File under Phile: Anecdotes are not Science
Editorial Note: The Post-Truth Rumorology post attracted a comment by Annie that deserves featuring.
She cites a really good Daily Mail article in which Melinda Messenger talks about intervening when her daughter is scheduled to have the HPV vaccine. The DM article drew this response from Dr. David Robert Grimes – a physicist at the University of Oxford – “Mothers should listen to the experts”.
Grimes: Mothers should listen to the experts not Dr Google
Cervical cancer is one of the few cancers we can prevent, which is why this vaccination program is so important and why all parents should ensure their daughters receive this potentially life-saving inoculation, writes Dr Robert Grimes, Science Writer and Cancer Researcher at the University of Oxford.
Gardasil, the form of the vaccine currently used in the UK, has been extensively tested for years and recipients constantly monitored for potential adverse effects.
More than 200 million doses have been administered over the past ten years, with research and trials dating back to 1991. The vaccine has proved to be a safe and effective intervention with an extremely low complication rate.
Only last year, a report based on data from more than a million recipients concluded the vaccine had a ‘favourable safety profile’. But still claims of ‘vaccine damage’ continue to circulate online, to be stumbled upon by the many who daily consult Dr Google, instead of turning to highly trained health professionals for advice.
Much of it comes from anti-vaccine campaigners, not content with the damage already done by the discredited, downright dangerous claims linking the MMR vaccine to autism. Among the groundless assertions are that the HPV vaccine causes thrombosis and chronic fatigue.
I cannot blame anyone whose child becomes ill or permanently exhausted for searching for an explanation and cause.
However, if you are giving a medical intervention to everyone at a certain age, as in this case, it is a medical certainty that some people get sick in the days, weeks or months afterwards. It would, of course, have happened whether or not they had received the treatment. It is merely coincidence.
Perhaps another issue with the vaccine, for some parents at least, is having to face up to the fact that their children will likely become sexually active in the not-too- distant future.
But, although pretty natural, such squeamishness doesn’t give you the right to deny your child, or the people they may become intimate with, the protection provided by this vaccine.
This most recent scaremongering, from the American College of Paediatricians concerning a risk of premature menopause, is equally without merit.
This is not some august medical body (in fact, that’s the American Academy of Paediatricians), but rather a group of conservative activists opposed to abortion rights, gay marriage and pre-marital sex.
Their claim is motivated more by ideology than by any evidence, and is simply not supported by the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence. There is no link between the HPV virus and premature ovarian failure, so it makes no sense to suggest that the vaccine may cause this condition.
Yet still, there have been a number of legal challenges mounted against the manufacturers of Gardasil, supported by the ‘Regret’ group in Ireland.
The case made it all the way to the Irish High Court, and although it was refused, the movement shows no signs of abating.
We need only cast our minds back to the damage done by scare stories about the MMR vaccine to be reminded how dangerous this can be.
Those who are not vaccinated against the HPV will have a much higher risk of contracting cancer than they would have of becoming ill as a result of having the jab, so, from a parenting perspective, it’s a no-brainer.
What we must avoid at all costs are these tales of personal misfortune, which are ultimately unrelated to the vaccine, getting in the way of an inoculation programme that could save many thousands of lives.
Editorial Note: Dr Grimes is not a doctor. He is closely linked to Sense about Science for whom vaccinations can do no harm.
Twittersphere
Annie also picked out some DRG Tweets. In response to Caron Ryalls
(a) No idea who you or your daughter are (b) Going to go out on a limb & say no medical records say HPV vaccine caused ill health
Caron Ryalls@caronryalls
U publicly claim my daughter’s ill health is unrelated 2 HPVvax but U hv no access 2 her medical records @drg1985!
Linked to the Daily Mail article: David Robert Grimes @drg1985
The @DailyMailUK just ran page 3 model’s fears over HPV vaccine. Utter drivel. I was quoted in reply, w/ name mangled. Not linking.
..it’s utterly irresponsible of @DailyMailUK to run this crap, especially as I clearly stressed dangers of false balance to DM reporter.
And the sad thing is, the ramblings of a celebrity will garner far more press and panic than me or any scientist. Do better, @DailyMailUK
..it’s precisely this kind of thing that makes scientists weary about talking to the press; science is an afterthought. @DailyMailUK
Age of consent
The Messenger article was well done. Neither Motivation nor Expertise are always right, we ideally need both. But if forced to choose between them, and in particular when motivation is linked to a mother looking after her children, in our current post-truth world of which pharmaceutical companies are the masters – as Study 329 demonstrates, I personally would lean toward motivation.
What was a surprise for me in the article was that while Messenger was sent a consent form by her daughter’s school and made it clear she did not consent, on the day the vaccinators are there if a 12 or 13 girl consents the vaccinators can over-ride a parent’s objections.
