Vaccinations, Pt 2 by canttakesky

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Frem

Just a couple of points:

Homeopathy and vaccines are not at all alike.

Vaccines are based on robust observations going back to the Ottoman Empire and the protectiveness of cowpox against smallpox. Their effect is far more reliable and reproducible than homeopathy. And finally, a mechanism by which they act has been elucidated.

Homeopathy is far more related to the 'humors' theory of medicine. You know, if something causes inflammation (redness, pain, heat, swelling - the blood humor) if you give something that causes an overabundance of the blood humor but at low dose, you'll 'fix' the first thing. "Regarding the abject dismissal of high-dilution homeopathy simply because there is at this time no scientific test capable of determining result ..." There is always the treatment/ sham treatment statistical test, which indicates lack of effectiveness.

Also, your graph was weak.

The reason why people run statistical tests rather than crude graphs is to help elucidate causes.

I'll give you a theoretical set of numbers to be clear. Assume you have a population of 1M. .5M will get a disease. You inoculate 1000 people and NONE get the disease. One could conclude the vaccine is effective. But if you look at overall disease rates, you'll only see a reduction of 500 cases, a reduction too small to see statistically. You would then conclude that the vaccine didn't work.

So, to graph a timeline of disease rates with vaccination discovery dates is misleading b/c:

1) vaccines may not have been administered to large enough numbers of people to show an immediate decline in overall disease rates

2) the effectiveness of vaccines could be mis-attributed to other factors.

That's why you have experimental populations, and controls - tests the vaccines graphed have all passed with flying colors.

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Sunday, December 18, 2011 3:53 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
"Again, I have never made this argument."

Not true. Don't make me go back to the past where you made exactly that argument, more than once.

Ooooooh. I'm so scared!

Calling someone a liar without any proof detracts from your credibility you know.

-----
"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want - and their kids pay for it." - Richard Lamm

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Sunday, December 18, 2011 3:58 PM

Just 'cause this thread is short on stuff like this

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Sunday, December 18, 2011 4:04 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Oh, that is sweet DT. We could all use more of that!

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Sunday, December 18, 2011 4:26 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Yes, the symptoms are what kills young children. So preventing symptoms is good. Not arguing that.

Actually you would appear to arguing exactly that. Your arguement is that preventing symtoms causes increase in infection rates (although there is no data that infection rates have ever reached pre vaccination levels). To bring this argument to a logical end, it would be better to have full blown infections so that whooping cough can be more easily diagnosed.

Quote:
What I am arguing about is the conflation of "no/few symptoms" with "not a danger to the community." It simply isn't true.

A bit more education and a few changes in processes would aid this, if it isn't already happening in your neck of the woods. Here whooping cough is a reportable infection. Therefore doctors are aware of any diagnosed outbreaks. That is why when we attended the clinic we were all tested for it, even though none of us had or ever did get the 'whoop' part of the cough. That takes an integrated health system, not all countries have that.

Secondly, people should be aware that the effecacy of the whooping cough vaccine diminishes after about 10 years. Therefore, for families with young babies, they should probably all be revaccinated, as most infants are infected by family members. It actually does not diminish the need for vaccination, but increases it.

Thirdly, given the high mortality rate for infants who have not been vaccinated, I wonder what the story would have been at that clinic if none of the children had been vaccinated. I'm guessing you would have seen a lot more deaths.

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Sunday, December 18, 2011 4:34 PM

Quote:

I daresay the whole notion is but polite fiction, bacteria ? microbes? HA!
Where is there any evidence of these supposed creatures existence, when this gentleman proposes that they are too small for as to see ?
The very notion is preposterous, I say - everyone knows these maladies are caused by night vapors and miasmas, the evidence is undeniable, and this gentlemans proposal a mere scam to sell his faery powder made from of all the things, moldy bread!
I daresay we reject this obvious fiction in light of obvious personal interest, as it conflicts so greatly with established medical knowledge as to be a ludicrous pipedream.

See Frem, that is how I see people who support homeopathy. They hold onto to outdated medical thinking, that the body is filed with biles that need to be balanced and cause different affects such as sanguinity, melancholy etc etc. Ikiki outlines it better than I can. Those people are holding onto the past and refusing to ackowledge modern understanding of how the body actually works, based on scientific evidence.

You see I think you have to choose in the end. You can't use scientific data to evaluate the effectiveness or otherwise of vaccines and then kind of mutter about it being 'beyond current scientific thinking' to determine that homeopathic treatments work. I'd have more respect if people actually said - no idea about any of it, but I go with my gut and don't vaccinate and I use homeopathic rememedies.

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Sunday, December 18, 2011 4:38 PM

Quote:
You can discount millions of experiences worldwide in order to persist in your prejudice against it. Just as long as you don't try to keep us from using it, please feel free to indulge in your opinion.

I rate scientific evidence above anecdotal. Anecdotal is a starting point, for sure, but there has to be more. There has to be some theory as to why it would work that can be based in some sort of scientific thinking and there has to be some research to demonstrate it works. Remember, even placebos can have some degree of success in aiding with some symptoms of illnesses, so 'feeling like something works' doesn't really cut it.

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Sunday, December 18, 2011 5:11 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Oh, that is sweet DT. We could all use more of that!

http://yippayap.com/img/post/336689.jpeg

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Sunday, December 18, 2011 5:54 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Select brief snippets in chronological order

http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=18&t=25392

"I can say, "I lived where wildlife bubonic plague was epidemic. Because of near universal carrot-eating, no domesticated animals got the plague." Maybe they didn't get the plague because of other factors, and not because of the carrot-eating?"

"You can have 6000 peer reviewed studies. Quantity, to me, is immaterial. It is the quality of any number of studies that matters. I have not seen any quality in either vaccine or climate change research."

http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=18&t=2549

"There has been no good scientific research on vaccines."

"This "fact" is not undisputed. Studies showing that vaccines produce "immunity" in the "vast majority" have been challenged as methodologically flawed."

"Give me a study that you believe is conclusive proof of effectiveness and I'll tell you what is wrong with that conclusion."

"When physicians find out someone has been vaccinated for polio, they are encouraged to look for another diagnosis." (A wholly unfounded claim btw.)

