Thank you, thank you!! When a parent says they’ve done their research , your compilation should be the minimum reading requirement. Sadly, vaccines can be the easy scapegoat to blame when a child has a divergent social and language development because general development up to that point ( age 1-3) can seem quite typical otherwise . The problem was there all along and there are many genetic explanations now.
I hope parents can feel reassured by this and choose to protect their children from serious vaccine -preventable illness complications.
About a year ago, I met someone with autism who was doing very well in their career. I can’t help but think about how much it probably pisses ppl with autism off when others politicize their illness. I have long covid since 4/2020. My 2nd vaccine gave me back 90% of my health. I know what it’s like to have ppl politicize my illness, treatment, and decisions to protect my immune system by masking and being mindful about going into crowded spaces.
I actually feel sad for people that have been panicked into talisman wearing citizens. I am angry at the unscientific establishment gov and health "experts" pushing untested, unvetted and unreliable intervention. All for money, career or to show they follow "The Science", good grief!
This is a fantastic piece. I really appreciate all of the literature cited throughout the second half. It is extremely annoying that the CDC is having to put time and resources into this witchhunt.
The journalistic fraud during Covid prompted a deeper dive into medical literature.
The Sr Editor of NEJM and same past-editor of BMJ both stated, in no uncertain terms, that our medical literatures is brought with fraud — one saying at least ½ and the other saying “most of” it is fraud.
The longer we sit and wait for vaccine hesitancy to go away, the more it will grow. In the end, we will either do the studies that the public demands, or fewer and fewer will agree to vaccinate.
"In the May/June issue of the Boston Review, Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, details the sordid story of how corporate dollars have corrupted research and education at academic medical centers — including at her current place of employment, the Harvard Medical School.”
The article is adapted from a talk she gave at Harvard last December. Angell, of course, has written about this topic many times before, most notably in her 2004 book, “The Truth About the Drug Companies.”
Writes Angell:
The boundaries between academic medicine — medical schools, teaching hospitals, and their faculty — and the pharmaceutical industry have been dissolving since the 1980s, and the important differences between their missions are becoming blurred. Medical research, education, and clinical practice have suffered as a result.
The article provides plenty of examples of exactly why health consumers should worry about this money-driven blurring of missions. Here are some highlights (but do read the entire article):
“To a remarkable extent … medical centers have become supplicants to the drug companies, deferring to them in ways that would have been unthinkable even twenty years ago. Often, academic researchers are little more than hired hands who supply human subjects and collect data according to instructions from corporate paymasters. The sponsors keep the data, analyze it, write the papers, and decide whether and when and where to submit them for publication. In multi-center trials, researchers may not even be allowed to see all of the data, an obvious impediment to science and a perversion of standard practice.”
“[Drug] manufacturers typically prefer to work with academic medical centers. Doing so increases the chances of getting research published, and, more importantly, provides drug companies access to highly influential faculty physicians — referred to by the industry as ‘thought leaders’ or ‘key opinion leaders.’ These are the people who write textbooks and medical-journal papers, issue practice guidelines (treatment recommendations), sit on FDA and other governmental advisory panels, head professional societies, and speak at the innumerable meetings and dinners that take place every day to teach clinicians about prescription drugs.”
“Medical centers increasingly act as though meeting industry’s needs is a legitimate purpose of an academic institution…. Academic leaders, chairs, and even deans sit on boards of directors of drug companies. Many academic medical centers have set up special offices to offer companies quick soup-to-nuts service.”
“Increasingly, industry is setting the research agenda in academic centers, and that agenda has more to do with industry’s mission than with the mission of the academy. Researchers and their institutions are focusing too much on targeted, applied research, mainly drug development, and not enough on non-targeted, basic research into the causes, mechanisms, and prevention of disease.”
“[D]rug companies often contract with academic researchers to carry out studies for almost entirely commercial purposes. For example, they sponsor trials of drugs to supplant virtually identical ones that are going off patent…. There’s a high scientific opportunity cost in serving the aims of the pharmaceutical industry. For example, new antibiotics for treating infections by resistant organisms are an urgent medical need, but are not economically attractive to industry because they are not likely to generate much return on investment.”
“In addition to distorting the research agenda, there is overwhelming evidence that drug-company influence biases the research itself. Industry-supported research is far more likely to be favorable to the sponsors’ products than in NIH-supported research.”
“Conflicts of interest affect more than research. They also directly shape the way medicine is practiced, through their influence on practice guidelines issued by professional and governmental bodies and through their effects on FDA decisions.” Angell offers several examples, including this one: “[I]n 2004, after the NIH National Cholesterol Education Program called for sharply lowering the acceptable levels of ‘bad’ cholesterol, it was revealed that eight of nine members of the panel writing the recommendations had financial ties to the makers of cholesterol-lowering drugs.”
“Drug companies support educational programs even within our best medical schools and teaching hospitals, and are given virtually unfettered access to young doctors to ply them with gifts and meals and promote their wares. … This is marketing masquerading as education. … But doctors do learn something from all the ostensible education they’re paid to receive. Doctors and their patients come to believe that for every ailment and discontent there is a drug, even when changes in lifestyle would be more effective. And they believe that the newest, most expensive brand-name drugs are superior to older drugs or generics, even though there is seldom any evidence to that effect because sponsors don’t usually compare their drugs with older drugs at equivalent doses.”
Angell offers several recommendations for reforming the current, broken system:
Medical schools that conduct clinical trials “should not accept any payments from drug companies except research support, and that support should have no strings attached.”
Doctors “should not accept gifts from drug companies, even small ones, and they should pay for their own meetings and continuing education.”
Finally, “academic medical centers that patent discoveries should put them in the public domain or license them inexpensively and non-exclusively.”
