Wakefield - still wanking for coins

Yes, Andrew Wakefield's at it again, debasing himself for a few shekels in order to keep himself in nice shirts and smarm oil. Not content with having Ed "Dickhead" Arranga run the "Dr. Wakefield Justice Fund", he's now reduced to metaphorically bashing the bishop on a new site - academicintegrityfund.com/.

Gosh, "academic integrity fund" - that sounds ever so clever and official, doesn't it?

Sadly it's not. It's just another excuse for Wakefield to bleat "It's not fair" while tugging himself off for the donations thrown by his acolytes. Wakefield wouldn't know Academic Integrity if it jumped up and bit him in the face. (Does anyone have a Pit Bull Terrier called Academic Integrity - we could try it out…)

(I've just thought - maybe Ed Arranga is such a shit fundraiser, Wakefield's decided to go elsewhere for his pud-pulling exercises. Ha, ha, and thrice ha. Ed - not only John "Cock" Stone thinks you're a cunt, but so does Fraudytrousers Wakefield. Christ, how much lower could your self esteem go? You shall no doubt in future be mocked by little children in the street, who will shout - "look, there goes Ed the Weirdy Loser"…)

Ahem - back on track. Let's take a look at this webshite shall we?

It seems to have been set up by one Robyn Hurd, a lady (I assume) I wasn't previously aware of from anti-vax circles, and she sets out her stall in the first post on the site, entitled "Imagine".

Imagine living in a world where man-made products are harming people but no one feels they can speak out about it. People are dying, children suffer from brain injuries, and the population is sick for their entire lifetimes, but our leaders, our doctors and our scientists keep quiet. They say there is no problem. It does not exist. These injuries are merely a coincidence in time, one right after another. The citizens of the world live with allergies, asthma, epilepsy, Bell’s Palsy, and autism as a consequence of theses coincidences. For some of them, their immune systems never recover from the injuries. They never had a fighting chance. There was no informed consent.

Guess what causes these imaginary waves of illness? Well, Robyn doesn't actually specify - so let's go on and see if we can guess what she thinks it is…

Imagine living in a world where, if a doctor dares to delve into a controversial subject matter– a topic that might bring forth a hypothesis to perhaps explain why people are dying, children are suffering from brain injuries, and the population is sick for their entire lifetimes– that doctor is hauled before their licensing board and made to stand trial for over five months.

Ah - I see where we're going, and I'm sure you do too. She's basically trotting out the old Big Pharma / Cover up / Brave Maverick Doctor three legged pony that all Wakefield's apologists do. Of course you know what she thinks causes this - it's the vaccines. And she needs your help to support brave, put upon, victimised, persecuted Andrew Wakefield. I assume she's either fucking stupid or fancies the slimy, rubber lipped goon. Still, let's have a look at the rest of the site.

Oh look, a fundraising dinner! Joy! I like a good night out - I'll go. Oh, hang on, it's $250. $250 for a fish supper, a cake from a local bakery and a copy of Wakefield's spider swatter, "Callous Disregard" - you know, the one that's going for about $5 (new) on Amazon. Oh, and drinks. Now, I like a drink, but to make up the rest of the entrance fee in drinks, I'd have to get a shitload of beer inside me. At least if I did, I could look at Andrew Wakefield without throwing up. Possibly.

But there's more - for $750 I can sit at the same table as him and his fucking wife. Great - but for $750, I'd want to be able to personally tattoo "MR FRAUDYTROUSERS" an inch high in Cooper Bold Italic across his forehead.

The interesting difference between this fundraiser and the shit that Ed "Fucking Loser" Arranga does for him is that at least Arranga has the decency to pretend that his fundraising is to support Wakefield's legal actions. This is just to, y'know, give fucking money to Wakefield, to help him pay his pool cleaning bills and have the wisteria trimmed. Who the fuck does he think he is, a Tory MP?

Calm down Becky, calm down...

*Deep breaths, deep breaths*

Wakefield's actually written a couple of paragraphs for the site - a couple of paragraphs about "Mommy instinct". It's nauseating, it really is. Here - try this…

Once, at a hillside farmhouse in Andalucía, while I was out walking with our firstborn son, my wife Carmel was saying bedtime prayers with our second child, who was in bed with a fever. Halfway through the prayer, and without saying another word, she leapt up and flew downstairs, out of the house, and sprinted one hundred meters across the yard, and into the pool. Our eighteen month-old daughter Imogen had slipped silently out of the bedroom and had made it to the pool steps. She was one step away from drowning. In that crucial moment, her mother just knew.

Excuse me while I throw up. But hang on there - something just caught my eye. Carmel Wakefield sprinted one hundred meters (sic) across the yard into the pool? Wakefield holidays in a house with a hundred metre long yard, with a pool at the bottom of it? And he needs a fundraiser? Of course he does. If you're paying $250 / $750 for dinner in the same room as that repugnant man, you really are paying for his holidays to Andalucia, to a villa with a hundred metre yard and swimming pool. And you still think he's doing all this for the good of the children? No, it's all about Wakefield. It's always been all about Wakefield and the money. The money for Andrew Wakefield. And there are fucking idiots in the world like Robyn Hurd who believe otherwise.

Morons, morons. Again. Wakefield wanks for coins, and they fall for it. Again.

Age of Autism admits no mechanism for vaccine - autism link

Age of Autism has today admitted that there is no plausible mechanism for "serious adverse effects" from any vaccine except (it now thinks) Gardasil.

For the first time in history, a biologically plausible mechanism of action has been discovered linking a vaccine to a serious adverse event.

