Humans are visual creatures. That's why one of the most effective methods to communicate a message is through visual means, and among the most powerful visual media are movies and television shows. Cranks, quacks, and antivaxers know this, and, unfortunately, they've increasingly been taking advantage of this by making their own propaganda movies disguised (thinly) as documentaries to promote their message. I've documented a number of such movies, ranging from The Beautiful Truth (a film promoting the cancer quackery known as the Gerson protocol), The Greater Good and VAXXED: From Coverup to Catastrophe (both antivaccine propaganda films), Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days, and the two movies by Eric Merola about Stanislaw Burzynski's special brand of cancer quackery. Most of the movies are pretty amateurish and crude, but even the crude and amateurish combining of words and images, along with emotional music, can induce a powerful emotional response, particularly in an audience predisposed to believe the narrative presented and to accept that whom the film portrays as villains and heros are, in fact, actually the villains and heros.
I just became aware of another such propaganda film disguised as a documentary. It's actually a bit low budget even for the antivaccine crowd, as it's an effort released in three parts, the first having been released to YouTube yesterday. The title of the video is quite telling. It's called Sacrificial Virgins: Not for the Greater Good, and here's the first part:
Before I discuss the actual content of this first part of the series, I can't resist commenting on the title of the propaganda video: Sacrificial Virgins. Anyone who's followed the antivaccine movement can guess immediately which vaccine this is about, namely the HPV vaccine, which is administered to preadolescent girls. That age is chosen because it is before the vast majority of girls become sexually active, and HPV is primarily a sexually transmitted disease. So the best time to achieve immunity is before girls (and, according to the latest recommendations, boys too) become sexually active. The term "virgin" is clearly designed to play on this timing. If a woman is immune to the proper serotypes of HPV before she becomes sexually active, then the cervical cancer caused by those serotypes can be prevented. That's how HPV vaccines work, and they are very effective.
Basically, antivaxers arguably hate and fear the HPV vaccine more than any other vaccine, with the possible exception of the MMR vaccine, because of it prevents a disease that is sexually transmitted and they do not like that at all. For instance, the more religiously-inclined among them will claim that HPV vaccination encourages promiscuity, an incredibly implausible and ridiculous claim. Teens, when presented with the opportunity to have sex, do not generally think of a cancer that they might develop 20 or 30 years later as a result. Basically, the claim that HPV vaccination leads to promiscuity is pure nonsense.
Of course, the imagery in the title is not about a loss of innocence, but a sacrifice of innocence, an image that resonates deeply in human myth, history, religion, and literature. The next question becomes: Sacrifice to what? In general, the implication of human sacrifice, particularly virgin sacrifice, is of ancient, pagan religion, and that's clearly the imagery the video makers went for here. The implication is that vaccination for HPV is based not on science, but rather on some form of irrational, religious belief system that demands a virgin sacrifice. No one ever accused antivaxers of being subtle.
So who made these videos? Surprise! Surprise! The anti-HPV vaccine group SaneVax is responsible, along with a British group, UK Association of HPV Vaccine Injured Daughters (AHVID):
UK Association of HPV Vaccine Injured Daughters (AHVID) and SaneVax Inc. (http://sanevax.org/) are pleased to announce the release of a new HPV vaccine documentary co-produced by Joan Shenton, Meditel Productions and Yellow Entertainment. Sacrificial Virgins is a series in three parts written and narrated by Joan Shenton and directed by Andi Reiss.
I've written about SaneVax before on several occasions. It's a specialized antivaccine group in that, although it not infrequently parrots pseudsocience and misinformation used by many antivaxers, SaneVax is focused almost exclusively on peddling misinformation and fear about HPV vaccines, particularly Gardasil. In particular, SaneVax has engaged in fear mongering about infinitesimally tiny amounts of HPV DNA in the vaccine and claiming that this DNA can somehow pass the blood-brain barrier in a manner that can induce autoimmunity through "microcompetition."
I had never heard of Joan Shenton before, however. A quick Google search showed that she started out reporting for the BBC World Service. She eventually started her own production company, Meditel, and made a number of respected documentaries. In the 1980s, however, she started being attracted to pseudoscience. Specifically, she started to believe Peter Duesberg and others who denied that HIV causes AIDS, making films questioning the link. Now, or so it would appear, she's discovered antivaccine pseudoscience late in her life. She still runs an HIV/AIDS denialist website and last year had a film of hers canceled by the London Film Festival. I hadn't heard of Andi Reiss, either, but he's a director who has apparently made several films with Shenton.
So let's see what Reiss and Shenton have done.
The film starts out with an image of a girl named Ruby, who has apparently developed a neurological condition that left her mostly paralyzed. She notes that only her left arm works. Not surprisingly, we find out immediately:
Nobody knows exactly what why Ruby has developed this serious neurological damage after a healthy and active life. But it all started after she had her first of three injections of the HPV human papillomavirus vaccine—injections that are given in the hope that they’ll prevent cervical cancer.
This girl appears to be Ruby Shallom. More on her later. First, I note that the very next segment shows a bunch of pictures of girls who have supposedly died as a result of HPV. Of course, as I've explained many times before, when you look at these girls' stories, the narrative that antivaxers provide is rarely particularly convincing for a causative role of the HPV vaccine in the deaths of these girls or the diseases of girls like Ruby. Shelton drones on about how "hundreds" have died and "thousands" have suffered severe adverse reactions. Never mind that this isn't true, that large epidemiological studies have failed to find an increased death rate attributable to HPV vaccination. In any case, the film is about as subtle as a brick, showing images of virgin sacrifice throughout history, and likening HPV to them, a sacrifice for the greater good.
Next up is someone named Christian Fiala, who, not surprisingly, is an HIV/AIDS denialist and a Board member of the HIV/AIDS denialst group Rethinking AIDS. Yes, this film is heavy with HIV/AIDS denialists turned HPV vaccine denialists. As far back as 2011 he was making statements like this in WorldNetDaily:
In an email, Fiala called the HPV vaccination plan "a money-making machine without any benefit for patients. But some inherent risks."
Officials report that there have been 17,500 or more "adverse" incident reports that have been made over the last few years because of the use of the vaccination.
Fiala, who fought the idea of vaccination with Gardasil as part of a national health standard in Austria, says he was targeted by the vaccine developers for his findings.
"The doctors involved in vaccine development submitted an official complaint ... accusing me of doing harm to the image of doctors," Fiala said. "The investigation did not go far, because I could show that I fully respect evidence based on medicine. Therefore, the investigation was closed. But it could have cost me the right to [practice] medicine. It was meant as a threat."
He basically says the same things in the video. It's nonsense, of course, because we know the HPV vaccine is very effective at preventing the HPV serotypes it's aimed at, the main serotypes causing cancer. His argument that it hasn't yet been proven to decrease the rate of cervical cancer is a disingenuous one. Cervical cancer takes 20+ years to develop after HPV infection, and the HPV vaccine hasn't been around long enough or a high enough proportion of girls vaccinated to produce a measurable decline in cervical cancer rates—yet. Six years later it's also not true that there is no evidence that it prevents cancer. Indeed, evidence has been nicely summarized here. He's joined by another HIV/AIDS denialist, the granddaddy of them all actually, Peter Duesberg. Amazingly, he claims, against everything we understand, that HPV does not play a causal role in cervical cancer, while Fiala blathers about how there is "no proof" that HPV causes cervical cancer. It's an unbelievable, breathtaking display of denial of a finding that is very well supported by science.
In fact, we do know that HPV causes cervical cancer. In fact, we know that HPV causes nearly all cervical cancers. We know which serotypes do it, and which ones are most common. (Two serotypes https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/infectious-a….) We know a lot about how HPV causes cancer, mainly by causing precancerous changes, cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN). Both Duesberg and Fiala seem to think because most CIN goes away spontaneously, thanks to the immune system, means that HPV isn't the cause of cervical cancer. We know this not to be the case.
Fiala also claims to have identified a 19-year-old woman whose death was caused by HPV vaccination. Shenton interviews the pathologist who did the autopsy on the young woman, Prof. Dr. Johan Missliwetz. In the interview, he pointed out that his first autopsy left him unable to find a cause of death, leading him to suspect a genetic heart defect, which is, of course, one of the most common cause of unexplained deaths in young adults. Previous interviews by him don't really show him saying vaccinations caused the woman's death. However, in this interview, he claims that his other thought about the cause of death, besides the genetic heart defect, was HPV vaccination, even though it was three weeks after the woman's second dose of HPV vaccine.
As for Ruby Sallom, I found an article about her rather quickly in—where else?—The Daily Mail:
A 16-year-old girl has been left paralysed in three limbs and is in hospital on a drip after having the controversial HPV jab, her parents claim.
Ruby Shallom was vaccinated at school to protect her against cervical cancer as part of the routine NHS programme.
But just weeks later, the keen horse-rider and runner started to suffer from stomach spasms, dizziness, pain, headaches and fatigue.
Her muscles became weaker and in May - two years after she was given the jab - she woke up with no feelings in her legs whatsoever.
She has since lost all sensation in both her legs and one of her arms and is virtually bed-bound - unable to eat, lift or dress herself, incontinent and often too weak to lift her head.