The Victoria Derbyshire show last week also featured a pre-teen who figured they were in a mis-sexed body. They were looking forward to being 13 when they could essentially demand the alt-hormones.
But if a teenage girl walks into a beautician in Britain and wants her ears pierced, unless she is 16 nowhere will do it without parental consent, and in Scotland it would be illegal.
“Anecdotes are not science”
A common theme in comments like DRG’s is that anecdotes are not data or science.
The original phrase was the Plural of Anecdotes is Data. This was coined in 1969 by Raymond Wolfinger. It is at the heart of the Big Data industries. If this weren’t true Google and Facebook wouldn’t exist.
The idea that the Plural of Anecdotes is not Data appears to originate from the CEO of Nutrasweet after his company’s product became embroiled in a cancer scare. It has been the mantra of corporations defending products ever since. (Please let us know if you can find earlier uses).
The response “Anecdotes are not Science” to claims of harms came into existence earlier. It was being widely used by spokesmen for the Pedophile Information Exchange during the 1970s when they infiltrated the Gay Liberation Front and Britain’s National Council of Civil Liberties. The NCCL was then steered by figures like Patricia Hewitt and Harriet Harman, who feature in the photo above. Hewitt and Harman were later among the leadership of the Blair Government.
Statements that we haven’t proven harm to children offered the press a shooting-fish-in-a-barrel opportunity to go after the Loony Left.
The PIE also showed a mastery of the ability to split hairs and other tricks that are now part of the corporate armory – No pedophile ever harmed a child, they were busy telling us in the 1970s – it’s child-molesters that do things like that.
The upshot was caught in this constructed photo of Patricia Hewitt – a decent woman as far as I know – who probably never actually said this. But she ended up years later being portrayed as taking the same position that all politicians on the Left or the Right take in response to drug induced injuries and occupational injuries or environmental toxicity – we can’t or haven’t proven harm. In most of these cases, like environmental toxicities and drug induced injuries, it turns out the harms to children are even greater than to anyone else.
The Vaccine arguments portray children’s immune and other systems as still developing suggesting they are more able to overcome these challenges than older people. This is Anecdotal.
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“Cervical cancer is one of the few we can prevent.” Exactly. The annual Pap smear has been doing just that for decades. It can detect not only cervical cancer, but “pre-cancerous” cervical cells which can be proactively removed. And it’s cheap and minimally invasive. One of the great successes of preventive medicine, or so it seems to me at least …
By the way, current HPV vaccines are effective against only about 70% of HPV strains. So guess what: Vaccinated women are still urged to get the annual Pap smear!
Given that reality, it’s far from clear that this vaccine “saves lives” that could not be saved just as well by other means. So exactly how much risk should a girl or her parent be willing to accept for the sake of an HPV vaccine? Not much, is my answer. Certainly it should not be mandatory.
But the strategy here seems to be Guilt by Association. Anyone with qualms about Gardasil is lumped in with Andrew Wakefield and other opponents of measles-mumps-rubella vaccination. And/or, with various ultra-conservative groups who oppose the vaccine because they want pre-marital sex to be as scary as possible—for girls especially. Maybe they’ve learned a thing or two from the high-priced PR agencies who sold that lamentable new “female Viagra” drug as some sort of feminist cause … accusing any and all doubters of “sexism.”
File under: Anecdotes
Are depression pills driving patients to commit suicide? An ominous warning from a mother-of-two who almost became a victim herself
Thousands of Europeans die every year due to antidepressant-induced suicides
But when Katinka was prescribed the drug, she wasn’t even clinically depressed
Within a month she was unable to leave the house or even have a conversation
By Katinka Blackford Newman For The Daily Mail
Published: 00:29, 6 December 2016 | Updated: 00:29, 6 December 2016
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4002738/Are-depression-pills-driving-patients-commit-suicide-ominous-warning-mother-two-victim-herself.html
Singular and Plural..
David Grimes says “Cervical cancer is one of the few cancers we can prevent, which is why this vaccination program is so important and why all parents should ensure their daughters receive this potentially life-saving inoculation…”
As far as I’m aware, there is as yet no objective and independent systematic review of the efficacy of HPV vaccination in preventing cervical cancer, i.e. untainted by pharma influence or bias.
I suggest the public is being misled about the promoted ‘efficacy’ of globally fast-tracked HPV vaccination. At this time we have no idea of the long-term effects of this very questionable medical intervention, particularly if the risks will outweigh the touted benefits.
I also suggest there is much fear-mongering about HPV and cervical cancer. For example, in an article promoting HPV vaccination, HPV vaccine entrepreneur Ian Frazer definitively states cervical cancer “kills over 250,000 women world wide every year” and describes cervical cancer as the “second most common cause of cancer death in women”, but provides no evidence to support these statements.