"And no one ever said the paralysis wasn't REAL. The question is, was the paralysis (and the various outbreaks) caused by the poliovirus, or Coxsackie, or echovirus, or any number of enteroviruses that present similar symptoms?"

"I have to date seen no studies proving vaccines to be either effective or safe in the "vast majority" of recipients."

"I am saying, the same clinical disease as smallpox is still going around. One may make the case that smallpox (the virus) has been eradicated, based on a technicality. For practical purposes, the disease has NOT been eradicated."

Originally posted by rue:
"I think it's clear that mandatory smallpox vaccinations have eliminated the scourge of smallpox from around the globe."

Originally posted by CantTakeSky:
"And I think it is far from clear."

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Sunday, December 18, 2011 6:16 PM

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Sunday, December 18, 2011 7:03 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Actually you would appear to arguing exactly that. Your arguement is that preventing symtoms causes increase in infection rates (although there is no data that infection rates have ever reached pre vaccination levels). To bring this argument to a logical end, it would be better to have full blown infections so that whooping cough can be more easily diagnosed.

There are two issues here: disease and transmission. No symptoms is better for the first issue, disease. No symptoms makes the second issue, transmission, decidedly more difficult. There is no reason public health policy, if done correctly, can't accommodate both facts. Your policy, for example, of testing everyone whether or not they exhibit symptoms, sounds like they are already intelligently considering the subclinical problem. Good for you.

I am seeing a pattern here. I keep saying vaccination is a complicated issue, because there are layers and complex relationships amongst the variables. It is not black-and-white, all-or-nothing, always-good-or- always-bad. But you guys treat every discussion I make as if this were a unidimensional argument, then accuse me of vacillating or lying or arguing things that I am not arguing.

I am trying to urge more multifactorial thinking on this.

-----
"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want - and their kids pay for it." - Richard Lamm

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Sunday, December 18, 2011 7:21 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
You can't use scientific data to evaluate the effectiveness or otherwise of vaccines and then kind of mutter about it being 'beyond current scientific thinking' to determine that homeopathic treatments work.

Let's try it this way. From homeopathy consumer's point of view:

Science on vaccines:
Safety: Inconclusive.
Effectiveness: Inconclusive

Science on homeopathy:
Safety: Everyone is pretty sure it is as safe as water.
Effectiveness: Inconclusive.

Homeopathy comes out on top. Not by much, granted. But at least we know it is safer than vaccines, cause water is safer than vaccines. ;) (<-- Note the wink.)

Would you rather that I spent the money and lived with any complications of gallbladder surgery rather than give homeopathy a shot at curing me first?

Yeah, maybe you would. But I am very glad I saved a lot of money and still have my gallbladder. I don't need science to tell me that I don't have pain or symptoms anymore. I don't need science to tell me I saved a lot of money. I don't need science to tell me I don't have frequent diarrhea or whatever other common complication that arises from losing my gallbladder.

I don't care if it is the placebo effect working via a sugar pill. I care that I got the desired outcome with very little cost and almost no risk. Science can suss out the mechanism later.

Here is another story. My husband likes to travel to Africa. Keeps getting malaria, yellow fever, etc. Tried all the vaccines and prophylactics. Keeps getting sick anyway. So on the last trip, he says, "Fuck it. I'm trying homeopathy." Got bitten by mosquitoes galore. No disease whatsoever.

Maybe it was luck. Maybe it was placebo. It doesn't matter. He got the desired outcome, which he had never gotten with conventional medicine. And for a much cheaper price.

So here is the question. Would you deny him the only thing that has ever worked for him, to force him to use something that has never worked for him?

Remember, on an individual personal basis, anecdotal is all that matters.

Quote:
here has to be some theory as to why it would work that can be based in some sort of scientific thinking and there has to be some research to demonstrate it works.

There are theories, yes. And there is research demonstrating it works, yes. In fact, there was a famous one published in Nature. Here, have a read about it and laugh.

http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041004/full/news041004-19.html

The problem is the same as vaccines. There are methodological flaws, murky definitions, and invalid conclusions. There are also many studies demonstrating it doesn't work. Taking the literature as a whole, there is no scientific proof whatsoever that homeopathy works. I don't cite the few studies claiming effectiveness for that reason.

But hey, despite homeopathy's not having good theories or research, I still have my gallbladder. That's what counts in the end, right?

-----
"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want - and their kids pay for it." - Richard Lamm

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Sunday, December 18, 2011 7:35 PM

DT, ok, I give in. Awwwww.

-----
"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want - and their kids pay for it." - Richard Lamm

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Sunday, December 18, 2011 7:56 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Quote:

I daresay the whole notion is but polite fiction, bacteria ? microbes? HA!
Where is there any evidence of these supposed creatures existence, when this gentleman proposes that they are too small for as to see ?
The very notion is preposterous, I say - everyone knows these maladies are caused by night vapors and miasmas, the evidence is undeniable, and this gentlemans proposal a mere scam to sell his faery powder made from of all the things, moldy bread!
I daresay we reject this obvious fiction in light of obvious personal interest, as it conflicts so greatly with established medical knowledge as to be a ludicrous pipedream.

See Frem, that is how I see people who support homeopathy. They hold onto to outdated medical thinking, that the body is filed with biles that need to be balanced and cause different affects such as sanguinity, melancholy etc etc. Ikiki outlines it better than I can. Those people are holding onto the past and refusing to ackowledge modern understanding of how the body actually works, based on scientific evidence.

You see I think you have to choose in the end. You can't use scientific data to evaluate the effectiveness or otherwise of vaccines and then kind of mutter about it being 'beyond current scientific thinking' to determine that homeopathic treatments work. I'd have more respect if people actually said - no idea about any of it, but I go with my gut and don't vaccinate and I use homeopathic rememedies.

Oh no, not the point I was making at all - I was just pointing out that even modern medicine STILL has a lot of that same hidebound attitude towards anything and often breaking it involves swimming against the tide even when everyone else is flaming you...