Doctors have been unable to diagnose her with anything and have dismissed it as being psychological, refusing to acknowledge any link to the jab.
As you can see, this is not a very compelling story. Her symptoms developed weeks (it's not clear how many) after her HPV vaccination, and she didn't start to develop muscle weakness until two years after having received the HPV vaccine. I also note that doctors do not suggest lightly that symptoms like this are psychosomatic. Such a conclusion is almost always a diagnosis of extreme exclusion, only after a complete investigation has been done. Also, who knows if that's what doctors actually said? As I've learned from experience is that what parents say about what doctors say does not always reflect what the doctors actually said. Be that as it may, although I have great empathy for a family like this whose daughter is suffering so, whatever the cause is, I fear that the parents and Ruby are engaging in the all-too-human activity of confusing correlation with causation, based on the even more human need to find a cause for their daughter's suffering.
Sadly, there are two more parts of this "documentary" to come. I somehow doubt that it will be as popular or influential (at least among antivaxers and the vaccine-averse) as VAXXED for the simple reason that it doesn't have anyone as famous as Andrew Wakefield in it. However, it will likely perpetuate many of the myths SaneVax and other antivaccine groups have promulgated about HPV vaccination. They want to scare parents and girls away from the vaccine, even though it is safe and effective. Same as it ever was.
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SaneVax is focused almost exclusively on peddling misinformation and fear about HPV vaccines, particularly Gardasil.
I disagree. They focus on profiting from misinformation and fear about HPV vaccines, by selling that charlatan Sin Hang Lee's worthless DNA 'tests'.
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100920005586/en/S.A.N.E.-Vax-Si…
Grifters gotta grift.
Speaking of grifting, I had forgotten all about Dr Polansky and his microcompetition concept... not to forget his Computer Intuition software that could plough through reams of scientific literature and boil it all down to a new diet-supplement scam.
Because I'm a glutton for punishment and incoherence, I would love to know their position on the debate about SV40 being a cause for cancer in humans.
Urgh. I guess their answer would be the standard "the is harmful only when injected with a vaccine".
Lets know their position
Interesting that your headline picture is grabbed from RT. Anyone who has not had the pleasure of tuning in should do so once in a while. Quite frightening the level of conspiratorial claptrap spewed from a major government media outlet. How anyone can work for RT and call themselves journalists without embarrassment is a mystery; but then I suppose money talks and they do seem to have a high level of staff who appear to be straight out of college.
A vaccine that prevents cancer and they can't even get behind that. The latest version Gardasil 9 covers 90% of HPV-caused cancers and I suspect future and competing versions will cover more.Remarkable science versus fear and lies.
But the anti-Gardasil crowd do. In their view, sluts must be punished for having unapproved sex, even if it takes 20 or 30 years for the punishment to become apparent.
Not that abstinence before marriage would ensure that these girls don't get HPV. The double standard is alive and well among the sluts-must-be-punished crowd, so their husbands might get HPV from extracurricular partners and pass it on to them. Logic is not their strong suit.
Oh, they have an answer to that, Eric. You see, a really *good* girl, whose parents are doing a really *good* job of looking after her, would only marry a virgin. There's a lot of misogyny in that as well, which they're generally oblivious to -- it's couched in the assumption that a good girl lets her parents choose her husband for her, which would be necessary for the parents to be able to protect her from this route of HPV infection.
That's the underlying thread behind a lot of antivax arguments -- that it is the parent's job to protect the child from all threats, and if the parent is good at it, they'll be successful. Healthy living, pure morals, obedience . . . the fact that getting sick means punishment fits right in with that mindset. It also carries the assumption that children do not have agency of their own, treating them as extensions of the parent or even as the parent's property. As with the latent misogyny in assuming a parent will always be able to protect a daughter from a bad spouse, it denies the child's own rights. That, to me, is the most disturbing thread in all of the antivax movement, and why it is such close bedfellows to groups engaged in other forms of medical neglect of children.
The fundamental problem isn't that they think vaccines will hurt their children. The fundamental problem is that they think their children are their property, and always will be. Everything else devolves from that.
Also, who knows if that’s what doctors actually said? As I’ve learned from experience is that what parents say about what doctors say does not always reflect what the doctors actually said.
And with the Mail, it is not guaranteed that what it says reflects, even tangentially, what the parents said.
There's a pretty good rule in the UK, that if it's printed in the Daily Mail, it isn't true. I check the date on the front cover against a calendar if I ever have to go near a copy.
I think it might have more influence than we hope in countries where the roots of misinformation about hpv vaccines are already strong, like Ireland, Japan, and less sure about Denmark.
By the way, the Denmark scientists complaint to the Ombudsman about HPV studies and the EMA was rejected as unfounded.
http://nordic.cochrane.org/sites/nordic.cochrane.org/files/public/uploa…
Any day now I will have a stepdaughter (birth is due this week). When she is old enough she will get the HPV shot, as will get all the rest of the recommended vaccine schedule.
These people have a right to their opinion until it causes harm to others.
It's easy enough for us to see what execrable pieces of crap these anti-vaccine fraudumentaries are. Problem is AVers keep plopping these turds their sphincters of misinformation and lies and these keep slowly chipping away at vaccination rates. Next up in a couple of weeks will be the "The Pathological Optimist" which supposedly gives a fair balance (whatever that is) regarding Andrew Wakfefraud. Alas, the promo text on IMDB notes:
In the center of the recent Tribeca Film Festival scandal surrounding his film VAXXED: From Cover-up to Controversy stands Andrew Wakefield, discredited and stripped of his medical license for his infamous study suggesting a link between the MMR vaccine, bowel disease, and autism. THE PATHOLOGICAL OPTIMIST takes us into the inner sanctum of Wakefield and his family from 2011- 2016 as he fights for his day in court in a little known defamation case against the British Medical Journal. Wakefield attempts to clear his name as the media-appointed Father of the Anti-vaccine movement. Director Miranda Bailey weaves a delicate portrait of a man who is THE PATHOLOGICAL OPTIMIST utilizing a never-before-seen, full access look at the man at the center of one of the biggest medical and media controversies of our times.
Note to anybody calling the mess Wakfefraud made a controversy: It's not a controversy when it's a fraud.
AVers are some of the biggest liars, crooks and frauds out there, and here is a much better portrait of Wakefraud, which properly calls him "the most corrupt and crooked scientist ever known?" --https://www.quora.com/Who-is-the-most-corrupt-and-crooked-scientist-eve…
Joan Shenton has spent more than 30 years failing to persuade the world that Aids isn't an infectious disease, much less caused by HIV. In short, she has wasted her life, blown any professional credibility, and, in my opinion, cheered gay men and black people to their deaths.
Back in the 1990s, I met with Peter Duesberg when I was living in San Francisco. It is the greatest regret of my professional life that I never wrote up the interview. It was worth 800 words.
Because of my failure, The Sunday Times's then medical correspondent (a member of a reincarnationist sect, which believes that Aids is the consequence of wrongdoing in previous lives) was able to persuade the editor to run one of the most misleading and destructive campaigns in the newspaper's history.
She was part of all that, persuading Mbeki's government in South Africa that Aids wasn't infectious.
In my opinion, Joan Shenton isn't only the Queen of Denial, she is a harbinger of death.
IiRC there have been a few hiv/ aids denialists who become anti-vax proselytisers - Ruggiero is one who's shown up at anti-vax conventions. Unfortunately aids realist-turned denialist Luc Montagnier is another. Perhaps Orac or his minions can recall others.
They move on to greener fields since aids denialism has become nearly totally unacceptable , even in woo-centric enclaves.
You give her too much credit. Mbeki did not need persuading. He was an AIDS denialist even before he became President. He hosted Shelton, Duesberg and the other denialists BECAUSE he himself didn't believe HIV caused AIDS.
Mbeki was (and still is) an exceptionally intelligent man. Unfortunately, like a lot of very intelligent people he was also an exceptionally arrogant man who believed he knew better than everybody else, even the experts. His AIDS denialism was not the only time he got it wrong, but it was certainly the most damaging.
A few months ago, he wrote various letters to the Press "explaining" his "reasoning" on AIDS and on other bad decisions he made. The letter on AIDS rehashed the same arguments that were rejected by the Courts when the Treatment Action Campaign brought suit against the South African Government to force it to supply antiretrovirals to HIV-positive individuals. The TAC won.
Mbeki always was and still is an AIDS denialist.
In Part I (9:28 mark) of the video the Professor said we have been dealing with the HPV for several hundreds of millions of years (Jurassic Period: 200-145 million years ago).
In the Jurassic Park movie (1993), they show a lawyer being eaten by a T-Rex.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMzfrod7hcE
In contradiction, archeological evidence indicates that mankind was not present during the Jurassic Period.
Q. Does the Professor maintain any sense of credibility when he says we've been dealing with HPV for several hundreds of millions of years.
The Professor has as much credibility as you do.
Sorry, I just couldn't let such an easy one go.
Johnny (#16) says,
The Professor has as much credibility as you do.
MJD says,
No harm done, Johnny.