“[A]pologists might argue that, despite its legal transgression the pharmaceutical industry is merely trying to do its primary job — furthering the interests of its investors — and sometimes it simply goes a little too far,” Angell concludes. “[But] doctors, medical schools, and professional organizations have no such excuse; the medical profession’s only fiduciary responsibility is to patients and the public.”
"People who spread vaccine disinformation often argue that new RCTs with placebo groups are needed to rule out side effects like autism. However, this is ethically impossible because it would require deliberately withholding a potentially life-saving vaccine from some participants."
I believe, first off, "impossible" is not a scientific approach to any subject. Secondly there might be cohorts (Amish, off the top of my head) who maybe would be willing to participate in any non-vaccinated study. So why state "impossible" when there actually might just be a solution? It makes me wonder what other "impossible" ideas you are proposing and defending.
I've had friends suggest that, too. The problem with the "gold standard" (double-blind, placebo-controlled studies) is that I don't know if you could get a representative sample who would agree with the double-blind part. Mennonites don't generally prohibit vaccines theologically, so there could be some in that cohort who are fine getting either vaccine OR placebo, but you need a lot of people who would be fine with both options, as they can't know which one they got. Therefore other study designs (primarily observational) are going to be needed. Maybe we will get enough observational data from communities who don't vax, but that will be decades down the road.
With AI and more creative study designs we are doing much more. The reassuring news for our established vaccines in addition to active safety surveillance is that in large comprehensive registries in the nordics for example, we continue to get the same confirmatory safety and benefit data. I agree that we should always try to be more creative but the challenge definitely lies in being able to balance emerging diseases (where we are far behind often) and still doing a robust study which many researchers have become really strung at doing.
I also don't like the term "disinformation" (especially when you consider the origins of the term, though the mentality fits - Russian "дезинформация" (dezinformatsiya), which appeared in 1949).
Anyone that questions or doubts the prevailing narrative (THE Science, in the heads of the anointed ones - AKA authoritarians) is an anti-vaxxer or a menace to humanity. The goal is to silence and stifle scientific discourse and direct the narrative (where to?... I say follow the $).
It isn't a matter of doubting the experts, it's denying the evidence that's the issue. Question everything, but be able and willing to change your understanding to align with robust evidence. Being critical of something (disliking it) isn't thinking critically (using logic, reason, and robust evidence to form conclusions).
To that, I'd add as reply to O.C.M.'s comment that "follow the money" is a conspiracist type trope that is used way too often and broadly when there is lack of a more substantive argument. Take study funding for a prime example, since that is always a big one for the "follow the money" crowd. Where do they expect the money to come from for studies? Should they be done for FREE by scientists, labs, etc. who all spend countless hours on them? Or ONLY funded by what "unbiased" source (which is always subjective, depending on the point of view)? It's circular logic that doesn't really make sense when you get down to it.
(Sorry for the very late reply.) Funny fact - there’s a portion of scientists who are paid primarily by taxpayers. Yet those same taxpayers (who are paying the scientists) assert that scientists say whatever the person paying them wants. That’s quite a paradox because the people asserting that scientists say whatever they're paid to say seem to disagree with what the scientists they are paying say.
While you may believe we may lay to rest the issue of any reasonable association between the MMR vaccine and ASD with a "reasonable" presentation of research data, you might want to look at Paul Offit's rather unique post on a very similar topic, published yesterday. Unfortunately, it has become a veritable antivax festival of posters, emboldening one to the next, increasingly aggressive, and with any and all "science" falling by the wayside. It is hard not to imagine that the spark for this behaviour is the new Secretary of HHS, as he is frequently mentioned. It seems to me that we need to be prepared for the research of the near future that is considerably less "conclusive," if you will, from what we have long considered the settled science of our confident, customary recommendations.
I find it odd that you posted this in reply to me, but so be it. The fact - which you failed to provide - is that the German study was conducted in 2020, but not published. It is quite similar to what our own CIA belatedly published in January of this year, but "cautioned" it was with "low confidence." I suspect you read that but purposely chose to exclude it. Your trust is low over "low confidence" data for which we may never, realistically, ever know the truth and is, at best, disingenuous, and at worst manipulative. Talking points apparently do not come easily to you.
The Politicians and spies in this country say Covid came from a lab with no evidence, but the scientists with evidence say it came from the wet market. Chinese gov slaughtered all the animals in the wet market so there are no animal cultures but the lab area was cultured and positive for the virus. I’m going with the scientists.
How does the origin of COVID affect the vaccines? You choose to extrapolate one example across anything else associated with it. Every medication or "natural" approach to treating illness or prevention will have risk. The statistics you are leaning on are of small sample sizes, while this article and others from similar scientists as reputable as those who collaborated on this write-up are looking at decades-worth of science. What is your hang-up on COVID vaccine? Do you think we get through the pandemic without it? Would you rather try to inoculate yourself by contracting COVID and potentially dying from it? The problem is when you take option 2, you're not only putting your life at risk you are putting others at risk as well.
Anita, are you aware of the RootClaim debate (Peter Miller) vs RootClaim "experts"...? It is worth a read, and if you are so inclined watching the 20 odd hours of YouTube videos of the discussion..
My last child was born in 1979. He had a huge problem with MMR, developing a strange cry i later learned called Cri de Coeur (i later learned an encephlitic cry called "cry of the heart") and although he was 15 months old and walking, he did not walk again for weeks.
This version of the MMR was replaced with a killed virus version but millions received this problematic version causing untold misery.
Not every recipient as lucky as my son.
Also, aluminum adjuvavent. Human physiology like snowflakes; some can withstand the aluminum toxin, perhaps others can not.
Then there's the vaccine schedule!
Why so many at once?
Nature may invite challenges to create immunity, but SHE intended 4 challenges into little thighs in an hour, nor that load of adjuvants.
