Let's see, scientists who warn us about global warning are accurate;

[hedgehog]

scientists who document evolution are accurate, scientists who tell us the world is millions of years old are accurate, scientists who document the effects of pollution are accurate, scientists who warn us off of corn syrup and trans-fats are accurate but scientists who develop vaccines are money grabbing ignorant monsters.

Did I get that right?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Actually...

and least one of the few hear against gardasil is a Creationist. And I bet if you scratch a bit under the surface you'll also find people who doubt global warming, people who don't think a jet crashed into the pentagon, etc.

[Taxloss]

2. Very good.

Rec'd.

[JuniperLea]

3. No, you didn't get it right

It's big pharma.

Money talks. Ask Halliburton. Ask the scientists who joined forces with W to try and lend credence to his saying there's no such thing as global warming.

This whole argument started because some people don't want to be forced into vaccinating their young girls against a sexually transmitted disease. That is their right. Deal.

[Canuckistanian]

13. I'm all for people's rights, but do you have a specific beef against Gardasil?

Is it NOT in the public interest? Is it NOT the most effective preventative against HPV? Is HPV NOT a significant cause of cervical cancer?

There are PLENTY of examples of mandatory medical treatments for preventable diseases. Typhoid, tuberculosis, rubella, mumps, scarlet fever, malaria, polio and others have been mandated at one time or another for control in the public interest.

Is there some specific reason that Gardasil (an almost 100% preventative for HPV) should be excluded from such a category?

Is it that Big Pharma is making too much profit from it? They make too much profit from almost all products they make.

If you want the "right" to refuse publically ordered treatments for these diseases, then go off and live in your own own cult compound and watch your daughters suffer and perhaps die from this PREVENTABLE disease.

And stay out of my neighborhood.

I'm finished.

[JuniperLea]

31. Get a grip

And take your rant elsewhere. It makes no sense in the context of my post.

You are talking about how things should be, how they are. It's a new world, and not a pretty one. Money trumps public safety.

Whether you like it or not, there are people who do not want to vaccinate their daughters against a sexually transmitted disease. And it is there right to refuse. Deal. There are many who feel there is a benefit to the old fashioned way of thinking... don't sleep around... and that is their right. I'm sure they will stay far away from your slutty neighborhood.

Jeez. People need to get a grip and live and let live a little. There is nothing liberal about forcing crap on people.

[ebayfool]

33. Slutty neighborhood? Are you implying that only sluts contract HPV or cervical cancer?

I want to be very sure what you meant by that statement.

Although Gordon Liddy calls this the slut vaccine, I'm furious to hear his spew repeated ... esp on DU.

[JuniperLea]

36. In case you missed it

Someone else just insulted me and my daughter, without even considering what I just said. I merely took that stupidity and turned it back around on that person. Perhaps a sarcasm emoticon was in order, but I thought if people were reading the post to which I replied, it would become self-evident.

[ebayfool]

37. So, in turn, you insult every woman that has had to deal w/cervical cancer &/or HPV ...

by repeating a fundy/right-wing/anti-vaccine talking point?

I read the post ... your slut comment stands on it's own - it was not justified! Many of us have dealt w/this scourge, either personally or w/friends or DAUGHTERS of our own!

And a sarcasm smiley doesn't ameliorate the insensitivity of such a slur!

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ebayfool]

46. Good idea, try it yourself! Telling me to go fuck myself shows you need to ...

"get a grip". And completely puts to lie your claim below that you were "...merely defending someone else's right to think a certain way."

I guess that's only when they approve of your statements @ sluts & the vaccine.


"People have no live and let live left in them these days."

Indeed.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

34. And there we have it.

Cervical cancer is God's cure for sluts.

[JuniperLea]

35. Oh please

I'm merely defending someone else's right to think a certain way. You stretch it a tad.

[AX10]

38. It's a smear against you.

[JuniperLea]

42. Yep

People have no live and let live left in them these days. They want to force their beliefs upon everyone else, yet they are the first to cry foul when someone else does the same to them. I get so frustrated at the ignorance and the hypocrisy.

[TZ]

23. don't sterotype please

Some in the industry might be like that but not all of us as I have been trying to say.

[JuniperLea]

30. I wasn't!

I clearly named the group of scientists and did in no way cast a blanket over them all. YOU cast a blanket over them all and I merely lifted a corner to expose the rotten apples among the good.

[StClone]

4. Never heard of this before

Each item above is a Science concept except the last one which I see as in a different class. So, are you talking of the Science (the searching) or the Pharma Corps (for profit)? There is also the mercury-based preservative thing that may account for some suspicions.

[kestrel91316]

9. Virology, immunology, vaccine development and vaccine

production are all HARD SCIENCE.

Just try asking a Harvard MBA to go whip up a batch of rabies vaccine. He won't understand word one of any instructions or rationale for doing anything. Heck, he probably doesn't even kno;w the definition of a virus or vaccine.