I don't mean that in any specific sense, but since we were talking about homeopathy it seemed as good an example as any - if you want something where there actually IS some handy evidence (provided I can find it again) take as another example the notion of focused sonics as a weapon against viruses.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2147084/
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0042682267902760
http://vir.sgmjournals.org/content/8/1/43

That same hidebound thinking you mention is also present unfortunately, in modern medicine as well, and it irritates me equally when anyone does it - science is all about questioning assumptions and discovery, and while AT THIS TIME no evidence may be present, at one time our inability to see and classify microbes or bacteria was also used as a bludgeon against those proposing that theory as well.

So for me my skepticism goes both ways, just cause we cannot determine effectiveness with the available technology, cannot identify any known mechanism, ONLY means to me that such cannot join the pantheon of scientifically validated things till we have evidence in hand - it does NOT mean we get to dismiss it out of hand and cast it aside, but that we file it as unknown-unproven till someone manages to produce peer-reviewable scientific (rather than anecdotal or empirical) evidence otherwise.

Different sorta thing, you understand ?

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Sunday, December 18, 2011 7:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:

Let's try it this way. From homeopathy consumer's point of view:

Science on vaccines:
Safety: Inconclusive.
Effectiveness: Inconclusive

Science on homeopathy:
Safety: Everyone is pretty sure it is as safe as water.
Effectiveness: Inconclusive.

Homeopathy comes out on top. Not by much, granted. But at least we know it is safer than vaccines, cause water is safer than vaccines.

Would you rather that I spent the money and lived with any complications of gallbladder surgery rather than give homeopathy a shot at curing me first?

Yeah, maybe you would. But I am very glad I saved a lot of money and still have my gallbladder. I don't need science to tell me that I don't have pain or symptoms anymore. I don't need science to tell me I saved a lot of money. I don't need science to tell me I don't have frequent diarrhea or whatever other common complication that arises from losing my gallbladder.

I don't care if it is the placebo effect working via a sugar pill. I care that I got the desired outcome with very little cost and almost no risk. Science can suss out the mechanism later.

Here is another story. My husband likes to travel to Africa. Keeps getting malaria, yellow fever, etc. Tried all the vaccines and prophylactics. Keeps getting sick anyway. So on the last trip, he says, "Fuck it. I'm trying homeopathy." Got bitten by mosquitoes galore. No disease whatsoever.

Maybe it was luck. Maybe it was placebo. It doesn't matter. He got the desired outcome, which he had never gotten with conventional medicine. And for a much cheaper price.

So here is the question. Would you deny him the only thing that has ever worked for him, to force him to use something that has never worked for him?

CTS, your POV is that the evidence is inconclusive regarding the effectiveness of vaccines, but I haven't been swayed by your arguments. Nor have I been swayed that the risk of vaccines outweighs the benefits. The reliable data is that diseases such as small pox have pretty much been irradicated, that infant mortality due to whooping cough has been substantially reduced as is the incidents of polio. Significantly and substantially post vaccination.

As for homeopathy, yes the remedies may be harmless if you are using to to assist in healing some minor ailments and aches and pains, but it is still a con. It claims to do things that it can't, but if you are happy to waste your money, and it makes you feel better, good luck to you.

I don't see it is as harmless per se, in fact I think it can be extremely dangerous. Let us say you present with a sore throat, and you receive your remedy which you take. With no improvement, your homeopath tries a variety of different remedies. She or he will discourage you from visiting a GP because she or he has a belief that western medicine is bad for the body, so you will not get blood tests, scans, xrays, or any other tests which could give you a diagnosis. It may be that you just have a very sore throat and it will go away of its own accord, or you may have cancer and miss out on receiving early treatment that could save your life.

That is why homeopathy is not always harmless. You are being treated by someone who disbelieves current scientific and medical knowledge and favours an obsolete understanding of the human body, and who shuns even that part of medicine such as pathology which can give, in certain instances, conclusive results.

Now I have no problems with a homeopath or naturapath that gets you to do the pathology or see a GP if symptoms persist, but a lot of them are zealots and won't do that or actively encourage you not to.

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Sunday, December 18, 2011 8:00 PM

FREMDFIRMA

DT stop trying to lock up my brain while imma trying to USE it, will you!
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DepletedPhlebotinumShells?f
rom=Main.WeaponizedWeakness

*blink*
*blink-blink*

D'awwwww!

-F

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Sunday, December 18, 2011 8:02 PM

Quote:
Would you rather that I spent the money and lived with any complications of gallbladder surgery rather than give homeopathy a shot at curing me first?

Yeah, maybe you would. But I am very glad I saved a lot of money and still have my gallbladder. I don't need science to tell me that I don't have pain or symptoms anymore. I don't need science to tell me I saved a lot of money. I don't need science to tell me I don't have frequent diarrhea or whatever other common complication that arises from losing my gallbladder.

No I would rather than you didn't have to spend a lot of money to use medicine that has a basis in reality. I'd rather that you had a doctor that wouldn't just rip out your gallbladder before trying something else. I'd rather that your doctor recommended surgery as a last resort.

You see I am all for having an efficient, cheap or free public health system.

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Sunday, December 18, 2011 8:04 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
I don't see it is as harmless per se, in fact I think it can be extremely dangerous. Let us say you present with a sore throat, and you receive your remedy which you take. With no improvement, your homeopath tries a variety of different remedies. She or he will discourage you from visiting a GP because she or he has a belief that western medicine is bad for the body, so you will not get blood tests, scans, xrays, or any other tests which could give you a diagnosis. It may be that you just have a very sore throat and it will go away of its own accord, or you may have cancer and miss out on receiving early treatment that could save your life.

That is why homeopathy is not always harmless. You are being treated by someone who disbelieves current scientific and medical knowledge and favours an obsolete understanding of the human body, and who shuns even that part of medicine such as pathology which can give, in certain instances, conclusive results.

Now I have no problems with a homeopath or naturapath that gets you to do the pathology or see a GP if symptoms persist, but a lot of them are zealots and won't do that or actively encourage you not to.

In this we agree - as usual I am fundamentally perplexed by the black/white, yes/no two dimensional thinking that such entails, modern medicine has a damn lot of benefits, and so do the old ways, one is a natural progression OF the other, and both in natural concert seems a damn logical solution to me, dunnit ?

