Vaccines Don't Protect Against the State
The Illinois House of Representatives impeached Governor Rod Blagojevich yesterday for "abuse of power," offering 13 specific examples. In addition to the well-publicized allegations regarding Blagojevich's attempted "sale" of a U.S. Senate seat, the House cited "[t]he Governor's actions with regard to, and responsibility for, the procurement of flu vaccines . . ." His what now?
According to the House's impeachment report, four years ago Blagojevich's office tried to purchase flu vaccines on behalf of Illinois - and several other states - in defiance of federal authorities. The problem started when the FDA declared half of the potential U.S. vaccine supply "unsafe," which prompted Blagojevich's administration to try and purchase the vaccines itself "in order to ensure vaccine availability for Illinois' priority population, which would be residents who are over the age of 65, chronically ill, pregnant women, etc." That conflicted with the Centers for Disease Control, which was hoarding the remaining vaccine supply for itself and redistributing it to the states, including Illinois.
The "priority population," according to the House report, only required 160,000-200,000 vaccine doses. Blagojevich's administration tried to purchase and import more than 250,000 doses from Ecosse Hospital Products, Ltd., a European manufacturer. But the amount was irrelevant, since "[t]he FDA never gave State officials approval to import the vaccine; on the contrary, the FDA indicated it would not improve importation of the vaccine." No FDA approval, no vaccine. Even if you've already placed the order and agreed to pay for it, as Blagojevich's aides did - without bothering to follow the state's normal procurement and contract rules.
Blagojevich knew he would never receive any of the vaccines ordered, yet his aides told him to pay Ecosse for its "commitment to locate and secure the vaccine." Thus, Blagojevich "proceeded to obligate the State to pay for a product that could not be delivered to the State without violating federal law."
But wait, there's more! According to the House, "Not only did the Governor's office lead the charge to procure unnecessary vaccine for Illinois residents, it also sought to procure flu vaccine for other states and cities," including 200,000 doses for New York City, 150,000 doses for New Mexico and 4,000 doses for Cleveland. None of these other places received any vaccine either, and Blagojevich's administration "did not have any written agreements or contracts in place with the other governments, which left the State potentially liable for $8.2 million . . ." Ecosse later billed Illinois $2.6 million and sued the state for collection after the Illinois comptroller refused to pay.
And whatever happened to all the vaccine that Blagojevich ordered? "It is believed that the State, a year after the contract was signed, donated the vaccine to Pakistan where it was later destroyed because the vaccine had expired." Oh, the humanity.
If ever there was a textbook case of how government intervention fails - particularly in the health care market - this is it. Keep in mind, the federal government simultaneously increased demand for flu vaccine while decreasing the supply. The whole "priority population" concept is FDA and CDC propaganda, not an expression of market demand. And the 2004 shortage merely reflected the successful efforts of U.S. and European regulators to make vaccine manufacturing horribly unprofitable. Between the FDA's criminalization of risk and government purchasing driving down the price, there's little incentive for any firm to enter or stay in the market. (For more, see Russ Roberts' excellent 2004 overview of the government's role in the flu vaccine shortage.)
On a related note, during a short press conference responding to his impeachment, Blagojevich tried to turn the tables on the House for "standing in the way" of his efforts to personally provide health care for Illinois residents using taxpayer funds. He literally trotted up cancer and organ donation patients and claimed that he used the powers of his office to help these people when the House balked. Of course, what Blagojevich grants, he also denies; recall that one of the federal allegations against Blagojevich - echoed in yesterday's impeachment resolution - said the governor withheld nearly $8 million in funding for Illinois pediatricians because a hospital executive refused to make a $50,000 campaign contribution. The function of state-run health care is not to ensure that every person receives health care; it's to prevent anyone except the government from providing health care.
Comments (27)
John Petrie
Along those lines, I wonder how long it will be until a flu shot is mandated by the Imperial Federal Government for certain demographic groups. Maybe it seems hard to imagine the feds forcing certain people to get a flu shot, or denying them their State-provided health care unless they get annual flu shots, but it isn't any crazier than a lot of things our government does.