BTW, I'm working on a new and refreshing book titled, Patents and Artificial Intelligence - Thinking Computers.
That'll cause some nasty insolence from NARAD in that he has boasted about studying such a thing in grade school or graduate school.
Marketing Paragraph:
Inventors continue to make substantial progress in advancing artificial intelligence. Since the year 1987, at least one hundred forty-eight artificial intelligence related patents have been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. This original and important book thus provides an easy-to-read summary of such patents. Within many of the summaries, there are inventor profiles and news articles that are insightful and thought-provoking. Pioneering inventors hail from many locations including Denmark, France, Italy, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, and Taiwan. At the beginning of several chapters, perspectives on artificial intelligence are provided in the form of quotes. Chapter ten describes patent applications that may affect the essence of artificial intelligence. In the final chapter, the issue of artificial intelligence as an inventor is explored. Most importantly, Patents and Artificial Intelligence – Thinking Computers is about the evolution of mankind’s genius to invent.
It may be fully illustrated based on Orac's visual-effect teachings!
Any suggestions?
Yes, of course--anti-vaccine "propaganda," funded by masochists who enjoy wearing targets on their backs, while using their tricksy wiles to find ways to make a living. Meanwhile, a selfless medical industry backed by trillions of dollars and every media outlet and government bureaucrat on the planet despairs at lost opportunities to benefit humanity. LOL. This blog is best read with a sense of humor.
"It's not the vaccines. It couldn't be the vaccines. Vaccines are a medical miracle." If you repeat this 3 times while tapping the heels of your ruby slippers, you'll be transported to the magical land of Psyence, where nothing is what it appears and everyone loves you.
I was reading about the 'Spanish Flu' of 1918 that killed so many people. Seems the medical industry had been working overtime developing flu vaccines that year, spitting out study after study extolling their wonders, and tempting more people than ever to get them. For someone in the real world, that might seem odd--given that, in retrospect, we realize they had no idea why people got influenza. But in the land of Psyence, anything is possible when it comes to vaccines--and mistakes and corruption only exist in the past. See Eyler J. The State of Science, Microbiology, and Vaccines Circa 1918. Public Health Rep. 2010; 125(Suppl 3): 27-36.
Have you looked at the many studies about HPV vaccines? When this article points out that the claims in the movie are unconvincing, it's drawing on large scale studies done by scholars from different countries. You may want to consider that data.
However sincere many of the suffering people portrayed here may be, the evidence suggests their claims about HPV vaccines are mistaken.
We didn't have a working influenza vaccine until the 1940s. But why do you think it was wrong or strange that people faced with an epidemic that was killing many tried to make one? Do you think they shouldn't have tried to find a solution?
@NWO Reporter:
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Were you reading whale.to? Vaccination against flu began in the 1930s, over a DECADE after 1918!
You've just proved that to antivaxxers like yourself, it's ALWAYS the vaccines, even when it can't possibly be.
NWO regurgitator: gravity is a scam, too. You can jump off a cliff and fly. Since you deny everything else, consider a cliff test. Wear a go-pro and video it to show us your triumph over us.
I remember the ads that showed a frying egg and saying this is your brain on drugs.
We need to bring back the visual: this is your child with chickenpox and this is your child that has been vaccinated. If a picture is worth a thousand words maybe the idiots may get the message.
Of course we haven't come up with a vaccine for stupid yet.
Chris Hickie, of course gravity is a scam until that last little bit before you hit something solid.
@Julian Frost: well, according to the article NWOR quoted, many companies promoted a "flu" vaccine in 1918 and 1919. However, the fact that there was no regulation of the product, and they thought flu was caused by a bacteria, the vaccines weren't very effective. So yes, in those pre-FDA years, she's actually probably right.
Added Note - the author, John Eyler, is a historian, professor emeritus at U of Minnesota. He seems to do a lot of writing on the history of vaccines.
What's up with Duesberg? Why is he still relevant. I know he tried a comeback after his HIV-AIDS denialism (htt_p://discovermagazine.com/2008/jun/15-aids-dissident-seeks-redemption-and-a-cure-for-cancer) but has been getting caught up in denialism over and over again. Why can't he call it a day and go away?
Mbeki did not need persuading. He was an AIDS denialist even before he became President. He hosted Shelton, Duesberg and the other denialists BECAUSE he himself didn’t believe HIV caused AIDS.
One man's lethal epidemic is another man's business opportunity, and Rath made a fortune selling worthless "anti-AIDS" vitamin pills.
I saw in the Whackyweedia that Rath is turning his attention to Russia as the new business opportunity, where the next big AIDS epidemic is getting off the ground. All the antivaxxers and AIDS-denialists and vitamin-pill scammers are making appearances there.
Interesting that your headline picture is grabbed from RT. Quite frightening the level of conspiratorial claptrap spewed from a major government media outlet.
Bonus RT: David Noakes -- the failed UKIP politician who turned cancer-cure charlatan -- has been making appearances on RT,s website. As "political commentator", i.e. quoted for his neo-Nazi politics.
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/311647-migrants-eu-policy-uk/
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/345222-britain-debates-donald-trump/
The nexus between antivaxxers, the Alt-Med charlatans and Alt-Right neo-nationalist political movements is noteworthy.
hiv/ aids denialists who become anti-vax proselytisers – Ruggiero is one who’s shown up at anti-vax conventions.
Ruggiero is a regular at AutismOne scamferences, but mainly to peddle his latest cure for autism (coincidentally, it is always the same as his latest cure for cancer, ME/CFS, and chronic Lyme disease).
He generally tries to work both sides of the street, and present himself not as a vulgar "HIV-denialist", but Just Asking Questions... "Oh, I am merely pointing out weaknesses in AIDS campaigns so that they can be improved". At the same time as claiming that HIV is really a human symbiote which evolved to cure cancer, I am not making this up.
Now he's trying the same sort of above-the-fray tergiversation with vaccines... "Oh, I'm nothing as vulgar as an antivaxxer, I am merely pointing out weaknesses in the rhetoric of vaccination campaigns."
http://madridge.org/journal-of-vaccines/MJV-2017-104.php
Sadly, Ruggiero's intellectual pretensions no longer work as well and he is reduced to editing fourth-tier predatory journals from bottom-feeders like "Madridge" in order to publish his Deep Thoughts.
@Dorit Reiss -- The "flu vaccines" weren't developed in response to the epidemic of 1918-1919--they were already around before then. They were heavily promoted during that time, though. I wonder which came first: the heavy promotion, or the widespread death? We know now the vaccines were useless--but they could very well have been much worse than useless.
Who was promoting them? Homeopathy, water treatments, colonics, mystery elixirs and other treatments were also promoted. It does not mean they actually were by folks who were competent or even honest.
On cue, David Crowe of the HIV-denial fraternity is promoting Shelton's opuscule:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/RethinkingAIDS/permalink/10155623979513…
Of course Crowe rejects germ-theory in general, so no surprises there.
I'm afraid the AIDS epidemic has more than gotten off the ground - it was already a concern some ten years ago at least, so I went to check and it looks like about 1% of the population (about 1.4-1.5 million people) is HIV positive at this point.
Of course, given who's in charge of the Russian government, even less is likely to be done about it than was done about the American AIDS epidemic under Ronald Reagan. 'Cause, y'know, "gay men, drug addicts, prostitutes," etc.
Oh, that was an apology to our host and the minions.
Did the others sell that well? I mean, enough for you to break even?
Johnny (#35) asks,
Did the others sell that well? I mean, enough for you to break even?
MJD says,
Thanks for asking, Johnny.
I'm hoping that Orac recognizes my writing propensity and asks me to be a ghostwriter here at RI.
@ Orac,
Send me an e-mail and let's put together a mutually beneficial contract.
At the very least, the long-term risks of the HPV vaccine are unknown. There have been a disproportionate number of serious adverse events reported to VAERS following HPV vaccination. The benefits are theoretical and speculative--it's unknown whether the vaccine will actually prevent cancer at all. It carries risk without any proven benefit, even if one trusts the supporting evidence offered by the manufacturers. It makes sense that weighing these factors could prompt even the most ardent vaccine believer to forego the HPV vaccine. No one wants to play Russian Roulette with their child.
"HPV vaccines have not been demonstrated to be more effective or safer than Pap screening in the prevention of cervical cancer and Pap screening will still be required even in vaccinated women. ... In 2002 scientists concluded that HPV 16 and 18 were the central and independent cause of most cervical cancer. This conclusion was based on molecular technology. If HPV 16 and 18 infections are the central and independent cause of most cervical cancer then the incidence of HPV 16 and 18 should vary with the incidence and mortality of cervical cancer worldwide. This correlation does not exist. It is also observed that the majority of HPV 16/18 infections do not lead to cervical cancer. This indicates that other etiological or 'risk' factors are necessary for persistent HPV infection to progress to cancer. ... Clinical trials have only provided speculative benefits for the efficacy of HPV vaccines against cancer and the long-term risks of the vaccine have not been established..." Wilyman J. HPV vaccination programs have not been shown to be cost-effective in countries with cost effective Pap screening and surgery. Infect. Agent Cancer; 2013 June 12;8(1):21
Of course in 1918, they still thought influenze was caused by H. influenzae . . . a bacterium. Sure, we knew about viruses then, but immunology was in its infancy, and so were things like peer review and clinical trials.