[StClone]

14. Not to be a Sneech

Technology is the application of Science to make and do things. Science is the search for plausible answers to questions that may or may not have any real value other than to slake curiosity. :hi:

[kestrel91316]

18. Oh, you just had to go and say something like that, didn't you?

LOL

Hey, but I bet YOU at least know the difference between treatment and prevention...............

[Az]

5. There are acedemic and research scientists and then there are corporate scientists

And unfortunately due to a great deal of misunderstanding about the scientific process many people can be confused due to contradictory claims.

[AX10]

6. I'm with Juniperx and StClone on this one.

The Scientists who developed the Nuclear Bomb were not "upstanding citizens". Yes, they were monsters.

[hedgehog]

10. I fully admit some scientists are narrow minded and don't envision

all the implications of their work.

For example, the scientists who tel us genetically altered crops are safe to eat are probably correct as far as that goes. However, they aren't considering the role of genetically altered crops in the greater environment.The real questions concern noxious weds picking up the same genes, nematodes developing immunity to the toxins some of these plants are programmed to produce, the effect of herbicide used to prep fields for these crops, the cost of seed to subsistence farmers, etc, etc.

Vaccine development is paid for both by non-profit and profit making entities. The history of vaccine development is rife with experiments that would be considered unethical today but were accepted in the past because people were familiar with the diseases involved and were desperate for a means of fighting them. Those of us who have grown up with anti-bio tics or in a vaccine protected world have no idea how terrifying some of those diseases are.

Would you forgo vaccines if bitten by a rabid dog? The rabies vaccine is based on the same theories as other vaccines.

Would you deny the knowledge of the immune system that has emerged in recent years? It's the same research that has everyone so excited about fetal stem cells. It's being applied to engineer some newer vaccines based on the structure of the outer coating of virus or bacteria involved and have practically no side effects.

My husband and son travel to third world countries on a regular basis. You better believe that they'll get all their vaccines before they go.

[tabasco]

17. You don't think we should have built the bomb?

In the face of German efforts to build a bomb, we should not have made our own efforts?

Oh right, I forgot the Nazis were humanitarians and we should have given them the benefit of the doubt, that they would not build a nuke.

You don't think we should defend ourselves. Interesting.

[AX10]

27. Did we need to use it?

I'm not sure on that. Do not accuse me of being against "national defense". I find that comment ironic seeing how many on this side leftists, are against any form of defense/war whatsoever.

This is a smear against me: "You don't think we should defend ourselves."

:eyes:

[tabasco]

28. Consider the number of casualties that would have resulted in a

land assault of the home islands, to include continued massive conventional bombing to support the ground troops. The war would have continued at least another year and the number of casualties would have dwarfed the casualties from the a-bombs. The lives of the infantrymen on both sides were no less valuable than the people killed by the a-bombs. The bombs stopped the war and saved lives.

Personally, I think we could have dropped bomb on a relatively unpopulated area to demonstrate that we had it. Then, if there were no surrender, continue bombing military targets such as Hiroshima. But this is in hindsight. My parents were in that war and things were much different. It was a true war for the survival of our country, not like Bush's trumped-up war. I will not condemn the decision to bomb the port of Hiroshima first. It was either one sortie with a nuke or hundreds of sorties with conventional bombs. Neither one is very pleasant. War is terrible. The a-bombs stopped the war.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

41. Using that logic...

wouldn't it be justifiable for Iraqi insurgents to nuke New York City?

[JuniperLea]

44. I don't think we needed to use it

I think it was a big ego boost for the powers that were at that time, much like this evil, illegal current occupation is all about W's ego.

At this stage in human existence, I think it foolhardy to put absolute trust in any one group of human beings. I think it's utter nonsense to put full trust, literally trusting someone with our lives, when there is money involved. And yet there are those here who profess to be liberal thinkers, who will be the first to jump your case if you dare disagree with them. Interesting, isn't it?

[hedgehog]

7. I forgot to add, the scientists who will cure everything with fetal stem cell research.

[Az]

8. The point you are missing

Is that the cases you sited are well researched by numerous ... countless, scientists. The research for the Pharmeceutical industry is far less researched. There is no where near the credibility that evolution has or global warming. The pharma research may be correct but our scientific certainty of it is no where near the level of the other forms you mentioned.

[eppur_se_muova]

11. Proving the safety of a drug goes beyond pure science.

There are too many variables involved for a truly definitive evaluation without human testing. Scientists can run many different experiments to test various hypotheses and isolate variables, but in medicine you always face the wall of the 'forbidden experiment' -- you cannot try out each possibility on human patients just to see which ones are dangerous and which ones are not. Medical research always functions under this handicap of some information being unobtainable for ethical reasons.