Published: January 10, 2009 3:51 PM
Anarka
There is a SERIOUS problem with Austrian Economics: Nobody knows about them.
I believe they are the key to understand not only economy but also society as a whole... Yet, even discarded theories such as Marxism are way more known than the traditions of Mises and Hayek. It is no surprise then that day by day we are closer to socialism... I believe that it is imperative that us, Austrians, start transmiting our ideas in a more popular base, there is for example this guy that has presented the whole of Marx's theories in easy to grasp videos in youtube (the whole of the videos are to be found in his bloghttp://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/about/)We should spread our ideas with the same intensity if we want them to do a difference in the world.
Published: January 10, 2009 5:14 PM
Fephisto
Anarka:
Then grab a webcam and do it.
Published: January 10, 2009 5:25 PM
Mises Saves
@Anarka
I think an even bigger problem are the so called representatives of Capitalism. Most people think George W. Bush, John McCain and the Republican leadership are capitalists. They see the corruption in these individuals then equate that corruption to capitalism. Until people are educated to realize these politicians are frauds that don't actually follow capitalistic ideals they will continue to think capitalism is evil.
Ayn Rand put it best when she said we don't need conservatives but rather radicals for capitalism.
Published: January 10, 2009 5:29 PM
Andras
Glorious appraisal of Ayn Rand from The Wall Street Journal of all places:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123146363567166677.html
I wish Mises.org had the same publicity. (It should consider expanding its scope to, at least, accepting to her)
Published: January 10, 2009 7:27 PM
Ralph Fucetola JD
Well at least the "vaccine" didn't get used. Vaccination "approval" by FDA is a great example of voodoo science at the beck and call of the state.
All the drug pushers have to "prove" is that there is an immune system reaction to their witches' brews that contains all sorts of toxins. Even so-called "mercury free" vaccines contain "trace" amounts (1 - 3 mcgs) that FDA says the drug pushers don't have to declare (see: www.ageofautism.com).
Vaccines are an uninsurable risk.
Government mandated (that is, coerced) vaccinations are particularly evil state impositions, since, after all, Health Freedom is Our First Freedom; if we don't own (control) our own bodies, what other freedoms do we have?
Right now (until Jan.20) Natural Solutions Foundation is sponsoring Health Freedom as a major issue on www.change.org - for "presentation" to the "We promised change" new administration on Inauguration Day.
We've gone toe-to-toe with all the hot-button social issues and have a good shot to have a general freedom issue stay in the top ten on the site (it's #8).
Please go to:
http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?p=1762
There you will find information on how to vote on change.org
Please consider adding your voices to those of other freedom advocates.
Published: January 10, 2009 8:40 PM
punter
I agree Ralph, flu vaccines - indeed all vaccines - are as useless as they are dangerous.
If you ask doctors about the relationship between vaccines and the rise in autism, allergies, asthma, child arthritis, diabetes, gastro, ear infections etc the doctors will simply say correlation doesn't prove causation. Fair enough, but if you ask them how they know vaccines work they will state that polio and small pox have been eradicated as the statistics clearly show. So why are stats good for one and not the other?
The fact is that t-cells do not have brains, much less consciousness and cannot learn or remember anything. So giving them a 'dead' virus to 'practice' on is pointless. Of course viruses are not actually alive anyway and therefore cannot be killed.
And even if T-cells could learn things (and pass on said knowledge to future generations of T-cells) wouldn't they simply learn that these vaccine based viruses (which we are told are dead and therefore harmless) are no danger to the body and in future should be ignored by the immune system?
The reason we believe in vaccines is because of some appalling stats relating to polio, diptheria and small pox that a 12 year old can see through. The fact is that we have all of these diseases today we just call them something else - in particular meningitis, tonsillitis and shingles.
Of course there are many more questions we could ask of the sacred germ theory:
Why don't doctors get sick all the time?
Why are there asymptomatic 'carriers' of the germ?