The use of these alarmist statements is highly questionable in countries where the risk of cervical cancer is very low. For example, the Australian Government’s National Cervical Screening Program webpage notes that “Most HPV infections clear up by themselves without causing any problems” and “It is important to remember that most women who have HPV, clear the virus and do not go on to develop cervical abnormalities or cervical cancer”. Frazer even acknowledges this low risk himself in his article promoting HPV vaccination on The Conversation website (i.e. ‘Catch cancer? No thanks, I’d rather have a shot!’, published in July 2012, at the time Gardasil HPV vaccination was being introduced for boys in Australia.)
Frazer’s alarmist annual 250,000 death rate is not relevant to Australian girls and women. Published statistics indicate that an estimated 245 deaths were attributed to cancer of the cervix in Australia in 2014. The risk of cervical cancer has been steadily decreasing in Australia since 1991. Between 1982 and 2014 cervical cancer was one of the cancers showing the greatest percentage-point decrease in incidence, from 14.2 to 7.0 per 100,000. In the same period, the age standardised mortality rate of cervical cancer decreased from 5.2 to 1.8 per 100,000. Cervical cancer is listed as 19th on a list of the estimated 20 most common causes of death from cancers for females in 2010 and 2014, which is at odds with Frazer’s statement that cervical cancer is the “second most common cause of cancer death in women”.
Misinformation about HPV and cervical cancer risk abounds, much of it emanating from the so-called ‘scientific’ community.
Who knows what interference with the natural progression of generally benign HPV may throw up in future, with the global fast-tracking of the still experimental HPV vaccines? There is much scope here for ‘unintended consequences’, and the current generation of children are the unsuspecting guinea pigs.
Parents and children are not being properly informed about still experimental HPV vaccination, their right to ‘informed consent’ is not being fulfilled.
(For more background and references see my detailed letter re HPV vaccination to Irish senator Paschal Mooney, 4 November 2015: https://elizabethhart.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/letter-to-senator-paschal-mooney-re-hpv-vaccination.pdf )
When the two brands of HPV vaccine were introduced they had behind them each approximately five years of trials – Ben Goldacre, apparently advocating for GSK, made a fuss about Cervarix’s trials being 6 months longer. Unfortunately, even to establish any net benefit in the diminution in the rates of cancer it would have taken almost as many decades, so the whole thing was introduced at the very best speculatively. On the other hand what they had control ruthlessly were reports of adverse advents – the anecdotes. They had to trust well established systems and methods for junking reports, intimidating victims (sometimes using Munchausen labels, bring in the family courts to silence parents etc). And, of course, they were taking a bigger risk because unlike with infant vaccines the injured were articulate. On the other hand what a wonderful way to test the system in preparation for further atrocities and denials.
And, of course, it should be remembered that rather than having a proper debate about the scientific risks and benefits a phoney debate was set up promoting the vaccine as a liberal agenda vs.old fashioned conservative values, getting people to define their attitudes by completely spurious criteria. Notable in all this – a great coup for the pharma – was Dr Phil Hammond, MD of Private Eye. Once upon a time Private Eye might have nosed out that there was something going on, instead Hammond who used to introduce the BBC’s ‘Trust me, I’m a doctor’ and has become the pharma’s favourite after-dinner speaker, was busy promoting the merits of Gardasil over Cevarix, advocating ostensibly on behalf of his daughter.
Incidentally, I am not sure whether it has been mentioned in this blog but the US government collects royalties from both products.
http://www.ageofautism.com/2016/07/gardasil-a-license-to-kill-what-has-changed-since-this-report-in-2010.html
What an impressive Eye for Pharma, Linda
Trading in, ‘The White Paper’
http://www.pmlive.com/pharma_news/gsks_bexsero_vaccine_growing_fast,_despite_tight_supply_1174879
A few weeks ago the company ceded the US cervical cancer vaccine market to Merck & Co after withdrawing its Cervarix product, finding it was not competitive.
http://1.eyeforpharma.com/LP=15332?source=pmlive&utm_source=PM%20Live&utm_campaign=4739&utm_medium=Banner&utm_term=GSK%20WP%20Floating%20banner&utm_content=GSK%20WP%20Floating%20banner
‘musical execs’
http://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/glaxo-s-waterhouse-set-to-helm-viiv-hiv-business-as-ceo-limet-departs
GSK’s new ‘ethical’ customer approach: Is it delivering?
A review, analysis and key lessons
http://img03.en25.com/Web/FCBusinessIntelligenceLtd/%7B4676b324-bcdb-442a-be5b-2880bf1d20c9%7D_4739_15NOV16_GSK_new_approach_white_paper_EU.pdf
09.24
Wed 07/12/16
Hi Annie,
Here is your copy of the GSK commercial success case study.