S'why I get just as irritated with an old-ways practictioner dismissing modern medicine out of hand as I do with a modern doc dismissing the old ways - it's freakin ridiculous, far as I am concerned.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Sunday, December 18, 2011 8:08 PM

Frem,

I dunno. I see that a lot of old stuff gets tested, it proves effective and then it is used. I mean, at the bare minimum, drug companies are always looking for the next big thing. As I indicated earlier, clinical trials have been undertaken on a number of natural remedies. They admit when something works. Hell, it was even determined that leeching has benefits, only now they know why.

Quote:
Medicinal leeches are now making a comeback in microsurgery. They provide an effective means to reduce blood coagulation, to relieve venous pressure from pooling blood (venous insufficiency), and in reconstructive surgery to stimulate circulation in reattachment operations for organs with critical blood flow, such as eyelids, fingers, and ears.[3][4][5] The therapeutic effect is not from the blood taken in the meal, but from the continued and steady bleeding from the wound left after the leech has detached.[2] The most common complication from leech treatment is prolonged bleeding, which can easily be treated, although allergic reactions and bacterial infections may also occur.[2]

Because of the minuscule amounts of hirudin present in leeches, it is impractical to harvest the substance for widespread medical use. Hirudin (and related substances) are synthesised using recombinant techniques. Devices called "mechanical leeches" that dispense heparin and perform the same function as medicinal leeches have been developed, but they are not yet commercially available.[6][7][8]

wiki

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Sunday, December 18, 2011 8:14 PM

Recap first:

Quote:
Sig: you insist that vaccines are ineffective.
CTS: Again, I have never made this argument.

The following quotes are supposed to prove that I argued vaccines are ineffective.

Quote:

"I can say, "I lived where wildlife bubonic plague was epidemic. Because of near universal carrot-eating, no domesticated animals got the plague." Maybe they didn't get the plague because of other factors, and not because of the carrot-eating?"

"You can have 6000 peer reviewed studies. Quantity, to me, is immaterial. It is the quality of any number of studies that matters. I have not seen any quality in either vaccine or climate change research."

"There has been no good scientific research on vaccines."

"This "fact" is not undisputed. Studies showing that vaccines produce "immunity" in the "vast majority" have been challenged as methodologically flawed."

"Give me a study that you believe is conclusive proof of effectiveness and I'll tell you what is wrong with that conclusion."

"When physicians find out someone has been vaccinated for polio, they are encouraged to look for another diagnosis." (A wholly unfounded claim btw.)

"And no one ever said the paralysis wasn't REAL. The question is, was the paralysis (and the various outbreaks) caused by the poliovirus, or Coxsackie, or echovirus, or any number of enteroviruses that present similar symptoms?"

"I have to date seen no studies proving vaccines to be either effective or safe in the "vast majority" of recipients."

"I am saying, the same clinical disease as smallpox is still going around. One may make the case that smallpox (the virus) has been eradicated, based on a technicality. For practical purposes, the disease has NOT been eradicated."

Originally posted by rue:
"I think it's clear that mandatory smallpox vaccinations have eliminated the scourge of smallpox from around the globe."

Originally posted by CantTakeSky:
"And I think it is far from clear."

ALL of those quotations say this: There is no good research proving vaccines are effective. None. Whatsoever. Note I am criticizing research, the "science." In every, single, quotation.

NONE of those quotations say this: Vaccines are ineffective. Note none of the quotations are speaking of vaccines.

Apparently, you can't tell the difference between RESEARCH of vaccines, and the vaccines themselves.

Again, it is all-or-nothing mentality. If I criticize the science, I must be attacking the vaccines. Science of vaccines EQUALS vaccines. No distinction. Bizarre.

I will reiterate my position statements.

Quote:
1. The benefits of vaccination have been greatly exaggerated. The true extent of benefits are not known. Vaccines do appear to be effective, but the industry has "helped out" the effectiveness by common advertisement/ propaganda tricks in order to sell more vaccines.

4. The overwhelming majority of vaccination studies done by Big Pharma/Big Medicine have flawed methodology, murky definitions, and invalid conclusions. They appeared to be conducted not to find truth, but to support specific desired results.

Add #10: To date, I have seen no good or conclusive evidence proving vaccines to be effective or safe.

-----
Wrap your head around this: I believe vaccines have some effectiveness. I just can't prove it using existing literature. (Similar to my position on homeopathy, actually.)

Oh, I get it. When you hear, "No evidence to prove effectiveness" you interpret "ineffective."

Like if you hear, "No evidence of guilt," you interpret "not guilty."

Nah, I'm much more precise with my language. "No evidence" means "no evidence." It doesn't mean "ineffective." For me, "No evidence of guilt" means the guy may still be guilty; we just can't prove it right now.

See, it is good to have dug up all those quotations. We got to the bottom of your misinterpretation.

-----
"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want - and their kids pay for it." - Richard Lamm

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Sunday, December 18, 2011 8:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
It claims to do things that it can't, but if you are happy to waste your money, and it makes you feel better, good luck to you.

Thank you.

Quote:
She or he will discourage you from visiting a GP because she or he has a belief that western medicine is bad for the body, so you will not get blood tests, scans, xrays, or any other tests which could give you a diagnosis.

Just like with physicians, there are good homeopaths and bad ones.

The good ones do not discourage you from visiting a GP and get lab work. In fact, the homeopaths I hang out with (on forums) very much encourage getting as much info as possible and do the lab work. Many of them are highly formally educated. Some of them are M.D.'s. Some of them are homeopathic veterinarians DVM's, specializing in homeopathic treatment of animals.

Usually, it is like the asthma scenario I described, where they encourage you to use both homeopathy and medicine until you feel well enough to cautiously wean off the medication.

-----
"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want - and their kids pay for it." - Richard Lamm

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Sunday, December 18, 2011 9:04 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

CTS

Whatever.

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Monday, December 19, 2011 3:22 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
I am trying to urge more multifactorial thinking on this.

