There does seem to be a problem with bacterial forms that are in the same size scale as a virus, and so pass through filters intended only to pass only viral forms.

See http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/4692412/description.html “Cryptocides has filterable or extremely small forms (submicroscopic) similar to viruses, and rather large mycelia.” and “Many viruses may actually be L-forms of microbes which, under certain conditions may be induced to return to their original forms.”

This isn’t new info, it’s been in text books for some time. http://www.amazon.com/Cell-Wall-Deficient-Forms-Pathogens/dp/0849387671/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1235838430&sr=11-1

The fact that thimerosal wasn’t the problem should not have shut down the question of whether or not vaccines are perfectly safe. And if they aren’t, we should investigate the risks.

I just love it when libertarians tell folks to shut up and listen to the authorities, and that it’s for their own good. It gets the blood stirred, better than morning coffee. Especially when the authorities in question have a huge financial stake in shutting down the conversation.

In the 50s penicillin was the wonder drug. A doctor wrote a book suggesting that if everybody in the world got a penicillin shot, we could wipe out syphilis and gonorrhea. In those days governments were small and fought disease with quarantines and sewers, if at all. However doctors around the world quietly responded and injected penicillin. Results.

We discovered that millions of people are allergic to penicillin
Gonorrhea and Syphilis evolved penicillin resistant variants

What happens if we eliminate mumps and measles in the US so well that as a herd we lose our natural immunity. It is currently argued that nearly 70% of the American Indians died of disease in the first years after their initial contact with Europeans and their diseases. It would be ironic if someday in the future millions of Americans died of mumps and measles after a new invasion illegal immigrants.

Soviet agriculture had the advantage of central planning done by Really Smart People. Every farmer planted the same crop using the same seed. When the climate was good, they out produced the US. When the climate was bad, they starved, some died and their government bought American wheat. In the US each one of several million farmers decides when and what to plant. We have never suffered famine because some farmers always plant the right thing (usually by dumb luck).

I feel we should not criticize people who fail to go along with the herd even if they are irrational and stupid.

And vaccination has nothing to do with hive mind. My survival as an individual is remarkably enhanced by vaccination. Mozart was one of 11 kids – 2 survived. He had 6 kids, 2 survived. That’s a huge waste of human capital. And that was pretty common for that time period. If people are too stupid to get vaccinated as adults when, for example, traveling, so what? But their kids? It’s a waste of genetic and material resources to allow kids to be born and then kill them off the way diseases used to do when a prophylaxis exists.

I’d say that I’d prefer to make vaccination voluntary in order to thin out the stupid from the herd, but that’s a bit overly cynical, even for me. Vaccination does not always take, some people are immunocompromised and can’t get vaccinated etc., etc. Despite my fervent libertarian beliefs, vaccination is one of those areas where I tell the population at large to sit down, shut up, and do what you’re told.

Being first did not help the indians when the Europeans arrived; nor the Etruscans when the Romans arrived; nor the Druids when the Christians arrived; nor the Neanderthals when the Cro Magnons moved in.

I agree that an idea can’t be killed and bad ideas live forever. Socialists devoutly believe socialism will work only when the entire world is socialist – because then the state will wither away. Until now, the US has been the refuge for the victims of socialism. If the US goes socialist there will be no safe haven. If the whole world is socialist will life become a Coca-Cola commercial? Will the state wither away? Bad ideas have consequences.

Your argument on vaccines for measles and mumps rests on the socialist proposition that survival of the herd is more important than survival of the individual. Nevertheless, science shows that the herd survives best when each member is free to choose his/her own path to survival. The hive mind is best for the herd only in very special circumstances such as ant hills, beehives and termite mounds. I am surprised that a man from P&G, a company whose market research department understands how customers exercise free choice, would favor the hive mind form of government.

The question is – how the layman, who’s not a specialist, either in autism or history in economics, can weight different theories and proofs?

Prediction.

You don’t judge a scientific assertion by understanding its internal workings. No one, not even scientist, can understand the detailed inner workings of every particular hypothesis. You need only judge the hypothesis predictive power. A correct hypothesis is one that can accurately predict the future within the bounds of the hypothesis.

Economics is not a predictive science. No economist can predict the economy more than a year out with an accuracy greater than mere chance. This is why economist argue so much. They have no objective means of settling arguments. Climatology likewise is not a predictive science. It has no established track record of predicting climate for the short term much less a century in advance.

The power of prediction allows scientist to know when they’re wrong and this is the true acid test of real science. A firm scientific hypothesis will clearly state an observable event that the hypothesis says is impossible. You test the hypothesis by trying to observe that impossible event.

Economics has no impossible events. Those who advocate the “stimulus” cannot give you one example of an observable event e.g. unemployment rates, GDP etc that if observed would mean the theory on which they based the “stimulus” was incorrect. Ditto for global warming. Proponents cannot tell you any pattern that cannot be observed. Their theories even explain catastrophic cooling.

People who claimed that thermisol caused autism made the assertion that if vaccines had no thermisol then autism rates would decline. We removed the thermisol and autism rates remained. Case closed.

Common sense, skepticism and a good sense of cui bono, and what used to be good high school-level science and history courses, and one or two courses in statistics would help a lot. This seems way beyond most people, tho … sigh …

Every debate about vaccination, eventually turns into a conspiracy rant about how evil pharmacology companies or the government are conspiring to hide the truth. People don’t process the scientific evidence because they simply do not trust the people who produce it. Once that paranoia takes hold, people are deaf to any form of persuasion.

In vaccine debates, I often ask vaccine conspiracist what evidence they would accept that would prove them wrong. They can never provides an example. Indeed, they seem confused that I even ask. This is because to them it is not a matter of evidence but rather a matter of social trust. The real thrust of all their arguments is that vaccines are dangerous because we can’t trust the people who make and administer them.

I’ve been hanging out at the Mythbuster’s forum site and the site is rife with people making free energy/perpetual motion claims or claims of the wonder additives for gasoline or something else that violates the second law of thermodynamics. Every discussion without exception contains a claim by the proponent that evil forces seek to suppress the radical new technology.

So, we’re looking at a phenomena of humans social reasoning. People trained in the sciences are taught to ignore social reasoning as a matter of course but for the majority of people, even well educated people outside the sciences, social reasoning is their primary modality of thought. This is especially true in political and economic thought. The dominate idea in the post-modernist thought holds that who advances an idea is the most powerful predictor of the ideas validity. Thus, who a scientist is determines whether their ideas about global warming have any validity. Ditto for economist, politicians and academics. Only those in the tribe are trusted, those outside are automatically wrong.

Our brains evolved largely as a tool for cooperating with and manipulating other human beings. This is why we anthropomorphize almost everything. We are hardwired to perceive every event in the universe in terms of human motivation. When the events actually involve humans it takes a conscious act of will not to default to the idea that a human actor created the event.

Thus people with autistic children default to blaming the human creators of vaccines just as pre-scientific cultures default to blaming death and misfortune on witches.

An excellent, excellent piece Mr. Jay, thank you for posting it.