Why are there those with the symptoms and no germs?
How could we ever outlast an infection as our T-cells could never reproduce fast enough to wipe out the germs (who themselves are reproducing)?
Why do we only decompose after we die - doesn't that suggest that germs only attack dead cells rather than live ones?
Where did bird flu and SARS go? There was no vaccine, no 'herd immunity' so simultaneously trillions of viral particles presumably mutated into a benign form.
Why do some viruses mutate constantly (flu or HIV), but others, not once in hundreds (measles, small pox)?
People can slavishly follow incredibly stupid ideas for a long time but at some point in the future we will be looked at as the people who voluntarily injected poisons into our own offspring - and no 9th grader studying the history of the 19th, 20th and 21st century will be able to believe it.
Published: January 10, 2009 9:33 PM
james_joyce
Ralph, can you provide evidence for the claim that there's a risk involved with the trace amounts of mercury in vaccine solutions?
Here's a study which suggests there's probably no risk of serious side effects like autism from the MMR vaccine, for instance: http://mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD004407/frame.html, and http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/114/3/793
I agree completely that the government has no right to force anyone to receive a vaccine (or to force anyone to do anything, really). However, that doesn't imply that vaccines are ineffective or unsafe - there seems to only be data to the contrary.
Can you point me to something that supports your claim?
Published: January 10, 2009 10:01 PM
Anonymous
Uneducated marauding vaccine resisters from the People's Socialist Republic of Oregon -
http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/news/5541834-35/story.csp
Most troubling that individuals are making their own choices in regards to the governance of their health and that of their children.
Published: January 10, 2009 10:11 PM
Butch
Ya'll is ignant. capitalism is good, not bad! we just need to lend more money tot he people so we can live bettur. I dont' want my kids learning anything about that Darwin or by hangin' with those niggrs, we need private vouchers!
Published: January 11, 2009 2:15 AM
Inquisitor
Is such ignorance as portrayed by our friend "Butch" perhaps also a result of public education? It would seem so... only that kind of low quality service could yield such idiotic misconceptions re capitalism.
Published: January 11, 2009 3:49 AM
Anne Cleveland
To your title, vaccines dont protect against the State", I!d like to add they dont protect the individual from diseases. Rather may cause sickness or death.
Back in the seventies I fought the tax-supported school system against forced vaccinations for three years.
Ultimately filing suit in Federal court against the State of Georgia over forced immunizations. The law was declared un=constitutional, and law clerks had to re-write the Georgia Law.
In my Blog, "octogenariansblog.com" I have written about my long hard fought battle over vaccines and have an up=coming new article to be posted soon.
Thanks for writing this great article. Anne Cleveland, e-mail annecleveland@bellsouth.net
Published: January 11, 2009 7:49 AM
I Hate Taxes
Reply to Anarka who wrote:
"There is a SERIOUS problem with Austrian Economics: Nobody knows about them. "
Wrong, EVERYBODY knows about them. But most everybody wants to control everybody else.
Austrian economics takes power away from tyrants or wannabe tyrants and gives it to the people.
Therefore, those who want to control others hate and despise austrian economics and lobby against it.
Published: January 11, 2009 11:08 AM
shaneinwy
Funny thing...when I try to open the official report (second link given), my security program says it is a bad idea...hmmmmm
So, I go back to the first link, and find a buffet of Austrolibertarian delights.
I am extremely suspicious of this whole matter. Something is very fishy and it is not Mr. Blagojevich's actions. Not a personal defense, but consider:
1)Count number one refers to the "seat for sale" scandal the prosecution is not even prepared to go to court over and will not release records from.
2) Planning to condition state bailout money on the firing of people in the company the money is to go to. Perfectly acceptable at the federal level, popular among citizens (recall the recent media frenzy of CEO compensation and corporate structure), appparently impeachable at the state level.