Let me know what you think!
The findings in this white paper will be discussed in more depth at eyeforpharma’s Barcelona conference (Barcelona, 14-16 March).
Thanks,
Hayley Dunn
eyeforpharma | Head of Europe
+44-207-375-7236
#trustpharma
eyeforpharma’s mission is to make pharma companies more open and valued.
We’re creating a movement for industry executives who want to prioritize value for patients and HCPs. Learn more here.
eyeforpharma Ltd, headquartered at 7-9 Fashion Street, London, E1 6PX, United Kingdom. A registered company in England and Wales: 09823909.
I think; it’s good to share…
Of course, when it came to Bexsero it pehaps helped that the vaccines principal developer Prof Pollard also chaired the British government committee which recommended it for infants while driving up demand private demand for older children and young adults.
http://www.ageofautism.com/2016/02/urgent-questions-men-b-vaccine-and-the-united-kingdom-joint-committee-on-vaccination-and-immunisatio.html
http://www.ageofautism.com/2016/03/prof-pollard-again-oxford-university-hosts-british-government-vaccine-committee.html
As mentioned in my previous comment, I’m not aware of any objective and independent systematic review of the efficacy of HPV vaccination in preventing cervical cancer, i.e. untainted by pharma influence or bias.
While there is a welter of material in the often biased ‘peer-reviewed literature’ supporting HPV vaccination, much of this material is conflicted by industry funding and authors’ associations with vaccine manufacturers.
For example a review published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases includes this interpretation: “Our results are promising for the long-term population-level effects of HPV vaccination programmes. However, continued monitoring is essential to identify any signals of potential waning efficacy or type-replacement.”[1]
One of the authors of this review is Julia Brotherton who has been involved in the promotion of HPV vaccination since at least 2003, and who has links with industry, e.g. CSL and Merck. Julia Brotherton is an author of ‘Planning for human papillomavirus vaccines in Australia: Report of a research group meeting’, published in June 2004. In the acknowledgements of this report it is noted: “We would like to thank CSL Pharmaceuticals and GlaxoSmithKline for their support in facilitating this meeting…”
This report was co-authored with Peter McIntyre, who is currently an ex-officio member of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI). The current ATAGI Conflict of Interest document notes Peter McIntyre has been associated with grant funding from GSK and Merck. Peter McIntyre is Director of the National Centre for Immunisation Research & Surveillance (NCIRS). Peter McIntyre was also on the Working Group for the publication The Science of Immunisation: Questions and Answers published by the Australian Academy of Science with funding from the Department of Health and Ageing. Peter McIntyre was also involved in co-ordinating the ‘Evaluation of the National Human Papillomavirus Vaccination Program – Final Report’. Peter McIntyre and Julia Brotherton are part of the very powerful industry-associated ‘vaccination clique’ in Australia.
It is concerning that industry-associated people such as Julia Brotherton and Peter McIntyre, who were involved in the initiation of HPV vaccination, and who may have an ideological and career interest in ‘proving’ the benefits of HPV vaccination, are also the ones evaluating the effectiveness of HPV vaccination. Personally I have no confidence in their objectivity on this matter.
I’ve also become very cynical about the often industry-associated ‘peer-reviewed literature’. Even The Lancet’s editor, Richard Horton, has confessed that: “Journals have devolved into information laundering operations for the pharmaceutical industry.”
I suggest it is essential that any individuals undertaking systematic reviews of the literature, or other evaluations supporting the use of pharmaceutical products, e.g. HPV vaccine products Gardasil and Cervarix, demonstrate they have no conflicts of interest in the matter. It is important that we have a critical and objective review of often conflicted literature promoting the use of vaccine products, which must also be open access, i.e. not behind journal paywalls.
References:
[1] Melanie Drolet et al. Population-level impact and herd effects following human papillomavirus vaccination programmes: a systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet Infectious Diseases. Vol. 15, No. 5, p565-580, May 2015: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099%2814%2971073-4/fulltext It is notable that this systematic review and meta-analysis is behind the paywall of The Lancet Infectious Diseases, i.e. it can be purchased for $31.50 USD. I suggest it is highly problematic that papers which promote the use of vaccine products are not open access, i.e. easily accessible for public perusal. There’s also commentary in The Lancet Infectious Diseases on this review: ‘Greatest effect of HPV vaccination from school-based programmes’. Again, it’s behind the paywall…. For interested citizens who do not have the privilege of institutional access, this will mean a time-consuming visit to a university library to try and access the paper there, or another $31.50 USD for the coffers of The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
For further references, see my letter to Irish senator Paschal Mooney: https://elizabethhart.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/letter-to-senator-paschal-mooney-re-hpv-vaccination.pdf
Face-booked..