What Ginny tries to insinuate is that we always did things they way we do them now. We didn't. There was a lot of trial and error. What science acknowledges, and conspiracy theorists refuse to, is that new information and and should change your approach.
NWO Troll: "There have been a disproportionate number of serious adverse events reported to VAERS following HPV vaccination."
And has the same weight as the historical use of "flu vaccines" in the first couple of decades of the 20th Century: absolutely zero.
VAERS is a self-reported survey, and is useful after an official investigation.
Of course, given who’s in charge of the Russian government, even less is likely to be done about it than was done about the American AIDS epidemic under Ronald Reagan. ‘Cause, y’know, “gay men, drug addicts, prostitutes,” etc.
Welp, the Russian gubblement is propped up by fellow-authoritarians from the Orthodox Church in a collaboration of kleptocrats, so they follow the official position that Russians are too moral to catch a decadent Western disease like AIDS. And everyone is angling for a share of the moneyteat when vitamin pills take the place of antiretroviral drugs.
How's your Italian? "Dora" at HIVinfo was exploring the connections between Scott Tips from the Big Supplement lobby-group NHF, who's been over in Italy to support antivaxxers there and to network with Alt-Right politicians; and the antivax, HIV-denial movement in Russia.
http://www.hivforum.info/forum/viewtopic.php?p=90708#p90708
http://www.hivforum.info/forum/viewtopic.php?p=90764#p90764
Another useful HIVinfo thread:
Interesting that your headline picture is grabbed from RT.
http://www.hivforum.info/forum/viewtopic.php?p=80273#p80273
I had no idea that RT are so committed to promoting the HIV-denial cause.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2EBA509EAE4601C7
I recall Masha Gessen relating in the Russian magazine Snob, which I used to read, about traveling to Russia in the 90s, when AIDS was pretty full blown in the US and getting off the ground in Russia. (She'd been pretty heavily involved in ACT UP, if I recall correctly.)
She had a pram or something folded up in a suitcase, but filled the pockets of the pram with condoms (and stuffed the suitcase with them in various places.) She got stopped by security and they went through her luggage; upon opening that suitcase, hundreds of condoms fell out.
The security guy looks inquiringly at Masha.
"They're for personal use," she says.
Intensely scrutinizing look.
"Well I'm here for three weeks!"
(I actually got to meet Ms. Gessen at a lunch when she was at UM some time back. She is as brilliant in person as in writing. I was a few minutes late, I remember, because I was teaching; my advisor saved me a seat next to him and across from her. Masha's brother and Ben know each other from way back, it turns out.)
Speaking of Masha, this is well worth watching.
HAHAHAHAHA. This idiot calls himself a reporter? The flu virus was not discovered until the 1930s, so how could anyone have a flu vaccine in 1918? What, did they jump into a time machine and travel to 1918 with the vaccine made in the 40s and 50s?
Seriously, who is this hack? Why does anyone believe him? I've seen better lies by the Health Danger than this fool.
NWO: You do know that as an anti-vaxxer, Wakefield has made a hundred times the money he would have as a surgeon, don't you? I notice that most of the people mentioned in this article aren't exactly hurting for cash, while real doctors have to fight tooth and nail for so much as a dollar. It suggests that once again, the facts from your rump are wrong.
JF: I've never really thought of Mbeki as intelligent. He honestly seems like your country's Trump, with a better vocabulary and a few more brain cells.
Ren: they had flu vaccines in 1918. NWO Troll is right about that.
However, at the time, they mistakenly still believed influenza was caused by a bacterial. Virology was in its infancy. They were making a not very effective flu vaccine from the serum of influenza patients during the epidemic.
I'm researching the matter as part of a project I'm working on related to my grandfather, who was in the Army during WWI and who I believe had Spanish flu in August of 1918.
NWO Troll isn't wrong that there were vaccines, or that they weren't very good. What's she's wrong about is that they weren't very good because of corruption or poor science. They weren't good vaccines because we didn't know enough about the disease at the time . . . but it was a devastating epidemic in the middle of a terrible war and we had to try something. Doing nothing was not an option.
We did the same thing with AZT during the AIDS epidemic in the mid 80's. We fast tracked the drug because activists were demanding we do something. We lucked out: it worked better than we could have dreamed and put us on a path of successfull long term management of the disease.
I'm a vociferous advocate of the power of vaccines. But let's not be disingenuous and forgot that sometimes we get lucky (as with AIDS) and sometimes we don't (as in 1918).
Our clinical trial processes are light years away from what we had 100 years ago. When we approve a new vaccine now, we have the data to show safety and efficacy. That we didn't 100 years ago is not a reason to distrust vaccines now.
J. Wilyman. Really? That's the source of NWO #37 "research" on HPV?
Orac has already written about this on multiple occasions. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Wilyman_PhD_controversy
What an idiot - the first Flu vaccine wasn't even developed until 1938.....
The first vaccine against the influenza virus was developed in 1938. Before that, flu was thought to be caused by Bacillus influenzae, now known as Hib. Scientists tried to develop vaccines for that, which of course were useless against Spanish flu.
https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/blog/spanish-influenza-pandem…
Panacea: When I was doing research on the 1918 flu, I stumbled across an Italian doctor who recommended copious amounts of alcohol for all his patients suffering from the 'flu', in the spirit of 'doing something.' He had a pretty high survival rate, though I suspect it worked because the pickled patients simply stayed in bed.
There were a lot of 'cures' like that. Including the vaccine. Like you said, doing nothing wasn't acceptable.
JP: Just out of curiosity, was Ms. Gessen able to make any headway in Russia? Just from observation, in addition to the problems the religious population and the powers that be pose, Russians in general seem to be uninvested in health and medicine.
Oh goodness, I'll have to say no, sadly. She lived in Russia for quite some time, but had to move back to the US a few years ago because of threats against not only her, but her wife and child.
I myself haven't been to Ruseia since 2012, and things have gotten much worse there since then for the opposition and LGBTQ folks. At that point and previously, I had been participating in protests and frequenting lesbian and generally gay clubs in Mosocw and Petersburg, but as I said, things have gotten much worse. Even if I had the opportunity to go back, I might be chicken. (My travels since then were largely to Poland and so on. Well, Poland is becoming quite scary politically as well.)
The situation with health care and medicine in Russia is rather different from that in the USA and always has been. I'm not going to write a dissertation about it here as I'm on my phone outside, but I can't elaborate if anybody is interested.
Basically, in the USSR, health care was sub par in many ways compared to the West, but it was socialized and accessible. Now it is a mix of public care and private practices; basically it's better now if you have money, buy much worse if you do not.
Specifically regarding HIV, the problem isn't so much with the health care system itself (although that is part of it), it is the new state ideology, which runs along the lines of "morality" and "family values." Basically if you have HIV, you must be a degenerate, so who cares.
JP: I kinda guessed that would be your answer. I think if anything, Russia's actually gone backwards on rights (especially those of minorities) since the '90s. Eastern Europe in general has been pretty unanimously deciding that democracy is a bad deal- particularly Hungary and Poland lately.
So, their health care system is pretty much like ours, then.
Much like ours in certain ways now, yes.
And they have definitely gone backwards in terms of rights since the 90s. The 90s were a hopeful and exciting time in that sense (although the transition to "shock capitalism," largely on the advise of the US and the IMF, was absolutely disastrous), and even the 2000s, when I first got into Russian studies, were not quite so scary and hopeless.
Nobody agrees with me as far as I can tell, but I still think this mantra fruitlessly ignores the issue of potentially creating a positive attitude toward vaccines among those who are supposed to be the next generation of antivaccine crazies. The "opposition" is pretty much all coming from the usual suspects, none of whom stand out to me as being known for either religiosity or upholding some proud tradition of chastity.
@ Panacea
"I’m a vociferous advocate of the power of vaccines. But let’s not be disingenuous and forgot that sometimes we get lucky (as with AIDS) and sometimes we don’t (as in 1918)."
Yet, with AIDS, we still don't have a vaccine after 30 years, much money, and success claims in scientific journals. One has to wonder why there is such a discrepancy between people expectations and reality.
Similarly, I don't buy this "they"; it falls flat against the "we were obviously provaccine before the harm" routine, at very
least. It's a back-formation.
@PGP #45:
Do not make the mistake of confusing intelligence for wisdom. Mbeki is the former, not the latter.
^ Cases in point being good ol' Jake "it's somebody else's fault I can't get laid" Crosby and the apparently barren Virginia "NWO Reporter" Stoner. Olmsted was probably in it for lack of options. Schecter clearly fits the proposed type, though, but he seems to have become about as irrelevant as Pattimmy.
@NWO Reporter #37:
False. We have been vaccinating for years.
Lie. It has already started reducing the instances of cervical cancer.
As for citing Judith Wilyman, Elliot #47 has it right. Wilyman is a known antivaxxer.
