Trump Appoints Antivaxxer to review vaccines

[Thanato]

Quote

Vaccination skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he will oversee a presidential panel to review vaccine safety and science at the request of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump in a move likely to reignite debate despite now-debunked research that tied childhood immunizations to autism.
 
"President-elect Trump has some doubts about the current vaccine policy, and he has questions about it," Kennedy, who has raised questions about the safety of vaccines, told reporters following a meeting with Trump in New York on Tuesday. "He asked me to chair a commission on vaccine safety and scientific integrity. I said I would."

Kennedy is the son of the late U.S. attorney general Robert Kennedy and the nephew of the late president John F Kennedy.

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/health/vaccines-1.3929481

Well that's trubling. Especially since it's already been heavily researched already and proven safe.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

RFKjnrs issue, as so can see it, is less "are vaccines safe?" and more "are some of the ingredients in vaccines safe?", focusing once again on Mercury as a preservative. 

 

Which, while demonstrating a lack of understanding, is not (hopefully) as damaging as "vaccines don't work" or "vaccines cause Autism" (which is a position the President Elect has espoused in the past).

[Thanato]

4 minutes ago, Sir Wearer of Hats said:

RFKjnrs issue, as so can see it, is less "are vaccines safe?" and more "are some of the ingredients in vaccines safe?", focusing once again on Mercury as a preservative. 

 

Which, while demonstrating a lack of understanding, is not (hopefully) as damaging as "vaccines don't work" or "vaccines cause Autism" (which is a position the President Elect has espoused in the past).

Yet murcury is not commonly found in vaccines today. And it's thimerosal.

[danielost]

25 minutes ago, Thanato said:

Yet murcury is not commonly found in vaccines today. And it's thimerosal.

which is made up of mercury.    

 

Thiomersal, or thimerosal, is an organomercury compound. This compound is a well established antiseptic and antifungal agent. The pharmaceutical corporation Eli Lilly and Company gave thiomersal the trade name Merthiolate. Wikipedia

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=thimerosal&rlz=1C1CHZL_enUS713US713&oq=thimerosal&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[Thanato]

5 minutes ago, danielost said:

which is made up of mercury.    

 

Thiomersal, or thimerosal, is an organomercury compound. This compound is a well established antiseptic and antifungal agent. The pharmaceutical corporation Eli Lilly and Company gave thiomersal the trade name Merthiolate. Wikipedia

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=thimerosal&rlz=1C1CHZL_enUS713US713&oq=thimerosal&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Yes and it's not commonly found in vaccines today because of the unfounded fear of neurological damage from the tiny amount that was found in vaccines

[+OverSword]

I don't see the problem.  If he is presented with all the evidence he needs by experts then he can make informed decisions, right?

[danielost]

1 minute ago, Thanato said:

Yes and it's not commonly found in vaccines today because of the unfounded fear of neurological damage from the tiny amount that was found in vaccines

that is not what you said.  you said they were using that compound instead of mercury.  but we now know it  has mercury in it.  most people, also know that mercury is a poison.  i think vaccinating against childhood diseases might be bad in the first place for kids.  these diseases are rarely ever fatal to children and may have some benefits we don't know about.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

6 minutes ago, OverSword said:

I don't see the problem.  If he is presented with all the evidence he needs by experts then he can make informed decisions, right?

The problem is they've been doing that for years. For decades.

and people ignore it, time and again.

[ShadowSot]

3 minutes ago, danielost said:

that is not what you said.  you said they were using that compound instead of mercury.  but we now know it  has mercury in it.  most people, also know that mercury is a poison.  i think vaccinating against childhood diseases might be bad in the first place for kids.  these diseases are rarely ever fatal to children and may have some benefits we don't know about.

Dose makes poison. Not only is this mercury compound not pure mercury, it isn't a mercury compound that accumulates in your body like you get from fish. 

 Then there was simply extremely little in vaccines to begin with. The amount that was present simply not enough to cause harm. 

 There is much, much more you'll get from natural sources in your diet that your body just processes out. 

[+OverSword]

12 minutes ago, Sir Wearer of Hats said:

The problem is they've been doing that for years. For decades.

and people ignore it, time and again.

Getting brow beaten by the media and sitting on an official panel are two completely different things.