No, you are trying to encourage irrational thinking. Because no data, no matter how good, is good enough to convince you that vaccine works, and no data, no matter how poor, is poor enough to convince you that homeopathy doesn't work

And Kiki has come up with past quotes to prove it, as well as your own statements in this thread, where you will accept some graphs but reject others, accept some anecdotal evidence over controlled studies, cast "doubt" on solid evidence where no reasonable doubt exists and pump up other evidence (like vaccine and autism) where none exists.

You said it best yourself:

"Give me a study that you believe is conclusive proof of [vaccines'] effectiveness and I'll tell you what is wrong with that conclusion."

Can I correct that for you?

"Give me a study that you believe is conclusive proof of homeopathy's effectiveness and I'll tell you what is wrong with that conclusion."

Shoe on other foot doesn't fit? That's because you are irrational... unable to objectively and evenly ratio one set of facts against another. For you goose sauce does not equal gander sauce, and that in a nutshell is what's wrong with your approach. I have no doubt that you are motivated by the best of intentions to get the best medicine for everyone, but the way you parse the data leaves your proposed pathway to that goal very suspect. There are no doubt problems with vaccines, but you do a disservice to your argument by refusing to engage in the data objectively.

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Monday, December 19, 2011 3:39 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
"Give me a study that you believe is conclusive proof of homeopathy's effectiveness and I'll tell you what is wrong with that conclusion."

Absolutely. Absolutely. I would be happy to show you what is wrong with any study on homeopathy's effectiveness.

Did you not read my post to Magon about science of homeopathy?

Or was "CTS The Monster in 3D" too entertaining to pull away from?

Quote:
you will accept some graphs but reject others,

See, this is the uni-dimensional, all-or-nothing thinking I am talking about.

I don't reject or accept graphs. Graphs depict DATA. I don't reject DATA in the graphs. It is like what DT said about "invalid experiments." There is no such thing. Just as there is no such thing as "invalid data."

I reject INTERPRETATION of graphs that is not substantiated by the data. I reject certain CONCLUSIONS of graphs that is not substantiated by the data.

The way I "reject" unsubstantiated interpretations is to ask questions and voice doubts about confounders. That is the way I was taught to do science in graduate school throughout countless presentations.

You are conflating "interpretation/conclusion" with "data/graphs." Big difference.

-----
"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want - and their kids pay for it." - Richard Lamm

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Monday, December 19, 2011 4:21 AM

I suppose If I wanted to defend the posting, I could take a side (which I'm avoiding doing) and I could claim that these animals needed vaccinations, which would be a stronger argument if we didn't practice euthanasia, discrediting our collective good will towards the small fuzzy citizenry.

Oh yeah? Wait 'til I get the vote

Okay, so I'm an illegal alien, a furriner.

Hey, Corporations are citizens, right? So...

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Monday, December 19, 2011 5:01 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

But you will promote homeopathy despite lack of data showing its effectiveness, and discourage the use of vaccines despite data showing its effectiveness. So, we get to look at the risks of one versus the other, which is where rational thinking comes in.

In 80% of cases, doing nothing works. Homeopathy, holy smoke, faith healing, doing nothing at all.... they're all equal. Tincture of time, people get better. In fact, in those cases doing nothing may even be better than doing something ... all drugs have side effects. Just plain water is at least harmless (unless of course your water is contaminated or laden with bacteria).

But what happens in the 20% of other cases? Cancers, epidemics, serious trauma, epilepsy, diabetes ... things for which people will NOT get better "doing nothing" but in all likelihood will either die or become permanently disabled. Well, then you have to seriously weigh the risks of "doing nothing" (which is where I put homeopathy) versus "doing something". Cancer needs more than homeopathy. As distasteful as this may be to consider, cancer needs surgery or powerful drugs or radiation pr possibly some combination ... blowing holy smoke or holding hands and singing or drinking water which has been seriously banged doesn't work. Same with diabetes. Before the production of insulin, people who got diabetes died, and no amount of tearfully pleading with the gods or positive thinking changed that.

So, getting to the case of infectious diseases specifically... what are the risks of vaccinating versus the risks of NOT vaccinating???. This is where everyone needs to put their serious thinking-caps on, get out the scales, put the evidence for one in one pan and the evidence for the other in the other pan, balance them as best they can without putting their thumbs on the scale, recognizing that ALL data has flaws but that some data is more flawed than other data.

The risks of vaccination? Well, there are indeed adverse events. I'm going to tackle the most problematic vaccination -pertussis- which has a high complication rate with vaccination and a somewhat lower complication rate with the disease (relative to diseases like polio and smallpox, which are more clear-cut).

As I mentioned before, I knew two moms whose children were brain-damaged by pertussis vaccination. In those cases, the evidence was immediate and unmistakable... fever and seizures within two days of each dose of vaccine. (Parents continued with vaccination despite adverse effects, on assurance by doctor that these were "febrile seizures" and nothing to worry about. Kinds pissed you off, doesn't it? It should.)

So, adverse effects exist. How many? What is the numeric risk? The reporting system in the USA sucks, but using a BETTER reporting system the risk appears to be ...

Quote:
We describe a new method for active post-marketing surveillance of vaccine safety based on patient records. We studied the association between diphtheria/ tetanus/pertussis (DTP) vaccination and febrile convulsion, and between measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) vaccination and febrile convulsion and idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) in five district health authorities in England by linking vaccination records with computerised hospital admission records. We found an increased relative incidence for convulsions 0-3 days after DTP vaccination. The effect was limited to the third dose of vaccine for which the attributable risk (all ages) was 1 in 12 500 doses

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673695904719
However, there were no deaths. This is important, because of the following...

And what is the risk of NOT vaccinating? I gave figures for that already... among roughly 9100 reported cases of whooping cough, there were ten infant deaths in CA. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent reporting for the number of seizures (febrile or otherwise) with pertussis disease, so we don't have the same endpoint. We'll have to stick with death as the common yardstick. But let's also assume that many mild cases were never diagnosed... being generous, let's say by a factor of ten in the UNvaccinated population. (And that's being pretty generous. I've skewed the statistics in favor of not vaccinating by a significant margin). That's 10 deaths in 91,000, or one death in 9,100 versus no deaths from vaccine in 12,500.

So, what have we learned from this exercise?