I'm sure there is plenty of literature describing the vaccine schedule. I do feel sorry you had to see your son go through that, but I have a 15-month old right now and he has responded fine to his vaccinations. We're only 2 data points amongst billions collected over the years. You're welcome to question, but as you can see from this article, there is plenty of information out there to answer your concerns.
You're right of course, but far too many parents observe measurable regressions after vaccines, and it's not "just when they start to manifest." We need to consider that vaccines or vaccine components may play a role in autism as well as in other chronic diseases.
I'm not certain that I understand your comment. Parents report regression within hours to days. Parents know their child's baseline, and their observations should be considered. We know from the post-vax fussiness, fevers and seizures that vaccine or vaccine components do impact the CNS.
Can you conclusively come up with data to show there is a link between the two by the timeline provided by HHS? There's more than just parental observation to consider.
No one has "conclusive" evidence on either side of the debate, but there is certainly enough data to warrant more study. Just for starts:
Elevated levels of measles antibodies from vaccines are found in children with autism (83% of autistic children but not in normal children or siblings of autistic children).https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12849883/
Over 90% of MMR antibody-positive autistic sera were also positive for MBP (myelin basic protein) autoantibodies, suggesting a strong association between MMR and CNS (central nervous system) autoimmunity in autism. Stemming from this evidence, we suggest that an inappropriate antibody response to MMR, specifically the measles component thereof, might be related to pathogenesis of autism. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12145534/
Aluminum is not a "toxin", and you're exposed to greater quantities frequently. You may find higher concentrations in breast milk and formula than in a vaccine.
If the vaccine schedule concerns you, do some reading from credible sources. It concerned the people who set the schedule enough that they created a schedule.
First, it is a toxic compound (that's the whole point of including it in vaccines—to create an immunological reaction). Second, whether it is toxic or not depends heavily on the dose and the route of exposure, whether oral, dermal, intravenous, or intramuscular.
Aluminum is not a compound, it’s an element. Water and oxygen are both toxic given sufficient quantity. The dose makes the poison. Aluminum is used in vaccines as an adjuvant. An adjuvant is a vaccine component that boosts the immune response to the vaccine. Your representation seems inaccurate. Aluminum is not inherently toxic. It isn’t added to vaccines “because it is toxic”.
Aluminum-based adjuvants are salts of the aluminum ion which serve to enhance immune responses. I’ve seen it stated several times by several individuals that they would be far more comfortable with vaccines if the vaccines contained just the antigens, without those “heavy metals” like aluminum. There are several substantial errors in understanding with these comments. Aluminum-based adjuvants *are necessary* in ensuring the efficacy of vaccines and furthermore do help to ensure their safety. Additionally, aluminum is itself among the lightest metals in existence, [though the term “heavy metal” is largely meaningless from a chemistry standpoint and should probably be abandoned](http://publications.iupac.org/publications/pac/2002/pdf/7405x0793.pdf). Furthermore, the adjuvants in question are salts, not metals, and their properties are fundamentally different from the free metal species. [Aluminum as a metal is so reactive that it is virtually always present as an ion](https://edu.rsc.org/exhibition-chemistry/the-real-reactivity-of-aluminium/2020076.article), which is comparatively inert. For a more commonplace example: table salt, which you doubtlessly consume every day either through your food or as a condiment, is composed of a 1:1 ratio of sodium and chloride ions. Sodium metal however, is so reactive that if it comes into contact with water, it will explode and leave a pool of corrosive alkaline in its wake (which makes for some fascinating [demonstrations](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODf_sPexS2Q)). Chlorine gas was used as a [chemical weapon in WW1](https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/a-brief-history-of-chemical-war) and forms bleach and hydrochloric acid upon reacting with water in our tissues. [Yet, both sodium and chloride ions are critical for normal function of our cells](https://opentextbc.ca/anatomyandphysiology/chapter/26-3-electrolyte-balance/).
Vaccine adjuvants work by helping to provide the necessary signals to the immune system for a productive immune response to be possible. They are used in those vaccines which lack the structural features necessary to be able to do this on their own e.g. toxoid and subunit vaccines. Live and killed vaccines, generally speaking, do not require vaccine adjuvants as they contain all the structural features necessary to mount an immune response (the principal exception to this is adjuvanted influenza vaccines, which while inactivated, are used in elderly patients in whom immunosenescent changes render it difficult to generate protection without a boost). Specifically, aluminum-based adjuvants are salts of aluminum, typically alum (potassium-aluminum hydroxide/sulfate/phosphate- the term is nonspecific)or aluminum oxyhydroxide which act through multiple concurrent mechanisms (elaborated upon below) to ensure a productive immune response. In particular, [aluminum-based adjuvants do an excellent job of helping to produce antibodies](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/300794), which is especially important for [toxin-mediated diseases](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/300475) e.g. diphtheria and tetanus. Aluminum-based adjuvants are currently used in vaccines against tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, pneumococcal, hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis A virus (HAV), human papillomavirus (HPV), meningococcal, *Haemophilus infuenzae* type B (Hib), Japanese encephalitis (JE), and anthrax vaccines.
If you'd applied the same effort before commenting, we wouldn't be having this conversation. ;) Thank you for making the effort to consult a credible source. I applaud that. Aluminum is an element. but they use compounds in vaccines - aluminum salts such as aluminum hydroxide, aluminum phosphate, and aluminum potassium sulfate. A little checking (credible sources) can go a long way.
From the start the OP was talking about aluminium in an MMR vaccines, so those are compounds, but you decided to concentrate on Al as an element. And it is toxic, plus it's something the body reacts to violently, so it's not something to just brush off as irrelevant.
Yes, you may be correct in the details., But what about the main issue, that it acts differently depending on how you come in contact with it. Injected it's a whole different beast.