Random memory:
When I lived in St. Petersburg for the longest period of time, I was staying with a host "granny." (Extremely cool lady, an old dissident.)
We had a habit of staying up until the wee hours smoking a million cigarettes and talking about everything, and fairly early on we got to the subject of romantic affairs, and she started asking questions.
"Well, really, Marina Markovna...I prefer girls."
"Oh." ... "What's the word for that? Lesbian?"
"Yeah."
"Oh. Cool."
She used to introduce me to her friends as a "real dissidentka."
My mother claimed that she was forced, by my Russian grandmother, to wear garlic during the winter to ward off colds & flu. This was during the 1930s. I hope that Russian medicine has advanced since then.
# 61 Elliott
Well garlic may have some medicinal properties and with enough garlic the risk of infection may have been reduced. I remember reading somewhere that hermits seldom get colds.
With enough garlic, people stay away from you and reduce the chance that they can infect you. And it's probably easier than hanging a durian around your neck.
JK
The hermits don't get sick because they're, well, ...hermits.
Mel Brooks fully explained the medicinal properties of garlic in the classic comedy routine: "the 2000 yr old man"
Carl Reiner (as interviewer): "how did you get to be 2000 years old?"
Mel (as 2k yr old man): "every night before I go to bed, I eat a nice pound and a half of garlic. When the Angel of Death knocks at the door, I open it and say: "whooo's there?"
Daniel: There are a lot of issues with producing an AIDs vaccine. You should already know that AIDS is not a virus, it is a retrovirus. Most vaccines are for relatively straightforward viruses and bacterial infections. Even the flu vaccine doesn't work all the time and AIDs is a hundred times more complicated than that.
And then of course, AIDs is linked with sex and drugs, which means that the powers that be don't like funding research or cures.
The fact that we have Gardasil available is a gigantic fluke. I guarantee you that no one will ever make a herpes vaccine or a chlymadia vaccine.
Ahem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herpes_simplex_research
@ PGP
"And then of course, AIDs is linked with sex and drugs, which means that the powers that be don’t like funding research or cures."
There is a lot of funding for HIV vaccines, and HBV vaccines have been implemented inchildren, although HBV is transmitted mostly like HIV.
The point that I wanted to make is that the efficiency of vaccines is overestimated.
Ahem x 2
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-36837934
NWO reporter #37 is probably the only reason I write in this otherwise useless blog. However, if you value irrefutable evidence you will leave it here.
In the UK the HPV vaccine was introducedin 2008 for 12/13 year old school girls with c.90% take-up. In the same year there was a 3 year catch-up programme for girls up to 18 which was so successful it was completed in 2 years.
The UK governments publish statistics on the ONS (england) and ISD (Scotland) websites including cases of cervical cancer by age group eg <20, 20-24, etc and also Pap screening rates. So in the last few years we should have seen cases of cervical cancer reducing in the 20-24 year age group, but no, they are increasing. In fact in Scotland the cases of cervical cancer in this age group have increased to almost 4 times what they were before the vaccine was introduced.
Going back on Scotland's earlier statistics on the ISD web site I noticed that the total cases of cervical cancer had come down consistently and progressively from approx. 500 in 1990 to less than 300 between 2002-2007 but since introduction of the HPV vaccine it has risen consistently and progressively to 400 cases per year. Not only has the HPV vaccine contributed at the lower age range but almost certainly to the all-age/total as well. How can I claim this? Well, because the Scottish government and NHS have allowed the screening rate to drop as they focus their attention on vaccination, expecting it to be successful. Even the manufacturers insist that it is necessary to do screening after vaccination - for good reason.
@Steve Hinks #70, supporting evidence needed for your claims that cervical cancer rates have increased. And they must be from reliable sources.
In other anti-vax news...
-A NJ doctor will charge for vaccine refusal ( see AoA, today)
- Consecutive flu vaccines cause miscarriage ( Natural News)
Vaccine apologists will concoct stories to explain that says Mikey.
Scotish Government source at http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Cancer/Cancer-Statistics/Femal…
You need to download the Excel file for 'Cancer of the cervix uteri: ICD-10 C53, Incidence:
Annual incidence (most recent 25 years) by age, sex, network and health board.
When I did my analysis the 2015 results had not been published.They have recently been added and show a very slight improvement but still following a very concerning trend.
DC: Well, you have an investment in believing that and disliking vaccines. So, no matter what I say, you're just going to hold to that line. Like I said, vaccines work fine for viruses. AIDS isn't technically a virus, though it behaves like one.
Rebecca Fisher: Implementation is still a long way away. And the herpes thing was funded by Peter Thiel who is very invested in being a horrible person. So either those vaccines will never see the light of day, or they'll be priced too high to make any difference.
"You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views. " - The Doctor
@Steve Hinks #73, I couldn't help noticing two things.
Firstly, there were multiple files at that website. How do we know you didn't attempt to cherry pick one that you believed looked bad.
Secondly, I did statistical analysis at University. There is too much variance in the numbers to draw a conclusion that things have become worse since vaccination began.
Pretty weak tea, I must say. It raises and falls.
About that - from
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/study-prompts-call-examine-flu-v…
They found 17 of 485 miscarriages they studied involved women whose vaccinations followed that pattern. Just four of a comparable 485 healthy pregnancies involved women who were vaccinated that way.
The first group also had more women who were at higher risk for miscarriage, like older moms and smokers and those with diabetes. The researchers tried to make statistical adjustments to level out some of those differences but some researchers don't think they completely succeeded.
Also see http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2017/09/study-signals-associ…
A study published today in Vaccine suggests a strong association between receiving repeated doses of the seasonal influenza vaccine and miscarriage.
The authors said the study is an unexpected signal that calls for deeper investigation and highlights the challenges of monitoring the safety of annual vaccines.
"We are not saying this is a causal relationship," said James Donahue, DVM, PhD, MPH, a senior epidemiologist at the Marshfield Clinic and the lead author of the study, meaning the data don't necessarily show that the flu vaccine causes miscarriages. "There's no biological basis for this phenomenon, so the study represents something that wasn't expected."
...
Lone Simonsen, PhD, a research professor of global health at George Washington University, said the timing of the study interests her. She has conducted her own research showing that in 1918, when the world saw another H1N1 pandemic that was more severe than in 2009, as many as 1 in 10 women miscarried.
"In this case getting the flu vaccine can be like being introduced to a virus that was evolutionarily quite similar to the virus from 1918," she told CIDRAP News.
But she also said the new study included only women with documented miscarriage. "Who are the women that document a miscarriage at 5 weeks?" asked Simonsen. "Probably someone who is also likely to get a flu shot." If true, that would skew the numbers toward an association.
In an accompanying commentary in the same journal, three US experts not involved in the study said miscarriage is one of the most difficult birth outcomes to study in observational research.
"Among other factors, the high proportion of [spontaneous] abortions [SAbs] that take place in clinically-unrecognized pregnancies and the lack of consistency in accurate capture of these events in medical records when SAbs do occur, make such research difficult to carry out," they write.
"After pointing out what they see as limitations of the study, such as possible unmeasured confounding (as illustrated by Simonsen's question) and the implausibility of the prime-boost hypothesis, the experts write, "One important take-away message from this study is that seasonal vaccine formulations are not all the same.
"As with other studies of drug safety in pregnancy, specific drugs require targeted post-marketing surveillance studies to monitor for safety, and the challenges are even greater for influenza vaccines, whose antigens and other components typically change each year."
The experts are Christina D. Chambers, PhD, MPH, and Ronghui Xu, PhD, at the University of California, San Diego, and Allen A. Mitchell, MD, with the Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University.
The World Health Organisation recommend the HPV vaccine and quote "the benefits outweigh the risks" but there are no established benefits. Even the vaccine manufacturers only claim it is 'expected to' or 'intended to' reduce cervical cancers and warts. They didn't even assess it for carcinogenicity even though it is one of the first of a new. generation of genetically engineered (GM) vaccines. The risks are ramping up enormously in the WHO's own global database of adverse drug reactions at www.vigiaccess.org with 400 deaths and 897 neoplasms (inc. cervical cancers and pre-cancers) amongst the 212,020 adverse reactions. They even acknowledge only approx. 10% get reported.
So I went to VigiAccess. What is the very first sentence on the website?
The operative word, as for VAERS, is "suspected". Not "confirmed as having been caused by the medication".
SUSPECTED.
@Julian Frost #76 reduction of cervical cancers (C53) is the prime 'expectation' of the vaccine manufacturers even though Gardasil only targets 4 HPV strains out of the 40 or so 'involved' in cancers. Merck more recently marketed Gardasil 9 targeted at 9 strains of HPV but they still have a long way to go. There is at the very least no improvement in cases of cervical cancer in Scotland. I hope you also looked at the all-age/total data for cervical cancers. If you chart them from 1999 to 2004 it is virtually a straight line trend which, if it had continued, would have led to zero cases of cancer by 2020. This would be feasible if you could achieve 100% screening, identify pre-cancerous lesions and take appropriate action. This was actually happening as screening was ramping up but Scotland let the screening slip as it focused attention on the vaccine.