The HPV vaccine – untangling the sound and fury
The HPV vaccine saves lives, but as with all vaccination there’s sadly plenty of scaremongering and misinformation – and this can cost lives.
The HPV vaccine saves lives, yet all over social media people make odious claims about it. While I’ve written about it before, I’ve put together a short video where I attempt to explain why the vaccine matters, and challenge some of the misinformation about it.
9.30 mins with DRG
https://www.facebook.com/davidrobertgrimes
Conversations..
David Robert Grimes …Yeah, I’m afraid pretty much everything you’ve written there is either wrong or utterly garbled…
28 September at 23:21
Katie Walker Ha! Denial aint just a river in Egypt! You are a disgusting Pharma shill, and your bs tobacco science is ridiculous. You’ve been bought. Get off FB and do something worthwhile, rather than spreading lies. Bleh
Joanna Le Noury says:
December 7, 2016 at 11:01 am
..Ciao..
Re Anecdote
Dr. Healy,
I am not certain if I misunderstood your post re HPV vaccines but it sounds like you are supporting this vaccine and basically saying that it is safe. Meanwhile the American College of Pediatricians (ACP) has released a statement that this vaccine is harming young women (causing sterilization). Within the same statement they reference the whistle blowing evidence of Dr. Sin Hang Lee regarding a “global scandal of historic proportions” of several organizations including members of the WHO. There are class action suits underway in Japan regarding the HPV vaccine. Please see the ACP release and Dr. Sin Hang Lee’s work.
Joanna
My posts are clear to me but sometimes others find them confusing. The post is not about whether HPV vaccine works or not
David
Here’s a link to an overview webpage for Dr David Robert Grimes at the University of Oxford: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~donc0074/
Apparently his “current research is chiefly concerned with the mathematical modelling of oxygen distribution in both vascular and avascular tumours”.
Under ‘Other interests’, Grimes describes himself as an “opinionated git”, a very apt description.
I can’t see any indication that he is an ‘expert in HPV vaccination’, and yet he has taken it upon himself to insist that parents have their children HPV vaccinated, and to belittle parents’ genuine concerns about this novel medical intervention. Who is he to dictate to parents about HPV vaccination?
Grimes makes this ludicrous statement: “…if you are giving a medical intervention to everyone at a certain age, as in this case, it is a medical certainty that some people get sick in the days, weeks or months afterwards. It would, of course, have happened whether or not they had received the treatment. It is merely coincidence.”
Grimes simply won’t entertain the possibility that children may suffer an adverse reaction to HPV vaccination, so much for effective post-marketing surveillance in this hostile atmosphere.
The Daily Mail gives Grimes a soapbox to pontificate his views about HPV vaccination as if he speaks from a position of authority, which he does not: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3984248/Melinda-Messenger-stopped-little-girl-having-cervical-cancer-jab.html
Grimes is just another in a long line of ‘useful idiots’ parroting the industry-backed dogma about HPV vaccination, and dangerously impeding citizens’ valid questioning of globally fast-tracked and still experimental HPV vaccination.
In my opinion, David Robert Grimes just loves an opportunity to spout whatever he thinks might cause a bit of controversy. Judging by his twitter page, he sees himself as an expert on many matters – and takes great delight in directing people to his many ramblings! Anyone who dares to disagree, or even just question what he says is answered with a passage of hatred. I think he’s one who will jump on any bandwagon that happens to roll slowly by him. I’ve yet to read anything of substance that he puts his name to. Maybe we’re playing into his hands by even discussing his ideas!
The example of the ‘Clearing House’….
http://visionlaunch.com/blog/2016/02/08/many-people-choosing-not-vaccinate/#
Dr. David Healy is an internationally respected psychiatrist, psycopharmacologist, scientist and author of many books on the medical industry, as well as more than 150 peer-reviewed articles. In 2012 he published a book entitled Pharmageddon, about how pharmaceutical companies have hijacked healthcare. Dr. Healy is also an expert in research on the subject of clinical drug trials. He is affiliated with Rxisk.org, which maintains a clearinghouse of patient-reported side effects of all types of prescription drugs.
According to Dr. Healy, the medical industry is at a crisis point now, due to a lack of integrity. He compares its situation to that of the Catholic Church during the child abuse scandal several years ago.
Meanwhile, in Kenya..
http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2016/12/09/glaxosmithkline-rallies-industry-to-unite-against-corruption_c1469764
More re David Robert Grimes…
The Guardian also provides this non-expert with a platform to promote HPV vaccination, see: “We know it’s effective. So why is there opposition to the HPV vaccine?” https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2016/jan/11/why-is-there-opposition-hpv-vaccine-cervical-cancer
Also see his article “Impartial journalism is laudable. But false balance is dangerous”: https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2016/nov/08/impartial-journalism-is-laudable-but-false-balance-is-dangerous
before the market…catches
“Once you’ve created a vaccine however, you can expect steady sales. Most parents will get their kids vaccinated as per doctor’s orders, after all.”
http://www.fool.co.uk/investing/2016/12/12/3-reasons-to-buy-glaxosmithkline-plcs-5-5-yield-before-the-market-catches-on/
Zach Coffell owns shares in GlaxoSmithKline. The Motley Fool UK owns shares of and has recommended GlaxoSmithKline. We Fools don’t all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors.