A milligram of arsenic is much too much. There are many compounds in nature that are very dangerous in ppm. So saying 4 milligrams for a 4 kg baby is not very much is a dangerous statement. And stop the confrontational disagreeable attitude. I was taught to talk to people in an educated fashion. There is no need for the crass replies.
I'm also sorry to hear about the reaction. It's awful to watch one's kids when they're sick or injured. Public health officials (as YLE has noted before) do need to remember that it's not "vaccines because I said so," but rather, "vaccines because they dramatically improve the odds." Even with the problematic MMR vaccine, many lives were saved, but when we realized the problem, we improved it. People who have reactions to the vaccine also deserve to be taken care of, and we owe everyone the most information we can give. There will, as you say, still be some who can't handle a vaccine, and we should emphasize that we'll help if that happens. "We" here being the public, because vaccines help everyone.
OK, Noone has ever alleged that there haven’t been a good deal of studies on MMR and Autism or Mercury in vaccines and Autism!
When people say “we want more studies on vaccines as a whole and autism; and more vaxxed vs. unvaxxed studies”
we mean we want more studies on people who are completely unvaccinated vs those who got the full CDC schedule or on a large group of people of ALL vaccination statuses from completely unvaccinated through to getting the whole CDC schedule.
The point of adding this foreign compound to a vaccine is to create an immune reaction to something that it otherwise would not react to. So the fact that the body reacts so strongly would indicate it is considered toxic-like, at the very least. These compounds, I also think are hard to remove and accumulate, making them more of an issue in the medium to long-term.
"The two groups of the study are the ‘treatment’ group or the participants who receive the treatment (like a vaccine) or intervention and the ‘control’ group or the participants who do not receive the treatment or intervention. "
If you look at the measles review for a RCT you will find the first study:
"In phase A of the study, healthy children aged 12–22 months
from the ten countries mentioned above were randomized
(3:3:1) to one of the three treatment groups, and received either
two doses of MMRV (Priorix-Tetra, GSK) at Day 0 and Day 42
(MMRV group), or one dose of MMR (Priorix, GSK) at Day 0 and
one dose of monovalent varicella vaccine (Varilrix, GSK) at Day
42 (MMR+V group), or two doses of the MMR (Priorix, GSK) vaccine
(control) at Day 0 and Day 42 (MMR group)."
In other words there is no "participants who do not receive the treatment or intervention". This is just the first example. Needless to say if you looked thru the entire mass of pseudo-scientific studies none of them would be any sort of real science. If there was any it would in any case be hidden somewhere in the tiny figures designed to stop you seeing them and not supportive of the activity:
The systematic review does not "find a more reliable overall result" but misleads people into thinking there was a control group in the underlying "RCT" which was claimed to contain "participants who do not receive the treatment or intervention" .
Perhaps profoundly disabled kids just never made it into the public eye before, and therefore the increase is still just visibility. But since we shouldn't promote autism as the worst possible outcome, we should also recognize that for some, ASD results in "neurodiversity," whereas for a smaller group, profound disability. In the latter case, we *should* be trying to figure out if something is causing it that we can change. (Saliently, however, it is not vaccines.)
Sadly I’m afraid the person picked to head the study will falsify data to show that the vaccine causes autism. This opens up the lawyers to sue. Vaccine manufacturers will stop selling the vaccines. I believe this was the original intention of RFK Jr. The Trump administration will be known as the one who brought back childhood diseases.
I think that RFK Jr will be known as the one who finally improved the health of our children. In January 2018, media outlets reported the embarrassing news that children born in the United States are 76% more likely to die before their first birthday than infants born in 19 other wealthy countries. Autism rates have recently been increased to 1 in 31, and no, it is not because of increased diagnosis.
It’s because of increased access to diagnostic resources and criteria. Asperger’s syndrome was rolled into the same category which immediately increased the numbers. Pediatricians started routinely screening for the disorder. Resources opened up and de stigmatizing it greatly. We have health issues in this country but RFK Jr with a known history of misinformation and crazy conspiracy theories is not the one to tackle it. Why not get someone with a real medical and research background?
The factors you mention did increase the numbers, but not to this extent. Few of the prior heads of HHS have been in medicine. The vaxxed/unvaxxed studies have e not been “debunked.” Paul Thomas and Andrew Wakefield’s data were purely observational. Neither claimed that vaccines were the cause. There was no cause to discredit other than to hide the truth.
Thank you, thank you!! When a parent says they’ve done their research , your compilation should be the minimum reading requirement. Sadly, vaccines can be the easy scapegoat to blame when a child has a divergent social and language development because general development up to that point ( age 1-3) can seem quite typical otherwise . The problem was there all along and there are many genetic explanations now.
I hope parents can feel reassured by this and choose to protect their children from serious vaccine -preventable illness complications.
About a year ago, I met someone with autism who was doing very well in their career. I can’t help but think about how much it probably pisses ppl with autism off when others politicize their illness. I have long covid since 4/2020. My 2nd vaccine gave me back 90% of my health. I know what it’s like to have ppl politicize my illness, treatment, and decisions to protect my immune system by masking and being mindful about going into crowded spaces.
I actually feel sad for people that have been panicked into talisman wearing citizens. I am angry at the unscientific establishment gov and health "experts" pushing untested, unvetted and unreliable intervention. All for money, career or to show they follow "The Science", good grief!
It's like you didn't read anything in the article you are commenting upon. So much for you having an open mind.
Change your handle to Open Gullible Mind.
This is a fantastic piece. I really appreciate all of the literature cited throughout the second half. It is extremely annoying that the CDC is having to put time and resources into this witchhunt.
The journalistic fraud during Covid prompted a deeper dive into medical literature.
The Sr Editor of NEJM and same past-editor of BMJ both stated, in no uncertain terms, that our medical literatures is brought with fraud — one saying at least ½ and the other saying “most of” it is fraud.