@Steve Hinks #80:
You have just shown that you do not understand statistics. Random trends happen due to chance. Somebody once looked at the increase in autism diagnoses and calculated that over 100% of children would be diagnosed as autistic by 2050.
Julian Frost, you are a hoot. So 400 deaths and 897 neoplasms (inc. cervical cancers and pre-cancers of vaccinated women) amongst 212,020 adverse reactions reported as being suspected that they were due to the vaccine and contemporaneous to vaccination are all a coincidence. AE reporting was introduced after the Thalidomide scandal but failed to prevent the Vioxx scandal. With people like you around I can understand why.
@Julian Frost. #81 Sincere apologies for my typing error. it should have read from 1990 to 2004 and that would be statistically significant. Please check the data and chart it. However, when all men are autistic and all women have died of cancer because the HPV vaccine didn't do what it was 'intended to' do, discussions about statistics will be meaningless.
@Steve Hicks: did you even LOOK at the VigiAccess site? FFS, it's REPORTED adverse events. Please explain to me how the MMR can lead to anthropod bites. And how it can lead to adoption as an adverse event. Something tells me you don't understand voluntary reporting.
And, by the way...even with screening, ain't no way you'd ever get to NO cervical cancer by 2020. You really don't understand statistics.
I'll be long dead before all men are autistic and all women dead from HPV vaccine failure. I will, however, have grandchildren because my daughters didn't die from cervical cancer before having children.
How many women were vaccinated to get 212,020 adverse reactions? How long were the timelines for the adverse events to be reported? How do these numbers compare to a control group that didn't receive HPV vaccination?
In the 1970's the DTP triple vaccine was suspected of causing various harmful side effects. Later statistical analysis confirmed that the adverse events were due to random chance. Recently, influenza vaccine was suspected of causing narcolepsy. It was then discovered that the flu was many times more likely to induce narcolepsy.
VAERS has been undermined by antivaccine individuals loading reports that are unverified, and loading multiple reports of the same alleged incident. Without proper verification and comparison to a randomised control group, it is impossible to make the claims you are making.
MI Dawn #84 & 85 The vigiaccess database isn't mine, it belongs to the WHO. Just because there are a handful of silly entries doesn't mean it isn't the best data available. They also acknowledge that approx. 90% of all entries come from health professionals.
P.S. I'm really pleased for your grandchildren. Your daughter must nave made an appropriate INFORMED decision on the HPV vaccine.
P.P.S. draw the chart for the data from Scotland governments ISD web site, it is very compelling.
Um, what?
Given that HPV Vaccination only started in Scotland in 2007, how could a chart that ended in 2004 tell us anything about the effect that vaccination had on disease?
@Julian Frost #84 Hang on all of the evidence indicates GSK's Pandemrix flu vaccine does cause narcolepsy.
I totally support proper verification and comparison to a randomised control group but even Merck didn't do that in the clinical trials for Gardasil. In the clinical safety studies a saline placebo was actually used. However, the three groups of subjects were broken down as follows: 13,686 received GARDASIL, 11,004 received AAHS control, and 584 received the saline placebo.
AAHS is Amorphous Aluminum Hydroxyphosphate Sulfate. Therefore 24,690 subjects received an active substance and 584 received the placebo. The greater problem is that they did not compare the three groups separately, but compared the GARDASIL group to the AAHS group and the placebo together.
Furthermore, AAHS is the adjuvant (the portion of the vaccine that triggers the immune response) in GARDASIL, so the clinical studies were merely comparing GARDASIL to a toxic portion of itself.
There were 24 deaths in the clinical studies. The authors stated the events were consistent with events expected in healthy adolescent and adults populations. I don't think so.
@PGP
A retrovirus is a virus. HPV is a virus too, and as explained by Steve Hinks, the efficacy of the vaccine is poor (two or three years more may be needed to know exactly). I declare no conflict of interest.
@Julian Frost #84
Sorry Julian, are you are losing the plot? The point I was making is that cases of cervical cancer in scotland from 1990 to 2004 showed a consistent and progressive improvement from 500 cases per year to 300 cases per year. This was almost certainly due to the government's improving rates of cervical screening. Plot the data from the ISD website (link already provided) and plot the trend. It is only since the vaccine was introduced that the trend has changed completely and the trend is onwards and upwards with 400 cases of cervical cancer per year.
@Steve Hinks: Yes, my daughters made intelligent, informed decisions. I gave them the literature and let them decide for themselves, as they were teens when the vaccine was new. So they got vaccinated. 24 deaths. Teens die. They die of weird things. VAERS has several deaths after HPV vaccination - car accidents, drowning, suicide. Unless you can prove the vaccine caused those things, your concern is noted but not needed.
And...OH NOES....TEH TOXINZZZ of the adjuvent. Seriously, dude? You HAD to go there?
Adjuvants heighten immune response. They do not trigger it. That you get this basic fact wrong raises a lot of questions about what you know.
It doesn't matter what you "think", or more correctly, what you assume/believe. The authors would have looked at long term statistical evidence to state with confidence that "the events were consistent with events expected in healthy adolescent and adult populations."
@Steve Hinks #90:
False. The vaccine was only introduced in 2007. The upward trend starts in 2004, which is a full three years before that. And once again, I'd like to point out that you used the datasheet for only one type of cervical cancer, which leads to questions about whether you cherry picked.
I'm going to bed. Would someone else download the rest of the charts and check if other cervical cancers are rising or falling, please.
MI Dawn & Julian Frost, OK it doesn't matter what I think but I do respect the extensive work of expert witness Professor Chris Exley of Keele University. He is an authority on body burden and toxicity of aluminium. He has several peer-reviewed articles on aluminium adjuvant toxicity and featured in the documentary.
p.s. I have zero income from the use or sale of vaccines can you both say the same.
Enjoyed the challenge but time for some family time.
Oh geez, Steve Hinks. No, I have no income from the use or sale of vaccines. But the fact that you pulled the pharma shill tactic means you have no other ammunition and you lose.
And Professor Exley has written on aluminium. He is a biologist. Not an immunologist. And he believes aluminium causes Alzheimer's. So major fail (besides quoting studies from antivax quacks like Shoenfeld and Shaw). Put him against Dr Paul Offit and see who knows more about aluminium and humans.
Enjoy your family time.
I do respect the extensive work of expert witness Professor Chris Exley of Keele University. He is an authority on body burden and toxicity of aluminium.
Being a professional Expert Witness is not normally regarded as a qualification in itself.
The fact that we have Gardasil available is a gigantic fluke.
No no no. This is a gigantic fluke:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Host_(The_X-Files)
Well, Russians definitely still have their folk medicine, but it's pretty harmless; "cough & cold" type stuff and hangover remedies, mostly. It's not seen as a replacement for real medicine when it comes to serious stuff.
One more random and off topic memory:
Marina Markovna had very good taste in literature, and tons of books everywhere.
"You kids, you can just walk into a bookstore these days and buy books by any author you want. You can buy Mandelstam. You have no idea."
It is often not possible to prove or disprove that an adverse event was caused by a vaccine--nor is any effort made to do so in the vast majority of cases. An absence of proof does not prove there is no association. How much weight to accord to the reports is up to each individual. But to actually advise people to disregard them altogether is either irresponsible out of ignorance, or intentionally deceptive.
Irony much, Ginny?
I wouldn't worry about most of these films. The odds they'll move the vax uptake needle are slim and none. I'd divide this type of doco production into two categories.
The first serves a small niche group as a form of identity affirmation. It thus perpetuates myths in this case, but doesn't extend them to a wider audience. This kind of piece can actually generate revenue, as that niche audience will pay for screenings, video copies, and donate funds to the makers, either for pre-production or for future endeavors. Or, to echo hdb, grifters know how to grift.
The second are passion/vanity projects, born of hubris, aimed at a wider audience they have zippo chance of attracting. Literally thousands of such docos are started every year on all sorts of topics (you'd be amazed how many, really). Most are never completed, and of those that are, few are ever seen by more than a handful of people. Whoever put up the money in the great hope of becoming famous and influential inevitably looses their nut.
Given Shenton's background, the fact the thing is on YouTube, and Orac's note that it's low budget, I'd guess this fits the first category – and will serve only to coax more $$ out of religious conservatives into the coffers of SaneVax, and AHVID. Which they will they spend on more projects to preach to the already converted, and continue the windmill-tilt/grift.
The rough description and maker bios of The Pathological Optimist suggest it might have a chance to be an exception to the norm, and actually get out to a wider audience. But I still wouldn't bet on it.
FWIW, propaganda and documentary are anything but mutually exclusive, and 'propaganda' isn't necessarily a pejorative. The term 'documentary' was coined by John Grierson, head of the British Labor government propaganda film unit (it was a division of the Postal Service, actually) in the 30s and 40s. It has never carried any connotations whatsoever of 'balance', 'objective journalism', etc. Of course, a highly 'biased' film may disguise itself as 'balanced' or 'objective inquiry' in some scurrilous way, but that just makes it a bad documentary. I would suggest substituting something like 'pernicious propaganda documentary' for "propaganda film disguised as a documentary". And. no, I don't think the distinction is pedantic at all...
