The article I cited reported that breast fed infants wind up getting up to 1000 times as much aluminum from vaccines as from diet. That is the empirical result that paper was reporting. The rest is window dressing which would be at best the authors opinion.
The question of whether getting that amount of aluminum is toxic is more complicated. The natural experiment is to scale it for weight and inject it into post natal mice. That experiment has been done and reports they suffer great developmental damage. There’s also a fair amount of epidemiology that bears on the subject, which also suggests the aluminum is causing damage. Its highly correlated with autism, for example. I reviewed the literature all with links to about 3 dozen citations at http://whyarethingsthisway.com/2014/03/08/example-1-pediatrician-belief-is-opposite-the-published-scientific-evidence-on-early-vaccine-safety/
Also, I suggest to you that there is demonstrably very strong crowd think effects on the subject of vaccines. A phenomenon of crowd think is persecution of heretics. In such a climate, scientists publishing results that challenge the orthodoxy have to tread very sensitively indeed if they wish to avoid the inquisition. And they often respond to this by adding various flowery prose to their publications such as that which you mention, mitigating the distaste of having to report such contrary results. If you wish to understand crowd think better, I recommend:
http://whyarethingsthisway.com/2014/03/22/why-are-the-pediatricians-so-confused-about-the-actual-state-of-the-scientific-literature/
There’s no “inquisition” in medicine. There’s peer review to ensure you did your homework, and government agencies to ensure you don’t hurt (too many) people.
window dressing which would be at best the authors opinion [...] various flowery prose [...] mitigating the distaste
What criterion are you using to select what counts as fact and what is immaterial? How would you identify an author who is being reasonably cautious not to make any unjustified statements?
There’s no “inquisition” in medicine.
That’s an unsupported opinion I believe is false.
Laura Hewitson and Andrew Wakefield are immediate counterexamples that come to mind. I expect any Doctor that took a public position against vaccination would come under a lot of social pressure at least, and may well lose job or opportunities.
What criterion are you using to select what counts as fact and what is immaterial? How would you identify an author who is being reasonably cautious not to make any unjustified statements?
I don’t look to authors to make statements or draw conclusions. If I can’t draw the conclusion myself, its not valid. I look to authors to report empirical data, and maybe spell out a proof or calculation of its implications, but if I can’t personally follow the proof or calculation of the implications, then its not valid. The point of the scientific literature is, its supposed to be verifiable by scientists, so I look at it in that spirit. The scientists writing it are really supposed to keep their opinions out of it, but when they can’t help themselves the readers should exercise judgement themselves.
I am looking at the questions as semantic, as being questions about the physics of the world, and understanding it as a physicist should. What’s relevant is what’s relevant to answering the physics questions such as “are vaccines causing damage?” and is decided by the physics of the world and rationality.
I wasn’t aware of Ms. Hewitson, but it appears she can’t devise a proper experimental design to save her life. As for Mr. (and most decidedly not Dr.) Wakefield, charlatan is the kindest word I can apply to him. His link between vaccination and autism has been disproved over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.
I could cite other articles showing Wakefield was right on the science. For example, multiple peer reviewed articles showing that vaccine strain measles is in fact found in the guts of autistics but not of normal kids. Also, all the articles you cited talk about whether MMR causes autism. What does that have to do with whether Wakefield was attacked for even saying negative things about vaccines? None of those articles show fraud, or misconduct or that Wakefield was even wrong on anything, (I don’t believe, didn’t always read further than abstract) all they show is data supposedly showing that MMR doesn’t cause autism. Wakefield never claimed it did, he just discussed the issue scientifically. Why did Wakefield have to leave his job and country for publishing science on the other side?
Also, btw, none of those articles shows what their titles say: there isn’t a one of them for example, that looks at whether the aluminum load in vaccines causes autism or is sensitive to the issue. There isn’t a one of them that looks at whether more vaccines earlier is more likely to cause autism than less later (although Stefano is sometimes misrepresented in that fashion.) The evidence on those issues is a resounding yes, if they cared to look at it. They have all carefully cherry-picked the data.
I could also argue the same on Hewitson. Hewitson was the only person I’m aware of to inject actual vaccines into post-natal animals. And she found they damaged the animals. If people don’t like her experiments, my question is: why didn’t anybody repeat them, rather than go on blithely hoping they are wrong and the kids are not being damaged?
Shouldn’t such experiments be done before you start injecting dozens and dozens of vaccines into every infant in the country?