The longer we sit and wait for vaccine hesitancy to go away, the more it will grow. In the end, we will either do the studies that the public demands, or fewer and fewer will agree to vaccinate.
https://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2010/05/ex-editor-nejm-tells-how-big-pharma-has-corrupted-academic-institutions/
"In the May/June issue of the Boston Review, Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, details the sordid story of how corporate dollars have corrupted research and education at academic medical centers — including at her current place of employment, the Harvard Medical School.”
The article is adapted from a talk she gave at Harvard last December. Angell, of course, has written about this topic many times before, most notably in her 2004 book, “The Truth About the Drug Companies.”
Writes Angell:
The boundaries between academic medicine — medical schools, teaching hospitals, and their faculty — and the pharmaceutical industry have been dissolving since the 1980s, and the important differences between their missions are becoming blurred. Medical research, education, and clinical practice have suffered as a result.
The article provides plenty of examples of exactly why health consumers should worry about this money-driven blurring of missions. Here are some highlights (but do read the entire article):
https://www.bostonreview.net/BR35.3/angell.php (“not found”)
Unfortunately, Sci-Hub doesn't have the requested document:
https://www.bostonreview.net/BR35.3/angell.php
“To a remarkable extent … medical centers have become supplicants to the drug companies, deferring to them in ways that would have been unthinkable even twenty years ago. Often, academic researchers are little more than hired hands who supply human subjects and collect data according to instructions from corporate paymasters. The sponsors keep the data, analyze it, write the papers, and decide whether and when and where to submit them for publication. In multi-center trials, researchers may not even be allowed to see all of the data, an obvious impediment to science and a perversion of standard practice.”
“[Drug] manufacturers typically prefer to work with academic medical centers. Doing so increases the chances of getting research published, and, more importantly, provides drug companies access to highly influential faculty physicians — referred to by the industry as ‘thought leaders’ or ‘key opinion leaders.’ These are the people who write textbooks and medical-journal papers, issue practice guidelines (treatment recommendations), sit on FDA and other governmental advisory panels, head professional societies, and speak at the innumerable meetings and dinners that take place every day to teach clinicians about prescription drugs.”
“Medical centers increasingly act as though meeting industry’s needs is a legitimate purpose of an academic institution…. Academic leaders, chairs, and even deans sit on boards of directors of drug companies. Many academic medical centers have set up special offices to offer companies quick soup-to-nuts service.”
“Increasingly, industry is setting the research agenda in academic centers, and that agenda has more to do with industry’s mission than with the mission of the academy. Researchers and their institutions are focusing too much on targeted, applied research, mainly drug development, and not enough on non-targeted, basic research into the causes, mechanisms, and prevention of disease.”
“[D]rug companies often contract with academic researchers to carry out studies for almost entirely commercial purposes. For example, they sponsor trials of drugs to supplant virtually identical ones that are going off patent…. There’s a high scientific opportunity cost in serving the aims of the pharmaceutical industry. For example, new antibiotics for treating infections by resistant organisms are an urgent medical need, but are not economically attractive to industry because they are not likely to generate much return on investment.”
“In addition to distorting the research agenda, there is overwhelming evidence that drug-company influence biases the research itself. Industry-supported research is far more likely to be favorable to the sponsors’ products than in NIH-supported research.”
“Conflicts of interest affect more than research. They also directly shape the way medicine is practiced, through their influence on practice guidelines issued by professional and governmental bodies and through their effects on FDA decisions.” Angell offers several examples, including this one: “[I]n 2004, after the NIH National Cholesterol Education Program called for sharply lowering the acceptable levels of ‘bad’ cholesterol, it was revealed that eight of nine members of the panel writing the recommendations had financial ties to the makers of cholesterol-lowering drugs.”
“Drug companies support educational programs even within our best medical schools and teaching hospitals, and are given virtually unfettered access to young doctors to ply them with gifts and meals and promote their wares. … This is marketing masquerading as education. … But doctors do learn something from all the ostensible education they’re paid to receive. Doctors and their patients come to believe that for every ailment and discontent there is a drug, even when changes in lifestyle would be more effective. And they believe that the newest, most expensive brand-name drugs are superior to older drugs or generics, even though there is seldom any evidence to that effect because sponsors don’t usually compare their drugs with older drugs at equivalent doses.”
Angell offers several recommendations for reforming the current, broken system:
Medical schools that conduct clinical trials “should not accept any payments from drug companies except research support, and that support should have no strings attached.”
Doctors “should not accept gifts from drug companies, even small ones, and they should pay for their own meetings and continuing education.”
Finally, “academic medical centers that patent discoveries should put them in the public domain or license them inexpensively and non-exclusively.”
“[A]pologists might argue that, despite its legal transgression the pharmaceutical industry is merely trying to do its primary job — furthering the interests of its investors — and sometimes it simply goes a little too far,” Angell concludes. “[But] doctors, medical schools, and professional organizations have no such excuse; the medical profession’s only fiduciary responsibility is to patients and the public.”
Do you have an opinion or are you just going to copy/paste from a Wikipedia website?
You state:
"People who spread vaccine disinformation often argue that new RCTs with placebo groups are needed to rule out side effects like autism. However, this is ethically impossible because it would require deliberately withholding a potentially life-saving vaccine from some participants."
I believe, first off, "impossible" is not a scientific approach to any subject. Secondly there might be cohorts (Amish, off the top of my head) who maybe would be willing to participate in any non-vaccinated study. So why state "impossible" when there actually might just be a solution? It makes me wonder what other "impossible" ideas you are proposing and defending.
I've had friends suggest that, too. The problem with the "gold standard" (double-blind, placebo-controlled studies) is that I don't know if you could get a representative sample who would agree with the double-blind part. Mennonites don't generally prohibit vaccines theologically, so there could be some in that cohort who are fine getting either vaccine OR placebo, but you need a lot of people who would be fine with both options, as they can't know which one they got. Therefore other study designs (primarily observational) are going to be needed. Maybe we will get enough observational data from communities who don't vax, but that will be decades down the road.
