either.

You are such a wimp. Primitive men didn't complain about a little bit of climate change. They just got on with life, didn't they? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal

Why isn't RedVex here to point these things out?

[DaphneCruz]

I have a question. A serious one. What would it take for a "pro-vaxxor" to admit that vaccines are bad?

Every time I see this topic, the pro vaxxor says 'show me the proof' .. what proof? How much?

Im just curious.

[filghy2]

I have a question. A serious one. What would it take for a "pro-vaxxor" to admit that vaccines are bad?

Every time I see this topic, the pro vaxxor says 'show me the proof' .. what proof? How much?

Im just curious.

The same as for all scientific knowledge - when there is sufficient weight of evidence from research articles that satisfy accepted scientific standards.

Basically, in order to demonstrate that vaccination increased the risk of autism a researcher would need to show that there was a statistically significant effect after accounting for all other factors that could affect the risk of autism. Statistically significant means there must be less than a 1 in 20 chance that the results are actually consistent with zero effect. Articles also have to be peer-reviewed before they are published, which means that an independent expert looks at it to verify that it was done properly.

A single paper that found a significant effect would not necessarily be 'proof' because there are already other papers that found no significant effect. In order for the medical profession to change it's mind similar results would need to be found by enough independent researchers to convince them that the previous results were no longer valid.

[DaphneCruz]

So basically you want some magical group of people to conduct research at their own expense and at no profit to themselves on testing the chemicals in somebody else's vaccines to some how conclusively "prove" that vaccines "cause autism" and then somehow have this research publicly known to the world to where it becomes "common knowledge".... Got it. lol

[DaphneCruz]

This is why the general public is so stupid. They dont understand the logistics on how incredibly difficult some things can be. Or how things work.

[broncofan]

So basically you want some magical group of people to conduct research at their own expense and at no profit to themselves on testing the chemicals in somebody else's vaccines to some how conclusively "prove" that vaccines "cause autism" and then somehow have this research publicly known to the world to where it becomes "common knowledge".... Got it. lol
Why a magical group of people? And what is wrong with scientists, many of whom have a significant personal interest in conclusively identifying the cause of autism, which at this point is thought to involve many genes and a whole host of environmental factors.

Do you honestly think there are not a sufficient number scientists and doctors who would not want to show that the causes of autism are entirely iatrogenic if they were? If an individual or group of individuals could demonstrate this, both by showing an increased incidence of autism among people who have been vaccinated, and positing a reasonable theory to explain why vaccinations would cause autism, would they not be strong candidates for a Nobel Prize in Medicine?

If the general public is stupid, this does not demonstrate why. You on the other hand....

[trish]

If you are impressed with how incredibly difficult the scientific standards of proof are, then you should be very unimpressed by the “evidence” and arguments that attempt to establish a link a between autism and vaccines. These are the same standards used in all areas of scientific endeavor. It’s why we are reasonably certain that smoking increases the risk of cancer, mass and energy are conserved under physical all transformations, in a closed system entropy never decreases and the current climate change isn’t caused by increased solar activity. If you think the standard is too stringent to accommodate your belief system that’s fine, you don’t have to abide by it. You are free to be a crank.

[filghy2]

If anything, there is actually a bias towards publishing research results that will gain media publicity, as linking vaccination and autism would. According to the famous paper by John Ionnidas even stringent scientific standards don't prevent a lot of dubious research results from being published. http://bigthink.com/neurobonkers/believe-it-or-not-most-published-research-findings-are-probably-false

The problem is that the standard test will give a false positive 5% of the time, and nobody has much interest in publishing papers that fail to find anything. That means there is an incentive to keep trying different approaches until you get a positive result.

[DaphneCruz]

Why a magical group of people? And what is wrong with scientists, many of whom have a significant personal interest in conclusively identifying the cause of autism, which at this point is thought to involve many genes and a whole host of environmental factors.

Do you honestly think there are not a sufficient number scientists and doctors who would not want to show that the causes of autism are entirely iatrogenic if they were? If an individual or group of individuals could demonstrate this, both by showing an increased incidence of autism among people who have been vaccinated, and positing a reasonable theory to explain why vaccinations would cause autism, would they not be strong candidates for a Nobel Prize in Medicine?

If the general public is stupid, this does not demonstrate why. You on the other hand....


You missed the entire point of my post (not surprsing)

Who will pay a doctor or scientist to simply conduct tests to prove vaccines are bad? Is there some magical group of financiers that will fund this research? Will you pay for it? or should the doctors pay for it? lol And how can this be done?

The bulk of the "research" on vaccines and their effectiveness and testing of vaccines is paid for the pharmaceutical companies as they are the ones trying to get their drugs pushed forward. Naturally it will you know how it will turn out.

and 2. there are studies and papers that do show how vaccines are bad, but it will never be enough until it over powers the tremendous amount of "research" by the pharmaceutical industry that has way more money.

Here's a pdf with hundreds of articles/studies with links etc...

http://vaccine-injury.info/pdf/vaccinepeerreview.pdf

Will you read it? probably not. Can you dismiss them? not if you dont read them which you wont and if you did wouldnt understand it or wouldnt care because again, you are simply influenced by the fact that if vaccines were bad, it would be common knowledge. not taking into account that nobody is funding the research on determining that vaccines are dangerous. Who would? There isnt a company that profits from such tests etc. or the logistics are impossible. How can somebody test that? If you made everybody in the world drink a thimble of bleach it probably would not kill them, most still probably "be okay" some may react very badly, maybe even die, but the majority will probably not suffer too much or show any symptons too our of the ordinary and those that are ill affected will be relatively small. So, does that prove that it is safe or not that bad? or will you admit that drinking bleach may not be really safe or adviseable?

Do you think the FDA or CDC actually tests and monitors this stuff? No, for the most part they study the 'research' submitted by the drug company trying to get a drug approved.



But until it somehow just becomes magically common knowledge you will never accept it.

Also, Autism is not a disease you can get tested for with blood test. Proving a direct link is pretty much impossible. Autism is a measure of brain damage. So you may be able to publish a study that vaccines cause brain damage (maybe small) but it will never be enough. etc.

Youre asking for impossible "proof"

[broncofan]

You missed the entire point of my post (not surprsing)

Also, Autism is not a disease you can get tested for with blood test. Proving a direct link is pretty much impossible. Autism is a measure of brain damage. So you may be able to publish a study that vaccines cause brain damage (maybe small) but it will never be enough. etc.