When he underwent an operation in 2013, a surgeon found the yellow oily myodil still inside his spine, the High Court heard.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4024788/Disabled-solicitor-faces-rest-life-wheelchair-poisoned-doctors-child-suing-drugs-giant-Glaxo-millions-pounds-damages.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490
http://www.myodilaction.info/
Adhesive
Arachnoiditis
Cairns Post
http://www.cairnspost.com.au/video/id-hxbGMzODE6Ty8Zau-MNE6CmL0wA8TzxQ/Adhesive-Arachnoiditis
GSK @GSK 4h4 hours ago
In case you’re wondering, here’s what we plan to do in our #Vaccines R&D hub in the US.
#Vaccines………….
https://twitter.com/hashtag/Vaccines?src=hash
Where’s the good news……..in case you’re wondering..
Typically#..
http://www.naturalnews.com/053851_HPV_vaccines_emergency_room_visits_adverse_events.html
I don’t know enough about this topic to comment on the risk/benefit problem but if you want a quick example of the wrath/vitriol/hopelessly polarised feeling it raises look at the BTL comments after the Guardian article which Elizabeth has provided above.. which demonstrate all too horrifically why it is IMPOSSIBLE to have any kind of honest debate around harms caused
Donald J. Trump
✔ @realDonaldTrump
Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn’t feel good and changes – AUTISM. Many such cases!
#Vaccines
https://twitter.com/hashtag/Vaccines?src=hash
By WakingTimes December 1, 2016 18 Comments Read More →
First Study on Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated Children Pulled from Web
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2016/12/01/first-ever-study-vaccinated-vs-unvaccinated-children-removed-web/
GSK @GSK 12h12 hours ago
The ribbon is cut! The Slaoui Center for #Vaccines research is officially open
GSK @GSK 13h13 hours ago
It’s incredible to hear our CEO speaking to #GSK employees at the grand opening of our US #Vaccines R&D hub!
https://twitter.com/GSK
#It’s incredible..
Grimes at work…?
The Tweeting Tweets…after
https://twitter.com/thismorning/status/808985731947438080
David Robert Grimes @drg1985 Dec 14
David Robert Grimes Retweeted This Morning
While disappointing Messenger on, her being ripped apart by docs reassuring. Here’s my
@guardian bit on HPV vax – https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2016/jan/11/why-is-there-opposition-hpv-vaccine-cervical-cancer …
‘The’ articulate messenger reporting:)
Leonie @leoniefen Dec 14
@thismorning @hollywills @Schofe Agree with @melindamessnger, when even Cochrane
Scientists are raising concerns..
https://nordic.cochrane.org/sites/nordic.cochrane.org/files/public/uploads/ResearchHighlights/Complaint-to-EMA-over-EMA.pdf …
https://nordic.cochrane.org/sites/nordic.cochrane.org/files/public/uploads/ResearchHighlights/Complaint-to-EMA-over-EMA.pdf
The EMA’s procedures for evaluating the safety of medical interventions – where the companies are by and large their own judges – need to be fundamentally reworked and all procedures and information should be made transparent to the public. Our societies should no longer accept that assessments of drug safety are left to companies with huge financial interests and to a drug agency that receives 80% of its funding from the drug industry.
Peter C Gøtzsche, DrMedSci, MSc Director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, Rigshospitalet Professor, University of Copenhagen
Co-signatures:
Karsten Juhl Jørgensen, Deputy Director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, Rigshospitalet
Tom Jefferson, Honorary Research Fellow, Centre for Evidence Based Medicine, Oxford OX2 6GG, United Kingdom
Margrete Auken, MEP (The Greens/European Free Alliance)
Louise Brinth, PhD, MD, Danish Syncope Unit, Frederiksberg
This time I plead for positive news, even if you have to make it up (reference to swedish mainstream media cover ups, I’m getting duped each day here)
I want to hear that Seroxat, specificly, is about to be withdrawn from sales. And that a major “deep throat”-type whistleblower is about to tell the truth, in America preferably.
That some of us, doesn’t have to be me, get some well deserved rectification for what Seroxat has done to us.
I’m sort of a “junior” member, I haven’t known for very long that Seroxat was responsible for this much evil. But it has allready taken its toll on me, I’m weary and resigned. I can’t imagine what frustration many of you must feel who have been in this fight so much longer. What a tiresome uphill climb it is.