3)Promising legislation in exchange for campaign contributions. This is the heart of six of the counts. Yet legislation must go through the legislature before he can touch it. Not only that, modern American political campaigns are nothing but promises designed to elicit contributions. By this standard, anyone who has run for office and simultaneously spoken about what they will do if they win, is impeachable. Hmmmmmmm
4) Count number nine is a doozy. The governor refused to acknowledge the authority of the "Joint Committee on Administrative Rules"...his utter disregard of the doctrine of separation of
powers, and his violation of the Illinois Administrative
Procedure Act by unilaterally expanding a State program.
So, he is punished for disregarding the doctrine of separation of powers by not acknowledging a legislative body with the titled responsibility dictating to the Executive.
I believe there is much more to this story than is currently known, but once again the media has thrown raw meat to the guard dogs (the public) and real crooks have slipped in the back door. This should be a glaring example of all that is fundamentally wrong with our systems.
Published: January 11, 2009 11:49 AM
james_joyce
The responses here are troubling to me, especially the invocation of germ theory denialism. I urge you to read this: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/08/woo_and_antivaccinationism_in_mainstream.php, follow its links, and do some hard thinking.
I've noticed similar posts on LewRockwell.com as well. I certainly hope there's not a deeper link between these sorts of anti-scientific beliefs and the Austrian school. Since I was introduced to it, I've considered it to be the most rigorously analytical economic school of thought.
What I suspect is happening is an inappropriate extension of the Austrians' rejection of strict social positivism into the physical sciences. In any case, these responses will certainly cause me to examine the Austrian school more closely, to make sure that I haven't been lured in by an anti-authoritarian selection bias.
Published: January 11, 2009 12:48 PM
punter
I am afraid your link isn't working JJ, but at any rate I am sorry if this blog and lewrockwell.com offend your delicate sensibilities by thinking independently, if you prefer you can read the New York Times which has a 100% guarantee that it will only write things that reinforce your prejudices.
As for being anti-science - can you please tell me what is scientific about chemotherapy? Correct me if I am wrong but no chemo drug has ever been tested against a placebo, meaning that it doesn't even have a pretence of being scientific. Similarly vaccines are not tested for safety or effectiveness against placebos but other vaccines (or in the case of Gardasil, poison) so that is your science for you.
Vaccinations, indeed virtually all allopathy, are about statistics. Not science.
I believe in science as much as the next guy, but just because something is defined as being scientific by the authorities doesn't make it so. Science uses the application of Occam's Razor. The germ theory does not. The fact that there are asymptomatic carriers of a germ shows - using Occam's Razor - that the germ theory is wrong. The simplest explanation for the fact that doctors don't have the lifespan of a world War 1 pilot is that disease is not communicable - ie the germ theory is wrong.
Providing some studies from what you consider to be unimpeachable sources that tell you what you want to hear does not prove you are right. We can all provide our own cherry picked data from our own unimpeachable sources and we will all simply dismiss the other guy's data as nothing but quackery from people with vested interests. That is why the best thing to do is look at whether the theory is logically plausible and then possibly using empricism or stats to make more concrete conclusions.
At any rate, answer my points or admit that the only reason you believe in the germ theory/vaccinations is because it is what everybody else believes.
As for your supposed anti-authoritarian selection bias - your own words demonstrate that you are scared to believe in a theory whose proponents have a history of thinking outside the mainstream and you claim to have an anti-authoritarian bias? Hahahaha!
Published: January 11, 2009 4:08 PM
punter
I am afraid your link isn't working JJ, but at any rate I am sorry if this blog and lewrockwell.com offend your delicate sensibilities by thinking independently, if you prefer you can read the New York Times which has a 100% guarantee that it will only write things that reinforce your prejudices.
As for being anti-science - can you please tell me what is scientific about chemotherapy? Correct me if I am wrong but no chemo drug has ever been tested against a placebo, meaning that it doesn't even have a pretence of being scientific. Similarly vaccines are not tested for safety or effectiveness against placebos but other vaccines (or in the case of Gardasil, poison) so that is your science for you.
Vaccinations, indeed virtually all allopathy, are about statistics. Not science.