Youre asking for impossible "proof"
You missed the entire point of my post but I understood what you were saying. Pharmaceutical companies have deep pockets and fund research but they are not the only source of funding. There are independent organizations that research the causes of autism. They have millions of dollars worth of funding which I could link for you. Not only that, but I found a link saying the NIH allocated 169 million dollars to autism research in 2012. I have no reason to doubt that there is a great deal of money spent every year in the U.S. to understand autism and identify both genetic and environmental causes of it.

In the Wikipedia link on autism, valproic acid (an anti-epileptic drug also widely used in bipolar disorder) use during pregnancy is listed as a contributing cause of autism. Is there any money in identifying an anti-seizure drug as a cause of autism? If there is it's not obvious. Yet the fact that prenatal exposure to valproic acid can cause autism is not controversial. Who profits from that?

Your description of autism simply as a measure of brain damage makes you sound like a moron. It is a neurodevelopmental disorder but then again ADHD is classified that way as well. It involves all sorts of functional impairments but one of its characteristics is thought to be overconnectivity of neurons in certain parts of the brain. Without question many people with autism have significant impairments but not all brain damage results in autism. When adults damage their brains they do not develop autism (because it's neurodevelopmental; the hint is in the word developmental) and neither do children who suffer head injuries or hypoxia.

And no I'm not going to read a thousand plus page document that you're unable to summarize.

[broncofan]

In the Wikipedia link on autism, valproic acid (an anti-epileptic drug also widely used in bipolar disorder) use during pregnancy is listed as a contributing cause of autism. Is there any money in identifying an anti-seizure drug as a cause of autism? If there is it's not obvious. Yet the fact that prenatal exposure to valproic acid can cause autism is not controversial. Who profits from that?

I also found a bunch of studies on valproic acid and autism. One such study had even discovered an animal model for autism which makes your argument about the proof being impossible sound less than informed (there are problems I've read with extrapolating results from animal studies to humans but it was probably the statistical data in humans exposed to valproate that led to the animal studies). Again, how is this study of valproic acid profitable to pharmaceutical companies?

[DaphneCruz]

wow... You went through that pdf pretty quick. Im impressed. lol

"I also found a bunch of studies"

lol.

Site one. Explain it. And then I will here you. I doubt you have ever read an actual study. they would be too hard for you to understand. If anything you read reviews of studies. And I hardly doubt you put much time in it.


Site and source one study so we can scrutinize it. You will NEVER find a study that shows test studies of vaccinated vs truly unvaccinated. Ever. Never. Never. Never

[broncofan]

wow... You went through that pdf pretty quick. Im impressed. lol

"I also found a bunch of studies"

lol.

Site one. Explain it. And then I will here you. I doubt you have ever read an actual study. they would be too hard for you to understand. If anything you read reviews of studies. And I hardly doubt you put much time in it.


Site and source one study so we can scrutinize it. You will NEVER find a study that shows test studies of vaccinated vs truly unvaccinated. Ever. Never. Never. Never
1. I read the abstracts of the studies in order to see what the subject matter was. The point I was making is that a potential cause of autism was identified and studied even though there was no financial motive. That was the entire point.

2. If you read my post, you would see that I said I wasn't going to read your pdf, which when I opened it was over 1000 pages. You could summarize what you believe it says, but you seem unable to.

3. The word you're looking for is cite not site. The word you're looking for is hear not here. I think when you say "reviews of studies" you might be talking about the abstracts of the studies. I find conspiracy theorists are often people like yourself without critical faculties who want to pretend they have some secret knowledge. Why is it you pretend to be an expert on all these various subjects but write less clearly than all of the people you argue with?

4. Saying lol doesn't make people think you're laughing out loud. It makes you sound desperate.

[DaphneCruz]

2. If you read my post, you would see that I said I wasn't going to read your pdf, which when I opened it was over 1000 pages. You could summarize what you believe it says, but you seem unable to.

Pretty much sums it up.


You(not you)proof or studies and it is ignored.

I did summarize. They are studies that have shown ill effect of vaccines.


YOU refuse to even look at it. So its funny that you believe they dont exist.

[broncofan]

Pretty much sums it up.


My argument is contained in this link. When you're done with it we can discuss who's right. Deal?
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2600/2600-h/2600-h.htm

[DaphneCruz]

No arguement against vaccines? Didnt think so. Bye

[DaphneCruz]

1000 articles/studies conveniently put in a pdf is not enough. How much simpler do you have to put it to you freaks?


seriously . how much would it take?

[Stavros]

The bulk of the "research" on vaccines and their effectiveness and testing of vaccines is paid for the pharmaceutical companies as they are the ones trying to get their drugs pushed forward. Naturally it will you know how it will turn out.
and 2. there are studies and papers that do show how vaccines are bad, but it will never be enough until it over powers the tremendous amount of "research" by the pharmaceutical industry that has way more money.


At the start of the Peer Review you linked there are three components to core main critique. The first concerns the commercial importance of the pharmaceuticals industry and the use it makes of its money to lobby Congress on behalf of its producers, but which is presented as 'institutional corruption'; second that this 'corrupt' lobbying system has resulted in Congress under-funding the FDA to the extent that it cannot properly monitor the activities of 'big pharma', and lastly that the commercial nature of the pharmaceuticals industry has in effect commercialized the role of physicians, and 'undermined their position as independent, trusted advisers to patients' (Institutional Corruption of Pharmaceuticals and the Myth of Safe and Effective Drugs, p7-8).

Much is made throughout the Peer Review of the extent to which the industry generates the product that it sells, that it uses its powers to 'correct' misleading impressions -to protect its business as much as its reputation (this is where it become 'corruption')- and that people suffer as a result.

But what is also of note is that while the documentation of adverse effects of vaccination are recorded, it is not necessarily the case that vaccination as a procedure is considered 'bad' to you use your term. In the article that begins on p725 (The Truth Behind the Vaccine Cover-Up) what Russell Blaylock is arguing that the fault may lie, not in the vaccinations per se, but the number of vaccinations administered to children within a short space of time, which is in no way claiming that vaccination is 'bad'.

It has always been the case, and still is, that vaccinations can have adverse effects on the child, but that remedies are also available to treat these cases -the link to the NHS documents below puts it into simple words. However, what is the alternative procedure to prevent a child from contracting Measles and Polio to name just two diseases that have been dealt with effectively by vaccination? Because that is the key point: the fact that Smallpox has been eradicated universally through vaccination; that incidences of Polio have been dramatically reduced though vaccination, but persists where vaccination is either absent due to war or law and order issues, or local opposition.

