Developer Of Hpv Vaccines Comes Clean, Warns Parents: Giant Deadly Sca

[Gabriela]

FYI: The CDC just called my house conducting a childhood vaccination survey. (No kidding.)

 

I told them I'm a pious Catholic with 20 kids and none of them are vaccinated because vaccinations are of the devil.

[AnneLine]

Curiousing... :evil:   :hehe2:

 

I dunno about this.   I do think some of the terror about vaccines is just that -- terror.   Mostly they are good things that save lives.  We owe Edward Jenner a huge debt of gratitude for helping us wipe out smallpox.  Kids and adults don't have to be terrified to go swimming each summer because of polio....

 

BUT.... I also have a very healthy skepticism about the value of some vaccines... and the ONLY times I have gotten the flu have been the years that I took the vaccine.   My health professional blandly assures me that it was pure coincidence... and that I would have gotten it worse if I Hadn't had the shot.... but ya know... I'm not so sure.

 

What I DO know for sure is that I had a first hand look at a vaccine gone wrong at my very first job.  The Manager in our department who was a guy who was probably in his late 40's  (seemed old to me, but I was only 18....) took a routine Swine Flu vaccine.   And had a bad reaction.  A REALLY bad reaction.... In fact, he never could move his right arm again.  Nor most of the right side of his body.  Nor speak clearly.  And he ended up having to take an early retirement.   There were a lot of people who had that reaction in 1973-4.  And it has made me VERY wary of flu vaccinations.

 

And a lot of guys going into the military get routinely ordered to take a huge number of vaccinations... and well, it just doesn't work out too well for some of them.  Like the brother of one of my friends.  Who now is in a box under 6 feet of dirt.

 

So, yes, I get the scientific part, but it is awful hard to ignore stuff like that... it also is empirical evidence....

 

I keep up the major ones, my boosters for rabies, etc. are in order...  but NO I don't take that flu vaccine.  Not interested.

[AnneLine]

And as far as the HPV... I am not convinced it is really about preventing cancer... I think it is much more about tacitly being part of a package with condoms and or other devices and pills and 'you can do what you want, just be careful' instructions. 

 

That sells our kids short... and sets them up for really serious problems down the road. 

 

But I don't have kids, I might feel differently if I did..... I could be wrong....

[Lilllabettt]

yeah, but anecdotal evidence does not meet the definition of empirical evidence. It's not really "evidence" in the scientific sense of the word.

science has important limits but helping us to know what is best practice in terms of medicine is not one of them.

 

I think with the gardasil a lot of the resistance is from the idea that women who get cervical cancer are hypersexual, promiscuous, or "dirty." i.e., If i'm not dirty, my daughter isn't dirty, we are not "those" kind of people, then we do not need the vaccine.

[AnneLine]

Good points, Lilllabettt... and you are right, I offered an anecdotal rather than an empirical argument.  Yup.  :paperbag:

[Maggyie]

Lilla I absolutely agree most of the anti-hpv stuff is driven by "purity" concerns! In fact I remember reading a LifeSite News article that specifically harped on this.

 

In fact - giving your daughter the vaccine doesn't mean you're assuming she'll have premarital sex.

 

It means you're NOT assuming you are raising a sinless child or that she will marry a sinless man. It means you don't think your daughter should pay for being sexually active with her life or her body parts.

 

I mean is that really part of our message on sexuality - don't do it or else you might get cancer and die a horrible painful death? BOO, scary? And then we are surprised when young people reject Christian values as little more than prudery.

 

I was a virgin on my wedding night and I had to deal with this.The small mindedness on this is so sad.

 

[Gabriela]

Actually, anecdotal evidence does meet the definition of "empirical" evidence:

 

empirical |emˈpirikəl|

adjective

based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic...

 

All empirical means is "observed" as opposed to "arrived at by logic/reason without observation".

 

"Scientific" evidence, on the other hand, is in fact a different thing.