When the profits of a corporation depend on a certain drug/therapy being accepted to be safe, there is an overpowering temptation to take the most optimistic interpretation as correct, and there is not enough scientific data to make that determination in an unbiased, objective way. This leads to medicines being introduced to market sooner, and gives the companies maximum time to collect patent royalties. Delay means more safety, but at the cost of diminished profits.

I'm not aware of any companies making money off of the acceptance of global warming, or of evolution. But more than a few seem to have their profits tied up in denying global warming. So the parallel with pharmaceutical company science/medicine just isn't there.

[TZ]

25. why do you think that?

The vaccine industry is composed of collaborations of pharmaceutical companies, biotech companies (both for profit and non-profit) and the government and even military. How is that not comphresensive science?

[Az]

39. Its a relative state

It is not as comprehensive as the research into evolution, global warming, and other big ticket fields. The research is typically single project studies looking into specific drugs. Entirely different levels of support. Add to the mix the difficulty of testing unproven drugs on human subjects.

The point I am trying to raise is that just because someone in a lab coat claims something is safe or dangerous does not make it true. In science it requires the voice of the scientific community to cross check and verify all work. You need a small army of people in lab coats verifying something is true or not to curry any confidence.

[leftchick]

12. follow the money

and you will find the answer as to why some scientists side with the Big Pharma companies, or with solid science.

[alittlelark]

15. I have $$$$ concerns....

Global Warming scientists - no $ either way
Anthropologists (evolution) - no $$$ either way
Paleontologists(et al) that give the earths age - no $ interest
Environmental Scientist could be swayed by $$$ - there are polluting Corporations that PAY for specific info.
Nutritionists etc could be paid off by companies - but there is sooooo much research facing in ONE direction.

Scientists that tell us this vaccine is GREAT (OH, it's only produced by ONE company and costs hundreds of dollars per dose) when it has had few and relatively small trials..... Oh, and the $$$$$$$$$$ teat big Pharma offers....

Color me curious and unconvinced.

[motocicleta]

16. Nope. Nice try, though.

See earlier comments re: the money.

[Katherine Brengle]

19. Dammit, you sucked me in...

I put a moratorium on me posting in vaccine threads lol.

But I likey your logic.

Of course, the anti-vaccinators will say things like, yeah but these scientists work for Big Pharma.

Well let me tell ya, everybody works for somebody. And when it comes to scientists talking about food - the food lobby is one of the most powerful in this country so... what can ya do. Have another Krispy Kreme and enjoy a nice childhood case of polio...

[Moby Grape]

20. define accurate

a 3 to 11 degree change,

on an amount of 290 degrees K., absolute.

does that inspire confidence?

note, the 290 is measured, they models don't explain that.

18 C, is about 290 K

[tkmorris]

21. Monsanto does hard science too

The trouble here is that the science is being performed for the purpose of profits. I am certain that Monsanto and Merck both have some very good people working for them, but it isn't the scientists who make the final decision to take an unproven product to market, it's businessmen.

I don't really have a horse in this race at the moment. We have a daughter, and thus this subject is of some importance to us, but as of this moment I have not fully formed an opinion about this vaccine. I do know though that it would be irresponsible to trust Merck and it's claims about the vaccine simply because they have scientists working there. Especially when those scientists are paid for producing the results the businessmen want. Recent history is full of examples of scientists who reached the conclusions their benefactors paid them to, even when they were wrong.

[n2doc]

22. Earth Scientists are generally funded by Governments and non profits

While the proportion of medical scientists who get funding from big Pharma is much higher. And medical Doctors get all sorts of enticements from big Pharma. Not that it proves anything, but it does open up the door for abuse....

[JuniperLea]

45. Well said. n/t

[atommom]