Vaccines work, and have save millions of lives. If you want to attack 'Big Pharma' then offer the medical profession an alternative means of inventing, testing and introducing medicines to treat illness. If not, or in addition, do regulate the industry more than it is at the moment, even though a generation of conservative politicians will insist the industry must regulate itself. Then ask why physicians in the US in particular prescribe addictive opioids which are not prescribed in the UK or, say, in Japan -suggesting that there may be a cultural issue in medicine in the US which is not met elsewhere.

There are some complex social and political issues here, but the basic format is tried and tested, and to deny the success of vaccines is to deny too many people the right to live without illness or even death.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/how-vaccines-work/

[trish]

I got the impression you claimed to have hundreds of peer reviewed articles establishing a connection between vaccines and autism. In the middle of this discussion you post:


...Here's a pdf with hundreds of articles/studies with links etc...

http://vaccine-injury.info/pdf/vaccinepeerreview.pdf

True enough the PDF links to hundreds of articles and studies. I’m scrolling down and choosing one at random now. ...Here it is.


“American Journal Of Public Health • April 1989
The role of secondary vaccine failures
in measles outbreaks
Author information
Mathias RG1, Meekison WG, Arcand TA, Schechter MT.
Department of Health Care and Epidemiology
University of British Columbia, Vancouver
Abstract
An outbreak of measles in 1985-86 in a community where measles vac-
cine trials had been carried out from 1974-76 allowed the assessment of
the role of secondary vaccine failures in previously immunized children.
A total of 188 children from the vaccine trial were followed. Of these, 175
seroconverted initially while 13 (6 per cent) required re-immunization (pri-
mary failure). A total of 13 cases of measles, eight of which were laboratory
and/or physician-confirmed, were reported in this cohort. Of these, nine
cases occurred in the 175 subjects who had hemagglutination inhibition test
(HI) and neutralizing antibody responses following the initial immuniza-
tion. These nine cases represent secondary vaccine failures. An additional
four cases occurred in the 13 subjects with primary vaccine failure. We con-
clude that secondary vaccine failures occur and that while primary failures
account for most cases, secondary vaccine failures contribute to the occur-
rence of measles cases in an epidemic. A booster dose of measles vaccine
may be necessary to reduce susceptibility to a sufficiently low level to allow
the goal of measles elimination to be achieved.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2929807 “

I can’t help notice that it doesn’t even address the issue of vaccines and autism. In fact the article suggests that some children may need to be re-immunized against measles!
Hmmmm.

[trish]

The one article in the PDF (linked to above) that promises one-thousand pages of full-length reports linking vaccines to heavy metal toxicities, autism and other alleged risks is the ten year old 2008 Medical Veritas article by Russell L. Blaylock, MD entitled, “The truth behind the vaccine cover-up.” The link given there is https://app.box.com/s/xa75ta0j9jbe05e615gd5xto9ff1mz4a . The Box link has been updated and it now contains twenty reports. Not one-thousand. Not hundreds.

The first is a four page 2011 report published by vaccinationcouncil.org. Not an organization with an independent view. There are no detailed description of experiments or statistical analysis of data. The author doesn’t address the issue of autism. He does anecdotally suggest vaccines may induce atrophy of the immune system (presumably because the artificially immunized system doesn’t have to work hard enough) and he worries that the genes of the live or dead biological components of a vaccine might jump to the human host and be past on through their progeny. The evidence he cites is genes jumping in corn crops.

The second is an article by Bernard Rimland, PhD and Woody McGinnis, MD of the Autism Research Institute at San Diego, CA. The article appears in the Laboratory Medicine no.9 vol.22 Sept 2002. It makes a case against those vaccines that contain the preservative Thimerosal. Mercury, and other heavy metal based preservatives are no longer used in vaccines. I think, someone can check on this, that sort of usage is banned by the FDA.

etc.

[Stavros]

There was a time when science did some scary stuff, it probably still does, but with a 'fetal heartbeat' identified at six weeks -identified not by a doctor or a scientist but politicians ignorant of the life they seek to protect- we now have fossil fuels referred to by officials of the US Government as 'molecules of freedom'...The Big Bang Theory may have ended, but endless re-runs of this permanent self-deprecation and abuse by fake scientists has met its match in linguistic torture by the US Government-

Mark W. Menezes, the US under secretary of energy, and Steven Winberg, the assistant secretary for fossil energy introduced the new vocabulary.
“Increasing export capacity from the Freeport LNG project is critical to spreading freedom gas throughout the world by giving America’s allies a diverse and affordable source of clean energy, Mr Menezes said in the statement...

and
Meanwhile, Mr Winberg’s statement read: “With the US in another year of record-setting natural gas production, I am pleased that the Department of Energy is doing what it can to promote an efficient regulatory system that allows for molecules of US freedom to be exported to the world.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/fossil-fuels-freedom-gas-molecules-us-department-of-energy-a8935951.html

[Stavros]

More depressing stuff from the zombie government. The only thing one can say in defence of the US is that there is clearly a chasm between the average American and the country's scientists, and the government, and that of the two, it is the latter that will change in a few years time -but after who knows what damage has been caused?

The Trump administration (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration) is disregarding science and expertise across a wide range of government work, as documented by whistleblowers and groups tracking agency decisions.
Trump officials are censoring warnings about the climate crisis, moving critical agencies out of Washington and enacting far-reaching changes in what facts regulators can consider when they choose between industry and the public good.
The White House and its agencies have kept their own experts from explaining how pollution from power plants and cars is increasing global temperatures, threatening both lives and economies.One former climate scientist for the National Park Service, Maria Caffrey, filed a whistleblower complaint this week and testified to Congress that she was blocked from publishing data about how coastal parks could flood as the seas rise.h
ttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/26/war-on-science-trump-administration-muzzles-climate-experts-critics-say

[buttslinger]

It's very American of me not to be up on English affairs, just like I'm not really up on French, German, Chinese, or Russian affairs. We pretty much have our hands full playing with ourselves, trying to picture a future where Gays and Evangelicals, Blacks and Rednecks walk hand in hand towards the future.
With so many different opinions, it's critical we find leaders to both understand, oversee, and see over
their individual commands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEbiXJ5-Icw

[Stavros]

What are 'Englsh affairs'? And what does the above post have to say in response to the assault on science by the President and his supporters? Maybe Politics & Religion is a waste of time because people like you can't be arsed to think for a moment about what the real issues, as if nobody cares anymore, which is how the monsters devour their victims, when there is nobody opposed to them willing to take action to stop the slaughter. By your imbecile inaction, you sustain and embolden the Confederacy at the expense of the USA. So when it comes to make the final choice, where are your dollars? In the swamps of DC or the swamps of Louisiana?