 

Scientists have a nasty habit of ignoring rapidly mounting evidence—"anecdotal evidence"—provided by patients and the general public. If it wasn't discovered in a double-blind medical experiment, most scientists ignore it. Until someone's conscience starts to bother them and they decide to design an experiment that could actually catch what the public's been griping about for decades. And then, waddayaknow, they find it.

 

To dismiss all forms of knowing/evidence as hysterical or unreliable purely because they were not generated in a lab or by people credentialed with PhDs ("phuds", as we like to call them around my department) is intellectually arrogant. "Average people" are perfectly capable of generating knowledge for themselves from experience. In fact, that's all we had to go on for most of history. Yeah, that generated a lot of incorrect beliefs and very bad problems, but science has done the same. I don't dismiss the value of science and I am really happy to have it. I readily acknowledge it has solved a lot of problems and made our lives considerably better. But I don't think blindly following whatever doctors are feeding the public as the scientific plat du jour is wise, either. As AnneLine says, some level of skepticism is not only healthy—it saves lives. Science is not infallible.

[GregorMendel]

:welcome: DanKegel. And I do believe that many vaccines are necessary & wonderful, but I have often wondered how detrimental it can be to some children to give their systems a bundle of vaccines all at once...& to be honest, I don't trust the HPV vaccine as it only targets a small number of the viruses (I mean, what are the odds of it actually protecting a person!)...I feel pretty much the same about the flu vaccine, but I do receive it since I work in the medical field. :)

While there are many serotypes of HPV, Gardasil is a quadrivalent vaccine that prevents infection by serotypes 6, 11, 16, and 18 which represent the two most common non-oncogenic and two most common oncogenic (associated with cancer) types. It is in this way that Gardisil is effective at preventing early malignant growths, and thus cancers, associated with HPV 16 and 18, by "only" being quadrivalent.

[GregorMendel]

I wonder how many people thought that way when the first Thalidomide babies were born? The C.D.C says the most severe reaction from the flu vaccine is Guillain-Barre Syndrome, GBS, which causes temporary to permanent neurological damage, has been associated with only one type of influenza vaccine. The CDC cites studies suggesting chances of acquiring GBS from current vaccines is less than one in a million. Wish I could find a lottery with those odds !....

I personally know a customer of mine who became paralyzed, losing the use of both his arms and legs from a flu vaccine. It took him over two years to regain the use of his limbs. He had no recourse as the paper he signed listed that as a possible side effect...

In truth most of these cures and preventative vaccines are rushed out for the good of the Pharm companies, big money sometimes outweighs other considerations...

Has anyone ever heard the side effects of the popular Bi-polar drug Abilify? This is a link to that list as its far to long to try to write or copy here, http://www.drugs.com/sfx/abilify-side-effects.html , funny thing on the TV commercial they repeat most of these and add at the end " in rare cases death"

ed

Thalidomide is exactly why the FDA has developed such strict requirements for drug development and proving efficacy on the part of manufacturers since 1962. There will always be a risk that unknown side effects will come to light when the drug hits market or that companies may be able to hide unfavorable findings, but these risks have been greatly reduced through regulation by the FDA, which mandates post-market (Phase 4) trials of all new drugs and the most intense scrutiny of a company's documentation imaginable. It is simply not possible to rush out a new drug, and even if it was, the fines and lawsuits that would accompany shoddy development would be pennies compared to the loss of the average $1 Billion dollars and 10 years required to bring a drug to market.

[Lilllabettt]

Actually, anecdotal evidence does meet the definition of "empirical" evidence:

 

empirical |emˈpirikəl|

adjective

based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic...

 

All empirical means is "observed" as opposed to "arrived at by logic/reason without observation".