1) That it is likely that adverse events from disease exceed the adverse events from vaccination for the pertussis vaccine.

2) However, reporting systems for adverse events need to be improved. Checking hospital admissions for adverse effects (actively looking for them) as opposed to self-reporting reveals more adverse events, and also reveals which specific risks are involved and how they can be minimized. In the case of pertussis specifically, there were two risks that increased adverse events:

a) The UK immunization schedule was accelerated to require completion of vaccination by 4 months instead of 10 months, and this increased the risk of adverse events which were worrisome enough to require hospital admission by a factor of FOUR, which is significant! That is a seriously flawed policy. And...
b) Completion of the third dose of vaccine is another seriously flawed policy.

3) The diagnostic and reporting systems for epidemics is also poor. There is no good baseline for how many people are actually infected, and there doesn't appear to be a systematic way of reporting other adverse effects besides hospital admissions and deaths. There should be automatic screening of all family members and classmates of children with pertussis, and the events reporting should gather the same data as the vaccination reporting. That is the only way to do a rigorous comparison of risk.

4) Since all of the pertussis deaths were infants, and more adverse vaccination events occur in very young infants, perhaps the goal should be to (re)vaccinate older children and adults in times of epidemics.

-------------

Despite what you might think, I'm not a big proponent of vaccination. It galls me no end that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is killing (so to speak) such much money into AIDS and malaria vaccines. (Malaria: mal= bad, aria= air. Once thought to be caused by bad air) when mosquito nets, women's rights, and economic restructuring would be better. Vaccines can be just another way to centralize health-care, make people dependent on high-tech solutions, and delay much-needed reform and overall development.

OTOH, I'm not about to turn down effective treatment and prevention modes either, so long as the cure isn't worse than the disease.

If the issue is the commodification of medical care, that's another issue and applies to ALL aspects of modern medical care, not just vaccination. Wouldn't it be better, then, to remove the profit motive from modern medical care rather than eliminating modern medical care?

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Monday, December 19, 2011 5:12 AM

To be fair to CTS, none of the quoted comments are actually saying "vaccines should not be used at all", rather she appears to be saying: "we don't have enough data about adverse reactions to vaccines or the effectiveness of vaccines to justify compulsory vaccination." Presumably, if vaccines aren't compulsory, some people will still choose to get them.

To be not fair to CTS, there really isn't a whole lot of information about how homeopathy works, interaction with the system, and so on. Those who use homeopathy may well be ahead of the medical community and scientific consensus, but until a method of action can be proposed and tested, homeopathy is not very scientific, and any argument in its favour can not be scientific.

I would also agree with Frem, in that preference or dismissal does a disservice to both naturalistic medicine and conventional medicine, and also potentially to the people who might consider them for treatment options.

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Monday, December 19, 2011 5:38 AM

Quote:
Science on vaccines:
Safety: Inconclusive.
Effectiveness: Inconclusive

Science on homeopathy:
Safety: Everyone is pretty sure it is as safe as water.
Effectiveness: Inconclusive.

Uh. That's... Not. Um.

We know of adverse reactions to vaccines and not homeopathy, true, but you're neglecting to consider in both cases that effectiveness of treatment ALSO factors in to safety.

This really doesn't particularly demonstrate one is "better" than the other.

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Monday, December 19, 2011 5:46 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Byte, this isn't about being "fair" or "not fair" to a particular person, it's about being rational or irrational about data. I contend that CTS is irrational (not able to evenly weigh or ratio evidence). There IS enough data to support compulsory vaccination for some diseases, although for CTS there will never be enough data... simply because she disagrees with data that contradicts her views. As far as homeopathy not being "scientific", when the purpose of a treatment is to cure or ameliorate disease, it should be pretty easy to figure out a reliable test to tell you if it is or isn't working any better than doing nothing or versus any other treatment out there. It's not magic. Those tests have been run, there isn't any evidence that it works at all.

CTS is very risk averse, and she is also somewhat oppositional. Push both buttons at once (someone is telling me to do something that might have an associated risk) and all of a sudden the risk looms very large... so large that it occupies all of her thoughts.

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Monday, December 19, 2011 6:30 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Byte

IMO CTSky is out in PN/ Rappy land.

"There has been no good scientific research on vaccines."

This means not a single good study. Not one. Not populations studies where vaccines are used. Not field studies where rabies vaccines were used to stop the spread of rabies in coyotes north from Mexico or raccoons from Virginia. Not a lab study where animals are vaccinated then challenged with the specific disease to try to understand either vaccines or the immune system. Not the current research where the body's white blood cells are awakened to tumors and stimulated by vaccines to kill cancer.

Not. One. Single. Study.

This is rather breathtaking in it's denial of reality.

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Monday, December 19, 2011 6:38 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
"we don't have enough data about adverse reactions to vaccines or the effectiveness of vaccines to justify compulsory vaccination."

You pegged it. Nailed it on the head. Right on the money.

Quote:
but until a method of action can be proposed and tested, homeopathy is not very scientific,

Absolutely agreed. I am pretty sure I have never claimed that homeopathy was scientific, though I have voiced interest in various studies that may shed light on hypothetical mechanisms.

Quote:
and any argument in its favour can not be scientific.

Agreed again. If I speak enthusiastically about homeopathy from time to time, it is from personal, anecdotal experience. The enthusiasm is DEFINITELY not scientific.

It would be like I might speak enthusiastically about praying or Firefly. It is a reflection of personal preference, and not science.

-----
"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want - and their kids pay for it." - Richard Lamm

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Monday, December 19, 2011 6:40 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Not. One. Single. Study.

That's right. Not that I've seen.

I have very high standards. Very. High. Standards.

-----
"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want - and their kids pay for it." - Richard Lamm

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Monday, December 19, 2011 6:43 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
This really doesn't particularly demonstrate one is "better" than the other.

I'll concede that. I kinda wrote it tongue-in-cheek. You know, the "wink." But, yes, you make a valid point. It was a poor argument.

-----
"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want - and their kids pay for it." - Richard Lamm

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Monday, December 19, 2011 6:45 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
I have very high standards. Very. High. Standards.

Except. For. What. You. Agree. With.