[buttslinger]

What are 'Englsh(sic) affairs'?

What's wrong, Stavros, problems at home? Angry at me or your own demons? Your Country is in deep shit, what are you doing about it, standing on your soapbox orating on a porn forum? Where did you get your Science degree? Up your ass? Or is it arse? Ha ha ha!
Tell me exactly how your superior English intellect stopped your own Country from seceding from the Union? You're insulting the iceberg on the deck of the Titanic! In England and the USA, it doesn't matter which side you're on if the Country is split in half. Half my Family is from Mississippi! I really am related to Robert E Lee. The day after my 43rd birthday, I found out I am totally disabled. Always have been, always will be. That's what gives me the Authority to LAUGH at you! English Pride, Southern Pride, Foolish Pride. Insult me some more, gayboy, I'm here for the fight. You stand with Science, I'll represent Stupidity. Half the people will be on my side. That's my opinion, and that's a fact.

[broncofan]

They don't call me broncofan mediator extraordinaire for any reason whatsoever. Still, I'm gonna take your best points.

Stavros: you're off-topic. What you wrote has nothing to do with your President's assault on science and your inaction enables him.

Buttslinger: To quote Nietzsche you point one finger at me and I'm gonna flip you off twice! Your country is headed toward disaster brexit and you have at least two dysfunctional political parties. Also a bunch of irrelevant stuff about my Mississippi relatives.

I decided to omit the gayboy remark because I think it is unbecoming of a member of intercontinental porn forum parliament. I find you both out of order and sentence you to ten minutes in the Jill Stein sweaty asshole thread. Now let's get back on topic. Thanks!

[buttslinger]

I stand guilty as charged.
I will announce your punishment soon.

[javier81]

They don't call me broncofan mediator extraordinaire for any reason whatsoever. Still, I'm gonna take your best points.

Stavros: you're off-topic. What you wrote has nothing to do with your President's assault on science and your inaction enables him.

Buttslinger: To quote Nietzsche you point one finger at me and I'm gonna flip you off twice! Your country is headed toward disaster brexit and you have at least two dysfunctional political parties. Also a bunch of irrelevant stuff about my Mississippi relatives.

I decided to omit the gayboy remark because I think it is unbecoming of a member of intercontinental porn forum parliament. I find you both out of order and sentence you to ten minutes in the Jill Stein sweaty asshole thread. Now let's get back on topic. Thanks!

I think you've confused the two members.

[broncofan]

I think you've confused the two members.
I'm speaking as them rather than to them. We've all been posting here for nearly a dozen years so unlikely.

[buttslinger]

OK, I apologize. I'm just a tourist, Stavros is a featured attraction. He's charming to someone, I guess.
I think there is a 50-50 chance Trump may do what no Democrat could do: destroy the Republican Party. He's up to his eyeballs in that Russian shit, too many people know about it. That sure would make for a nice October Surprise.
Brexit and Boris on the other hand, I don't see a moment of clarity cleaning up that mess.

[broncofan]

OK, I apologize. I'm just a tourist, Stavros is a featured attraction. He's charming to someone, I guess.
I think there is a 50-50 chance Trump may do what no Democrat could do: destroy the Republican Party. He's up to his eyeballs in that Russian shit, too many people know about it. That sure would make for a nice October Surprise.
Brexit and Boris on the other hand, I don't see a moment of clarity cleaning up that mess.
And what's this to do with science:smile:? I'm merely asking questions;.

[buttslinger]

And what's this to do with science:smile:? I'm merely asking questions;.

Political Science
Perry Mason.

or is it Ben Matlock?

[Stavros]

You have to wonder if these people have brains. Simply amazing.

A bill to ban abortion introduced in the Ohio (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ohio) state legislature requires doctors to “reimplant an ectopic pregnancy” into a woman’s uterus – a procedure that does not exist in medical science – or face charges of “abortion murder”.
This is the second time practising obstetricians and gynecologists have tried to tell the Ohio legislators that the idea is currently medically impossible.
The move comes amid a wave of increasingly severe anti-abortion bills introduced across much of the country as conservative Republican politicians seek to ban abortion and force a legal showdown on abortion with the supreme court.
Ohio’s move on ectopic pregnancies – where an embryo implants on the mother’s fallopian tube rather than her uterus rendering the pregnancy unviable – is one of the most extreme bills to date.
“I don’t believe I’m typing this again but, that’s impossible,” wrote Ohio obstetrician and gynecologist Dr David Hackney on Twitter. “We’ll all be going to jail,” he said.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/29/ohio-extreme-abortion-bill-reimplant-ectopic-pregnancy

[Stavros]

I don't know about hymens, but it seems in this case the man has lost his marbles- or maybe that is what his brain is made of?

When the former Republican governor of Kentucky (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/kentucky) Matt Bevin was asked in a recent radio interview how he could justify having pardoned on his last day in office a child rapist, he replied: “Which one?”
The interview went downhill from there. Bevin said he had allowed Micah Schoettle, 41, who was serving a 23-year sentence for rape, incest, sodomy and other sexual offenses to walk free last week after less than 18 months in prison because his nine-year-old victim had been found to have her hymen intact.
“There was zero evidence,” Bevin said.
...George Nichols, former chief medical examiner for Kentucky, told the Courier Journal (https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2019/12/19/matt-bevin-defends-child-rape-pardon-radio-interview/2704244001/): “Rape is not proved by hymen penetration. He not only doesn’t know the law, in my humble opinion, he clearly doesn’t know medicine and anatomy.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/20/matt-bevin-kentucky-pardoned-child-rapist

[Stavros]

There really was a Flat Earth Convention in the UK, and there someone really did say this:


Australia does not exist. All things you call 'proof' are actually well-fabricated lies and documents made by the leading governments of the world.
Your Australian friends? They're all actors and computer-generated personas, part of the plot to trick the world.
If you think you've ever been to Australia, you're terribly wrong.
The place pilots are all in on this and have in all actuality only flown you to islands close nearby - or in some cases, parts of South America, where they have cleared space and hired actors to act our as real Australians.
https://www.indy100.com/article/flat-earth-conspiracy-theory-australia-new-zealand-maps-actors-hoax-britain-8334206

[trish]

There really was a Flat Earth Convention in the UK, and there someone really did say this: Australia does not exist... Please keep this idiot away from Trump. We don't need our president believing any more lies than he already tweets on a daily basis - well fabricated or not. Thank you.

