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ScratchMonkey
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06 Nov 2009, 5:57 pm

One of my teammates linked me this video and my fear is that Kennedy is a convincing and charismatic speaker, much in the way Obama is. When I see charisma, all my skepticism flags fly up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BmFZ0gjRAE

One claim by RFK is that the CDC is staffed by vaccine industry plants who are hiding any bad effects vaccines might have. If you can't trust the experts, how can you make an informed decision?

Can someone point me to refutations of this stuff?



callesen58
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08 Nov 2009, 8:12 am

Read Fear of the Invisible, and you will see that he is right, but only partially.



beau99
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15 Nov 2009, 9:13 am

RFK Jr. is one of those who think they're right about everything, even when they know they're wrong.

Everything he says about vaccines is so outrageous that I wouldn't be able to believe it even if I wanted to.


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Dark_Red_Beloved
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14 Dec 2009, 11:19 pm

A couple things might help gather information on the issue of vaccines:

If I recall correctly, the chemical MMR has only been used in vaccines since the early nineties. That's when they saw the spike in autism diagnoses and in 1994 Aspergers was added to the DSM.Autism as a diagnosis was added in the 1981. Coincidence? I would think that diagnostic definitions account for least some,if not a sizable amount, of the rise in autism diagnoses.

Here's a copy of the DSM for autism in this link http://www.autreat.com/dsm4-autism.html

*You'll notice that in diagnosing autism there is no physical sign--but only upon the subjective judgment of how the person(often child) is behaving. The subjective observation of another human being's behavior is far more open to interpretation than a blood test for example.

*David Kirby wrote Evidence of Harm.He wrote about mercury in vaccines.It decidedly leans towards fear of vaccines-- but it could give you an idea of common questions and fears that will arise in your audience's minds.

*Wikipedia ,of course, is not a scholarly source--but it is a good way to get the gist of the science behind vaccines/MMR compound in plain English and find potential jump off points to other sources.

Anyway...

I do know it is powerful thing to cast doubt upon an idea.It may be more helpful to cast doubt upon the idea than it is to flat out argue the point--wherever you decide to take the information you find.

Hope this helps and best of luck to you

:)



Last edited by Dark_Red_Beloved on 14 Dec 2009, 11:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ScratchMonkey
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14 Dec 2009, 11:44 pm

Just to be clear, I don't have an argument to support. I'm simply looking for more data on which to base an opinion. I do my best to form a position based on evidence, rather than look for evidence that supports a position.



Elementary_Physics
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17 Dec 2009, 11:39 pm

ScratchMonkey wrote:
One of my teammates linked me this video and my fear is that Kennedy is a convincing and charismatic speaker, much in the way Obama is. When I see charisma, all my skepticism flags fly up.


I know what you mean. Thats why I go for Ralph Nader. He doesn't come off as a fake or some "super human" bag of lies.



ScratchMonkey
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18 Dec 2009, 1:20 am

Speaking of consumer advocates, instead of Ralph Nader, I go for John Stossel. ;)



Orwell
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19 Dec 2009, 12:38 am

Dark_Red_Beloved wrote:
A couple things might help gather information on the issue of vaccines:

If I recall correctly, the chemical MMR has only been used in vaccines since the early nineties.

No, you do not recall correctly. MMR is a not some chemical in the vaccines but rather a specific vaccine- the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine. It has been in widespread use for quite a while and is responsible for mostly eliminating dangerous childhood diseases.

Quote:
That's when they saw the spike in autism diagnoses and in 1994 Aspergers was added to the DSM.Autism as a diagnosis was added in the 1981. Coincidence? I would think that diagnostic definitions account for least some,if not a sizable amount, of the rise in autism diagnoses.

Well, it's hard to diagnose something that's not in the diagnostic manuals. According to one paper from Baron-Cohen's team at Cambridge, approximately 40% of autistics today are still undiagnosed. 20 years ago that percentage would have been much higher. One study found autism rates pretty similar in all age brackets, and since adult onset of autism has never been observed, this would imply that the rate of autism has actually been mostly static and the difference is in identifying and diagnosing more cases in recent years.

Quote:
*David Kirby wrote Evidence of Harm.He wrote about mercury in vaccines.It decidedly leans towards fear of vaccines-- but it could give you an idea of common questions and fears that will arise in your audience's minds.

Dangerous pseudoscience at best.


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DeaconBlues
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19 Dec 2009, 1:11 pm

Further, the fear of thimerosal (a mercury-based preservative - whose actual mercury content is so low as to make homeopathic medicines look pure) was planted by a single study done in Britain - a study so flawed, its own author later repudiated it. Multiple studies since then have failed to find any evidence of any link between vaccines of any sort and autism. (And claims of some sort of cover-up would have to posit a conspiracy so massive, it controls the CDC, the WHO, and the governments of California, the Dominion of Canada, and Denmark, not to mention any number of universities around the world. And yet has gone thus far undiscovered by two generations of journalists who want to be the next Woodward and Bernstein.)

Look, when you expand the diagnostic criteria for a disorder, it would be odd if you didn't see a spike in diagnoses, usually some years after the expansion (as more doctors come to use the new definitions, rather than the old ones - it's not like there's some sort of Psychiatry Police, who come around to various offices and force the doctors to throw out their old manuals and study the new ones incessantly). I've always been weird, and it's always been in the same way - but I never knew I might have AS until someone suggested it to me in 2002, after reading an article in Newsweek.

As for the coincidence of application of the MMR vaccine (usually around the age of 2 in the US) and supposed onset of autism, well, what symptoms of autism are there to notice before that age? Not a lot of one-year-olds holding long conversations with people, and if they don't look at your face, folks excuse that by saying the baby is "just distracted". Personally, I'm struck by the similarity in style between the anti-vaxers and the ancient legend of the "changelings" - the idea that when some children got to be about two or so, the elves would sneak in, steal the real child, and replace it with an elf child. You could tell it had happened because the changeling would refuse to speak, wouldn't eat properly, and would cry and scream a lot. Sound familiar?

On the plus side, at least the anti-vaxers don't recommend leaving the child in a clearing in the woods, in the hopes that vaccines will return and bring your real baby back...


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