I believe in science as much as the next guy, but just because something is defined as being scientific by the authorities doesn't make it so. Science uses the application of Occam's Razor. The germ theory does not. The fact that there are asymptomatic carriers of a germ shows - using Occam's Razor - that the germ theory is wrong. The simplest explanation for the fact that doctors don't have the lifespan of a world War 1 pilot is that disease is not communicable - ie the germ theory is wrong.
Providing some studies from what you consider to be unimpeachable sources that tell you what you want to hear does not prove you are right. We can all provide our own cherry picked data from our own unimpeachable sources and we will all simply dismiss the other guy's data as nothing but quackery from people with vested interests. That is why the best thing to do is look at whether the theory is logically plausible and then possibly using empricism or stats to make more concrete conclusions.
At any rate, answer my points or admit that the only reason you believe in the germ theory/vaccinations is because it is what everybody else believes.
As for your supposed anti-authoritarian selection bias -your own words demonstrate that you are scared to believe in a theory whose proponents have a history of thinking outside the mainstream and you claim to have an anti-authoritarian bias? Hahahaha!
Published: January 11, 2009 4:09 PM
Raja
James - what exactly is "anti-scientific" about questioning the mainstream view of vaccinations? There is plenty of evidence -- yes, evidence, that thing that _real_ science is based on -- that suggests that vaccines are ineffective and dangerous. Remember, the same people who recommend vaccines are the ones who put fluoride in your drinking water and toothpaste. Once you understand the true scope of the fluoride scam, you will be in a better position to understand why the anti-vaccine community is the scientific side of the debate and the mainstream is a bunch of shills and dupes.
The mistake you are making is confusing the scientific establishment for practicing science. Just as the economics establishment has insisted the earth is flat and waylaid everyone else into believing the same, so too is the case with the scientific establishment. The point was made earlier that many people mistake the true nature of capitalism. Well, that goes double for science. Science, at it's core, is a dedication to the scientific method, something the mainstream has repeatedly proven itself incapable of. And more importantly, science is a _process_, a well structured process that required dissident views in order distill truth from fiction by a strict adherence to the realization that reality, and not impressive sounding degrees or "consensus", is the only arbiter.
As someone who understands Austrian economics, did you ever wonder how it is only the economics profession that has gotten it so so wrong? Well, fact is, it is not. There is plenty of evidence -- yes, evidence -- that the mainstream "scientific" view on everything from vaccines to cancer to nutrition and even physics is dead wrong.
Published: January 11, 2009 4:47 PM
D. Saul Weiner
Here is a good objective assessment of vaccines:
http://westonaprice.org/children/vaccinations.html
Published: January 11, 2009 7:13 PM
james_joyce
I am sorry if this blog and lewrockwell.com offend your delicate sensibilities by thinking independently, if you prefer you can read the New York Times which has a 100% guarantee that it will only write things that reinforce your prejudices.
Your opening salvo of personal jabs doesn't portend well for this debate, but let's carry on. I'm not offended, and I'm not criticizing you for thinking independently. It's great that you're questioning the establishment view - it's just that this particular theory has been verified thousands of times and has reams of evidence to back it up. You'll need to bring some pretty extraordinary evidence to bear to back up your extraordinary claim.
Correct me if I am wrong but no chemo drug has ever been tested against a placebo, meaning that it doesn't even have a pretence of being scientific. Similarly vaccines are not tested for safety or effectiveness against placebos but other vaccines (or in the case of Gardasil, poison) so that is your science for you.
From what I can tell, you're wrong on both counts here. Control groups were standard in every study I looked at. Just by doing a simple web search, I'm able to find hundreds of placebo-controlled chemotherapy studies.
Here's a few:
(PDF) http://effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov/repFiles/draftDocuments/2008_1222ChemopreventionDraft.pdf
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=3495334
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119918811/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
And flu vaccine studies - note here that the evidence suggests flu vaccines aren't very effective:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/extract/104/2/S1/376/a
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/professionals/acip/efficacycomparison.htm (references a study from a journal)
http://www.medicalconsumers.org/pages/FluVaccineisRarelyEffective.html (references several studies)
Yes, many of the studies are from the CDC, NIH, and other government sources.