But I’m not interested in arguments that are purely about ad hominem attacks. The point here is to prove to you that doctors who speak out about their understanding that actual science is against vaccines are punished and/or prevented from communicating. Here’s another citation. This Dr. has had to cancel her speaking tour because of pro-vaccine terrorism.
https://www.facebook.com/vaccineinfo/posts/10152993156565891?fref=nf
The article I cited reported that breast fed infants wind up getting up to 1000 times as much aluminum from vaccines as from diet. That is the empirical result that paper was reporting. The rest is window dressing which would be at best the authors opinion. The question of whether getting that amount of aluminum is toxic is more complicated. The natural experiment is to scale it for weight and inject it into post natal mice. That experiment has been done and reports they suffer great developmental damage. There’s also a fair amount of epidemiology that bears on the subject, which also suggests the aluminum is causing damage. Its highly correlated with autism, for example. I reviewed the literature all with links to about 3 dozen citations at http://whyarethingsthisway.com/2014/03/08/example-1-pediatrician-belief-is-opposite-the-published-scientific-evidence-on-early-vaccine-safety/
Also, I suggest to you that there is demonstrably very strong crowd think effects on the subject of vaccines. A phenomenon of crowd think is persecution of heretics. In such a climate, scientists publishing results that challenge the orthodoxy have to tread very sensitively indeed if they wish to avoid the inquisition. And they often respond to this by adding various flowery prose to their publications such as that which you mention, mitigating the distaste of having to report such contrary results. If you wish to understand crowd think better, I recommend: http://whyarethingsthisway.com/2014/03/22/why-are-the-pediatricians-so-confused-about-the-actual-state-of-the-scientific-literature/
There’s no “inquisition” in medicine. There’s peer review to ensure you did your homework, and government agencies to ensure you don’t hurt (too many) people.
What criterion are you using to select what counts as fact and what is immaterial? How would you identify an author who is being reasonably cautious not to make any unjustified statements?
There’s no “inquisition” in medicine. That’s an unsupported opinion I believe is false. Laura Hewitson and Andrew Wakefield are immediate counterexamples that come to mind. I expect any Doctor that took a public position against vaccination would come under a lot of social pressure at least, and may well lose job or opportunities.
What criterion are you using to select what counts as fact and what is immaterial? How would you identify an author who is being reasonably cautious not to make any unjustified statements? I don’t look to authors to make statements or draw conclusions. If I can’t draw the conclusion myself, its not valid. I look to authors to report empirical data, and maybe spell out a proof or calculation of its implications, but if I can’t personally follow the proof or calculation of the implications, then its not valid. The point of the scientific literature is, its supposed to be verifiable by scientists, so I look at it in that spirit. The scientists writing it are really supposed to keep their opinions out of it, but when they can’t help themselves the readers should exercise judgement themselves. I am looking at the questions as semantic, as being questions about the physics of the world, and understanding it as a physicist should. What’s relevant is what’s relevant to answering the physics questions such as “are vaccines causing damage?” and is decided by the physics of the world and rationality.
I wasn’t aware of Ms. Hewitson, but it appears she can’t devise a proper experimental design to save her life. As for Mr. (and most decidedly not Dr.) Wakefield, charlatan is the kindest word I can apply to him. His link between vaccination and autism has been disproved over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.
I could cite other articles showing Wakefield was right on the science. For example, multiple peer reviewed articles showing that vaccine strain measles is in fact found in the guts of autistics but not of normal kids. Also, all the articles you cited talk about whether MMR causes autism. What does that have to do with whether Wakefield was attacked for even saying negative things about vaccines? None of those articles show fraud, or misconduct or that Wakefield was even wrong on anything, (I don’t believe, didn’t always read further than abstract) all they show is data supposedly showing that MMR doesn’t cause autism. Wakefield never claimed it did, he just discussed the issue scientifically. Why did Wakefield have to leave his job and country for publishing science on the other side?
Also, btw, none of those articles shows what their titles say: there isn’t a one of them for example, that looks at whether the aluminum load in vaccines causes autism or is sensitive to the issue. There isn’t a one of them that looks at whether more vaccines earlier is more likely to cause autism than less later (although Stefano is sometimes misrepresented in that fashion.) The evidence on those issues is a resounding yes, if they cared to look at it. They have all carefully cherry-picked the data.
I could also argue the same on Hewitson. Hewitson was the only person I’m aware of to inject actual vaccines into post-natal animals. And she found they damaged the animals. If people don’t like her experiments, my question is: why didn’t anybody repeat them, rather than go on blithely hoping they are wrong and the kids are not being damaged? Shouldn’t such experiments be done before you start injecting dozens and dozens of vaccines into every infant in the country?
But I’m not interested in arguments that are purely about ad hominem attacks. The point here is to prove to you that doctors who speak out about their understanding that actual science is against vaccines are punished and/or prevented from communicating. Here’s another citation. This Dr. has had to cancel her speaking tour because of pro-vaccine terrorism. https://www.facebook.com/vaccineinfo/posts/10152993156565891?fref=nf