That perhaps a scientist or two gets his sh*t together and realizes that the ‘plural’ of ‘anecdotes’ IS infact evidence, especially when the so called “evidence” from RCT’s is biased and thin to begin with.
The holidays are coming, please give me a reason to smile along with my family!
Ove2016
Grimes is at his exercise, reassured by scientists ripping someone apart. Perhaps, he ought he ought contemplate the fact that these scientists are not engaged in theoretical physics but practicing their science on ordinary citizens and if the ordinary citizens are saying they being hurt, they ought to be listened to with care and respect not “ripped apart”. Of course, the purpose – which perhaps he does not quite understand himself – is to instil public terror in anyone who contemplates speaking up, criticising etc. The act of public humiliation preempts the science since in this case humans are the subject. This was the purpose Lord Taverne set up Sense About Science in response to calls from we don’t know where.
Ye olde Swedish proverb…
Man ska inte sälja skinnet förrän björnen är skjuten.
Don’t sell the pelt until you’ve killed the bear.
GSK, Andrew Witty, David Healy And The ‘Transparency’ Principle
Not just an anecdote/David Healy
A message for big pharma/David Healy
https://truthman30.wordpress.com/2012/11/28/gsk-transparency/
GSK @GSK 1h1 hour ago
Our CEO Andrew Witty has put on his festive knit to celebrate our staff raising £2m in 3 years for @savechildrenuk! #ChristmasJumperDay
https://twitter.com/GSK/status/809721183142813697
@pink03010921 14m
@GSK @savechildrenuk It is a splendid person. You are happy. Thank you so much
Hilarity with the Festive Knits…https://twitter.com/pink03010921…the fan
It has been 7 or 8 years since I began this journey of understanding and many times I have felt weary and resigned. But not now. Things are changing, and have been changing for a while now – but recently it seems the pace has quickened.
It may seem irrelevant to some, but global events can give an indication of this change. The system of information and control – the system of numbers and statistics which they have control over, the ‘Truth’ and the experts that explain it, are under constant attack in just about every sphere you can imagine – corporate science based medicine being one of these spheres. The ‘experts’ are scared they are about to lose their apparent monopoly on the truth, so have intensified their efforts (so things appear to be getting worse) – but in my mind, we are past the tipping point – they took a clobbering this year, and next year will be very, very interesting. Their credibility is at an all time low.
The more they try to tell the world that they know what is best for us and we must do as we are told, the worse things will get for them. The more they ignore peoples genuine concerns the more people will distrust them. The more they tell us the reason we disagree with them is because we are all stupid and incapable of understanding, the less people will believe them. Why is it going to be different now? – because they have been caught with their pants down too many times, they failed to close the lid in the free movement of information in time, and now their own methods of disseminating information are widely distrusted – and this distrust looks set to increase in this post truth, fake news era.
Now the ‘experts’ are telling us we can’t discern real news from fake news, and we must ask them what is real – what we feel and what we believe is now supposed to be in their hands… good luck with that one. What’s next from the experts? That Melinda Messenger is working for Vladimir Putin and it’s all a plot to kill off our girls?…. Russia did it!
Next year we will see a big defence of Statins – I am certain of that. And Sense about Science, Ben Goldacre and the Oxford set are going to get a shock at the response – I am certain of that also. Put simply, people can smell their bullshit now, and they won’t bullshit their way out so easily. Statins aren’t exactly the most defensible drugs in the world – they are not going to have an easy time of it.
Interesting times are up ahead. Please do note – I am not implying that Brexit or Trump for example are going to fix our problems – I am saying that at every opportunity the public have been given to kick our masters in the balls in 2016, they did. They may well have been kicking themselves in the balls too, by making these choices (who knows really?), but that isn’t the point. People saw a chance to send a message and they did despite a huge political, old media, new media, celebrity and corporate movement against them. The reaction from the establishment so far has been fear and bewilderment, propaganda and desperate attempts to subvert democracy and convince us we are all being controlled by the Kremlin…. And it just isn’t working for them.
So Ben and pals should ready themselves for a Brexit style backlash to their defence. The neoliberals (faux left) are in some trouble and their system of economics, politics and control based on the self-interested individual, is collapsing around them. Basically, they can take their blue pill society and shove it up their ass.
That is my reason to smile.
Ove, how we agree with your longing for some good change. As Christmas approaches, we get calls from friends, asking how things are for us this year. We tell them about RxISK and Seroxat (and RoAccutane) and all we’ve learnt, since we lost our son to all this medication and more. They don’t really know what to say to us, poor things. We say, ‘spread the word, save others, that’s what Olly wanted.’
