Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Retracted autism/vaccine study an 'elaborate fraud,' British journal finds

cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 133 posts

Re: Retracted autism/vaccine study an 'elaborate fraud,' British journal finds

#31

Post by Mz »

johngalt wrote: post #29
Mz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those aren't the only two options. But I mostly avoid discussions like this on HN because the atmosphere here is pretty openly judgmental and hostile (a la your remark) so I don't see any real good coming out of trying to discuss it. It doesn't help that anyone here who is anti-vax tends to post in these threads in a manner that just promotes the view that we are all extremist nutcases, unfamiliar with basic logic, e…

I'm not hostile to opposing viewpoints. Truthfully I don't understand. Now you've mentioned it I'm trying to think of a third option would be something along the lines of "Vaccines could be applied differently than they are today". I haven't seen any evidence that supports that theory, but primarily I'm focused on people the refuse to vaccinate their kids at all. Not the ones that advocate different methods of vaccin…

3. They do enormous amounts of research and are very devoted parents who keep their kids healthy without prescription drugs or vaccines. They use diet, lifestyle changes and herbs/supplements (which are very respected in some "traditional" medicines) in place of what conventional/modern doctors would do to kids.

I have a form of cystic fibrosis (as does my 23 year old son). I have gotten off 8 or 9 prescription drugs and gotten me and my kids healthier. A great deal of what I know about getting healthy I learned from an anti-vax/alternative health board that believes that vaccines and other sources of metal poisoning cause autism (and related disorders). (EDIT: I don't think it's quite that simple, but I do think that is certainly a factor.) Both my sons fit the profile for ASD. Getting the three of us healthier has dramatically reduced their ASD symptoms. My son with cystic fibrosis has not been on antibiotics for over 12 years -- more than half his life -- and has taken no medication whatsoever in about 4 years. Most people with CF take hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of "maintenance drugs" every month, more when they are "sick" (having an exacerbation).

Most people with my genetic disorder get flu vaccines and pneumonia vaccines and other vaccines religiously. And they get gradually sicker and sicker until they die, usually at tragically young ages. I get a lot of flack off of people in the CF community for advocating non-drug approaches to the problem. I also get treated like I am some kind of irresponsible fruitcake and bad mother because none of us has seen a doctor in several years. We haven't seen a doctor because a) we aren't "sick" like we used to be and b) no doctor can help me improve on my track record of success. Doctors told me flat out to my face "people like you don't get well -- symptom management is the name of the game". I beg to differ.

Thank you for your reasonable reply.

Peace.

Re: Retracted autism/vaccine study an 'elaborate fraud,' British journal finds

#33

Post by philwelch »

jayzee wrote: post #5

Wow. It boggles the mind that somebody, a physician no less, would jeopardize children all over the world for half a million dollars. It is beyond comprehension.

In two respects, really--first, that it's reprehensible for a physician to jeopardize people's lives in this way, and second, that the magnitude of the motive (only half a million dollars) is nowhere close to the magnitude of this evil.

Re: Retracted autism/vaccine study an 'elaborate fraud,' British journal finds

#34

Post by burgerbrain »

Mz wrote: post #27
johngalt wrote: post #23

I don't understand the Anti-Vaccine crowd. I see no possible way for what they espouse to be morally responsible. Without vaccines the mortality rate of children to these diseases would be higher than the total rate of autism. This means that you would have more kids die than get autism even if every case of autism was directly caused by a vaccine. This leaves us with two options for the beliefs of the anti-vaccinati…

Those aren't the only two options. But I mostly avoid discussions like this on HN because the atmosphere here is pretty openly judgmental and hostile (a la your remark) so I don't see any real good coming out of trying to discuss it. It doesn't help that anyone here who is anti-vax tends to post in these threads in a manner that just promotes the view that we are all extremist nutcases, unfamiliar with basic logic, e…

Humour us, what is this third option? It's possible to describe somebody's point of view without agreeing with it yourself so I don't see why you need to dodge like this.

For example (I believe in evolution): "some creationists commonly argue that some constructs in biology, such as eyes, are too complex to have evolved from simpler systems. They call this concept irreducibility".