Reading the full article, it's clear that the two notorious anti-vax researchers who wrote the paper haven't found anything for Gardasil either, but it's so nice to have them admit that there's no mechanism for MMR or any other vaccine causing serious injury or autism. So why don't they tell Andrew Wakefield they now think he was talking shit, and could he fuck off a bit quicker please?

Avoid Vaccines Because Jimmy Savile Was A Paedophile

Repugnant anti-vaccine wingnut John Stone

John Stone (who is, as we're all well aware, a cock) has surpassed himself today. He's claiming that no-one should be vaccinated because Jimmy Savile was a paedophile. Or something. Actually, I haven't a fucking clue what point he's trying to make... Let me go back a little.

A few days ago, some knob by the name of John Gilmore posted a fairly standard load of shite at Age of Arseholery, trying to rev up its New Jersey readership into contacting their senator to stop a bill designed to tighten up "religious" exemptions for vaccines. According to Gilmore (and, for the purposes of taking the piss out of John Stone I have no idea, and indeed care less, whether he's right),

If S1759 is signed into law, it will require parents seeking a religious exemption to:

• Specify their exact religious tenets;
• Explain the nature of the religious tenet or practice that is implicated by the vaccination;
• Explain how administration of vaccines would violate, contradict, or otherwise be inconsistent with that tenet or practice;
• etc etc…

You get the idea.

Now, to rational people, that might seem reasonable. If you're going to claim an exemption or benefit for anything, not just vaccines, on the basis of your religion, you should really be required to explain why your religion entitles you to that benefit - and to show that you really do follow that religion, and aren't just making it up. If I told my boss I needed to leave early on Fridays in Winter to get home before sunset because I'm Jewish, I think he'd want a bit of evidence - and he might start questioning the odd bacon sandwich here and there.

So why should it be any different for vaccines?

But I digress…

A commenter (who seems to have no axe to grind) has asked:

Which actual religions have a prohibition on vaccines?

It's a perfectly reasonable question, if a rather awkward one, as I don't think there is one. I thought the Church of Christ, Scientist (Christian Scientists) did, but it seems not - more on that later.

As is to be expected, when faced with an awkward question that makes it through the micromesh that is Age of Autism's moderation policy, John Stone jumps in and starts flinging irrelevant words around.

Which actual religions prescribe vaccines? Most religions have ethical tenets and people could feel that these are being transgressed. Offering a child up to the scientistic belief systems surrounding vaccination might be one of way of transgressing your beliefs - a totemistic belief in dogma (Prophet Paul Offit).

Now my answer would be "most of them", as most religions are quite keen to, y'know, keep the faithful alive.

Stone then does the "science as religion" gambit, and even throws in a "worshipping false idols".

Still, it's about what you expect from Stone when faced with a question he either doesn't know the answer to, or the answer doesn't fit his beliefs.

Anyway, the rest of the echo chamber chimes in, suggesting that Christian Scientists don't vaccinate, and then just descending into irrelevant toss.

With much prayer and reflection I know God is on the side of saving our children from harm, I don't need a religious group to join in with my beliefs or to have my back.

See - fucking wingnuts, the lot of 'em.

Anyway, the poster of the original question, one John O'Neill pops up again, showing that Christian Scientists do not, as popularly believed, have a prohibition on vaccination, and - and this is the best bit - calling Stone out on his ridiculous comment.

John Stone - There are plenty things that no religions prescribe: Watching television, flying in aeroplanes, playing cricket - that isn't an argument to avoid them.

Stone then loses it completely, and sets off on one, likening the vaccine industry to ex-Radio 1 DJ and alleged paedophile Jimmy Savile:

There might not be specific prohibitions against television in most religions - Amish? - but that doesn't mean watching anything on television is alright. People might very well say certain television programmes were harmful to their children or harmful in general. In the UK we recently learnt that one of our most celebrated TV personalities was using his position to serially sexually abuse children, the disabled, the orphaned, the insane, maybe even the dead in industrial quantities, and even with the help of the Department of Health. Last year when he died he was accorded about the grandest public funeral since the Queen Mother, but with all the shows of big heartedness, the millions raised for charity he was all the time pursuing harm, sponsored and protected by the BBC, and much of the British establishment. It is now being seriously suggested that a paedophile ring was being operated from the cabinet office in No 10 Downing Street at an unspecified period. Personally, I never watched him deliberately, would switch off if I saw him, and actively the whole thing was as it turned out just a big pretext to pursue criminal harm to children and other vulnerable people.

Oh, my aching sides!! That's the stupidest thing he's ever said, and that's a high target.

So there you have it, John Stone says don't vaccinate because Jimmy Savile was a paedophile - and that's religious exemption, kids!

Or something.

I don't know about you, but I'm fucking convinced.

Andrew Wakefield hoping to fill a shed

While Brian Deer is set to give a lecture in the Centennial Hall at the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse, explaining how Andrew Wakefield's fraud was uncovered, Wakefield himself has organised (or had organised for him by one of his metaphorical cock-sucking acolytes (Hi Ed!)) a meeting in a shed across the road in order to wank for coins and to bleat his innocence. This shed holds up to 40 people - the City of La Crosse website describes it thus:

This cabin style shelter is located right next to the Myrick/Hixon Ecopark, as well as the Kid's Coulee Playground, and is great for any reuinon or get-together! The shelter includes a fireplace as well as 6 interior tables and 4-5 exterior tables.

Orac has a picture of the shed. Trust me, as sheds go, it's quite a nice shed.

I expect they'll get about six people. Pathetic, isn't it?