Next up is someone named Christian Fiala, who, not surprisingly, is an HIV/AIDS denialist and a Board member of the HIV/AIDS denialst group Rethinking AIDS. Yes, this film is heavy with HIV/AIDS denialists turned HPV vaccine denialists.
There is also a fleeting Acknowledgement in the Credits to Fiala and Robert Leppo:
https://i.imgur.com/nfzr07s.png
Leppo being the venture capitalist with surplus money and an AIDS-denial fixation, who has funded
1. Duesberg's post-science career.
2. the 'Rethinking AIDS' group
3. The "House of Numbers" fillum [distributed by 'Rethinking AIDS', whose members lied for a while about no-one knowing the source of Leung's funding, until the minutes came to light where they had signed off on Leppo's donation].
4. An earlier film, "The Other Side of AIDS".
5. Clive Baker's legal costs -- Baker (OMSJ) being the RWNJ who used to run legal and extra-legal campaigns of thuggery, intimidation and character assassination against people who found their way onto their "Rethinking AIDS" Enemies List.
So the film is more than "top-heavy" with HIV-denialists, it is NOTHING BUT the old Rethinking AIDS group, trying to get the band together for a reunion tour.
I had never heard of Joan Shenton before, however.
"Rethinking AIDS" have heard of her, though; she's on the board.
Although SaneVAX and AHVID are promoting the film and doing their best to claim credit for it, I can't see if they were actually involved in it. Conceivably they helped by providing Shelton with a list of sob stories.
JF: Do not make the mistake of confusing intelligence for wisdom. Mbeki is the former, not the latter.
I always thought the two were the same. As far as Mbeki goes, he talks a good game and he is fairly good at politics, but there isn't much else there, and he doesn't seem to have much substance to him.
Daniel: so you're hanging your claim that vaccines aren't efficient (your word) on the fact we haven't come up for a vaccine for ONE pathogen yet?
Yes, retroviruses are viruses. But, as the saying goes, all poodles are dogs, but not all dogs are poodles. Retroviruses have enough differences from the viral diseases we have created vaccines for, that we have yet to be successful with HIV yet. It mutates rapidly, as do some other viruses, making vaccine development difficult.
That fact doesn't impact the safety or efficacy of other vaccines for other viral illnesses.
Hep B is not a retrovirus. We've had an effective vaccine for that for a long time. False equivalency.
It is often not possible to prove or disprove that an adverse event was caused by witchcraft–nor is any effort made to do so in the vast majority of cases. An absence of proof does not prove there is no association.
The scientific method can be useful.
Just FWIW, according to the CDC
and
<blockquoteHPV vaccines work extremely well. Clinical trials showed HPV vaccines provide close to 100% protection against cervical precancers and genital warts. Since the first HPV vaccine was recommended in 2006, there has been a 64% reduction in vaccine-type HPV infections among teen girls in the United States. Studies have shown that fewer teens are getting genital warts and cervical precancers are decreasing. In other countries, such as Australia, where HPV vaccination coverage is higher than in the United States, large decreases have been observed in these HPV-associated outcomes. HPV vaccines offer long-lasting protection against HPV infection and HPV disease. There has been no evidence to suggest that HPV vaccine loses any ability to provide protection over time. Data are available for about 10 years of follow-up after vaccination.
Most of the cancer reduction has been due to pap smear screening. Because it takes 15 to 20 years for cervical cancer to develop and the vaccine was introduced in 2006, it is too early to measure the final effect on cancer incidence. But of course, a good researcher like Daniel is well aware of that.
@PGP #106:
To paraphrase:
Knowledge is knowing a fruit is a seed-bearing structure that develops from the ovary of a flowering plant.
Intelligence is applying that knowledge to realise that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is knowing you don't put a tomato in a fruit salad.
That is a very apt summary of him. I have to ask, do you have a special interest in South African politics?
@ Panacea
Concerning HBV, you misquote what I was saying: I was responding to PGP, who said "AIDs is linked with sex and drugs, which means that the powers that be don’t like funding research or cures".
What I was meaning is that many people believe that "vaccines provide close to 100% protection" (Squirellite), when it is not true.
@ Squirellite
"Because it takes 15 to 20 years for cervical cancer to develop and the vaccine was introduced in 2006, it is too early to measure the final effect on cancer incidence"
When you analyze the incidence of CIN in the age group 20-24, you don't have to wait 15 years for a sexually transmitted disease. And the incidence of CIN is already high in this age group. So, the absence of decrease in CIN incidence in 2014 is puzzling, but I think we would have a clearer picture in 3 years (because it's not 2006 but 2009, which should be considered)
I apologize to the regulars who know this.
HPV helps cause head and neck cancers, mostly in men, and penile cancers, and anal cancers in men and women. I'm not a student of the second and third, but have seen dozens, and studied hundreds, of the first. It is very, very bad, and it is increasing!
Get your girls AND BOYS vaxxed, dammit. The entire herd. The rest of you, weaponize your computers - mine says "This computer kills tumors", but prevention is even better, and easier. This vaccine is nearly a miracle.
Julian: I follow global politics in general. Mbeki just stands out because he was the first of the current crop of malevolent zeppelins.
DC: Sigh. I am aware that a retrovirus is a virus. I was wondering if YOU were aware of that. And as Panacea says, the two may be similar, but there are enough differences to make engineering a vaccine difficult.
As far as HPV goes, it's too soon for a verdict really. It's only been a decade and uptake is poor. The one point I agree on is that people shouldn't rely on the vaccine alone, but we do live in the US, where the populace has decided 'we don't need no steenking sex ed.'
And yes, you do have a conflict of interest. You are really invested in your belief that vaccines just don't work any of the time.
I don't know if it's a personal thing, you have friends who don't vaccinate or maybe you have a lot of anti-vaccine clients who come in so you can make soothing noises at them. Frankly, I don't care, I just think you should maybe get out of the medical game.
Steve HIcks
Your link to the Scotland data is down ATM so I cant see your statistics.
There is plenty of evidence that the HPV vaccine is effective for preventing genital warts caused by the vaccine strains. Data demonstrating the vaccines reduce genital warts on a population level is starting to come in:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27365492
"Decline in genital warts diagnoses among young women and young men since the introduction of the bivalent HPV (16/18) vaccination programme in England: an ecological analysis."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5144106/
"Population-level impact and herd effects following human papillomavirus vaccination programmes: a systematic review and meta-analysis"
The evidence that cervical cancer is caused by HPV infection is also overwhelming. The discovery of the connection between HPV and cervical cancer by Harald zur Hausen led to the award of a Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 2008.
Your inability or refusal to understand how preventing HPV infection will, over time, prevent cervical cancer bespeaks of either faulty logic, or, more likely, a fixed ideological mindset.
Your arguments are prime examples of motivated reasoning and cherry picking data. If you think your data is so compelling, you need to write it up and submit it for peer reviewed publication.
I predict that when the incidence of cervical cancer starts to plummet in 10 years, you will be pointing to cherry picked data sets to argue that the disease was already in decline prior to introduction of the vaccine.
Yes, Daniel, I get you were responding to PGP. I should point out that I don't agree with her view that HIV is not well funded simply because it is an STD, but it wasn't germane to the last line of that post, to wit:
"The point that I wanted to make is that the efficiency of vaccines is overestimated"
And it's not. Not one bit over estimated.
@PGP
"You are really invested in your belief that vaccines just don’t work any of the time."
No I am not. My two daughters are vaccinated.
And, ;-) I am not antivax, some of my best friends are vaccinated (sorry, I could not help).
@Panacea
My point is that: all the risks and benefits should be evaluated carefully, it should not be a battle between pro-vax and at-vax.
I have pointed to evidence showing that claims for high efficacy were not justified: the claim that we had a promising vaccine against AIDS, and the claim that HPV vaccines are 100% efficient. Similarly, if a surgeon explains me that statistical significance does not mean what it means because it indicates a risk, or that a renowned immunologist is a fraudster, I am skeptical.
read anti-vax, instead for at-vax (I don't know how it happened).
@Daniel Corcos #116:
They are carefully evaluated. As has been pointed out before, antivaxxers downplay the risks of vaccine preventable diseases, downplay the effectiveness of vaccination and grossly exaggerate the side effects.
Um, what?
I have never seen that claim made. Either provide a link to where it was claimed that HPV Vaccination is 100% effective, or I will dismiss your claim as a straw man.
@ Julian Frost
1) I am not here on behalf of the antivaxxers
2) "Clinical trials showed HPV vaccines provide close to 100% protection against cervical precancers" Squirellite # 109.
All of the so called HPV vaccine "anti-vaxxers" that I know (several hundred) all had their children vaccinated and they then suffered serious debilitating long-term illnesses. So we were all pro-vaxx and are now only anti HPV vaxx. This vaccine was fast-tracked and is amongst the first of a new generation of genetically engineered (GM) vaccines with high aluminium adjuvants and the controls in the clinical trials were similar vaccines and 'aluminium adjuvant', not placebo's. Serious adverse events (SAE) were c.2,500/100,000 immunised in both the vaccine and control groups in the clinical trials. Rates of cervical cancers in developed countries using Pap screening are 8/100,000 with screening rates of 80% at best. Deaths due to cervical cancer have come down from 8 to 2/100,000 over 40 years before the vaccine was introduced. Pap screening is still considered necessary by the vaccine manufacturers after vaccination. Reporting systems were introduced to prevent another repeat of the Thalidomide scandal but many bury their heads and insist the high levels of SAE are a coincidence. Hence Vioxx and Pandemrix caused so much suffering before it was accepted that they had caused considerable harm.