 

I have to disagree. What we refer to as anecdotal "evidence" is not really "evidence" - so it cannot be "empirical evidence" -- it may have an empirical character but it is not actually empirical evidence.  I mean evidence in the strict definition of the term, not the squishy colloquial version.  The key term in the definition you provide is "verifiable." Another way of saying verifiable is replicable. Replicability is central to the concept of empiricism.

 

For example, if I see a black cat and stub my toe, my anecdotal experience suggests to me that seeing black cats is correlated with stubbing toes. It is empirical in that I experienced/observed it. But it can't be called empirical evidence -- it is not actually any kind of evidence. Despite my experience there remains no verifiable evidence that black cats are correlated with stubbed toes.

 

We also have a superfluity of anecdotes suggesting alien visitation of earth, elvis living in utah, and big foot stomping around Appalachia. The data is empirical in that people have observed or experienced things which suggest to them that aliens are on earth, elvis lives and big foot likes beef jerky.  None of these experiences are empirical evidence. None of them are verifiable or replicable. 

 

Vaccine safety is a well studied area, but I have yet to see a single article in a peer-reviewed journal with results that call into question the safety statistics put out by the CDC, APA, etc. Links or it didn't happen.  There is the risk of confirmation bias, yes, but it doesn't follow that we can then say the lack of evidence is itself evidence.
 

[Winchester]

Every time some idiot equates the HPV vaccine with sexual permissiveness, God kills a kitten.

 

So please, idiots, shut the Hell up.

[Gabriela]

I have to disagree. What we refer to as anecdotal "evidence" is not really "evidence" - so it cannot be "empirical evidence" -- it may have an empirical character but it is not actually empirical evidence.  I mean evidence in the strict definition of the term, not the squishy colloquial version.  The key term in the definition you provide is "verifiable." Another way of saying verifiable is replicable. Replicability is central to the concept of empiricism.

 

For example, if I see a black cat and stub my toe, my anecdotal experience suggests to me that seeing black cats is correlated with stubbing toes. It is empirical in that I experienced/observed it. But it can't be called empirical evidence -- it is not actually any kind of evidence. Despite my experience there remains no verifiable evidence that black cats are correlated with stubbed toes.

 

We also have a superfluity of anecdotes suggesting alien visitation of earth, elvis living in utah, and big foot stomping around Appalachia. The data is empirical in that people have observed or experienced things which suggest to them that aliens are on earth, elvis lives and big foot likes beef jerky.  None of these experiences are empirical evidence. None of them are verifiable or replicable. 

 

Vaccine safety is a well studied area, but I have yet to see a single article in a peer-reviewed journal with results that call into question the safety statistics put out by the CDC, APA, etc. Links or it didn't happen.  There is the risk of confirmation bias, yes, but it doesn't follow that we can then say the lack of evidence is itself evidence.
 

 

Your definition of "evidence" is circular. You simply assume that "anecdotes" can't be evidence by defining "evidence" to exclude them, i.e., by defining it scientifically. In fact, anecdotal evidence is often a perfectly rational way of arriving at a conclusion—provided the inference made is valid.

 

Verifiable and replicable are not the same thing. Yes, both are central to the scientific method, but they don't refer to the same construct. I can verify that Napoleon is buried in Les Invalides, but I can't replicate that. So, everything replicable is verifiable, but not everything verifiable is replicable.

 

As for alien visitation of earth, Elvis living in Utah, and Big Foot living in Appalachia, they are logically verifiable, but not practically so. They are obviously not replicable for the same reason that the Napoleon example is not. But you seem to be dismissing these arguments not on the basis of the impossibility of verifiability/replicability, but on the basis of their being absurd. Absurdity typically arises from bad inferences, not verifiability/replicability, and in your examples, it is indeed the inferences from what was observed to the explanations of aliens/Elvis/Big Foot that makes the examples absurd. Occam's Razor kills these inferences, not their anecdotal nature.