With AI and more creative study designs we are doing much more. The reassuring news for our established vaccines in addition to active safety surveillance is that in large comprehensive registries in the nordics for example, we continue to get the same confirmatory safety and benefit data. I agree that we should always try to be more creative but the challenge definitely lies in being able to balance emerging diseases (where we are far behind often) and still doing a robust study which many researchers have become really strung at doing.
I also don't like the term "disinformation" (especially when you consider the origins of the term, though the mentality fits - Russian "дезинформация" (dezinformatsiya), which appeared in 1949).
Anyone that questions or doubts the prevailing narrative (THE Science, in the heads of the anointed ones - AKA authoritarians) is an anti-vaxxer or a menace to humanity. The goal is to silence and stifle scientific discourse and direct the narrative (where to?... I say follow the $).
It isn't a matter of doubting the experts, it's denying the evidence that's the issue. Question everything, but be able and willing to change your understanding to align with robust evidence. Being critical of something (disliking it) isn't thinking critically (using logic, reason, and robust evidence to form conclusions).
Well stated, Bryan.
To that, I'd add as reply to O.C.M.'s comment that "follow the money" is a conspiracist type trope that is used way too often and broadly when there is lack of a more substantive argument. Take study funding for a prime example, since that is always a big one for the "follow the money" crowd. Where do they expect the money to come from for studies? Should they be done for FREE by scientists, labs, etc. who all spend countless hours on them? Or ONLY funded by what "unbiased" source (which is always subjective, depending on the point of view)? It's circular logic that doesn't really make sense when you get down to it.
(Sorry for the very late reply.) Funny fact - there’s a portion of scientists who are paid primarily by taxpayers. Yet those same taxpayers (who are paying the scientists) assert that scientists say whatever the person paying them wants. That’s quite a paradox because the people asserting that scientists say whatever they're paid to say seem to disagree with what the scientists they are paying say.
While you may believe we may lay to rest the issue of any reasonable association between the MMR vaccine and ASD with a "reasonable" presentation of research data, you might want to look at Paul Offit's rather unique post on a very similar topic, published yesterday. Unfortunately, it has become a veritable antivax festival of posters, emboldening one to the next, increasingly aggressive, and with any and all "science" falling by the wayside. It is hard not to imagine that the spark for this behaviour is the new Secretary of HHS, as he is frequently mentioned. It seems to me that we need to be prepared for the research of the near future that is considerably less "conclusive," if you will, from what we have long considered the settled science of our confident, customary recommendations.
The German Intelligence group recently wrote that their conclusion is Covid escaped from the Whuhan lab in China where the U.S.
financed the research because it is was disallowed here. This is the government that vouches for vaccines not causing harm?
Then our FDA passed the last Alzheimer's drug that met zero primary endpoints and whose first adverse effect was brain bleeds.
It has since been retracted from the market.
Trust is reasonably low. Deservedly low.
I find it odd that you posted this in reply to me, but so be it. The fact - which you failed to provide - is that the German study was conducted in 2020, but not published. It is quite similar to what our own CIA belatedly published in January of this year, but "cautioned" it was with "low confidence." I suspect you read that but purposely chose to exclude it. Your trust is low over "low confidence" data for which we may never, realistically, ever know the truth and is, at best, disingenuous, and at worst manipulative. Talking points apparently do not come easily to you.
The Politicians and spies in this country say Covid came from a lab with no evidence, but the scientists with evidence say it came from the wet market. Chinese gov slaughtered all the animals in the wet market so there are no animal cultures but the lab area was cultured and positive for the virus. I’m going with the scientists.
How does the origin of COVID affect the vaccines? You choose to extrapolate one example across anything else associated with it. Every medication or "natural" approach to treating illness or prevention will have risk. The statistics you are leaning on are of small sample sizes, while this article and others from similar scientists as reputable as those who collaborated on this write-up are looking at decades-worth of science. What is your hang-up on COVID vaccine? Do you think we get through the pandemic without it? Would you rather try to inoculate yourself by contracting COVID and potentially dying from it? The problem is when you take option 2, you're not only putting your life at risk you are putting others at risk as well.
Because TRUST IS EARNED!
Anita, are you aware of the RootClaim debate (Peter Miller) vs RootClaim "experts"...? It is worth a read, and if you are so inclined watching the 20 odd hours of YouTube videos of the discussion..
My last child was born in 1979. He had a huge problem with MMR, developing a strange cry i later learned called Cri de Coeur (i later learned an encephlitic cry called "cry of the heart") and although he was 15 months old and walking, he did not walk again for weeks.
This version of the MMR was replaced with a killed virus version but millions received this problematic version causing untold misery.
Not every recipient as lucky as my son.
Also, aluminum adjuvavent. Human physiology like snowflakes; some can withstand the aluminum toxin, perhaps others can not.
Then there's the vaccine schedule!
Why so many at once?
Nature may invite challenges to create immunity, but SHE intended 4 challenges into little thighs in an hour, nor that load of adjuvants.
I'm sure there is plenty of literature describing the vaccine schedule. I do feel sorry you had to see your son go through that, but I have a 15-month old right now and he has responded fine to his vaccinations. We're only 2 data points amongst billions collected over the years. You're welcome to question, but as you can see from this article, there is plenty of information out there to answer your concerns.
You're right of course, but far too many parents observe measurable regressions after vaccines, and it's not "just when they start to manifest." We need to consider that vaccines or vaccine components may play a role in autism as well as in other chronic diseases.
Can that conclusion be reached scientifically in 3-4 months? That's the timeline provided.