"close to 100% protection" is NOT the same as 100% effective. You said "the claim that HPV vaccines are 100% efficient". That was NOT what Squirrelelite said. Stop twisting others' words.
@Julian Frost
"close to 100% protection” is NOT the same as 100% effective". Capital letters do no make an argument valid.
Wow, Steve Hinks! You know several hundred antivaxxers with damaged children from HPV vaccine??? Where are all the reports with their serious, long-term debilitating illnesses? Are they all related to the antivaxxers who saw the light vanish from their children's eyes after getting the MMR?
I will place my children and their friends, and many others (several thousands - I can pull records on them) who have had NO effect - barring protection from common HPV strains - from the vaccine against your several hundred with damaged children.
Note: I am NOT claiming the vaccine never has an adverse event.They are not perfect. But if Steve has proof, then there would be a lot more reports validated. BTW - according to VAERS, there are 866 events listed to 6/14/17 for HPV leading to death or life threatening events. Scrolling through them, I see reports of allergic reaction (anaphylactic events) with the first vaccine, with the second and third being given without problems. So, Steve, where does THAT fall in your grouping?
Daniel Corcos: No I am not. My two daughters are vaccinated.
Sure. And I'm sure you own a lovely bit of beachland in Arizona too. If you aren't an anti-vaxxer, why do you trot out all their talking points?
MIDawn: I think Mr. Hinks's friends are of the mindset that being a teenager (and all the attitude and risktaking that go with it.) is a side-effect of the HPV vaccine.
@ PGP
I do not trot all their talking points. It happens that some points raised by scientists and used by antivaxxers are right, and that there are bad guys in both camps.
Daniel Corcos: "It happens that some points raised by scientists and used by antivaxxers are right"
No, you're weaseling and you're wrong. Anti-vaxxers demand an imaginary perfection and assume that every reaction ever is the fault of a vaccine.
Seriously, there were a couple of cases of drowning after the HPV cases that were considered 'side-effects.' How? Is forgetting how to swim or misjudging a current a side-effect?
Nothing in nature is 100%. And unless I'm misjudging your age, you had the smallpox vaccine, yes? Which had a lot more side effects than ANY vaccine on the marketplace today. But guess what? Even with the side-effects, even though it was less than perfect, it WORKED.
And there was a man whose son got hurt really badly by a polio vaccine. He didn't start campaigning to end all vaccines. Even though, by your lights he should have.
Instead, he alerted the authorities, said 'this is a problem, here's what happened." Problem got fixed, people still vaccinate for polio. Again, according to you, the polio vaccinating program should have ended immediately and all the labs should have shut down because of an imperfection.
Sacrificial Virgins has had over 10,000 views in 4 and a half days. Must be some interest out there.
There must now be at least 9,999 very disappointed pr0n surfers.
@rs f923; f923; f923; f923;
@Steve Hinks: 10,000 views in only four and a half days? Wow! Impressive...not.
A film on general release in South Africa alone can easily have several times that number watching it in its first week.
Crumbs. Those four pieces of code next to rs were supposed to be the emoji for rolling on the floor laughing out loud.
Personally, I'd have made the assumption of at least R rated film from the title... I didn't think then (and don't now) think of my children as sacrificial virgins, regardless of the purported state of their hyman and/or contact with sexual organs of another person. I'm much happier knowing that no matter what, they are protected from the scene I had in one office of a wife and husband screaming at each other because her pap came back with HPV and they were both SURE the other had been cheating... (Nope, sorry....one or the other probably exposed long before marriage, just much better testing).
I also think that Dear Steve should have seen the poor early teen-age girl I saw at another job, who had severe urinary retention due to HPV warts so numerous you couldn't even visualize her perineum and she bled every time you touched them. I changed jobs before they got her fully treated and you could see her perineal area, 6 months later.
Interesting article and insightful commentary. Thank you!
There does seem to be a lot of controversy around this HPV vaccine because:
1) it was fast-tracked despite not responding to an epidemic
2) it does not contain wild virus types, but genetically engineered "virus-like" particles made through recombinant DNA technology, which is still relatively new
3) it contains Amorphous aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulfate created thanks to nanotechnology...do we know how this affects metabolism?
4) there are over 200'000 adverse reports, including 298 deaths, on VAERS from 2007-2017 which represents 30% of all adverse reports ever recorded. While correlation does not prove causation, it certainly should raise an eyebrow.
Also there is contradictory information in the scientific literature – some studies will claim HPV is responsible for all cervical cancers, others say this isn't so. So who knows? One thing is for sure, all concerns shouldn't be categorically ridiculed or discarded as anti-vaccine madness. Science doesn't have all the answers...it's not a religion after all.....or is it?
Steve Hicks #45:
I'd wager that MI Dawn and Julian Frost have zero income from production or promotion of anti-vaccine propaganda videos like Sacrificial Virgins, and certainly no relationship with Sanevax or AHVID. Can you say the same?It might've done to disclose your own association, Mr Vice Chair and Press Officer, AHVID, given your haste to deploy the shill gambit.
Pay attention to the tags::forget to double-check the content . . . gets me every time. Bugger.That would be @Steve Hinks #95.
there are over 200’000 adverse reports, including 298 deaths, on VAERS from 2007-2017
There is a correlation between "Grifters from SaneVax and AHVID urging their followers to swamp the VAERS system with spurious adverse reports" and "consequent rise in number of reports".
Of course this does not establish causation.
Don't forget how he introduced himself. Should've tried harder to stick the flounce.
Amorphous aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulfate created thanks to nanotechnology
I think this is the first time I have seen "adding alkali to a solution of aluminium salts and waiting for them to form a colloid" described as nanotechnology. Just saying, if your nanotech is giving you an amorphous result then you should probably take it back to the shop.
MIDawn: He'd probably think your patient was a slut and 'deserved it.' (You can't see it, but every time I read that comment I wince. That poor kid. I hope the person she caught it from got run over by a bus.)
@Narad
Recombinant DNA technology has been used since the late 1970s, with the Hepatitis B being the first vaccine using this technique, released in the late 1980s.
Despite these milestones, it would seem that science has ploughed ahead in areas without a full understanding. After all, back in 2001, science was still claiming that 98% of our DNA was "non-coding" junk. Shows there is still a lot to learn with regards to DNA and how it codes for life. Despite being on the market for almost 40 years, I would argue DNA recombinant technology is still relatively new and likely to evolve as knowledge and understanding on the subject increases.
So I was on Facebook and I was going though my "On this day" feed.
Lo and behold, how germane is this?
http://www.thejournal.ie/hpv-vaccine-ireland-regret-gardasil-facts-2970…
Steve said, "There were 24 deaths in the clinical studies. The authors stated the events were consistent with events expected in healthy adolescent and adults populations. I don’t think so."
From the clinical trials https://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/06/briefing/2006-4222B3.pdf
"There were eleven deaths in subjects who received Gardasil™: six were attributed to traumatic injuries or drug overdose, one death attributed to pancreatic cancer, one death attributed to cardiac arrhythmia, one death attributed to DVT/PE, one death attributed to DIC with possible sepsis, and one death attributed to pneumonia and sepsis.
Of the seven deaths in subjects who received placebo, five were attributed to traumatic injuries or
suicide, one death attributed to complications of labor and delivery, and one death attributed to pulmonary embolism. Most deaths occurred months or years after the third vaccination and thus there were no obvious temporal associations between deaths and administration of study vaccine"
So, car accidents, suicide, death in childbirth... those are expected events in healthy adolescent and adult populations.
@Steve
You don't think deaths happen in adolescents and adult populations?
From the clinical trial data:
"There were eleven deaths in subjects who received Gardasil™: six were attributed to traumatic injuries or drug overdose, one death attributed to pancreatic cancer, one death attributed to cardiac arrhythmia, one death attributed to DVT/PE, one death attributed to DIC with possible sepsis, and one death attributed to pneumonia and sepsis.
Of the seven deaths in subjects who received placebo, five were attributed to traumatic injuries or suicide, one death attributed to complications of labor and delivery, and one death attributed to pulmonary embolism. Most deaths occurred months or years after the third vaccination and thus there were no obvious temporal associations between deaths and administration of study vaccine"
Recipients died of motor vehicle accidents, suicide, drug overdose, childbirth, etc.
Those events happen in a normal population.
http://archive.jsonline.com/news/health/medical-examiner-girls-death-no…
"A much-touted vaccine given to teens and preteens to prevent cancers caused by a sexually transmitted virus did not cause or contribute to the death of a 12-year-old Waukesha girl whose mother found her unresponsive in their home on July 30, the Waukesha County medical examiner said Wednesday."