 

Incidentally, bad inferences are also the primary plague of bad science. There is no shortage of journal articles on this. But your blind faith in peer-reviewed journal articles is as questionable as your blind faith in science. If you think that peer review guarantees legitimacy, or that it guarantees all necessary approaches to a question have been exhausted, then you haven't looked at peer review with a critical eye to all of its consequences. Academics are constantly lamenting that peer review slows scientific progress, that it serves to perpetuate the (often bad) scientific status quo, that it hinders genuine innovation and creativity, etc.

 

Remember Kuhn.

 

 

[Lilllabettt]

\But your blind faith in peer-reviewed journal articles is as questionable as your blind faith in science. If you think that peer review guarantees legitimacy, or that it guarantees all necessary approaches to a question have been exhausted, then you haven't looked at peer review with a critical eye to all of its consequences. Academics are constantly lamenting that peer review slows scientific progress, that it serves to perpetuate the (often bad) scientific status quo, that it hinders genuine innovation and creativity, etc.

 

au contraire. there is a lot of crap in peer reviewed journals, especially with all the pay-to-publish stuff going on. But I think it is a minimum hurdle to clear. it is a low hurdle, too. But I haven't seen any anti-vax stuff get past it. Have you? Once again: links or it didn't happen.
 

[Gabriela]

au contraire. there is a lot of croutons in peer reviewed journals, especially with all the pay-to-publish stuff going on. But I think it is a minimum hurdle to clear. it is a low hurdle, too. But I haven't seen any anti-vax stuff get past it. Have you? Once again: links or it didn't happen.
 

 

My argument isn't that the scientific community has ever said vaccinations may be harmful in any way, so links to peer-reviewed journals are irrelevant. The journals are YOUR standard for "proof", not mine. And given what I've said about peer review serving as a gate keeper of the status quo, it should be evident that I wouldn't expect to find anti-vaccination research in a peer-reviewed journal. I expect to find evidence for the danger of vaccinations in people's lived experience—people who are not powerful, educated, or academic enough to get their experiences into peer-reviewed journals.

 

My argument is that:

 

1) The scientific community may be wrong about vaccinations (all or some), because science is not infallible and often reverses or qualifies what it's said in the past once it discovers new evidence.

 

2) The medical community is subject to a good deal of corruption because of the financial interests of pharmaceutical companies in rushing products (including vaccinations) to market.

 

3) The "common people" are not as stupid as elitist scientists would like to make them out to be. In fact, the "average person" has a good deal of sense and knows very well how to make good, rational life-saving and health-preserving inferences based upon their experience.

 

I think it's fallacious and unfair for people who are pro-vaccination to leap to the conclusion that people who are anti-vaccination must be ignorant hillbilly snake-handlers who only oppose vaccinations because they're scientifically illiterate. There are many reasons to oppose vaccinations, and people's reasons for doing so are typically diverse, complex, finely nuanced, and very personal. To presume that giving such people a scientific education would automatically change their minds is foolish. One's stance on vaccinations is very much bound up with issues of trust in scientific research, medical institutions, government services, and social institutions generally, not to mention one's personal priorities, unique philosophical worldview, and life experiences.

 

To suggest that scientists will save people from themselves is condescending. People are more complicated than that. Worse than condescending, it is dangerous for us to believe that scientists are all-enlightened and all we need to improve our lives is heed everything they recommend.

[CrossCuT]

i dont even...

[CrossCuT]

Curiousing - a testimonial could be used as empirical evidence however you cant just HAVE a testimony. If you were in a court room this would likely be sufficient however in science its needs to be analyzed  quantitatively or qualitatively. The empirical evidence needs to either prove or disprove something via testing.

 

The typical observations in regards to vaccines are "The MMR vaccines gave my child autism". This testimony has been tested and disproved. 

That observation alone holds no ground what so ever in being "evidence".

 

Peer review is also a cool thing because its just multiple people fact checking. And scientists love to toot their own horn so they will work as HARD as they can to find holes in a hypothesis in order to puff out their chest.