See?

If you're interested in a clean and logical discussion, which you seem to imply that you are, then you need to at least participate first!

Re: Retracted autism/vaccine study an 'elaborate fraud,' British journal finds

#35

Post by hartror »

davidj wrote: post #25
hartror wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I suggest a couple of links to some in depth analysis of these studies by scientists in a form the layman can understand? Links about researchers stealing money from their university do not add to your cause as it has no bearing on whether or not a particular immunizations are more dangerous than the disease they prevent. Something along the lines of this but from the opposing viewpoint: http://sciencebasedpharma…

Basically the first paper states, from what I can understand, "Some people are born with a genetic defect in their cells, specifically in the mitochondria part of the cell. When these people are injected with Thimerosal, they get autism. Others don't." My proposed solution: Check to see if the kid has this genetic defect, and if so, don't inject them with mercury, inject them with the mercury free vaccine and they wi…

Also when Thimerosal was removed from most of the vaccines in 2001 it had no affect on Autism rates. This was pretty much the last nail in the coffin for that hypothesis, yet the meme continues.

Re: Retracted autism/vaccine study an 'elaborate fraud,' British journal finds

#36

Post by Mz »

burgerbrain wrote: post #34
Mz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those aren't the only two options. But I mostly avoid discussions like this on HN because the atmosphere here is pretty openly judgmental and hostile (a la your remark) so I don't see any real good coming out of trying to discuss it. It doesn't help that anyone here who is anti-vax tends to post in these threads in a manner that just promotes the view that we are all extremist nutcases, unfamiliar with basic logic, e…

Humour us, what is this third option? It's possible to describe somebody's point of view without agreeing with it yourself so I don't see why you need to dodge like this. For example (I believe in evolution): "some creationists commonly argue that some constructs in biology, such as eyes, are too complex to have evolved from simpler systems. They call this concept irreducibility". See? If you're interested in a clean…

Apparently crossed in the mail, so to speak:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2073691

Re: Retracted autism/vaccine study an 'elaborate fraud,' British journal finds

#37

Post by mechanical_fish »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #21
hartror wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I down voted because none of those links add to the debate in a useful manner. See my reply.

I agree that some analysis for laypeople would be useful, but that's part of what I love about HN: an expert in this topic might come along soon and offer such an analysis. I think having a voice of dissent that offers something other than hyperbole and unsupported hand-waving is useful, and shouldn't be discouraged.

Whereas I think that anyone who drags Thimerosal into this debate -- roughly a decade after it was removed from vaccines in response to mass hysteria -- deserves to have a bucket of water poured over their head and sent home.

Just because an argument isn't made out of unsupported hand-waving doesn't mean that it isn't recycled garbage. Citations and glib technical language can be copied and pasted just as easily as mindless rants.

It is not enough to hold debates. One must also have the guts to draw conclusions.

Meanwhile, what's conspicuously missing from this particular cloud of chaff is a concise summary of the most recent epidemiological data. Should we not have plenty of that by now? Thanks to Wakefield, we have conducted an "experiment" over the last decade or so: Hysteria is up, and the vaccination rate is down. As a result, the incidence of preventable disease is measurably higher. Surely, if there is a correlation between autism and vaccination, the autism rate must now be significantly lower in these new unvaccinated populations? Or can we at least try to establish how many more kids have to suffer or die before we can draw that conclusion?

Re: Retracted autism/vaccine study an 'elaborate fraud,' British journal finds

#38

Post by electromagnetic »

RP_Joe wrote: post #16
davidj wrote: post #12

Vaccines do cause autism. Here is a peer reviewed paper in the journal of Toxicological and Environmental Chemistry, the abstract: Mitochondrial dysfunction, impaired oxidative-reduction activity, degeneration, and death in human neuronal and fetal cells induced by low-level exposure to thimerosal and other metal compounds Authors: D. A. Geiera; P. G. Kingb; M. R. Geierc Abstract Thimerosal (ethylmercurithiosalicylic…

People here don't want to believe this. They will still vaccinate their kids and worse will be in favor of forced vaccinations. They trust the government research. They trust the doctors and the pharmaceutical companies. This stuff is just a bunch of nonsense by troublemakers.