The fact that there are asymptomatic carriers of a germ shows... that the germ theory is wrong.
I don't know the mechanism behind asymptomatic carriage, and I don't know if anyone does. But let's suppose no one knows why this happens. Does this unexplained phenomenon invalidate every experiment and discovery we've made regarding the germ theory? What you seem to be implying is that if we don't know everything, then we can't know anything. We've encountered something we can't explain, but we still have all the experiments and studies done that demonstrate the theory. The explanation for the unexplained will enrich the theory and possibly change it - but there's no reason to assume it will invalidate it. It might, of course, but it's unlikely in this case given the strength of the evidence.
Vaccinations, indeed virtually all allopathy, are about statistics. Not science... We can all provide our own cherry picked data from our own unimpeachable sources and we will all simply dismiss the other guy's data as nothing but quackery from people with vested interests. That is why the best thing to do is look at whether the theory is logically plausible and then possibly using empricism or stats to make more concrete conclusions.
This is what I suspected was going on when I responded initially. You're presumably familiar with Austrian economics and therefore reject the use of statistics and empirical study as the sole means by which we form economic theory - logic must play a critical role. But the reason that's true in the field of economics is that it seeks to describe human action - an extraordinarily complicated phenomenon involving millions of free choices, and one that's extremely difficult to test in a controlled and ethical way. In the social sciences, positivism falls short - not because of a deficiency with positivism, but because of a deficiency in our ability to observe the subject in question. Any observed economic behavior has hundreds of causal agents that are impossible to tease apart, and each situation is unique.
On the other hand, many physical sciences can use pure empirical positivism to draw conclusions about the universe because we can perform strictly controlled experiments - and that's certainly true of biology. This allows us to observe and describe phenomena before we understand how they work. For instance, Mendel demonstrated biological inheritance long before anyone understood how it worked. There was no logical framework for his discovery and he couldn't explain it if you asked, yet it told us a surprising amount about genetic inheritance.
So, for instance, in 1846 Ignaz Semmelweis observed that mothers of babies delivered by doctors who had just performed an autopsy contracted puerperal fever at a much higher rate than when handled by midwives. He instituted a policy of hand washing and instances of the disease were reduced by an order of magnitude. He didn't know why that should be the case - he assumed it had to do with "cadaverous materials." But it was nontheless true that those mothers were contracting the disease through transmission by another person. Eventually we develop the technology that allows us to see the microscopic agent of disease, and we can perform tests directly on it to verify that it is, in fact, responsible for the infection.
So to deny the germ theory, you have to either provide evidence that all those experiments were fraudulent or inadequate, or you have to show how they worked without the germ theory.
Published: January 11, 2009 11:23 PM
Inquisitor
I wouldn't call it "positivism", but the "hypothetico-deductive" model of knowledge acquisition. Positivism has much more frills to go with it than the hypothetico-deductive model.
Published: January 12, 2009 11:19 AM
punter
I realise JJ that these trials say that they use placebos, just as the Gardasil trial stated that it used a placebo, but what I am saying is that they do not use actual placebos. They can't. If I give you a pill and tell you that it is chemo but it is in fact a harmless sugar pill, you will get very suspicious when your hair doesn't fall out and you do not need to vomit every five minutes and so therefore the placebo effect cannot be accounted for.
On the other hand if I set up a test and give some people an arsenic 'placebo' and some people a poison with 12 syllables (and therefore a patentable and profitable poison) it is quite possible that those who get the 'placebo' die in higher numbers than those who get the patentable poison. But only in the minds of the allopaths would that constitute proof that the patentable poison is effective. The same is true if I give you one form of chemo instead of another. Indeed, oncologists argue that it would be 'unethical' to test chemo against actual placebos (Declaration of Helsinki) thereby ensuring that no actual science ever takes place!