24. Sadly, it appears that a lot of people would agree with that statement.

The fact is, none of us really think about risks in a scientific way. The things that make us afraid aren’t the most threatening dangers. But there are certain rules of thumb about the kinds of things we tend to fear. We are more afraid of insidious, unseeable and rare dangers than the obvious ones. You’re more likely to drown in a bathtub than get eaten by a shark, but it’s the shark that lurks beneath the surface. Avian flu is no threat compared to hospital infections, but routine staph infections don’t breed in chickens in the mysterious Far East. Lack of control also breeds fear, which helps explain why people generally feel safer talking on a cell phone while speeding down a rush-hour freeway than they do sitting with tray tables in an upright and locked position on a commercial airliner. And we’re more likely to worry about chronic diseases like cancer and polio, which strike unpredictably and last for years, than the quick, deadly ones like pneumonia and heart attack. We are especially afraid of ailments caused by socially illicit acts or that produce strange behaviors–syphilis, schizophrenia, AIDS–or whose causes are unknown–think autism. Vaccines are especially likely to provoke irrational fear. You’re sticking a needle into a healthy baby, after all. Babies get sick, often, and they cry all the time. There’s a great likelihood that a baby will get sick sometime soon after getting a vaccination. When you get sick after a meal in a restaurant, you tend not to go back to that establishment–even if that steak you ate was well-cooked. Likewise, people whose kids got ill after a vaccine are likely to link the two. This helps explain the great appeal of the vaccines-cause-autism theory.
(snip)
The problem with the growing number of vaccine skeptics in the U.S. is this: a single parent may make a calculated risk not to vaccinate their child, and escape unscathed. After all, polio is pretty much vanquished around the world, measles is rare in the United States, and whooping cough doesn't usually kill your kids, though it may make them very sick. But if too many parents who know better make the decision not to vaccinate, it will poke holes in the network of protection that decades of vaccination have built up in this country through herd immunity–the more people who are vaccinated, the safer our "herd," as the germs find fewer bodies in which to grow and spread. Considering the amount of dedicated time and effort that have gone into this lifesaving measure, that would be a terrible thing. So listen to your pediatrician's advice. Unless you have a really good reason not to, vaccinate.

http://vaccinethebook.typepad.com/mt/2006/12/how_to_think_ab.html

It's not surprising at all that parents prone to antivaccination beliefs have family histories of illness or an interest in alternative medicine such as homeopathy, as much of "alternative medicine" is hostile to vaccination. It's also quite common for religious beliefs to play a role. However, I would quibble somewhat with whether that apparent "sophisticated" understanding of the issues involved is actually as sophisticated as it appears on the surface. In some cases it may be, but far more often it's a superficial understanding that has little depth, mainly because few lay people have the detailed scientific and medical background to apply the information. It's often a matter of knowing facts, but not having the scientific experience, understanding of mechanisms, or sophistication to put them in context or to apply them to the situation properly, giving the veneer of scientific sophistication. I can't remember how many times that, while "debating" in misc.health.alternative, I would have a study quoted to me as supporting an antivaccination or other alternative medicine viewpoint and find that, when I actually took the trouble to look up the study and download the PDF of the actual article rather than just reading the abstract (which is all most lay people have access to and therefore all they read), I would find a far more nuanced and reasonable point or even that the article didn't support what the altie was saying. One other aspect that often comes into play is an extreme distrust of conventional medicine and/or the government such that few individual studies that question the safety of vaccines are given far more weight in their minds than the many more studies that show vaccines to be extraordinarily safe or large metanalyses (such as those done by the Cochrane Collaboration). Certainly this is one reason why the infamous Wakefield study, despite being shoddily designed and now thoroughly discredited, keeps rearing its ugly head again and again and continues to be cited by antivaccination activists as strong evidence that the MMR vaccine causes autism.

It's not surprising, too, that parents would place more value on whether vaccination benefits their children over the benefits to society through herd immunity. After all, a mother's and father's primary duty is to their own child, not other children. Part of the problem here is likely a matter of vaccination being a victim of its own success. Before, a one or two in a million risk of serious adverse reactions wasn't even blinked at because the diseases vaccines were designed to prevent were common and feared, so much so that it was an no-brainer to consider the risk of vaccination to be acceptable compared to the risk of disease. Now that major vaccine-preventable diseases have been largely controlled or eradicated, the benefit of vaccines in keeping disease at bay is no longer readily apparent in the daily experience of parents, leading to a situation where even the very small risk of serious adverse events from vaccination seems too high for a benefit that that parents cannot see for themselves. Also, parents tend not to understand that their participating in producing a larger pool of unvaccinated children endangers not only other children (both vaccinated and unvaccinated because no vaccine is 100% effective), but their own children, because, as vaccination rates fall, the diseases vaccinated against almost inevitably return.

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/01/the_sociology_of_the_antivaccination.php

[TZ]

26. If there is so much money involved in making vaccines

why does the UN (amoung other international groups such as WHO) practically have to go begging to get money to buy vaccines (such as polio btw) for poor third world countries. Wouldn't that bring lots of money to Big Pharma by your lights? I will admit there is some truth to the fact that sometimes drug companies push drugs onto the market with profit as the driving forces. Vaccine development/production despite what people say is not profitable. Which is way many jobs in the manufacturing of vaccines are shipped overseas and that has led to shortages in the flu vaccines in the us in the last few years:eyes:

[atommom]

29. People assume anything Big Pharma is involved with must involve big money.

But obviously, that's not true in the case of vaccines.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

32. When there isn't a vaccine du jour...

people complain about how "big pharma" doesn't make vaccines because they aren't profitable.

[The Straight Story]

43. Scientists are the preachers of the 21st century

the more a person puts in their collection plate the more they will tell them what they want to hear.

[mhatrw]

47. The entire history of science is the history of being right about some things while

being completely wrong about others. This history will continue to repeat itself. Such is the nature of science.