alex maiolo wrote:I think an extreme, accellerated parallel would be anthrax. If there were ever an attack, the innoculation administered to the public, by most people's estimations, would make 10% of the population drop dead instantly from the medicine. However, it would stop the spread of the disease and cure 90% of people.
Given those choices, I would go with the greater good.

Your entire argument rests on some misguided notion that Thimerosal is a necessary preservative in these vaccines. It is not. There is no reason to 'accept' the collateral damage from the mercury in the vaccines, because mercury-free vaccines have now replaced the poison vaccines.

This is not about, "Must we accept risky vaccines to protect children from other diseases?", because the answer has always been 'No'. This is about, "Can we overcome the power of the pharmaceutical idustry to make them accountable for the poison they allowed in vaccines?" and "Can we get our corporate servants in government to put health ahead of their campaign contributions?"

maiolo wrote:My guess, is that just as many people came into contact with mercury by other means when it was off of our radar, and that the exposure was greater.
Just a theory.

Of course there is environmental exposure- doesn't mean we need to ignore vaccine exposure because the environmental exposure might be more severe. Look at the autism rates. They climbed after the fourth round of thimerosal tainted vaccines began. So, either, those vaccines are partially responsible for the spike in diagnosed autism, or, as the industry apologists claim, the spike is either the result of more attention and therefore more diagnoses, or it's the result of a factor other than the vaccines.

The 9-11 stuff has been argued to death on other threads, and I regret bringing it up here. But . . .

clocker bob wrote: Well, of course you believe the anti-vaccine link studies are better- they're supported by one of the richest industries in the world and their government puppets and their media allies. No reason to check the bias of those studies at all.

Have you actually looked at any of these studies? Because you're making claims about how they were funded. I've looked at the studies, and funding sources are both private and public, and the researchers come from all sorts of backgrounds and industries.

You can't simply say, "Oh, that study was funded by the CDC, so there are legitimate concerns about bias." You have to prove that said bias exists, and you haven't done that. Furthermore, if you believe that CDC, NIH, or WHO funding suggests bias for these findings, then you're up shit creek whenever you want to rely on other science funded by these organizations, because you'll be forced to admit that you only believe that their money taints some studies but not others without having a means to demonstrate which studies were tainted and which ones weren't.

clocker bob wrote: Of course there is environmental exposure- doesn't mean we need to ignore vaccine exposure because the environmental exposure might be more severe. Look at the autism rates. They climbed after the fourth round of thimerosal tainted vaccines began. So, either, those vaccines are partially responsible for the spike in diagnosed autism, or, as the industry apologists claim, the spike is either the result of more attention and therefore more diagnoses, or it's the result of a factor other than the vaccines.

This must be some of that great writing that you talk about.

"It's either due to reason A, or it's due to reason B--the reason that greedy, corrupt industry apologists suggest."

"You could choose to eat meat, or, like Hitler, you could choose not to."

"You could choose to believe the official 9-11 story, or, like second-rate actor, drug user, and prostitute patronizer Charlie Sheen, you could believe that it was a government conspiracy."

zom-zom wrote:So, I think I probably absorbed a nice amount of this quicksilver. I wonder what it did to my brain?

When I was a kid I found a little jar of red powdered glass underneath the porch of my family's house. Thinking this jar was instead full of colored sugar -- to my young, ignorant eyes it looked just like the stuff my mom and I used while making cookies a few months prior -- I eagerly opened the jar and smeared a load of its contents on my tongue.

You know that feeling you get when you're a kid and you eat semi-sweet chocolate, thinking for some dumb reason it'll taste like the sort of chocolate you normally find in, say, a candy bar? Well, the disappointment I felt was a lot like that. Only I had all this dreadful red powder on my tongue.

Wood Goblin wrote: You have to prove that said bias exists, and you haven't done that.

No, I don't. My opinion about Thimerosal is fine with me, everything I used to form my opinion is fine with me, and it will remain so even if nobody agrees with it. I am about as worried about your opinion on the vaccine link as I am worried about the opinion of a pigeon in the park. I don't make posts on the vaccine link to persuade you. I make them because I like how they look. You go make your posts. Go sway minds. Onward and upward, Dr. Authority.

wood goblin wrote: Furthermore, if you believe that CDC, NIH, or WHO funding suggests bias for these findings, then you're up shit creek whenever you want to rely on other science funded by these organizations, because you'll be forced to admit that you only believe that their money taints some studies but not others without having a means to demonstrate which studies were tainted and which ones weren't.