[simplybill]

This still concerns me:

"Beyond thimerosal, research has discredited concerns that children get too many vaccines at once."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/01/10/trump-asks-vaccine-skeptic-rfk-jr-to-head-safety-probe.html

This is the problem I have with pharmaceutical studies: the stubborn belief that every child has the same physiological makeup.

People react differently to vaccines and medications. What harm is there in stretching out the vaccine schedule so that a child's immune system can adjust to, and recover from, each vaccination? The risk of encountering any particular pathogen during a lengthier schedule would be minuscule. 

I am pro-vaccination, though I have a problem with pharmaceutical companies bullying parents into submission. 

 

 

[ShadowSot]

1 minute ago, OverSword said:

Getting brow beaten by the media and sitting on an official panel are two completely different things.

Except there's been twenty years of research since the most recent vaccine scare trying to establish a link. 

 Time and again, while there are known side effects, nothing to show the extreme effects people claim, or a link to autism. The objection has no scientific basis, just fear propped up by people like Jenny McCarthy and Meryl Dorey. 

 The big claim of thimerosal was centered around the MMR vaccine, which never contained thinerosal. Removing the compound hasn't changed rates at all, and no causal link has been found. 

[+OverSword]

Just now, ShadowSot said:

Except there's been twenty years of research since the most recent vaccine scare trying to establish a link. 

 Time and again, while there are known side effects, nothing to show the extreme effects people claim, or a link to autism. The objection has no scientific basis, just fear propped up by people like Jenny McCarthy and Meryl Dorey. 

 The big claim of thimerosal was centered around the MMR vaccine, which never contained thinerosal. Removing the compound hasn't changed rates at all, and no causal link has been found. 

How does anything you stated nullify my contention?  It doesn't. 

[ShadowSot]

2 minutes ago, simplybill said:

This still concerns me:

"Beyond thimerosal, research has discredited concerns that children get too many vaccines at once."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/01/10/trump-asks-vaccine-skeptic-rfk-jr-to-head-safety-probe.html

This is the problem I have with pharmaceutical studies: the stubborn belief that every child has the same physiological makeup.

People react differently to vaccines and medications. What harm is there in stretching out the vaccine schedule so that a child's immune system can adjust to, and recover from, each vaccination? The risk of encountering any particular pathogen during a lengthier schedule would be minuscule. 

I am pro-vaccination, though I have a problem with pharmaceutical companies bullying parents into submission. 

 

 

"We've found no link."

"Ok, but what if there is?"

"Well we have done pretty much every test that's allowed by our ethics comittee, and nothing has turned up."

"But what if there's something there?"

"Look, heres the data we have on the real side effects. We've checked by population and there's just no reasonable way to expect the fears you have."

"Ok, but still."

"Ok, well we can't have your kid around other kids or adults who might be at risk."

"Stop bullying me!"

[ShadowSot]

3 minutes ago, OverSword said:

How does anything you stated nullify my contention?  It doesn't. 

I because there's no rational reason, at this point, to be skeptical of vaccines? 

To be so, you have to go into conspiratorial territory. 

 Not getting vaccinated puts other people at risk, as we've seen in areas where we've had outbreaks of disease that were effectively no longer endemic in the States. 

 I mean, might as well come down on the media for browbeat ingredients people who think the Earth is flat. 

Edited January 11, 2017 by ShadowSot

[simplybill]

ShadowSot - 

 There's no way to equivocally state that every child's reaction to a short vs. long schedule would  be identical. It's wrong to assume that every child will react the same.  If a child's parents (who know their children better than anyone) feel it would be safer to spread out the vaccines, then by all means let them do it.

[+OverSword]

11 minutes ago, ShadowSot said:

I because there's no rational reason, at this point, to be skeptical of vaccines? 

To be so, you have to go into conspiratorial territory. 

 Not getting vaccinated puts other people at risk, as we've seen in areas where we've had outbreaks of disease that were effectively no longer endemic in the States. 

 I mean, might as well come down on the media for browbeat ingredients people who think the Earth is flat. 

I understand that.So again I state nothing you typed (and still nothing you typed) nullified what I said.

[Farmer77]

Seriously? We have a thread that just went up today about how kids have so many emotional issues today that they cant focus in school and an absolute plethora of epidemic diseases such as cancers. I think not examining common factors such as vaccines just because pharmaceuticals have spent billions of dollars to push their products is a tad bit asinine. 