 

[Gabriela]

Curiousing - a testimonial could be used as empirical evidence however you cant just HAVE a testimony. If you were in a court room this would likely be sufficient however ***in science*** its needs to be analyzed  quantitatively or qualitatively. The empirical evidence needs to either prove or disprove something via testing.

 

I'm not denying that it works this way IN SCIENCE. I'm saying testimony/personal experience is NOT science and can be a perfectly rational, legitimate basis on which INDIVIDUALS (not the scientific community) may build their beliefs about vaccinations. My point is: People like you and me may have rational, respect-worthy beliefs and attitudes about vaccinations WITHOUT those beliefs/attitudes being based on science.

 

Might those beliefs/attitudes be wrong? Yes. But they may nonetheless be justifiable, understandable, defendable, etc., given a person's experience with vaccinations.

 

Likewise, the scientific community's beliefs about vaccinations may also be wrong. Science is constantly discovering new things that prove previous beliefs wrong.

[GregorMendel]

I'm not denying that it works this way IN SCIENCE. I'm saying testimony/personal experience is NOT science and can be a perfectly rational, legitimate basis on which INDIVIDUALS (not the scientific community) may build their beliefs about vaccinations. My point is: People like you and me may have rational, respect-worthy beliefs and attitudes about vaccinations WITHOUT those beliefs/attitudes being based on science.

Might those beliefs/attitudes be wrong? Yes. But they may nonetheless be justifiable, understandable, defendable, etc., given a person's experience with vaccinations.

Likewise, the scientific community's beliefs about vaccinations may also be wrong. Science is constantly discovering new things that prove previous beliefs wrong.

You had me until the last line, which is really the only point I think we disagree with you on. While imaginative leaps are necessary in science, there is no room for "belief"-driven results, much less a collectively agreed upon belief on vaccination. A result is either positive or negative regardless of what you believe. We now know from more than 100 years of intense study the fundamental genetic and molecular reasons for immunity and exactly how it can be modified. There is no room for discussion; an antibody is an antibody is an antibody, and nothing "believed" to the contrary will alter its interaction with an antigen.

[CrossCuT]

I'm not denying that it works this way IN SCIENCE. I'm saying testimony/personal experience is NOT science and can be a perfectly rational, legitimate basis on which INDIVIDUALS (not the scientific community) may build their beliefs about vaccinations. My point is: People like you and me may have rational, respect-worthy beliefs and attitudes about vaccinations WITHOUT those beliefs/attitudes being based on science.

 

Might those beliefs/attitudes be wrong? Yes. But they may nonetheless be justifiable, understandable, defendable, etc., given a person's experience with vaccinations.

 

Likewise, the scientific community's beliefs about vaccinations may also be wrong. Science is constantly discovering new things that prove previous beliefs wrong.

 

Yeesh... every single person whether they are a scientist or not thinks the same way. Observe things, ask questions, and act accordingly in order to [hopefully] get a particular result. We ALL use the scientific method every day. 

 

You are still arguing the same thing that is observation (on a large scale) alone is proof. It is not. You are in essence doing the same thing the scientific community is doing however youre not going deep enough. YOUR method of testing is superficial observation. If you read an article or see something out of the ordinary you take that observation as proof. Just because you do not consider yourself part of the scientific community doesnt mean you can draw conclusions out of thin air.

 

As of right now, you have some observations and a hypothesis: vaccines are potentially bad. You have observations that you believe support this but the next step is to verify. Whether youre a scientist or not you cant just skip that step otherwise everything youre saying means nothing.

 

 

I also dont believe all things people observe are rational. Just like Lilllabettts example of stubbing her toe when she sees a cat. Its indeed an observation but is it rational? No.

Edited November 14, 2013 by CrossCuT

[CrossCuT]

Also, I wanted to add an observation to think about

 

100% of people diagnosed with cancer drink water.