Then. Very. LOW. Standards.

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Monday, December 19, 2011 6:50 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Hallelujah. She's not my job.

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Monday, December 19, 2011 6:50 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
But you will promote homeopathy despite lack of data showing its effectiveness,

I promote Firefly despite lack of data. Not everything promoted has to have data behind it. Besides, my goal here is not to promote homeopathy. It is to argue for freedom to use it. Magon, despite her opposition to homeopathy, granted me that freedom to waste my money as I see fit. That is all I want here.

Quote:
and discourage the use of vaccines despite data showing its effectiveness.

Nope. I encourage informed consent. Discouragement of vaccine use is not the goal. Information is. If information encourages some, discourages others, so be it.

-----
"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want - and their kids pay for it." - Richard Lamm

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Monday, December 19, 2011 6:52 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Except. For. What. You. Agree. With.

Then. Very. LOW. Standards.

Been watching that CTS
The Monster 3D movie again huh?

-----
"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want - and their kids pay for it." - Richard Lamm

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Monday, December 19, 2011 6:57 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
But you will promote homeopathy despite lack of data showing its effectiveness- Signy
I promote Firefly despite lack of data- CTS.

Um... you equate watching Firefly with choosing medical treatment in terms of importance?

Really???

------------
Knowing that CTS seems to be particularly risk-averse, I did what I thought was a pretty good back-of-the-envelope estimation of relative risk using the best data at-hand, and skewing the data towards NOT vaccinating by a factor of ten. Still came out with disease being worse than the vaccine. I invite anyone to scroll up and read the entire thing. But at least we're not talking about autism and vaccines anymore.

At this point, I really will not reply to CTS anymore. There are plenty of other, more interesting things to talk about than cover the same old ground with CTS where she insists that NO good data about vaccination exists but that homeopathy is "better". I'd rather talk about the commodification of medicine, or other alternative treatments which I personally find more interesting, like meditation and pre-/probiotics, and how to create the best medicine for everybody.

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Monday, December 19, 2011 7:24 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

I'm game.

I have very mixed feelings about medicine as practiced in the US. It's very obviously driven by profit.

Profit-driven medicine has it's problems. As pretty well-documented here: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande - profit-driven medicine is both more expensive and less than optimally effective.

It's what I think of as money-based business rather than science-based care.

So one thing to do would be to get profit out of medicine.

Also, I truly think that unbiased statistics will help healthcare tremendously and it's a gap the government could fill right now, without changing anything else.

Medicine is statistical. We are not many units of one uniform model. Aside from natural genetic variability, age and history are major reasons why people respond differently. And without knowing statistically what is more or less likely to work, any procedure is a shot in the dark.

When it comes to a lack of statistics, for example, and looking into studies of the efficacy of back-surgery, it turns out that the people who do the most back-surgeries are the most bullish on its efficacy, and the people who don't do back surgeries dismiss it as randomly helpful, at best.

How is it that we have no reliable statistics on the benefit of a major surgery and it's a matter of Unh-hunh! Nuh-uh! debate between two types of business? It's mind-boggling.

So simply doing the impartial studies to determine 'best practices' would go a long way to alleviating expensive, and worse, ineffective or even harmful, patient 'churning'.

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Monday, December 19, 2011 7:33 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Aside from the profit motive, which is a major distorting factor in medicine, the thing that boggles ME is the variability among people. The CEO of GSK broke ranks a few years ago, and openly admitted that any particular medication will only help 30% of the people that it's given to. Take blood pressure medication, for example: some ppl respond to ACE inhibitors, others do better with beta-blockers or diuretics or several of the other kinds of medication out there, and even diet (the DASH diet).

Or even diets. Some people do well on some diets, others do poorly on the same diet. Some people need 100X RDA (Army study) others don't. Giving broad-based advice to everyone, as if everyone were the same, doesn't work. Even the advice not to eat eggs is will prolly just create a choline deficiency.

So, how do we understand natural variation?

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Monday, December 19, 2011 7:34 AM

There are a few main elements to this argument that I can see.

The first is that CTS demonstrates confirmation bias in regards to homeopathy versus conventional medication, and admits to it - but at the same time, to her, an unwillingness to consider homeopathy at all might look like confirmation bias from the other side.

Homeopathy is not scientific, which we appear to all agree about. It is also completely irrelevant to any discussion about vaccines. Whether vaccines are better than homeopathy is not the actual issue in this thread, nor is CTS's credibility, or any quirks she has that might led her to prefer homeopathy over conventional medicine. Further arguments over the effectiveness of homeopathy would be a waste of everyone's time.

I don't believe anyone here has argued that vaccine use should be discontinued in it's entirely (well, unless there were better medical technology already handy and easily manufactured to replace it). Perfect Solution Fallacy -"not 100% effective, so it should be abandoned in entirety" has been attributed when there wasn't any.

The issue that this thread and the previous thread have been discussing is the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. A side conversation is in regards to compulsory vaccinations, and whether there should be exceptions for at risk vaccinees, and whether, if there are exceptions, if it defeats the purpose of compulsory vaccination.

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Monday, December 19, 2011 8:03 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Whether vaccines are better than homeopathy is not the actual issue in this thread, nor is CTS's credibility, or any quirks she has that might led her to prefer homeopathy over conventional medicine.

The quirks which lead to preference for homeopathy (despite lack of evidence in favor) are most likely the same quirks that lead to a rejection of vaccination (despite evidence in favor). Those quirks are so pervasive throughout CTS' posts that I find it to be literally impossible to have a rational discussion with her.

Vaccines are effective at preventing disease or at least reducing symptoms. That is so well-established that it shouldn't even be a point of discussion. I will, if you insist, but can we consider that to be a moot point?

The real question comes about when you weigh the population-wide risk of vaccinating versus not vaccinating. When you vaccinate, you vaccinate an entire population... or nearly an entire population. OTOH, when you have an epidemic, not everyone gets sick. So the risk of vaccinating an entire population still has to be less than the risk of a less-than-whole population getting the disease, for a program of vaccination to make any sense... even from a strictly monetary standpoint.