[broncofan]

If you think you've ever been to Australia, you're terribly wrong.
The place pilots are all in on this and have in all actuality only flown you to islands close nearby - or in some cases, parts of South America, where they have cleared space and hired actors to act our as real Australians.
https://www.indy100.com/article/flat-earth-conspiracy-theory-australia-new-zealand-maps-actors-hoax-britain-8334206


I thought I had gone twice! I've never felt so stupid in my life. The computer generated personas seemed very real, but then again one of them had too many pixels and froze while I was talking to him. I ate kangaroo meat at a restaurant, which wasn't the most environmentally friendly thing I've done, but am relieved it was probably just super dry cow meat in South America. They fooled me!

[filghy2]

Imagine how I feel having thought that that I lived in the place all my life. Perhaps my conscious existence has just been a computer program, like in The Matrix.

On a more serious note, the usual suspects have been going into overdrive to rationalise away the inconvenient fact of the unprecedented bushfires here this summer. In order to divert attention from climate change the denialists are pointing the finger at a supposed upsurge in arson and greenies blocking hazard-reduction burning, even though these claims have been debunked by the authorities.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/08/police-contradict-claims-spread-online-exaggerating-arsons-role-in-australian-bushfires
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/08/hazard-reduction-is-not-a-panacea-for-bushfire-risk-rfs-boss-says

[Stavros]

Donald Trump declared live on television on Wednesday night that he did not believe the World Health Organization’s assessment of the global death rate from coronavirus of 3.4%.
“I think the 3.4% is really a false number,” he told Sean Hannity, one of his favorite conservative Fox News hosts, in a phone interview broadcast live.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/05/trump-coronavirus-who-global-death-rate-false-number

I think this is the moment Michael Pence intervenes, to say: 'Let us Pray'...maybe nothing now can stop this ignorant fool except prayer. Lindsay Graham can't do it, and he is a disciple. The science is, after all, irrelevant, because this is the USA, 2020.

[Stavros]

Larry Brilliant, a leading member of the Smallpox eradication teams, has illustrated a problem with regard to Covid19 in the USA- South Korea has been testing 3,500 people out of 1 miilion, the US five.
The USA, a country of doctors led by deacons, where reason is replaced by faith, and practice by prayer.
Welcome back to Salem, the trials will begin soon (no, not the vaccine! Duh!).

[Stavros]

It has occurred to me, watching the briefings from the White House, that the lectern from which the speakers deliver answers to questions, is raised so that it is not too low for a man over six foot tall -the President, for example- but that this means when DrAnthony Fauci stands there, he looks vertically challenged, but most important in terms of is iconography, he looks small. I wonder if this is deliberate, because the President has openly ridiculed short people as if in his mind intelligence is measurd in feet and inches as well as the results of an IQ test. It appears the President is not interested in the science of Covid 19, and is in fact bored by the whole thing and wants it to go away. Dr Fauci thus becomes a tedious pedant who can be ignored -if he is even on the platform next to the President, and as such, the threat that Covid 19 will have a devastating impact on the US grows every day.

I am not an admirer of Boris Johnson, but it has been important to see him concede policy making to experts who know what they are talking about, even as a debate emerges that asks if 'we' can sacrifice so many jobs and a stable economy for an illness that appears to kill so few people relative to other illnesses. Johnson has also adopted a serious tone of voice, and unlike the President, does not make a point, in public, of humiliating people, in the manner the President has done by calling Governer Insee a 'snake' and making utterly shameful and sarcastic remarks about the health of Senator Mitt Romney.

At a time when 'national unity' is required, one man stands out with his demonstrations of ignorance and childish stupidity, his pathetic need to humiliate Americans, his patronising indifference to facts, his disturbing jealousy of anyone who knows more than he does about Covid 19. He is letting the side down, he has become an enemy of the the people.

[AlexisDVyne]

Science: The death rate is only 0.5-1.0% in a worst case scenario..

Stupidity: Sacrificing these lives to see a dead cat bounce.. :geek:

[filghy2]

I'm not sure 0.5-1.0 per cent is the worst case scenario. Death rates have been higher than average in some places (Wuhan, Italy), so it must depend on things like how well the health system can cope.

A scary question is whether Trump could have a complete meltdown if reality continues to disobey his wishes. He seems to have a pathological inability to accept any reality that is inconvenient to him. Will Republicans be prepared to invoke the 25th amendment if it becomes clear that he is leading them and the country to disaster?

[Stavros]

Science: The death rate is only 0.5-1.0% in a worst case scenario..
Stupidity: Sacrificing these lives to see a dead cat bounce.. :geek:

Yours stats are wrong and misleading. Even as we learn more about Covid 19 we do know it infects more people more quickly than the 'flu, and that the mortality rate is high depending on age and pre-existing medical problems. Here are some examples that suggest this viral infection needs to be taken seriously, bearing in mind more have now died in Spain than in China-

"...the death rate for COVID-19 appears to vary by location and an individual's age, among other factors. For instance, in Hubei Province, the epicenter of the outbreak, the death rate reached 2.9%; in other provinces of China, that rate was just 0.4%, according to the China CDC Weekly study. In addition, older adults have been hit the hardest. The death rate soars to 14.8% in those 80 and older; among those ages 70 to 79, the COVID-19 death rate in China seems to be about 8%; it’s 3.6% for those ages 60 to 69; 1.3% for 50 to 59; 0.4% for the age group 40 to 49; and just 0.2% for people ages 10 to 39. No deaths in children under 9 have been reported.
https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-compare-with-flu.html

If these figures relate to the US, the worst case scenario is a significant number of deaths among the elderly, so you must make the moral decision- should the over 80s be left to die? Does it matter? Can we assume all those so-called Christians insisting life begins the moment a cell is formed through pregnancy and is 'sacred', will move heaven and earth to protect the lives of 85-year olds with cancer who have contracted Covid 19?

As for stupidty, he may not look like a dead cat boucing, but there is something seriously wrong with Bolsonaro. But you know what they say about men indifferent to other people's suffering....