Now I realise that you are going to say that this is unfair, that it is therefore impossible to have placebo controlled trials of chemo. And you are right, it is impossible. Which is precisely why the positivist approach which you apparently deem appropriate for all science outside economics is misguided.
The reality is that every field of knowledge has to follow the laws of logic - economics, physics, chemistry, biology - it doesn't matter, any theory that is logically impossible cannot be true. However, we can use experiments to a greater degree in sciences outside of economics to draw conclusions that we cannot do by simple logic alone.
A perfect example is the gravitational constant. The formula for gravitational pull makes logical sense (even if gravity does not) as it is derived from the surface area of a sphere, but the gravitational constant could not possibly be derived logically.
As for the germ theory, you say that I need extraordinary evidence to counter the reams of evidence, but the points I raised are so damaging to the germ theory that it would appear to be the opposite, that it is the germ theory that needs extraordinary evidence. I note that you only attempted to address one of them and you admitted you had no answer, which makes me think you are unlikely to answer the rest.
At any rate, can you please provide me with an experiment that shows a virus or bacteria being injected, in vitro, into cells and displaying the expected pathogenicity. I posit that there aren't any (an example would be for HIV cells to attack and kill T-cells). Of course if we could do these things I would rethink my questioning of the germ theory (of course I would also have to rethink my understanding of logic). But we can't.
I realise that this truth will not be appealing to you, nonetheless it is a fact. 200 years of the germ theory and not one doctor anywhere in the world has actually ran an experiment demonstrating the pathogenicity of a germ (and please don't provide me with studies where people inject poisons and foreign proteins into animals I don't doubt that the injection of such things can be dangerous (why I am bitterly opposed to vaccines) but poisoning and infection with a supposedly contagious disease is not the same thing.)
Published: January 12, 2009 5:00 PM
Raja
Punter - have you heard of Raymond Francis (http://www.beyondhealth.com/)? He wrote a book called Never Be Sick Again which makes the argument that disease, all disease, can be attributed to two causes, a lack of essential nutrients or an abundance of toxins. His thesis seems very similar to yours.
Btw, if you can recommend some links where I can read some more, that would be greatly appreciated.
Published: January 12, 2009 8:21 PM
punter
Hi Raja, I actually have considerable time for the German New Medicine of Dr Ryke Hamer (I am not necessarily a big fan of Hamer the person). Basically, a plausible theory needs to explain why disease can happen in clusters but often doesn't, why people can have terrible lifestyles and still remain disease free and to incorporate the effect of our mind on our body.
The German New Medicine espouses that all disease is caused by a biological conflict (a shock that has meaning to us from an evolutionary perspective, such as loss of territory, fear of death, starvation, uselessness etc). It is often the resolution of these conflicts that result in what we know as symptoms and often when the conflict is 'active' we do not necessarily feel that sick. Vaccines do not cause asthma, autism, diabetes, SIDS, etc per se but they affect the healing process from conflicts so that if a child has had some conflict and gets a vaccine it could have a devastating effect.
Published: January 12, 2009 11:57 PM
Ralph Fucetola JD
james_joyce:
Sorry, I didn't see your posting asking for more information on the dangers of vaccinations until today.
You can see some of the information Dr. Laibow has written about this at:
http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?p=689
Also check out the information on http://www.ageofautism.com - they relate an email interchange between the angry moms and the CDC wherein CDC admits that 1 - 3 mcgs of mercury remain in vaccines (a "trace" amount that does not have to be declared) while Dr. Laibow has told us she's found references in WHO literature that even 1 mcg is harmful to children.
Since science, especially science paid for by govt, can be manipulated, I prefer to let the market judge the safety of vaccines.
The market has done so. The insurance industry will not sell a vaccine injury policy to any parent, doctor or drug company. Since publicly traded companies cannot generally invest in uninsurable risks, Congress, ever supine to the legal drug pushers, passed a law abrogating the common law rights of parents to sue for vaccine injuries.