Sorry, but you clearly have no clue what people here want and don't want to believe.

I generally see a more hesitant view here on HN than anywhere else when it comes to doctors and pharma companies, generally because their advice and drugs are not highly scrutinised or peer reviewed.

However, what I see a lot of here on HN is basic common sense. Smallpox killed ~400 million people in the 20th century, that's not even accurate statistics as we largely wiped out the disease in the latter decades. It was also the cause of 1/3 of all blindnesses.

I fail to see how "not wanting to believe" vaccinations 'causing' autism is even relevant to the debate. I don't even see how a proven causal link between vaccinations and autism would even be relevant to the vaccination debate. I god honest don't give a fuck if vaccinations cause autism unless it's >1/2 because my child's risk of dying in an unvaccinated world is about 50/50 if I'm lucky.

IIRC measles mortality in the US currently stands at 4 in 100 million because of vaccinations. Before the vaccine was licensed measles cases averaged around 450 thousand per year. Within five years of the vaccine being licensed the number of reported cases dropped to ~20 thousand (note: a 22-fold drop in cases), when the second dose was recommended the cases dropped to the current baseline of a statistical zero thousand within five years.

This is equivalent to 68-thousand lives saved per year for the measles vaccination.

If you want to live without vaccination, sure go ahead. However I think you should be forced to pay for the 19 other vaccinations it requires to keep herd immunity that keeps people like you safe from deadly diseases like measles.

Re: Retracted autism/vaccine study an 'elaborate fraud,' British journal finds

#39

Post by ceejayoz »

hartror wrote: post #35
davidj wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically the first paper states, from what I can understand, "Some people are born with a genetic defect in their cells, specifically in the mitochondria part of the cell. When these people are injected with Thimerosal, they get autism. Others don't." My proposed solution: Check to see if the kid has this genetic defect, and if so, don't inject them with mercury, inject them with the mercury free vaccine and they wi…

Also when Thimerosal was removed from most of the vaccines in 2001 it had no affect on Autism rates. This was pretty much the last nail in the coffin for that hypothesis, yet the meme continues.

I figure it's like the "Bill Gates will send you $20 for every person you forward this to" chain e-mails.

Re: Retracted autism/vaccine study an 'elaborate fraud,' British journal finds

#40

Post by hartror »

Mz wrote: post #31
johngalt wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not hostile to opposing viewpoints. Truthfully I don't understand. Now you've mentioned it I'm trying to think of a third option would be something along the lines of "Vaccines could be applied differently than they are today". I haven't seen any evidence that supports that theory, but primarily I'm focused on people the refuse to vaccinate their kids at all. Not the ones that advocate different methods of vaccin…

3. They do enormous amounts of research and are very devoted parents who keep their kids healthy without prescription drugs or vaccines. They use diet, lifestyle changes and herbs/supplements (which are very respected in some "traditional" medicines) in place of what conventional/modern doctors would do to kids. I have a form of cystic fibrosis (as does my 23 year old son). I have gotten off 8 or 9 prescription drugs…

Wow downvotes? I don't agree with most of this position but this viewpoint is while an anecdote and not based solidly in science is valid. Certainly a healthy balanced diet creates a healthier body and something everyone should implement whether they are managing a chronic illness or not.

I don't agree with not vaccinating as a general rule, but I am not overly familiar with cystic fibrosis so I am not aware of what risks sufferers have and what medications sufferers are asked to use. Certainly this is still relying on heard immunity for things like measles, mumps, polio and the like. Healthy living does not prevent these diseases.

Could you describe why you chose not to vaccinate for anything?

Another position I will agree with, though it is only implied in the comment is doctors seem to over prescribe medication. Whether it is a desire to help, or be seen to do something or just laziness to get onto the golf course. Certainly I have seen this anecdotally, I am often offered antibiotics when I don't really need them. Things like presenting with flu symptoms and being given a script to prevent a throat infection.

Post reply on HN