[AlexisDVyne]

Science: The death rate is only 0.5-1.0% in a worst case scenario..

Stupidity: Sacrificing these lives to see a dead cat bounce.. :geek:

This is from the overall population.. The majority of people have either mild or no symptoms..

The mortality rate for those that develop symptoms seems to be 3.4%

Exact numbers will remain unknown until this is over.. even then it's likely to be skewed by governments..

So 0.5-1.0% of the USA population equals 1,800,000 to 3,750,000 people sacrificed for Wall Street..

The dead cat bouncing is the DOW as it looks for the bottom.. :geek:

[Beaver1]

So true, my love. Wall Street is nothing but a vampire.

[Stavros]

This is from the overall population.. The majority of people have either mild or no symptoms..
The mortality rate for those that develop symptoms seems to be 3.4%
Exact numbers will remain unknown until this is over.. even then it's likely to be skewed by governments..
So 0.5-1.0% of the USA population equals 1,800,000 to 3,750,000 people sacrificed for Wall Street..
The dead cat bouncing is the DOW as it looks for the bottom.. :geek:

I note that you dropped 'only' from a repeat of your bland quote. And of that 0.5-1.0%, 1,800,00 to 3,750,000 people, real people, how many have or had medical insurance and are now without it? How many have or may lose their jobs? What proportion of them now live from day to day not knowing where the next dollar will come from, depressed, maybe even suicidal?

And why? Because your President is Ignorant, Incompetent, and Indifferent. This review (in the link below) should make you scared because the man and the men around him are still there, making a mess of your country, whose economy was on the skids anyway. Did you really think the $20+ trillion household debt and the trillions of National Debt are just a mirage that like Covid 19 will just go away? No.

Pay day is coming, and guess who is going to pay?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/28/trump-coronavirus-politics-us-health-disaster

[filghy2]

Alexis is Canadian, Stavros, and she's not defending Trump.

[Stavros]

Thanks for pointing that out. For whatever reason, I did not notice that. My points about the stats remain.

[Stavros]

I wrote the above in the early hours when tired, and forgot to apologize to Alexis if she is offended, which was not my intention.
As for the Quarantine New York, Don't Quaratine New York fiasco, if anyone does not now realize there is a dangerous Idiot in the White House, when will they, if ever?

[Stavros]

Larry Brilliant, a leading member of the Smallpox eradication teams, has illustrated a problem with regard to Covid19 in the USA- South Korea has been testing 3,500 people out of 1 miilion, the US five.
The USA, a country of doctors led by deacons, where reason is replaced by faith, and practice by prayer.
Welcome back to Salem, the trials will begin soon (no, not the vaccine! Duh!).

An update on the testing stats-

Fact check: testing
During the taskforce briefing, Trump said – once again – that the United States “continues to perform more tests than anywhere else in the world, and that’s why we have more cases”.

While the US has overtaken South Korea in total numbers of coronavirus tests administered, it has conducted fewer tests per capita given the US population is over six times larger than South Korea’s.

As of 7 April, the United States, with a population of 329 million, had administered at least 1,951,044 tests, according to the Covid Tracking Project (https://slack-redir.net/link?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcovidtracking.com%2Fdata%2F ), a group led by Alexis Madrigal, a staff writer for The Atlantic magazine, with more than 100 volunteers that compile coronavirus testing data from states.

This equates to 582 tests per 100,000 people in the US (with huge variations depending on the county, city and state), compared with 709 tests per 100,000 in South Korea and 600 per 100,000 in Italy.

The US rate of testing improved markedly in early April. On March 31 the rate was just 318 per 100,000.



https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2020/apr/07/coronavirus-us-live-donald-trump-pandemic-likely-january-latest-news-updates
-item posted at 00.47am

[filghy2]

As of 7 April, the United States, with a population of 329 million, had administered at least 1,951,044 tests, according to the Covid Tracking Project (https://slack-redir.net/link?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcovidtracking.com%2Fdata%2F ), a group led by Alexis Madrigal, a staff writer for The Atlantic magazine, with more than 100 volunteers that compile coronavirus testing data from states.

[I]This equates to 582 tests per 100,000 people in the US (with huge variations depending on the county, city and state), compared with 709 tests per 100,000 in South Korea and 600 per 100,000 in Italy.

That link isn't working, but this site shows that the USA is way down the list. https://virusncov.com/

The country with the highest testing rate appears to be Iceland, which has tested more than 8% of its population.

[Stavros]

Science meets stupidity head-on. Who will win?

IMG https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWA0MnnXkAIjiL0?format=jpg&name=large IMG

[KnightHawk 2.0]

Science meets stupidity head-on. Who will win?

IMG https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWA0MnnXkAIjiL0?format=jpg&name=large IMGScience will win,Stupidity will lose.

[Stavros]

No further comment needed:

"In his first set of presidential appointments, Obama brought into his administration five science Nobel prizewinners and 25 members of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. They became known as the “dream team”.

By contrast, Holdren said, “Trump is the exact opposite. Science has played no role in virtually all the top appointments he has made.”
The roll call of officials Trump has entrusted with protecting Americans from Covid-19 tells its own story. With no Nobel laureates in sight, Trump relied initially on Alex Azar, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), who is a lawyer and former drug company boss; followed by Mike Pence, a career politician and evangelical Christian; and most recently Jared Kushner (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/05/jared-kushner-coronavirus-aid-trump-governors), the president’s son-in-law, whose expertise lies in real estate.
Trump’s top team have in turn promoted individuals in their own mold. As Reuters has reported (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-hhschief-speci/special-report-hhs-chief-azar-had-aide-former-dog-breeder-steer-pandemic-task-force-idUSKCN2243CE), Azar gave the job of coordinating the fight against coronavirus within HHS, to an individual whose job immediately before joining the Trump administration was as a dog breeder running a small business called Dallas Labradoodles."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/03/science-donald-trump-coronavirus

[KnightHawk 2.0]

No further comment needed:

"In his first set of presidential appointments, Obama brought into his administration five science Nobel prizewinners and 25 members of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. They became known as the “dream team”.

