Live data from Hacker News

Danish Study: No link between vaccines and autism or other health conditions

en.ssi.dk

71–80 of 140 posts

Re: Danish Study: No link between vaccines and autism or other health conditions

#71
post #60
post #8

Just a friendly reminder for any who need to hear it again: it's really okay to have been wrong and okay to admit that you've been being lied to. Changing your views when confronted with new evidence that shows your beliefs/assumptions were incorrect is a sign of intelligence. It can also let you focus more of your attention on new topics/areas that are still important for protecting yourself and your loved ones.

Out of curiosity, when is the last time you changed your mind about something moral? If you can’t remember the time, it’s petty rich to accuse others of being exactly as close minded as you are.

I've dramatically changed my moral views over the course of my life and I'm continuously seeking to hone them. I'm not sure what you're getting at.

Re: Danish Study: No link between vaccines and autism or other health conditions

#72
post #2

The truly sad part is that regardless of the validity of the study, its methodology, or the results, the impact it will have in the political sphere or with the public will be negligible. It's maddening.

To preface this, I'm not saying anything about vaccines, efficacy, safety, or my positions on them. But how can you expect to convince doubters when a claim like "no link between vaccines and autism" is made, and all you have to do is click your left mouse button twice to pull up the actual research, and see that what was actually studied was "did a certain amount of increase in aluminum content in vaccines create mo…

Agreed here, the description under the headline is important:

> A new Danish study finds no association between aluminum in childhood vaccines and 50 different health conditions, including autism, asthma, and autoimmune diseases. The findings reaffirm the safety of Denmark’s childhood vaccination program.

Breaking it down --

1. The study was Denmark specific 2. The study inspected aluminum specifically 3. (Based on reading, it seems to) Reaffirm the findings that the vaccines are safe, conducted / funded by those who set the policy

Here's the actual study: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/ANNALS-25-00997

Note the main researcher is funded by Novo Nordisk: https://researchleaderprogramme.com/recipients/anders-hviid/

And is frequently trying to debunk criticisms of drugs, often with phrasing such as this.

https://www.contagionlive.com/view/hpv-vaccination-does-not-...

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/740704

and the list goes on...

Re: Danish Study: No link between vaccines and autism or other health conditions

#73
post #58

I am an autism researcher. While we cannot say 'vaccines never cause autism' we can say with confidence 'Other potential causes of autism have much better theoretical foundations, empirical evidence, prevalence, and effect sizes. With limited research budgets, we have better research targets to pursue first before further investigating vaccines."

would you mind answering a couple questions? I'm very curiuous: Have autism rates increased recently (last few decades)? If so, what are the best theories for why?

One of the largest reasons is probably we're just looking more. It's a relatively new diagnosis, just 50 years ago it'd just be "oh yeah Uncle Joe is a little weird he only eats hotdogs and knows everything ever about trains".

Re: Danish Study: No link between vaccines and autism or other health conditions

#74
post #68
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the people who bought into the scare never came back and revised their beliefs based on new evidence. What's missing is the capacity for self-correction. Mathematics was never involved. I don’t think there’s much daylight between our positions. You’re correct that mathematics was never involved. Any trust most people had in vaccines was always social, not analytical. They never understood Wakefield’s original paper…

> And now, they didn’t trust the bottom-line conclusions being reported by the Lancet and the media. That's the funny thing, though. Logically, distrusting The Lancet means distrusting Wakefield's paper too. It makes no sense to claim that The Lancet is untrustworthy while you still base your beliefs on a paper because it was published in The Lancet. If the journal goes down, the journal articles have to go down with…

Why do you think it would work symmetrically like that? Say you trust your spouse. Then they admit they cheated on you. Years later they say, actually, that earlier statement was a lie. What do you believe now?

Re: Danish Study: No link between vaccines and autism or other health conditions

#75
post #61

I am an autism researcher. While we cannot say 'vaccines never cause autism' we can say with confidence 'Other potential causes of autism have much better theoretical foundations, empirical evidence, prevalence, and effect sizes. With limited research budgets, we have better research targets to pursue first before further investigating vaccines."

This is exactly why the whole "vaccine causes autism" got started. We need to improve science literacy before we could say things like that to the general public. When a layperson hears this, they'll think that there's a small but possible chance that vaccines do cause autism; when what the scientist means to say is that "it's highly unlikely that vaccines cause autism."

I think it’s okay to mean what you say. Part of improving literacy is also respecting the intelligence of your audience and not talking down to them. Treating everyone like buffoons makes people act like them - treating them as beings capable of thought and reason tends to show the better side.

Re: Danish Study: No link between vaccines and autism or other health conditions

#76

The people who dont believe in vaccines or that they cause autism dont really get science. Wasting hard work trying to convince them is useless. These people truly are idiots, at best a burden on society and at worse a threat to public health. Its one thing to have a skepticism of the pharmaceutical industry, its not ill founded but if their entire personality is based on denying science I dont think we should waste…

[flagged]

Re: Danish Study: No link between vaccines and autism or other health conditions

#77
post #63
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the whole “forced to take them by the government” that scares them. Ridiculous, since governments have always been trustworthy.

Governments have always been trustworthy?

That was sarcasm

Re: Danish Study: No link between vaccines and autism or other health conditions

#78
I don't like vaccines and its hard to say why. I was vaccinated as a child and I am fine. My wife and I fully vaccinate our kids per doctor's recommendation. I guess you could say I trust the doctors advice more than my silly gut feeling.

However I can articulate that:

I don't like that vaccine makers get special immunity from lawsuits.

I don't like that pediatricians get payouts from big pharma based in what percentage of their practice received their vaccine products.

I don't like that the definition of a vaccine was changed to accommodate the mRNA COVID shots while other valid treatments that already existed were pushed aside to enable the emergency use authorization.

It's just enough to give me the ick, but their benefit is generally obvious so I hold my nose.

Re: Danish Study: No link between vaccines and autism or other health conditions

#79
post #35
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There seems to be something special about vaccines that really sets these people off, and it goes way way back. Vaccine paranoia is as old as vaccines and they’ve always drawn a special ire from believers in naturopathy, natural medicine, faith healing, new thought, and similar strands of thinking. I don’t quite get it.

Fear of needles

There are other mechanisms of delivery such as oral vaccines. This is a valid reason, phobias need addressing. But plenty of vaccines are available via oral delivery.

Re: Danish Study: No link between vaccines and autism or other health conditions

#80
post #35
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There seems to be something special about vaccines that really sets these people off, and it goes way way back. Vaccine paranoia is as old as vaccines and they’ve always drawn a special ire from believers in naturopathy, natural medicine, faith healing, new thought, and similar strands of thinking. I don’t quite get it.

Fear of needles

Ive had a bone marrow biopsy done. Those are done fully awake with no anesthetic except for the skin incision.

You literally feel the push of the sharp needle cutting through your bone. Slowly. methodically. Half a millimeter by half millimeter every time the practitioner puts her weight on the needle.

Then, as they aspirate the marrow, you feel as if your balls are being sucked into your hips.

Then, despite the pain, I volunteered to sign up as a bone marrow donor.

Please, call me an idiot if you must, but don't explain away my distrust of vaccines with cowardice.

Post reply on HN