I'm not certain that I understand your comment. Parents report regression within hours to days. Parents know their child's baseline, and their observations should be considered. We know from the post-vax fussiness, fevers and seizures that vaccine or vaccine components do impact the CNS.
Can you conclusively come up with data to show there is a link between the two by the timeline provided by HHS? There's more than just parental observation to consider.
No one has "conclusive" evidence on either side of the debate, but there is certainly enough data to warrant more study. Just for starts:
Elevated levels of measles antibodies from vaccines are found in children with autism (83% of autistic children but not in normal children or siblings of autistic children).https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12849883/
Over 90% of MMR antibody-positive autistic sera were also positive for MBP (myelin basic protein) autoantibodies, suggesting a strong association between MMR and CNS (central nervous system) autoimmunity in autism. Stemming from this evidence, we suggest that an inappropriate antibody response to MMR, specifically the measles component thereof, might be related to pathogenesis of autism. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12145534/
Aluminum is not a "toxin", and you're exposed to greater quantities frequently. You may find higher concentrations in breast milk and formula than in a vaccine.
If the vaccine schedule concerns you, do some reading from credible sources. It concerned the people who set the schedule enough that they created a schedule.
First, it is a toxic compound (that's the whole point of including it in vaccines—to create an immunological reaction). Second, whether it is toxic or not depends heavily on the dose and the route of exposure, whether oral, dermal, intravenous, or intramuscular.
Aluminum is not a compound, it’s an element. Water and oxygen are both toxic given sufficient quantity. The dose makes the poison. Aluminum is used in vaccines as an adjuvant. An adjuvant is a vaccine component that boosts the immune response to the vaccine. Your representation seems inaccurate. Aluminum is not inherently toxic. It isn’t added to vaccines “because it is toxic”.
Sorry for the delay... You would well to read this: https://deplatformdisease.substack.com/p/imported-post-aluminum-based-vaccine
Aluminum-based adjuvants are salts of the aluminum ion which serve to enhance immune responses. I’ve seen it stated several times by several individuals that they would be far more comfortable with vaccines if the vaccines contained just the antigens, without those “heavy metals” like aluminum. There are several substantial errors in understanding with these comments. Aluminum-based adjuvants *are necessary* in ensuring the efficacy of vaccines and furthermore do help to ensure their safety. Additionally, aluminum is itself among the lightest metals in existence, [though the term “heavy metal” is largely meaningless from a chemistry standpoint and should probably be abandoned](http://publications.iupac.org/publications/pac/2002/pdf/7405x0793.pdf). Furthermore, the adjuvants in question are salts, not metals, and their properties are fundamentally different from the free metal species. [Aluminum as a metal is so reactive that it is virtually always present as an ion](https://edu.rsc.org/exhibition-chemistry/the-real-reactivity-of-aluminium/2020076.article), which is comparatively inert. For a more commonplace example: table salt, which you doubtlessly consume every day either through your food or as a condiment, is composed of a 1:1 ratio of sodium and chloride ions. Sodium metal however, is so reactive that if it comes into contact with water, it will explode and leave a pool of corrosive alkaline in its wake (which makes for some fascinating [demonstrations](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODf_sPexS2Q)). Chlorine gas was used as a [chemical weapon in WW1](https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/a-brief-history-of-chemical-war) and forms bleach and hydrochloric acid upon reacting with water in our tissues. [Yet, both sodium and chloride ions are critical for normal function of our cells](https://opentextbc.ca/anatomyandphysiology/chapter/26-3-electrolyte-balance/).
Vaccine adjuvants work by helping to provide the necessary signals to the immune system for a productive immune response to be possible. They are used in those vaccines which lack the structural features necessary to be able to do this on their own e.g. toxoid and subunit vaccines. Live and killed vaccines, generally speaking, do not require vaccine adjuvants as they contain all the structural features necessary to mount an immune response (the principal exception to this is adjuvanted influenza vaccines, which while inactivated, are used in elderly patients in whom immunosenescent changes render it difficult to generate protection without a boost). Specifically, aluminum-based adjuvants are salts of aluminum, typically alum (potassium-aluminum hydroxide/sulfate/phosphate- the term is nonspecific)or aluminum oxyhydroxide which act through multiple concurrent mechanisms (elaborated upon below) to ensure a productive immune response. In particular, [aluminum-based adjuvants do an excellent job of helping to produce antibodies](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/300794), which is especially important for [toxin-mediated diseases](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/300475) e.g. diphtheria and tetanus. Aluminum-based adjuvants are currently used in vaccines against tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, pneumococcal, hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis A virus (HAV), human papillomavirus (HPV), meningococcal, *Haemophilus infuenzae* type B (Hib), Japanese encephalitis (JE), and anthrax vaccines.
I've now checked and yes, aluminum in vaccines is in a compound. So you are wrong there.
If you'd applied the same effort before commenting, we wouldn't be having this conversation. ;) Thank you for making the effort to consult a credible source. I applaud that. Aluminum is an element. but they use compounds in vaccines - aluminum salts such as aluminum hydroxide, aluminum phosphate, and aluminum potassium sulfate. A little checking (credible sources) can go a long way.
From the start the OP was talking about aluminium in an MMR vaccines, so those are compounds, but you decided to concentrate on Al as an element. And it is toxic, plus it's something the body reacts to violently, so it's not something to just brush off as irrelevant.
Yes, you may be correct in the details., But what about the main issue, that it acts differently depending on how you come in contact with it. Injected it's a whole different beast.
First - sorry that posted twice. (It was behaving oddly, the window for replying kept closing.)
The evidence contradicts your claims. (So far, all of them.)