Instead, there is a Federal bureau (VICP - Vaccine Injury Compensation Program) that has handed out over $2 billion dollars (collected as a special tax from every purchaser of vaccines) to maintain the "profitability" of these poisons. I put the word "profitability" in quotes since such toxins could not be sold at profit on a free market.
We have recent reports that the gov't committee that dolls out government autism research money has once again refused a grant to study the large populations of Amish and others who do not vaccinate to find out if there is a relationship between vaccination and autism. That's right, no such study has ever been done. Anecdotal reports suggest that there is no autism epidemic among the Amish, only among those other Americans who are forced to vaccinate their children.
But, ultimately, my argument that all vaccines must be considered dangerous, rests on the lack of availability of insurance against vaccine injuries.
The Precautionary Principle alone urges us to consider vaccine use as little different from the blood-letters and similar unscientific practices of past centuries.
Published: January 18, 2009 6:48 PM
anon
(double posting)
re: punter
Haven't you heard of Koch and his postulates?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch%27s_postulates
What do you think is producing these toxins in a patient's body then?
Certain bacteria survive by having a mucous membrane that protects them... this membrane is toxic to us. Not all of the membrane is toxic, but enough of them is.
There are also "pathogenecity islets" in bacteria DNA, probaby as a result of circular DNA packages that are traded among other bacteria. That has been known to generate molecules and proteins that are demonstrably toxic.
Also, tour allegation that "there's never been an experiment demonstrating the pathogenicity of a germ" is patently untrue.
Published: April 29, 2009 2:27 AM
anon
(double posting)
#
re: punter
I agree with your admission that you are egotistical.
There are so many things wrong with your claims (especially the post which you linked) - I have no idea where to start. It's like trying to argue with a flat-earth fanatic from the ground up.
Too troublesome.
The reason I linked Koch's postulates was because i thought (mistakenly) that they would also include experiments - and these are routine experiments - whereby some one managed to infect a batch of benign bacteria with some DNA and made them into a toxic form. btw an experiment of this variety was incidentally also one of the experiments that proved the function of DNA as some sort of instructional molecule. (they had no idea as to its significance until much later)
However, as pertaining to Koch's, it was also the first time someone isolated information taken from a hostile form of life, introduced it to a benign form, and noticed the change.
The list of questions in the post which you linked in the end is just vapid - you obviously no nothing of biology, or any sound understanding of whatever you're railing against.
For instance, this one is laughable: "Where did bird flu and SARS go? There was no vaccine, no 'herd immunity' so simultaneously trillions of viral particles presumably mutated into a benign form."
SARS never did manage to go into a full fledged human to human transmission stage, and even if it did it didn't happen soon enough.
Did you think viral particles do not die?
Viruses can't survive for long in the atmosphere, they only thrive in specific environments. So one of the reasons why they told you not to travel in an air conditioned car - well, air conditioning means you had your windows closed and the virus can't escape outside.
The original bird flu has always had a reservoir of viruses in the migrational birds, mostly aquatic fowl.
Back to Koch: his basic approach is right, but his axioms were slightly wrong. In a way, he was proven wrong rapidly, because he was from the 18th century (I think), and they didn't know about genes, only that specific germs cause specific diseases. However, it was still a great leap in thinking that "certain germs" --> "disease".
Of course, some people would have a better immunity against certain diseases, sometimes your immune system is just lucky, other times there are other quirks
Also, you should check out the Nobel-prize winning work of Marshall - who is well-known for proving that bacteria Helicobacter pylori are the cause of most stomach ulcers, reversing decades of medical doctrine which held that ulcers were caused by stress, spicy foods, and too much acid. He accomplished this by swallowing a vial of stomach ulcer germs.
But it's so frustrating to address denialists of this kind (together with their websites) because they have a logical fallacy or inaccuracy in the middle of their chain of logic, and you have to spot it for every single one.
I'm not gonna do it. I'm saving my preferences for something else.
However, you can carry on your fight on this site which deals with anti-vaccine loonies:
http://scienceblogs.com/erv/
Published: April 29, 2009 5:34 AM