As far as the compulsory aspects... an unvaccinated population has to pose a risk to the vaccinated population in order to require vaccination. And to be crass about it, vaccines are cheap and treatment is expensive. In any situation of universal health care (which we do not have here) an unvaccinated person, strictly speaking, should also bear the monetary consequence of their choice. But even assuming that the unvaccinated population does NOT pose a risk to everyone else, there is a significant caveat... adults are allowed informed consent. They made their choice, they take their lumps. But what about their children? If there is a significant disease risk, and an insignificant vaccination risk and the child dies of a preventable disease or is permanently brain-damaged (because that is also an consequence of disease, not just vaccine) does the parent have the right to risk their child's health too? That's not as clear-cut as, say.. treating cancer or appendicitis... but worth considering.

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Monday, December 19, 2011 8:13 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"The issue that this thread and the previous thread have been discussing is the safety and effectiveness of vaccines."

I hope this isn't a real question.

Vaccines are one of the few things for which there ARE statistical studies regarding both their safety and effectiveness across many populations and sub-groups (except for some of the newer vaccines which IMO haven't been thoroughly studied, in a major bow to profit).

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Monday, December 19, 2011 8:22 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

I believe that at times, a people have to choose not to intervene even when intervention seems to be the more logical option. This is because intervention has its own cost that is taxed differently, but no less severely, than the lack of intervention.

This is not necessarily a rational process for me. I sometimes am able to see a rationalization for intervention that nontheless fails to move me, probably due to emotional bias.

I recall a discussion recently where someone (probably Raptor) argued that women who have large numbers of babies continuously and without the capacity to support them should be sterilized. I understand the rational argument being made. These women are sinkholes of social resources, and vacuums of social responsibility.

However, the violation inherent in sterilizing people against their will is repugnant to me. The idea of a government (society) making these choices for the individual scares me. The concept of taking babies from their parents is one I abhor. I perceive an intangible cost in these sorts of actions.

So, even though I can concretely rationalize why sterilization may be a good idea for irresponsible parents, a fountain of wrongness surrounds this suggestion and drowns any benefit I can imagine. This intangible awfulness is so profound as to make one feel dirty for even having considered the option.

Mandatory vaccinations share a touch of that same moral repugnancy for me. I could never bring myself to vote for such a measure, or express support for it, because the idea of compelling the individual to such a degree gives me the willies.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner

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Monday, December 19, 2011 8:23 AM

Quote:
Vaccines are effective at preventing disease or at least reducing symptoms. That is so well-established that it shouldn't even be a point of discussion. I will, if you insist, but can we consider that to be a moot point?

I have no opinion on this, and have been following both sides of the argument in a futile attempt to gain one. When I think I have it pinned down, someone makes what seems to me to be a relevant point and I have to rethink it.

I will consider it a moot point while conversing with you, for ease of discussion. I can't really offer any commitment on a grander scale than that, because this isn't my field, I simply don't know enough.

I have to chew on the other points. A thought in regards to the informed consent issue, I wonder about the impact if informed consent were less age restricted. Does a little kid deserve to know risks and benefits, explained in such a way that they can understand them? I know there's limitations, I might have faith that kids can understand everything an adult can, but that might not be reality in most cases. And there might be cases where parents will coach a child and the child might just parrot the wishes of the parents, but I wonder if there would also be cases where the child, on knowing more, might go against the wishes of their parents.

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Monday, December 19, 2011 8:30 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
The first is that CTS demonstrates confirmation bias in regards to homeopathy versus conventional medication, and admits to it

Astute observation again. Yes. I have confirmation bias. Everyone has confirmation bias. To me, that's a given.

The problem in this thread is that we're talking about two separate and distinct topics at the same time.
1) Science (science of vaccines, medicines, and homeopathy)
2) Personal choice in prophylactics and treatment

On one, I believe we all agree homeopathy is rubbish, scientifically speaking. We disagree on the quality of science re vaccines and medicines. That's fine.

On two, I choose to use homeopathy despite its being scientifically rubbish. Sig doesn't understand that. She equates "personal choice" with "science." She mistakenly projects and insists that if I use a product, I MUST believe in its scientific merits. I have no such requirement.

For me, science and personal choice are two separate domains. When I have my science hat on, I evaluate data according to the high standards of scientific rigor on which I was trained. When I take my science hat off, I do whatever I damn well please, including going to church, praying, using homeopathy and many other activities unsupported by science or data. Sig wants to proclaim my personal use of homeopathy as hard proof that I am intellectually corrupt, because she appears to want to win the argument by ad hominems.

Quote:
It is also completely irrelevant to any discussion about vaccines. Whether vaccines are better than homeopathy is not the actual issue in this thread, nor is CTS's credibility, or any quirks she has that might led her to prefer homeopathy over conventional medicine. Further arguments over the effectiveness of homeopathy would be a waste of everyone's time.

Thank you. I would like to leave my personal choices out of any discussion of science. I will concede and stipulate that my personal life is completely inconsistent with my scientific positions, if they will drop my personal choices out of the discussion.

Quote:
I don't believe anyone here has argued that vaccine use should be discontinued in it's entirely (well, unless there were better medical technology already handy and easily manufactured to replace it). Perfect Solution Fallacy -"not 100% effective, so it should be abandoned in entirety" has been attributed when there wasn't any.

Exactly.

Quote:
The issue that this thread and the previous thread have been discussing is the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. A side conversation is in regards to compulsory vaccinations, and whether there should be exceptions for at risk vaccinees, and whether, if there are exceptions, if it defeats the purpose of compulsory vaccination.

Excellent summary.

-----
"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want - and their kids pay for it." - Richard Lamm

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Monday, December 19, 2011 8:35 AM

I liked the point 1kiki made about the pitfalls of a for profit health care industry, and the one Sig made about natural variability.

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Monday, December 19, 2011 9:00 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

TONY... OOC how far would your inclination NOT to intervene stretch? I suspect everyone has a threshold where they step in, so I'm wondering where yours might be.

BYTE... this has been such a time suck for me, and I have too many thing to do right at the moment. But can you tell me what you think the flaws are in the pro-vaccination story? I will try to address them. We'll prolly both learn something!

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Monday, December 19, 2011 9:35 AM