Oh really? Well what if I don't agree with you about this either? What are you going to do about it? Strip me of my opinion? If I find a study on AIDS that's put out by the NIH and the results make sense to me, guess who's going to like that study? Me. And I won't give a second thought to whether bias in an NIH study on autism has any bearing on the AIDS study, because I don't have to. Or maybe I will think about it, but tell you I didn't. How do you like that?

Keep trying to bar the library doors from contradictory research on the vaccine link. The web has made gatekeepers like you anachronisms.

Wood Goblin wrote:The 9-11 stuff has been argued to death on other threads, and I regret bringing it up here. But . . .

Yeah, especially because for you, 'bringing it up' translated into 'Wood Goblin doesn't know what the hell he's talking about when it comes to the fires in the Towers on 9/11'...

This topic is back in the news; here's an article from today's Slate. And others.

newberry wrote:This topic is back in the news; here's an article from today's Slate. And others.

Yes, a big conference just wrapped up. This is news to me:

What causes autism? Attention is being focused on oxytocin, a hormone produced by the pituitary gland, Hollander said. It appears to play a role in social behavior and repetitive behavior. "Now we are starting to have a certain impact on symptoms by administering oxytocin in various forms, such as intravenously."

Maybe the Thimerosal in the vaccines impaired the pituitary gland's ability to produce oxycotin. Maybe in combination with other environmental mercury or something else in the water, air, or diet?

From the Slate article linked by Newberry:

slate may 28 2007 wrote:Thimerosal on Trial

The theory that vaccines cause autism goes to court.

In June, the U.S. Federal Claims Court, across Lafayette Square from the White House, will begin hearings on 4,800 claims filed by parents of children on the autism spectrum who think that the government's vaccine program caused their children's disorders. The scientific consensus rejects the idea that thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative used in vaccines, causes autism. Still, it's conceivable that some of the claimants could win, because the vaccine court requires a lower standard of scientific evidence than regular courts. And so the parents are trying to enhance the legitimacy of their arguments.

In April, the government-funded Institute of Medicine held a two-day workshop to discuss ways to research possible toxic causes of autism. Leading voices among the parents who believe in the thimerosal-autism link shared their views with Science publisher Alan Leshner, who ran the meeting, as well as senior government scientists. Two of the groups, Safe Minds and the National Autism Association, later issued a news release that appeared to distort the remarks of a CDC scientist to make it appear that he shared their views. The meeting probably wouldn't have taken place without the support of several members of Congress, including Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind. Other activists have taken to harassing scientists whose results they don't like.

Yeah, like Big Pharm and their servants in the media don't harass researchers they don't like...give me a break.

Hi there,

I stumbled upon this forum and think its great to hear from both sides of the debate.

I will admit from the outset I am not a scientist. I am a mother who no longer vaccinates her children, and have read widely. There are many reasons for my decision; and fear of autism is only one of them.

I think we can argue back and forth endlessly about the studies and about the vested interests, etc. But there are many thousands of parents around the world who have seen *with their own eyes* their child regress into autism after a round of vaccination. I have a friend in this situation. To me that powerful real life experience says much more than anything in a medical journal.

Coming from a instinctive viewpoint (and instinct has served us for the whole of human history before modern medicine) it just seems completely wrong to inject my child with these questionable substances. The long-term safety is not established.

The only real way to know if vaccines are not implicated in juvenile diabetes, autism, allergies, arthritis, etc is to do long-term comparative studies between vaccinated and unvaccinated children. People have been asking for this to be done for *years* and are still waiting. Of course it will never be done because the results would be too damaging. Anecdotal evidence suggests unvaxed kids are on the whole way healthier than vaxed kids. It is true from my experience and I know many kids in both catagories.

Just because vaccines induce antibody titres I don't think this necessarily equates to real-life immunity. Because these childhood diseases werre on a steep decline *before* the vaccines were introduced I think it is probably difficult to say just how much they contributed. I'm not saying they didn't contribute, but I think their value is probably exaggerated.

scarlettrose wrote:Just because vaccines induce antibody titres I don't think this necessarily equates to real-life immunity. Because these childhood diseases were on a steep decline *before* the vaccines were introduced...

Do you have a citation for this? I ask because it contradicts what I've read, but if you have something showing that, I'd be interested.