Wednesday 28 January 2009

JABS bleating over well argued points. Funny that.

"The Vaccine Book" by Dr Robert Sears has become a big hit among the worried well and University Of Google-educated American middle classes. It's written to sound like a reasonable discussion, but in fact repeats all the anti-vax lies that the JABS crowd spew out - it just suggests that they might be a problem, rather than stating them outright. Planting a seed of doubt - the most effective way of getting the anti-vax ideas propogated. At the end of the book, it suggests an alternative schedule of vaccination for children - one that sounds reasonable to those worried parents who don't have the critical faculties, or the time to actually read any primary sources.

Dr Paul Offit has written an excellent critique of the book, which has been published in Paediatrics.

It's well written, calm and collected, and extremely well referenced - and it acts as an excellent reference for debunking a lot of common anti-vax lies and misinformation that you might come across being spread by the likes of JABS, or parents at your child's school or pre-school.

For this reason (probably more than the takedown of the "alternative schedule" - which obviously isn't as anti-vaccine as the foaming JABS nutters would like), they're doing the usual trick of rubbishing it without producing any reasons why it's wrong.

Cybertiger is, unsurprisingly, banging on about trust:

Why not look again at 'trust' and the controversy Paul Offit has stirred up over 'trust' in the scientists who work for the great medico-pharma-vaccinology-industrial-complex.

Dr Paul Offit MD etc, reviewed 'The Vaccine Book' by Dr Robert Sears with its suggestions for boosting flagging trust in what the vaccinologists say about vaccines and their safety.

Um - because this isn't about your paranoia regarding the whole medical community; this is about keeping children and adults safe and healthy, not spreading lies about vaccination programmes. You twat.

Minority View throws a non-sequiteur in:

Ah! So it doesn't count if children end up dead, paralyzed or brain-damaged from vaccines. Glad to have that cleared up.

But, as I never tire of pointing out, there's no evidence that this happens, is there, MV? You'd like there to be - but there isn't. And you're worried that sensible writing like this points out the huge holes in your flimsy anti-vax arguments and lies.

Have a read of the pdf linked above - it's quite long, but well worth it.

5 comments:

John H said...

Becky

The link above goes to the Motorhead website.

This is fine with me musically but probably does not take the anti-jabbophobe agenda any further forward.

Offit is a bit of a hero of mine. He developed two vaccinations and gave the intellectual property to a couple of medical charities in the US (one of whom went on to sell them on for $180 million - ungrateful bastards). Naturally the jabbophobes call him Dr Profit - ho ho ho.

Orac covers Dr Offit and the jabbophobes on his Respectful Insolence website. He seems to despise them as much as I (you) do.
A good example is here:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/01/rallying_resistance_to_the_antivaccine_j.php#more

(complete with a mix of statistics and celebrity abuse from yours truly)

There are plenty of other anti-jabbophobe postings on his site.

(I have no idea whatsoever how he manages to post so much well researched and reasoned material and hold down a job as a surgeon. I need to do his time management course).

John

Becky said...

Um, cough, yes, it does. See you down the front at Cambridge...

Thanks for pointing that out - should be fixed now.

John H said...

Becky - I will be at the Apollo wearing a leather overcoat and surrounded by beer.

First saw Lemmy with Hawkwind at the Winning Post in Whitton in about 1971. I couldn't hear for three days afterwards - must have been the vaccinations I had as a child - they were obviously the cause, stands to reason doesn't it, what else could it have been, an obvious causal connection blah blah blah.

Always thought Motorhead were Hawkwind without the hippy bollox. (And I could certainly live without Stacia poncing around on stage - although she did have some errrrrr prominent features)

I wondered if you were on some Freudian trip as there are some obvious album connections to the jabbophobes - Sacrifice, Bastards, Overkill and Kiss of Death - all of which seem relevant to these loons.

And some tracks (the correct titles of which I may have misrememberised slightly), like:

- Deaf Forever (From Measles)
- Stone Deaf in the USA (From Measles)
- Make Them Blind (From Measles)
- Killers (coz they do not vaccinate their kids)
- One Short Life (coz they do not vaccinate their kids)
- Out to Lunch (coz they are)
- Asylum Choir (coz they belong to one)

. . . . and finally . . . . (coz my brain has packed up):

- In the Name of Tragedy (coz I cannot think of a better description of the jabbophobes).

John H said...

Orac refernces an excellent debate at:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/01/i_love_the_smell_of_blog_napalm_in_the_m.phpbete

A rrasonably bright and articulate jabbophobe gets crucified by an even brighter and more articulate medical student (who has the added benefit of being correct).

John H said...

OK OK OK. My name is John and I am a laggard.

I can see I was well behind you on this one.

Assuming there are two . . .

Becky said...
Ooh, I wish I was so eloquent.
That's just... fantastic.
Kind regards,
Becky

. . . . . posters in the world with the same interests and the same reference to this site.

Yet another eggs/grandmother situation.

Always struck me as odd that in the "land of the free" with it's dedication to free market capitalism, making money by inventing a vaccine should somehow be seen as wrong by the jabbophobes(pace Dr Offit) but screwing money out of people for chelation of heavy metals like aluminium (ho ho ho - read the periodic table fruitcake) is somehow heroic and noble.