[ShadowSot]

5 minutes ago, simplybill said:

ShadowSot - 

 There's no way to equivocally state that every child's reaction to a short vs. long schedule would  be identical. It's wrong to assume that every child will react the same.  If a child's parents (who know their children better than anyone) feel it would be safer to spread out the vaccines, then by all means let them do it.

A parent is more likely to know their child as a person. But medically? No, a parent is not more likely to know the medical issues of a child than someone who's spent their career learning how the body works. 

Otherwise we wouldn't have so many news stories of parents trying to treat their kids with maple syrup or homeopathy. 

 Is it fair for oarents, who are exposed to fear mongering from the like of Wakefield or McCarthy to put other people's children, or those with compromised immune system, at risk?

[ShadowSot]

3 minutes ago, OverSword said:

I understand that.So again I state nothing you typed (and still nothing you typed) nullified what I said.

Ah, then my apologize. My reading of your post had it that you were critiquing media for criticizing antivaxxers. 

 In my opiniom, the media is much to heavy on false balance. 

[ShadowSot]

3 minutes ago, Farmer77 said:

Seriously? We have a thread that just went up today about how kids have so many emotional issues today that they cant focus in school and an absolute plethora of epidemic diseases such as cancers. I think not examining common factors such as vaccines just because pharmaceuticals have spent billions of dollars to push their products is a tad bit asinine. 

Great, so after 20 years and more of null results, how much more effort must be applied before other factors can be given focus?

[simplybill]

2 minutes ago, ShadowSot said:

A parent is more likely to know their child as a person. But medically? No, a parent is not more likely to know the medical issues of a child than someone who's spent their career learning how the body works. 

Otherwise we wouldn't have so many news stories of parents trying to treat their kids with maple syrup or homeopathy. 

 Is it fair for oarents, who are exposed to fear mongering from the like of Wakefield or McCarthy to put other people's children, or those with compromised immune system, at risk?

My concern here is the long vs. short vaccine schedule, not maple syrup. I don't have a problem with vaccines. I do have a problem with condescending researchers who insist that they alone have the wisdom to make healthcare decisions for someone's child. Whether you believe it or not, there are educated people that have children.

[ShadowSot]

1 minute ago, simplybill said:

My concern here is the long vs. short vaccine schedule, not maple syrup. I don't have a problem with vaccines. I do have a problem with condescending researchers who insist that they alone have the wisdom to make healthcare decisions for someone's child. Whether you believe it or not, there are educated people that have children.

Education doesn't mean someone isn't effected by someone's eductaed. 

 For that matter, many of the people who try to treat their children with maple syrup were also highly educated. 

 You are insisting that a parent knows more about medicine than someone who is trained in medicine, and has the right to put other people at risk.

[Farmer77]

Just now, ShadowSot said:

Great, so after 20 years and more of null results, how much more effort must be applied before other factors can be given focus?

IDK man I dont know the issue in its entirety but I think the first step is in truly independent research.  No government research is not independent. 

 

1 minute ago, simplybill said:

My concern here is the long vs. short vaccine schedule, not maple syrup. I don't have a problem with vaccines. I do have a problem with condescending researchers who insist that they alone have the wisdom to make healthcare decisions for someone's child. Whether you believe it or not, there are educated people that have children.

There is a reason its called practicing medicine. As someone who has sat in the doctors office and watched docs google symptoms I simply dont view them as superhuman anymore. 

[ShadowSot]

Just now, Farmer77 said:

IDK man I dont know the issue in its entirety but I think the first step is in truly independent research.  No government research is not independent. 

How about research funded by Antivaxxers?

Just now, Farmer77 said:

There is a reason its called practicing medicine. As someone who has sat in the doctors office and watched docs google symptoms I simply dont view them as superhuman anymore. 

Superhuman? No. We certainly know for one that vaccines do have side effects. That mistakes are made. My sister was impacted by improperly stored vaccines and nearly suffered kidney shutdown as a kid. 

But therectus surely must be a point where we have collected enough information to rule out something as a cause. 

 The most recent panic on autism and vaccines has shifted a great deal of resources and time and turned up squat.