"...once aluminum is in the bloodstream, it is
processed similarly regardless of the source. Approximately
90% is processed by binding to a protein called transferrin,
and about 10% is bound by citrate. Once bound, the majority
of aluminum will be eliminated through the kidneys, a small
amount through bile, and a small amount will be retained in
tissues of the body. About half of the aluminum in the
bloodstream is eliminated in less than 24 hours, and more
than three-quarters is eliminated within two weeks. The
ability of the body to rapidly eliminate aluminum accounts
for its excellent record of safety"
What quantity are we discussing?
"During the first six months of life, infants could receive
about 4 milligrams of aluminum from vaccines. That’s not
very much: A milligram is one-thousandth of a gram, and a
gram is the weight of one-fifth of a teaspoon of water. During
the same period, babies will also receive about 10 milligrams
of aluminum in breast milk, about 40 milligrams in infant
formula, or about 120 milligrams in soy-based formula."
https://www.chop.edu/sites/default/files/vaccine-education-center-aluminum.pdf
A milligram of arsenic is much too much. There are many compounds in nature that are very dangerous in ppm. So saying 4 milligrams for a 4 kg baby is not very much is a dangerous statement. And stop the confrontational disagreeable attitude. I was taught to talk to people in an educated fashion. There is no need for the crass replies.
I'm also sorry to hear about the reaction. It's awful to watch one's kids when they're sick or injured. Public health officials (as YLE has noted before) do need to remember that it's not "vaccines because I said so," but rather, "vaccines because they dramatically improve the odds." Even with the problematic MMR vaccine, many lives were saved, but when we realized the problem, we improved it. People who have reactions to the vaccine also deserve to be taken care of, and we owe everyone the most information we can give. There will, as you say, still be some who can't handle a vaccine, and we should emphasize that we'll help if that happens. "We" here being the public, because vaccines help everyone.
My daughter split the doses up because all of her children had a reaction. It worked out well.
It’s a live virus now so your post makes no sense
OK, Noone has ever alleged that there haven’t been a good deal of studies on MMR and Autism or Mercury in vaccines and Autism!
When people say “we want more studies on vaccines as a whole and autism; and more vaxxed vs. unvaxxed studies”
we mean we want more studies on people who are completely unvaccinated vs those who got the full CDC schedule or on a large group of people of ALL vaccination statuses from completely unvaccinated through to getting the whole CDC schedule.
The point of adding this foreign compound to a vaccine is to create an immune reaction to something that it otherwise would not react to. So the fact that the body reacts so strongly would indicate it is considered toxic-like, at the very least. These compounds, I also think are hard to remove and accumulate, making them more of an issue in the medium to long-term.
"The two groups of the study are the ‘treatment’ group or the participants who receive the treatment (like a vaccine) or intervention and the ‘control’ group or the participants who do not receive the treatment or intervention. "
If you look at the measles review for a RCT you will find the first study:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X17317243?via%3Dihub
In there it says:
"In phase A of the study, healthy children aged 12–22 months
from the ten countries mentioned above were randomized
(3:3:1) to one of the three treatment groups, and received either
two doses of MMRV (Priorix-Tetra, GSK) at Day 0 and Day 42
(MMRV group), or one dose of MMR (Priorix, GSK) at Day 0 and
one dose of monovalent varicella vaccine (Varilrix, GSK) at Day
42 (MMR+V group), or two doses of the MMR (Priorix, GSK) vaccine
(control) at Day 0 and Day 42 (MMR group)."
In other words there is no "participants who do not receive the treatment or intervention". This is just the first example. Needless to say if you looked thru the entire mass of pseudo-scientific studies none of them would be any sort of real science. If there was any it would in any case be hidden somewhere in the tiny figures designed to stop you seeing them and not supportive of the activity:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8607336/figure/CD004407-fig-0014/
The systematic review does not "find a more reliable overall result" but misleads people into thinking there was a control group in the underlying "RCT" which was claimed to contain "participants who do not receive the treatment or intervention" .
There is some evidence that "severe" or "profound" autism is becoming more common. I found this description compelling: https://www.thefp.com/p/the-autism-surge-lies-conspiracies?ref=readtangle.com&hide_intro_popup=true
Perhaps profoundly disabled kids just never made it into the public eye before, and therefore the increase is still just visibility. But since we shouldn't promote autism as the worst possible outcome, we should also recognize that for some, ASD results in "neurodiversity," whereas for a smaller group, profound disability. In the latter case, we *should* be trying to figure out if something is causing it that we can change. (Saliently, however, it is not vaccines.)
I don’t understand their thinking😧
Sadly I’m afraid the person picked to head the study will falsify data to show that the vaccine causes autism. This opens up the lawyers to sue. Vaccine manufacturers will stop selling the vaccines. I believe this was the original intention of RFK Jr. The Trump administration will be known as the one who brought back childhood diseases.
I think you're dead on Debra.
I think that RFK Jr will be known as the one who finally improved the health of our children. In January 2018, media outlets reported the embarrassing news that children born in the United States are 76% more likely to die before their first birthday than infants born in 19 other wealthy countries. Autism rates have recently been increased to 1 in 31, and no, it is not because of increased diagnosis.
It’s because of increased access to diagnostic resources and criteria. Asperger’s syndrome was rolled into the same category which immediately increased the numbers. Pediatricians started routinely screening for the disorder. Resources opened up and de stigmatizing it greatly. We have health issues in this country but RFK Jr with a known history of misinformation and crazy conspiracy theories is not the one to tackle it. Why not get someone with a real medical and research background?
The factors you mention did increase the numbers, but not to this extent. Few of the prior heads of HHS have been in medicine. The vaxxed/unvaxxed studies have e not been “debunked.” Paul Thomas and Andrew Wakefield’s data were purely observational. Neither claimed that vaccines were the cause. There was no cause to discredit other than to hide the truth.
Could you please clarify your comments? No cause to … ? What do you mean?
Simple observations are not subject to interpretation, or “debunking.” Yet their observational data were questioned and their lives destroyed.