By contrast, Holdren said, “Trump is the exact opposite. Science has played no role in virtually all the top appointments he has made.”
The roll call of officials Trump has entrusted with protecting Americans from Covid-19 tells its own story. With no Nobel laureates in sight, Trump relied initially on Alex Azar, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), who is a lawyer and former drug company boss; followed by Mike Pence, a career politician and evangelical Christian; and most recently Jared Kushner (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/05/jared-kushner-coronavirus-aid-trump-governors), the president’s son-in-law, whose expertise lies in real estate.
Trump’s top team have in turn promoted individuals in their own mold. As Reuters has reported (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-hhschief-speci/special-report-hhs-chief-azar-had-aide-former-dog-breeder-steer-pandemic-task-force-idUSKCN2243CE), Azar gave the job of coordinating the fight against coronavirus within HHS, to an individual whose job immediately before joining the Trump administration was as a dog breeder running a small business called Dallas Labradoodles."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/03/science-donald-trump-coronavirusThat
is a huge contrast between the Obama Administration and the Trump Administration,Obama brought in health experts who had experience and let them talk and didn't hog the spotlight,Trump on the other hand brought in people who were just as unqualified as he is ,shows that the Trump Administration dropped the ball from the beginning in their handling of the CO-VID 19 Pandemic.

[Stavros]

Should we be surprised, anxious, delighted, or indifferent to the support the 'First Family' has given to Stella Immanuel? However daft and dangerous the ideas of Stella Immanuel (born in Cameroon, educated in Nigeria) might be, she is hardly unique, as many of her ideas about 'demons' are shared by the President's 'Pastor' Paula White.

Thus, Immanuel-

"A Houston physician retweeted by President Donald Trump after appearing in a video where she praised hydroxychloroquine as a miracle coronavirus cure blames gynecological problems on sex with evil spirits and believes the US government is run by "reptilians."
...
"Nobody needs to get sick. This virus has a cure -- it is called hydroxychloroquine," Immanuel exclaimed Monday as she stood on the steps of the Supreme Court in Washington at a so-called "White Coat Summit" of likeminded physicians.
...
Further research on Immanuel's web page, now accessible only via an archived website viewer, as well as her YouTube account, reveal a long list of bizarre and unscientific beliefs.
These include that "tormenting spirits" routinely have "astral sex" with women, which in turn causes "gynecological problems, marital distress, miscarriages" and more.
In a 2015 video, Immanuel, who leads a religious group called Fire Power Ministries, said: "There are people ruling this nation that are not even human," describing them as "reptilian spirits" who are "half human, half ET."
https://www.france24.com/en/20200728-aliens-and-reptilians-us-viral-video-doctor-s-odd-beliefs

This article looks at some of Pastor White's beliefs, and her promotion of cures-

"One of White’s favorite targets is Leviathan (https://paulawhite.org/breakthrough.html). In her theology, Leviathan is not a mundane crocodile nor a type of dragon from Middle Eastern mythology. Rather, it’s a demon prince in the form of a many-headed dragon that is responsible for people experiencing everyday fatigue. Fortunately, she offers countermeasures—available to anyone who makes a $74 donation (https://paulawhite.netviewshop.com/shop&search=lance+wellnau&page=1&rpp=8). Other packages are available for donations of $40 and $65, presumably offering protection against slightly fewer classes of demons."
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/10/trump-evangelicals-charismatics-paula-white-demons/

And here is an interesting take on the role demons and spirts play in interpretations of illness and religion -the sort of thing that should be kept out of General Hospitals, and White Houses...
https://theconversation.com/stella-immanuels-theories-about-the-relationship-between-demons-illness-and-sex-have-a-long-history-143587

And here she is, if you are robust enough to last almost an hour of this hysterical rubbish-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1658&v=CJrJG9xymts&feature=emb_title

[filghy2]

The acting chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been sacked, apparently for insisting on scientific integrity. Not coincidentally, the same man also contradicted Trump's erroneous claims about the path Of Hurricane Dorian last year - termed "Sharpiegate" because the official map was modified amateurishly to accord with Trump's claims.https://www.vox.com/2020/10/31/21540150/noaa-trump-hurricane-sharpiegate-science-zeta-dorian

Given the lack of any policy agenda for the next 4 years it seems that Trump's main priority if he remains President will be to purge anyone in government who has failed to defer to him by insisting on any kind of standard other than Trump's wishes.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

The acting chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been sacked, apparently for insisting on scientific integrity. Not coincidentally, the same man also contradicted Trump's erroneous claims about the path Of Hurricane Dorian last year - termed "Sharpiegate" because the official map was modified amateurishly to accord with Trump's claims.https://www.vox.com/2020/10/31/21540150/noaa-trump-hurricane-sharpiegate-science-zeta-dorian

Given the lack of any policy agenda for the next 4 years it seems that Trump's main priority if he remains President will be to purge anyone in government who has failed to defer to him by insisting on any kind of standard other than Trump's wishes.Another example of Donald-D.A.M.N-Trump silencing someone who doesn't agree with him or his warped point o f view. and also shows that he doesn't believe in climate change,science or facts.

[Stavros]

If you want to ask profound questions about the Moon's orbit around the Earth, and the Earth's orbit around the Sun with the proposal that these be changed to deal effectively with Climate Change, ask the US Forest Service....

There are times when one gasps at the things people say, and it will never end-

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2021/jun/09/republican-congressman-suggests-changing-moons-orbit-to-fight-climate-change-video

[trish]

Clowns like Gohmert don’t trust the federal government to do anything, neither about the environment nor managing us through the pandemic. But changing the orbits of the Earth and the Moon (as if that were easier and safer than conserving our resources and putting a check on our use of fossil fuels), they’re fine with that! Maybe the plan is to hand the job off to the private sector…Bezos or Musk.

[broncofan]

Clowns like Gohmert don’t trust the federal government to do anything, neither about the environment nor managing us through the pandemic.
I wonder if it's really a lack of trust in the government's ability or that they don't want anyone to have to make a sacrifice for anyone else (I realize that's why you're pointing out the inconsistency in their positions).

I think these are just people whose utopia is one where people who start with advantages can accumulate lots of wealth and never have to think about problems that require collective action. It's easier to say a disease is just like the flu if you know that if it isn't you might have to close businesses for months and rely on government subsidies to keep people above water. Easier to say that environmentalists are hysterics for wanting us to pay a tax proportional to our emissions of certain greenhouse gases than to slightly inconvenience a large corporation by having them pay that tax.

They say government is weak or impotent and then they fill positions in our regulatory agencies with weak and unqualified people who don't believe in the missions of those agencies. As you point out the only government private sector cooperation they like is a hand off to someone super wealthy for what sounds like an implausible vanity project dreamed up by an idiot with too much money like Musk. They know federal funding can accomplish its objectives whenever they want something, like a war that makes lots of loud noises and leaves hundreds of thousands dead.