There must be many in the pharmaceutical companies who know what they are covering up. Like you say, how fantastic it would be if some came out with information that was irrefutable and shocking enough to impress Governments and the public. We each have a life here, and presumably a purpose. We can do good, or we can participate in evil. When we die, maybe we just fade away to nothing. But what if we don’t? I’ve had 2 NDEs in my life, and I personally think we go on, and we look back and see what our purpose was. I wonder if any of these people working for Big Pharma ever give their next life a thought. I’d be seriously worried if I were them. Unless of course, they came out and blew some whistles. It’s never too late to find your conscience….
Following on…more MM in the ‘Public Domain’..
M Messenger provokes ‘this reaction’ from the ‘TV Doctor’:
Dr. Chris Steele said:
What upsets me, Melinda, is that you’ve done this in the public domain.
You could have done this privately.
This will affect people.
‘The level of hostility thrown at me was extreme’: Melinda Messenger hits back at how she was treated on This Morning over her decision NOT to …
Daily Mail · 16 hours ago
Melinda Messenger has hit back as to how she was treated while on This Morning earlier this week after revealing she won’t be giving her …
Melinda Messenger claims This Morning producers ‘briefed Holly Willoughby and Philip Schofield to limit what she could say’ in HPV jab …
http://www.thesun.co.uk · 18 hours ago
MELINDA Messenger has claimed there was “a huge amount of pressure” on This Morning presenters holly Willoughby and Phillip …
Melinda Messenger hits back at This Morning over controversial HPV debate: ‘The level of anger and hostility thrown at me was extreme’
OK Magazine · 17 hours ago
Earlier this week, the TV personality came under fire when she revealed that her daughter would not be given the vaccine that, according to the
MM hits
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4040514/The-level-hostility-thrown-extreme-Melinda-Messenger-hits-treated-Morning-decision-NOT-teenage-daughter-HPV-vaccine.html
An interesting statement of ideology “The Price of Precaution” was published by Sense About Science trustee, Michael Fitzpatrick, in the on-line journal “Spiked” c.2001. Of course, it is peculiar paradox that vaccines are a pecautionary measure but the message is that institutions and industries have priority over citizens. Fitzpatrick calls it “science” but ignores other things which in practice could take over even within institutions like human fallibility, fraud, greed, cover-ups etc. in the name of science. Fitzpatrick says some some very odd things. For instance:
“One train derailment led to the prolonged paralysis of the whole rail network. An outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease has resulted in the paralysis of much of the country, and has now led to the postponement of the general election. If the economic cost of the precautionary measures far exceeds that of the problems that they are responding to, the cost in terms of the demoralisation of society is even higher..”
“But the object of medical research is to discover something about the cause of a disease and how to prevent or treat it – not to feel the pain of disease sufferers and their families or to patronise or indulge them by pretending that the experience of disease confers special insights into it… ”
Of course, in the case of illness it might be rather important whether ordinary people benefit. The might even have informed and educated views about what has happened to them or their relatives. It was generally the case that even back then that public consultations were so much window dressing (I even took part in a couple myself and felt a bit compromised in the end) but one has to admit the incredible triumph of the government-industrial lobby in medicine a decade and a half later. On the other hand maybe the trains have got safer, and maybe that is no bad thing even if we are demoralised.
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/11745#.WFRwf32bvcw
I caught this short video. Admittedly, I did not fact the information contained on it but thought it worthy of sharing
https://www.facebook.com/DavidAvocadoWolfe/videos/10154005840856512/
People seem incapable of critically evaluating the data showing the harms caused by vaccines, whose causal connection to autism is unquestionable.
Currently, there is a case in litigation, here’s an excerpt:
“Raritan, NJJohnson & Johnson (J&J) reportedly faces an $800 million Levaquin lawsuit, alleging the company hid vital information about side effects linked to the drug. Plaintiffs in the Levaquin antibiotic lawsuit allege Johnson & Johnson, and its subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals, deliberately mislabeled Levaquin. In addition to J&J being named in the lawsuit, former FDA commissioner Margaret Hamberg is also listed and faces allegations of violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.”
https://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/articles/levaquin/levaquin-antibiotics-lawsuit-side-effects-5-21320.html
Do people seriously, can they seriously believe when these slimy drug companies are not required to be responsible, not required to disclose, not even required to participate in the legal proceedings in Vaccine Court, where non-disclosure agreements are signed and public money compensates the victims of Big HARM, those drugs, they’re fine…., perfectly safe and effective, trust was, we are Big HARMA.
Having watched the entire documentary series recently called ‘Vaccines Revealed’, I was (not really) surprised to learn that the HPV strains that the vaccine is meant to protect against are not the strains that are normally contracted in the developed world! So much for encouraging everyone here to have it…
In the US, I also understand that they are planning to give it to babies, rather than teenagers. Good luck with that then.