[Stavros]

I wonder if it's really a lack of trust in the government's ability or that they don't want anyone to have to make a sacrifice for anyone else (I realize that's why you're pointing out the inconsistency in their positions).

I think these are just people whose utopia is one where people who start with advantages can accumulate lots of wealth and never have to think about problems that require collective action. It's easier to say a disease is just like the flu if you know that if it isn't you might have to close businesses for months and rely on government subsidies to keep people above water. Easier to say that environmentalists are hysterics for wanting us to pay a tax proportional to our emissions of certain greenhouse gases than to slightly inconvenience a large corporation by having them pay that tax.

They say government is weak or impotent and then they fill positions in our regulatory agencies with weak and unqualified people who don't believe in the missions of those agencies. As you point out the only government private sector cooperation they like is a hand off to someone super wealthy for what sounds like an implausible vanity project dreamed up by an idiot with too much money like Musk. They know federal funding can accomplish its objectives whenever they want something, like a war that makes lots of loud noises and leaves hundreds of thousands dead.

Either these people genuinely believe what they said -but to me, with an absence of sujpporting evidence, or they take a contrary view just for the sake of it -MT Greene -""I don't believe in evolution," she told Bannon."I believe in God,"

There seems to me to be a distinct lack of debate on policy, as McConnell has said he will oppose everything presented to Congress by Presidet Biden, and will not sujpport any new nominee to the Supreme Court if one becomes available But suppose there is a policy offered as a new law that benefits all Amercans? I find this childish on McConnell's part, and a confirmation that sectarian politics is not going away, so when will Biden realise trying to resurrect the bi-partisan politics of his youth is a waste of time?

And remember that on many issues, take lead in gasoline, the science was right but the politics condemned -'it will destoy the auto indusry' was a familiar complaint in the 1960s, but dd no such thing.

[Stavros]

Clowns like Gohmert don’t trust the federal government to do anything, neither about the environment nor managing us through the pandemic. But changing the orbits of the Earth and the Moon (as if that were easier and safer than conserving our resources and putting a check on our use of fossil fuels), they’re fine with that! Maybe the plan is to hand the job off to the private sector…Bezos or Musk.

It is the ignorance which I find startling, because Congress has at its disposal one of the finest libraries in the world, All Gohmert had to do to test his opinion, was ask someone on his staff to do some research.

Here in the UK, a new news channel -GBNews- started on Sunday, its intention is to 'telll the truth' free of 'wokeness', and the 'left-wing bias' of other channels, an allegation I don't see confirmed, but its seems anything the Libertarians don't iike is by definition left-wing, and to be left-wing is wrong, without any reason given.

One of its 'star' contributors will be Neil Oliver, a Scot know to most UK viewers for segments of a tv programme, 'Coast' and the TV histories of the Vikings, and of Scotland (though he is not, in the formal sense, an historian). He is a fine presener, so how does one explain this comment he made to a Scotish newspaper before GB News began-

"Oliver...told the Herald last weekend that lockdown was the “biggest single mistake in world history (https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19365417.neil-oliver-lockdown-biggest-single-mistake-world-history/)” .

What on earth does this mean, and how can anyone justify such a remark -not just British, but World history? The mind boggles, but as with Gohmert's igorance, could Oliver not at least give us some mistakes in world history to measure the lockdown by? For example, the invasions of Russia by Napoleon and Hitler were two epic mistakes.

[Stavros]

More on the IVF crisis in Alabama in this thoughtful article from The Guardian today. The second link has the media reporting that Tommy Tuberville supports the decision but doesn't have a clue what it means, and may not even know what the letters IVF stand for.

On the one hand no surprise that the Republican Party is supporting policies that the majority of American people do not want; on the other hand based on medical ignorance and a repudiation of science in favour of a mistaken belief that their religious views, and only their religious views should form the basis of health policy. As might be said 'God help us all!'.

Doctors shocked and angry as Alabama ruling throws IVF care into turmoil | IVF | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/23/fertility-doctors-reaction-alabama-embryo-ruling)

Republicans struggle to respond to Alabama embryo ruling (yahoo.com) (https://uk.news.yahoo.com/republicans-struggle-respond-alabama-embryo-060139529.html)

[Stavros]

From this:

"In a concurring opinion in last week’s Alabama supreme court decision, Alabama’s chief justice, Tom Parker, invoked the prophet Jeremiah, Genesis and the writings of 16th- and 17th-century theologians.“Human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God,” he wrote. “Even before birth, all human beings have the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory.”
The Republican party wants to turn America into a theocracy | Robert Reich | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/23/republicans-american-theocracy)

To this:
"Now, Republicans are scrambling to put out the fire without admitting they’re they’re the ones who lit the match.
In the memo, which was sent Friday, the Senate GOP urged its 2024 candidates to go all in on their support for IVF.
“Clearly state your support for IVF and fertility-related services as blessings for those seeking to have children,” and “publicly oppose any efforts to restrict access to IVF and other fertility treatments, framing such opposition as a defense of family values and individual freedom,” National Republican Senatorial Committee executive director Jason Thielman said in the memo"
Republicans Suddenly Realize Alabama's IVF Ruling Is Bad For Them | HuffPost UK Politics (huffingtonpost.co.uk) (https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/republicans-alabama-ivf-ruling_n_65d91bdfe4b0e4346d525d1e)

Beware the Wrath of God...or...

[Stavros]

Project 2025 continues to form the foundations of a Trump administration's domestic policy, in this case

""rejecting the notion that abortion is health care and by restoring its mission statement under the Strategic Plan and elsewhere to include furthering the health and well-being of all Americans 'from conception to natural death.'""
Far-right wants 'Department of Life' in second Trump term to further curtail women’s rights (msn.com) (https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/far-right-wants-department-of-life-in-second-trump-term-to-further-curtail-women-s-rights/ar-BB1je8NJ?ocid=msedgntp&pc=ACTS&cvid=45088568762648e6af9e7c698ec0a9de&ei=79)

So, if a foetus fails to grow and threatens the life of the mother, or has severe complications which require a 'medical Abortion', this is not a matter of the health care of either the foetus or the mother, or both? Then it must be a political matter? Or maybe a Religious matter?

And can one assume the Department of Life will campaign inside the Govt for a nationwide ban on the Death Penalty and Executions? Nah, didn't think so.